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Post by Kainguru on Apr 8, 2016 0:26:27 GMT -8
The ICE fluff supplements were fabulous. I loved the detailed maps they included, especially of buildings and fortresses - notably those not built by Men, they had an otherness to their design that was both sensible and believable. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 7, 2016 23:48:43 GMT -8
Ah fuck it, I'm blocking him. Tis the way of the Jedi: "There is no emotion there is only peace" Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 7, 2016 23:47:02 GMT -8
Back to RoleMaster - my one dalliance with it was ruined by the GM who introduced it, long story but it ceased being fun. However, initially I rather enjoyed it, until the GM fuckery soured the experience. Character gen was labour intensive, but no more than GURPS or HERO or PATHFINDER (with ALL the splat books). Yes it had lots of tables, but they were narrative in similar manner to FFG's STAR WARS critical hit tables and its advantage/threat spending matrix - similar in concept if not in actual execution - the thing being that the charts are very very narrative. I grabbed a copy of MERP off the eBays - as a paired down RoleMaster I found it to be rather elegant, in its own way. Bit short on fluff but then if you're playing MERP you know exactly what you are getting into and there is a veritable encyclopaedia of Tolkien fluff out there to source for inspiration. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 7, 2016 22:47:34 GMT -8
I never said those people are shit. I said the system was. I eat Taco Bell occasionally (and usually regret it within the hour). Eat crap all you want to, as long as you know it's crap. So who made you the ultimate authority to pass judgement? The difference is one of being subjective vs objective - if you can make an objective observation that positively contributes to a discussion, great. If all you have to offer are negative subjective opinions then shut the fuck up or fuck the fuck off. We get it: YOU don't like DnD, YOU don't think it's a good system, YOU think we should all prefer a certain style of play, YOU think people who play a different style of game are somehow less than YOU. You know what? I couldn't give a creamy monkey toss on the windscreen what YOU think if that's all you have to contribute. YOU think too much of your own opinion and lack the maturity to differentiate between your beliefs and being able to understand and tolerate the beliefs of others or reasonably enter in a discourse about those differences. By reasonable I mean approaching in the Socratian manner - being that in which both sides can learn from the other. YOU don't get to come around to my house and tell my friends how they should be having fun or what they should like or dislike - don't accept it from manipulative media moguls like Murdoch so certainly won't accept it from an arrogant self opinionated little twat Aaron (and now to hit 'BLOCK')
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 7, 2016 12:23:22 GMT -8
Lots of people love D&D, and that is a steaming pile of dog shit. Love doesn't have anything to do with bad design. I have never read rolemaster, so I won't comment on its quality. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 7, 2016 5:22:26 GMT -8
But the implication was that DriveThru indicated some sort of evidence for your original contention. We call that sort of evidence anecdotal, representative of nothing - in research such evidence is never submitted and only ever used to indicate a possible need for potential investigation/research. As an indictator of PDF's you would have to assess what percentage of the population your sample represents before extrapolating from it. Plus you would have to account for confounding variables - such as older games may have sold more units, but having been sold are no longer represented in a such rough and ready measure; also what of those games with licensing issues that prevent PDF distribution that are not measured, buy their absence, but may, in terms of representing the play habits of the population of TRPG players, be dominant as a proportion of both market share and actual, on the table, play. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 7, 2016 4:12:00 GMT -8
Sorry mate but your original contention was that PDF's were easy to produce - specifically, that in producing a PDF for game is so easy, including a 'beginners guide' would not be an obstacle citing not having to print the product as a physical book as part of your rationale in 'it being easy'. But you have misunderstood the reference to creating links - it's referring to hyper linking within a PDF not creating a store link: the wonderful Pathfinder Core PDF is an example of this, you clink on a reference to another page and you are taken to that page or you click on the word in the index and it takes you the reference. This is an example of the potential power and utility of a PDF, created to overcome their drawbacks compared to a physical book, that are incredibly labour intensive. Further DriveThru is a single store and represents one medium for the sale of games - it isn't a comprehensive indicator of what people are playing. That's a bit like limiting your Music Charts to iTunes downloads only and ignoring in store purchases or Spotify. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 7, 2016 1:47:47 GMT -8
Don't forget the straw man, the ORIGINAL contention was that PDF's are quick and easy to produce. Shifting goal posts isn't a legitimate response in rhetorical discourse. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 7, 2016 1:10:18 GMT -8
It takes an age to do it well, adding in all the links for example. It takes an age to do it... ONCE! After that it is as easy as copy paste. There are issues with book piracy because it is so insanely easy. I'm sure that watermarking the books is an automated process, so even that is trivial. Once your product is made it is insanely easier to distribute digitally than make books and get them to stores, which was my point. As someone who has trod the dark waters of the Internet - book piracy is common, aside from PDF's. The fact is that it is quicker and easier to scan and pirate a book compared to removing the DRM hidden in PDF's. All the FFG Star Wars Books are out there and they're not Digital, often within a week of release. Yes I download them, see if I want to buy it and then order the book from Amazon - I'm not condoning piracy but lacking a local FLGS with hours of operation convenient to my work means I can't look before I buy - this way I can. I don't like the book I hit delete and don't buy it Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 5, 2016 14:02:52 GMT -8
