Decline Critical role ruined PnP

[MartinK]

So going to bat for Kobel in any way may get you to loose your job and ostracized because to them your supporting a abuser. All because of one TTRPG session gone horrible wrong with the sexual assault of a players robot character from a year ago.

What really gets me is that everything would be fine if it was pain chip instead of orgasm chip.

 

[lightbane]

The death cult that is SJWs will always hound its enemies, so joining them is akin to signing your death warrant. Shame he lost his job for such inane reason though.

 

[Eldagusto]

I didn’t think there was still after effects from the Koebel incident. At this point I just want the companies to burn to make room for new companies. They pander to the worst people. God a big wake up call was when critical role was getting cancelled for doing a Wendy’s game. If you didn’t agree with that or the kobel incident multiple communities would secretly put you on a treason/heresy list if not outright banish you. It was disgusting. DnD and Whitewolf/Onyxpath are already compromised past redemption. I hear bad things about the direction Gamesworkshop is heading. But I hear some in the OSR community stand up to this. And I only heard about that because psychos kept on insisting they be cleansed of wrong think.

Seriously Critical Role used to joke about people telling you your fun is wrong, now they pander and prostrate themselves before the people who say that to them. DnD might survive because they are the king, but man Whitewolf needs to drop Onyxpath as a form of extirpation of the cancer and they need to work on broad appeal and not alienating their fans. Onyxpath was insufferably entitled to their fans money and I have seen them explode on long time fans for not shutting up and consuming their products. Heaven forbid constructive criticism.

 

[Alex]

You mean Call of Cuckthulhu? You must have missed the news. The new editions even have a disclaimer that Nazis are bad and Lovecraft was a bad, bad man and that the Mythos is inclusive and that "if you are a racist or bigot, do not play our game."

Worse still, it has rules for "pushing" failed rolls as well as avoiding players getting stuck during an investigation.

 

[Alex]

Nah! It is even worse than what I let on at first. The new edition is so decayed it actually has rules for rolling to purchase things, rather than just keeping track of money!

 

[Dayyālu]

Nah! It is even worse than what I let on at first. The new edition is so decayed it actually has rules for rolling to purchase things, rather than just keeping track of money!

I've never checked the more recent edition of CoC (I kinda don't feel the need) so I don't know about whatever they wrote on disclaimers an' shit. I don't care much, if you think about it the original CoC was written by Sandy Petersen that despite being a great man wants my entire political line dead and holds ideas I find abhorrent. He's still an amusing and great old man.

Regarding mechanics, what's exactly wrong with pushing? It's an extra tool for the players for a considerable risk.
Availability is more debatable, but I never exactly got behind the entirety of CoC's economic model.
Regarding "avoiding players getting stuck into an investigation", I'm not entirely sure what you mean. DM counsel? It's the job of a DM to herd the cats if they magnificently fail to pick a direction.

You can shit on CoC's Basic Role-playing fundations all you want (it's old, clunky, etc) but those are details and not even that bad, IMHO. I've read rulesets collapsing on retardation, CoC as far as I know isn't one. In before 7th edition is a disaster and I don't know.

Have you ever read Pathfinder 2? That one is a miracle of the mind.

 

[Alex]

Nah! It is even worse than what I let on at first. The new edition is so decayed it actually has rules for rolling to purchase things, rather than just keeping track of money!

(...snip)
Regarding mechanics, what's exactly wrong with pushing? It's an extra tool for the players for a considerable risk.

(...snip...)

You can shit on CoC's Basic Role-playing fundations all you want (it's old, clunky, etc) but those are details and not even that bad, IMHO. I've read rulesets collapsing on retardation, CoC as far as I know isn't one. In before 7th edition is a disaster and I don't know.

That is the point, though. The foundation of CoC is a simple and direct system, without any kind of mechanical recourse to bad rolls. If you rolled badly you failed, simple as that. I don't actually mind systems that do something differently. I rather enjoy (or enjoyed, as the case may be) the campaign I played using 2e WFRP rules, which introduced fate points. In fact, I would argue those work really well in games like Shadowrun or Burning Wheel... But the issue is that they belong to a different kind of game and I rather dislike seeing them be added to the new edition of Call of C'thulhu simply because they are trendy.

