Im sick of systems

[Leress]

That's why it's great to be new to a forum! Everyone can rehash their old, tired crap, and it feels exciting and new to me!

Oh, that is definitely going to happen if you hang around here.

So how about that Wheel of Fate, huh?

Also, anyone have any ideas on how to make diplomacy work?

I don't know about Wheel of Fate, but Winds of Fate that has some traction. Much like centaurs on stairs

[Kaelik]

Yay, when we drive fearsomepirate from the forum for being a reactionary fuckass nothing of value will be lost.

So yeah the Den hates 4e, it actually hates 4e even more that it hates Pathfinder. Sorry to break it to you.

I think he might be misunderstanding the topic of discussion, and trying to make fun of 4e. But I don't care enough to try to find out, nor would it redeem him in my eyes.

[Aryxbez]

nor would it redeem him in my eyes.

Eh, fearsomepirate apparently said some stupid crap, doesn't mean he warrants being infinitely hated. Unless he builds a history for that behavior, any and all have chance to be of value in discussion, or diminished based on the merit of their words at that time.


Anyway, I scoffed at this thread feeling it came "full Circle" for Silva to finally admit this. However, I do feel some validity to his concern (assuming he's not shilling products again). The idea of getting excited for the game, and then wanting to take the idea + excitement and translate that in-game is very satisfying thing to do in a RPG. I've often had my excitment squelched by the ruleset holding me back, curbing the excitement by an hour or so into the process. So the idea that RPG's should be easier to make effective characters, fitting to your concept without rules mastery would benefit lot of RPG fans. Problem of course is the slave wages based on word-count, so books explode in page count so they earn something resembling a paycheck.

What Silva may not realize, is that RPG's are rather regressed, and otherwise quite behind on the times. Lot of authors are fatigued wanting a fresher start, creating "rules-lite" games without perhaps fully realizing the why of that. As purpose of that is more so not held down by decades of legacy, and can fit the rules needed to emulate the stories they want to portray in the game. Like I said, paying paradigms are also outdated, and haven't moved to more effective models that'd encourage slimmer page counts for less of a barrier of entry to new players.

[fearsomepirate]

Because it wasn't obvious I was kidding.

Although I do like 4e just fine.

[DSMatticus]

I don't know about Wheel of Fate, but Winds of Fate that has some traction.

It's been awhile, okay? All I remember is that that Ragu guy was a big fan.

[Guyr Adamantine]

Oh, that is definitely going to happen if you hang around here.

So how about that Wheel of Fate, huh?

Also, anyone have any ideas on how to make diplomacy work?

I don't know about Wheel of Fate, but Winds of Fate that has some traction. Much like centaurs on stairs

Hey guys, what's so bad about werewolves having sex with wolves?

[Dogbert]

...or maybe that is the ultimate structure of the Den, with the banning of one Shad comes the rise of another to take their place, the pariah that gives unity to an otherwise argumentative group.

There will always be one:

...and his name will always start with S.

[nockermensch]

Hey guys,

With WotC fucking up edition after edition, I figured we'll have to stick with 3.X / d20 for a D&D that's not horrible. I love that edition, but it's far from perfect. So how about we fix it?

[mean_liar]

In my gamgaming groups I end up reading the rules and telling people how to play, including the GM. The rest of the group reads at their own pace, catches my screwups, and generally gets up to speed about a month later.

That's not ideal, but it works. It does make me wonder how these games would proceed if I wasn't part of the group, but my guess is "just fine".

[Leress]

Hey guys, what's so bad about werewolves having sex with wolves?

Honestly I don't think there is anything wrong with it, in fact it is one a werewolf's sex moves in my conversion of *World called Shit So 90's and Edgy World.

Hey guys,

With WotC fucking up edition after edition, I figured we'll have to stick with 3.X / d20 for a D&D that's not horrible. I love that edition, but it's far from perfect. So how about we fix it?

Well if it had just one problem that would be easy, but 3.X/D20 over a million of them, like hundreds of thousands.

