Quote from: Emperor Norton;728723Odd how these "bad decisions" created one of the best selling RPGs of the last year (EotE).

Could it possibly be that they weren't bad decisions, but instead work for different people other than you?

It's got the Star Wars license - they could have used almost any system and sold a bundle.

Quote from: Jason Coplen;728739It's got the Star Wars license - they could have used almost any system and sold a bundle.

I sincerely doubt that it was the #2 selling system, behind only Pathfinder, by the end of the year solely on the IP alone. I'm not saying it doesn't help, but to think there is nothing there is silly.

I wasn't even going to buy it until after I played the beginner's game that someone else owned and I'm a super mega Star Wars nerd. The whole proprietary dice thing turned me off and I was like "meh, I have all the books for Saga, why do I need a new system". But it works. It works REALLY well.

Quote from: daniel_ream;728646I don't know if that was specifically their motivation, but it's quite cheap to get custom dice machined these days.

Maybe.  But that doesn't mean people will actually go to trouble of doing so for a pirated game.

I suspect most people will either pirate the game for free, or buy it.  I doubt there's a huge population of people out there willing to be pay money (any money) to facilitate their own piracy.

Like I said, I think the barrier is as much psychological as anything.  Once you get to the stage of actually forking out money and ordering special dice, you just go out and buy the game, unless you really really can't afford it, or you get some cause of perverse thrill out of piracy for the sake of piracy.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;728723Odd how these "bad decisions" created one of the best selling RPGs of the last year (EotE)....

Sales are fine for FFG short term, bad game design is bad for FFG longer term.  Is anyone playing WHFRP 3rd?

Quote from: Jason Coplen;728739It's got the Star Wars license - they could have used almost any system and sold a bundle.

I tend to agree, above a certain level of bad.   Though there are good parts about the system.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;728742I sincerely doubt that it was the #2 selling system, behind only Pathfinder, by the end of the year solely on the IP alone. I'm not saying it doesn't help, but to think there is nothing there is silly.

I think the book and the layout and the general design are good, then they crapped on it with the dice and dice system.  It does suffer from the problem that nothing in it couldn't be done better in just about any generic system with only a main book, so being only "good" isn't really "good enough" in my opinion.  I think it's better than the D20 version, and worse than the D6 version, for the record.

I'm happy to be wrong, I don't wish them ill, I wish them better.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;728742I wasn't even going to buy it until after I played the beginner's game that someone else owned and I'm a super mega Star Wars nerd. The whole proprietary dice thing turned me off and I was like "meh, I have all the books for Saga, why do I need a new system". But it works. It works REALLY well.

One of my players keeps saying he's going to run a game of it, but we'll see. Heh. I might have to wait a while before I get the chance to play it and see for myself.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;728732RPGs are a leisure activity for having fun, people buy them to have fun, so the assumption that something is a bad game is that people aren't having fun with it.

The idea that it is selling remarkably well, and is continuing to sell remarkably well, implies that tons of people are buying it, and having fun (why else would they buy more).

They may be having fun looking at the artwork and collecting all the splat books attempting to complete their setting info.

Quote from: Jason Coplen;728739It's got the Star Wars license - they could have used almost any system and sold a bundle.

That and production values.

Quote from: YourSwordisMine;728375As someone who has trouble with icons... I find the FFG Dice (WHFRP3e/Star Wars) incredibly annoying and unbelievably frustrating... I prefer dice with numbers on them over pips or icons... Its easier for my brain to process...

So yeah, its not always hyperbole... And even if I were to play in a game of either, I would be constantly looking at the conversion chart to understand what my rolls meant... Not only does that slow down my actions, but makes the game less enjoyable over all.

Icons can be a boon or a curse to any game. They can make a product effectively miltilingual by just changing the rulebook rather than the costly components. But some players have a hard time parsing icon heavy games.

CCGs and one or two board games have bumped into that issue before. Keep it simple and dont glut on icons.

Quote from: Endless Flight;728682Maybe their reason for using special dice is to make a better game? I dunno, it's out there but that may be a reason.

