Last time I saw it, Lofwyr rather became head of the biggest mega-corporation thanks to his guile, trickery and cleverness, and not because he devastated the german army by brute forcce or something like that.

Heck, I even read somewhere that the Germans managed to take out one Great Dragon with airfighters and missiles.

When she first woke-up, toxic and insane from the poisons that seeped into her lair. And she might still be alive - toxic and insane (and maybe undead).

Quick Rundown

• Aden: razed Tehran (alone)
• Hualpa, Sirrurg, and an unknown Great took over Brazil, by force (aided by an Awakened Army)
• Hestaby: halted the Tir military advance on California (aided by CFS Rangers)
• Ghostwalker: drove Aztlan forces out of Denver (aided by spirits, wyverns, CAS, UCAS, and NAN forces)

This post has been edited by Kanada Ten: Feb 13 2008, 05:13 AM

I understand that. I hadn't read that far into the thread to see it when I posted but at the same time, the tone of his post struck me very much as saying "If you don't accept my purist track as the one true path, you are a bunch of unwashed heathens that are playing wrong." The written tone of his post got my hackles up. It simply came across as rather elitist and condescending.

There is no "one true way" to play except in whatever manner gives you & your group the most fun. Just don't expect it to be the same for another group.

Good god Last... you want to farm Ghosts.

My only consolation is that there are probably already Chinese Ghost Commgear farmers already active in that shard.

*ducks*
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

You're right. I'm totally a condescending elitist because I want game books to be, y'know, good. How absurd of me. Your hackles are rightly raised! It's absolutely ridiculous of me to not want to have to ignore the setting and make up my own, house rule everything instead of playing by the rules in the book, GM fiat away half the edges and flaws in any given system, and basically make up my own game in exchange for my $50. As a consumer of more RPGs and wargames than you can shake a stick at, I continue to deserve to walk into every new purchase with the assumption being that the book is innately without worth, and the cop out "change it if you don't like it" clause in every game book, ever, is expected of me because God knows I've got no right to expect a product to stand on it's own two feet. I've taken your words to heart, and from now on with every freelance piece of writing I submit I'll be sure my editors and publishers know to add a "if you don't like it, change it!" line at the end of every piece of gaming material I'm paid to write, because no one should dare even hope for gaming material to be good right out of the box, they should have to pay us money and then still crowbar it into submission to make it worth playing. You're right!

And I'm way out of line -- more elitism and purism! -- the way I keep saying over and over again that what works for my group doesn't work for other groups, and that other people are free to run their games however they want, and wishing them luck and fun in those endeavors, and acknowledging that it's probable I'm the only person that really cares about the Tir. It's completely unreasonable of me to want information on the setting from the only canonical source of that information, and to feel mildly irritated when that information is not available (and, the gall of it, for me to say so on a thread where people bring it up).

I'm out of control, and seriously across the line with these zany, out-of-this-world, ideas of mine. Please, please, report me to the mods. How dare I!

Their commlinks were worth considerably more than 10 grand in third edition.


No, but I don't expect to be asked to pay around $30 for a poorly-written book except by people with brass balls the size of basketballs.

Or game companies.

That doesn't mean I appreciate it or feel like I shouldn't be allowed to make my opinion heard. This is the Internet, after all. Everyone's opinion is equally worthless. But it's my worthless opinion.

What makes a game worth playing?

Does it matter what I say? We're so off topic from what happened to the Tir I really don't see a point in responding. We're not talking about Shadowrun any more (or at least, I'm not), we're talking overarcing gamer expectations compared to quality of product.

So just go ahead and make up my answer for me, so we can all skip right to the part where you disagree with me and tell me how wrong I am to want game companies to not write books based on the assumption that house rules and fan-background material are necessities.

It's common practise that when someone posts a gripe, that one of the firsts impulses is to post possible solutions, especially those possible solutions that do not require a gaming company to publish a book. It's all good and nice to wait for Catalyst, but some are more interested in what they can do right now to have a campaign in Tir. You're not one of them, obviously.

