[X] My Assistant

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Why do you think most of us write for Shadowrun, TJ? It's not the money, that's for sure (though that's nice). Don't get me wrong there, we like the money, but many of us make a lot more at our day jobs, and if we didn't love the game, the pay wouldn't be worth it.

Very Much Agreed here Patrick. I just wish my writing was up to snuff when it comes to getting paid. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[_Pax._]

Oh, I grok writing for pleasure (and damn the dollars) perfectly fine. While it's never been for publication, I've written small bits and pieces for various RPG campaigns over the years, and of course, got nothing in return (not even bonus XP or what-have-you). Still enjoyed the process, and the result, quite thoroughly.

It just looked like someone had had a brain-fart where the math was concerned, is all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[nezumi]

Since the points are being brought up again ...

Yes, the writers really don't get paid for their work. My (limited) experience has been $200 for about 30 hours of work. That's about $6 an hour. That's less than the kid I pay to mow my lawn. From my understanding, RPGs are not a cash cow. The writer barely gets paid. The artists barely get paid. The layout guy barely gets paid. The editor barely gets paid. These are the people who make the entire product, but the profit margins are so slim that most of these people are doing it because it's fun, and they'd do it anyway. I know about twenty or thirty people who get paid for working in the RPG industry. Of all of them, I'm only aware of one who makes enough to live off of it (I assume; I haven't peeked at his bank statements).

Fans need to understand that everything they wish they had comes with a price. Sometimes the price is driving away other players. Sometimes it's paying the authors more, or accepting worse quality. Sometimes it's less art, or shoddier book bindings. Whatever it is, it adds a cost. And when the production costs go up, so does the price point for the book. Higher cost for the book loses sales, which pushes the price *even higher*.

SO yes, if you want a product which only you and your table will enjoy, that's fine. I know plenty of people who will create that for you. A 30-page adventure with art normally costs about $800. (Adam Jury posted a nice breakdown on his blog: http://adamjury.com/2011/pricing-for-niche...ctronic-titles/ ) Note that for those artists, writer, layout guy, and editor, they are all working cheap. And this isn't including incidentals like the cost of FINDING those people, licensing rights, or paying someone to manage your DNAs, and such.

If anyone wants a 30-page gear book with 12 pieces of art and dates when those guns came into being, PM me. It'll cost about $2,500. If it's being sold on Drive-Thru or Amazon, it's now $3,200. If it's being sold at Barnes & Noble as a physical book it's now around $7,000. It's not free.

THAT SAID ... That specific suggestion isn't that expensive. Each edition had approximately seven core books (main book, magic book, decking book, guns book, cyber book, companion book, maybe a rigging book). The guns are almost exclusively in the main book, the guns book, the rigger book, and the cyber book (the exception being SR3 with the SOTA books). And it's always listed in the last few pages of said book, in the equipment list. Four editions, you're looking at around 24 books, three pages in each, 72 pages to flip through.

It's not a huge hassle. I could do it for you in two hours, tops.

It'll cost about $15.

[Iduno]

4) Rebalanced Metatypes / Metavariants / Et Cetera - Many people agree, when you crunch the numbers Orks have huge bonuses for their low costs, while many other character "race" options are just badly underpowered or flat-out overpriced. Certain choices are just so sub-optimal or ineffecient as to make it very hard to justify ever playing them. This imbalance often makes it feel like the system punishes those who wish to play certain exotic or unusual character types, and no one should EVER feel like they can't play the type of character they want to play without being unfairly restricted or penalized.

Everyone who agrees that strength is as useful as agility instead of being a go-to dump stat for characters who aren't specifically melee characters. Although if the stats are rebalanced, racial costs would also need to be rebalanced.

[ShadowJackal]

It's not a huge hassle. I could do it for you in two hours, tops.

It'll cost about $15.

I've got $15 if you're really offering...