(...snip)Availability is more debatable, but I never exactly got behind the entirety of CoC's economic model.(snip...)

Availability rolls aren't really a problem, I think, as long as the GM is at least a bit reasonable with how they are handled. The 7th edition, however, added the idea of a "credit rating" skill, and that is something I find really annoying. CoC doesn't really have an economic model per se. I mean, it is not like D&D where adventuring and earning money are tightly - or even loosely - coupled. But when money is an issue, my problem with the idea of simply rolling is that it takes away from the possibility of solving the issue as the player and puts it on the hands of the characters instead.

(...snip)Regarding "avoiding players getting stuck into an investigation", I'm not entirely sure what you mean. DM counsel? It's the job of a DM to herd the cats if they magnificently fail to pick a direction.(snip...)

I am not sure what it means either, it is not like I actually bought the 7e book; I just read the kickstarter description. It apparently connects with the "idea" mechanic other editions already had. In those editions, idea was supposed to be a catch all roll for mental actions that weren't part of any skill. Remembering a fact, for instance, or noticing something out of place. The kickstarter description however says it is:

Ever had your players get stuck because they don’t know what to do next? The new rules provide a mechanism for handling such tricky situations; a revision of the Idea Roll rule. Now you can throw tricky investigations at your players and not have to worry if they pick up every clue or not. The new Idea Roll helps to keep your game on track without unnecessary railroading of the players.

Which takes away the edge of investigation. CoC had some rather interesting, open ended scenarios published for it where successfully discovering what is going on was the most important aspect of the adventure. If you want to play a game with a lesser focus on this kind of thing, you already have Trail of C'thulhu or what have you, no need to repurpose an old game for that.

 

[Morblot]

The 7th edition, however, added the idea of a "credit rating" skill, and that is something I find really annoying.

That was a dumb skill already when it popped up in d20 Modern in 2002. Or maybe it's an even older rule from some other system, but that's where I first remember seeing it.

Speaking of which, there's also a d20 version of Call of Cthulhu, published many years ago by WotC themselves IIRC. I'd kinda want to try that sometime if only to say I've played it...

 

[nikolokolus]

The Status skill was in the BGB (Big Gold Book and it came from an earlier Chaosium product, but I can't remember which one). In practice it's supposed to represent your credit and resources at your disposal, or ability to call on favors so it's not a bad way to manage things when you're playing a game where counting coppers really isn't the most important thing, so probably a Victorian to modern era game, but isn't very well suited to the typical itinerant fantasy adventurer type game. I'm using it in an ongoing Magic World game set in Dolmenwood and it works fine when characters are in their hometown where they have occupations they are assumed to be pursuing in their downtime and have an income, but we track money when they are further afield and can't bank on their fame and renown to get free drinks, etc.

 

[Alex]

The 7th edition, however, added the idea of a "credit rating" skill, and that is something I find really annoying.

That was a dumb skill already when it popped up in d20 Modern in 2002. Or maybe it's an even older rule from some other system, but that's where I first remember seeing it.

Speaking of which, there's also a d20 version of Call of Cthulhu, published many years ago by WotC themselves IIRC. I'd kinda want to try that sometime if only to say I've played it...

Sure, but my point was that this wasn't something that meshed well with CoC or even had any relationship with that game...

The Status skill was in the BGB (Big Gold Book and it came from an earlier Chaosium product, but I can't remember which one). In practice it's supposed to represent your credit and resources at your disposal, or ability to call on favors so it's not a bad way to manage things when you're playing a game where counting coppers really isn't the most important thing, so probably a Victorian to modern era game, but isn't very well suited to the typical itinerant fantasy adventurer type game. I'm using it in an ongoing Magic World game set in Dolmenwood and it works fine when characters are in their home town where they have occupations they are assumed to be pursuing in their downtime and have an income, but we track money when they are further afield and can't bank on their fame and renown to get free drinks, etc.

...And I am shown wrong. I had no idea BRP had this; I always associated the idea with newer games. Not that it makes me like it anymore than I do, but I suppose there is at least some argument to be made for it.

