It's Not A Cartoon, But What Is It?

Sacrosanct · Apr 8, 2019

Morrus said:
Yep, the Endless Quest series relaunched recently.

Hopefully future books get run by an editor first before being published. Those four class based Endless Quest books were filled with errors. Lots of gender changes depending on which options you chose lol. First it was "he", then later it was a "she", then back to a "he" again

Having written choose your own adventure books myself, I understand the additional challenges of putting it all together logistically, but that's no excuse for major continuity changes like that. Also like things that being a fighter, 90% of the choices that involved fighting resulted in death lol. I can see that with the rogue, or wizard, but the fighter class? You get punished for doing what he does best. That struck me as odd. Although it was neat that the one use of what could be described as action surge was actually out of combat (showcasing it's versatility by escaping the collapsing dungeon).

Whizbang Dustyboots · Apr 8, 2019

Jacob Lewis said:
Geeze! Why does everything to do with D&D need to be treated like the biggest surprise ever?

Because marketing like that extends the conversation, meaning more people are likely to come across it and get hyped.

Whizbang Dustyboots · Apr 9, 2019

neobolts said:
The cypher in the image reads "FUN AND GAMES ARE GREAT DISTRACTIONS A?? SMALL THINGS CAN HAVE CHAIN REACTIONS"

(The question marks are because I couldn't figure out the numbers in that spot due to "staining" on the paper)

A product to fund raise for kids with cancer, is my guess.

Whizbang Dustyboots · Apr 9, 2019

Arnwolf666 said:
But the concept of playing people from the real earth I don’t like. But that’s just me.

Given how popular of a trope it is, it's really weird that it's never been fully supported in D&D, though.

(For one thing, in 2E and later, non-weapon profiencies/skills would have to be addressed, since very few of us could make our way in a fantasy setting right out of the gate, while it's possible that we would have useful knowledge in that setting, in the vein of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.)

Sacrosanct · Apr 9, 2019

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
Given how popular of a trope it is, it's really weird that it's never been fully supported in D&D, though.

(For one thing, in 2E and later, non-weapon profiencies/skills would have to be addressed, since very few of us could make our way in a fantasy setting right out of the gate, while it's possible that we would have useful knowledge in that setting, in the vein of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.)

I'm guessing D&D never officially tackled it because pretty much every time it was done in the past on a per table basis, you ran into the problem of hurting people's feelings because most people don't want to have themselves statted out. How do you really handle that?

"Sorry Bill, but you barely passed with a C average. You're intelligence can't be higher than an 8."
"WTF, you know I learn a different way, that's BS! Obviously you have a charisma of 3."

So yeah, as a company, no surprise they didn't touch that with a 10 foot pole.

Whizbang Dustyboots · Apr 9, 2019

Sacrosanct said:
I'm guessing D&D never officially tackled it because pretty much every time it was done in the past on a per table basis, you ran into the problem of hurting people's feelings because most people don't want to have themselves statted out. How do you really handle that?

"Sorry Bill, but you barely passed with a C average. You're intelligence can't be higher than an 8."
"WTF, you know I learn a different way, that's BS! Obviously you have a charisma of 3."

So yeah, as a company, no surprise they didn't touch that with a 10 foot pole.

Eh. It was the default method of character creation in Villains & Vigilantes, which was an incredibly popular superhero RPG in the 1970s and 1980s and which has been brought back in the 21st century. People cope.

Parmandur · Apr 9, 2019

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
Eh. It was the default method of character creation in Villains & Vigilantes, which was an incredibly popular superhero RPG in the 1970s and 1980s and which has been brought back in the 21st century. People cope.

"Incredibly" might be an exaggeration. It's certainly a trope better suited to something like Fate...

MNblockhead · Apr 9, 2019

Sacrosanct said:
I'm guessing D&D never officially tackled it because pretty much every time it was done in the past on a per table basis, you ran into the problem of hurting people's feelings because most people don't want to have themselves statted out. How do you really handle that?

"Sorry Bill, but you barely passed with a C average. You're intelligence can't be higher than an 8."
"WTF, you know I learn a different way, that's BS! Obviously you have a charisma of 3."

So yeah, as a company, no surprise they didn't touch that with a 10 foot pole.

Perhaps. I think it may also have something to do with Satanic-panic baggage. Once you start playing "you" in the real game you start looking more like the fears of those who think RPGs will lead to murder, black magic, and suicide.

trancejeremy · Apr 9, 2019

Parmandur said:
"Incredibly" might be an exaggeration. It's certainly a trope better suited to something like Fate...

I played V&V back in the day, but I think it's popularity was quickly usurped by Champions and Marvel Super-Heroes, both of which I played more.

There's something of an urban gaming legend about someone doing that in GURPs (besides statting yourself, you'd have all the stuff you had with you when the game start), and one guy in the group learning about it before hand, so he brought along all sorts of crap, including a crossbow.

But the first D&D novel, Quag Keep, was based on the same premise. In that, some the best D&D players in the country received mysterious miniatures in the mail and that transported them to Greyhawk. Sorta.

Whizbang Dustyboots · Apr 9, 2019

Parmandur said:
"Incredibly" might be an exaggeration. It's certainly a trope better suited to something like Fate...

It was the number two superhero game until TSR waded in. Granted, that almost certainly put it at the bottom of the top 10 of old school games, but it was successful enough for the creators and publisher to battle over the legal rights decades later.