VagrantWhisper's page

Cubicle 7 has unfortunately faced a variety of logistical issues this year that have delayed the products, as you say. Having said that though, once they arrive, I personally find them to be absolutely stellar. They just have such a nice feeling to them with the design elements, color palette and art.

Mirkwood was a wonderful read, so far I'm really enjoying reading through Darkening of Mirkwood as well. The adventure design may be a bit ... intimidating ... for those who are more used to a structured scene by scene design, such as those from Paizo's APs and modules, but I quite enjoy it.

I've also picked up a copy of Hobbit Tales, but have not had a chance to look too deeply into how it integrates with the hazard mechanics of the main system.

Victoria (as a resident for 15 years) is a bit of an odd fish for gaming, but it's picking up substantially in the last few years. Curious Comics and Interactivity Games have both opened public gaming areas, but they tend to focus on wargames and board games, respectively. Still, it's worth popping in to get a lay of the land, many of the gamers do a bit of everything, and there may be some looking for group posting.

Most of the public RPG groups were heavily populated by university students since UVIC was the central destination of The Victoria Gamers Society and The Victoria Gamers Meetup group (who meet at QVs now for boardgames) as well. This tended to drive the private groups ... to feel more private, since the population of the public groups rotates so frequently. You know how it is too, the whole bringing strangers into your home thing, and all.

Curious Comics, if you're in Victoria proper should be your first stop. They have a PFS schedule, but I'm not sure about its meeting location anymore. I believe it's still in the West Shore store.

If you're closer to the West Shore, then I suggest Everything Games. Alongside wargaming of all stripes, they too have a PFS event schedule (Last one ran June 15th).

Skyhaven Games tends to be more geared towards supporting CCGs, but the staff generally play a bit of everything, or know people who are. (One of their staff was a member of my group for a while).

Also, don't miss GottaCon when it comes up again next, they have a pretty robust RPG schedule, and a local Con is a great way to put a looking for group.

I'll keep this thread in mind as well, my group is going through something of reboot/hiatus while things like pregnancies, new jobs, summer, etc., sort themselves out and inevitably this means vacancies looking to be filled. We tend to focus on the APs and Modules, with palate cleanser games popping up every once in a while (L5R, Star Wars, 40K RPG, etc.). We're all professionals, mid-late-30's, clean living, mature adults with responsibilities who expect the same from everyone we game with.

That said, my bank (one of those very few nationals I mentioned) has also wrangled a deal with Visa such that my debit card is now also a Visa debit credit card. That is to say, when in Americaland, I can now actually use my card as I am accustomed to, via the Visa system.

Until you hit any one of the bajillion gas stations that need a zip code to pay at the pump ... you can try the "just use the numbers in the postal code + 00" on some and it works, but I find whenever I do the West Coast run (Vancouver to Seattle and as far as San Diego) no matter what it says on the card, I end up at the teller explaining that I'm not from around there :)

Having picked up the Gygax donation set of 3 AD&D books, I'm really excited about this one.

Frankly I don't care if I never play it again. It's owning a really nice version of a piece of history, at a fraction of the price for the originals.

While it is pricy, I think a lot of people will underestimate the price of nostalgia. The vintage Milenium Falcon released recently at Toys R Us is $250 retail...

How do you guys minimise the impact of the cost the hobby. What are your tips?

I'm something of an 'alpha' gamer, blessed with a career that gives me an idiotic level of disposable income, and a collector/completionist. A trifecta of compulsive capability that companies with lots of product throughput thrive on.

In two parts to answering the first question:

Managing acquisitions:
- As much as possible, I try use to the "Cody Jones Theory of Gaming". Essentially, the idea being that a gamer should only have any one type of game; whether that is based on theme, mechanics, or some other attribute, and that a gamer is always culling their collection to get to the cream of their crop. In general the idea is that good games get to the table more often, and that games that basically do the same thing aren't just taking up space. Pathfinder, as an example, is my Fantasy RPG.

- I have a wish/watch list and something has to be on the list before it gets bought (see managing acquistions.) this helps me avoid compulsive buys. It also helps me focus on acquisitions I think I'll actually enjoy or take advantage of.

- I try to avoid being a member of the "Cult of the New". Playing something later doesn't make it less enjoyable.

- I try to focus on properties I enjoy, that offer me opportunities in multiple mediums - for instance I can enjoy Warhammer 40K in a novel, in various board games, as a wargame, as a videogame

Affording said acquisitions:
- Services that offer discounts, like Paizo. I leverage the discount for purchases wherever possible, and the PDFs are a phenomenal advantage.

