Quote from: Catelf;1112691But, i agree with your criticizm, even though i think the so-called "legacy games" are far worse atrocities when it comes to wasteful handling of material.
("Legacy games" boasts with that "No Game is ever the same, Literally!" because it has packs of cards that you do not unpack until later ... and because you are supposed to physically tear up cards as you play, as well!, and that might even be true for sections of rules and/or the gameboard and/or varying tokens ....
...
When all that could be done with GM-styled preparation instead of destroying actual set pieces !

EDIT:
Essentially, they seem to introduce GM-like things, without actually using a GM !

Yeah. Risk Legacy started this damn fad which seems to show no indicator of dropping dead any time soon and the usual morons declare it the "great new thing!" when it is not a new idea at all. Just a new implementation. Customizable games and books have been around since at least the late 70s. Possibly earlier if you count the original Salvo. (Not counting any actual games that you just draw on paper.)

I think the current 'legacy' games are a potential problem as they are usually A: Damn expensive for a possibly one-shot game. B: make them really hard, to impossible to sell afterwards. C: Too prone to screwups that have no way of undoing short of buying the game again. And D: Are potentially just very expensive wastes of money considering how mayfly/ADD some gamers are. But there are some who proudly declare they will just buy the game again just to play it new a second time. God help us all.

Quote from: Brad;1112719Yeah, again, those aren't RPGs, they're something else. Calling them RPGs is just lazy.

Its called co-opting.

Quote from: Omega;1112743Its called co-opting.

To paraphrase Kenny Powers, I play real RPGs, not trying to be the best at creating a shared narrative.

Quote from: Brad;1112745To paraphrase Kenny Powers, I play real RPGs, not trying to be the best at creating a shared narrative.

You saying you don't want to build a shared pseudo-novel together with me? Fucking fascist.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1112701Depends on how difficult it is to change that up.  For some games stuff like that is setting fluff only and comparatively easy to rewrite, but other games will bake the required PC worldview into character creation and game operation rules in a way that means you either buy into the setting's assumptions or you rewrite your own rules.

As a matter of principle I think RPGs should err on the side of user options and flexibility as much as possible. Even in Werewolf: The Apocalypse, the players could all play Glass Walker PCs who disagreed with much of the Gaiaism and still make a perfectly viable game out of it.

Speaking of World of Darkness and the ST systems...

It is a mess of problems. Mechanically it is a mess because there are a bazillion iterations of the rules with zero attempt to organize them. The fluff is a mess because there are a bazillion settings with zero attempt to organize or integrate them. It tries to be a universal system without providing any of the basic functionality of universal systems like BRP or GURPS. Worse, the writers and the fandom lack any self-awareness of these issues.

But criticism is pointless if the writers and fandom refuse to accept it. If anybody is interested in discussing retroclones of the ST mechanics, then I would be more than happy to do so in the appropriate venue.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1112778Speaking of World of Darkness and the ST systems...

It is a mess of problems...

Have you looked at HERO 6e? It does supernaturals really well...

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1112689Excuse me, sir, this is an audit from the Internal Treasurevenue Service. You seem to have forgotten to declare that magical sword that you acquired in the dungeons of the sunken temple last year.

And obviously you didn't craft it because 5e's crafting system sucks.

aww, no escape from death and taxes. Well, except for Resurrection Spells and Tax Shelters...

Quote from: trechriron;1112779Have you looked at HERO 6e? It does supernaturals really well...

And it can stop a bullet.

Quote from: trechriron;1112779Have you looked at HERO 6e? It does supernaturals really well...

You could suggest any other rules system. The problem with White Wolf isn't the ST system itself, but their execution of it. Rather than doing something sensible like writing a Storyteller System Rulebook or something, they include a copy of the rules in every setting book they make and all these books have slightly different implementations of the idea.

If you want to know how to do things with a basic degree of competence, then look at Nightlife, WitchCraft, Everlasting, Liminal, Monsterhearts, Urban Shadows, Nephilim, Invisible War, or anything else. They have their own problems (what doesn't?), but what they do right that White Wolf never did is that they use the same basic rules, use universal guidelines for constructing superpowers, and their settings are integrated.

Again, let me know if there is a better venue to discuss this sort of thing because I don't want to make a needless tangent in this thread.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1112730Every setting has to be Current Year Seattle. There's nothing more offensive than that.

That's merely the flavor of the month of the wider problem:  Inability to role play pre-modern attitudes and thoughts.  Or even "none modern" attitudes and thoughts.  Designers doing current year Seattle as their default is a particularly lazy, self-indulgent form of that.

Though in fairness, some of that is not so much offensive as pathetic.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1112680Would this include Eclipse Phase where anyone that is not an anarcho-communist is a varying shade of wrong?

Not the person you asked, but for myself - yes, somewhat.

I actually do like Eclipse Phase an awful lot, but there are times when I have to just ignore or re-write elements of the setting to avoid throwing the books across the room. Particularly anyplace that deals with any religion that isn't Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam.

Fortunately (For Eclipse Phase) there's enough other stuff there that I like that it's worth the hassle.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1112949That's merely the flavor of the month of the wider problem:  Inability to role play pre-modern attitudes and thoughts.

In fairness, there are some pre-modern attitudes and thoughts I have no interest in playing, or in having to deal with while I'm playing. I'd find a game that forced such assumptions on me or my PC as objectionable as one that forced "CY Seattle"'s assumptions. Hence my own preference for games that give players options in this regard.

It should be conceded that there are some games for which trying to do this will just obviate the point of the game -- e.g., if you don't like the frisson and terror of contemplating Lovecraftian nihilism, Call of Cthulhu is really just not the game for you at all (and this is one reason I've never played it myself). But if some games require getting into a certain headspace, they should at least be honest about that fact and noncondescending to those who aren't interested.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1112960In fairness, there are some pre-modern attitudes and thoughts I have no interest in playing, or in having to deal with while I'm playing. I'd find a game that forced such assumptions on me or my PC as objectionable as one that forced "CY Seattle"'s assumptions. Hence my own preference for games that give players options in this regard.

It should be conceded that there are some games for which trying to do this will just obviate the point of the game -- e.g., if you don't like the frisson and terror of contemplating Lovecraftian nihilism, Call of Cthulhu is really just not the game for you at all (and this is one reason I've never played it myself). But if some games require getting into a certain headspace, they should at least be honest about that fact and noncondescending to those who aren't interested.

Sure.  Don't want to play pre-modern thing X or Y.  Totally get it.  I'm the same way.  Can't play anything but modern things, no matter what the game is ostensibly about?  Then I don't want to play any game with that person.  Even if I wanted to play a modern game (which I don't), I wouldn't want to play with that person.  It betrays a lack of imagination, empathy, understanding of human nature, and general ability to even engage in the game.

Quote from: Bruwulf;1112955Not the person you asked, but for myself - yes, somewhat.

I actually do like Eclipse Phase an awful lot, but there are times when I have to just ignore or re-write elements of the setting to avoid throwing the books across the room. Particularly anyplace that deals with any religion that isn't Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam.

Fortunately (For Eclipse Phase) there's enough other stuff there that I like that it's worth the hassle.

There are things to like in EP, but when I consider running it, I tend to think that I'd have more success running Dark Heresy (2e) for an Inquisition campaign than an EP Firewall campaign. The tech that makes EP awesome is also what makes it a bitch to run (and even play), and the set-up of being per diem secret agents is IME hard for players to grasp compared to being full-time members of an Inquisitor's band of troubleshooters.

Quote from: Razor 007;1112643What are the big no-nos, if any?

Rectal tearing.