TheRPGSite

Have you ever read a game or system and thought "Yes! I really like this! This speaks to me..."?

You find a game, buy into it and really like what's been produced. The books are good quality, the system rocks, you can see a lot of potential for the game at the table long term. It ties in to a lot of the things you're interested in. Finally, a game that sits well with your area of the hobby. You can have something that is not all "Firefly, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactic, Marvel Superheroes, Buffy, or [insert geek flavour of the month here]".

Until....

You read something in a core text book of the system (not a dodgy third party supplement that can be disowned) that just makes you go "nope".

You can't compute, or really get over the need for that certain something that was included. Perhaps it's the random wench table of AD&D, or the anal circumference chart of F.A.T.A.L. or the patronising tone that tells you to 'play nice' in Eclipse Phase:

QuotePREJUDICE IN THE GAME
Uplifts and AGIs can often face serious prejudice in many places and from many people in the setting. While this can and often will be an important and recurring role in campaigns featuring such characters, it’s important for players and gamemasters alike to remember that in-game scenarios and dialogue can be experienced and interpreted differently by the real people sitting at the table. Players should always be mindful of how their characters interact with each other, and gamemasters should ensure that if their stories include scenes with aggressive prejudice they can balance the experience for players by also including scenes where characters and NPCs overcome and fight against stereotypes and discrimination.

To minimize in-character verbal harassment, gamemasters may apply –10 or –20 penalties on some Social Skill Tests to abstract generally hostile social circumstances without fully roleplaying the exchanges.

Thank you for telling me how to use your material in an approved fashion, comrade. Let me send my clone to the confession booth for immediate termination! Happiness in mandatory, are we having fun yet, citizens?

You know, I can ignore it. Really I can. I can just get on with my life like a big boy and use what's there in a toolbox fashion. I don't have to play it your way. It is out in the wild, and if I want to ignore the happy-clappy feel good vibe that juxtaposes 'The Fall', I can.

I accepted the politics up to this point while there were a few detractors, I didn't care. But now it just feels tainted.

And to top it all you go and do this:

(http://i60.tinypic.com/eafakj.png)

Really? A sodding synth morph in a plastic Anonymous/V for Vendetta mask? Give me a break.


I am now going to go for a lay down, to help get over myself.

I started gaming in the 1990s, so I suppose I'm inured to shitty GM advice.

I thought Rolemaster was pretty boss – I saw it as the AD&D to MERP's Basic Set, and the crit tables are awesome – but then I started creating a character and when I was done, I wanted my three hours back.

At first i was afraid, i was petrified.

but then i learned how to get along.

Usually, it's a game author's politics that put me off from their game system. I refuse to fund them.

Players should always be mindful of how their characters interact with each other, and gamemasters should ensure that if their stories include scenes with aggressive prejudice they can balance the experience for players by also including scenes where characters and NPCs overcome and fight against stereotypes and discrimination.

Man. The storygame bullshit is strong with this one.

It's not the people involved, it's the fact that someone felt the need to put those words on the page.

But to be fair about the image, loads of people have complained about the art in the Transhuman book. The uplift pig with boobies is really a non-issue. The Jovian Envoy wearing a dog-collar is just crass. And coming from an anti-theist, that is saying something.

Enough shitting on this one book. Those I my own silly issues.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;740531

So, what game(s) had you on board, until suddenly...............?

Way back a long time ago, when I first picked up D&D3e, I thought "this might be OK."  The skill system was basically Interlock.  It seemed like there were fun mechanical doo dads to play with in the system.  I should have taken a liking to the thing.

But the art really put me off.  Every time I saw any D&D3e art it completely took me out of any positive buzz I had been easing into.  Regardless of the system itself, the art painted a picture of a game I didn't want to have anything to do with.  I knew that despite some initial good impressions that it had been dressed in such a way as to make it as unappealling as possible.

The other thing that put me off is that it seemed like a single paragraph in the books couldn't go by without the text bringing up opportunity attacks.  I know objectively it couldn't have been anywhere near that bad, but it certainly seemed like every time I flipped to a random page in any of the books the first or second line I'd read would always be something about opportunity attacks.  The system seemed so mired in them, and they were absolutely inescapable.

7th Sea was another one.  I was really on board with it when it first came out.  I don't remember what it was that turned me off.  There was something in the books which was my first inkling that the people responsible for it were absolute twits.  Meh.  I got rid of that whole line, so it doesn't matter anymore.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;740531Really? A sodding synth morph in a plastic Anonymous/V for Vendetta mask? Give me a break.

So, what game(s) had you on board, until suddenly...............?

I am now going to go for a lay down, to help get over myself.

It's a Griefer.  Those are the morphs designed to fuck with people in public and be annoying as a form of social protest.  The Anonymous nod seemed fairly appropriate to me.

Cthulhutech. Until its take on religions.

For that matter, Blue Rose, until I saw its nations are just caricatures of modern western social divisions.

At first I was like . . . Spycraft is an awesome espionage roleplaying game.

But then I was like . . . for someone else's playstyle.

Is it okay if I do the opposite?

At first I was like... Man that James Raggi the IV is a total douchebag: what shitty opinions I will never touch LotFP ever.

Then I was like... Holy crap I like the way that he writes and I like his game and it's supplements. I really want to play LotFP.

I'm still not a huge fan of the man, but I like his material. Oh well.

Mekton 2 + Mekton MTS.