Also, I think it's better to make a distinction between house rules such as "we're using the 4+ is a hit house rule" and fluff changes such as "In our campaign, the gang war in Seattle did not last 4 weeks, but only 3 weeks and 2 days". Trying to throw all such into the realm of "changing entire games" is overly dramatic.

In short, I believe game books should be written with the assumption that every campaign is different in some way, and therefore some flexibility can be expected from players and GM alike. A game book that does not allow for such adjustments - like changing times, dates and durations of certain events - without becoming useless is not that useful.

...

(aww, bloody hell...forget it)

This post has been edited by Kyoto Kid: Feb 13 2008, 07:58 AM

My argument has nothing to do with changing something from four weeks to something lasting three weeks and two days, instead. That you'd put an argument like that in your post and then call me overly dramatic is pretty ridiculous. Straw man much?

My argument is that "who cares if they've told us yet or not? Make it up yourself!" is just not much help. I don't need the permission of some schmuck on the internet to make something up. What's more, I don't need a game book if my plan is to just make something up. It's fine for some campaigns (and I've said so repeatedly), but it's not advice that I want or need. What's more, it being offered up as advice over and over again -- and by this, please understand, I don't mean by any single person, on any single topic, in any single thread, from any single forum, or even pertaining to any single game -- only encourages sloppiness. I know that the "golden rule" of any RPG out there is "modify what you want to modify." I just feel that house ruling too much, fan-creating too much material to fill in too many gaps, GM fiat making up for inbalanced rules, etc, etc, innately, encourages poor game design and development.

It's a stupid "rule" to have written in the first place. Who is D&D to tell me I'm allowed to house rule their book? Who is White Wolf to let me throw out rules I don't like? Who is WizKids, or FASA, or FanPro, or anyone else to tell me they're okay with me using their book as I see fit? That's BS. The "rule" is there as a disclaimer. It's there to say "we know we may have written a shitty product, but rather than expecting our fans to hold us to a higher standard, we're going to just say 'hey, do what you want to because you own the book now and your game might not be the same as my game,' and then still charge people money for our product while encouraging them not to use it."

It's sloppy, to me. It's sloppy, it promotes continued sloppiness, and I'm tired of it constantly being offered up as a fix for something whenever anyone on any gaming forum has a complaint about a product.

No game book needs flexibility built into it (as you seem to insist), because they're innately flexible. Once you buy it, the motherfucker is yours. Tear out the combat target number modifier chart if you want. Yoink the entire equipment table out and tear it into little pieces. Take that bad boy to Kinkos and get fancy schmancy new pages put in to replace the magic chapter you lit fire to. It's yours. Do what you want. That's flexibility, right there. They are innately flexible because they're yours once you take them out of the book store, and as such any concern about how quickly a book becomes "useless" should deal with the material that is provided, not be paranoid about what material the consumer might provide throwing a monkeywrench into the works.

Any rule book written on a foundation of the assumption of extensive house ruling is a game book that is, innately, not worth much money. No one should pony up the cash for a book that's nothing but a snazzy piece of cover art, an exiting back cover blurb, and then "page 1: make up your own rules and setting, but do your best to keep the feel of how awesome the cover is! Wooooo! We're the most FLEXIBLE role playing game ever!"

Why can't we expect a game company to write a book that doesn't want or need house rules? Why shouldn't a game company write a book and be confident their product is solid enough, their sourcebooks comprehensive enuogh, that those sorts of changes aren't required? Why don't we, as consumers, expect their product to be ready to go right out of the box, balanced and fair and well written, presenting us with the rules and the setting necessary to run a campaign?

Why are our standards, as a community, so low that "house rule it" is a battle cry amongst gamers, instead of "buy another product" or "demand a better book?"

Boy ain't that an understatement! Cyberdecks were like gold bricks. If I were to truly role play, I'd ice the decker, fence the software and deck, and retire. Or if I really want to play, just put it into the bank till I succeed on the Availability role for some Deltaware. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smokin.gif)

Because a substantial part of us has noticed that no matter what, they won't ever build the perfect game for us. If I buy a car, I expect to be able to move the seat and adjust it without the car falling apart. Same for a game system.

