Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

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BlazikenLover said:
I also believe the game exploded in popularity (thanks in part to livestreams such as critical role and easy to use virtual tabletop platforms like roll20) and the corporate overlords at hasbro noticed and may or may not have started to medle. I believe this since for the first 2 or so years they didn't have much of a budget and some were still skeptical about the 4e fiasco, which may be why books released in that time period (rise of tiamat, princes of the apocalypse, sword coast adventurer's guide) turned the way they did and there was so much outsourcing or deals with third party companies (I mean ffs, dmsguild was made by the drivethrurpg people, a company having the backing of hasbro couldn't get the resources to make one themselves) sure those moves may have paid off in the long run but it always struck me as "daddy hasbro won't give us enough money cuz he doesn't believe in us"
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isn't their output still fairly low? granted I don't follow it that close, but it feels at a glance you get some barebones official material and a lot of thirdparty "designed for the world's biggest role-play game" (to not have to pay license fees) plugging the holes.
 
Skimbleshanks said:
TBH I think MTG Has a bigger Rad fem problem from what I've seen. You just need to look back at Nahiri-gate.
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MtG releases flagship products far more often than D&D does, so you get to see the bullshit more often. Both games are produced by the same company, though, so they're pretty equally pozzed.
 
apologize if this was already discussed but does anyone know what the fuck is going on with FFG over the past year or so?
I only ask because an off hand mention of x-wing in a star wars thread lead me to find out Asmodee re organized so all of their TTRPGs are going to be produced by Edge studio, re organized again so all their minis go to Atomic Mass, and shit can a bunch of old employers in the process.
From what I can gather this hasn't officially happened yet, but I'm still wonder what the hell will FFG have left to produce when it does.
 
vern said:
apologize if this was already discussed but does anyone know what the fuck is going on with FFG over the past year or so?
I only ask because an off hand mention of x-wing in a star wars thread lead me to find out Asmodee re organized so all of their TTRPGs are going to be produced by Edge studio, re organized again so all their minis go to Atomic Mass, and shit can a bunch of old employers in the process.
From what I can gather this hasn't officially happened yet, but I'm still wonder what the hell will FFG have left to produce when it does.
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ffg going corporate and asmodee being asmodee, but that's been going on for more than a year. a company getting sliced up after a buyout isn't anything new, either because they don't need 2 departments doing the same stuff, or they want to trim the fat they don't need and look more attractive to a potential future buyer.
didn't hear about the minis getting moved too, but then I don't play anything of their wannabe gw plastic crack. with standalone games, RPGs, sleeves and now minis gone I assume FFG is relegated to shit out cards for the rest of it's existence (till those get move too and FFG officially becomes asmodee usa).
 
Jet Fuel Johnny said:
So, after a game we were BSing (I'm down to

Wait, what?

Is this real?
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Are you familiar with the RPGA? It's a shitty officiating service WOTC's had with D&D since the early 2000s, and basically boils down to the "official" way WOTC wanted you to play D&D for their events. Basically it means that DMs run every adventure "out of a box" while changing nothing, players use persistent characters that are auto-retired at a certain level, most things are core rules only, and discouraging rule zero. Most of the modules the RPGA would get were unique, and some settings, like Ravenloft, that didn't see a full-scale release in earlier editions *did* see one in RPGA events. These events were always at Cons and major product releaases.

As I recall, the RPGA actually pre-dated WOTC's acquisition of the D&D license, and it saw form during the glory days of AD&D, but I'm not as familiar with that incarnation like I am the 3.0/3.5 era.

Anyway. To even get RPGA certification as a DM, you originally had to go through a ridiculous quiz on WOTC's website that gauged your rule familiarity, or alternately, pay WOTC money. The reason you'd want in was that they'd demo new products (Including ones that would never get full releases), give prizes, and show off upcoming stuff while letting D&D fans get hands-on with things. The problem is that the RPGA reps were fucking tards and would fuck DMs over for the stupidest fucking reasons. Deviate from the module slightly to make an encounter not a complete joke? Banned. Rule Zero an encounter? Banned. Use a splatbook not warranted for the module, even if it's official material? Banned. Want to run a mature game? Fuck off and die. Kill players? BANNED FOR LIFE.