At first I was like, "Oh man this is going to scratch my itch for giant robots and it has a way more detailed building system than Battletech!"

Then I was like "But none of their math adds up for their own tech manual builds and they keep using math terms to describe things* but then don't actually have the math behind it, so I can't even begin to know if anything I want to build for my own campaign works properly."

In the same vein:

Heavy Gear/Silhouette 1.0

At first I was like, "Oh man this is going to scratch my itch for giant robots, it has a way simpler building system than Mekton 2 + MTS and is just as detailed!"

Then I was like "...but the sensor sweep rules during combat bring everything to a grinding fucking halt, there's no way this is workable for a fast-paced RPG."

D&D 3.0:

At first I was like, "Oh wow, just when I'm getting back in to D&D, a new system!  This should be pretty cool; the default is Greyhawk, the dross of 2e is being thrown out..."

Then I was like "..."

TMNT (& other strangeness) from Palladium.
I mean, i was a furry before i had heard the word "furry", after all.

... And then i tried to make a character with an Alignment that i could play ....

Quote from: Necrozius;740617Is it okay if I do the opposite?

At first I was like... Man that James Raggi the IV is a total douchebag: what shitty opinions I will never touch LotFP ever.

Then I was like... Holy crap I like the way that he writes and I like his game and it's supplements. I really want to play LotFP.

I'm still not a huge fan of the man, but I like his material. Oh well.

I don't agree with some of his gm philosophy, but I am quite a fan of LOTFP.
An excellent game.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740633Mekton 2 + Mekton MTS.

Then I was like "But none of their math adds up for their own tech manual builds and they keep using math terms to describe things* but then don't actually have the math behind it, so I can't even begin to know if anything I want to build for my own campaign works properly."

Do you remember which ones?  I've never tried to point balance any of the original Techbook designs.

Quote from: Gabriel2;740667Do you remember which ones?  I've never tried to point balance any of the original Techbook designs.

Oooooh you are asking me about a book I haven't opened in almost two decades :P :D  Also I don't have a Mekton 2 core rulebook anymore, so I'm not sure I could explain it.  I think the way they figured command armor on the various designs was completely at odds with how it should have been...like, going through their own formulas on the book vehicles you'd arrive at the most nutzoid values versus what they had written down.

I think they fixed it in Operation Rimfire for the mecha that appear in that module along and MTS...

(Also, O:R is one of the most gorgeous gaming products released up to that point, and may be still...I really should buy another copy again some day...stupid hoarding syndrome of mine).

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;740603Cthulhutech. Until its take on religions.

Chtulhutech.  Until I got to the rules...

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740677Oooooh you are asking me about a book I haven't opened in almost two decades :P :D  Also I don't have a Mekton 2 core rulebook anymore, so I'm not sure I could explain it.  I think the way they figured command armor on the various designs was completely at odds with how it should have been...like, going through their own formulas on the book vehicles you'd arrive at the most nutzoid values versus what they had written down.

I think they fixed it in Operation Rimfire for the mecha that appear in that module along and MTS...

(Also, O:R is one of the most gorgeous gaming products released up to that point, and may be still...I really should buy another copy again some day...stupid hoarding syndrome of mine).

No worries.  I don't doubt that there are calculation errors there.  The one that gave me fits wasn't the Techbook, though.  It was Mecha Manual One.  That one was an interrim product which was years after Techbook but about a year before Z Plus, and used a hybrid of the rules of both.  I remember trying to match steps on the designs in that one and pulling on my hair a lot.  Good times!  :D  

Command armor is always kind of flakey.  It doesn't look like it, but there are some nuances that crop up when you've got it designed and that really cause a lot of "wait, what?" moments.

And yes, Mekton Operation Rimfire is plenty sweet.

I don't understand the problem. The game has in-setting racism.  That can be a touchy subject, so they throw in a blurb about making sure the players are cool with things.  And there's the social skill modifiers.

What's wrong?

Oh, here's another one: Axis & Allies Miniatures.  At first I was like "Sweet!  Easy point-of-entry historicals game!"  Then I saw what they were doing with the scale and had no intention of fixing, and some of the ridiculous rules issues they had no intention of fixing, and that they ignored a friend of mine who is a good scratch programmer who offered to build them a computer game around it for recognition...and I was like..."Er...no."

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740702Oh, here's another one: Axis & Allies Miniatures.

Ooh, yeah, that went from awesome to suck damn fast.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;740706Ooh, yeah, that went from awesome to suck damn fast.

Ohh yeah it did.  Massed Flamethrower troops bringing B17s down

What.

The fuck.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740727Ohh yeah it did.  Massed Flamethrower troops bringing B17s down

:jaw-dropping:   :banghead:    :jaw-dropping:

Quote from: Ravenswing;740756:jaw-dropping:   :banghead:    :jaw-dropping:

It was sad to see.  Early on the devs were very engaged with the community.  People would note scale problems; for example the US towed 57mm anti-tank gun was a faint splinter of plastic mounted on a huge, $.25 piece sized base, the not-much-larger PaK38 was on a $.50 sized base which the miniature literally hung over the edges of, and the devs would say "Right, sorry about that, we will fix that in the next revision..."

and shit wouldn't get done (but we were told that since so many had been made, it was a matter of weeding them out of the system via sales, so, whatevs).

well...