[fearsomepirate]

My serious view of RPGs is that they all suck in different ways. Designing a "good" RPG is an essentially intractable problem from a mathematical point of view. Players want flexibility and simplicity and comprehensiveness and no numerical problems. I don't think you can get all four.

I think at the heart of things, the fans of a given RPG are the people for whom its problems aren't a big deal and for whom its defining characteristics are the large attractions. I admit, I really like 4e. Why? I like it because it's 85% a tactical miniatures game. That makes it easy for me to get new people in my social circle into it. The guys who play it with me are all new to TTRPGs (with one exception), but they've all played complicated board games and card games before. Furthermore, any set of fans will have their own house rules to overcome the problems. I'm quite aware of what sucks about 4e, which is why I've house-ruled most of the suckitude into submission. I could write and have written entire essays on what's wrong with 4e.

The rest of it depends on the GM and players. If your GM is an overbearing butthead, the game will suck even if an angel from heaven delivered a perfect set of rules to you. If one of the players is an implacable rules lawyer, the game will suck. If the players get along well and the GM is entirely willing to bend the rules so that the guy playing the fighter can capture and subdue a dire wolf to be his pet…we're going to have a good time.

The players should have fun. If they're not having fun, figure out why and change that thing. With almost any given game, you can do that without going out and buying a bunch of books for a whole new game.

My Pathfinder hate is almost entirely because Pathfinder players seem to have this burning need to find anyone who plays 4e and lecture them on why Pathfinder is just soooooo fucking awesome. Any game that makes its players that annoying is a game I'm going to love to hate.

[silva]

Nice post, Fearsomepirate.

[mlangsdorf]

But, Dorf, isn't the adult public the main public of tabletop role playing games ?

I don't know, Va, but I wouldn't assume because I'm an adult that most gamers are adults. If I wanted that information, I'd do some kind of marketing survey across the industry.

Jackass.

[RobbyPants]

While this is a thinly veiled bearworld thread, I feel the need to point out that I, an adult in my 30s, enjoy systems and character creation.

Me too. Different games for different people. Let the market sort the rest out.

[Dogbert]

Mirror Fallacy ahoy!

[Neurosis]

Recently I came to the conclusion that I dont have time nor interest in dealing with your average rpg system with hundreds of pages of rules and tables and exceptions etc. Not only my early thirties everyday life makes it difficult to learn and play these kind of games effectively, but my particular preferences have been pending more and more to the exploration of fictional situations and settings rather than dealing with numbers and mathematical mini-games like your typical char creation and combat. (because of this, my introduction to games like Lady Blackbird, Marvel Heroic and Apocalypse World in the last years felt extremely liberating, but this is not the point of the thread).



Yesterday me and my brother were discussing three possible games to play – Eclipse Phase, Tenra Bansho and Star Wars: Edge of the Empire – two of which Ive already played but never GMed and thus was not proficient on the rules. First we did a little brainstorming where we discussed each game premise and setting, and then we pinpointed the one we got more excited (Eclipse Phase) and began to discussing possible exciting situations we would like to see ourselves on. After half an hour of this talk where we got SUPER EXCITED, then came the crucial phrase “Ok, how do we play It ?” and then, as we started flipping the pages for character creation and saw all out excitement disintegrate until we started talking other things and… puff. Another half an hour later we were already talking videogames and politics and football. (we even considered some form of rock-paper-scissor resolution but gave up halfway).



How I wanted the course of our conversation to go was: “Ok, how do we play it ?”, followed by a the book helping us to contextualize super-fast an exciting situation and characters and allow us to play in no more than 5 minutes. This way, we could tap on the things we were discussing a moment ago instead of halting all that excitement and getting down to an hour and a half of a mathematical minutia of “character creation” that not necessarily relate to what we wanted out of the game. In other words, I wanted the response for that “Ok, how do we play it?” to be something like “you tell me! Describe your char and an exciting situation right now!” and then we would got something like “Ok, Im on a dark corridor of a seemingly derelict spaceship… I don’t know what happened and Im feeling sick from the cryosleep I woke up from…” And then we would go on tapping the exact things that got us excited during the brainstorm. Perhaps later, when we get a break, we could define the characters a bit more, adding things like what are good at/bad at or personality traits or something.. but these would come tied to the situations that arose, not as a hard/tackled-on process that do not necessarily relate to what we were talking about moments ago.