[ElFenrir]

Strength is often used as a dumpstat even for melee characters that I can see, and in my experience, these days as well. Agility is far, far, the 'better' stat that I've seen. Yes, there's the whole '1 DV is worth 3 dice', but when that DV can come from other means very easily, it stops mattering. From a pure point for point perspective: I have a Strength 3(5) human whom I want to be a martial artist. He's an adept(I grabbed 2 levels of Muscle Aug and Toner, since this goes back to a lightly cybered adept just being better). I can:

-Buy two more points of strength for 5(7). This will cost me 20 BP and add 1 more DV.
-Buy 3 levels of a martial art for 15 BP. This can net me up to +3DV. Use the last 5 BP for some more maneuvers, another level to a martial art for more possible maneuvers/bonuses in other places, a skill point, two specializations(which give +2 dice each), 25k more nuyen, a positive quality, etc, or use that +5 other BP to add another point to Agility or something and give me 1 more die for every single one of my combat skills.

Yeah, and +3 DV isn't even that unreasonable from qualities IMO we had always houseruled that cap in before it went into the books(while we actually play an incredibly open and lax game, this one rule sorta nagged at us that you could stack +7 DV from this.) Then you get into Critical Strike(which an adept will probably take anyway) tacking onto the DV in the case of an adept. Bone lacing helps mundanes here.

Now here's the funny thing-I actually LIKE how you can get DV from other places; for me, it lets the classic 'Old Wise Man' martial artist(for an example) hang-he might not be that strong anymore, but he knows *just* where to hit, and I think this should be able to exist. But yeah, I guess this can boil down to me wishing that the stats were more balanced overall-don't get me wrong, I think it's fine that *concepts* have preferred 'dump stats', but when melee people get more bang for their buck stuffing bare minimums into a physical stat because it's just better(Agility helps ALL combat skills among others, Body keeps you going and actually helps your lifting, Reaction helps your survival in a big way thanks to defensive rolls and also initiative which is important. Strength does help your DV, but that's literally ALL it does, and you need 2 points per 1 DV when there's more mechanically optimal ways to get it.)

I mean I still play my big strong guys because I grew up/am slightly obsessed with Hokuto no Ken(Fist of the North Star) and love my big ol' beefcakes that hit hard, but the optimizing part of my brain that I can never get rid of is always shouting at me when I do it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[nezumi]

I've got $15 if you're really offering...

Not for that. I don't own any of the SR4 books, and I've got lawns to mow.

(More seriously, this falls into the 'do you love it' category. I don't love SR4. And my love for SR3 is not nearly as strong as it was in times past. I'm on to more exciting projects hopefully (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) But I'm sure you could find plenty of fans who would, since it's just flipping through the books.)

[_Pax._]

Fans need to understand that everything they wish they had comes with a price.

.. and full-color hardbound books brimming over with art, takes a huge chunk of the development/production budget, right there.

Look at the price of a typical "coffee table book" - big, full-color, lots-of-picturs hardcovers and softcovers alike. Look at what they cost - sixty, eighty, a hundred dollars.

Look at university textbooks (whose layout and design most closely matches an RPG book),and their prices: a hundred, a hundred and fifty, two hundred dollars. (Even if you halve those, to account for the "captive market" effect, you're back to the sixty-to-a-hundred price range of the coffee-table books.)

Now look at the price of the SR4A core book. What, forty-five or fifty dollars?

For the print and production quality we as gamers demand, we should be paying at least sixy or seventy dollars for a corebook the size and quality of SR4A. But we refuse to. So the price has to be cut down ... and that has a knok-on effect all the way up the line, and straight into the wallets of the writers, artists, and editors.

And also, not so incidentally, straight into the overall quality of writng, editing, and errata-maintenance. Three of what have been characterised as CGL's greatest weaknesses.

...

We reap what we sow, folks. And we've been sowing "cheap bastard" for decades.

[bannockburn]

For the print and production quality we as gamers demand, we should be paying at least sixy or seventy dollars for a corebook the size and quality of SR4A. But we refuse to. So the price has to be cut down ... and that has a knok-on effect all the way up the line, and straight into the wallets of the writers, artists, and editors.

And also, not so incidentally, straight into the overall quality of writng, editing, and errata-maintenance. Three of what have been characterised as CGL's greatest weaknesses.