It just kept getting worse, until when they finally introduced aircraft.  The Spitfire was clearly an ME109 in Allied paint.  Like, people in the forums would call it the "Messerspit".

Then the rules started getting more and more fucked up.  I can't recall, there was a rule for embarking troops firing from a vehicle or something that basically made zero sense, so when folks went to the devs on the AH/Wizards forum and said "Oh, hey, this doesn't work, will you change it to XYZ?  Because it makes more sense if it works this way." their response was "It doesn't matter if it makes realistic sense to do it that way, play the rule as written."

And then finally...yes, massed flamethrowers could be used to bring down aircraft.  During air support phases you picked a target hex, put the attacking AC in it, and made an attack that phase, then removed it.  The opponents got a shot back at the aircraft, but could shoot back with ANYTHING.  Tank guns, rifles, machine guns, antitank guns, bazookas, flamethrowers...anything that could roll damage could be used.  And, again, the devs said "Play the rule as written not the rule as makes sense."

I quit playing A&A minis after that :(

I will point out a funny thing - I was at a wargames con when the WWII sea battles minis for A&A were released and the Seekrieg guys could barely contain themselves, buying stand after stand of aircraft, and individual ships - and throwing the cards away or telling vendors they didn't want them :D

Quote from: Old One Eye;740699I don't understand the problem. The game has in-setting racism.  That can be a touchy subject, so they throw in a blurb about making sure the players are cool with things.  And there's the social skill modifiers.

What's wrong?

Because they feel the need to throw a blurb in about it is damn fucking patronising to your market. It shows that the producer has no faith in the ability of the consumer to engage with their product in an adult and informed manner. It pushes to consumer to view the product in a specific manner.

With D&D, you kill things and take their stuff. There is nothing stopping you inverting this conceit. However, with Eclipse Phase you are told not to do things because they are bad and the people you game with might not like it.

Really? You know them? You know their histories, their drives and desires?

I am waiting for the "It will never be published" fair and balanced Jovian EP book. I want to play Jovian's fighting for humanity against these damn uplifts. (being silly now....)

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740766their response was "It doesn't matter if it makes realistic sense to do it that way, play the rule as written."...yes, massed flamethrowers could be used to bring down aircraft...And, again, the devs said "Play the rule as written not the rule as makes sense."

Sure this isn't 4e you're talking about? :D

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;740771Because they feel the need to throw a blurb in about it is damn fucking patronising to your market. It shows that the producer has no faith in the ability of the consumer to engage with their product in an adult and informed manner.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;740771It shows that the producer has no faith in the ability of the consumer to engage with their product in an adult and informed manner.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;740771. . . engage with their product in an adult and informed manner.

A-fucking-men.

At first I was like, "Oooh, Rogue Trader! Finally a space exploration game I have a chance of selling my players on because they dig 40k. And hey, look at that, the system is faintly reminiscent of the wargame, the players have more freedom than most poor saps in the imperium, and they get to control huge numbers of people like the sort of kingdom management game of D&D I never have the opportunity to run."

Then I was like, "Oh right, it's the modern 40k setting, the one where all the wahoooFUN has been squeeze out in favor of ever more grimdark, so there are no identifiable protagonists anywhere. The system rewards you, without irony or humor, for cold-blooded genocide. Character creation is more complicated than 3e, and it turns out the players want to play Han Solo and his wookies, not Grand Moff Tarkin and his flunkies."

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740766Then the rules started getting more and more fucked up.  

Sounds like total ass to play competitively.  

Kinda illustrates why I don't enjoy playing at LGSes, conventions, tournaments, pickup games or any other outside venues.  When you play in those settings, you have to play RAW, and that means you have to put up with bad RAW.

My version of the above story was with Mechwarrior: Dark Age.  I wanted to love the game so much.  I had just gotten into Mage Knight and had been enjoying it.  Mechwarrior was better thematically skinned to my tastes, so I dove into it feet first.

Basically, Mechwarrior had a bad problem that mechs were the worst units you could waste points on.  The game discouraged mechs in battle forces and instead revolved around force builds of large numbers of infantry and one or two tanks.  Then artillery came along, allegedly to stifle the infantry builds, and ended up just making mechs even more worthless.

So yeah, "Mechwarrior" was about anything other than mechs.

It could be houseruled into something fun, but houserules don't work at events.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740766It was sad to see.  Early on the devs were very engaged with the community.  People would note scale problems; for example the US towed 57mm anti-tank gun was a faint splinter of plastic mounted on a huge, $.25 piece sized base, the not-much-larger PaK38 was on a $.50 sized base which the miniature literally hung over the edges of, and the devs would say "Right, sorry about that, we will fix that in the next revision..."

and shit wouldn't get done (but we were told that since so many had been made, it was a matter of weeding them out of the system via sales, so, whatevs).

well...

It just kept getting worse, until when they finally introduced aircraft.  The Spitfire was clearly an ME109 in Allied paint.  Like, people in the forums would call it the "Messerspit".

Then the rules started getting more and more fucked up.  I can't recall, there was a rule for embarking troops firing from a vehicle or something that basically made zero sense, so when folks went to the devs on the AH/Wizards forum and said "Oh, hey, this doesn't work, will you change it to XYZ?  Because it makes more sense if it works this way." their response was "It doesn't matter if it makes realistic sense to do it that way, play the rule as written."