Players meanwhile had restrictions a mile long. No Prestige Classes. Nothing that wasn't in the core rulebooks. No evil characters. Many items were banned. Characters were persistent between adventures, and automatically retired permanently at level 20 to prevent players from becoming destabilizing elements.

Worse, most, if not all of the RPGA Reps were absolute fucking tards who were, almost to a man, cut from the same cloth as your average Reddit jannie. Needless to say, those insane little "don't trigger your players" questionaires, and all the other moronic shit we've ridiculed in this thread just like it? The RPGA had them years before they became more public.

The whole thing was basically Wizards trying to enforce its own vision for its games through the only way it could, naturally attracting the biggest assholes possible, and then letting the chips fall where they may. Thankfully, it wasn't all bad, and in a maneuver to make @Randall Fragg proud, a time-honored tactic for oldschool PNP fans everywhere was to earn RPGA certification and then dick with the RPGA as hard and brutally as possible. Even Spoony, as an RPGA DM actually ate a ban from them for changing an encounter.

That was one of the lighter examples. As a player, you could make things a living hell for the RPGA's DMs with enough system mastery. Make munchkin characters that break the game. Create Capstone Characters, which were characters that intentionally triggered XP penalties for multiclassing badly (in 3.X D&D) so that a character could continue to acquire disproportionate wealth. When the RPGA reacted to this by lowering the forced retirement level cap to 15, players still found ways around it by forcibly lowering their XP with spells or being killed and then Raised on-purpose. Each of these eventually led to the RPGA reps cracking down, resulting in the game becoming increasingly stupid and untenable, exactly as hoped.
 
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Jaimas said:
Are you familiar with the RPGA? It's a shitty officiating service WOTC's had with D&D since the early 2000s, and basically boils down to the "official" way WOTC wanted you to play D&D for their events. Basically it means that DMs run every adventure "out of a box" while changing nothing, players use persistent characters that are auto-retired at a certain level, most things are core rules only, and discouraging rule zero. Most of the modules the RPGA would get were unique, and some settings, like Ravenloft, that didn't see a full-scale release in earlier editions *did* see one in RPGA events. These events were always at Cons and major product releaases.

As I recall, the RPGA actually pre-dated WOTC's acquisition of the D&D license, and it saw form during the glory days of AD&D, but I'm not as familiar with that incarnation like I am the 3.0/3.5 era.

Anyway. To even get RPGA certification as a DM, you originally had to go through a ridiculous quiz on WOTC's website that gauged your rule familiarity, or alternately, pay WOTC money. The reason you'd want in was that they'd demo new products (Including ones that would never get full releases), give prizes, and show off upcoming stuff while letting D&D fans get hands-on with things. The problem is that the RPGA reps were fucking tards and would fuck DMs over for the stupidest fucking reasons. Deviate from the module slightly to make an encounter not a complete joke? Banned. Rule Zero an encounter? Banned. Use a splatbook not warranted for the module, even if it's official material? Banned. Want to run a mature game? Fuck off and die. Kill players? BANNED FOR LIFE.

Players meanwhile had restrictions a mile long. No Prestige Classes. Nothing that wasn't in the core rulebooks. No evil characters. Many items were banned. Characters were persistent between adventures, and automatically retired permanently at level 20 to prevent players from becoming destabilizing elements.

Worse, most, if not all of the RPGA Reps were absolute fucking tards who were, almost to a man, cut from the same cloth as your average Reddit jannie. Needless to say, those insane little "don't trigger your players" questionaires, and all the other moronic shit we've ridiculed in this thread just like it? The RPGA had them years before they became more public.

