Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9730117" data-attributes="member: 18">I think the issue with this sort of thing is usually at the other end, as it were.Like, there are an awful lot of IP-merchandise-type TTRPGs which, with no insult to the designers (and I will avoid naming many specific ones to avoid starting fights), were not ever really, really designed to be played, like a major focus. Like the primary reason the TTRPG exists, essentially as a coffee table book for nerds, a piece of conceptual art as it were. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but I do think it means that settings and concepts that aren't really very "gameable" get made into TTRPGs more than should, and even where the concepts are "gameable" fairly often the TTRPGs don't really do a good job of making them into a playable game (in some cases the rules are nearly junk, looking at you Dark Souls TTRPG), particularly not a long-term one (and they're often designed as if they were long-term). Also common is that, if they hadn't been limited by the merchandised IP, they could have some small but significant tweaks to the situation/setting/tech/magic and come out with something that was much more suited to being a TTRPG rather than just a coffee table book. There are also ones that are "needlessly compatible" with whatever RPG is big at the time (5E right now usually), just to eke out more sales even though that rules-set may not match with the concept well at all, and few people are going to play it anyway!Is it a "problem" that these exist?I don't think it's a big problem, but I do think it sometimes means that instead getting a really good, really considered "off-brand" RPG that essentially covers that ground in an evocative way, the IP-merchandise RPG with messy, incoherent, or generic rules, because it has the "official" IP, sort of dominates that space. Which is a net negative.All that said, none of those critiques seem to strongly apply to the Cosmere RPG, from what I've seen! It looks like a pretty good original system (influenced by 5E but definitely not 5E, and not "needlessly compatible"), and might even be worth using for some people as like a more non-D&D-fantasy-friendly 5E alternative (because 5E does not love any fantasy that isn't solidly D&D-coded).</blockquote>

Verification