The Gaming Den

Heh. Ripping off Babylon 5 is like ripping off Terry Brooks, or being derivative of Christina Aguilera (Sp?).

If the "original" you are copying is itself not "original", what does that make you? I mean, if what you are doing is like something which is itself like the Lord of the Rings, doesn't that mean you are also copying Lord of the Rings?

It's quite a philosophical question: if you are ripping off something that is a rip-off of something else, and you don't know that the thing you are ripping off is a rip-off, are you ripping-off the actual original or not?

-Username17

Everything rips off something. There is nothing (or very little) new under the Sun.

Trust me AW, I know that, because every "original" creation I ever try turns out to be utterly derivative, but this is just a little too blatant for me.

I mean more blatant than B5 which I was still able to enjoy greatly even with the LotR parallels.

How blatant? I mean, I probably expect less from game flavor text than from a novel or TV show.

Absentminded_Wizard at [unixtime wrote:1091617751[/unixtime]]How blatant? I mean, I probably expect less from game flavor text than from a novel or TV show.

From a card game, sure. From a Role Playing Game, I often demand more. In a card game the mechanics are completely primary over the flavor text, a person can play the game and derive enjoyment from it without ever knowing or caring what the "backstory" is.

Meanwhile, in a TV show it is of paramount importance that the viewer have a basic grasp of what is going on anywhere the action is - otherwise the actions of the characters make no sense.

However, in a Role Playing Game, the viewer (that is, the player or DM) needs to have a fair grasp of anywhere the action could go - so that the shared world story doesn't completely fall apart any time someone says "Let's go North!"

So yeah, if it's just the story for the card game, it doesn't matter. I don't think "BRAWL" even has a story, but it's a good card game. The story for "Lunch Money" is "You are a school girl, totally kicking the living crap out of other school girls during lunch recess", and that's fine.

If the story is supposed to be transferred into the line of books, it needs to not suck. And if it's supposed to be transferred into the RPG it really needs to not suck.

-Username17

Let's see here the game has 5 factions we know of thus far.

Earthers - They might as well just call them the Earth Alliance give and get it over with. They have the largest ships and are considered solely with military might.

Gongens - Think B5 if the Mars colony had successfully broken away. They are human, but now their own faction with a more feudal society. Yes, they are space samurai and apparently able to communicate with their dead relatives (which is a direct lift of the Bajoran's ability in the Star Trek CCG.) SIDE NOTE: The second 'g' is soft which means I will have to deal with a whole world wide web of 15 year olds thinking spelling it Ganjans and making pot jokes will be the most hysterical thing ever.

Shi - This is the alien race whose entire planet came through the Rift into our galaxy. They are one of the oldest races in the universe, technologically advanced, and empire builders. They view the universe as their manifest destiny. It's like the Vorlons met the Minbari with a touch of the Centauri thrown in. And of course they enslaved the . . .

Quay - The most alien of the races, and when I say alien think Alien who have spent a long time under the boot of the Shi, but are now free and looking for revenge. So while they are more alien than the Narn it's not likely they're more original. And of course, we get the ever tired we look so alien, but don't hate us for it sub-theme. As well as the we looked into the abyss too long and want revenge sub-theme. As an added bonus I get a whole world wide web of 15 year olds that think referring to them as the Gay will be the most hysterical thing ever.

Mavericks - And in our final faction we have the Mavericks. The humans that want to be different, just like everybody else, because they ain't following your rules man. From the little I heard dial the Reavers from "Firefly" back a few notchs on the crazy\evil\murderer scale, throw in a dash of Raiders from B5, and a little bit of the smuggler culture from Star Wars and you get the Mavericks. Currently, I'm just wondering if Goose is going to run with them or not.

Now, let me be clear. I don't really care about following a story in a game as long as the gameplay is good. Years of SWCCG divorced me from thinking a game should follow a movie storyline (Vader has won that little duel in front of the Emperorer far too many times for me to care about that.) But trying to act like they have this super original universe going when about the only original thing is the Rift itself (which I believe was lifted from an apocalypse myth from Eastern mythology anyway) is just kind of insulting. And they want to spin this off into other properties like books and videogames of course.

Edit: Heh Eastern mythology and Easter mythology have entirely different contexts.

But trying to act like they have this super original universe going when about the only original thing is the Rift itself (which I believe was lifted from an apocalypse myth from Eastern mythology anyway) is just kind of insulting.

I wasn't aware that they were claiming to have a totally original universe. That puts a different spin on things. The stuff you've mentioned doesn't make this the most slavishly derivative thing under the Sun, but it's not original enough to brag about, either.

That's the thing, it's the bragging that's annoying me. The whole "we got Michael Stackpole to help with this and it's super cool" sentiment on their radio program is driving me nuts. There definitely has been more derivative stuff, Wheel of Time anyone, but this ranks up there IMO.

Some guy on the WOTC boards is redoing epic

BAB/saves continue normally. "But the higher you go, the wider the disparity, and the more unbalanced it gets," you say. *snort* That's the cry of unimaginative players who take 40 levels in one class. There are items, feats, and spells that can boost the low save(s) to make them equal to the high saves quite easily. If you're 40th level and you STILL have a +15 Will save, that's your problem, not the game designer's.

Did I mention he wants to publish his rules?

Apparently, this guy is laboring under the delusion that the idea of a Ranger 2 / Fighter 2 / Paladin 3 having much better saves than a Paladin 7 is somehow good for the game.

