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OK a little trivia for the WoD fans:
(it may be a little easy ..but hey I just got home)
What 'lost' clan of vampires was known for their healing powers? What weird disfigurement did they sport? Which other vampire clan came into being by diablerizing the lost clan's leader Saulot? And what was the name of their healing power?
Dude.... too easy man..
Salubri
Third Eye... right smack in the middle of their forehead
Tremere
Valeren
Dude.... too easy man..
**DING**! hands over a kewpie doll to Dragnmoon
OK yeah I figured it was kinda easy, but hey, the Harbinger House one I came up with yesterday stumped the peanut gallery!
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Dude.... too easy man..**DING**! hands over a kewpie doll to Dragnmoon
OK yeah I figured it was kinda easy, but hey, the Harbinger House one I came up with yesterday stumped the peanut gallery!
Hey..I would never have been able to guess that Question...
But you bring a White Wolf question and i am all over it, I am a White Wolf Fanatic... I just play D&D out of necessity.
Hey..I would never have been able to guess that Question...
But you bring a White Wolf question and i am all over it, I am a White Wolf Fanatic... I just play D&D out of necessity.
Yeah my stack of oWoD books rivals my stack of D&D stuff. The folks in the Army were absolutely bug apesh*t over that game in the late Nineties. Course there were a lot of closet Goths in the Army too
I love this, but we should probably start a new thread for it....
I was just trying to lighten things up a bit. I figured that no matter what edition you favor, no gamer can resist trivia. It brings us all together. Rather than all of us ranting and raving about the editions, we can all ponder what was the name of the role playing game that simulated the life of a rabbit a la Watership Down?
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I was just trying to lighten things up a bit. I figured that no matter what edition you favor, no gamer can resist trivia. It brings us all together. Rather than all of us ranting and raving about the editions, we can all ponder what was the name of the role playing game that simulated the life of a rabbit a la Watership Down?
Burrows & Bunnies?
They make fun reading but I wouldn't advise actually using them in a game. :)I would say the same about the HoL game. Impossible to run, yet guaranteed to make you laugh at least once out loud, and if you are a hard-core gamer, probably every page.Ok, having read this wiki-article on the game: I really want to find a copy of it.
LOL
It makes me happy.
Just chiming in to give yet another praise of HoL (if nothing else for the comedy value).
I mean, a game where it rains (used) diapers and you have rules for doing brain surgery with railway tracks... pure win!
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I was just trying to lighten things up a bit. I figured that no matter what edition you favor, no gamer can resist trivia. It brings us all together. Rather than all of us ranting and raving about the editions, we can all ponder what was the name of the role playing game that simulated the life of a rabbit a la Watership Down?Burrows & Bunnies?
So Seb, what kind of furry are you?
Burrows & Bunnies?
Actually Bunnies and Burrows but close enough!
**DING**! hands over a kewpie doll to Sebastian.
I like where this thread is headed.
...
I still have a few Grenadier Bunnies & Burrows minis in the basement - an herbalist and a seer.
Nice ... I have the original Bunnies and Burrows book salted away somewhere I believe. I haven't seen it in a while, long term storage ATM.
The Kool-Ade is special over here.Not really.
I, in no way, am joining in any Pramas bashing. The man deserves respect.
But there is nothing weird or provocative about 4E fans being harsher over here than over at ENWorld. I'd be shocked if they weren't.
(No offense Mr. Pramas)
In this neighborhood, a 4E fan has to be tough and thick skinned in order not to want push back at critique of the system. The rule set is constantly under fire by a majority of the community, and constantly on trial- with it's every shortcoming examined in excruciating detail and subjective analysis. Both directly, and passive aggressively. Note, I do concede it has shortcomings (along with the other two systems).
That's not a b!tch, a complaint, or a request for moderation on my part. It simply is what it is.
And this, to a degree, makes perfect sense. On these boards 4E exists in the shadow of Pathfinder RPG and 3.5. The fans of those systems are threatened by the notion that the new system might be successful, whereas theirs may not (or may be hurt by that), and that makes for an uncomfortably uncertain future.
