The recent threads dealing with the games that we were surprised by (for good or ill) got me thinking about impulse buys. The games we bought on a whim. This is something I do fairly regularly. I am often disappointed. Sometimes in a spectacularly bad manner. But I have also been pleasantly surprised before. The best of that category would be Everstone: Blood Legacy. I bought the game used for $5 for the absolutely gaudy cover art. And found inside the best point buy version of the D20 system I ever read. See my YouTube review here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EatEMPbHuAs
So, what has been the game you bought on a whim and we shocked to discover was really quite good?
I don't really do impulse buys.
Agone, easily. It had some understated cover art, so I had no idea what to expect. But the name just sounded interesting so I picked it up. It's one of the best, most evocative fantasy settings ever. I only wish the rest of the supplements originally released in French had been translated, not just a handful.
Except for the giants' birth rates. That was pretty dumb. A female giant can only get pregnant once, and she will most likely have twins, but rarely there are single or triple births. It's the only one of the species who, even if all was right with the world(and it isn't), could easily go extinct within a few generations with just a little bad luck. Considering they're as old as any other race, I have trouble believing there are more than a handful of them still in existence during the default time the game is set in, much less enough to make them PCs who will do various potentially life-threatening things.
Some guys in my Emern group went to a local Magic tournament while shitfaced, and ended up buying a giant foam d20 about the size of a baby's head that we use for rolling important rolls.
I bought The One Ring on impuse the other day and don't regret it. As it's my only impulse buy this year I'll call it my best as well. I doubt I'll play it but I'm pretty sure I'll borrow from it.
I bought ICONS* for a dollar and Vornheim for $1.35 I like them both.
*I also got the character folio software for a buck, which is sheer awesome.
Picked up Airship Pirates from the abney park site on impulse after noticing the exchange rate was better with shipping from the US than buying it from Cubicle 7's webstore in the UK...its a bloody beautifull book and im enjoying reading through it at the moment in anticipation of starting a game in the new year if my old rpg group decides to get back together after a 4 year break for life and stuff.
Quote from: GeekEclectic;496878Except for the giants' birth rates. That was pretty dumb. A female giant can only get pregnant once, and she will most likely have twins, but rarely there are single or triple births. It's the only one of the species who, even if all was right with the world(and it isn't), could easily go extinct within a few generations with just a little bad luck.
Mathwise that
could work, if female giants are more common than males. e.g. if 90% of newgiants were female then you'd have a few very lucky male giant and their population could almost double (x1.8) from generation-to-generation.
Not that I particularly visualise all giants as being girls, though.
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;496903Mathwise that could work, if female giants are more common than males. e.g. if 90% of newgiants were female then you'd have a few very lucky male giant and their population could almost double (x1.8) from generation-to-generation.
Not that I particularly visualise all giants as being girls, though.
Yeah, but that's not how it works. Plus they're strictly monogamous on the whole. Even barring reproductive glitches, the occasional accident or occupational hazard would be enough to get rid of them pretty fast. Even the minotaurs have a more sustainable reproductive model, and they depend on the kindness(extreme kindness considering the near-total risk of maternal death) of succubi.
Eclipse Phase. Damn well written, great setting, eye candy, got me into transhuman SF. Never got to play it, but even if I never get around to doing it, it's going to be a worthy acquisition for the above reasons.
Back in 1975, I went into my favorite hobby shop to see if they had any new Avalon Hill or SPI games. They didn't -- but they had this brown box set of rules for something called "Dungeons & Dragons" with a supplement called "Greyhawk". I decided "why not?" and spent $15. This changed my gaming forever.
Deathtrap Dungeon, the old Fighting Fantasy book by Ian Livingstone that first exposed me to roleplaying, warhammer, et al as a nipper.
The Dance and the Dawn. Uses a chessboard as miniatures for a creepy romance-at-the-ball fantasy scenario. I'm just a sucker for all things chess-related, but I really enjoyed it past the gimmick.
LARP version (and D&D4 version, WHAA?) coming soon, woot woot.
Quote from: RandallS;496998Back in 1975, I went into my favorite hobby shop to see if they had any new Avalon Hill or SPI games. They didn't -- but they had this brown box set of rules for something called "Dungeons & Dragons" with a supplement called "Greyhawk". I decided "why not?" and spent $15. This changed my gaming forever.
You win this thread.
RPGPundit
Palladium FRPG, 2nd edition. I had been a mostly inactive gamer for close to three years, when I dropped by a game shop in Budapest, entered to see what they had for sale, and walked out with a copy of PFRPG. Some time later, I started a new game group. That was money well spent.
