Re: Offtopic - "4DVENTURE"

*snip, case I get the "too many lines" damnable error* ;) 

my favourite PC game is still X-COM UFO ENEMY UNKNOWN...it's what, 16
years old? It got placed in #10 spot on PC Gamer this month, and ranks
in top 10 in nearly every poll. But....will *kids today* play it?

3rd ed has been player paradise, with just about everything for
them...but way, way too little for the DM and especially, a lack of
"fluff".
But, fluff is hard to sell: who uses it? If it's only DMs, that's less
of the market....
As the medium changes to web based, costs drop, a .pdf with lots of
fluff, is much cheaper to sell, than print. Alas, digital books still
suck compared to ye olde paper book. It's a genuine pleasure ot read a
book, not a .pdf. One can hope technology can create a workable, good
"e-book".

I'm a DM, I love fluff, I love great settings, TSR made some great ones.
WOTC only produced Ebberon, and most folk think it's sucks (woot, yes
the suck word, lol). It's interesting, but somehow, it lacks "soul",
just doesn't appeal to me or nearly any players I game with.

Some folk seem to hate 3rd ed because of WOTC, not so much because of
the rules, which I don't get at all (unless you got screwed over
somehow). I find that mind boggling, considering how TSR damned near
wiped D&D out, *forever*, as a living game (without new players, a game
dies, like it or not). TSR *sucked hugely*. Fantastic creative talent,
but total incompetents running it, the facts prove this conclusively:
TSR died.
I have no easy answer to the problem of keeping "corporate suits" out of
creativity (because they are gross bungling useless smorons toput it
bluntly) vs the need for sound business planning (which creative folk
often don't get at all, hell, most corporate suits don't!)

They can't use the Realms any more, really, they wh*red it out so much
it's polluted, in simple terms. A good setting requires originality,
broad scope, but with tightly imagined areas/groups etc for a basis to
set characters as starting points, and then..let folk do with it as they
want!!! I came up with a good mechanic for this in my own game setting
;)
The Realms has been explored and detailed to death, that's really a
massive choke to creativity: if you put in a plot, will it hold versus
current cannon? That adds in a huge log jam.

:)



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