And then finally...yes, massed flamethrowers could be used to bring down aircraft.  During air support phases you picked a target hex, put the attacking AC in it, and made an attack that phase, then removed it.  The opponents got a shot back at the aircraft, but could shoot back with ANYTHING.  Tank guns, rifles, machine guns, antitank guns, bazookas, flamethrowers...anything that could roll damage could be used.  And, again, the devs said "Play the rule as written not the rule as makes sense."

I quit playing A&A minis after that :(

Yeah I pretty much have had the same type of experience with A&AM. Which really sucks because I want to love this so much.

Old World of Darkness
When I started gaming 11 years ago it loved every game on the line. As time went by I started to dislike them more and more (due to the system, the metaplot, how emo it was, you name it). The only game I still like is Mage: the Ascension, which is one of my favorite games.

Exalted 2nd Edition
We played 1st Edition for 4-5 years, then we decided to give 2nd Edition a shot since there were things in 1st Edition that needed some polish and improvement. For a while we really liked the improvements, but as we played and more supplements came out we just stop enjoying it as we used to since the system was a mess (too many dice, too many Charms, too lethal, etc).

FantasyCraft
When I read the book I thought that I'd finally found a version of the d20 system that I could like. Then we got to make characters and play it... too many numbers for me, we didn't play more than two sessions. :S

La Puerta de Ishtar (Spanish game)
I like the setting, and while the rules are cool they just didn't click for me during actual play.

Rogue Trader
Nice setting and cool ideas setting-wise, but how those ideas translate into mechanics sucks. After 60 sessions, I couldn't make sense of it any more, and I've never touched the books since then.

I was excited about Mage the Ascension, enough to buy some of the books... until I read it and found out the magic is based on that New Age 'power of belief' thing... and I had recently broken up with a girlfriend who had been into a 'cult' of crystals, channelers and scrapbooking. So it the game's setup hit me like a sack of cold turds.

4e D&D.

3.x nearly killed D&D for me with it's bad math and design... 4e surely must fix that.


And it did. And turned the game into something I will never ever play as opposed to play repeatedly and houserule it into something I *can* use. (Now I just use Fantasy Craft).

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740766It just kept getting worse, until when [Axis & Allies Miniatures] finally introduced aircraft.  The Spitfire was clearly an ME109 in Allied paint.  Like, people in the forums would call it the "Messerspit".

When Goering asked Adolf Galland what his men would need to win the Battle of Britain, Galland said, "A squadron of Spitfires."

JG

Post-TSR D&D

At first I was... :) :cool: :cheerleader:

But then I was... :confused: :( :banghead:

"Fool me once..."

Yeah, 4th Edition D&D is a great example here.  At first I was like, "Wow, a 1st-level Wizard can cast more than one Magic Missile a day!"  But then I was like "That's because Magic Missile is basically his move, like the Knight moves an L-pattern in Chess."

JG

Pretty much either generation of World of Darkness, either of which became better games in my mind if I ignore the fiction inserts and any art that combines leather + facial jewelry + tattoos.

Quote from: Lynn;741069Pretty much either generation of World of Darkness, either of which became better games in my mind if I ignore the fiction inserts and any art that combines leather + facial jewelry + tattoos.

Ha, I was reading the NWOD corebook the other night and the first bit of fiction has some demi-god waitress with facial piercings... and generally wasn't very well written, IMO... so I dropped it in favor of some Mickey Spillane.

Quote from: James Gillen;741028Yeah, 4th Edition D&D is a great example here.  At first I was like, "Wow, a 1st-level Wizard can cast more than one Magic Missile a day!"  But then I was like "That's because Magic Missile is basically his move, like the Knight moves an L-pattern in Chess."

JG

4e...I was like..ooh at will magic and then I was like...everybody is a wizard?

3e. It was everything I ever wanted fixed... until I played it. And then I realized I was wrong.

4e sadly never had even that. By chargen I was noting the look of utter horror when I took less than an 18 on my fighter's STR, their primary stat mod. (It was an 11 because that's what I rolled and thought it'd be good enough. Because y'know, how long could combat last?, and it's all about setting context, right?) By the time I was buying multiple sets of clothes to look presentable in cities -- read "Cloth Armor xN" -- my warning sirens were on in full.

Quote from: Lynn;741069Pretty much either generation of World of Darkness, either of which became better games in my mind if I ignore the fiction inserts and any art that combines leather + facial jewelry + tattoos.

Quote from: Simlasa;741072Ha, I was reading the NWOD corebook the other night and the first bit of fiction has some demi-god waitress with facial piercings... and generally wasn't very well written, IMO... so I dropped it in favor of some Mickey Spillane.

I've always been aware of (n)WoD's bad boring pretentious game fiction. It took some time before I realized the rest of it is pretty redundant as well.

Quote from: Simlasa;740854I was excited about Mage the Ascension, enough to buy some of the books... until I read it and found out the magic is based on that New Age 'power of belief' thing... and I had recently broken up with a girlfriend who had been into a 'cult' of crystals, channelers and scrapbooking. So it the game's setup hit me like a sack of cold turds.

Ouch.

As far as WoD goes, I want to like it. I want to play it. But it makes me think of over the top teenage angst. The bad fiction doesn't help. The art doesn't help. But beyond that, I just don't know what to do with it. It's nice and everything, but what do you do in the world of darkness?

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;741180But beyond that, I just don't know what to do with it. It's nice and everything, but what do you do in the world of darkness?