Sorry, Pax, I don't think it's exactly that easy. I've bought the limited edition back when, and I gladly paid the price. I even pre-ordered it, giving them money up-front. I'm not the only one to do this.
There are a lot smaller companies putting out high-quality products for a similar price. I don't know about their circulation numbers, but apparently it usually works out.
And then you forgot to consider this huge thing where someone built a house from company funds, after which a LOT of quality employees jumped ship.

I'm not pretending that I know a lot about economics, I just see the overall quality of products wane, which is frankly very sad.
And mistakes have been made, so no, it's not just gamers being overentitled brats. It's not that easy, unfortunately. And even if it were ... them's the rules of a free market. Adapt and give them what they want. Worked fine with gearporn books, and I do not grudge them their success in this field at all.

[_Pax._]

I'm not saying that our collective demand for lower prices is the only factor for CGL and SR.

But it is a factor, and it is industry-wide.

And no, I didn't say anything about gamers being over-entitled anything. Just ... we are as a group awfully unwilling to pay the kind of prices, that the quality we sayw want should command.

And it's great that you bought a more-expensive edition. But, it was a limited edition, rather than the only edition, for a reason: not everyone would want to pay that kind of money. Think about it: if CGL thought they culd get the same number of sales if [b]all[/b they offered was that LE edition ... don't you think they'd've done just that?

[All4BigGuns]

Though a lot of gamers are over-entitled brats. Most of those are mainly playing MMOs though. Power levelling to max level the first few days after the game is released and then whining about a "lack of content" for max level characters.

[Lionhearted]

Low prices are not only beneficiary to the consumer. You have to bear in mind that once the product is done, the only restriction to making more of the product is reproduction cost and printing books is not a very expensive process. By offering a lower base price you lower the barrier of entry and can incrementally increase your sales.

[Grinder]

Though a lot of gamers are over-entitled brats. Most of those are mainly playing MMOs though. Power levelling to max level the first few days after the game is released and then whining about a "lack of content" for max level characters.

Yes....no. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

[All4BigGuns]

Yes....no. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Hey, that's exactly what a lot of MMO players do.

[Lionhearted]

Only the loud obnoxious ones, which as it turns out... Is a very vocal minority.

[_Pax._]

The same minority we could generally call "munchkins", in fact - the ones concerend primarily, if not only, with displaying their prowess and "leet skillz, yo".

*shrug*

[Lionhearted]

I remember being a young muchkin bud...

[_Pax._]

So do I. But then, I finished puberty, and grew out of munchkindom (except as an occasional, brief, and openly declared bout of intentional silliness).

[Tanegar]

I've bought the limited edition back when, and I gladly paid the price. I even pre-ordered it, giving them money up-front.

#862 of 1500.</brag>

[Draco18s]

So do I. But then, I finished puberty, and grew out of munchkindom (except as an occasional, brief, and openly declared bout of intentional silliness).

I still munchkin, but it's because that toolset is relegated to exactly what it is:

A tool

But it is not the only tool I have, nor the only tool I use.

If I have an awesome concept I shape it, then work it into the system, then use the Munchkin tool to make it mechanically viable. Not obscene, just viable. Such as my drake infiltrator. I munchkined the hell out of that concept, and still only ended up with something like 14 dice to stealth, because any more and I've have been sacrificing concept (i.e. not a drake).

[Lionhearted]

Munchkin by definition does not know moderation or common sense. What you're doing is number crunching.

[Draco18s]

Munchkin by definition does not know moderation or common sense. What you're doing is number crunching.

Same thing. One is a tool, the other is the malicious use of that tool. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[_Pax._]

Draco, I think you're wrongly conflating "powergaming" with "munchkin".

All munchkins are power gamers, but the converse is not true. Kind of like squares and rectangles, you know?

...

Munchkindom is specifically "powergamingto excess". Often with a strong dose of malicious rules-lawyering thrown in.

[Lionhearted]

Words will give people associations and assumptions. Munchkin is a word with a lot of associations, most of them bad.
The actual game is great with drinks although.

[Grinder]

Hey, that's exactly what a lot of MMO players do.

I wasn't aware that this thread ("5E Wish List") is about MMOs?