I think my point with this thread is this: For me, an early thirties adult, to continue to play RPGs like I did in my teens, I need game “systems” that allow me to start playing in 15 minutes max. I understand there are games out there that attend more or less this premise (like the ones cited above), but the question really is: instead of being an exception (as I suspect they are) shouldn’t these kind of games be the norm by now ? I mean, the population of tabletop roleplayers seems to be formed more of adults than of teenagers (at least that’s what I see in my social circles). Shouldn’t games have adapted by now to this population traits, which includes understanding that they got jobs and families and don’t have the time anymore to waste on long processes that are at most peripheral ? In other words: shouldnt roleplaying games by this time be more about roleplaying than math ? Afterall, this hobby isn’t called “Math-tactics games” but “Role-playing games”.



Right ?



Obs: and before someone asks, I actually like “gamey” aspects like the synergy the arises from powers and classes and tactical options etc. Im all for this kind of thing. I just think this aspect of gaming should be subordinate to the fiction/roleplaying/story/conversation/”active interaction with the shared imagined space” and not take precedence over it. And when I see a system that gives me 1000 (one thousand ! ) points to distribute between a myriad of stats with a different cost each and later introduces me to a pages-long table of different gear each with a discrete cost in a discrete currency etc forcing me to waste at least an hour before the game even begins….. I cant stop but think something went very wrong in the evolution path this hobby undertook.

Oh my goodness. Thank gosh you crossposted this from RPG.net silva. I can't post things like this there because reasons but here on the den I can safely say OH MY GOD SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU UNBELIEVABLE FUCKING [EDITED]. Not every single goddamn game needs to be assworld. Not even most of them. Not even HALF of them.

And why even bother to pretend for a second that this is a recent "revelation" for you when you've been shilling your frothing rules-lite-is-the-one-true-way-bias BULLSHIT here for MONTHS AND MONTHS AND MONTHS.

The next time you feel the need to share one of your "conclusions", please put an entire great white shark inside of your face instead. Bonus points if the shark is both on fire and alive.

Honest question Silva: why do you buy and play games at all? Make Believe costs nothing and supplies everything you say you want, so why are you bothered that many other games are written for people that want more than nothing?

In the meantime, stop shitting up our forum with all your "rules are bad!" bullshit. We like rules here, you don't like rules, there are games for each of us and you don't like our games, so please just fuck off and find a friendly Munchausen forum where they will welcome your ideas with open arms.

Because this is the true face behind every Silva thread on the Den:

L-let's talk about '___ World'~

If Silva wanted to have friendly discussions on RPG's like ___ World then he would be posting on those forums you mentioned, but he doesn't because that's not what he's looking for. Silva is a masochist for verbal humiliation and wanders back to TGD whenever he wants a hot load of rage dumped on his face as he makes this expression: ":drool:"

A lot of folks here on TGD like it 'cause you're free to be more 'sadistic' in replying to others than on most other forums, with the ultimate goal being facilitating honest discussion of game mechanics without being burdened by passive aggressiveness.

Silva is here for the sadism directed at him and nothing else. Whether its starting a new thread with an antagonizing premise, or interjecting himself to an existing thread with an antagonizing reply, everyone immediately drops what they were discussing and proceeds to circle up and gang quote-reply him:

and thus his desires are fulfilled

If you really think he's shitting up the Den, then just hit 'ignore', as otherwise you are just a participant in his perverse desires.

...or maybe that is the ultimate structure of the Den, with the banning of one Shad comes the rise of another to take their place, the pariah that gives unity to an otherwise argumentative group.

You know what fuck it you convinced me. "Don't feed the gimp."

[Mask_De_H]

You know what, Silva has the vaguest hint of a point. RPGs, even so-called rules light games like FATE Core have way the fuck too much stuff in their books. Eclipse Phase is particularly egregious with chargen being a 1000 point nightmare. Shit like that is a hurdle to playing games even for people who aren't storygame shills. I know more words = more money in the check, but it just leads to unnecessary bloat.