The idea I had, that got me started reading the corebook again, is a makeover take on the Supernatural TV show... which I love for its potential but often cringe at its actual episodes. Hunters as outlaws, using a criminal-occult underground and low level magic to stay out of the clutches of the law and take down one more nest of vampires.
I could probably just use CoC for it, but there are cool ideas in the WOD scattered amongst the sillier bits.

Quote from: Simlasa;741191The idea I had, that got me started reading the corebook again, is a makeover take on the Supernatural TV show... which I love for its potential but often cringe at its actual episodes. Hunters as outlaws, using a criminal-occult underground and low level magic to stay out of the clutches of the law and take down one more nest of vampires.
I could probably just use CoC for it, but there are cool ideas in the WOD scattered amongst the sillier bits.

That has potential. Supernatural + Breaking Bad + Sons of Anarchy (and maybe some sesame street) via WoD...

Quote from: Opaopajr;7410833e. It was everything I ever wanted fixed... until I played it. And then I realized I was wrong.

Yup, I was super excited by 3e. Bought the PHB on day one, poured over it.

Loved every bit.

A few weeks later we converted our 2e game to 3e.

We played one or two sessions.

Afterwards we agreed that it was all a fever dream our characters had from catching a disease in the bogs.

We played 2e for several more years until the game petered out.

Quote from: Opaopajr;7410833e. It was everything I ever wanted fixed... until I played it. And then I realized I was wrong...

I had a similar experience, though I ran two 3e D&D campaigns before I figured this out (the campaigns went from level 1 to level 5-6, which I stretched out over a full year in both cases because I already could tell that level advancement was way too fast for my tastes simply by reading the rules).

Also: RMSS (Rolemaster Standard System).  I liked RM2e (though, in retrospect, I always enjoyed MERP more),and RMSS seemed to revamp the game at a time when RM 2e was suffering from supplement bloat (yes, I could have ignored that stuff...).  An aborted campaign later, and I was done with RMSS forever.

I vaguely recall being excited by GURPS and DragonQuest upon reading them, but finding the experience of running them frustrating.  But my memory of those systems is pretty fuzzy now...

3rd edition D&D. At first I was like "meh", then I was like "this is awesome!", then I was like "okay, I've got enough of it now", then I was like "are only assholes enjoying this?" and then I was like "maybe not, to each their own."

4e for me. I used to defend it, too, full on 4rry. I was convinced that people who didn't like it just didn't like anything new. Or were snobs towards things like video games who couldn't see the good in them. Or were wizard fanboys bitter that the fighter could do cool stuff too.

But then I realized 4e was a bad game. Not only did it lack the out of combat crunch of its predecessors, but it also failed as video game-inspired combat grinder. The daily/encounter resource system made combat incredibly samey, the healing surge system removed the ability for combat to put pressure on you, and magic items were a joke, taking the "magic item convenience store" issue of 3e and exploding it into "magic item Amazon wishlist".

The wool has been lifted from my eyes. Now I just need to figure out how Mike Mearls is still employed, and how I can get that kind of job security.

Quote from: Benoist;741412then I was like "are only assholes enjoying this?"

Fucking Internet ruins everything. 3e/3.5e, 4e, OSR, all editions of Traveller, oWoD, nWoD, Savage Worlds... all have their toxic fans and communities.

Except RQ, CoC and the rest of the BRP family. Everybody loves BRP. And BRP fans are the salt of the Earth.

Of course, I've never frequented a BRP forum with any regularity. They may have vicious Stormbringer edition wars that put D&D forums to shame for all I know. ;)

Quote from: The Butcher;741427Of course, I've never frequented a BRP forum with any regularity. They may have vicious Stormbringer edition wars that put D&D forums to shame for all I know.

From what I've seen on BRP Central there's a good bit of insecurity over the system not being more popular and tearing of cloth over how to make it more like Fate or more like Savage Worlds... or whatever else is top pony on RPGnet this week. Sometimes I'm not sure the folks there even like BRP all that much (again, because if it's not incredibly popular there MUST be something wrong with it).

Quote from: Simlasa;741429From what I've seen on BRP Central there's a good bit of insecurity over the system not being more popular and tearing of cloth over how to make it more like Fate or more like Savage Worlds... or whatever else is top pony on RPGnet this week. Sometimes I'm not sure the folks there even like BRP all that much (again, because if it's not incredibly popular there MUST be something wrong with it).

Why the hell would you want to do that?  Seriously.  BRP is fine.  You don't make something popular by making it an inferior version of something else.  You make something popular by making it the best version of what it is that you can.

Quote from: Simlasa;741429From what I've seen on BRP Central there's a good bit of insecurity over the system not being more popular and tearing of cloth over how to make it more like Fate or more like Savage Worlds... or whatever else is top pony on RPGnet this week. Sometimes I'm not sure the folks there even like BRP all that much (again, because if it's not incredibly popular there MUST be something wrong with it).

Internet wank.

Quote from: Simlasa;741429From what I've seen on BRP Central there's a good bit of insecurity over the system not being more popular and tearing of cloth over how to make it more like Fate or more like Savage Worlds... or whatever else is top pony on RPGnet this week. Sometimes I'm not sure the folks there even like BRP all that much (again, because if it's not incredibly popular there MUST be something wrong with it).

