Search found 183 matches

by Saxony
Thu Apr 11, 2013 7:26 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: The Difficulty in RPGs thread
Replies: 578
Views: 59990

"Able to be beaten" and "is competitive" are two different things. Competition requires multiple actors comparing results and determining who "did better". Games don't require beating for competition. Beatability requires setting up a win condition ahead of time (whethe...
by Saxony
Sat Mar 23, 2013 9:22 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Another balancing Magic thread
Replies: 7
Views: 1507

Re: Another balancing Magic thread

Which do you think tells better stories, or is more fun? Depends entirely on who you are gaming with. Or, equivalently, who you want to play your game, who your market is, et cetera. I'm going to guess you are mostly making this game so you can play it with other people. Thus, the important questio...
by Saxony
Mon Mar 18, 2013 4:52 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

Yeah, I also agree entirely. It just needs to seem crime-y enough, sound technical enough, and it should be entertaining.
by Saxony
Mon Mar 18, 2013 9:52 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: {AD&D2e} What the fuck was wrong with the writers
Replies: 56
Views: 13209

Mistborn, I think you're reading too much into this. DnD (none of the editions) is not some magnum opus of philosophy. It's just one game, made by some people. They didn't put as much thought into it as you have. Doesn't mean it couldn't or should not have been done better, but... I guess my entire ...
by Saxony
Sun Mar 17, 2013 6:41 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

I don't think any actual expert will accuse police and courtroom shows of being knowledge porn. That's like calling Star Trek science porn. The forensics and law that we see in those things makes about as much sense as reversing the polarity of the neutron field. It's bullshit designed to look and ...
by Saxony
Sat Mar 16, 2013 1:08 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

This just took a turn for the interesting. I'll try to sum up what you said Ice9. Feel free to correct me or add on. So anything that requires an property of reality to work - such as a predetermined future - can't work in a fictional game where that property doesn't exist (because of dice and playe...
by Saxony
Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:15 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Why everyone, including LM, does tiers wrong
Replies: 70
Views: 14017

There are significant differences between "below the average human" and "average human" and "peak human". When we say "below average human", we mean... a sentient mouse. Or a child. We when say "peak human" we really mean peak human. Astronaut, body ...
by Saxony
Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:38 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

I'd say one thing that I have yet to see an RPG do very successfully is a police procedural. Not sure if it can't be done, since RPG is a very elastic term, which includes many things beyond strictly playing a certain role. Now that I think about it, that kind of game sounds awesome. But there are ...
by Saxony
Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:07 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

You could possibly run a body guard game where players get to plan... but the end result is that something interesting always happens any way. Perhaps the reward for filtering out all the low-level threats is that only the high level threats get through. So let's say you made sure the crazy ex girlf...
by Saxony
Wed Mar 13, 2013 8:57 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Why everyone, including LM, does tiers wrong
Replies: 70
Views: 14017

How about this for discussing tiers? I doubt people will adopt any new tier vocabulary. People barely adopted JaronK's configuration and that's the most popular one by far. So we can't invent new meanings for "Tier 2" and expect people to understand what they mean. But that's solvable. The...
by Saxony
Wed Mar 13, 2013 4:08 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

double post
by Saxony
Wed Mar 13, 2013 4:07 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

So in my regards, assuming there is a system in place, as I recall, RPG's apparently can't handle Star Trek/FTL:Faster-Than-Light, Political game ela Game of Thrones, and perhaps even Dynasty Warrior style mass battle campaigns (Well D&D kinda does it, but I also mean Mass Battles in general,ho...
by Saxony
Wed Mar 13, 2013 4:00 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

Ancient History wrote:Non-linear storytelling in general is difficult for RPGs. Not impossible, but difficult.
Can you describe what a non linear story is, and perhaps what form it would take as an RPG?
by Saxony
Wed Mar 13, 2013 3:58 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

There is no such thing as "an actual threat" in fucking fiction . It's all unreality. Stories can be better or worse at maintaining illusory threats to their unreal characters, but this fucking nonsense about actual real threats has to stop. Yeah, you are being unhelpful. That same logic ...
by Saxony
Wed Mar 13, 2013 3:52 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

No, it just changes the tension from "Will our hero survive this deadly encounter?" to "How will our hero survive this deadly encounter?" That's how a movie like Raiders of the Lost Ark can be thrilling even if you know in advance that Indiana Jones can't die because he has to g...
by Saxony
Tue Mar 12, 2013 6:15 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

So passive forms don't really work for the interactive medium.
by Saxony
Tue Mar 12, 2013 4:16 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

For a game to deliver characters surviving deadly scenarios, the scenarios themselves have to be "not actually deadly", which rather defeats the point. No, it just changes the tension from "Will our hero survive this deadly encounter?" to "How will our hero survive this dea...
by Saxony
Tue Mar 12, 2013 4:14 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

The question: What characters or stories are impossible to produce in RPGs because of the characteristics of the medium What you probably meant was this: "What characters or stories are impossible to produce in RPGS without the game becoming un-fun because of the characteristics of the medium&...
by Saxony
Tue Mar 12, 2013 10:32 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Saints Row the TTRPG
Replies: 16
Views: 4139

I think Saints Row would translate to table top RPGs very poorly. Saints Row relies on visual spectacle and gag humor. Much of the fun is doing something and watching all the insanity unfold. And the things Saints Row describes are interesting visually, but not interesting from a text or speech base...
by Saxony
Tue Mar 12, 2013 10:20 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

Thanks for the laugh. But no, I have not made a program that skims this forum for strong claims.

I just make a lot of analogies between programming and human thought.
by Saxony
Tue Mar 12, 2013 9:28 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Why everyone, including LM, does tiers wrong
Replies: 70
Views: 14017

Tomorrow I'm playing a 13th level game that is at an absurdly high power level. My character is an Initiative of Mystra abusing, persistent divine metamagiking Archivist who thanks to Monstrous Regeneration and Favor of Ilmater is literally immune to HP damage. And tomorrow when I fight some Demon ...
by Saxony
Tue Mar 12, 2013 9:15 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?
Replies: 92
Views: 12254

What stories are impossible to tell in RPGs?

... The Vanilla Action Hero is the character of choice of innumerates who do not understand probability. And what they want out of the character type is literally impossible. What they want is a character who "beats the odds", which is literally and specifically the only character that no...
by Saxony
Mon Mar 04, 2013 3:34 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Warning Signs: Yellow Dawn - The Age of Hastur
Replies: 23
Views: 7892

...Dave is a hardworking, honest and decent guy, entirely underserving of your rather unpleasant accusations.... This was actually fairly entertaining in a bit of a depressive way. I'd like you to take your blatant advertising else where (preferably no where). I guess it's nice to know there are pe...
by Saxony
Wed Feb 27, 2013 3:17 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Help me pick good class names!
Replies: 66
Views: 15497

Is the class actually going to be just a fighting class? If so, I don't quite understand avoiding calling the class what it is; the fighting class. Worrying about transparency rather than substance seems inconsistent. If the class is not just a fighting class, then call it what it is. So the questio...
by Saxony
Mon Feb 18, 2013 9:38 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: OSR movement threat or menace?
Replies: 77
Views: 20859

I'll weigh in. I use a computer and the internet very heavily when I build characters. I have a text document detailing the exact plan and inexact plan of every character I play (probably 4-5 pages each for completed characters). I also keep the text documents of every character I have ever played o...