- ebay and especially NobleKnight for the hard to find.

- I watch for things like free shipping offers, as quite often into Canada shipping can exceed the price of the goods.

What do you see the game table looking like 5 years from now?

I've noticed something interesting in the last couple of years, at least in my personal circle of friends. Everyone seems to be coming back to gaming around a table. The people around me are dropping out of the MMO scene, and leaving their XBox's behind. They're all asking for game nights. They're all jonesing to get back into gaming like the 'old days'. They all want that viceral feeling when you're throwing down dice and moving miniatures, while throwing back a few beers with friends, that the digital era is leaving behind. They want to hear and see their friends and opponents.

They're also mostly parents now, looking to pass on the original feeling to their kids the first time we all experienced our first D&D session, or found out that boardgames weren't just Monopoly and Clue.

So honestly, I think we're going to see a return analog gaming, but with technical advantages. I think we'll see more tablet character sheets, and pdfs for books. I think we'll see more games played with overhead projected maps, or surface level big screens laying on a table top attached to laptops. I think we're going to see virtual table tops integrated into sessions where people can play local or remote.

I think we're entering a Golden Age of gaming where the physical and the virtual will happilly marry and give birth to awesome gaming goodness.

While I agree with you VagrantWhisper, that it *can* be costly to play wargames, I will always stand by the fact that the high cost is a choice not a requirement. I have played Warhammer with paper minis that cost me less for a whole army then one commander figure cost my friend. We had a blast and my cost in was not even close to his.

Same goes for the other games you listed. We, as gamers, often make it sound as f we have no choice. But we do. No one forces us to buy all the costly books and support stuff. There are options out there for the gamer on a budget. :-)

I agree completely - I probably should have prefaced with the fact that most miniature wargames are expensive because of venue and "community".

By this I mean, officially sanctioned events, clubs or store venues generally have a minimum percentage requirement of models or terrain to be from the manufacturer - ie., Flames of War has a 50% models must be Battlefront at official events. Games Workshop and Privateer Press, generally doesn't allow proxying at official events, but like most things it depends. If you're a beer and pretzels garage gamer, then complaining about the high cost of wargaming is generally a personal problem.

Having said that though, I think the more appropriate point that I think we both agree on is that most hobbies, wargaming included, are as expensive as you want them to be.

I play Battlefleet Gothic with paper tokens, a black sheet, rocks from the garden and cotton balls ;)

** As an aside, I'm also a believer that when you break down the "Total Hobby" of wargaming; ie., painting, modelling, gaming, socializing, etc., the cost per hour, even for an expensive game, is actually really low. Much the same as an RPG, a $40 book can go a long, long way.

People who play Warhammer and complain about being poor . . . The W.H. bit just explained why they have money problems.

This one always rubs me wrong - "Miniature Wargaming" in general is/can be expensive, period.

GW prices are certainly premimum, and in general, have one of the highest starts costs - BUT, once you factor in paints, tools, terrain (and the costs of materials to manufacter it), storage, army flexibility and options, gaming space, and travel if you need to get to a club or store and especially if you're playing competitively and the costs add up quickly - and they stay there.

Several of the regular top tier podcasts and blogs have done startup and extended play cost breakdowns across several games like Warhammer/40K, Infinity, Flames of War, Malifaux, Warmachine/Hordes, Dystopian Wars, etc., and in the end they are all "expensive".

As the size of many of these games creep up towards army scale, they are rapidly approaching parity with paying for GW Games.

As it seems appropo for this topic, I can also tell you that (as a superscriber) several times a year, my monthly Paizo RPG costs exceed my monthly 40K and Flames of War costs. In that regard, I could say that anyone that is a superscriber has explained their money problems ;)

Whenever I hear that "X hobby is expensive" I'm always inclined to think of three things:
1) This is that person's only hobby investment, and so they don't have an appreciation for the costs of other hobbies.

2) This is only one of a few, or several, hobbies that that person enjoys and when all things are considered, the feel of the cost of the hobby over time is directly proportional to that person's time or interest (or any other metric) in it relative to their other hobbies.

3) They are somewhere in the middle but have begun to recognize the cost of their hobbies relative to the fact that it's just plain more expensive to live, period. They are starting down a path of having to make 'hard choices' about what they can sustain in their financial situation and it's always easier to place the onus for one's inability to continue investing in something on the company responsible for it.

