Quote from: Ruprecht on June 01, 2024, 07:35:54 PMMy own problem with Chaosium is they gave license to Mongoose to publish RuneQuest. Mongoose used the OGL and a bunch of companies used that to create their own games. Then Chaosium ended the license and said the OGL was invalid except for one publisher they liked. They had years to tell Mongoose their license did not allow them to publish to the OGL but they didn't. I might have a few details wrong but the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth.

Rumour Control: This was not Chaosium. The licence was done directly with Mr Stafford and Issaries, Inc, as was agreement for using the OGL. Chaosium also did not end the licence, that was done through mutual consent with, again, Mr Stafford.

The current form of Chaosium did not hove onto the RQ scene until after this (quite some time after this). So please leave them alone on this point

Quote from: MongooseMatt on June 03, 2024, 06:23:06 AMRumour Control: This was not Chaosium. The licence was done directly with Mr Stafford and Issaries, Inc, as was agreement for using the OGL. Chaosium also did not end the licence, that was done through mutual consent with, again, Mr Stafford.

The current form of Chaosium did not hove onto the RQ scene until after this (quite some time after this). So please leave them alone on this point

Thank you for the info.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 31, 2024, 01:28:24 PMIMHO Mearls is an idiot, he should have made something and self-publish...

This almost happened. Back in the 3e era he and a few others (myself among them) were talking about doing a 3.x iteration where we broke up the whole system and retuned it. Each of us would take one part of the system/sub-systems and act as the "custodian" of that portion of the rules, but we'd peer-review each other's stuff in order to make sure any/all optional modules worked with everyone elses stuff. The intent was to make a much cleaner version of 3.x and make it open to others to develop/use outside of WotC. (I think it would have looked very close to Fantasy Craft)

Before we could get going WotC gave him the golden-handcuffs and it died.

Quote from: tenbones on June 04, 2024, 12:39:28 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 31, 2024, 01:28:24 PMIMHO Mearls is an idiot, he should have made something and self-publish...

This almost happened. Back in the 3e era he and a few others (myself among them) were talking about doing a 3.x iteration where we broke up the whole system and retuned it. Each of us would take one part of the system/sub-systems and act as the "custodian" of that portion of the rules, but we'd peer-review each other's stuff in order to make sure any/all optional modules worked with everyone elses stuff. The intent was to make a much cleaner version of 3.x and make it open to others to develop/use outside of WotC. (I think it would have looked very close to Fantasy Craft)

Before we could get going WotC gave him the golden-handcuffs and it died.

Dang! I would have LOVED to see/read/play/run that game!

Mike and I were hashing a lot of this out after his Iron Heroes stuff. I know he was talking with a few others, and we had a couple of serious jam-sessions where I was pretty convinced he was going to reel me back in - I'd basically stopped doing designwork because I was super-focused on my job at Microsoft at the time and I was burning the candle with a flame-thrower, I was a wreck. Plus I had a newborn.

I know for 3e the book that inspired both of us in terms of what/where we wanted 3e to go in terms of power-level was the 3e version of 7-Seas called "Swashbuckling Adventures". Most people *hated it*, because they thought it was "too powerful" (despite having low-magic). But we loved it, because it pushed what SHOULD be high-level play into lower levels. The problem with 3e (among MANY problems inherent to it) was the notion of the 20-lvl spread and weak-ass power-acquisition vs. earlier assumptions of D&D.

While our ideas were probably much more modular than Fantasy Craft, I *highly* recommend everyone look at those FC rules. They're spectacular and they hold up.

The *only* problem with FC is that they didn't have enough robust setting-support. So unless you were a GM that likes getting in there and doing your thing with your own setting, or you're willing to just use any-setting and let FC do all the work, it is not for the "beginner GM". It probably didn't help that it released the same week as Pathfinder.

A real shame. But! it's still worth using, it's right there looking for some love.

Quote from: tenbones on June 04, 2024, 04:42:13 PMI know for 3e the book that inspired both of us in terms of what/where we wanted 3e to go in terms of power-level was the 3e version of 7-Seas called "Swashbuckling Adventures". Most people *hated it*, because they thought it was "too powerful" (despite having low-magic). But we loved it, because it pushed what SHOULD be high-level play into lower levels. The problem with 3e (among MANY problems inherent to it) was the notion of the 20-lvl spread and weak-ass power-acquisition vs. earlier assumptions of D&D.

While our ideas were probably much more modular than Fantasy Craft, I *highly* recommend everyone look at those FC rules. They're spectacular and they hold up.

The *only* problem with FC is that they didn't have enough robust setting-support. So unless you were a GM that likes getting in there and doing your thing with your own setting, or you're willing to just use any-setting and let FC do all the work, it is not for the "beginner GM". It probably didn't help that it released the same week as Pathfinder.