The whole thing was basically Wizards trying to enforce its own vision for its games through the only way it could, naturally attracting the biggest assholes possible, and then letting the chips fall where they may. Thankfully, it wasn't all bad, and in a maneuver to make @Randall Fragg proud, a time-honored tactic for oldschool PNP fans everywhere was to earn RPGA certification and then dick with the RPGA as hard and brutally as possible. Even Spoony, as an RPGA DM actually ate a ban from them for changing an encounter.

That was one of the lighter examples. As a player, you could make things a living hell for the RPGA's DMs with enough system mastery. Make munchkin characters that break the game. Create Capstone Characters, which were characters that intentionally triggered XP penalties for multiclassing badly (in 3.X D&D) so that a character could continue to acquire disproportionate wealth. When the RPGA reacted to this by lowering the forced retirement level cap to 15, players still found ways around it by forcibly lowering their XP with spells or being killed and then Raised on-purpose. Each of these eventually led to the RPGA reps cracking down, resulting in the game becoming increasingly stupid and untenable, exactly as hoped.
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Well, I'm glad that failure has already happened. This sounds like the kind of shit they'd try for 5e under the guise of "trust and safety" if they hadn't already tried it before.
 
Jaimas pretty much has the right of it. Maybe the RPGA wasn't composed of complete tards back in the 80's-90's, but by now they've devolved into complete morons.

Sadly, their inheritors are Pathfinder Society and Adventurer's League and those aren't tangibly better.
 
Capsaicin Addict said:
Jaimas pretty much has the right of it. Maybe the RPGA wasn't composed of complete tards back in the 80's-90's, but by now they've devolved into complete morons.

Sadly, their inheritors are Pathfinder Society and Adventurer's League and those aren't tangibly better.
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I was interested in it until I saw the list of restrictions. Fuck that. Rather not play at all.
 
ZMOT said:
ffg going corporate and asmodee being asmodee, but that's been going on for more than a year. a company getting sliced up after a buyout isn't anything new, either because they don't need 2 departments doing the same stuff, or they want to trim the fat they don't need and look more attractive to a potential future buyer.
didn't hear about the minis getting moved too, but then I don't play anything of their wannabe gw plastic crack. with standalone games, RPGs, sleeves and now minis gone I assume FFG is relegated to shit out cards for the rest of it's existence (till those get move too and FFG officially becomes asmodee usa).
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That makes sense, though part of me wonder why it took almost 6 years for asmodee to do this it was probably because 2020 was 2020.
As for their minis, they got moved back in November to atomic mass games, and the only thing they've done so far is make a marvel game called crisis protocol and do painting livestreams on their official twitch and youtube, only real shitty thing they've done as of yet is fire some of the main designers and developers with the re-org.
 
Fuck RPGA got THAT bad?

It used to be just a list of basic rules, using pre-gen characters, or approved characters, and you'd do the whole quiz and sign-up thing through the mail. (I did RPGA stuff in the 80's)

Why doesn't it surprise me that all the "I'm totally a D&D expert and expert GM although I've never actually played with anyone at an actual table" guys got in the doors and ruined shit.
 
Capsaicin Addict said:
Sadly, their inheritors are Pathfinder Society and Adventurer's League and those aren't tangibly better.
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is it? never heard much about it, but don't follow cons that close. any juicy bits?

vern said:
That makes sense, though part of me wonder why it took almost 6 years for asmodee to do this it was probably because 2020 was 2020.
As for their minis, they got moved back in November to atomic mass games, and the only thing they've done so far is make a marvel game called crisis protocol and do painting livestreams on their official twitch and youtube, only real shitty thing they've done as of yet is fire some of the main designers and developers with the re-org.
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no idea, maybe peterson still had some pull or some projects were still in the pipeline. you inevitably always lose people in those cases, either because they don't wanna move, their job is redundant etc., which is one of the reasons stuff starts to suck usually.