As somebody trying to learn even the basics of layout I've got to agree, especially when I'm limited to 20-30 minute chunks on the train. Now imagine doing that on a large scale... I was primarily focused on ebooks and I would average only a couple of titles a week.... Although, in the interest of complete honesty, I was coding four versions of each title, so.... Basically the original argument proposed on this thread was flawed in another of it's underlying assumptions . . . to list so far: 1) Hasbro sustains the hobby thru it's ability to invest enough to maintain it's commercially viable existence 2) PBtA games are too niche to achieve market dominance 3) Many games have introductory rules and/or beginner sets, but the responsibility for bringing new players into the hobby is best served by those in the best position to introduce the hobby: that being the hobbyists themselves rather than the publishers (which is true of many hobby's that require a degree of skill/knowledge to engage with) 4) Going straight to PDF is not a short cut to reducing development or publication time or costs. 5) Independent game developers/publishers need to eat and without some sort of reasonable sponsorship the choice between writing a killer RPG and starvation is usually pretty moot. 6) The playing field for competition in the market is not inherently equal 7) The hobby has matured and probably peaked until another major player risks investing in it's promotion and development - like WoTC (under Hasbro) did with the original D20 OGL, a move that unexpectedly cost WoTC more market share than it intended. TL:DR - reality bites Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 4, 2016 8:12:02 GMT -8
There are a lot of really good, open sourced versions of all the software you need. Totally off-topic, but can you recommend an open-source form-fillable creator. My Mac's system gives me most of the PDF creation goodness I need, but I'd love to make some custom character sheets. I'll second that one, or an open source code that I can compile for my old Surface RT (jail broke the app restriction by enabling developer mode but still need to compile said apps for it's ARM processor) Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 4, 2016 6:44:55 GMT -8
And using the metric of cons getting "bigger and bigger every year" is flawed I think. In this country I don't think either Dragonmeet or UK Games Expo are as large as Games Day used to be back in the eighties. And much of the growth in many smaller cons is through board-games, with space allocated to RPGs actually decreasing. Some are bigger, but the RPG element is smaller . . . which is a shame . . . Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 4, 2016 6:41:29 GMT -8
If D&D somehow magically disappeared, people would find another gateway into the hobby; whatever was most visible and most accessible. cue: Pathfinder . . . Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 4, 2016 6:36:50 GMT -8
When you buy something from drivethrurpg, how long does it take to make that individual digital product? Basicly none. Very little resources are expended selling PDFs as opposed to physical books, dice, etc. To quote HyveMynd: uhhh, sorry, what? Even Stu Venable will attest to the trials and tribulations of making a pdf . . . beyond just the written rules. Layout, art, editing, proof reading . . . the printing part of book is easy, the hard part is making it ready for print. My Uncle was a print maker, before he changed direction, but he's explained exactly what goes into layout a page: it a learnt skill and time consuming. Another friend of mine used to a layout artist for magazines . . . her job was highly paid and time intensive and represented the bulk of the print time cause once those pages hit the printer it happens pretty quick. A PDF may cut the physical print time but the lead time, from development to being ready to print, remains unchanged. Besides you also need to legally OWN the PDF authoring software and a commercial license isn't cheap (like all adobe products) . . . using PDF authoring software (and associated layout software) is also a learnt skill that commands a decent return for the employee contracted. Look at kickstarter . . . there are so many products on there that need crowd funding just to produce, or finish, the PDF's because it's not cheap and it takes time. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 4, 2016 2:12:18 GMT -8
Because the business model is to get new people in to buy the product . . . not just people already committed to buy more. The later was the model that TSR followed in it's final years, get the established gamer's to simply buy more. The colossus that was TSR folded as result, very quickly and very dramatically. Yet 5 years before it started to fold it was, a company, huge . . . several companies repeatedly tried to buy out TSR but they couldn't because it was so big and so successful in its own right. But fold TSR did . . . just making more money, without considering the complexities of a niche market, isn't enough. Aaron Umm, you still haven't really stated that the beginners boxes failed with newbies. Other people bought it, but unless they are selling it at a loss, that should not be an issue. In addition, every player was a newbie to that system (other than the warhammer fantasy 3rd guys). Knowing how to play D&D doesn't prepare you for dealing with the dice rolling in FFGs Star Wars. either way, I'm not advocating a beginner box, but a book with a teaching section and a straight crunch section. Because you are over simplifying the solution . . . it has been done, is being done but the hobby still fails to achieve the heights of it's hey day. Additionally the only companies in a position to adopt these practices are ones with resources to employ full time staff to manufacture the product - like Hasbro. Many, many games have a beginners section and a 'quick-start' rules but your original contention, as evidenced by the several respondents above, is flawed. Like it or not Hasbro is a necessary evil, made worse by it's strangulation of WoTC through restricting it's resources in it's RPG arm. But without Hasbro there would be no WoTC, period. Now, looking at things objectively, and not through the lenses of personal bias, to make RPG's mainstream (again) you need an identifiable brand, like DnD. It's like people referring to acrylic as perspex by default, or disprin (which is just asprin), or Panadol (which is paracetamol): brands sell . . . FFG's Star Wars sells because it's Star Wars not because of it's narrative dice mechanic. DnD sells because it's a known brand for RPG's. As a side note FFG is pissing off a lot people because the demand for Star Wars has out stripped it's ability to supply. The company isn't big enough. I understand and remain tolerant but I've had my adversary decks on order since December and they still haven't resupplied the UK . . . because not enough stock. How many UK newbies have abandoned the hobby before they've even tried it simply because they can't get the books . . . Aaron
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