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Post by stork on Sept 22, 2012 6:50:40 GMT -8
What was the name of that minis game that uses playing cards as the randomizer again?! WANT to play! www.malifaux.com/
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2012 0:29:24 GMT -8
One quick note:
In GURPS, the rule of 20 says that you can not default skills off of an attribute score >20. It is always just 20. So, your defaults would be 13 to 15... even if you have IQ 30.
Cheers
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Post by Todd on Oct 3, 2012 14:11:52 GMT -8
The game Stork was mentioning is not bastion - its Beacon. beacond20.blogspot.comFree d20 compatible light fantasy.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Oct 11, 2012 23:14:37 GMT -8
These can be assumptions that players bring to the game; and how they have come to understand RPGs regardless of game. All these problems and challenges at the table really arise from no comprehensive definition of what is a role-playing game. At the 9-minute point of this video, the argument presents evidence that computer RPGs do not have the element of role-playing within it; eventually coming to the same conclusion as I about computer role-playing compatibility and role-playing (period) at 10:22. So player expectations on the "system" (I would call individual game) and the SysOp (best defined as an administrator but very loosely based on the term in our language of RPGs here as GM) can be very different due to the frame of reference players bring to the System/SysOp/GM of an RPG. Maybe we need a definition for RPGs (and I refer to "tabletop" because the words "role-playing game" matter and a can of water is not a beer) that separate it from computer terminology to adjust the expectation of players coming to the hobby. (There are allot of computer terms in tabletop RPGs when you think about it, which may be confusing.) Much is expected on the GM. That much is clear and heavily emphasized in published guidebooks-cum-rulebooks. But the only expectation put onto players, and one nowhere near as widely published or emphasized, is do not be an asshole - though, keep in mind, a GM should accommodate everyone's play style and an asshole is a relative term when someone replies: I am just role-playing my character! But "playing your character" behind a computer monitor with a passive game that operates regardless to player agency does not translate to the RPG experience - either as a potential player or budding GM. Thus computer games have no stronger a claim on the moniker RPG than the claim of validity a neighbourhood thug has to the 5th century Germanic tribe that sacked Rome.
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jimto
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Post by jimto on Oct 12, 2012 10:20:05 GMT -8
But "playing your character" behind a computer monitor with a passive game that operates regardless to player agency does not translate to the RPG experience - either as a potential player or budding GM. Disagree. There have been many times where I was playing a character in a video game and I was fully absorbed in the character. I am literally seeing what they see, hearing what they hear. I'm not saying either is easier or better, but that both have merit. And as far as "a passive game that operates regardless to player agency" goes, video game RPGs and table tops RPGS are exactly the same in one respect: The more you put into them, the more you get out of them. Thus computer games have no stronger a claim on the moniker RPG than the claim of validity a neighbourhood thug has to the 5th century Germanic tribe that sacked Rome. Why does this matter?
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Oct 13, 2012 0:25:53 GMT -8
But "playing your character" behind a computer monitor with a passive game that operates regardless to player agency does not translate to the RPG experience - either as a potential player or budding GM. Disagree. There have been many times where I was playing a character in a video game and I was fully absorbed in the character. I am literally seeing what they see, hearing what they hear. I'm not saying either is easier or better, but that both have merit. And as far as "a passive game that operates regardless to player agency" goes, video game RPGs and table tops RPGS are exactly the same in one respect: The more you put into them, the more you get out of them. Well, you can Skyrim me a river all you want; but the river flows only the direction the programmer programed it. Thus computer games have no stronger a claim on the moniker RPG than the claim of validity a neighbourhood thug has to the 5th century Germanic tribe that sacked Rome. Why does this matter? Because words matter, jimto. Borrowing jargon from one set pattern of thinking (or industry) to use in another paradigm (or industry) frames discussions and the understanding from those discussions. I call it manipulation - like product placement but much more subtle. Things get taken for granted that should be questioned - like a Jedi mind trick.
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Post by henryhankovitch on Oct 15, 2012 15:15:12 GMT -8
In electronic games, "RPG" really just refers to the mechanical device of using mutable skill rankings plus randomized rolls to determine the success or failure of an action. As opposed to basing success/failure on the physical accuracy of controller input (action games) or the spatial arrangement of game elements (strategy). You can dislike that fact if you want, but it's effectively the industry-wide definition.
Trying to define video RPGs by relating them to actual role-playing simply will not work. Video-game RPGs that make allowances for role-playing are nice, but it's not necessary or even commonplace in the actual genre.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Oct 18, 2012 14:03:23 GMT -8
Trying to define video RPGs by relating them to actual role-playing simply will not work. Video-game RPGs that make allowances for role-playing are nice, but it's not necessary or even commonplace in the actual genre. Well said. Terminology from one industry, while often efficient shorthand, does not necessarily translate effectively.
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jimto
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Post by jimto on Oct 19, 2012 11:50:50 GMT -8
Well, you can Skyrim me a river all you want; but the river flows only the direction the programmer programed it. True, but I don't see how a pre-programmed river on my screen is less evocative than poorly written box text or a GM with poor narration. Also, you know the river is programmed to flow that way, you know there are constraints imposed by the medium. Those same constraints exist in a table top RPG, you probably just aren't aware of them since they are only known (and sometimes changed) by the GM. The medium is irrelevant. What it evokes from you as a person, as a player is what matters. I would hardly ever consider one inferior to the other. True. But understanding, and making people understand through words means, for the most part, a lot more than the meaning of an individual word. You can call it manipulation, but that doesn't make it so. As it relates to video game RPGs and table top RPGs, I would say 99.9% of the people I've ever heard have this discussion really just don't give a shit.
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