I heard some bad things about Trail of Cthulhu, after I heard few of my friends ridiculing it, and I bought a PDF to join in on it.
The game had become one of my favourite gaming systems, replacing Call of Cthulhu for my horror games.
Probably the 4e Core Set recently. I was a staunch hater of 4e but something wouldn't let me not buy it when it was in the store (probably having bought the last three editions on release). It provided me with a lot of great gaming in 2008 to 2010 and was probably the consistently best D&D experiences I have had since I started playing the RPG.
I do not do IMPULSE PURCHASES.
Gamma World using 4e D&D rules.
"Oh but noes u just a haterz from K&K how can dat B!" :D
Quote from: Rincewind1;497260I heard some bad things about Trail of Cthulhu, after I heard few of my friends ridiculing it, and I bought a PDF to join in on it.
The game had become one of my favourite gaming systems, replacing Call of Cthulhu for my horror games.
Is that the one using Gumshoe?
I'm going to say SLA INdustries, even though it had a lot of faults, a stupid 'truth', and required a sourcebook to make it 'click' (Karma). I brought this from Virgin Megastore way back when after MAge the Ascension wasn't yet available. I was all set to pick that up and saw this instead and, money burning a hole, gave it a whirl. At times there were moments of genuine gothic baroque brilliance. At other times it seemed contrived and confused (Mr 'Slayer'? Seriously?)
Quote from: Tetsubo;497333Is that the one using Gumshoe?
Yes it is, and I found it exactly what I was looking for when I was running CoC games. I highly recommend it.
Narrative-bullshit be damned, I'd like to try Trail one of these days. I suspect that, much like WoD games, you can actually ignore all that 'story'-based bullshit and have a blast with this game. I'd give it a shot with a competent GM at least.
Quote from: Benoist;497428Narrative-bullshit be damned, I'd like to try Trail one of these days. I suspect that, much like WoD games, you can actually ignore all that 'story'-based bullshit and have a blast with this game. I'd give it a shot with a competent GM at least.
It's a great game, but I admit that in a game where there'd be a lot of rolling (for example, a survival horror game) CoC is superior. I ran investigative games when I played CoC, and ToC just relieves me of the "Shit, they won't find this clue if they all fail this test, so I hand it out anyway" hypocrisy on my GMing part. Right tool for the right job, so to speak. Plus, the spends system is really nice once you get the hang of it. I'd not call it a strictly "narrativist" type of game, since thanks to spends, players still influence the scenario, and there's still some rolling, especially when the proverbial brown stuff hits the proverbial paddle.
I'd invite you to my game tomorrow, but you probably won't make it :P. ;).
If anything, it's actually great to get to read Trail as a CoC fan, because of all the awesome stuff produced for the game by Kenneth Hite et al. I mean, some of the supplements are sooo impressive. Then you just pick them up and run them with CoC if you feel like it.
I just don't think of Trail as a competitor to CoC. Nothing beats CoC when it's with good players and a good Keeper, IMO.
They do give Chaosium a run for their money when it comes to supplements - especially Bookhounds of London and Dying of St Margarete, and that's a lot considering Horror in Orient Express & Masks.
Personally I think the mix of both systems'd be perfect - replacing General Abilities (save Sanity & Stability but that's discussable) with CoC's mechanics.
As for CoC vs ToC conflict (which is really mild considering the edition wars of DnD or even WFRP) - I follow a simple rule, since I have a friend who prefers CoC. When he GMs and wants to play CoC, I may whine a bit, but I play CoC. When I GM - he may whine a bit, but he plays ToC.
Overall, my best impulse buy would probably be Rifts. I picked it up based purely on the artwork in the early 90s, while I was in the Navy. I ended up running it for over a year with a group on the ship.
Quote from: Tetsubo;496811So, what has been the game you bought on a whim and we shocked to discover was really quite good?
Decades ago when I was 13, the LBB boxed set of
Classic Traveller.
Probably my best impulse purchase in recent years was the Pendragon and GPC books. I found them while vacationing in Vancouver, and had no idea of the rarity they'd achieved even by then, or of how incredible the GPC really was (though paging through it was what convinced me that these books would be worth buying).
This was in the same store where I bought over 1000 pages worth of RIFTS books for $15.