Though it's nowhere as bad as it used to be.
Over at ENWorld there are those that don't like the system, but plenty who do. One doesn't need to feel isolated or alone in their perspective. You'll always find those that will feel the way that you do.. and that promotes a sense of security (and less relative troll like behavior).
So again, this wisecrack about Kool-Aid is missplaced. 4E fans get 'razzed' a lot more over here than they do at ENWorld. It's only natural that they're a little more sensitive.
And in case you didn't catch the disclaimer, I don't feel anybody really needs to beast on anybody.
Watcher - 4E Player, 3.5 and Pathfinder RPG GM
I agree with Watcher completely. I'm not sure that I'd have it any other way - I like it here even as a 4E fan and, mostly, I don't mind the critics of 4E. When their points are well thought out I even tend to agree with them and criticism can be very educational. 4E is not a perfect system and there are some significant rough areas in the rules, there are also a lot of interesting and subtle aspects of the rules that tend to shine most brightly when one thinks of them in light of 3.5s own short comings.
Nice ... I have the original Bunnies and Burrows book salted away somewhere I believe. I haven't seen it in a while, long term storage ATM....
I still have a few Grenadier Bunnies & Burrows minis in the basement - an herbalist and a seer.
Me too. That game was really cool. Though I think Myself and my group were too young when we got it. It did not seem 'adult' enough for us at the time. I suspect that my friends and I would be more down with playing it now that we are long past our teenage years.
Me too. That game was really cool. Though I think Myself and my group were too young when we got it. It did not seem 'adult' enough for us at the time. I suspect that my friends and I would be more down with playing it now that we are long past our teenage years.
Yeah I liked it a lot, having cut my early fantasy teeth on Watership Down and thinking that the graphic movie adaptation was one of the best ever done. All the teenaged power munchkins I gamed with were not in the least interested ... sigh ... perhaps in the nursing home I'll be able to get a group of stalwart rabbits together to form an Owsla to protect the warren from the Embleer Hrair.
I'm going to disagree with Chris Pramas in his view on how this should have been handled. Now I think he makes a lot of good points in his review basically until I get to the following two paragraphs, where he seems to outline not so much what was wrong with the PHB but goes into how, presumably he would have handled it if he had been in control of WotC.
Core Experience Is Hardcore: All the preceding could have been mitigated to some degree if the core experience was easy to get into. Unfortunately, 4E is for hardcore gamers, not casual players. It seeks to provide a robust system for tactical combat and in so doing it makes the game fairly unapproachable. Or to put it more simply: the game is too damn complicated. There are powers and feats and class abilities (which can be like feats or like powers!), there are multiple temporary modifiers that need to be remembered and tracked, and there are ultimately too many choices for new players to make. I learned (ironically enough, when I was working at WotC) that limiting options is often better for new players, as offering too much choice can paralyze them.What is perhaps most perplexing about these choices on WotC's part is that their new publishing plan involves releasing one big hardback book per month. That being the case, they could have easily pushed the more complicated elements into the supplements and made the core game a whole lot more approachable. That would have given the hardcore gamers what they want, while not pushing away the newbies and the casual gamers.
Essentially what I seem to be reading here is that the problem is that the game offers far too many options for a player only used to Risk or Monopoly. There are to many conditions, to much of things like opportunity attacks and flanking bonuses, to many powers and skills etc. The game should have brutally stripped these down.
Sure the vets would be horrified but they'd be OK they could just wait a few months and if they buy a bunch of other hard covers they could eventually collect all the rules that are currently in the 4E PHB.
I just can't see how this would fly. Forcing the fan base to wait and collect a bunch of books just to get what we currently have would have seriously alienated the current fan base. I mean can you really imagine Paizo doing something like this with PRPG? Selling a book with 1/3rd of the SRD included but assuring the fan base that all they have to do is wait for a bit and the rest of the game will eventually come out in some other hard bounds? I sure can't. No veteran player of D&D is going to want to play a game with few options and combat stripped down so that its just the monsters and the PCs using their basic attacks over and over again until one side dies.