:confused:

You might as well lament that tabletop RPGs aren't as popular as videogames. Imagine the conversation. "There's something wrong with RPGs, I tell ya. If only we could make them more like videogames..."

O wait...

Quote from: The Butcher;741434:confused:

You might as well lament that tabletop RPGs aren't as popular as videogames. Imagine the conversation. "There's something wrong with RPGs, I tell ya. If only we could make them more like videogames..."

O wait...

ROFLOL! That's what I was going to type: "Oh wait..." :D

Quote from: Simlasa;741429From what I've seen on BRP Central there's a good bit of insecurity over the system not being more popular and tearing of cloth over how to make it more like Fate or more like Savage Worlds... or whatever else is top pony on RPGnet this week. Sometimes I'm not sure the folks there even like BRP all that much (again, because if it's not incredibly popular there MUST be something wrong with it).

I actually had to go look, and I'm not seeing that.
Or, there is a lot of woe about BRP not being pop, but I haven't seen many attempts to tweak it into something it isn't that haven't been shot down within hours.

Quote from: baragei;741440I actually had to go look, and I'm not seeing that.
Or, there is a lot of woe about BRP not being pop, but I haven't seen many attempts to tweak it into something it isn't that haven't been shot down within hours.

Yeah, us BRPers are actually a pretty conservative lot and we recognize when things are departing from what we like.

As for BRP's popularity, I say it doesn't matter.  New games are getting published as labour of love projects with only 200 or so copies sold and the publisher considers this viable for his life (Newt's River of Heaven Kickstarter).  And the core system hasn't really changed much since the first publication of RQ in 1978.  As long as some form of the game is available for people who want to try it out and there's a place for those interested to talk about it, I'm happy.

Also, it sounds like RQ6 has been doing what it was intended as far as sales go.  Even if it's multiple small print runs rather than a single small print runs.

BRP is primarily a referee centric approach to gaming.  It doesn't really require prospective players to know the game inside and out prior to playing.  When I want to run a mini series of sessions, I send out an email to past players of games of different kinds, post on local facebook pages and get people together regardless of their BRP experience.

Quote from: The Butcher;741434:confused:

You might as well lament that tabletop RPGs aren't as popular as videogames. Imagine the conversation. "There's something wrong with RPGs, I tell ya. If only we could make them more like videogames..."

O wait...

Amusingly, I'd say that video games, with their attempts to claim they're now all RPG's by putting TALENT TREES and DUALIST MORALITY everywhere (Because that's all RPG's are, right?), are the ones that are doing something wrong.

I fucking hate talent trees and the culture around them.

Quote from: baragei;741440I actually had to go look, and I'm not seeing that.
Or, there is a lot of woe about BRP not being pop, but I haven't seen many attempts to tweak it into something it isn't that haven't been shot down within hours.

It's not constant but when there's friction that's usually what it seems to be about, from what I've seen... I don't go there as much anymore but I've seen a number of folks trying to say BRP needs ads/disads or 'something like aspects' or Fate points (already an option) or whatever other magic tweak to 'fix' it. Isn't that what CoC 7 is getting at? A while back I saw one of its writers on the Yog forums talking about how they were 'fixing' CoC.

D&D 3e. At first I was like "no speed factors? Static initiative? Splitting levels between classes instead of XP"? But I gave it the old college try and soon launched two of the most successful, fun long term D&D sessions I've ever run under the system.

Quote from: Ladybird;741460I fucking hate talent trees and the culture around them.

Could you elaborate?

Quote from: The Butcher;741427Except RQ, CoC and the rest of the BRP family. Everybody loves BRP. And BRP fans are the salt of the Earth.

Indeed! The positive ethos that permeates discussions amongst advocates of different flavours of BRP (RQ3, RQ6, OQ, CoC, Elric, etc.) is refreshing.  The contrast to the 'edition wars' of A/D&D is remarkable.

I'm personally not a fan of BRP myself, but it also happens to be one of those games that even if you don't enjoy, isn't exactly offensive either, so its not like there is anything for me to be actually MAD about it.

(Then again, I'm not mad about much any RPG, but you know what I mean).

Quote from: Ladybird;741460Amusingly, I'd say that video games, with their attempts to claim they're now all RPG's by putting TALENT TREES and DUALIST MORALITY everywhere (Because that's all RPG's are, right?), are the ones that are doing something wrong.

I fucking hate talent trees and the culture around them.

I like talent trees.
I wrote one for a Modern Warfare homebrew game back in 84 -85 really liked haow it played,

I use a sort of talent tree for Amber powers these days as well as more modular then the default system and lets PCs expand in funny directions.

Quote from: Akrasia;741513Indeed! The positive ethos that permeates discussions amongst advocates of different flavours of BRP (RQ3, RQ6, OQ, CoC, Elric, etc.) is refreshing.  The contrast to the 'edition wars' of A/D&D is remarkable.

Perhaps it's a case of this:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfFanJackassery

Haven't played any RQ, but if the pattern continues between my BRPs, CoC, and Elric! material it is more of variations on a consistent core -- like how TSR settings were. Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Birthright, etc. shared a same core, however much they introduced new mechanics & stuff. The same cannot really be said about the core editions over time. Outside of CoC 7e possibly being the first major outlier in its line, I'm not familiar with the BRPs family having full on rewrites of its core. Perhaps someone with more familiarity can fill in the blanks.

Dark Heresy.