And I very much disagree that the "House rule it if you want to" rule is not needed. It is very much needed so that players and GM alike, especially new ones, know that the game can be adjusted without breaking.

Also, I do not think that most consider changing fluff house ruling anything. In most threads I notice, house rules change the game mechanics, fluff is just fluff. That's why I call you overly dramatic. You act as if stating "we're playing in 2065 in this campaign" is the same as stating "oh, we don't use essence loss for cyber, magic has double the drain, and everyone gets 5 spell defense for free".

What you want is a canon source of information about the Tir. That's nothing to do with game mechanics or house rules.

They are not talking about the Cyberdecks. They are talking about the Tir Ghosts' comm units, which were insane.

And that is exactly what he (and I) have been asking for.



If you change the fluff about an in-game setting, then you are indeed creating house rules, at least in a way. Rules about the setting itself.

I'm not sure why our asking for updated setting information about a specific area is so offensive to you.

It's not offensive. I don't know why you think I find it offensive. I simply think one can already play there for as long as one wants, and then adapt to the new canon information easily.

I disagree about the fluff changes being house rules.

Which is why I say you play in a game world, not the game world. A substatial portion of every game book -- for some other games I can name, in fact, entire game books -- is nothing but what you call "fluff" (and others call "background"). Your insistence that it doesn't matter (which is, whether you mean to say it or not, what you're saying) is anathema to me. I'm a guy that writes that "fluff."

So, yes. I think it's an important part of a game world, and that substantial changes to it are every bit as much a house rule as any other house rule.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/embarrassed.gif) hehe

If you are refusing to admit that the degree of fluff changes matters, then you are claiming that as soon as I use a self-created NPC I am changing an important part of the game world, and house ruling it. By your defintion, almost everyone is houseruling all the important game parts, since almost every GM has used a self-created NPC at least once.

Now, I am of the opinion that the particular fluff you fixate on - what exactly happened during and after the coup in the Tir - is not on the level of critical, core fluff such as "wireless matrix" or "Magic". Or in other words - I do not consider it a substantial change.

I explained why - because I am of the opinion that whatever canon info will be released, it won't be difficult to adapt a campaign to it.

If you're taking my opinion to the level that you'll honestly claim I'm saying "don't use your own NPCs," I'm just flat out done talking to you. Have a good one.

I am trying to understand where exactly you draw the line between "substantial changes to the game world" and "using an NPC I created myself". I stated that the exact details of the coup in the Tir, for me, are not really substantial changes. If they are for you, where do you draw the line then?

As we have said numerous times, that is not quite what we want. But, as I said earlier in the thread, I (and others, even those that disagree) have explained it often enough for it to be relatively clear.

Since the general posts of "well, even without official canon news, you can still play in the Tir like this: (advice/proposal)" seems to be taken as "We hate your views! And yourself!" by some, I am not so sure anything else was made that clear.

Actually, I really just wanted to know what makes a game worth playing. That's something I'm trying to figure out for myself and it sounds like you have a clear idea. I know we're so far off topic that... lets just leave it at we're off topic. I wanted to see if I could go somewhere with the discussion that interests me (Since no one seems all that interested in talking about Tir anymore).

I guess I was wrong.

I'm genuinely confused. The authors have specifically given a start point, and an end point, and then promised that they will never retcon the intermediary. Now, they could potentially break that promise. It's not like no one has ever Broken Their Promise in Tir Tairngire before. But they specifically said that any NPCs and Runs you set in that period will never go against Canon.

So seriously, what is the problem exactly? They've given you a sandbox and promised not to kick over any sand castles you make. That's better than the players in Denver ever got. It doesn't strike me as sloppy. It strikes me as very restrained and thoughtful. Synner came right out and said that they weren't going to invalidate your campaign, and gave you provisions for working with that. That really seems like as much as they could possibly do without magically publishing a new plot book that slapped new plot hooks onto the area. But there are a bunch of plot hooks left over. You seriously could run a street level or epic game set in Portland set in 2065 or 2072. That's better than Lagos gets.

-Frank