One thing that the games he fellates do that should be done more often is providing pregens or faster chargen. Bear World has short lists of powers. Marvel Heroic (only) has pregens. TBZ does a PACKS system to make characters. If you wanna pick up and play, you should have characters that work out the box. The character design minigame shouldn't be excised (this is where Marvel Heroic falls down), but there should be streamlining.

EDIT: And while a Detroit Metal City reference is always a good decision, I think silva's just an idiot who really likes storygames and doesn't understand why we (with few exceptions) don't. You're giving him too much credit as a masochist.

[Leress]

And while a Detroit Metal City reference is always a good decision, I think silva's just an idiot who really likes storygames and doesn't understand why we (with few exceptions) don't.

Here is the thing I like some story games, just not ones with shitty rules.

[Mask_De_H]

And while a Detroit Metal City reference is always a good decision, I think silva's just an idiot who really likes storygames and doesn't understand why we (with few exceptions) don't.

Here is the thing I like some story games, just not ones with shitty rules.

Silva doesn't know any better.

[Soda]

I came to a similar conclusion a while ago. Pausing the game to search a book for one line of text about a spell's range or whatever is no fun. Neither is spending hours copying down all the minor rules your character might need.

I do like the 'gamey' aspect but it wore a little thin when my group was running around with level 12 monks and shit.

In the end, I kind of settled on the Free Universal Roleplaying system mixed with a little of Lady Blackbird. Character creation is organic and action resolution is straightforward.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

If you don't like systems, don't use them. I do plenty of slice-of-life roleplaying in Second Life that would be terrible if you rolled dice. I enjoy it, doesn't make it the One True Way.

Rock-paper-scissors is fine for a PvP LARP. For a game of killing asymmetric monsters and taking their stuff, less so. For Eclipse Phase, there's some things to consider. This being a game a game where an uplifted dolphin, a bodiless AI, and a rock star all have the potential to contribute to a PvE party effort. Now, if they come across a challenge that calls for a cetacean feat of swimming, you don't want Captain Hobo chiming in saying, "Well, I got these cyberlungs in 'Nam, and I got strong swimming limbs from dumpster diving, and I can store an extra lungful of air inside my empty growler," and then winning a game of RPS when the dolphin complains. Rules don't have to be an accurate reality simulator, but they DO need to be better than make believe.

[fectin]

You know what, Silva has the vaguest hint of a point. RPGs, even so-called rules light games like FATE Core have way the fuck too much stuff in their books. Eclipse Phase is particularly egregious with chargen being a 1000 point nightmare. Shit like that is a hurdle to playing games even for people who aren't storygame shills. I know more words = more money in the check, but it just leads to unnecessary bloat.

That's an argument about system quality, not about whether you should have systems.
For comparison: you can easily say that some laws are poorly written without supporting anarchy.

The rest of it depends on the GM and players. If your GM is an overbearing butthead, the game will suck even if an angel from heaven delivered a perfect set of rules to you. If one of the players is an implacable rules lawyer, the game will suck. If the players get along well and the GM is entirely willing to bend the rules so that the guy playing the fighter can capture and subdue a dire wolf to be his pet…we're going to have a good time.

The same argument says that wearing a seatbelt is stupid. After all, if you just don't crash, you won't need one. Besides, even if you do crash, some crashes so bad that it makes no difference. Obviously seatbelts are pointless.

[Dogbert]

RPG is an essentially intractable problem from a mathematical point of view. Players want flexibility and simplicity and comprehensiveness and no numerical problems. I don't think you can get all four.

In fearsomepirate's world, we all use Windows 95, 1st generation antibiotics, baby-killing airbags, and cellphones that explode in our pockets. After all, why bothering in improving until we finally get things right? Why even trying when eeeeeeeeeeeeeeveryone knows that methods will aaaaaaaaaalways be wrong because parts of it are wrong?

Really, fuck Composition Fallacies.

[Zaranthan]

It seems some people haven't gotten the memo. Don't talk to silva.

[Mistborn]

It seems some people haven't gotten the memo. Don't talk to silva.

In other words