First I was like "40k roleplaying?  As low ranking members of the Inquisition!?  It'll be like playing all my favourite characters from the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies!  Sweet!"

Then I was like "Wow.  That's a lot of rules for guns.  And swords.  And guns.  And injuries.  And armour.  And guns.  And psykers.  And guns.  I... I just... Meh."

I mean, I get that it's an rpg based on a wargame, so it makes sense for the combat and weapons to get a lot of page-time, but I generally like my rpg's fairly light rules-wise.

I've not even looked at the other 40k games.

Quote from: Ladybird;741460Amusingly, I'd say that video games, with their attempts to claim they're now all RPG's by putting TALENT TREES and DUALIST MORALITY everywhere (Because that's all RPG's are, right?), are the ones that are doing something wrong.

I fucking hate talent trees and the culture around them.

Talent trees are okay in videogames. In RPGs, I feel they're far trickier to pull out without getting bogged down by CharOp wank.

As for dualist morality, I dunno. WoW, Diablo, GW2 all have their share of shades of gray. Hell, you can be a good guy zombie in WoW.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;741555Perhaps it's a case of this:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfFanJackassery

Adequately explains the niceness of the BRP fan community but fails to account for the bitterness of Traveller fans. I don't think the two communities are far apart in terms of numbers.

Quote from: The Butcher;741678Talent trees are okay in videogames. In RPGs, I feel they're far trickier to pull out without getting bogged down by CharOp wank.

As for dualist morality, I dunno. WoW, Diablo, GW2 all have their share of shades of gray. Hell, you can be a good guy zombie in WoW.

I believe "talent tree culture" is the sort of attitude that evolves when there are several ways in which to build your character, but only one way to win a game (kill everything). This results, at least in multiplayer game, in people who are excluded for having made "bad" choices in how they've grown their character. A person can have a character who's suboptimal but fun to play at a tabletop game, but video games have not opened up to that breadth of options yet.

Dualist morality in video games is not quite just the good/evil binary in itself. It also presents binary solutions. Take the cave of baby greenskins in Keep on the Borderlands. I'm sure this was written more as a thought exercise for the players, rather than something with one intended solution, or two diametrically opposed solutions. But if Keep on the Borderlands was a video game, you couldn't really come up with a plan and have the GM improvise the results. You'd be presented with some choices, like (A) Spare the babies (B) Exterminate the babies in the name of Pelor (C) Enslave the babies. If Bioware was making this game, Spare and Enslave would result in Good Guy Points or Bad Guy Points, respectively, and thus, people would have to pick with whatever kind of points they're trying to accumulate for later perks. No one would pick Exterminate, as neutral gets you nada.

(I might have Spare and Exterminate backwards, but the idea still stands)

Quote from: Shauncat;741696I believe "talent tree culture" is the sort of attitude that evolves when there are several ways in which to build your character, but only one way to win a game (kill everything). This results, at least in multiplayer game, in people who are excluded for having made "bad" choices in how they've grown their character. A person can have a character who's suboptimal but fun to play at a tabletop game, but video games have not opened up to that breadth of options yet.

Oh, she means a gameplay culture, not a design one. My bad.

Yeah, what can I say? I've been kicked out of my share of PUGs.

Hey this Numenera thing looks interesting.....

QuoteI dreamed of a game system that was designed from the ground up to be played the way people actually played games, and to be run the way that game masters really ran them.

Oh fuck off.

Not reading anymore. Don't care.

My initial opinions about DCC were highly skeptical.  When I first got the actual book, I started to like it.  When I tried running it, I fell in love with it.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;741180Ouch.

As far as WoD goes, I want to like it. I want to play it. But it makes me think of over the top teenage angst. The bad fiction doesn't help. The art doesn't help. But beyond that, I just don't know what to do with it. It's nice and everything, but what do you do in the world of darkness?

You play a werewolf.

You flip out and kill people.

Quote from: The Butcher;741427Fucking Internet ruins everything. 3e/3.5e, 4e, OSR, all editions of Traveller, oWoD, nWoD, Savage Worlds... all have their toxic fans and communities.

Except RQ, CoC and the rest of the BRP family. Everybody loves BRP. And BRP fans are the salt of the Earth.

Of course, I've never frequented a BRP forum with any regularity. They may have vicious Stormbringer edition wars that put D&D forums to shame for all I know. ;)

That is why I never visit them. I don't want to spoil the ilusion. We BRP fans are DA BESTEST

Quote from: Imperator;742508That is why I never visit them. I don't want to spoil the ilusion. We BRP fans are DA BESTEST

I think BRP is too much of a toolkit for anyone to get overly passionate about their particular flavour.  Someone can make a strongly stated case against a particular option like hit locations and everyone is like "cool, glad that the more abstract hit point and wound system works for you."

I think the biggest BRP related edition war happened in the early 90s with Avalon Hill RQ3.  And even then it was so compatible that people sticking with RQ2 could use pretty much all the material as is.

Even when Mongoose decided to go with 2nd age Glorantha rather than 3rd age, there wasn't nearly the up-in-arms that resulted from the 4E re-imagining of Forgotten Realms.  Just a "oh, that god learner stuff is cool, but I like Prax."

To get back on topic with this post, I'm going to say Trail of Cthulhu.  I did end up running it quite a bit, but what really killed it for me was the huge list of skills and the menu/checklist approach combined with the scene construction in the published modules.

