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

[Henri Barbusse]

Microtransactions are a good first step to resolve the undermonetization of D&D, but it feels like it depends on churning out new drops, aka actually making a product. Wizards should add 1) time-limited drops, so that player engagement in the drop system is maintained, 2) a random chance element inspired by MtG, where a drop contains multiple feats with varying rarity and power with only comparatively small chance to obtain the featured feat, 3) prestige versions of feats which are mechanically the same except for being tied to a specific class. It is naturally more prestigeous to have a full set of feats one for each class rather than one, universal feat. With these, I can Wizards can achieve creating a highly engaged player base with long-term investment in the product without overstraining in-house capacities for production.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

There is a couple of threads about it on Reddit which packed to the gills with shills: AMA and announcement. A lot of the replies were obviously written by AI, these niggers were too busy with fuck all to actually reply to their paypigs. This interaction made me laugh, though:

View attachment 8994096

Downvoted for daring to question a pay-to-win scheme in D&D!

"Well, you see, we have the Warlock but that isn't a real class so we decided to give the kind of shit that a real Warlock class would have had

 

[Konigsberg]

They're a bit late to the party. It was stupid when they were talking about this 8 years ago, but anyone who would've paid for this is gone now.

I have never doubted WOTC's ability to do the most retarded thing imaginable at the worst possible time, their OGL catastrophe proved it.

They really are treating it like a vidya game with le microtransactions. Sheesh.

They really are, I left out some of the other shit that comes with it because it wasn't as impactful, but it also comes with exclusive cosmetic DLC for your dice and character sheets in D&D Beyond as well.

There is a couple of threads about it on Reddit which packed to the gills with shills

Gotta love shills defending dogshit being served as fine dining, and company reps dodging the main point of a question. A tale of a spiraling PR fumble as old as time. I only learned about Drops because an ex-coworker of mine who is a Forever DM for group that refuses to play anything other than 5e sent me a video explaining it, even though he actually likes 5e and pays for a Beyond sub he couldn't believe Wizard's greed took them this far.

Wizards can achieve creating a highly engaged player base with long-term investment in the product without overstraining in-house capacities for production

As someone who believes people deserve what they pay for, I think WOTC needs to take this man's advice. Anyone who would pay for the Dungeon Pass to get drip-fed random D&D content, which comes down to a bunch of numbers and rules that for all I know are also AI generated to increase profit margins farther, frankly deserves to be parted with their money.

 

[p1138]

They really are treating it like a vidya game with le microtransactions. Sheesh.

That's been WotC's dream for years.

But even with their focus on the player side of things, they've still never gotten that right either because their dream is to sell a player a +1 sword for $1 like it's a videogame.

If this takes off, basically being a D&D lootcrate, it will normalize their players basically paying for power and not simply passing shit around. Once that happens, people will ask for the ability to just buy the individual shit but the "not eligible for Master Tier content sharing." will already be in effect and they'll be used to it. At that point if those players become dependent on their stupid platform, it's just one step closer to selling those +1 swords for $1.

Combine that with their other idea of AI DMs, the AI isn't going to give a fuck if the player decides they want to start paying real money for new weapons and spells, and will gladly sell it to them.

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

Took another look at that AMA, now archived.



"Golly gee, did I forget to tell you? Let me assemble a dev team in a few months to look into the feasibility of posting a short list of names and job titles on the internet."

Wikipedia sez that there has only been one UA publication with credits since One D&D came out, which was likely already written and ready to go before the decision was made to stop crediting writers. This happened right around the time the OGL revision was leaked. I am speculating here, but it seems plausible to me that Wizards wanted to take away credits in as many places as they could get away with in order to keep the writers establishing themselves outside of the factory. Old Hollywood studios and comic book publishers used to do this, too, and for the same reason. Players and third party publishers managed to save OGL, but the in-house changes are permanent unless the Wizards employees actually unionize.

Anyone who would pay for the Dungeon Pass to get drip-fed random D&D content, which comes down to a bunch of numbers and rules that for all I know are also AI generated to increase profit margins farther

While the change took place before the release of ChatGPT, there is absolutely no way that UA is not at least partially AI generated. I don't even play D&D anymore and I still hear about severe balancing issues all the time, stuff that DMs can spot right away but which has supposedly been playtested for dozens of hours before a writeup. If there are any real writers working on this, they are being instructed to justify the company's OpenAI enterprise subscription by telling ChatGPT to produce 1488 paladin subclasses. TSR rushed out poorly balanced shit all the time as well, but that was not a company known for making wise business decisions or having strict QC.

 

[Corn Flakes]

If this takes off, basically being a D&D lootcrate, it will normalize their players basically paying for power and not simply passing shit around. Once that happens, people will ask for the ability to just buy the individual shit but the "not eligible for Master Tier content sharing." will already be in effect and they'll be used to it. At that point if those players become dependent on their stupid platform, it's just one step closer to selling those +1 swords for $1.

Combine that with their other idea of AI DMs, the AI isn't going to give a fuck if the player decides they want to start paying real money for new weapons and spells, and will gladly sell it to them.