Warhammer Fantasy 2nd Edition, and FFG's 40K games. Love gritty percentile based systems, and an extreme love of both settings. Frankly, I wish the 40K line would slow down a bit, Only War feels like it might be starting to jumpt the shark a bit, and the 2nd edition line is dead, but feels complete enough.

The One Ring RPG. Simple, elegant and evocative. It sounds funny, but I really hope they release an art book one day hahaha ... some of the materials are nothing short of breathtaking.

Legend of the Five Rings 4th. Gorgeous materials, and the system is refined to near perfection now. Really it just needs to keep doing what it's doing and stay focused.

Star Wars WEG D6. What can I say, sometimes the classics are still the best. Ya, it can break down at high levels, but played in the middle level Empire Strikes Back range it's a thing of beauty. With the conversion guides available online for all the other versions, you don't have to feel like you're left out either.

Other noteable favorites; Shadowrun, Mutants and Masterminds 2nd Ed., Outbreak Undead, Dragon Age, AD&D, Battletech, d20 Modern, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ;)

Call me crazy, but what bugs me about the custom dice is FFG's attempt to treat everyone like meeples who don't do an ounce of critical thinking.

Please don't insult my intelligence by telling me that "custom dice" are there to reduce a barrier to entry.

Barrier to what??

There's an entire industry built around manufacturing 'standard' polyhedral dice is every shape and form, and they're available in nearly every comic, game and hobby store in the world.

Don't want to use a d10, d12, dwhatever... there's still the old d6 standby that even the most "non-gamer" personality in the world has sitting around in an old box of Yahtzee or Monopoly.

Ok, so maybe it's not about actually being able to get the dice easily when the game goes, you know, out of print and no one stocks the dice 10 years from now. Maybe they reduce some kind of other barrier to creative descriptions, or reduce GM Fiat, or some other thing, but barrier to entry is not one of them.

I wish FFG would just call it like it is, it's part of an upsell strategy for the iOS app and custom dice, because lets be honest, most people won't suffer the decal option for long.

Not trying to start an interwebs brawl man. I also never assumed you were from anywhere. I am from the US where WFRP has always been more obscure than the anti-v3 buzz would make peeps believe. It was more bad thought organization on a responsive tangent than sarcasm. The sales flop comments were rattled off as fact, which could be taken as a dig which I did flip around with a bit too much inter-sass. Sorry it came off as a full throttle grenade lob on your end.

No worries - it was a long day, and I probably should have avoided conversations in general anyways. I certainly didn't intend it as fact, but more an implication that if what I see on FFG's v3 message boards, and what I see in the circle of various gamers I hang out with is a microcosm of the long term reaction to WFRP then I'm concerned we might see similar longevity issues with Star Wars - assuming entirely that it's a failure in the system, and not content, of course (Star Wars fans for the most part are going to buy it all up regardless).

I am more interested in how you felt about Jay's design efforts instead of debating the success of WFRP. So thanks for sharing that. It's a more interesting line of discussion. I agree that his work on v3 felt overdesigned. There was a good chunk of the extra accounting tasks that I ended up dropping in favor of just making tick marks on a pos-it

I think his heart is in the right place. I've listened to his podcast interview on the Order 66, and he's trying to solve problems with his designs, I'm just not sure they are things I see as problems.

As an example, in combat, he likes the dice pool / comparisons model because he feels like it takes the burden off the GM to come up with interesting results for actions taken in combat.

He's trying to make a game easier to run not by making the system easier, but by placing the burden on the dice pool and various other ... I dunno, call them 'sliders/dials' for lack of a better word.

The new Star Wars has a good shot at being a different animal. And I think that the evidence of more 40k-ish career trees and even the dice conversion charts show some progress in that regard. I am also liking the default 'lite' approach they are taking, as opposed to the and, and, and piles I accumulated with WFRP.

I'm crossing my fingers that when all is said and done, we have another WEG lightning in a bottle - simple to run, cinematic and fast. I may not be too sure about what I'm seeing so far, but in the long run, you never know.

Warhammer has always been obscure here in the US. WFRP3 hate has become way more of a popular rallying point than the support for v1 or v2 ever was. Nice dig though :-)

*I could choose to dig at your egocentricity for assuming I'm from the US, and that I'm part of some gestalt community of WHFRPv3 bashers, but hey ... that wouldn't be fun now would it? :)

Regardless, I really like Warhammer Fantasy, in all of it's incarnations. But, that doesn't make it less of a flop than it was, and with it getting nothing more than a token mention at Gencon aside from the one product everyone knew about, one can assume it's not getting a lot of love going forward.