I don't know how relevant this is, but the Yu-Gi-Oh show is starting to grow on me. AGAINST MY WILL, I SEZ.

Even though I've only seen about 7 episodes (the latest when Yugi finished battling his friend for a duel with Pegasus), Yugi seemed to have gotten gypped for his Millenium Icon. He gets consultant help that isn't as good as having Frank or Josh in your corner? WTF?

I have been told that I am "like Kaiba" several times by different people. I... can't stand the show enough to make up my own mind about that. People have voices that grate on me, and whenever it's on I just wander off mumbling - I'd so much rather be watching Pokemon Advanced that it hurts.

-Username17

Let me guess--the guy wants to continue to keep almost everything else in epic the same way?

That system is completely cracked, starting with the cornerstone of epicness; the epic feats. A handful of feats will allow your cleric archer to seriously become out-of-this-world crazy, more than the 3.0E persistent spell ever dreamed of doing. But most of the feats (especially for fighters), suck so much balls that they're not all that different from regular feats. A frickin' feat that adds a +1 to attack rolls? Another frickin' feat that lets you learn all languages? Another frickin' feat that gives your weapon the holy property? Holy shit, people, these are all 2nd level or LESS clerical spells, and then the game doesn't even have the decency to let you purchase these abortion of 'feats' separate from your real feat slots.

And it goes downhill from there. At least the monsters are really cool.

Epic is based on a series of assumptions which are false. The problem with these assumptions, of course, is that they create party imbalance - not that they don't create enough party imbalance.

The whole thing where you can take a level of a class whose whole schtick is that "you get good saves" at Epic and now you get the whole schtick of "doesn't get anything at all" is a problem, but you can't solve it by just telling everyone that a failure to multiclass into classes that give you good saves is your own fault. I mean, the Epic game is still bending you over the prison bed if you happen to be a multiclass caster or half-caster. SR scales to CR, and paladin caster level scales to half class level. That's a big problem in a game that's supposed to scale infinitely.

Ugh. Any time you want to go to infinity with characters gaining opposable bonuses at different rates you have a huge problem. It's not resolvable by jumping up and down, the basic idea is eventually going to lead to players being more than 20 points of bonus apart. And that's bad, and that's the bottom line.

-Username17

It's funny. Now that I'm getting married AND have a new job I haven't even bought a single pack of this game that I spent so muh time bitching about.

Giving a sort-of bumpity to the thread...

Dan - I was curious what your impressions were of the sample stuff I snagged for you at GenCon? Was it able to give you a feel for the game, or was it just a big tease?

It was very very helpful and I actually wish I was playing the game right now. But wedding and new job have definitely put it on the back burner for a bit.

Doesn't "new job" mean more money?

Yes, but less time which is the limiting factor in the process currently.

some guy wrote:So unless all PC's are of the same allighnemt there should be some internal conflict within the group (otherwise someone is roleplaying badly)

(sic)

Aegis wrote:Note: weapons used are a Dwarven Waraxe +3 and a Warhammer +3 with a level 15 Dwarven Ranger (STR 19)
Again, I fail to see a real downside. I get 6 attacks a round at level 15 (2nd and 3rd off hand being made at -5/-10 respectively), all of which doing on average 7-8 damage a hit. If I were to use one weapon, in this case the dwarven waraxe +3 (1d10+3+STRx1.5) for 3 attacks a round, I'd be doing an about 10-12 damage average.

The totals here being:

TWF: 7/8x6 = 42/48
THF: 10/11x3 = 30/36

Even if I only hit with 4 of those attacks on average, I'm still doing about 28/32 damage, roughly. Not only that, but those are extra chances for criticals.

Also, if you want to start bringing in other aspects to it all, I can take Two Weapon defense, which grants me +1 AC when fighting with two weapons, or +2 if I go full defense, supplementing my AC slightly.

So, again, I fail to see a real downside to TWF. Instead, I see it has it's advantages, just as fighting with a two-handed weapon.

HURRRR

Wow, I'll take not understanding Math for $1000 Alex. So the guy doesn't how on average you won't remotely do nearly the same damage fighting with two medium weapons via TWF versus two-handing something. And his Two-Weapon defense comment is a damn joke. Because of the to-hit penalties I can get the same average damage out of sword and board with a better defensive bonus without having to waste a feat and going total defensive.

The really sad thing is that I just demolished this guy's argument and I haven't remotely thought about D&D in like ~2 years.

I have found the stupidest thread ever

It's funny, but the game that started this thread had its production run stopped in under a year.

I'm so happy I didn't spend money on it. I guess it's the Vs. system if I want to get my CCG on for money.

Tae_Kwon_Dan at [unixtime wrote:1090274129[/unixtime]]
SomeDude#1: Well for one thing a 6x limit ups the odds of getting a card you need in your starting hand of 8 cards.

Assume you start only a single location and have 4 copies of a card in your 59 card reserve deck. The odds of getting that card in your starting hand of 8 is 45%.

If you go with a 6x limit then your odds go up to 60% of being able to get your deck running on the first turn.

SomeDude#2: No your math is totally wrong. If you have 4 copies in a 59 card reserve deck you just dive 4/59 and then multiply that by 8 to get your odds or 54%. I hope the laws of probability enjoyed the level of monkey butt sex I just performed on them.
Me:

Er.... If you don't mind me asking,could I see the math that you used? Not trying to argue or anything, but I have no clue on how you got 45%, not including anything else. *Is clueless on more advanced mathematics concepts such as you had*.