Quote from: Wisithir on June 16, 2023, 08:29:57 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 16, 2023, 02:44:45 PM
Unless a player is being helped, or having his options limited, there's no way that takes under an hour for someone who has never played SW or read the book before.

Is there any value to a brand new player building a character instead of starting with a pregen? I can appreciate that a surplus of options slows down gameplay, but I am not seeing how roll 6 stats in order is much faster than rate 6 stat best to worst with a static array.

I have found that the best thing to do with a new player is to sit with him and roll up a PC together while doing session zero.  (Don't do a standard array or point buy unless your system is locked into that.)  This gives the player a bit of understanding of the game right out of the gate and it actually makes the player feel more included.  My session zero is always rolling up the PCs and working out how the PCs know each other.  It's amazing how much it brings the table together and really welcomes the new guy.

Quote from: BadApple on June 16, 2023, 08:47:24 PM
I have found that the best thing to do with a new player is to sit with him and roll up a PC together while doing session zero.  (Don't do a standard array or point buy unless your system is locked into that.)  This gives the player a bit of understanding of the game right out of the gate and it actually makes the player feel more included.  My session zero is always rolling up the PCs and working out how the PCs know each other.  It's amazing how much it brings the table together and really welcomes the new guy.

yes. Hanging out together and creating characters as a group works much better than each player sitting alone like a mad scientist building a creation in isolation. It is a more social process and helps the player be more familiar with the characters that others are playing which is a plus for group dynamics.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 12, 2023, 11:22:26 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 12, 2023, 10:57:01 AM
Not everyone who is a fan of older systems likes them because they refuse to try anything new.

I've never claimed otherwise.

I have however had people try to explain how I just haven't tried 'proper' OSR play as if I'd never tried Basic or AD&D before.

I can count on one finger the OSR games that were more than just game theft under the guise of "la resistance!"

Quote from: Omega on June 19, 2023, 11:46:58 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 12, 2023, 11:22:26 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 12, 2023, 10:57:01 AM
Not everyone who is a fan of older systems likes them because they refuse to try anything new.

I've never claimed otherwise.

I have however had people try to explain how I just haven't tried 'proper' OSR play as if I'd never tried Basic or AD&D before.

I can count on one finger the OSR games that were more than just game theft under the guise of "la resistance!"

...what?

I liked 4e as a fantasy superheroes game with a focus on 'cinematic' (but very slow) fight scenes. It definitely feels designed to evoke the trope of the superhero team working together to achieve victory - I guess that's much more a Marvel trope than DC.

But 4e is absolutely terrible as a 'D&D' game, and cannot do exploration at all, never mind sandbox play. The GM needs to be more a film director than objective/neutral referee.

Quote from: Omega on June 19, 2023, 11:46:58 PM


I can count on one finger the OSR games that were more than just game theft under the guise of "la resistance!"

The OSR games that are emulations of older original TSR games only exist because the current owners of the IP for those systems refuse to support or even allow others to create material for them directly. The systems were cloned just so that people could publish support material for the systems that they still enjoy playing, which have been abandoned. Growing from that core have been all kinds of new games.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 21, 2023, 08:47:13 AM

Quote from: Omega on June 19, 2023, 11:46:58 PM


I can count on one finger the OSR games that were more than just game theft under the guise of "la resistance!"

The OSR games that are emulations of older original TSR games only exist because the current owners of the IP for those systems refuse to support or even allow others to create material for them directly. The systems were cloned just so that people could publish support material for the systems that they still enjoy playing, which have been abandoned.

Ahem...

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/110274/d-d-basic-set-rulebook-b-x-ed-basic

WotC's got all the older editions and supplements up for sale.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 21, 2023, 08:55:28 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 21, 2023, 08:47:13 AM

Quote from: Omega on June 19, 2023, 11:46:58 PM


I can count on one finger the OSR games that were more than just game theft under the guise of "la resistance!"

The OSR games that are emulations of older original TSR games only exist because the current owners of the IP for those systems refuse to support or even allow others to create material for them directly. The systems were cloned just so that people could publish support material for the systems that they still enjoy playing, which have been abandoned.

Ahem...

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/110274/d-d-basic-set-rulebook-b-x-ed-basic

WotC's got all the older editions and supplements up for sale.

They do now, once they saw there was money to be made on the old product thanks to the OSR companies showing them that the market was there. Were these old products for sale in 2008 when people wanted them?

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 21, 2023, 09:12:56 AM
They do now, once they saw there was money to be made on the old product thanks to the OSR companies showing them that the market was there. Were these old products for sale in 2008 when people wanted them?

  2008? Yes, although not everything was available. It was the spring of 2009 when WotC shut down their PDF program.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 21, 2023, 10:01:53 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 21, 2023, 09:12:56 AM
They do now, once they saw there was money to be made on the old product thanks to the OSR companies showing them that the market was there. Were these old products for sale in 2008 when people wanted them?

  2008? Yes, although not everything was available. It was the spring of 2009 when WotC shut down their PDF program.

Yes by that time WOTC went full bore trying to shove New Coke down the gaming community's throat. Only when they realized that 4E was kind of a dud and started planning 5E and realized that they had driven away a large market segment did they start selling pdfs again. Once they published 4E Essentials version and advertised it as the 'evergreen" edition, everyone knew that 4E was over.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 21, 2023, 10:01:53 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 21, 2023, 09:12:56 AM
They do now, once they saw there was money to be made on the old product thanks to the OSR companies showing them that the market was there. Were these old products for sale in 2008 when people wanted them?

  2008? Yes, although not everything was available. It was the spring of 2009 when WotC shut down their PDF program.

Yeah. Older edition PDFs started going on sale in the mid-2000s, simultaneous with the early OSR.

They were pulled in 2009, then they were put back on sale in 2013.

I think it's probably fair to say that the OSR proved the market during the 2009 to 2013 period, but WotC had previously released a lot of material online and had invented the OGL.

There's an old video game blog that discussed what "Depth" means and boiled it down to All Options minus Nonviable Options so if you have 200 options of which 190 are viable you'd have less depth that something with 20 options of which only 5 are nonviable.
So if the goal here is a character meant to do the usual DnD adventurer things, a crunchy system where you're encouraged to look up builds just so you don't have to read through hundreds of crappy feats to find the few most haves would be less deep compared to something much lighter, especially if the former system restricts the character to only doing the one thing they specialized in by penalizing everything they didn't invest in.
I don't agree with the superiority of old school random generation, as you're going to be limited to however many classes fit the stat array you end up with; there's nothing particularly interesting about being one stat point away from qualifying for a superior class (like dwarf vs fighter in b/x) and the random background just serves as a roleplay prompt you may or may not click with.
I do think RandomGen is better if it's a high lethality system where being able to quickly create characters that aren't identical to the last one, though I'd prefer something where you have more control over what type of character you'll end up with.