The state of Post-OSR content

The1True

My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
speaking of life in the OSSR comrades, this seems like a pretty kickass bundle over at Humble this month...
 

Hemlock

Should be playing D&D instead
Brief digression: due to losing a bet of sorts, I am reading Twilight by Stephanie Meyer right now, and so far my impression is that the narrator in that book pays an enormous amount of attention to what clothes she wears every day. I don't think Tolkien ever mentions _once_ whether Frodo is wearing a cute red sweater or decides to bring his black bag instead of his purple one with him to Mordor.

In the words of Larry Niven, "it is a sin to waste the reader's time," so what detail an author chooses to include in a work makes a statement of sorts about what sort of reader the author expects, and what they are expected to care about.

I have no strong opinion on Tom Bombadil in Tolkien's novels (honestly I find the LotR novels tedious regardless of Bombadil's presence; The Hobbit on the other hand is an excellent adventure story). But _in a game_ players do not and should not expect to be passively consuming curated content; Chekhov's Gun in a novel must either fire or be edited out of the work as a waste of time. But in a game Chekhov's gun need only be *fireable* in some potential futures, depending on player choices. A Tom Bombadil character in a game need not do anything as long as he *could*. Giving someone a magic sword is one acceptable Bombadil interaction; so is cursing a player's hair to grow inward underneath his skin instead of outward; so is gently intervening with trolls pursuing the party to persuade them to show mercy and let the party have a last meal and an hour's rest before capturing and devouring them.

In a game, versatile game elements with many possible outcomes depending on how players interact with them tend to create interesting gameplay.
 
Brief digression: due to losing a bet of sorts, I am reading Twilight by Stephanie Meyer right now, and so far my impression is that the narrator in that book pays an enormous amount of attention to what clothes she wears every day.
Devil's advocate: the narrator of Twilight is a teenaged girl.
 

Hemlock

Should be playing D&D instead
Devil's advocate: the narrator of Twilight is a teenaged girl.
Yes, and?

Maybe you're just saying it was obvious to you all along that (some?) teenage girls (and adult women?) are like that, but to me it was an eye opener, like reading an anthropological treatise on an alien species. The kind of stuff that makes you go, "Hey, this might make an interesting D&D race or culture."
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
Yes, and?

Maybe you're just saying it was obvious to you all along that (some?) teenage girls (and adult women?) are like that, but to me it was an eye opener, like reading an anthropological treatise on an alien species. The kind of stuff that makes you go, "Hey, this might make an interesting D&D race or culture."
I seem to recall a comment by Felecia Day to the effect that she chooses her wearable magic items based on how they would look with her other wearable magic items. I don't know that she was serious, but the recognition of it as a consideration is still interesting.

I do often think about what adventurers look like, based on the magic item descriptions. Like wearing no armor with gauntlets and a mail coif, or plate armor with slippers and leather bracers, not to mention the various clashing bejeweled crowns, amulets, rings, etc. I have described adventurer-heavy parts of town to my players as including a disproportionate number of people wearing garish and clashing gear.

I have also considered imposing AC penalties if the character is wearing headwear/vambraces/gloves/grieves/footwear that is a lesser armor type than the main armor.
 

The Heretic

Should be playing D&D instead
I do often think about what adventurers look like, based on the magic item descriptions. Like wearing no armor with gauntlets and a mail coif, or plate armor with slippers and leather bracers, not to mention the various clashing bejeweled crowns, amulets, rings, etc. I have described adventurer-heavy parts of town to my players as including a disproportionate number of people wearing garish and clashing gear.

I have also considered imposing AC penalties if the character is wearing headwear/vambraces/gloves/grieves/footwear that is a lesser armor type than the main armor.
That was a big thing a few years ago in MMOs. You could transmogrify your equipment to look cool. Yes, come back to World of Warcraft! You can spend gobs of in game money to change the appearance of your armor to look like a crown of flames1 This of course belies that stereotype that only women care about how they look.

They even one upped you on the penalties for wearing mismatched armor. It was actually a necessary change. They had issues where healing spec paladins were rolling for leather (ie druid) or mail (ie shaman) healing gear and winning ("ninja'ing") the gear away from the people it was meant for. So they instituted a penalty. If you were a paladin and you had one piece of non-plate armor, you'd take a penalty to all your stats. Same with shaman and mail. That way you wouldn't be tempted to roll for that nice leather helm that has great +int stats on it. That was meant for the druid you ass!
 
You aren't really playing WoW unless you are equipped with a purple viking helmet, a lime-green chest plate, a sparkling wooden mallet.