I find that Jay L. overcomplicates things in his designs, or in an effort to "enhance" things adds things that over time become barriers to simplicity and straightforwardness. His other latest creation, X-Wing is a perfect example of taking a game that was simple and intuitive (Wings of War) and layering system after system, and dials, and tokens, and widgets, and dice and cards, and stacking and and and ... on top of it all.

And in case you missed it, cause who reads a whole thread these days?
I also wrote:
"The fact that Sterling Hershey, a veteran of every Star Wars line since WEG, is involved does a lot to encourage me to believe that my concerns are minor, but we'll see"

In other words, while I may not like Jay's work, I am giving them the benefit of the doubt, since it's not just his baby.

* It could be you were trying to convey sarcasm, and if so, I apologize, but my sarcasm detection and tolerance is really low these days.

Exotic accessories? Oh please there is an included conversion table for regular dice sets in the book. By the end of the first session you wont even notice.

I think WHFRP v3 was pretty exotic all things considered. Whether or not that was the cause of it so rapidly falling into obscurity in most RPG communities, or if it was something flawed in the mechanics themselves over the long run, it's hard to say. Most WHFRP fans I know have flocked whole hog back to v2.

What I do think, is give that, that FFG has placed a lot of faith in taking Jay Little's design mentality and putting him in charge of the Star Wars line.

While I've only seen images on a blog (forgive me, can't find the link) there is a table for converting standard dice to the special ones.

Having said that, I expect most of the materials will be written with reference to the special dice symbol, so doing conversions on the fly may be more pain than it's worth.

I'm honestly a bit disappointed, not in a full nerd rage kind of thing, just more a simmering groan.

*Custom dice - for one or two games it was a novelty (assuming you play other FFG product lines, which I and my group do), now it's something every FFG game does and it's getting a bit overwhelming. Not to mention getting extra sets can get expensive, and when the line becomes less popular, hard to get.

*3 Core games - that was the promise with the 40K line, and now we're at 5, and possibly, counting core games. Plus the requisite bestiary, gm screen, 3 part adventure, etc. It makes it an intimidating thought if you're a setting junkie or collector.

*According to the Gencon presentations the license does not allow PDFs, but it's unclear if this can still be negotiated. Regardless, I like to read my books and game with my PDFs. I don't want to go back to a life of 70lbs. backpacks.

*$30 Beta ($40 with shipping) with the implication that the product is basically done, so other than proofreading, there doesn't seem to be a huge window for change.

*Core Game timeline stretches from 2013 to 2015 meaning that it's going to be up to or over 3 years before I can run a true "force users" campaign ala Old Republic.

The fact that Sterling Hershey, a veteran of every Star Wars line since WEG, is involved does a lot to encourage me to believe that my concerns are minor, but we'll see. I know the guys from Order 66/D20 Radio have copies, so I'm interested to hear their take on it too.

Moreso, my concern is that there seems to be a disturbing trend emerging for those who follow FFG that every game needs multiple expansions, supplements, custome gear/token/widgets, etc.
FFG has to know that it has a license to print money with the Star Wars line, and I would really, really, hate to see them abuse that.

Welcome back Nick, while we never really "met" on the boards, I always admired your work and your contributions.

I just wanted to say that I'm glad you got your health back, and I'm really sad to read a story that has so many parallels to what happened to WEG's Eric Gibson in the final stages of that company.

It really is a hobby full of passionate people, and there's nothing worse than hearing that someone's dreams have become their nightmare.

Glad to have you back, and looking forward to maybe getting a chance to meet you in person at PaizoCon.

Here is yet another version:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/435243061/edition-wars-by-gamer-nation- studios

.

If anyone listens to The Order 66 Star Wars Saga podcast, the hosts are 2 of the creators, and you can hear them talk about it on and off throughout the last few episodes. It actually sounds quiet fun, particularly if you're someone who can poke fun at the reference material :)

It's probably just me, but I have a hard time believing that a sub-culture that has inspired the memes "gamer time", "fat beard" and "gamer funk" are also primarily part of two life styles known for their self-discpline and structure.

Or in other words, I think most gamers on the internet say they have had a background in it, but in real life probably have not.

On the whole though, I don't necessarily think the percentages average any way or the other. I know plenty of wargamers who were in the military, none of the RPGer's I know were, and there's a sprinkling of martial arts in there. No more or less than those who play Basketball, Baseball or just don't do anything.