Well, the upside is that if that happens the separation between Wizards paypiggies and D&D players of previous editions will be complete. If there's one good thing about 5.5e is that it released 5e from the burden of being the Current Edition, so people who started out playing it and enjoy it can just stick with it and maybe even branch out one day. There is a certain freedom in enjoying old, "abandoned" games.

 

[Judge Dredd]

It's looking like the Starfinder game is going to happen. Two of the players have character sheets ready before session 0, which is a great sign.

Are there any good Hastur/King in Yellow adventures you'd recommend? Delta Green, CoC, doesn't matter. Any good modern day adventures or original ideas are welcome too.

I've wanted to do "action heroes in horror setting x" for a while, and this Starfinder game seems like a good time to do it. And the Icon class is a great at providing hooks.

There is a certain freedom in enjoying old, "abandoned" games.

Same with settings. I don't think Nintir Vale would be as fondly remembered if it was fleshed out as planned. It's nice to have a setting that hasn't built up an extensive canon.

 

[Konigsberg]

Wikipedia sez that there has only been one UA publication with credits since One D&D came out, which was likely already written and ready to go before the decision was made to stop crediting writers. This happened right around the time the OGL revision was leaked. I am speculating here, but it seems plausible to me that Wizards wanted to take away credits in as many places as they could get away with in order to keep the writers establishing themselves outside of the factory.

That's a long ass time between publications in UA, especially for a company who is supposed to justify their existence to their shareholders by publishing and selling shit. Wizard's is lead by such brainlettes they'd probably fuck up selling water in the desert.

Also, it's amazing in creative fields it's such a common practice for companies to prevent the writer from getting credit for their own work, a product of their own mind and talent that's so important for their careers developing. I've wrote things for companies before (technical, not creative) and the companies themselves seemed like they cared if I was credited a hell of a lot more than I did, and for me this is just resume-fodder outside my direct job responsibilities. A creative writer lives and dies on the quality and quantity of their output, so taking that from them is scummy as fuck.

justify the company's OpenAI enterprise subscription by telling ChatGPT to produce 1488 paladin subclasses. TSR rushed out poorly balanced shit all the time as well, but that was not a company known for making wise business decisions or having strict QC.

To the credit of TSR and every other whacko in this industry, I would always rather pay for the insane ramblings and imbalanced nonsense of a real person over a machine that turns every bit of data that isn't nailed down into a generic idea-slurry to be doled out on command of its masters.

Sure you buy a book expecting quality and instead get the new age ramblings of Justin Achilli or name any other industry goof. The shit inside is unbalanced or sounds like it was written by a retarded chimp, but at least it was produced by a living breathing cornball. That at least adds a layer of interest to it for me. "Wow, someone actually thought this was a good idea." or "Damn, I see what they were going for but that's busted." It gives you a window into an authors mind and intent even if the output is garbage. AI writing is just boring soul-less slop and if it churns out something retarded and broken I don't even have a name to pin my animosity on. It would be like getting mad at my washing machine.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

"Golly gee, did I forget to tell you? Let me assemble a dev team in a few months to look into the feasibility of posting a short list of names and job titles on the internet."

Wikipedia sez that there has only been one UA publication with credits since One D&D came out, which was likely already written and ready to go before the decision was made to stop crediting writers. This happened right around the time the OGL revision was leaked. I am speculating here, but it seems plausible to me that Wizards wanted to take away credits in as many places as they could get away with in order to keep the writers establishing themselves outside of the factory. Old Hollywood studios and comic book publishers used to do this, too, and for the same reason. Players and third party publishers managed to save OGL, but the in-house changes are permanent unless the Wizards employees actually unionize.

This is fascinating because it's a reversion to an older era -- namely, back when Atari didn't credit its programmers.

 

[Corn Flakes]

That's a long ass time between publications in UA, especially for a company who is supposed to justify their existence to their shareholders by publishing and selling shit.

D&D has always been the sideshow. Wizards publishes and sells a metric crapton of shit every year, it's just 99% of that is Magic the Gathering sets.

If for some reason MTG stopped selling tomorrow, Hasbro would have WotC liquidated before the weekend.

 

[The Ugly One]

Thread, I bring news as WOTC has announced a new subscription model for D&D Beyond, called Drops, and it's exactly as bad (or more!) as you imagine it.

To boost subs D&D is now going to start selling exclusive access to player options, spells, backgrounds, feats, monsters, and more through the 'new' Drops system. In case you already use D&D Beyond and thought this might be a good upgrade for your table, think again retard, as unlike the previous system you are NOT allowed to share player-centric Drops content with your players, even if you have the Master Tier subscription. Each individual player at your table will have to buy their own subscriptions if they want access to the spells, backgrounds, etc. through D&D Beyond.

Content that used to be sold as part of splatbooks or expansions will now be distributed piecemeal through the Drops system, that way Wizards can milk their customers for money, forever, without having to print a single book. Wizards is so desperate for revenue they will do literally anything other than release a good book for D&DWhateverE.

Hooray, recurring revenue, the stock price is saved!