What is being put forward here is something so simplified that no veteran, no matter how much they wanted to, could overlook the gutting of the rules system. I mean the fan base is going to play and they are going to stop if they are bored. Even WotC can't get around that - if veteran players are bored and getting distracted by more interesting things like Grand Theft Auto IV then the vets will give up the game. Its a hard wall even WotC can't get around - we must be entertained.
OK but maybe it won't matter if one alienates the veteran players. I mean there are all those Monopoly players that will simply replace them, right? OK, first off I don't think there are enough Monoply players out there to replace the veteran players in the first place, certianly not enough to make this a viable marketing option. Even beyond this I think this model is missing out on Newb sales in any case.
The problem is that a game made to appeal to a kid that only knows Monopoly and has no mentors around is looking for a game thats too simple for a lot of game players. Such a game won't just bore the vets - it'll quickly bore all the more sophisticated video game players out there. The ones that have actually played CRPGs, Collectible Card Games, or even games like Grand Theft Auto IV. These game players are used to a pretty impressive level of complexity in their games from the beginning and a streamlined simple system won't appeal to them for long.
Essentially we are talking about different kinds of newbies and I feel Chris Pramas' approach would appeal to only one such group. Players only experienced with games like Monoply that have no mentors around to get them into the game. Players already versed in more complex games need a higher level of complexity to remain interested, while all players with mentors can be fairly easily brought in (if this kind of game is actually of appeal).
If one does have a mentor I think the game is actually really good for teaching new players. Its so modular that the players can be explained the individual parts of their characters as those parts come up. The various mechanics mostly don't filter through the whole character in many different ways. The powers are almost self explanatory (except that [W] needs to be explained) and the new player can look through his powers and grasp them fairly easily. The game essentially keeps going with me stopping and explaining each modular aspect as it comes up. So with a mentor things should run relativity smoothly.
To sum up; I simply can't believe that there are enough monopoly players out there that don't otherwise know any D&D players who will go racing down to their local hobby shop to offset the losses WotC would have suffered by alienating the Collectible Card Game players and CRPG players as well as all the old hands. Sure one wants the Monoply Player with no mentors but that one small market segment is probably best left for a very specific product aimed at them. Such a product - if done well (not a good track record here) certianly won't displease WotCs core fan base and maybe it will bring in new players. We shall see.
I'm going to disagree with Chris Pramas in his view on how this should have been handled. Now I think he makes a lot of good points in his review basically until I get to the following two paragraphs, where he seems to outline not so much what was wrong with the PHB but goes into how, presumably he would have handled it if he had been in control of WotC.
Great post, Jeremy!
Cheers,
Merric
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Essentially what I seem to be reading here is that the problem is that the game offers far too many options for a player only used to Risk or Monopoly. There are to many conditions, to much of things like opportunity attacks and flanking bonuses, to many powers and skills etc. The game should have brutally stripped these down.
Too many options is different from too complex rules. You are making the same mistake WotC has of thoroughly confusing the two. You are also confusing their effect in practice.
One of the major promotion points of the 4E system was that it was supposed to be easier to learn, particularly for new players. Quite simply this is just not true. The system is incredibly complex, with numerous floating modifiers that must tracked constantly. Whether or not they should have been brutally stripped down is almost paradoxical as they did brutally strip them, but what is left is still a mess of modifiers and cross-references.
As for options, there is an obvious trap there:
Sure the vets would be horrified but they'd be OK they could just wait a few months and if they buy a bunch of other hard covers they could eventually collect all the rules that are currently in the 4E PHB.
I just can't see how this would fly. Forcing the fan base to wait and collect a bunch of books just to get what we currently have would have seriously alienated the current fan base. I mean can you really imagine Paizo doing something like this with PRPG? Selling a book with 1/3rd of the SRD included but assuring the fan base that all they have to do is wait for a bit and the rest of the game will eventually come out in some other hard bounds? I sure can't. No veteran player of D&D is going to want to play a game with few options and combat stripped down so that its just the monsters and the PCs using their basic attacks over and over again until one side dies.