Quote from: RPGPundit;742494My initial opinions about DCC were highly skeptical.  When I first got the actual book, I started to like it.  When I tried running it, I fell in love with it.

I will look beyond the opening preface.

Quote from: RPGPundit;742494My initial opinions about DCC were highly skeptical.  When I first got the actual book, I started to like it.  When I tried running it, I fell in love with it.

Same here, the game has some very interesting twist to some D&D rules. The magic system in particular looks awesome. The only thing I don't like are the funky dice, but since it gives instructions as to how use regular dice to emulate them, I don't have a huge problem with that.

I also had a similar experience with Numenera. At first didn't like the previews or some of the stuff I read on forums, then I bought the book to take a deeper look and was impressed. Finally when I got to run it any doubt I had about it vanished in the wind, it was quite a fun experience (it's a fun game to GM).

Quote from: RPGPundit;742494My initial opinions about DCC were highly skeptical.  When I first got the actual book, I started to like it.  When I tried running it, I fell in love with it.

I really like the DCC flavor. I don't even mind the funky dice (I have several sets). The only thing that a bit annoying is that every spell gets its own chart.

Great for atmosphere, sucky to actually use at the table if you don't have the rules in pdf. Its kind of a downer to have to purchase the game again to make charts that are table friendly.

Quote from: NathanIW;742511I think BRP is too much of a toolkit for anyone to get overly passionate about their particular flavour.  

Check out the GURPS forums some day. :eek:

Quote from: The Butcher;742596Check out the GURPS forums some day. :eek:

The gurps and Traveller forums suffer from one particular toxic avenger, that the BRP forums (thanks be to whoever) currently lacks.     Peak jackassery occurs when obscurity is sufficient that acting like a normal human being is no longer expected of the fans, but the fan community remains too large and diverse to make a unified stand against the jackasses.

See, the corollary to the jackassery rule is related to this:  as the group gets smaller, one unusually toxic personality can come to dominate and shape the culture, even if it is just reacting to said person. essentially a founder effect if you want to get all genetic about it.

Quote from: J Arcane;742496You play a werewolf.

You flip out and kill people.

Fact 1: Werewolves are mammals.
Fact 2: Werewolves fight ALL the time.
Fact 3: The purpose of werewolves is to flip out and kill people.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;742718Fact 1: Werewolves are mammals.
Fact 2: Werewolves fight ALL the time.
Fact 3: The purpose of werewolves is to flip out and kill people.

JG

Simple is good sometimes. Especially in the WoD.:)

AD&D 1e - At first I was like, "Wow, cool!  Expanded rules and detail for D&D!  You can be different combos of race and class, and the ability scores have even more detailed bonuses.  It's like D&D only more so!" But then I was like, "Jeez, this DMG is hard slog to get through.  Holy crap, I've read the initiative section like five times and I still don't get it.  Where the hell do they explain what the fuck a 'segment' is?  Come to think of it, I don't really need all these little rules and resolution matrices.  I can't remember them all on the off chance they're needed in the game, and I really don't want to be diving through this book trying to find stuff.  I think I'm going to stick with D&D.  That runs clean and simple."

AD&D 2e - At first I was like, "Hey, a cleaned up version of AD&D!  Say, now that's an initiative system!  Maybe this will give me what I want!"  But then I was like, "Huh.  This version of the game seems to have largely abandoned dungeons.  No wandering monster tables?  That reaction table looks baroque as fuck.  What kind of adventures do they have?  Christ!  More Forgotten Realms?  I think I'm going to stay with D&D."

World of Darkness - At first I was like, "Hmmm, this looks intriguing.  A horror/modern fantasy type setting!  And the production value on these books is off the charts!"  But then I was like, "Wait, this isn't the good kind of gothic...and it's combined with punk.  Ooookaaaay....  Uh, this thing is talking about rollplaying vs roleplaying, and I have this distinct feeling they're shitting on my favorite game, but any kind of resolution seems involve rolling a shitload of dice, and all the characters have levels (generation) and character classes (clans), which even come with preset personality parameters.  Are they sure this is about roleplaying?  Good God, this is pretentious.  I think I'll stick with D&D."

D&D 4e - At first I was like, "Hey, it looks like they've redesigned D&D to play just like we used to back in the day!  High fantasy, high heroics!  And wizards get a little magic something for when they're out of big spells.  That's cool.  I like that they've really spelled out rules for playing with miniatures -- I always wanted to play with minis, but not having a wargame background never felt comfortable trying to figure it out.  And it looks like they gave the fighter some interesting mechanics to work with, too.  Hey, these combats are fun and involved!"  But then I was like, "Jesus, this character generation is taking forever.  Crap, am I forgetting to add any bonuses?  Man, choosing through these feats suuuuucks.  You know, it seems like we have two modes when we play: bullshit off the cuff for a while covering the set-up, and then combat mode when we resolve the encounter.  And when that happens everyone's only looking at their sheets or the board.  Shit, I'm only looking at my sheet or the board.  And for some reason, it seems everyone else is much more capable than me.  For fuck's sake, these combat are getting really drawn out.  And come to think of it, this is even less geared for dungeon exploration than 2nd Ed.!  What's that?  5e's coming out?  Huh, maybe that will give me what I like from both old style D&D and 4e.  Jesus Christ!  The gloves are off, and these other 4e fans on the forums are really assholes!  Fuck this, I'm just going to go back to B/X D&D."