We're from Victoria, so the wife is a regular Seattle shopper, the Marysvill Outlets, etc., but that's about as far as it gets.

Unfortunately we're never there for much else but shopping, so I'm not sure we're the best candidates for planning events. We do have a van though, if something like this becomes "semi-official".

Interesting ... my wife is in the same boat. I did buy her a ticket on the off chance that she'd want to dip her toes in the activities, though, now I'm wondering if maybe someone should try to organize a "For the Spouses" activity list.

There must be more than a few spouses just tagging along for the ride, who will be looking for ways to fill the time.

As a regular visitor to Vancouver, I highly recommend both Science World
and The Vancouver Aquarium.

As a Victoria native, as people have mentioned there's the Whale watching tours, there's also Butchart Gardens, the Museum and Inner Harbour, Ogden Point, Arts/Crafts and buskers, Golf all over the place, more night clubs than you can shake a stick at, the Symphony,the Supernatural tour, and well .. tons more.
It's a tourist trap for a reason. If you have extra days, there's plenty of places up the island worth seeing too (Tofino).

Lots of good reasons here. My players have largely chosen Golarion as their fantasy world of choice, and I figure, since we're there, we might as well take advantage of all of the materials available for it.

Having said that, one of my favorite things about this hobby from a nostalgia point of view is the shared language that some of the classics invoke. Tomb of Horrors, Queen of Spiders (The Giant / Drow Series), Ravenloft, Temple of Elemental Evil ... the list goes on.

Part of the appeal for me in the APs is that I'm helping to create a new generation of shared language for my players who never played the classics - I think adventures like the Rise of the Runelords AP, Age of Worms, etc will be seen as classics of their time, and as much as I want my players to enjoy my content, I also want them to be able to have the shared experience that a good AP brings.

EDIT: Time also seems to be a large factor, the more I think on it. When I was younger, I didn't have so many things competing for time, and as I've gotten older I find that I enjoy filling my time with several hobbies, and not dedicating my spare time to just one. Published materials help me use my time more effectively.

VagrantWhisper wrote:

Actually - that's not entirely true either. The PDF issue that WotC ran into originally was leaks of PDF proofs directly from someone in the printing process.

It is still true that one of the legal cases revolved around piracy based on a copy of a book from DriveThruRPG.com or something isn't it? Alas I cannot find a reference to that.

Anyway here is a reference to the court case re the PHB2. And is some discussion about it.

I really think it was this act of piracy so early in the 4e release schedule that made WotC panic and pull all PDFs.

I lost teh ability to re-download some 3.5 and 4e PDFs I had purchased, but luckily I had the downloaded and double backed up so no worries there.

I am just kicking myself for not buying the 3.5 PDFs I wanted when I had the chance (I was putting it off hoping WotC would reduce the price of the PDFs to less than full retail price of the physical books).

Cool - a quick google search for "4E Leaked" gives tons of returns, but alas not the one I was looking for.

Honestly, not being able to download the 4E stuff, or even the 3.5 stuff, didn't bother me, it was the dozens of TSR produced product that no longer became available ... I mean really, the D&D Compendium was somehow contributing to all of this? Errm still bothers me.

People literally got the PDF via legal download and immediately uploaded it to torrent sites

Actually - that's not entirely true either. The PDF issue that WotC ran into originally was leaks of PDF proofs directly from someone in the printing process. This was why so many of their PDFs hit the torrent sites before they hit their street dates.

My Google-Fu isn't turning up the source, but it was an interview with one of the luminaries - WotC used to have a guy who went around with a girl with blue hair doing interviews that talked to someone about it.

This whole D&D:next is designed to give the players the game the players want (hence modularity). Want a highly tactical game? Here are some rules. Want a strong story element with little fuss with mechanics? Here's a few less rules. Want to make character creation indepth and unique? Here are some modular rules for ya. Want characters that are 1-dimensional with the mechanics and enjoy simplicity? Here are some rules that don't use other rules. That way, someone can't say "WotC killed the Fighter" or "Wizards are just blasters now!" or "Wow, why do Rogues suck so much?" or "Gee, Rangers really have NO direction...

Which ultimately is why I'm taking a very conscious wait and see approach.

I honestly don't believe that the average consumer/player actually wants that many decision points.

iPods are popular because they put everything the consumer of those devices wants right up front, they don't have to make 44 seperate decisions about how their iPod looks and works when they turn it on.