Except the 4E PHB did not give people what they already had. It was missing several classes and races from the 3E PHB, and more from various splat books. Once you accept that the new books could not possibly give "everything" already available, that just left the question of what to give. And if it is a question of available material, why not just make the 4E PHB I a Heroic Tier book only? That would have certainly cut down on a considerable amount of clutter, as well as allowing more development of the material presented. And no, the book would not have to have been cut down. WotC already has several splat books scheduled to appear. The Heroic Tier material in those books could have been put in the 4E PHB I, and there would have been more than enough for the current fans to use for several months until WotC was ready to publish a Paragon Tier PHB, MM, and adventure.
The problem is that a game made to appeal to a kid that only knows Monopoly and has no mentors around is looking for a game thats too simple for a lot of game players. Such a game won't just bore the vets - it'll quickly bore all the more sophisticated video game players out there. The ones that have actually played CRPGs, Collectible Card Games, or even games like Grand Theft Auto IV. These game players are used to a pretty impressive level of complexity in their games from the beginning and a streamlined simple system won't appeal to them for long.
This is a false dilemma. The game is either going to be playable by your Monopoly playing kid with no mentors or it will not be playable by him. Separating out a series of learning products will just leave you with two competing product lines, each of which can possibly be purchased by the "wrong" customer.
It also begs the question as to whether a product can be produced that is both for advanced players and can be written to teach a new player. Squad Leader managed to do that quite nicely, as did Advanced Squad Leader, which eventually became so complex that it broke its expert players with its difficulty.No, overall that review had a reasonable point. With a new game you should put out a way to learn it. Your current customers should be able to convert no matter how complex it is, it is the new customers you need to plan for, and apparently they have been put off for several months. That seems odd when they made so much about new players learning the game so easily in earlier statements.
Too many options is different from too complex rules. You are making the same mistake WotC has of thoroughly confusing the two. You are also confusing their effect in practice.
I've lumped them together (or more accurately I've not bothered to differentiate them) because its quite clear that Chris Pramas is addressing both these issues. They are both at the root of the problem he is trying to correct. Both options and complexity make grasping this game harder for a beginner who's sole experience with gaming is limited to Monopoly or Risk.
One of the major promotion points of the 4E system was that it was supposed to be easier to learn, particularly for new players. Quite simply this is just not true. The system is incredibly complex, with numerous floating modifiers that must tracked constantly. Whether or not they should have been brutally stripped down is almost paradoxical as they did brutally strip them, but what is left is still a mess of modifiers and cross-references.
There are still floating modifiers - sure. There are just a heck of a lot fewer of them now. Maybe one could argue that having any floating modifiers is bad for the game but I'd not agree. I do, however feel that to many of them was bad for the game. To much of an accounting chore.
As for options, there is an obvious trap there:Except the 4E PHB did not give people what they already had. It was missing several classes and races from the 3E PHB, and more from various splat books. Once you accept that the new books could not possibly give "everything" already available, that just left the question of what to give. And if it is a question of available material, why not just make the 4E PHB I a Heroic Tier book only? That would have certainly cut down on a considerable amount of clutter, as well as allowing more development of the material presented. And no, the book would not have to have been cut down. WotC already has several splat books scheduled to appear. The Heroic Tier material in those books could have been put in the 4E PHB I, and there would have been more than enough for the current fans to use for several months until WotC was ready to publish a Paragon Tier PHB, MM, and adventure.
I think your off on some side issue here. I don't see how just presenting the Heroic Tier really does much for or Monopoly playing Newbie. OK I guess we could give him some more examples - and I'd have liked it if the book had more examples but are you really suggesting that they fill half of the book with one example after another? Do you really think this would not have alienated the existing fan base?
Would you seriously advocate that this should be the method that Paizo uses to go forward with PRPG? Only rules for levels 1-7 but with 1/2 the book full of examples? New hard covers with the rest of the rules to be released later?
This is a false dilemma. The game is either going to be playable by your Monopoly playing kid with no mentors or it will not be playable by him. Separating out a series of learning products will just leave you with two competing product lines, each of which can possibly be purchased by the "wrong" customer.