I find it interesting that Including PF1e all the potential 3.x "replacements" kept the games complexity largely intact.

I've always wondered what a version of 3e would have looked like if Baizuo went in a more an Iron heroes direction with Pathfinder, but with an emphasis on streamlining/simplification of the mechanics.

One of the reasons 5e instantly took Pathfinders lunch money was imho, because complexity fatigue had long since set in with 3.5/4e/PF back to back to back.

Would 5e have had a harder time had a competitor like PF taken a different design direction?

The problem is the complexity of 3.x in general is emblematic of the poor cohesion of the design. Instead of sticking with the power-curve of 1e/2e (and I'd even say B/X) where it was assumed a 10-lvl curve and anything beyond that was supposed to be super-heroic type stuff... 3e (and most of 3.x) basically spread the power-curve over a flatter 20-lvl spread and gave weaker power-progression and introduced slogging math that still plagues 5e today (let's not get into the 4e stuff).

Like myself, Mearls was not a fan of the progression. We differed on how to approach it, but you can see in his AEG stuff he was always tinkering with the rules to juice things up. Same with our Dragon articles. We were constantly fighting with the lack of consistency from Paizo editorial (and WotC) on the rules for our features, but when we were doing stuff for Goodman and AEG, we pretty much had carte blanche. Especially for Goodman.

I personally wasn't a big fan of the mechanics of Iron Heroes from Mearls, but I agreed with the goals. It added yet more complexity BUT it gave you a LOT more bang for the buck.

My current experiences in Savage Worlds solves 99% of my issues - but it also highlights a problem that I thought FC suffered from: people want settings and adventures, not just rulesets. This is why Savage Pathfinder is such a hit, same with Savage Rifts. I just wish Fantasy Craft had gotten some full blown settings (other than the mini-settings from the Adventurer's Companion) and had come out earlier.

In my ideal world - Fantasy Craft would have been 4e. But that happened in a parallel universe. While FC has complexity - it's SUPER cohesive and BEEFY. It's the apotheosis of 3.x design. And it's very modular. I have a thread around here somewhere where I compared FC to 5e and Pathfinder with my "Spartan Test" and FC simply dominates.

I hope Mike goes independent and go all in. Who knows?

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 01, 2024, 11:05:03 AM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on May 31, 2024, 01:00:29 PM@rpgpundit  You misunderstood the WHY and FINANCIALS of the membaberries.  There are three types of customers:

Whales: Money Rich / Time Poor.  They are money rich and time poor.  They typically have families.  They also are Generation X who watched the D&D Cartoon.

Minnows:  Money Poor / Time Poor.  They come in and go to a game.  They do give the more experienced players someone to play against.  They are Millennial / Gen Z.

Dolphins: Money Poor / Time Rich.  They stay in a game but do not have money to spend.  They give the Whales someone to play with who are proficient with the game.

WotC fucked up firing Mearls and then going full tilt cancel piggie and putting in trigger warnings and stating white man bad (kyle brink).  Gen X was raised anti-communist / anti-authoritarian and we do NOT respond to the shit WotC is shoveling.  Hell probably 70% of your site members are Gen X.  Gen X is in the harvest position as a demographic.  They have the most amount of money available to spend and have the time to play.  Gen X is essentially in the DM lane and spend a lot.  I spent over $5K on D&D related materials (books, miniatures, digital, portable framed TV) up to the point where Mearls' was fired.  The minute WotC went race Marxist I stopped spend.

WotC is specifically putting out the membaberries to try to get part of the Gex X wealth they fucked up and chased away by being race marxists.  Membaberries are put into the game all the time but they have no impact on the material, the material still sucks.  Its like putting in a centerfold of a Double D titted bimbo (haha he'll like that one) in a porno mag, but the rest of the magazine is about sucking dick and gay dress code (see end of Playboy for reference).  It won't sell.

That's a good assessment; the problem is that a lot of Gen Xers are gullible or autistic and will buy anything that on the surface appears to be offering them memberberries.

Luckily I don't fall into the "Falling for memberberries" category. WoTC burned me years ago with 3E. A conversion book with over 20 pages? really? I still gave it a try, but 3E IMO was lacking something. Anyway, as a Gen X kid, I can honestly say that WoTC burned us all.

Won't get fooled again!

