How Quickly Do You Bounce Off a System?

[dragoner]

Trav's FTL works ok, it is simple, easy, works with the hex map well; and one can see them noodling around with fusion rockets in HG 79, which they drew back from. At least it doesn't have FTL space combat.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I mean, you feel how you feel, but I suspect the number of people who care that you have to download a character sheet online these days is trivial.

That might be an interesting poll subject, although I bet the wording would influence things a lot. Pitching it as a simple download is going to result in a lot of No Big Deal responses. Pitching it as "The $35+ physical book you bought is incomplete without accessing further content online that would have occupied four pages in the book to duplicate" might see different results. Both are factually true, but one sounds a lot better than the other.

 

[Wolfpack48]

That might be an interesting poll subject, although I bet the wording would influence things a lot. Pitching it as a simple download is going to result in a lot of No Big Deal responses. Pitching it as "The $35+ physical book you bought is incomplete without accessing further content online that would have occupied four pages in the book to duplicate" might see different results. Both are factually true, but one sounds a lot better than the other.

Are there companies doing online only portions of a book? I have only seen duplicates of the print version in pdf.

 

[Micah Sweet]

“Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.
If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.” - C.S. Lewis

I have a recent example of reading a gaming book and being almost instantly turned off by the system. I picked up Free League's "The One Ring" on a Black Friday sale. Normally, I like Free League's content, and there's certainly a bit to like about TOR: the art, the physical presentation, and of course the deep Tolkien lore. But then there are design choices that made me sit up and ask "What are they thinking?"

Spoiler: My complaints about The One Ring - which isn't really the focus of the post.

You have three Attributes (Strength, Heart, Wits). You have three skills that could basically cover the same thing: Awareness, Scan, and Explore. Awareness (basically perception/initiative) is tied to ... Strength? Your beauty/appearance, also tied to Strength? So in the world of Lord of the Rings, we would describe the lovable Samwise Gamgee has a high Strength attribute? A nasty orc leader with a high Strength would be beautiful?

The dice you roll based off your skills are called "Success Dice" instead of simply "Skill Dice" - because, you know, they're based off Skills. You have another die called a "Feat" die, which isn't based on your Feats. Your Target Numbers are based off subtracting your Attribute from 20 (or 18 in some cases) to set a THAC0-like Target Number.

This post isn't intended to be a gripe session about The One Ring. We can apply my concerns to any game system (for example, I recently brought up my complaints about the SEIGE Engine for Castles and Crusades). When I imagine teaching a new system to a group of more casual players, I worry about the use of language in the system. I worry about extra steps like subtracting and adding (and dividing, in the case of Savage Worlds) during the same die roll. There are also common ways we're accustomed to RPGs working from a hobby being around for decades (d20, percentile, dice pools, 2d6) - why create a new method? Does it improve the game so substantially?

I sat down with this system for about 30 minutes and started reading the rules. Within those 30 minutes I went from a curiosity (and generally positive disposition) to thinking "I'm never going to run this." Do you have such a quick turnaround? Do you suggest trying something that you don't expect to work? Or do you just put it back on your shelf and move along - knowing there are many other games out there?

Very quickly sometimes. For 7th Sea 2e it took about 30 minutes.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Are there companies doing online only portions of a book? I have only seen duplicates of the print version in pdf.

Not that I know of, this was in reference to leaving out characters sheets (or at least vital info from character sheets that you'd need to recreate one with paper and pencil like some caveman ) from a print book. I haven't seen the Scum & Villainy pdf, and don't know if it includes those character sheets or not. If not, you'd still need to go to their site and download the sheets separately.

That said, there are a fair number of free downloads out there for "crippled" versions of a game as teasers - which is fine since they're essentially extensive previews. A good (make that great) example is is Lancer, where you can get the entire crunch side of the core game for free, then decide if you want to pay for the setting fluff to go with it. Which you should, it's pretty great.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That might be an interesting poll subject, although I bet the wording would influence things a lot. Pitching it as a simple download is going to result in a lot of No Big Deal responses. Pitching it as "The $35+ physical book you bought is incomplete without accessing further content online that would have occupied four pages in the book to duplicate" might see different results. Both are factually true, but one sounds a lot better than the other.

But the opposite is "You have a character sheet in the book that you have to take somewhere to photocopy, as compared to downloading one that you can just print out", and I suspect I know which one would seem more attractive now.

(Now, PDF books complicate this, but then, most PDF games I've bought in the last few years had at least a basic character sheet bundled with the game PDF. Mind you, often third party produced character sheets existed that were better, but that's been true of a lot of official character sheets).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Are there companies doing online only portions of a book? I have only seen duplicates of the print version in pdf.

Online only or downloadable only? There's two different answers here.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That said, there are a fair number of free downloads out there for "crippled" versions of a game as teasers - which is fine since they're essentially extensive previews. A good (make that great) example is is Lancer, where you can get the entire crunch side of the core game for free, then decide if you want to pay for the setting fluff to go with it. Which you should, it's pretty great.

There's some relatively complete PDF-only versions in a few cases. Mythras Imperative comes to mind here.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

But the opposite is "You have a character sheet in the book that you have to take somewhere to photocopy, as compared to downloading one that you can just print out", and I suspect I know which one would seem more attractive now.

Look, I have no objection to downloadable record sheets, especially when they're printer friendly. What I do object to is a print book that has some vital element of the rules that's only online. And that's the case with Scum & Villainy, which could have avoided the whole issue by just printing examples of the sheets (or at least the stress tracks) in the book somewhere. I don't need a photocopier to use that info, the sheets are middling complex but not beyond improv with a pen and paper.

The idea of being okay with an effectively incomplete print book is as alien to me as my complaint seems to be to you. Maybe it's a generational thing. I am a dinosaur, grew up making my own character sheets, and only resort to printers or photocopiers for really complex sheets, which really aren't in vogue so much these days. Just look at the people saying they'll bounce off a game with a sheet they don't like up thread. Simple elegance is in.

 

[dragoner]

I do in the book and free form fillable pdf; plus someone the other day thanked me for the index, which was nice.