Frankly, I think most groups will have a very hard time coming up with the consensus this much modularity might need. I know in my group there would in fact need to be more compromise for a system like this, than say what is required for a largely fixed system.

From a purely practical point of view, I have to admit as well that if I buy a (theroretically) 400 page systems/rules book, and only use the 25 pages of it, while the rest is optional ... I dunno, I think I might feel ripped off and also likely feel like I should have just bought a 25 page system.

Am I really the "fanatic"?

I think the average message board post has a tendency to create a false sense of black and white. Actual, logical discourse gets truncated into the least words possible and nuance and inflection are lost.

I think even the haters, are likely "less hateful", than first glance would suggest if one were to have a more appropriate communication format for debate - like in a pub over beers :)

I don't hate WotC, I just choose to take the view that when I consolidate everything that happened during the lead up and release to 4E (pdfs, insulting advertising, insulting developers, *some* of the sacred cow slaughering, wizards.com forum shenanigans,etc etc) that they are not a company I choose to do business with anymore. Each of those could be a conversation topic taking a couple of hours, but instead, on average I'm restricted to just typing: "WotC won't get my money!", because 30 seconds later it's either leap on by one of the 4E Crusaders, or buried in the next 30 posts that pop up instantaneously, and either way turns into a discussion not worth having.

Unfortunately, for WotC, they are doing business in a world now where you have a heavily invested and largely educated (meaning news travels fast) consumer base that has access to every mistake, miscommunication, and misdirection ever propagated by the company and it's very difficult for a company to crawl out from underneath the rubble of being crushed by the internet (Sony is still paying for the badwill it earned during the spyware on CDs incident...)

Unfortunately, it showed Wizards of the Coast how much people liked their games (the games their customers owned compared with what WotC produced.)

Interesting - I always kind of saw it as a recent example of a simple consumer principle that some businesses forget - your brand name only takes you so far.

While I'm sure it never hit on a memo, I think there was probably an unspoken internal expectation that people would invest in 4E strictly because it was D&D.

I think it also showed another reality that companies forget; your messageboard is not the absolute indication of consumer satisfaction. The success of the retro market, and 3.x derivatives like Pathfinder, Mutants and Masterminds, etc., tell me that the majority of people are not as disastified with the old "broken" editions as the internet would lead you to believe.

My only real feelings towards a new edition are that while I think the design intent (something for everyone) is noble, past experience with ... well ... everything; cars, cookies, clothing, tv shows, games ... is that no two tastes are alike.

Sure, sometimes you fluke out, and you find that enough of what you've done appeals to the gestalt of a community to be accepted as a whole, as popular products tend to do; Pathfinder, iPods, Soft Drinks, etc. I feel this attributes largely to the success of a product like Pathfinder. Pathfinder's appeal was never to be the game for everyone, it was meant to be the game for people who like the principles set forth in the 3rd edition rules set. And it caught on like wild fire.

Having said that, on the whole, I think your average gamer isn't ready to be faced with the amount of decision points a system like Next; where everything is largely optional, seems to be pointing towards. There's such thing as too much choice, where the eventual outcome for a group of players is analysis paralysis.

We see this already, even in systems that are largely fixed to begin with, "What is Core?, What isn't?, What's Core in yours", etc., etc. When the answer is everything and nothing, depending on your group, this has the potential to be frustrating.

Add to that, I find, regardless of what the messageboards say, the average gamer is also a horrible judge of evaluating the impact of one rule over another. While I know WoTC will endeavour to make sure everything is "balanced", there is just no possible way to field test all the permutations of optionals piled onto optionals piled onto other optionals to see which combination creates an exceptional, or completely disasterous, playing experience. And, if it goes for crap, people will blame the system because it "it didn't work the way I wanted it to."

I could be completely wrong. I just think if the end result is a core book, with a series of "Player's Options" materials, more choices may cause more confusion - and that's never a good thing.

I chose Golarion to be my fantasy world of choice, so for any games I run, I consider core to be;

For players: all Pathfinder RPG hardcovers, The Pathfinder Campaign Setting harcover, all Pathfinder Companions. When I run an Adventure Path, I also consider the materials in that AP to be Core as well.

For me as the GM: the entire Paizo published catalogue if it can be justified/required/enhances the adventure.

3rd Party materials and whatnot I consider by approval... not because I don't like them, but because I prefer to think of them as unique, or exceptionally rare to the world and don't want to overdo it.

