This one is good for a laugh

Could somebody (preferrably Roshambo) care to educate me as to how the P&P RPG scene has "gone to shit?"

I'm fairly inexperienced when it comes to said role-playing industry (one year of D&D v3.0, now looking into Cyberpunk v3), but I was under the impression that it was one of those last bastions of real role-playing.

Roshambo's claim (which I'm not arguing, because I know nothing about the scene in general) is getting me curious as to how yet another wonderful hobby is being shat on, if said situation is a reality.
 
Cycloptis said:
Could somebody (preferrably Roshambo) care to educate me as to how the P&P RPG scene has "gone to shit?"
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As I understand it, many commercial RPGs took a hit in the aftermath of Wizards' "d20 coup". Many thought they had to dumb down their systems and/or create d20 conversions of their established settings to stay in business, then either went on to go down anyway, create d20 hybrids, or revert to their old systems. Independent RPG creation should be doing well, however, you can probably get enough good RPGs free on the net to ensure you never have to buy one again. Or make your own.
 
Cycloptis said:
Could somebody (preferrably Roshambo) care to educate me as to how the P&P RPG scene has "gone to shit?"
Click to expand...

As Per has said, the commercial industry has lost vision and aims for Lowest Common Denominator instead of quality and distinctiveness.

Fallout d20 P&P as prime example.
 
Damn, that's quite a disappointment. So basically there's an army of D20 sourcebooks passing off as sovereign role-playing games, gotcha (correct me if I'm wrong.)

I didn't see anything inherently problematic with D20 from my D&D experiences...I'm not big on class systems, but I don't know if that carries into every other RPG that uses it. Also, given that there's much more freedom regarding how you play the game, it shouldn't be too catastrophic.

Then again, I don't have much of a grasp of P&P RPGs. I understand RPG elements in general, but I'm still fairly inexperienced to P&P RPGs, as I mentioned earlier. Or maybe it's just that a sizeable portion of P&P RPGs are just too damn similar, given this trend.
 
Cycloptis said:
I didn't see anything inherently problematic with D20 from my D&D experiences...I'm not big on class systems, but I don't know if that carries into every other RPG that uses it. Also, given that there's much more freedom regarding how you play the game, it shouldn't be too catastrophic.
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3rd edition D&D is much more elegant from a technical standpoint than the horrible patchwork that is 2nd edition AD&D. Also, if you just want to tinker with characters, it's excellent. What's ingenious about the game, and what hurts it in the end, is that it's all about supplying infinite player options. This way they can publish endless books with new feats, classes, spells and magic items, which is what sells (as opposed to adventures). But at the same time, this scheme ties the GM's hands, since he's now restricted to a playing style that doesn't deny any character use of their increasingly powerful options.
 
In essence, it has bred a strong munchkinism mentality, instead of actual role-playing, bringing the worst elements from Action-Adventure games billed as CRPGs such as Diablo, which encourage that kind of "kill shit->get phat lewt" mentality. BioWare and Bethesda don't help this, and so according to the dumbing down of the CRPG genre, the idiots these games were made for decided to get into P&P RPGs and found out that they were too difficult to understand without thinking, or required too much in-game work to get loot without much effort. Gone are the days when simple magic could suffice, now there has to be exotic magic weapons for everyone that allow the user to fire a lightning bolt from their ass, in order to get the munchkins attention.

So the P&P RPG games were dumbed down into d20, and are cake to play now, designed around that kind of gameplay.

I'd say that the ones who have expanded this kind of stupidity through their absolute shit campaigns, since the munchkin population was previously a minority, would be BioWare. Now comes the overpowered abilities and prestige classes. Which should in fact be called Powergamer Classes instead.

In essence, P&P RPGs like d20 have been in part catering to those who are not really RPG players.
 
Alright, so what I gathered is that the success of D20 and its uber-item sourcebook milkage has spurred copy cats from all four corners of the industry, stealing attention from role-playing and focusing it on action-based campaigns. Oh, and of course the addition of flashier weapons and "phat lewt" which also add to the change of focus.

That's fucking stupid, I guess even the reading barrier can't keep away the RPG brain drain. It's a damn shame, too!

Thanks for both of your responses, by the way.

If it wouldn't trouble you to help me one last time...what is the best Cyberpunk RPG out there? I'm guessing it's Cyberpunk v3, but it's hell trying to find reviews on the net. I sorely overestimated P&P online coverage, or maybe it's just that I'm just not looking in the right spots.
 
You should be able to go to Wikipedia for some further <s>lousy lying</s> neutral information.

Cycloptis said:
If it wouldn't trouble you to help me one last time...what is the best Cyberpunk RPG out there?
Click to expand...

Why, d20 Modern, of course! It's got emo tiefling chicks!

I'm afraid I've never played a cyberpunk game, only fantasy and post-apocalyptic. And a little horror. And a little space opera. And a little urban fantasy. In any case, you can bet on there being a GURPS module for any setting.
 
Cycloptis said:
Alright, so what I gathered is that the success of D20 and its uber-item sourcebook milkage has spurred copy cats from all four corners of the industry, stealing attention from role-playing and focusing it on action-based campaigns. Oh, and of course the addition of flashier weapons and "phat lewt" which also add to the change of focus.
Click to expand...

In addition, fast, powerful level-ups, which NWN and to a worst degree, NWN 2 are guilty of.