(I did not mean to imply that all teenaged girls - and certainly not all women - are overly preoccupied with their clothes. Just that enough teenaged girls are, that I did not find such digressions out-of-place in Twilight.)
 

The Heretic

Should be playing D&D instead
I feel like Pathfinder is way worse for the anthropomorph splatbooks. Furries gotta fur.
I have no idea if PFG is worse with the furries, but I can definitely tell you they were far worse with the...uh...I'm not sure how to describe it. Halfsies? Bloodlinesies? I was super-annoyed with all the elemental bloodline races, like Ifrit, Sylphs*, etc, in the Advanced Race Guide. It just promotes race-shopping for the right stat boost at character creation.

* These races were like the Tiefling race, but for the different inner planes.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
That was a big thing a few years ago in MMOs. You could transmogrify your equipment to look cool. Yes, come back to World of Warcraft! You can spend gobs of in game money to change the appearance of your armor to look like a crown of flames1 This of course belies that stereotype that only women care about how they look.
In the spirit of my kid's Nintendo account, I think I'm going to start accepting cash from my players in return for "upgrades". Don't want to wait for a decent weapon to "drop"? Come visit the Beoric Game Store(tm) and you can get get a Vorpal Blade in your choice of colour for a fair price! We have a deal on our bundle of Gauntlets of Ogre Power + Girdle of Giant Strength + Hammer of Thunderbolts! Crypto accepted.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
In the spirit of my kid's Nintendo account, I think I'm going to start accepting cash from my players in return for "upgrades". Don't want to wait for a decent weapon to "drop"? Come visit the Beoric Game Store(tm) and you can get get a Vorpal Blade in your choice of colour for a fair price! We have a deal on our bundle of Gauntlets of Ogre Power + Girdle of Giant Strength + Hammer of Thunderbolts! Crypto accepted.
Will have to start a West Marches campaign to encourage competition and expand my customer player base.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Like every endeavor, it starts simple with a good idea.

First the pioneers, then the profiteers.
 

Hemlock

Should be playing D&D instead
In the spirit of my kid's Nintendo account, I think I'm going to start accepting cash from my players in return for "upgrades". Don't want to wait for a decent weapon to "drop"? Come visit the Beoric Game Store(tm) and you can get get a Vorpal Blade in your choice of colour for a fair price! We have a deal on our bundle of Gauntlets of Ogre Power + Girdle of Giant Strength + Hammer of Thunderbolts! Crypto accepted.
When I was a teenager I used to bribe my little brother to do my chores by offering him stat boosts for his Gamma World characters. I still remember "Infinity Man" who had infinite HP and infinitely strong damage shields...
 

Yora

Should be playing D&D instead
I seem to recall a comment by Felecia Day to the effect that she chooses her wearable magic items based on how they would look with her other wearable magic items. I don't know that she was serious, but the recognition of it as a consideration is still interesting.
I believe Dark Souls fans are a very different crowd from MMO fans, but "Fashion Souls" is a very well established jargon term for that practice in those games.
(Though the impact of armor is usually quite minor in those games, and outfits don't provide any special modifiers other than slightly reducing damage, making fashionable gear less of a trade-off to effectiveness.)
 

Maynard

*eyeroll*
Brief digression: due to losing a bet of sorts, I am reading Twilight by Stephanie Meyer right now, and so far my impression is that the narrator in that book pays an enormous amount of attention to what clothes she wears every day. I don't think Tolkien ever mentions _once_ whether Frodo is wearing a cute red sweater or decides to bring his black bag instead of his purple one with him to Mordor.

In the words of Larry Niven, "it is a sin to waste the reader's time," so what detail an author chooses to include in a work makes a statement of sorts about what sort of reader the author expects, and what they are expected to care about.
I know this is a bit of necromancy, but this is relevant context for the audience she's writing for. At a certain age, what you wear to school, how your percieved by the guys around you (or that *one* guy), it's the most important thing in the whole world. A choice of sweater is just as important to them as which sword we bring dragon slaying. I'm no fan of the books, I actually think the page count describing edward is the biggest sin (the six page spread early on on his appearance stopped me dead in my tracks), but I understand why the author would do it that way.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
Well it's offcial. First edition wins. We can lock this thread.

Yes, an extremely well researched article. It's funny how few people understand that B2 is actually an AD&D module.

Particularly telling was this quote:
AD&D 1e managed to strip back all the unnecessary features introduced into the game over the years while still retaining player freedom.
Thank goodness AD&D stripped out all of the bloat from 0e, to create a more streamlined game.
 
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