FFG glitzing a game to improve it? wah-haa-haa-haa!

Really. FFG adds this stuff for the sake of adding this stuff. Did Wiz War really need a set of ooh-aaaah minis that bumps up the games cost possibly signifigantly?

The running gag in the gaming industry is the speculation on just how much FFG will fuck around with any given game they acquire.

Quote from: TristramEvans;728631Id be very interested in whatever system youre refering to that translates all that info plus combat stances and speed vs precision into one roll w/o math/charts and is quicker and easier than the WH3rd dice system.

I never said all that info, etc. in one roll system. I said those ideas, i.e. separate axes, etc. You need not have the exact same experience to have familiarity of something's comprising elements. And given my experience with EotE, I already find its presentation nothing I want -- especially because of its dice.

And again I never played WH3, and given the comments about it so far have zero interest in it.

Quote from: Skywalker;728629Crits, DoS and additional benefits/setbacks on seperate axes. IMO the Crits are the least important and most confusing aspect. But the additional benefits/setbacks (that are directly related to the dominant intended result) is the better part of the EotE dice system, as it does the most to create the kind of snowballing action that is common in Star Wars.

Also, if something has to be 'new' to have any value, then you are overlooking a great many valuable things. I don't think anyone is arguing that EotE is either new or has a monopoly on a specific result. It's just another dice system that does a bunch of things in a way that some people like. Cool, huh?

Yes, I know, like I said I played the game already. Separate axes is nothing new to me, but yes the game runs essentially 4 axes (or 2 axes and 2 switches, if one prefers). It creates an extended boolean expression, which at some point becomes unwieldy TMI in my experience. In my EotE game we chugged many a time (players and GM alike) scrying the bones with all the additional information.

I already said above that my interest is in presentation. I dislike the symbols for conversion. I dislike the opacity in probability (I have to deconstruct it and it is not equally distributed along the die faces). I dislike the axial integration through different dice shapes and their shifting pools. And all that I could forgive if it gave me a new function I could poach for other games. But it doesn't.

And so per the topic I am giving my opinion on such propriety dice design. In this EotE example it treads familiar resolution question territory (this is not about same system mechanics, but resolution function) and adds what I feel is only convolution. This is a bad thing in my games and not what I want in my play. That other people like it, and their perceived coolness of it, matters not a whit to me. That's not the point of the topic, which is to express one's opinion and experience, nor is the point mumbling some palliative conciliatory gesture to those who like it.

Quote from: Opaopajr;728876I never said all that info, etc. in one roll system. I said those ideas, i.e. separate axes, etc. You need not have the exact same experience to have familiarity of something's comprising elements. And given my experience with EotE, I already find its presentation nothing I want -- especially because of its dice.

And again I never played WH3, and given the comments about it so far have zero interest in it.

Okay. (shrug) No idea what point you were trying to make then, but whatever.

Quote from: TristramEvans;728887Okay. (shrug) No idea what point you were trying to make then, but whatever.

Really? Really. You don't see from my words that I am talking about resolution functions versus mechanics? You know, pass/fail rolls, degree of success, crits/botches/intervention, contested rolls, cooperative rolls, cumulative rolls, etc. Did you read what I wrote and conflated mechanics for function?

Quote from: Emperor Norton;728723Odd how these "bad decisions" created one of the best selling RPGs of the last year (EotE).

Could it possibly be that they weren't bad decisions, but instead work for different people other than you?

It was FFG and they had the Star Wars license.  It's almost printing money.

Quote from: Archangel Fascist;728954It was FFG and they had the Star Wars license.  It's almost printing money.

Not necessarily.  Look at Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.

I don't really see a reason for proprietary dice. Maybe it adds an element of fun to the game I'm not seeing. The only game I play that uses them is x-wing, which I really enjoy because it's quick. I think if it utilized regular dice, it would be just as fun.

I do own WHFRP 3e and Descent 2e and I never play either, primarily because the mechanics and settings aren't very appealing to me.