RPGPundit
The other really great gaming purchase I made was I once got ten steaks for under $20 because of some mad cow scare discount, and me and my gaming group, who were all poor university students working minimum wage dead-end summer jobs and who I had just met that summer, all ate steaks for a couple of days and hung out and became bros instead of just some dudes I played games with.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;497653The other really great gaming purchase I made was I once got ten steaks for under $20 because of some mad cow scare discount, and me and my gaming group, who were all poor university students working minimum wage dead-end summer jobs and who I had just met that summer, all ate steaks for a couple of days and hung out and became bros instead of just some dudes I played games with.
Outstanding ! Cooking and gaming, male bonding at it's best.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Rincewind1;497362Yes it is, and I found it exactly what I was looking for when I was running CoC games. I highly recommend it.
I was really disappointed by the Gumshoe system. It seem to trade one type of railroading for another type. And then actual skill system seemed odd to me.
Quote from: Tetsubo;497681I was really disappointed by the Gumshoe system. It seem to trade one type of railroading for another type. And then actual skill system seemed odd to me.
I never really felt railroaded when playing or GMing Gumshoe - I just draw a basic plot design (So this guy did X, which resulted in Y, and Z must be done to prevent X from happening again), and let the PCs mostly choose how to solve the mystery. It's a bit odd, but it works for me.
I WANTED to put Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition...but it would have to be the old Uncanny X-Men boxed set for Marvel FASERIP...because all I knew was "X-Men" and "game". That was what hooked me into the hobby.
Quote from: Tommy Brownell;498226I WANTED to put Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition...but it would have to be the old Uncanny X-Men boxed set for Marvel FASERIP...because all I knew was "X-Men" and "game". That was what hooked me into the hobby.
Also, it taught me the difference between "supplement" and "game"...=P
Rolemaster boxed set. Character & Campaign Law, Spell Law and Arms Law for £7 in a local model shop. The guy knew he charged us too little after we bit his hand off on the price offered.
Quote from: Tetsubo;497681I was really disappointed by the Gumshoe system. It seem to trade one type of railroading for another type. And then actual skill system seemed odd to me.
Yeah. Doesn't solve the problem it claims to solve, using a clunky mechanism that doesn't work in actual play, built around a false-premise of how mystery stories are actually built, and loaded up with advice that says "railroad your players"*.
The last can be discarded by simply having the semi-automatic clues point in multiple directions. The others aren't really soluble.
(*My least-favorite bit of Robin D. Laws writing ever is the design essay where he says (in summary), "The players who fought hardest against my railroad and forced me to stop railroading them complained the most about being railroaded... despite the fact I had stopped railroading them!" It was a classic case of a guy just not understanding the problem.)
I never came into the problem of railroading, and I led like 20 - 30 ToC sessions. *shrugs* IMO a criminal session will be partially predictable - after all, you expect the players to find the clues and connect the dots.
Nightlife in the summer of 1991.
That silly little game of Vampyres, Werewolves, and other Kin led to twenty years of awesome fun which still colors our gaming experiences here, today.
We used it for everything back in the day, despite it's easily house ruled clunkiness. We still refer to the setting constantly and have enjoyed a game or two with other systems such as Savage Worlds.
Amazing how a simple game can have such a big impact on a large time investment in your life.
My best impulse buy was probably The Arduin Grimoire... not that I ever played it as is, but it had a HUGE influence on my games after I read through it.
Quote from: Justin Alexander;498628Yeah. Doesn't solve the problem it claims to solve...
Which wasn't ever a problem to begin with... maybe an issue of some poor scenario design or GMing... but not a problem of CoC's system.
TOC makes for great supplementary material for CoC though.
Quote from: Simlasa;498792Which wasn't ever a problem to begin with...
I had the exact opposite problem: My issue with ToC is that it's just punting the problem down the field. Just because the players automatically find the clues doesn't mean they're going to understand what they mean or follow them in the direction they're supposed to go. I find the middle ground between "players get completely stuck" and "GM just outright hands the players all the solution to the mystery" to be extremely difficult to tune for.
Quote from: Skywalker;497285Probably the 4e Core Set recently. I was a staunch hater of 4e but something wouldn't let me not buy it when it was in the store (probably having bought the last three editions on release). It provided me with a lot of great gaming in 2008 to 2010 and was probably the consistently best D&D experiences I have had since I started playing the RPG.
and when did you start playing D&D? just curious.
Quote from: Benoist;497428Narrative-bullshit be damned, I'd like to try Trail one of these days. I suspect that, much like WoD games, you can actually ignore all that 'story'-based bullshit and have a blast with this game. I'd give it a shot with a competent GM at least.