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

If for some reason MTG stopped selling tomorrow, Hasbro would have WotC liquidated before the weekend.

Isn't WoTC still the printer for Pokemon TCG as well?

 

[Corn Flakes]

Isn't WoTC still the printer for Pokemon TCG as well?

No, they lost that license ages ago. The Pokemon Company has been publishing it themselves since 2003 and boy they must be just raking in the dough these days.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

Can you provide an example of what this looks like in practice?

It looks something like this. Basically, it's pretty simple once you get the hang of it. This also. Traits that increase your degree of success and give you. And give you Extra rolls if you fail.
Also, psychics are fun because if you roll double S, you get to accidentally summon demons.

 

[The Bogwater Flows On]

But of course, that game fell through and they ended up wanting to do something else.

As the group's forever GM, they will play my bullshit and will like it (or politely tell me it ain't jelling).

My Only War Penal Legion game lasted a year and a half with many ups and downs. I went full autism and created random equipment tables that people would receive before their missions. These did include really good stuff like bolters with limited ammo or crossbows with a lot of bolts.

Team did pretty well. Honestly, it was stupidity more than the odds that killed them and it was hilarious how the party managed to kill my antagonist Commissar I had set up. The player an the commissar ambushed an enemy light tank in desperation, but won the fight to actually board and take over the tank. They tried driving the tank, with no skills. Enemies arrived and before an enemy could throw a grenade into the tank, the player decided he'd beat them to it and throw a grenade out of the tank! Failed so hard the grenade didn't make it outside. He then failed an agility check to get out of the tank and died! The Commissar also failed his agility check and died!

 

[MazonLabs Recruitment Rep]

My Only War Penal Legion game lasted a year and a half with many ups and downs. I went full autism and created random equipment tables that people would receive before their missions. These did include really good stuff like bolters with limited ammo or crossbows with a lot of bolts.

Heh, that actually fits the whole jib of a penal suicide team, especially an unproven one.

Failed so hard the grenade didn't make it outside. He then failed an agility check to get out of the tank and died! The Commissar also failed his agility check and died!

 

[Judge Dredd]

My hatred of long canon has just come up again.

The Starfinder campaign I want to run, The Scoured Stars, has the first adventure be some busy work. Boring. Instead there's a far better level 1 adventure where the city is hacked and everything goes like that Y2K episode of the simpsons.

Unfortunately, the villain in question isn't around. In fact, rescuing him is part of the campaign RAW. The plot of that mini campaign, it turns out he's mad at Starfinders because while he was trapped in the Scoured Stars for a year, he was replaced and resents it, and the hack was part of a plot to steal data.

I'll figure something out, but this kind of thing is an annoying side effect of all adventures being canon.

 

[Juke and Jam]

My hatred of long canon has just come up again.

The Starfinder campaign I want to run, The Scoured Stars, has the first adventure be some busy work. Boring. Instead there's a far better level 1 adventure where the city is hacked and everything goes like that Y2K episode of the simpsons.

Unfortunately, the villain in question isn't around. In fact, rescuing him is part of the campaign RAW. The plot of that mini campaign, it turns out he's mad at Starfinders because while he was trapped in the Scoured Stars for a year, he was replaced and resents it, and the hack was part of a plot to steal data.

I'll figure something out, but this kind of thing is an annoying side effect of all adventures being canon.

Their canon does branch out all over the place and not in a good way. In my experience it's best to make your own framework and fit the ready-made pieces into it, than try and study several years worth of lore that will likely never even come up at the table. Also, Paizos adventure paths and modules have always been very hit or miss, but from what I hear, things seem to be getting worse. There's less focus on designing things to be coherent and engaging, simply setting up stuff for big "cinematic moments."

 

[The Bogwater Flows On]

I was gone when@Sleazy Car Salesman was going on about Dark Heresy and my experience with DH has been very small. I like immediately went to Black Crusade as a game I was a player in and Only War as a game I was the GM for, but man people who cannot fathom percentile games and the system in general makes me sad. D20s are fine, but the 40k's system was very solid with many factors to adjust the rolls. I feel players had a lot of choices in how to react to things with reactions being more than "Attack of opportunity" or "attack of opportunity but spicier".

Also I'm a sucker for soak damage mitigation systems in RPGs

I'll figure something out, but this kind of thing is an annoying side effect of all adventures being canon.

Unless you're running for some adventure league thing you can take or leave canon stuff like that. When I ran my Starfinder game I did as much of that as I could, but I still fell through. I just didn't fuck with the system.

One day I'll stop being a coward and run a game using some Genesys shit. I know narrative shit is a contentious topic, but I enjoyed the FFG Star Wars RPG system for things so maybe it'll work or I'll fuck it up majorly.

 

[Henri Barbusse]

but man people who cannot fathom percentile games and the system in general makes me sad. D20s are fine, but the 40k's system was very solid with many factors to adjust the rolls.

D20+roll under like in Pendragon is just a percentile system in 5% increments and I'm not sure the extra fine detail of a full percentile system is worth it. D20 and percentile rolls are both too swingy for my taste.