Yeah I wasn't a fan of that either. But then I'm not married to the term "race" when it comes to gaming. It's like calling someone a retard>moron>imbecile>mongoloid>etc. We *know* what you mean with whatever new word.

Is it something I'm going to hold against them? Not really. But I do agree there is such thing as Death by a Thousand cuts. This is only cut 3 or 4 for me with them. And frankly I'm not going to a thousand.

So far, I'm okay.

Quote from: yosemitemike on May 06, 2024, 11:04:06 AMMissed a 0 there.  Still, it's a depressing number.  According to their website, it's around 60% now which is an improvement but still a bit depressing.  51 copies sold is a pretty low bar.  That's not even considering that products only have to be priced at $0.20 to count towards a metal tier so you could essentially buy yourself copper tier for around $10 (and then increase the price) if you wanted to game the system

Quote from: Eric Diaz on May 06, 2024, 09:30:28 AMhttps://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/229046/dark-fantasy-basic-player-s-guide

Hey. there's a bundle.  I'm a sucker for a bundle.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/306824/dark-fantasy-everything-bundle 

You are right about that... The system could be gamed - and I think some people might actually do something like that to always stay on top.

I try to get a similar result with e-mails, sales, etc., but only works for a few days after release.

Thanks for mentioning the bundle!

Sturgeon's law applies to DTRPG, certainly...

And AI could make things 10 times worse, just because it is so fast (but it could improve RPGs if people use it well).

Also some people just do it for fun or because they don't understand the demand for RPGs (which is quite limited and specific).

OTOH there is some very good stuff in there too.

Sometimes better than WotC... which is all we can require from average RPGs, really, since this is the most popular.

Back when I played 5e, I remember having to buy DM's vault stuff to make their campaigns work better.

BTW, congrats to Pundit for the success!

Quote from: yosemitemike on May 06, 2024, 05:37:09 AMI am also reminded of the dismal fact that something like 70% of all products on DTRPG will not reach 51 copies sold and only 201 out of over 100,000 products have sold 501 copies or more. 

That's because most of that stuff is garbage. There is almost zero effort required to publish electronic stuff, so a lot of people with grandiose ideas and little talent crank out nonsense. This has always been true in RPGs, and hobbies in general, but at least in the past you had to have some actual balls and spend some money to get your 500 copies of "FU Gygax: Improved D&D Rules" printed up. Now you can just have AI generate 90% of the text and images, slap on some woke horseshit inclusivity preface, and be done with it.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on April 29, 2024, 09:25:13 PMI love using LaTex and Pandoc are quite amazing little tools for making your own PDF docs.

Linux of course is the way to go regarding any program or tech we use.

Cannot agree more. Also LyX is pretty handy to draft something quick and export to LaTeX code afterwards for the final polish.

---

And today's post is about converting SVG images to TikZ code to use in LaTeX:

https://vladar.bearblog.dev/latex-svg-to-tikz-conversion/

Missed a 0 there.  Still, it's a depressing number.  According to their website, it's around 60% now which is an improvement but still a bit depressing.  51 copies sold is a pretty low bar.  That's not even considering that products only have to be priced at $0.20 to count towards a metal tier so you could essentially buy yourself copper tier for around $10 (and then increase the price) if you wanted to game the system

Quote from: Eric Diaz on May 06, 2024, 09:30:28 AMhttps://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/229046/dark-fantasy-basic-player-s-guide

Hey. there's a bundle.  I'm a sucker for a bundle.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/306824/dark-fantasy-everything-bundle 

The only irk that I have with PEG is that they changed 'race' to 'ancestry' after the SWADE (which included 'race') was released. I asked them why they changed the term and I got the usual 'it's a problematic term' response.

Quote from: Omega on May 01, 2024, 03:19:44 AMThe problem is that every little subreddit is its own little domain really and several of the RPG related ones have some pretty nasty moderators.

Quote from: Opaopajr on May 01, 2024, 03:52:02 AMIt always had that groupthink darlings and Greek chorus harpies feel to it, like RPG.net, Tumblr, and Twitter after Tumblr was purged.