Turbine really blazed the path when they converted first Dungeons & Dragons Online then Lord of the Rings Online to a hybrid model. That transformation basically saved DDO, and it made Lord of the Rings start to grow after a long period of stagnation. The industry took note and there are a lot of companies who are working towards emulating this model.

Not only did it grow lotro numbers, but Turbine is on record saying that their switch to free to play/transactions generated more revenue for the company than any other time for the game since release.

I think people need to realize that making market comparisons to WoW is a recipe for failure. The fact that some games are free to play, or that they only have 100,000 subscribers isn't the anomaly ... that WoW has millions of subscribers and a license to print money is the anomaly.

Star Wars might fare well because of the fan base. I may be wrong: as stated, I'm no expert.

In an interview with Bioware, in an answer to the usual "how will you compete with WoW", Bioware basically said (and I'm widely paraphrasing):

Considering over 1 million beta codes went out this week for the next upcoming beta weekend, I don't think they'll have any problem.

MMO's make ALOT of money.

If you make the assumption that a man in his thirties can "Sqweeeee" in a high pitched voice that makes a dog's ears stand up... I just Sqweeeee'd :)

Which was naturally followed by a long list of excited, random, four letter expletives.

This is cool guys, can't wait to follow along and see how it comes along.

Hey folks,

package is one its way, and can be tracked on canadapost.ca (might take over night for the details to update)

Tracking #:
CX403804131CA

No worries, I figured with the way everything got shuffled into the various orders that something had the potential to go funny.

It's all boxed up, will mail it out to you tomorrow. If they supply any kind of tracking number I'll append it to the thread.

Cheers!

PS> The beginner box set is a thing of beauty, you guys did a great job.

Hey folks - I've got a weird one.

So I had a bunch of orders that got combined into 1790747, which was cool, except for the Black Crusade core rulebook, that one shipped seperately because I think I forgot to change the shipping options.

So 1816714 ended up being for the Black Crusade CORE rulebook, which I received a couple of weeks ago.

1790747 arrived today, and low and behold, there's a second Black Crusade CORE rule book, but not the GM KIT that was originally part of the order.

Thing is, you only charged me for the GM KIT in 1790747.

So, question is, how do I get the CORE book back to you (assuming you want it) and can I get the GM KIT added to my next order, and we're all squared up?

Cheers.

Wow ... seriously, 5 pages of posts about the website being down and NO ONE posted this one? *language warning*

Don't reboot the web server

The majority of the original EA Origins tag lineup: Updated graphics, scalable resolutions, etc., but all original content.

Wing Commander, Strike Commander, Syndicate (not as a FPS!), Crusader, the whole Ultima collection ...

I loved Origin, and with a tagline "We create worlds", how could you not?

co-worker and I were bored at work and so hit the mythical page 47.

I find the need to put bacon on so many things interesting and amusing, but what I don't really understand is ... what's the novelty around deep-frying everything?

Cheese-burgers, shrink wrapped junk food, vegetables and fruit. I don't get it.

In my opinion, Psionics would be cool, though I imagine I'd actually see them used very little at my table.

Epic, to me, is a statement of theme, not rules - thus I could actually do without them.

Personally, now that there are no dead levels in the current d20/PF rule system I question how far a character can go before there's almost too many abilities to choose from, and analysis paralysis kicks in to every decision.

Compared to a 3.x character, a 20th PF character is already REALLY powerful.

All I can think of when browsing all of that is ... "Hello World, here's the real reason why heart attacks and obesity are a national epidemic."

Seriously, 5 POUND sandwiches?

EDIT: "Not to mention, even as a Canadian, I wouldn't go anywhere near the "French Canadian". Though I do enjoy a good Poutine every once in a while.

Have you heard about Outbreak: Undead? (aka. Your Zombie survival plan will fail)

Percentile/skill based, survival post-apoctalyptic resource gathering system, and it's pretty deadly, etc.

And, it comes with a system to generate yourself as a character.

It's a bit crunchy, but it's purpose built for post-apoc zombie/undead gaming, and it got some shout-outs at the Ennies/GenCon.

I love Canada. Man, it's been over 7 years.

Welcome back to Canada :)

Right now, I love the fact that technology has progressed to the point where I can listen to a podcast. All the Gencon interviews, with dozens of companies, coming in loud and clear over the interwebs.