Quote from: Nakana on June 01, 2024, 05:32:44 PM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on June 01, 2024, 03:30:25 PMFrom the RPG watch list on Chaosim, which is solidly Red, hell its Infra Red:

Chaosium (Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon) "Chaosium has Lynne Hardy who labelled Masks of Nyarlathotep as racist and therefore Larry DiTillo as racist also. She did this while acting as Chaosium's political commissar on the 7e version of Masks the results of which were BLM supporting additions and gender and race swapping NPCs to conform to woke quotas... In RuneQuest Glorantha they are progressively removing white people. At first the Pelorians were to remain pale but given recent artwork I doubt that. I think the only one that could still be white are Ygg Islanders who are a sort of Scandinavian people. But since the Opening of the seas most of them have left the island as Wolf Pirates and have now thoroughly mixed with other cultures. Cults (and game mechanics) have been rewritten to please the leftest females around Jeff Richards as well...growing Sandy Petersen under the bus on social media despite official response on this forum that Chaosium has people with wide ranging viewpoints that are supported by the company. What should tip them over is Pendragon 6e given that David Larkins is heading this up and there have been calls for all NPCS to be a 50%/50% gender split and it's a given that female knights will be mandated."-Gagarth. Addition 06/18/2023 Chaosium has indeed affirmed their stance on pushing female knights into pendragon as the default setting option. Also in recent events Chaosium has put a book called "The Six Paths" on pwyw that talking about gender identities in Glorantha with proceeds going to a charity called the Mermaids. This charity is currently under investigation by the UK governing body, specifically target's children and advocates for chemical and surgical interventions on minors. The website also prides itself in hiding this information from parents and caretakers and is even equipped with a quick navigate away button that takes the user to wikipedia. They maintain forums and other communications with children behind their caretakers backs and have had issues with pedophiles using it as a way to get into contact with kids. This puts chaosium solidly in the red category

Wow, I did not know any of that. The thread I see still has Chaosium as yellow in the first post. Is it no longer being updated? Not gonna read through 287 pages of posts for the latest.

Very tragic for Chaosium, and the shit they pulled with Sandy Petersen. They bring him back to get the company out of the red and into the black. They decide to "go woke" and let's not kid ourselves, it's virtue signaling. Sandy doesn't think the company should take a side on the debate because 1. who da fuk cares and 2. let's not alienate part of our customers. Chaosium's woke commissar then gives him the heave ho.

Such bullshit.

I love CoC, but because of them trying to rewrite history (Masks) and the woke agenda, I refuse to buy any products from them. Go woke go broke. 

Quote from: tenbones on June 04, 2024, 08:42:29 PMMy current experiences in Savage Worlds solves 99% of my issues - but it also highlights a problem that I thought FC suffered from: people want settings and adventures, not just rulesets. This is why Savage Pathfinder is such a hit, same with Savage Rifts. I just wish Fantasy Craft had gotten some full blown settings (other than the mini-settings from the Adventurer's Companion) and had come out earlier.

This is the primary advantage of Savage Worlds. The rules are simple and generic enough that you can shuffle them around, paint them a different color, salt to taste, and you have a game. PEG uses it as a vehicle to publish adventures that span a range of genres, and their third party partners use it to publish adventures in genres that PEG is neglecting.

It's what WotC was going for with 3E, but for a variety of reasons, they never quite pulled it off. It turn out that d20 is only really good for a certain set of games that carry certain default assumptions. The d20 system really didn't work well for Deadlands. It fell flat for Legend of the Five Rings. It failed for Star Wars the first time, although the hybrid in-between 3E and 4E ruleset did a bit better. I think Saga Edition Star Wars is illustrative of the problems d20 has as a generic system. Skills, attack bonus, saves, and hit points all scale at different rates and assume that there will be magical equipment. Take that out in order to go to a sci fi setting with no magic, and you have to adjust the scaling. That's just too much work every time you want to make a new game based on the d20 system.

Everybody who tried to fix d20 focused on the mechanics and neglected to give us a reason to play it. Most of those mechanical changes seemed to me to be structuring the rules to rebalance the game around taking away the toys. That's cool if you're going to give me new futuristic technological toys to play with, but if your sales pitch is, "Look! It's D&D with no magic items!" you're not going to get a lot of interest.

Quote from: Corolinth on June 05, 2024, 11:43:55 AMThis is the primary advantage of Savage Worlds. The rules are simple and generic enough that you can shuffle them around, paint them a different color, salt to taste, and you have a game. PEG uses it as a vehicle to publish adventures that span a range of genres, and their third party partners use it to publish adventures in genres that PEG is neglecting.

It's what WotC was going for with 3E, but for a variety of reasons, they never quite pulled it off.

I wish I saved a link, but there is an interview out there where the 3e designers did say that they did not realize that the 3e mechanics would be used as a "d20 universal" system with the OGL. They said that they would have done things differently if they were told up front that was the goal.

I still don't have too high an opinion of them, but they did recognize the 3e core system was not intended to be a "universal" system.

Quote from: Corolinth on June 05, 2024, 11:43:55 AMIt turn out that d20 is only really good for a certain set of games that carry certain default assumptions. The d20 system really didn't work well for Deadlands. It fell flat for Legend of the Five Rings. It failed for Star Wars the first time, although the hybrid in-between 3E and 4E ruleset did a bit better. I think Saga Edition Star Wars is illustrative of the problems d20 has as a generic system. Skills, attack bonus, saves, and hit points all scale at different rates and assume that there will be magical equipment.

