nikolokolus
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Posts posted by nikolokolus
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Well, I got the PDF versions of my Numenera books (Core Book & Players Guide). I'll get my physical Numenera Core Book in about 2 weeks. I guess I have a lot of reading to do.
/rubs hands together
The Player's Guide is pretty nice so far. I wasn't quite ready to spring for the full (dead tree) guidebook at $60 bucks, but I'm considering it now.
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If people are interested in pulp fantasy and Sword and Sorcery types of settings (Conan's Hyperborea, etc.) this one looks kind of interesting and the guys working on it have quite a bit of experience in the industry.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/809579963/primeval-thule
Just 35 hours to go.
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It's just a little thing for a pretty niche game, but there's a very cool smartphone app for Dungeon Crawl Classics offered here http://purplesorcerer.com/tools.htm that was funded by a kickstarter and they have a couple of electronic character generators for that game at the same link.
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After a somewhat long layoff from tabletop gaming, I started to get that itch to play again after I stumbled on to a lot of OSR (Old-school Revival) blogs and material sort of by accident. After diving in, man I've really want to put together a game of weird fantasy, free booting and swords and sorcery (basically gaming based on a mishmash of influences including: Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Jack Vance, Fritz Lieber and Micheal Moorc o ck's books). Not to disparage anyone who likes WotC's vision of D&D, but the OSR stuff has been so compelling not just because 3.x D&D (and especially 4e) finally wore me out and sort of sucked the fun out tabletop gaming for me a few years back (especially as the rules became more battle-mat focused and bogged down with "video-gamey" elements) but my best gaming memories are still of that old red box and playing Keep on the Borderlands with all of the weird Erol Otus and Russ Nicholson art that always got my creative juices flowing.
So on a whim I busted out my old Basic D&D Cyclopedia and 1st ed. AD&D stuff from boxes and I even strolled over to DriverthruRPG to pick up some retro clone stuff like Dungeon Crawl Classics and I've started to rebuild my old home-brew world from memory and I'm feeling pretty inspired; writing a lot of good material, developing some good hooks, but alas no one that I know seems the least bit interested in playing something that isn't 4e or Pathfinder.
So has anybody else been bitten by the OSR bug or played an old or retro-clone game recently and has any experiences or advice they'd like to share?
Edit: Apparently the author the Elric, Corum, Oswald Bastable and Von Bek novels doesn't pass the swear filter?
Apologies if you've been about and I just haven't seen you. Welcome.
Yes, we've spent about the last eight months running a 1988 edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WHFRP) campaign. My top three observations are as follows:
1) The world building source material is often comparatively weak. I don't mean sparse and undeveloped. I mean weak.
2) To circumvent this I set the campaign outside the given core world and used inspirational material - historical, Captain Alatriste, When Gravity Fails, A Thousand and One Arabian Nights.
3) I found the game mechanics a little underdeveloped. But they avoid the sin of being too comprehensive and or too simple.
Awesome. I never really got a chance to play WHFRP, but I loved Gamesworkshop's magazine and the artwork surrounding the game always inspired the hell out of me. As for source material and world building, I've always been more of a build my own kind of guy, because frankly I've always been terrible at keeping somebody else's creative intricacies straight in my head and I loathe when some players will try to override some ruling by quoting chapter and verse about some published game-world that they've clearly spent hundreds of hours memorizing *shakes fist at Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance*
EDIT:
And no, I haven't really been around much on this sub-forum at all. Just a little bit of light lurking.
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So has anybody else been bitten by the OSR bug or played an old or retro-clone game recently and has any experiences or advice they'd like to share?
My advice: read the Hack & Slash blog. It has some amazing materials and GMing advice.
Thanks, I'll check that out.
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After a somewhat long layoff from tabletop gaming, I started to get that itch to play again after I stumbled on to a lot of OSR (Old-school Revival) blogs and material sort of by accident. After diving in, man I've really want to put together a game of weird fantasy, free booting and swords and sorcery (basically gaming based on a mishmash of influences including: Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Jack Vance, Fritz Lieber and Micheal Moorc o ck's books). Not to disparage anyone who likes WotC's vision of D&D, but the OSR stuff has been so compelling not just because 3.x D&D (and especially 4e) finally wore me out and sort of sucked the fun out tabletop gaming for me a few years back (especially as the rules became more battle-mat focused and bogged down with "video-gamey" elements) but my best gaming memories are still of that old red box and playing Keep on the Borderlands with all of the weird Erol Otus and Russ Nicholson art that always got my creative juices flowing.
So on a whim I busted out my old Basic D&D Cyclopedia and 1st ed. AD&D stuff from boxes and I even strolled over to DriverthruRPG to pick up some retro clone stuff like Dungeon Crawl Classics and I've started to rebuild my old home-brew world from memory and I'm feeling pretty inspired; writing a lot of good material, developing some good hooks, but alas no one that I know seems the least bit interested in playing something that isn't 4e or Pathfinder.
So has anybody else been bitten by the OSR bug or played an old or retro-clone game recently and has any experiences or advice they'd like to share?
Edit: Apparently the author the Elric, Corum, Oswald Bastable and Von Bek novels doesn't pass the swear filter?
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I usually play most games on "normal" my first time through, just because I'm always curious to see how the game was designed to be played. The only exception to this is that I will probably turn on "expert" mode, just because I like friendly fire and some of the other considerations that this will (hopefully) add to the game.