 

[Larianshill]

Since we talked about Adam Koebel here previously he's come up once more in some minor darma.

For zinequest 3 there was a project for "The Perfect RPG Zine" which after being successfully funded was canceled as the writers found out that Adam Koebel would be apart of the project which they were apparently not previously aware of this and as such many of them have pulled out publicly or quietly from the project.

So a month short of a full year since that really stupid scene in that Veronica show of his he remains a pariah after making a player's Character was made to orgasm against their will via a computer chip. It's a little hard to feel pity for the guy as this was the type of audience he cultivated and would have most likely done the same to others if the shoe was on the foot.

Every time one of their ilk dies by the sword he lived by, my day gets better.

 

[Sukhāvatī]

 

[Max Heap]

Since we talked about Adam Koebel here previously he's come up once more in some minor darma.

For zinequest 3 there was a project for "The Perfect RPG Zine" which after being successfully funded was canceled as the writers found out that Adam Koebel would be apart of the project which they were apparently not previously aware of this and as such many of them have pulled out publicly or quietly from the project.

So a month short of a full year since that really stupid scene in that Veronica show of his he remains a pariah after making a player's Character was made to orgasm against their will via a computer chip. It's a little hard to feel pity for the guy as this was the type of audience he cultivated and would have most likely done the same to others if the shoe was on the foot.

Behold... the quintessential kickstarter project:

 

[AwesomeButton]

It must have been quite the craze because it made it to a Fry & Laurie bit:

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Corr, this brings me back. I got into DnD in my 20's. I can't remember exactly when but it was the early 80's "me mam's milk still wet on m' face" as it were. If memory serves it was either what is now known as b/x or maybe even AD&D 1st ed. I played it in this dodgy new shop that had just opened up a few years back called Games Workshop. Before autistic staff and inflated prices, they distributed DnD in the UK. I only went to that shop a few times because it was quite far from my part of London but I thought it was the coolest place in the world. And I dragged some workmates kicking and screaming into playing DnD with me.

I just wanted to play a game, have fun. Not be an NPC in some sprog's improv theatre routine. Oh how times have changed.

 

[odrzut]

You mean Call of Cuckthulhu? You must have missed the news. The new editions even have a disclaimer that Nazis are bad and Lovecraft was a bad, bad man and that the Mythos is inclusive and that "if you are a racist or bigot, do not play our game."

Worse still, it has rules for "pushing" failed rolls as well as avoiding players getting stuck during an investigation.

Pushing is a risk-reward mechanic, if you failed the normal roll you just don't get anything, if you push and fail anyway you get an additional bad consequence. At least that's how we play and how I've seen people play, maybe it's a houserule?

As for avoiding players getting stuck - it's just good design. If you give players 1 clue and gate it behind 1 roll you're doing it wrong.

 

[Mortmal]

Corr, this brings me back. I got into DnD in my 20's. I can't remember exactly when but it was the early 80's "me mam's milk still wet on m' face" as it were. If memory serves it was either what is now known as b/x or maybe even AD&D 1st ed. I played it in this dodgy new shop that had just opened up a few years back called Games Workshop. Before autistic staff and inflated prices, they distributed DnD in the UK. I only went to that shop a few times because it was quite far from my part of London but I thought it was the coolest place in the world. And I dragged some workmates kicking and screaming into playing DnD with me.

I just wanted to play a game, have fun. Not be an NPC in some sprog's improv theatre routine. Oh how times have changed.

Things have not changed that much , its only the mainstream doing that theatre stuff people who were not really interested in, we can still play as classic and niche as ever. Bet you started on B/X rather than ad&d 1E , it was more widely distributed. You could find it in common libraries even, now closed dead and buried.

 

[MajorMace]

Normies got confused around the notion of "role-playing" and always thought it was about acting. Still do to this day.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Corr, this brings me back. I got into DnD in my 20's. I can't remember exactly when but it was the early 80's "me mam's milk still wet on m' face" as it were. If memory serves it was either what is now known as b/x or maybe even AD&D 1st ed. I played it in this dodgy new shop that had just opened up a few years back called Games Workshop. Before autistic staff and inflated prices, they distributed DnD in the UK. I only went to that shop a few times because it was quite far from my part of London but I thought it was the coolest place in the world. And I dragged some workmates kicking and screaming into playing DnD with me.