I know they moved their sleeves (and all other accessories) to another company, claiming "it will totally be the same" - then promptly changed the size and material while increasing the price (and ffg sleeves were never that cheap to begin with), so yeah...
asmodee has been the EA of boardgames for a while. there were the retailer shenanigans that you only get official stuff if you keep your online sales to a limit (think 20% off was the highest you were allowed to go or something, been a while) after they took over/limited to their supply to certain distributors, all for the sake of "strengthening the local retailers" - which isn't a bad idea, but lot of those suck for a reason or are just a FNM dump. corona probably took care of that afterwards.
there's also the rumor going around they wanted the main hall at spiel essen all for themselves (which they could probably fill considering amount of companies they own), but that would push out other companies which have been there for like ever, with a lot of regulars that can have quite a bit on impact on your business if you're suddenly at the ass end in another hall. there's also some general corona drama, the online version apparently wasn't that greatly received so it's up in the air how it will proceed/restart from now on. worst case asmodee takes over since their german office is already in essen and they got the manpower, which will make things interesting...
 
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Jet Fuel Johnny said:
Fuck RPGA got THAT bad?

It used to be just a list of basic rules, using pre-gen characters, or approved characters, and you'd do the whole quiz and sign-up thing through the mail. (I did RPGA stuff in the 80's)

Why doesn't it surprise me that all the "I'm totally a D&D expert and expert GM although I've never actually played with anyone at an actual table" guys got in the doors and ruined shit.
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The way I encountered it, it actually was the former up through around 2004. Around 2006, we were starting to see RPGA officianados basically declare themselves to be the REAL players of Dungeons and Dragons, mostly because they could find the sign-up and pass a shitty quiz. This is what initially led oldschoolers to take issue with them and start fucking with them, as god intended.

Which kind of made them the Blue Checkmarks of D&D at the time, which on balance, is kind of hilarious. This was around the time when the first oldfags were hazing RPGA officials in the fashion they were accustomed, and correspondingly where the very first rule changes designed to thwart attempts to fuck with RPGA DMs started.

The first battery of the nonsense that would herald what that insufferable crowd would mutate into really started around 2008 and hit full burn around 2010. This was when Trigger Warnings started to emerge. By 2012 there was a definite infestation by Social Justice tards in the hobby and they were over-represented in the RPGA, as you might expect. I remember one of the most common justifications for the enormous amount of overreach they tended to throw around (bans for life for minor offenses) was that they needed to crack down because too much of the community were basically rapists, and if not somehow controlled, would inevitably turn all of the game into their Magical Realm:

Piss.png

Logic never really played into what they were trying to do, and this mostly just encouraged players to fuck with them even harder. Unfortunately by this point, the worst elements were now in leadership positions.

By 2014 the infestation reached the terminal stage and the hobby was completely pozzed.
 
Jaimas said:
The way I encountered it, it actually was the former up through around 2004. Around 2006, we were starting to see RPGA officianados basically declare themselves to be the REAL players of Dungeons and Dragons, mostly because they could find the sign-up and pass a shitty quiz. This is what initially led oldschoolers to take issue with them and start fucking with them, as god intended.

Which kind of made them the Blue Checkmarks of D&D at the time, which on balance, is kind of hilarious. This was around the time when the first oldfags were hazing RPGA officials in the fashion they were accustomed, and correspondingly where the very first rule changes designed to thwart attempts to fuck with RPGA DMs started.

The first battery of the nonsense that would herald what that insufferable crowd would mutate into really started around 2008 and hit full burn around 2010. This was when Trigger Warnings started to emerge. By 2012 there was a definite infestation by Social Justice tards in the hobby and they were over-represented in the RPGA, as you might expect. I remember one of the most common justifications for the enormous amount of overreach they tended to throw around (bans for life for minor offenses) was that they needed to crack down because too much of the community were basically rapists, and if not somehow controlled, would inevitably turn all of the game into their Magical Realm:
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This ties into observations I've made: that the socjus bullshit angle works from 'everything prior to us was BAD and TERRIBLE and EVIL and we must purge it from existence'. Year Zero thinking, in other words.

Which, as I've said before, really pisses me off. Yes, there were bad actors in the gaming scene. Welcome to life, where some people are just inveterate fuckheads. The solution was to isolate those problem elements, not paint the entire hobby as irredeemable save through the grace of Social Justice Therapy.
 
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