Just now making my way through all the podcast interviews from Gencon, the most interesting 4E news for me wasn't product related, but was Mike Mearls being so frank and honest in his interviews and the new product seminar (I listened to them from The Tome podcast).

It's the first time I've heard a WotC representative willfully admit that *something* they did with 4E fractured the audience, and that he wants to fix that. They want to open dialogue, feedback channels and any other means of getting back in touch with the fans of D&D as a concept, a game and a hobby.

It's not a we'll fix it with 5E kinda chat, just a very aware individual (yes, he makes mention that if they did it all the right way, people wouldn't be in "that room over there playing Pathfinder") who wants to get the game and the company back in touch with its fans.

I thought that was pretty cool.

Mr. Mearls continues to show that, above all, he's a pretty standup guy.

Why not Cluster Source this.

I think you mean "Crowd Source".

There are plenty of people on the Rules forum reading and rereading Rules books (myself included). I would be more than happy to check stat blocks, especially if I get my name into a book. Give each possible monster to 10 people, 6 should respond, if 5 agree you should be good.

On another tangent though, I seem to recall one of the publishers saying that sometimes the errors aren't on their end, but on the printers.

Green Ronin maybe? I think mentioned they had already reviewed, edited, etc all their stuff and what came back in the actual final print (again after draft, preview copy, editing cycle 1,2,3, etc.) was something from an earlier release.

So, off to the messageboards I go, trying to see if the battle system rules are worthwhile and if the books are worth buying. What I found was very much an edition-wars style conflict online, with players of previous editions bashing the current edition, Warhammer and Warmachine players smearing the Confrontation fans, and generally no one saying anything at all that could be even be mistaken as positive or constructive.

These kinds of things always remind me of a developer conference conversation I listened to. I posted this before,but the lead designer of Lord of the Rings Online at the time figures their forums accounted for about 15% of their legitimate feedback loop, and only about 4-5% of their entire customer base. (I believe even WoW's total board population falls around the 7% mark of total player population).

Anecdotally, in my previous group of 7, I'm the only one who posts, I know of one other who reads, and the rest just play the game (and are no less 'hardcore' because of it).

In other words ... we messageboard folks are, in general, the unsilent minority.

I think it's easy for all of us to forget that while we're all rioting and raging, there's a ton of other people just hanging out and quietly enjoying themselves with the game as is.

VagrantWhisper wrote:

I'm not trying to be asinine

I thought nothing of the sort. I was merely curious as I didn't consider Oregon anything special in the variety department, and you documented nearly the exact variety of a number of locales near me.

I figured using some generalized examples was easier than, "I know of entire towns that shut down to celebrate indulging in 18 different kinds of Bannock"

:)

Either way, both Countries are pretty damn big and while someone can point at Napa Valley for wine, I can point to the Okanagan Valley for the same, so ultimately it's all really about just eating where and what you like :)

Is this level of variety outside Canada unheard of to Canadians?

This seems like pretty much the norm for any of the larger cities here in Oregon (and even some of the smaller ones).

No, but the last time I heard, German Nationals weren't travelling from Germany to Oregon as tourists (like they do to Victoria BC) to enjoy German cuisine (like they do in Victoria) - as an example.

I'm not trying to be asinine, I just happen to know alot of people in the culinary industry who praise Canada's access to traditional ethnic cuisine from around the world.

We have a high density of multi-culturalism without the inherint intergration requirements of many countries - it's kinda a lit bit of what we're known for - so it follows that culinary and dining habits follow.

Didn't mean to jump into a snake pit on this one. Yeesh.

Canada has about 10% of the US population. Maybe the reason Canadian food culture is so uniform is because there's not enough people to support it? Perhaps the Australians on the board can comment on differences across regions over there.

Uniform in the fast food sense... but Canada is also one of the most multi-cultural populations on the planet.

When I stand on the corner of my office building I look at 2 vietnamese restaurants, a korean, a thai, indian, an english pub and an irish pub.

Up the street is an Italian deli, chinese and 2 japanese, etc.

We may not have a lot of variety in fast food, but Canada (Particularly in the major city centers) has long been known in the culinary culture to have an astounding level of variety.

I might be wrong, but I don't recall Dark Heresy being particularly expensive. WFRP 3e, on the other hand...

Ya -as Deinol mentioned, Dark Heresy in itself isn't expensive, but the 40K RPG line as a whole is.

You're talking on average 1 or 2 hardcovers per month if you collect all the lines. $60 or so for the core books, $40 or $50 for sourcebooks depending on page count, and $25 for adventures.