I just wanted to play a game, have fun. Not be an NPC in some sprog's improv theatre routine. Oh how times have changed.

Things have not changed that much , its only the mainstream doing that theatre stuff people who were not really interested in, we can still play as classic and niche as ever. Bet you started on B/X rather than ad&d 1E , it was more widely distributed. You could find it in common libraries even, now closed dead and buried.

Cool. Let me know when I can find some players then. My LGS is infested with zoomer boys who think they're cute gender fluid teflings. I'm not too keen on Internet games because they have always ended in disaster for me as the players either turn out to be poofs of some kind who derail the game or people just get bored and stop turning up. I'd rather play with people I know. But everyone I know either plays 5E or nothing at all. And I'm not getting any younger in my middle age.

I have considered introducing a younger lot my youngest son knows to B/X. Use Lamentations of the Flame Princess and bill at as "the Dark Souls" of DnD. They said they'd be interested in more system driven games so that, OSRIC, or Traveller would be ideal. We shall see. I shall be the Old Man yellling at clouds until someone asks what I'm yelling about.

 

[Alex]

You mean Call of Cuckthulhu? You must have missed the news. The new editions even have a disclaimer that Nazis are bad and Lovecraft was a bad, bad man and that the Mythos is inclusive and that "if you are a racist or bigot, do not play our game."

Worse still, it has rules for "pushing" failed rolls as well as avoiding players getting stuck during an investigation.

Pushing is a risk-reward mechanic, if you failed the normal roll you just don't get anything, if you push and fail anyway you get an additional bad consequence. At least that's how we play and how I've seen people play, maybe it's a houserule?

My problem with pushing is that it is usually something abstract; not something that is reflected by how the character is doing the action. It is a meta mechanic rather than something your PC is doing. I don't even have problem with those either (I think Shadowrun does well with its karma system for instance) except I think it doesn't mesh well with Call of C'thulhu. I would much rather not have this kind of thing in this game. If you want to take more risks in game, you should do the action in a way that is more risky than usual.

As for avoiding players getting stuck - it's just good design. If you give players 1 clue and gate it behind 1 roll you're doing it wrong.

Yes, it is a good thing to not design your adventures so that it ends in failure if players fail one single dice roll. Which is exactly why I dislike "rules" that try to avoid this situation. The way to avoid this is good design; not doing away with investigation or having hard rules to avoid this from happening.

Edit: In particular, I am fond of having the adventure structured so that failing an investigation will lead to a worse outcome but tenable situation. If you can't piece the clues found near the dead body, the cult will keep killing people until they have enough organs for their ritual. This gives you the opportunity to save people and maybe even earn their gratitude, but not require it.

 

[Stella Brando]

I'm sure the red-headed nerd in that video is Steve Jackson, the Fighting Fantasy game book author.

 

[Mortmal]

Corr, this brings me back. I got into DnD in my 20's. I can't remember exactly when but it was the early 80's "me mam's milk still wet on m' face" as it were. If memory serves it was either what is now known as b/x or maybe even AD&D 1st ed. I played it in this dodgy new shop that had just opened up a few years back called Games Workshop. Before autistic staff and inflated prices, they distributed DnD in the UK. I only went to that shop a few times because it was quite far from my part of London but I thought it was the coolest place in the world. And I dragged some workmates kicking and screaming into playing DnD with me.

I just wanted to play a game, have fun. Not be an NPC in some sprog's improv theatre routine. Oh how times have changed.

Things have not changed that much , its only the mainstream doing that theatre stuff people who were not really interested in, we can still play as classic and niche as ever. Bet you started on B/X rather than ad&d 1E , it was more widely distributed. You could find it in common libraries even, now closed dead and buried.

Cool. Let me know when I can find some players then. My LGS is infested with zoomer boys who think they're cute gender fluid teflings. I'm not too keen on Internet games because they have always ended in disaster for me as the players either turn out to be poofs of some kind who derail the game or people just get bored and stop turning up. I'd rather play with people I know. But everyone I know either plays 5E or nothing at all. And I'm not getting any younger in my middle age.

