The Gaming Den

Yeah, the "Stalker is just Fallout!" argument just proves Kaelik never played neither game. One is your trad RPG formula with NPCs that are little more than wiki-posts disguised as people who only come into existence when the player gets within 100 yards of them, and the other is an ambiti...

If The Witcher were made by Activision, silva would be calling it a bland, generic fantasy interspersed with blatant sexploitation. But, The Witcher is about a Polish badass and Polish tits, and apparently Poland is exotic now. Huh.. if you read my previous posts, you will see I didnt even consider...

Thanks for the description, Longes. You know what ? Blade, Prak and Judging Eagle are right. I was thinking the issue again and came to the conclusion that what distinguishes Eastern European games is not their prowess in "flexing the media boundaries" (while Stalker does this, its more of...

Lounges, do you live in eastern Europe ?

The fact Bioshock was brought up and Portal wasn't is a travesty. Is Sweden in Eastern Europe as well? Because last I checked; Mirror's Edge, Minecraft, & Cry of Fear are all rather good games in terms of depth & flavour. And they are certainly not the only thing that country has put out in...

@Kaelik: Of the western game you cited, only Bioshock really has, arguably, a depth in flavor and theme. The others are just good games. This. Kaelik, perhaps I didn't express myself well in the OP. I didn't mean to say western games are bad or devoid of artistic and creative flair, I just meant th...

I'm playing Pathologic HD right now and, after getting mesmerized by its unique atmosphere and writing, it got me thinking: How can these eastern European games evoke such distinct flavors and themes in a way that makes western games seem naive in comparison ? Really, if we take the last decade or s...

Aaaaand its done.

http://shinobigami.com/

Kickstarter opens in a week or two.

I think the reason the Rules-lite revolution has been confined to the backwaters of the Internet is that it's hard to get into. I own a copy of Fate and still can't actually tell you what an adventure should look like, what a character should be able to do, and how most things are supposed to work....

How much of TTRPG decline can be attributed to the "golden age" for board games? From a casual player standpoint, something like Descent has a lot of pluses going on for it: single-session commitment (but still able to span multiple sessions), lower total play-time per session, rules expl...

Also, now I have to play this game again. If more people get interested, we could have a Den SMAC multiplayer. That would involve me dying horribly. Even after playing the game on and off for 10 years, I still play on Citizen. Tips: - expand fast at the beginning until you reach your base threshold...

Thanks for the recommendation, ETortoise. I'll take a look at Burning Empires.

Flatline: Transhuman Space is the harder sci-fi RPG I've seen. But it suffers from a "what do I do with it?" syndrome somewhat. Worth a read just for ideas, though.

I dunno, I think there's actually been an increasing demand for higher mechanical rigor, ever since 3e D&D. It hasn't been helping WoD products any, since they don't really "do" that. What kind of "higher mechanical rigor" matters is indeed subjective, as some people lean ha...

I would reply to the thread, but then Shlominus above already put a perfect reply.

I can't see how "quality" or "good design" has anything to do with selling in a hobby that's even more subjective then the music industry. Really, the 1st boom in the early 80s was lead by AD&D, Traveller and Runequest/BRP, while the 2nd in the 90s was lead by Vampire and Sha...

Don't know, I always saw the RPG market more as a fringe than anything. Booms like the one occurred in early 2000s are more exceptions than the norm, really. I, for one, not being a fan of D&D, am more happy today than 15 years ago - at least now I have games with a wild range of styles and flav...

AndreiChekov wrote:Also, now I have to play this game again.

If more people get interested, we could have a Den SMAC multiplayer.

Also, your typical "full-party" scene should be rare in such a game (except if its Planetary Council meeting, that is). Considering a group of 5 players, most of time the scenes would be composed of 2 or 3 players max, regardless of who "framed" the scene (a player or the GM). On...

This really sounds like a board game and not a roleplaying game. I think Cataan checks all of these boxes if you interpret trading negotiations as a diplomatic scene. Well, you see, in my previous sketches I proposed something like a traditional party-based setup. But playing SMAC again I dont thin...

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/534013634098645263/CC962892EB1D4351353E0C973A8F0702BB3CAF5B/ Ok, its that time of the year where I finish another playthrough of Sid Meier Alpha Centauri and get all excited wondering how a proper tabletop rpg for it would turn out. This time though, I ...

@Violence in the Media: If creating characters under an hour is a priority then I suggest low-to-mid crunch games like Barbarians of Lemuria, Chronica Feudalis, or King Arthur Pendragon. These have nice mechanics which are flavorful yet simple enough to not halt the game to crawl, be it on creation ...

Color me skeptic. Paradox is a one trick pony whose trick has nothing to whatsoever with RPGs.

Runequest 6. Barbarians of Lemuria. The One Ring.

Just to cite some wildly different takes on fantasy.

Its coming.

http://shinobigami.com/

You're welcone.