There is nothing wrong with the underlying Stat+Mod roll a d20 vs TN system.

It's just a resolution mechanic.

The problem with 3e/5e system conversions is that NO ONE removes the continual hit point scaling from any of their conversions.

The result of which being that everything just becomes a re-skinned D&D setting.

Quote from: Jaeger on June 05, 2024, 04:58:34 PMI wish I saved a link, but there is an interview out there where the 3e designers did say that they did not realize that the 3e mechanics would be used as a "d20 universal" system with the OGL. They said that they would have done things differently if they were told up front that was the goal.

I still don't have too high an opinion of them, but they did recognize the 3e core system was not intended to be a "universal" system.

That's cool. WotC published d20 Star Wars in 2000, months after the 3rd edition Player's Handbook. Maybe Tweet, Cook, and Williams didn't intend for 3e to be a universal system, but WotC clearly did.

Quote from: Jaeger on June 05, 2024, 04:58:34 PM

Quote from: Corolinth on June 05, 2024, 11:43:55 AMIt turn out that d20 is only really good for a certain set of games that carry certain default assumptions. The d20 system really didn't work well for Deadlands. It fell flat for Legend of the Five Rings. It failed for Star Wars the first time, although the hybrid in-between 3E and 4E ruleset did a bit better. I think Saga Edition Star Wars is illustrative of the problems d20 has as a generic system. Skills, attack bonus, saves, and hit points all scale at different rates and assume that there will be magical equipment.

There is nothing wrong with the underlying Stat+Mod roll a d20 vs TN system.

It's just a resolution mechanic.

The problem with 3e/5e system conversions is that NO ONE removes the continual hit point scaling from any of their conversions.

The result of which being that everything just becomes a re-skinned D&D setting.

Level alone doesn't make you any harder to hit, but it does make it easier for you to hit things. You actually need the hit point scaling to not die, because your armor class is static without magic or something like it. Unfortunately, damage also scales, both in terms of damage per attack and quantity of attacks. There's more that has to be changed than just this one thing, whatever that one thing happens to be.

Quote from: Jaeger on June 03, 2024, 03:28:22 AM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on June 01, 2024, 03:30:25 PMFrom the RPG watch list on Chaosim, which is solidly Red, hell its Infra Red:

Chaosium (Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon) "Chaosium has Lynne Hardy who labelled Masks of Nyarlathotep as racist and therefore Larry DiTillo as racist also. She did this while acting as Chaosium's political commissar on ...

*INSERT THE FAKE AND GAY HERE*

Chaosium is a more subtle that Wotc, as most of what was listed would largely be unknown unless you were both paying close attention, and were familiar with the game. But they are also clearly just as far down the rabbit hole as well.

Clearly Baizuo has some work to do to catch up...

I think just aiding those who commit CGM against children behind their parents' back is horrendous enough to go on the RED list.  I had no idea Chaosium was involved.  I want to return my Panzer Pranks.

Quote from: Corolinth on June 05, 2024, 07:37:26 PMLevel alone doesn't make you any harder to hit, but it does make it easier for you to hit things. You actually need the hit point scaling to not die, because your armor class is static without magic or something like it. Unfortunately, damage also scales, both in terms of damage per attack and quantity of attacks. There's more that has to be changed than just this one thing, whatever that one thing happens to be.

In my opinion; things like damage scaling are knock-on effects of HP scaling. i.e. If you make a game with HP scaling you will naturally introduce other mechanical quirks because of it.

If you get rid of HP scaling, you will also naturally not design in the knock on effects of it.

Quote from: Jaeger on June 06, 2024, 02:54:49 PMIn my opinion; things like damage scaling are knock-on effects of HP scaling. i.e. If you make a game with HP scaling you will naturally introduce other mechanical quirks because of it.

If you get rid of HP scaling, you will also naturally not design in the knock on effects of it.

Yes.  Likewise, if the designer wants some of the effects of HP scaling, keeping it under control will avoid a lot of the problems. 

- No scaling of health and damage:  Certain kind of feel, some good, some bad, depending on what you want.

- Modest scaling of health and damage:  A different kind of feel, some good, some bad, depending on what you want.

- Heroic scaling of health and damage:  Starts to show some definite trouble, not appropriate at all to many games, but can be a good trade for a a system willing to embrace zero to hero in a relatively simple game.

- Out of control mathematical scaling of health and damage:  Accomplishes nothing that couldn't be done with one of the previous options, fits no discernible niche with one possible exception*, and invariably magnifies all the problems by an order of magnitude.

*The possible exception is catering to the juvenile instinct that "more, more, more" is always a good thing.  The one that Hackmaster/KotDT mocks so well in the fake adds of "100% more carnage" and the like.