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If it's a PnP game I've always gravitated to games with "flatter" power curves. Original D&D or low magic AD&D campaigns where no matter how high a level you are, nobody is immune to a string of unlucky dice rolls in a combat or some clever tactical maneuvering. As some others have pointed out, it mostly comes down to equipment and the kinds of bonuses and advantages that magical or high quality loot confers. Hopefully PE will adopt a an old(er) school approach to character power.
In short, I want to play a Greek hero, not a Greek demigod.
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If they want to shoot for realism in greetings, 90% of the people you encounter should either grunt, barely nod their head, give a closed mouth non-smile, look down at the ground or pretend to look up at the sun to see what time of day it is. The other 10% should either be grifters trying to shake you down for loose change or the local constabulary telling you that they don't much like vagrants in their sleepy little town.
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OK, I just slogged through this whole thing and all I came away with is that D&D has REALLY become deeply ingrained in peoples' imagination when it comes to conceptualizing character statistics and abilities in an RPG.
I freely admit I'm not sure I get how everything will work and just what the character framework is all about, but there's really nothing to judge until we get to see how the game responds to our choices and character builds.
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Sure tool-tips are great and in-game presentation of mechanics is important, but If an RPG is so simple that it doesn't require a manual for reference, then in my opinion the developers haven't made a proper RPG.
I'm not saying it needs to be 200 pages long and insanely convoluted, but there should be enough "crunch" in the game that I need to do some light reading if I want to get an idea of how to plan out a character's progression ... especially for a franchise that appears to have tabletop gaming aspirations.
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I get the feeling there is some kind of language barrier here. This term is not derogatory, it's not insulting, it's a bit of joke.
On the other hand, if you are a native English speaker and are offended by the title, maybe they can just change it to "prat?"
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Dungeon Siege III was very light in the bugginess department ... I didn't particularly enjoy it, but it didn't crash and it didn't glitch.
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I don't really see the need for multiple starting locations, because A) that would probably take a good amount of development funds and B) At some point very soon after the game starts, we all know we're going to end up at the fulcrum where the "Big Event" TM takes place.
However, I do think that having the world react to variables like cultural and personality traits as you progress through the game is a good way to make backgrounds feel meaningful.
If you are making a game that allows for a wide variety of character archetypes and designs one the worst things a developer can do is create a very detailed and scripted starting narrative like the ones that were in NWN2 or Dragon Age: Origins; at that point the range of plausible characters (or personality types) becomes very narrow and the designer is imposing control over my character concept.
In short:
The game giving you general background traits that it can react to in a meaningful way = good
The game deciding your character's backstory and/or imposing a narrative on your character before the game even begins = not so good.
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Assuming each class covers an archetype and within that archetype there is some latitude to mix and match a variety of skills so each character can be a little bit unique then I don't see the need for multi-classing or kits.
Then again my idea of a good time is Castles and Crusades and Dungeon Crawl Classics PnP systems, so I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask.
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I can see it now, the combo sword-baldric-child-carrier. Maybe the littler piker could toss vials of holy water at the zombies hot on your tail?
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Every true role-player knows that there is no such thing as good and evil, only Law, Neutrality and Chaos.
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The only thing that might make any sense is knocking up a bar wench and making sure that your barbarian ensures his bloodline. But what if the player wants to play a female character or romance a female party member? Are you going to take nine months off from saving the world to ensure a live birth? So in this case I take it you abandon the little tot at the nearest monastery or nunnery at the first chance, so you can get back to hacking and chopping your way across the world, facing untold horrors, delving into the darkness of Od Nua and spitting in Death's eye? That's some grade A parenting right there.
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I'd love to see the look on some of your faces if you were a player in my Castles and Crusades PnP game and a rust monster wandered across your character's path in a cavern.
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I hope you guys realize update frequency isn't directly correlated with how well a project is managed.
Yeah, I definitely see people conflating or confusing PR/community management and budgetary management
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I sort of like durability mechanics in games, because it gives me another thing to track and manage as I progress through them, but I don't think it's pivotal to my enjoyment of an RPG. I read Sawyer's reasoning for why it was removed and I'm satisfied with his explanation.
Just so long as I have interesting environments to explore, difficult decisions to make and engaging combat to "engage" in, then all of these controversies are going to fade into the black and I'll scarcely remember that they ever existed.
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Groo is still use pasty, sissy paladin surcoat for wiping bum after making toilet.
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PLEASE READ!!! THANK YOU!!!
)I have been keeping an eye on this game for a while now. I believe I have read all the updates. I don't really post that much, because when things are in this stage critiquing is really not as important as it is right about now.
) Great Job so far! I love the lay out I love the art and what the world is shaping up to be. Here is what I would like to add just my two cents:*snip*
There you go Obsidian my two cents; do with this info what you will...
) Thank you for reading and taking time to just brainstorm with me. Appreciate you all!That's "two cents?" Sorry, but two cents won't buy you two actual cents these days.
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I have to say I think my view point has shifted a bit after coming back to this months later. In a PnP game, where insta-kill spells don't prevent the game from continuing (even with a TPK you just roll up new characters and carry on) I'm all for them ... and I've used a power word kill more than once to great effect against my players and as a player myself. In a single player CRPG with save and reload I do see how the mechanic can be kind of pointless.
That doesn't mean I want the insta-death spells taken out exactly, but I can see the argument that such spells and effects encourage save scumming and "degenerate" play.
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Update #61: In-game Art
in Pillars of Eternity: Announcements & News
Posted
Everybody is going to have subtle differences in taste when it comes to lighting, brightness, saturation and art style, so all I can say is that it suits my tastes just about perfectly. It looks like the kind of game I don't mind spending a hundred hours or so staring at it. Kudos.