Keps
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 118
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Post by Keps on Jul 15, 2014 11:51:57 GMT -6
I do not. This hobby is extremely cheap. XBOX games $65each x3-4/year. 65 is actually pretty cheap, back in the 80's video games were 50 bucks, so accounting for inflation they have gone down even as they have been improving (at least technical specification wise). RPG's on the other hand are basically the same price they always were and really haven't changed at all. I remember begging my mom to buy me "Flight Simulator" for my C64 back in the early-mid 80s for $80ish. Wow did that game suck. It was an actual flight sim. |
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Post by kirbyfan63 on Jul 15, 2014 13:05:21 GMT -6
I do think this view of roleplaying is unfortunate, but i blame the average consumer and not the companies. If we had a market that demanded a genuinely quality well written and imagined rule set at a reasonable price we would more than likely get it. £30 for a core book i don't think is excessive, but it is for if you have to buy 3 books (read 5e). But given that the average consumer (at least the ones i know) want three books rather than one it doesn't surprise me. I disagree, I started with the Palladium System and that was always one book a game, and I made most of the adventures myself because they where very few scenarios available. Same with most of the games I played apart from AD&D. I don't think it has anything to do with the consumers, since I played both ways. I definitely blame the companies, because people can only buy what is offered. Since they can make more money in the short run with high entry level prices, that is what gets produced, and thus that is what sells and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2014 13:10:41 GMT -6
Agreed completely coffee. Let me clarify my original point. It's disheartening when a hobby shifts from a large variety of options, and cheap alternatives, to a focus on a collector's market and special editions. Ah, I honestly didn't get that at first. I have two comments on that: 1) It's inevitable. Much as we may not like it, prices of luxury goods will always go up. 2) The answer, honestly, is to play older editions. You can still buy the 1st Edition AD&D hardcovers used for less than their original price, inflation adjusted. 3) There are also a TON of free or very inexpensive RPGs out there as PDFs. I think this is a good thing and I'd like to see RPGs get to where wargames were in the 1960s and 70s where there were some really good games produced by the hobbyists themselves. The difference is now we have the Internet and PDFs to show off what we can do. Okay, three comments. I for the night shift and haven't had my "morning" coffee yet. |
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Post by rsdean on Jul 15, 2014 16:54:25 GMT -6
It's disheartening when a hobby shifts from a large variety of options, and cheap alternatives, to a focus on a collector's market and special editions. OD&D started with little booklets and cheap supplements like Booty and Beasts, and Arduin. Now it's almost entirely composed of hardcover, full color, 300+ page books; the OSR being now joining this trend (Swords & Wizardry as a prime example). Hmmm. I guess I don't think of the hobby as being equal to the industry. If you mean that the industry is concentrated on large hardcovers, I'll mostly agree with you, but I could also bring up counterexamples like the Savage Worlds digest sized rulebooks at $10 or the Fate Core hardback at $25 (or the Fate Accelerated paperback at $5), to name only things that I could acquire at my FLGS. The hobby is putting out a plethora of self-published adventures, add-ons, core rules, etc. It's just that it's more effective all around to use .pdf distribution these days than to use the local quickie print for an offset run. Also, as I mentioned above, the $10 in 1974 money that bought the original OD&D books is over $45 in 2014 money, so a lot of big expensive core books aren't really more costly than D&D was back in the day. That would suggest that either printing costs have been trending downward, or profit margins, or some combination of the two. Is part of your concern the level of knowledge needed to access the less expensive options? |
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Post by jakdethe on Jul 15, 2014 17:07:28 GMT -6
I'm glad I was able to clarify a little better for everyone. My DM recently picked up an FFG rpg (Star Wars), and man it was so disappointing. What did you find disappointing about the FFG Star Wars game? It does look great and the game can work if you ignore most of the bad GMing advice. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of RPGs are bought and never played. So, in some respects, the art is more important than the game. That's not FFG's fault. My entire group hates the dice pool mechanic they use, mostly because it's not very intuitive. Our GM, having gone through the core rulebook already, still doesn't get how to determine the amount of dice used for difficulty. My experience with previous Fantasy Flight offerings is that the rules don't tend to be written well in the literary sense. They don't explain themselves well. Is part of your concern the level of knowledge needed to access the less expensive options? Not at all, as most all of us here tend to be good at digging up treasures. The problem I have is the continual shift of hobbies to the mainstream, if you will. It seems as soon as something becomes popular, it gets buried in unnecessary extravagance. As many have pointed out, there is nothing stopping me from playing previous offerings. However, there are two main drawbacks. When new comers to the hobby are introduced via new material, it becomes harder and harder to find people willing to play old games. I've met many a gamer who outright refuse to play older games. Furthermore, if I actually wanted to play, and not just DM old school D&D, I'm definitely out of luck. Second is discontinued support. When the trends keep shifting to newer games, people stop writing material for the older games. This goes for anything, though, and not just games. Luckily, the OSR seems to be doing well, especially thanks to games like Blood & Treasure, and the fine folks working on Delving Deeper. Other hobbies (the reason that I made this post initially), are not so lucky. Old computer games get no support, and if you don't want to play the latest greatest games (and have the fast gaming computers) you're stuck playing the same games over and over. With Airsoft you have to buy the $300 metal electric guns now, because almost no one makes cheap alternatives. |
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Post by dukeofchutney on Jul 15, 2014 17:38:54 GMT -6
FFG, in the boardgaming world, were infamous for a long time for writing bad rule books. As far as i can tell, a bit of this has transferred over to the rpg writing. Their 40k rpgs are ok, but they had Games Workshops 1st ed Warhammer and Dark Heresy to model for them how to do it. In Star Wars it is confusingly written and arranged, according to the GM I play with.