Well then its not a false dilemma at all. Apparently either the product is aimed at one group or its aimed at another. In this case I suggest we cut the Monopoly playing kid with no mentors loose in order to retain the rest of the market. That said I don't buy this - one can release a separate product that does have stripped down rules, hopefully for some kind of a reasonable price. Once the Kids have learned this they are encouraged to move up to the more advanced product as they have now mastered the basics. Its not a full separate line at all (which was the problem with Basic vs. Advanced D&D) but simply an easier starter set meant to introduce one to RPGs in general and 4E in particular to some one who is interested but intimidated by the core rule set.
It also begs the question as to whether a product can be produced that is both for advanced players and can be written to teach a new player. Squad Leader managed to do that quite nicely, as did Advanced Squad Leader, which eventually became so complex that it broke its expert players with its difficulty.No, overall that review had a reasonable point. With a new game you should put out a way to learn it. Your current customers should be able to convert no matter how complex it is, it is the new customers you need to plan for, and apparently they have been put off for several months. That seems odd when they made so much about new players learning the game so easily in earlier statements.
Sputter...Damn it I just got coffee all over my keyboard.
You have got to be kidding, Squad Leader is your example of a game that did a great job of bringing in neophytes to wargaming?
Now I'd never introduce a neophyte to wargaming with Squad Leader. Still I think I know what you mean. Start with something really basic and slowly build it up.
In D&D terms:
- you start with a human fighter with no feats, no powers, all the starts are chosen for you and you play the first adventure.
- Next we add in some complexity. We introduce the idea that you can choose your abilities and explain how that works - run another adventure.
- Next we introduce feats and At Will Powers. Run another adventure.
- After this we introduce the rest of the powers and throw in (simplified) Action Points. Run another adventure
- Continue the above process by adding in another layer of complexity and running the players through another adventure to practise their new abilities. Eventually we introduce other classes, races, combat modifiers and conditions etc.
Fine I agree this would be a great way of slowly bringing a player up to speed. Problem is I don't think it would be a very good way of really putting RPGs on display. You could not really introduce the concept of leveling until you'd run a lot of adventures. Furthermore you don't really get much of a campaign feel here. I think this method would turn off to many players who would give up before they ever got to the good stuff in RPGs. The psychological crack that keeps us constantly coming back again and again.
With Squad Leader each scenario was a self contained fight. What happened in one battle was irrelevant to the next battle. You probably were not even playing the same country. The method worked for that game but I don't really see it as all that applicable to a D&D. Especially a core product. I'd say that something like this might work in a separate beginners product, though pulling it off would be really tough, somehow you have to give one a taste of things like cool luchre, story telling, and getting more powerful and all te rest of the D&D psychological crack but at the same time layer complexity on the rules.
Still such a product is at least theoretically possible I concede. However I don't feel this would not fly for a core product. Your talking about using a ton of real estate in the game books to walk a neophyte slowly through the game. Do that and I think this would bomb in sales. Shortage of interested Neophytes would be at the root of this IMO.
WG7 was published in 1988, and is a good parody. Also, I think the deadly carpet is a tapestry. Right up there with Paranoia's Creatures of the Nightcycle, I'd say.Not to threadjack, but no, not really, it wasn't a good parody.
It was a circle jerk by mostly blameless freelancers and a bunch of back-slapping douchebags at the office who thought they could do better than Gygax and subsequently ran the company into the creative and financial toilet.
It was unplayable, it was a slap in the face to the creator of the game, it was a bait-and-switch to a segment of the audience who had waited more than a decade for the REAL Castle Greyhawk, and it relied on the lowest sort of pun-based humor culled from the worst indulgences of the RPGA.
It was rubbish.
IMHO, of course. :)
But it had maps!
It is soooooo worth picking up HoL, even if you have to eBay it. It's suppliment Buttery Wholesomeness is a scream as well.
Ah, but the REAL game there was Freebase! Good times, man, good times.
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I've lumped them together (or more accurately I've not bothered to differentiate them) because its quite clear that Chris Pramas is addressing both these issues. They are both at the root of the problem he is trying to correct. Both options and complexity make grasping this game harder for a beginner who's sole experience with gaming is limited to Monopoly or Risk.