Definitely buy for the Ken Hite stuff, but I doubt you'll run a gumshoe system game. It's one of the things you hate: a game providing rules to fix bad GMing.
Quote from: daniel_ream;498801I had the exact opposite problem: My issue with ToC is that it's just punting the problem down the field. Just because the players automatically find the clues doesn't mean they're going to understand what they mean or follow them in the direction they're supposed to go.
Exactly. They only partially fixed the potential fail rate for a clue while pretending that they had fixed it entirely.
And, in actual play, their partial fix is either (a) ineffective or (b) painfully boring. (The characters "automatically get the clue",
but only if they use the right skill. Which means that either (a) there are still scenarios in which they won't find the clue they're supposed to automatically find or (b) every scene turns into a dramatic reading of a laundry list as the players plow through their entire skill list.)
Ultimately, the problem they're trying to fix is a scenario design failure. Fixing it mechanically is, at best, overly complicated. (And, in the case of Gumshoe, a failure anyway.)
QuoteI find the middle ground between "players get completely stuck" and "GM just outright hands the players all the solution to the mystery" to be extremely difficult to tune for.
Put 'em in a clue-rich environment. (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule) It ain't rocket science.
Quote from: CRKrueger;498805Definitely buy for the Ken Hite stuff, but I doubt you'll run a gumshoe system game.
I'll definitely second this, too. The games actually have some great material published for them. Pity about the system.
You actually get the core clue of the location for free, you don't have to pay for it with a skill point. Those are for additional clues you're intentionally seeking.
Actually in GUMSHOE you only spend points to do something "useful" with that clue - like find it faster in the amount of books (Library Use), or find some information that correlates with the clue, and allows the party to finish the adventure safer/faster (like that hidden tunnel thing).
As I said - I like it. As a GM, it allows me to focus on narration and scaring the players. I could do similar gameplay with CoC, probably, yes, but this one just works better for me. Slightly better, but better. And I like how spends give some narrative power for the players, though I understand that if someone's a complete fan of immersion, such a person will dislike that. I don't.
The Drive mechanic is something that I didn't find great use for, so far - I just don't need any form of "whip" to get my party back on track. I treat it more like "How should I narrate some stuff to a player's character" guideline for me. And when to reward them with XP if they endanger themselves. Then again, I never yet came across players who'd try to run from a case- if such'd happen, I'd probably allow them. Two - three days later, I'd make them start dropping Stability points, as odd dreams and hunches'd draw them back to the case.
Neither CoC or ToC is superior mechanically to me - I just use them for different types of my horror games (CoC is much superior for Survival Horror stuff, while ToC just saves time in investigative games IMO).
EDIT: As for ToC's more storyliney mechanical gigs, such as declaring Fainting etc. etc. - I just tossed that out of the window, as it'd break immersion for me. If someone declares that his character faints - then I will use that trick. Again, it's just a trick that's written as a part of mechanic. I do like the idea of entire table roleplaying mental illness of character/s.
I'm a good GM when it comes to Cthulhu - but I never frown on learning new tricks, if I am too deaf to see them myself. Sometimes it's just like that. And ToC allows me to focus more on immersing the players in the world.
My best impulse purchase was the first Classic Traveller reprint volume. I had heard of the game many years earlier, of course, but had never seen it. Soon after the first reprint was released, I saw it in a local game store and picked it up out of curiosity. Hooked me entirely; I've since gotten all the reprint books, a slew of Gamelords and FASA stuff, all the FFE CD-ROMs, and even have delved into 2300AD for more material.
Quote from: CRKrueger;498805Definitely buy for the Ken Hite stuff, but I doubt you'll run a gumshoe system game. It's one of the things you hate: a game providing rules to fix bad GMing.
That's exactly it. You put the finger on it, as far as I'm concerned.
Quote from: JDCorley;498867You actually get the core clue of the location for free, you don't have to pay for it with a skill point. Those are for additional clues you're intentionally seeking.
According to the RAW, you still have to say you're using the skill. (The point spending is a separate thing with some significant problems in its own right.)
Quote from: Justin Alexander;499357According to the RAW, you still have to say you're using the skill. (The point spending is a separate thing with some significant problems in its own right.)
RAW can kiss my ass when it sits at my table - but it was actually amended in later editions of GUMSHOE that spends = benefits. And I like point spends - players can pick that up quick enough, and I usually ask them if they do want to spend one or not - it's just a substitute for rolling. But really, I can't be bothered to lawyer for ToC - I prefer it. You don't. I'm not paid by Pelgrane to lobby it.
So back onto the purchases thing?