And it's not really the copycats being the problem, but instead d20 being made for the munchkins, who want their P&P to be like their favorite action-adventure title. If there's munchkinism in print, most DMs get pressured into having to allow those rules or they don't have player interest. Players are now interested in playing whatever "cool" thing they've come up with outside of the group, instead of working within a DM's campaigns and setting.

Munchkin Kid: "But...but...I want to play Urklar the Half-Giant as a player character!"

DM: "Tough, no."

Munchkin Kid: "Then I'm leaving! Assholes!"

DM: "Goodbye." *DM nails the departing munchkin in the back of the head with a d100.*

If it wouldn't trouble you to help me one last time...what is the best Cyberpunk RPG out there? I'm guessing it's Cyberpunk v3, but it's hell trying to find reviews on the net. I sorely overestimated P&P online coverage, or maybe it's just that I'm just not looking in the right spots.
Click to expand...

I'd find some old books of Shadowrun, but that's my personal preference of the setting and gameplay, where combat wasn't the main focus like "d[ungeoncrawl]20". I have no idea about its current incarnation, as I'm almost afraid to look with all the d20 trash acting as an intelligence sink upon the whole industry, and the game made for the X-Brick 3xShitty promises to suck more balls than Romero's Daikatana. This is one of the few occasions that I'd advocate taking a lead pipe to the fingers of everyone responsible to make sure they are incapable of performing this kind of fraud ever again.
 
You did jog my memory when you mentioned GURPS. I distinctly remembered that there was, indeed, a Cyberpunk worldbook.

Much to my dismay, it is out of print. That, and it was never updated for 4th Edition GURPS. I don't know if they have a new label for their Cyberpunk game, or if they just gave up on it. At this point, Cyberpunk v3 is still a strong contender in my eyes.
 
Roshambo said:
Cycloptis said:
Alright, so what I gathered is that the success of D20 and its uber-item sourcebook milkage has spurred copy cats from all four corners of the industry, stealing attention from role-playing and focusing it on action-based campaigns. Oh, and of course the addition of flashier weapons and "phat lewt" which also add to the change of focus.
Click to expand...

In addition, fast, powerful level-ups, which NWN and to a worst degree, NWN 2 are guilty of.

And it's not really the copycats being the problem, but instead d20 being made for the munchkins, who want their P&P to be like their favorite action-adventure title. If there's munchkinism in print, most DMs get pressured into having to allow those rules or they don't have player interest. Players are now interested in playing whatever "cool" thing they've come up with outside of the group, instead of working within a DM's campaigns and setting.

Munchkin Kid: "But...but...I want to play Urklar the Half-Giant as a player character!"

DM: "Tough, no."

Munchkin Kid: "Then I'm leaving! Assholes!"

DM: "Goodbye." *DM nails the departing munchkin in the back of the head with a d100.*

If it wouldn't trouble you to help me one last time...what is the best Cyberpunk RPG out there? I'm guessing it's Cyberpunk v3, but it's hell trying to find reviews on the net. I sorely overestimated P&P online coverage, or maybe it's just that I'm just not looking in the right spots.
Click to expand...

I'd find some old books of Shadowrun, but that's my personal preference of the setting and gameplay, where combat wasn't the main focus like "d[ungeoncrawl]20". I have no idea about its current incarnation, as I'm almost afraid to look with all the d20 trash acting as an intelligence sink upon the whole industry, and the game made for the X-Brick 3xShitty promises to suck more balls than Romero's Daikatana. This is one of the few occasions that I'd advocate taking a lead pipe to the fingers of everyone responsible to make sure they are incapable of performing this kind of fraud ever again.
Click to expand...

You know, I think above all, I'd like to someday be able to form colourful sentences such as that. The simaltaneous

Okay, I think I fully understand what you mean now.

I've heard quite a bit about Shadowrun, although it's not quite what I was searching for. I suppose I should probably be somewhat more specific: something like postcyberpunk, without fantasy elements. Good sourcebook support is probably best, of course.[/b]
 
I liked Shadow Run allot when I used to play it (which wasn't all that much and was a long time ago). I thought the rule system was fun and IIRC you can ignore all the magic stuff and non-human races if you want and still have a good experience (at least that's how I played back when I was a fish in high school). I don't know if SR ever went d20 but I wouldn't be suprised. It is pretty sad to see them making such a crappy videogame though. When I saw this video clip I vomited in my mouth a little.

As for NMA. Yeah, you guys can be quite hostile. Although I'm one of those n00bs that posted a bunch of ignorant shit when I first registered so I deserved the... warm welcome I got from Roshambo.
 
Shadowrun 4th edition has stayed clean of d20... the biggest change I've noticed is the Matrix has been reworked so deckers can actually play without bogging the game down too much.

As for the Shadowrun video game, well... Microsoft has the video game license rights to Shadowrun, Battletech, and Crimson Skies, a deal made when FASA was still around. Thanks to Microsoft, the Battletech community has their own "FO:PoS", and that would be MechAssault.
 
Hmm...I was a newbie into NMA, well kinda. I did roam the Interplay forums, but I guess this "pitchfork into the eye" only applies to humans. Weak bastards.

We are evil? *rubs his hoofs together* "WE SURE ARE!!! MUAHAHAHA!" :twisted:

But I really like the first post. It's just combines everything.
________
Colorado Marijuana Dispensary
 
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