I have considered introducing a younger lot my youngest son knows to B/X. Use Lamentations of the Flame Princess and bill at as "the Dark Souls" of DnD. They said they'd be interested in more system driven games so that, OSRIC, or Traveller would be ideal. We shall see. I shall be the Old Man yellling at clouds until someone asks what I'm yelling about.

Always said it was extremely hard to find good games and players even here people jump at my throat , telling i am whining and such. But its the truth and i can see we encountered the same problem. Online , you will have to set up job interviews for players to sort out the good ones from the snowflakes and problem players, its full of degenerates . It's exactly the same thing as finding people for work, very hard to find reliable people you can count on. There's no secret its a long painful process, that's why we still play crpgs too.
If you want to play B/X its not exaclty the same as osric clones or lotfp and such, a bx character is gimped compare to a AD&D 1e 2e . So you will have to do some conversion work if you want to do the old modules on other rulesets.

 

[Alex]

(...snip)
Cool. Let me know when I can find some players then. My LGS is infested with zoomer boys who think they're cute gender fluid teflings. I'm not too keen on Internet games because they have always ended in disaster for me as the players either turn out to be poofs of some kind who derail the game or people just get bored and stop turning up. I'd rather play with people I know. But everyone I know either plays 5E or nothing at all. And I'm not getting any younger in my middle age.

I have considered introducing a younger lot my youngest son knows to B/X. Use Lamentations of the Flame Princess and bill at as "the Dark Souls" of DnD. They said they'd be interested in more system driven games so that, OSRIC, or Traveller would be ideal. We shall see. I shall be the Old Man yellling at clouds until someone asks what I'm yelling about.

I don't know what to tell you exactly, but I had a whole lot of luck finding games right here on the RPG Codex. I think it might be worth to keep trying; though I can't really tell you you won't have to deal with a lot of failures; or even that you will eventually succeed.

Edit: But I can tell you it is at least possible. Sorry, I forgot to add in this sentence before.

 

[odrzut]

My problem with pushing is that it is usually something abstract; not something that is reflected by how the character is doing the action. It is a meta mechanic rather than something your PC is doing. I don't even have problem with those either (I think Shadowrun does well with its karma system for instance) except I think it doesn't mesh well with Call of C'thulhu. I would much rather not have this kind of thing in this game. If you want to take more risks in game, you should do the action in a way that is more risky than usual.

Player is supposed to justify how they're pushing (for example "I was trying to persuade him gently, now I'm shouting and threatening") and GM is supposed to take that into account choosing punishement if pushing fails ("he calls police on you"). It's a little formulaic, but it leads to interesting choices for players and complicates the plot so I like it. Don't think it's any more meta than rolling for INT or Diplomacy.

In particular, I am fond of having the adventure structured so that failing an investigation will lead to a worse outcome but tenable situation.

That's called falling forward and I think it's easier to do in Call of Cthulhu than in D&D because of pushing and because of many degrees of success in CoC. So you get used to thinking in several options when you prepare for session (what if they do the ritual and roll <DEX, <DEX/2, <DEX/5, =01). It's less binary.

Another system that helps with this was this very simple mechanic for one-shots. I forgot the name but you were rolling d6 + modifier for everything, and results were interpreted as:
<=1 = you failed AND something bad happened
= 2 = you failed
= 3 = you failed BUT something good happened
= 4 = you succeeded BUT something bad happened
= 5 = you succeeded
>= 6 = you succeeded AND something good happened

 

[deuxhero]

That was a dumb skill already when it popped up in d20 Modern in 2002.

The main (but not only) reason it was dumb in d20 Modern is that it didn't work, as in, the wealth system literally did not function as intended. You could buy unlimited ammo for anything, some minor things were super expensive, and too much of the system was random.

Really, WotC themselves solved the issue of modern finances in RPGs with the Living Death rules: A 2 line note all characters have day jobs and the money they get between sessions is how much disposable income they've saved for their hobby of fighting supernatural evil. It avoids looking dated by using a period setting (Though the item list itself was broken in a bunch of ways despite that though, so I myself have personally fixed it with research from period sources).