Its not a terrible game, but its really just Traveller, reskinned to starwars with a refined stat system and a trimmed down version of their custom dice from WFRP 3rd ed. It has some kooky modern story mechanics thrown in like having debts which can be fun. I'm slightly bias against it as i don't like games in popular IP universes as the main plot points are all predetermined and it turns into a session of nerd bleating. The other issue i have with it, although lots of star wars things are there, when we play, i don't really feel we have a star wars esc story. You can have dungeons and dragons in your game but that doesn't necessarily evoke that swords and sorcery feel many of us are looking for. Its the same for me with star wars. The presence of an AT-AT isn't enough. Something about the relationships between the characters, the over arching plot or adventure has to really be star wars and with my players it isn't there. We just play a less imaginative version of traveller confined to Star Wars Cliches.
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Post by coffee on Jul 16, 2014 8:20:35 GMT -6
I'm slightly bias against it as i don't like games in popular IP universes as the main plot points are all predetermined and it turns into a session of nerd bleating. I totally agree with this. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc. The main points have been done; we'd just be 'other guys who were on the fringes of it' in the scheme of things. Also, I frequently don't like the rules tacked on to somebody else's universe. A lot of them could be done much more simply. (A lot of them could be done with OD&D.) I like having my own world and rules I'm comfortable with. And if I have to create or hack them myself, so be it. |
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Keps
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 118
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Post by Keps on Jul 16, 2014 10:01:33 GMT -6
I'm slightly bias against it as i don't like games in popular IP universes as the main plot points are all predetermined and it turns into a session of nerd bleating. I totally agree with this. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc. The main points have been done; we'd just be 'other guys who were on the fringes of it' in the scheme of things. +2 |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2014 13:43:35 GMT -6
I'm going to disagree.
Star Wars and Star Trek take place in a friggin' GALAXY.
A galaxy is a big, big place.
“Space, is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space!”
The Starship Concord, NCC-1716, explored strange new worlds, sought out new life and new civilizations, and boldly went where no man had gone before. The fact that there were 11 other Starships out there doing the same thing didn't matter.
Dahail Sunfire became a Jedi Knight and struck blow after blow against the Empire in a sector of the Galaxy far away from Luke Skywalker. The fact that I didn't personally strike down the Emperor didn't mean the people I saved were any less saved. "It mattered to that one," as the saying goes.
I don't have to be the most important person in the whole game universe.
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Post by coffee on Jul 16, 2014 23:59:28 GMT -6
Good point. I nearly mentioned Star Trek as one of the universes where there would be plenty of adventure available without being part of the main story line (an advantage of an episodic TV series, as opposed to a movie series). But I was afraid the post would stray too far from the point of the thread (I have a tendency to do that).
And as far as the rules being tacked on, I'm specifically thinking of the Red Dwarf RPG. They made a whole book (with, granted, lots of great photos from the show), but I'd just do it with Risus.
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Post by Falconer on Jul 17, 2014 14:30:24 GMT -6
Also, with both the Star Trek and Star Wars universes/timelines now having been rebooted, I think it possibly makes it easier than ever, in the players’ minds, to accept the RPG campaign as essentially yet another reboot — familiar, and yet absolutely anything can happen. Also, I think it’s good practice to mix in elements from other sci-fi — whatever your influences are — and not feel constrained by “canonical” species, or ship designs, or whatever. If D&D could mix Middle-earth and Greek Mythology…
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Post by dukeofchutney on Jul 17, 2014 18:13:44 GMT -6
Its not so much playing a B level character that bothers me. To me, star wars is not its universe, neither is Lord of The Rings, or A Song of Ice and Fire. The stories are defined not by the stuff in them, or the adverbs or nouns attached to them. Having Storm troopers and light sabers does not make star wars. These stories are defined by their tone and their themes. For instance A Song of Ice and Fire, the books don't really focus on battles, they are interested in the plotting between characters. So yes you can play a game where you have an adventure in a wood that happens to be in that universe, but does it really have anything to do with A Song of Ice and Fire, or does it just limit the possibilities by using that universe and is lore as a setting. Take starwars, we can have a battle in a far off planet in a different sector that luke never goes too. But when we destroy the AT-ATs by making them fall over because we caused an earthquake with satchel charges, yes its ok, but its sort of just a lamer version of Hoth. With a set universe you are always in the shadow of the more interesting narratives from the canonical material. Its not a case of importance within the story, its a case of having an interesting story. You can create your own stuff, but how long before you are no longer in the canonical universe at all?
I would consider playing in a Middle Earth game if i felt the GM had the storytelling ability and imagination to pull it off well. But i tend to find gms that want to run games in set universes do so because they do not want to exercise imagination to such an extent. They would rather recreate bits of their source material.
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