So internet as usual.

Quote from: Opaopajr on May 01, 2024, 03:52:02 AMThat and it has an atrocious interface, like a purposeful leap backwards, worse than Unix to DOS, to capture market and keep people separated.

There's no denying that #Reddit isn't perfect and only getting worse. However posts are still publicly searchable and indented, and I can sort them in multiple ways, format text, quote replies, and add text links. The only better formats for actual discussions are forums like this.

Quote from: tenbones on May 02, 2024, 02:15:27 PMWell I've only been saying this on this forum since I arrived. I detest "narrative mechanics" - I'm that guy. But haunting me for 30+ years was the fact that MSH was one of the original games that used it, which I've been running the whole time. To me, it's *always* been the exception that proved the rule because it worked. And it serves as a cautionary warning to reactionaries that would extoll only non-narrative mechanics and in the same breath wax poetic about Old School games and even include MSH in there. It's always boggled my mind.

Then I think it's worth considering what makes them work at this point. Is it because it can be considered an actual element of the setting in this case? Is it because it's only used to modify rolls? Why exactly is this the exception?

Quote from: tenbones on May 02, 2024, 02:15:27 PMThe reason *why* you have to declare Karma use (with a minimum of 10-points spent) is because if you don't the economy of Karma accrual will get abused and get off kilter.

The advantage of spending after a roll is in avoiding a potentially unnecessary step in resolving an action which causes a break in immersion. And the requirement for double digit spending could be eliminated by simply using a d20 instead of dividing a d100 result by 5. There's cruft here which could be removed, and if familiarity wasn't a priority should.

Quote from: tenbones on May 02, 2024, 02:15:27 PMYou want your players to have a stake in their actions ESPECIALLY when using Karma. It creates tension because if they get a bad roll, and didn't declare, they know going in if the roll is important and they blow it, they gotta eat the results because they were saving that Karma for other things.

All depends on how much Karma they have, and how much they expect to get. Tension is often more the product of these economic factors rather than individual rolls, but considering them is potentially immersion breaking. And as the other example highlights folks are more likely to spend Karma on rolls to avoid negative outcomes rather than achieve positive ones, which isn't very "heroic".

Quote from: tenbones on May 02, 2024, 02:15:27 PMIn Heroic it is *more* important to declare (imo - this is not my design) because Karma is decoupled from Advancement. So you want that economy of draining those pools as a GM while giving justifiably to players that earn it.

You're right, I must have been crossing the streams.

Quote from: tenbones on May 02, 2024, 02:15:27 PMSpending Karma to learn Stunts (not Feats) has *always* been part of the game. And it's cheaper and easier now than before.

But as you mention it's not. You just need a series of Reason Feats, one Red, one Yellow, and how many Green again? Sorry but this is ridiculously byzantine and does nothing to support genre emulation.

Quote from: tenbones on May 02, 2024, 02:15:27 PM

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on May 01, 2024, 09:35:12 PMThe Whimsey Cards created dissonance between the fiction and mechanics. For example, the card 'Legend' was played on a nat 100, which resulted in everyone gaining a Karma bonus, picking up some Renown, and the adventure becoming legendary for... a hero not being stunned when they failed to phase through a door. This is a common problem with mechanics which determine fiction in situations where the results don't make sense.

Easily dealt with: don't use them. I don't.

Better solution: Give them narrative triggers, not mechanical ones. There's a reason 'fiction first' is a thing despite how many here are allergic to the concept.

Quote from: yosemitemike on May 06, 2024, 05:37:09 AMI am also reminded of the dismal fact that something like 70% of all products on DTRPG will not reach 51 copies sold and only 201 out of over 100,000 products have sold 501 copies or more. 

Small correction:

- Only 201 out of over 100,000 products have sold 5000 copies or more.

- About 63% of products havent sold more than 50 copies.

https://amazing-tales.net/2019/01/27/drivethru-rpg-metal-tiers/

But I'm not sure these numbers are current; I notice my book Dark Fantasy Basic has reached platinum (after many years...) but is not included.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/229046/dark-fantasy-basic-player-s-guide
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/metal.php