Yes, he is addressing both of them. That does not make them two separate issues.
There are still floating modifiers - sure. There are just a heck of a lot fewer of them now. Maybe one could argue that having any floating modifiers is bad for the game but I'd not agree. I do, however feel that to many of them was bad for the game. To much of an accounting chore.
There are a lot fewer types.
There are a lot more individual modifiers.That is an example of the difference between rules complexity and options, and how you can simplify one while complicating the other.
I think your off on some side issue here. I don't see how just presenting the Heroic Tier really does much for or Monopoly playing Newbie. OK I guess we could give him some more examples - and I'd have liked it if the book had more examples but are you really suggesting that they fill half of the book with one example after another? Do you really think this would not have alienated the existing fan base?
No, I am with the main issue, the confusing of simpler elements within the rules for simpler rules overall.
Would you seriously advocate that this should be the method that Paizo uses to go forward with PRPG? Only rules for levels 1-7 but with 1/2 the book full of examples? New hard covers with the rest of the rules to be released later?
Maybe. It depends on how well Jason is doing balancing material above 10th level, and whether Paizo wants to include epic level rules.
Well then its not a false dilemma at all. Apparently either the product is aimed at one group or its aimed at another.
The false dilemma is that it must be aimed at one group at the expense of the other.
Sputter...Damn it I just got coffee all over my keyboard.
You have got to be kidding, Squad Leader is your example of a game that did a great job of bringing in neophytes to wargaming?
No, Squad Leader is my example of rules written to incrementally teach a large body of rules.
Now I'd never introduce a neophyte to wargaming with Squad Leader. Still I think I know what you mean. Start with something really basic and slowly build it up.
There you go.
Fine I agree this would be a great way of slowly bringing a player up to speed. Problem is I don't think it would be a very good way of really putting RPGs on display. You could not really introduce the concept of leveling until you'd run a lot of adventures. Furthermore you don't really get much of a campaign feel here. I think this method would turn off to many players who would give up before they ever got to the good stuff in RPGs. The psychological crack that keeps us constantly coming back again and again.
Why not? The Basic set had a solo adventure that was structured in a vaguely similar way. The FastPlay materials released at the end of 2nd ed also tried that approach.
Of course you would need to do it at a slighly faster pace than you suggested. Think any basic video game walkthrough.With Squad Leader each scenario was a self contained fight. What happened in one battle was irrelevant to the next battle. You probably were not even playing the same country. The method worked for that game but I don't really see it as all that applicable to a D&D. Especially a core product. I'd say that something like this might work in a separate beginners product, though pulling it off would be really tough, somehow you have to give one a taste of things like cool luchre, story telling, and getting more powerful and all te rest of the D&D psychological crack but at the same time layer complexity on the rules.
Just because Squad Leader did not have to worry about a cumulative experience point system does not mean the principle is not viable, or transferrable.
Still such a product is at least theoretically possible I concede. However I don't feel this would not fly for a core product. Your talking about using a ton of real estate in the game books to walk a neophyte slowly through the game. Do that and I think this would bomb in sales. Shortage of interested Neophytes would be at the root of this IMO.
Yes it is viable for a core product. Look at how many pages the 4E PHB already commits to the process of creating a character. Or look at the character generation examples in various Traveller editions. Or look at the encounter examples in previous editions of D&D.
And 8-16 pages is not a ton of real estate in a book this size. That is all it would take. 5 encounters, each taking up 2 pages, plus 2 pages for character creation, 2 pages for leveling up, and 2 pages for a sample character sheet. Each encounter could demonstrate how to use a particular type of power, and explain a bunch of keywords using both the pre-gen PC and the monsters.Instead of that, the PHB was filled with a bunch of stuff that is not essential to creating and running a character, but was pulled over from the DMG, while the DMG was left with everything introducing a DM to the game and how to run a game, except of course for any major examples on using the rules such as a learning adventure as I just noted.
Nor was Keep on the Shadowfell written this way, and it is supposed to be a preview and introductory product.