Irrational Hatreds in RPGs

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Bards are the golden ticket of gaming in my tiny universe.
 
That reminds me, this is kind of an irrational peeve of mine. It's when there's no mechanical differentiation between characters.

This is probably the main reason why I never did anything with Feng Shui 2 after I got it. I was excited, and then I started reading it. The game seemed really easy to get into, and there were lots of archetypes to choose from, but it seemed like once you picked your archetype you were largely locked in. Two characters of the same archetype were going to be pretty much the same. And that bugged me.

And it shouldn't bug me. If I run this game it's going to be with just one player. The character created will therefore be unique in the scope of our play. So it shouldn't bother me at all that the character would be the same as another character made with the same archetype, because that situation will never come up in practical play for me.

But it does bug me. Same issue with D&D and other games where you have classes/archetypes and not any real mechanical differentiation.
I see your point and agree in general, but don't archetypes in classless/open-ended games end up similar to each other anyway? I mean, all investigators will have things like sneaking, tracking, forensics etc. by principle, no? I think Shadowrun is a good example. It's a classless game but one can predict somewhat easily the skill set of a given character by it's type/archetype.
 
I see your point and agree in general, but don't archetypes in classless/open-ended games end up similar to each other anyway? I mean, all investigators will have things like sneaking, tracking, forensics etc. by principle, no? I think Shadowrun is a good example. It's a classless game but one can predict somewhat easily the skill set of a given character by it's type/archetype.

Sometimes. Logically speaking, the answer is often yes. Emotionally speaking, the answer isn't necessarily the same.

It's also a big grey area of preference. Back when I played SR1e, I intentionally avoided the printed archetypes and instead used the full character creation system. Most of the rest of my group did as well. Picking an archetype in that case felt like playing someone else's character instead of our own, despite the fact that we pretty much built according to type anyway.
 
I'm not seeing your point. Every Warlock will have Eldritch Blast too, and every Street Samurai will have reflex enhancers. It's a trait of the archetype created by the author.
That's the thing - Archetype created by the Author. Cyberpunk2020 and Shadowrun have archetypes, but they're trying to match archetypes within the source literature (except for Shadowrun's magic ones, obviously).

Where in Post-Apocalyptic/media literature are these archetypes, and their signature approach to Sex and Intimacy?

These aren't Femme Fatale, Shy Nerd, or Celebrity Playah, these "archetypes" are created out of whole cloth.

The Post-Apocalyptic aspect of the game is the thinnest of skins draped over an interpersonal mechanics game. That's why people always yammering about it in threads about PA games grinds my gears.
 
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That's the thing - Archetype created by the Author. Cyberpunk2020 and Shadowrun have archetypes, but they're trying to match archetypes within the source literature (except for Shadowrun's magic ones, obviously).

Where in Post-Apocalyptic/media literature are these archetypes, and their signature approach to Sex and Intimacy?

These aren't Femme Fatale, Shy Nerd, or Celebrity Playah, these "archetypes" are created out of whole cloth.

The Post-Apocalyptic aspect of the game is the thinnest of skins draped over an interpersonal mechanics game. That's why people always yammering about it in threads about PA games grinds my gears.
Yes, you have a point. Apocalypse World is a small part PA genre and a big part shit from the author's head (psychic maelstrom? Sex moves? Gender looks? Rutger Hauer character names? Fronts!?). I happen to find that shit compelling as fuck ( Baeraad Baeraad non-dull edgy) but I understand lots of folks don't.
 
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Sometimes. Logically speaking, the answer is often yes. Emotionally speaking, the answer isn't necessarily the same.

It's also a big grey area of preference. Back when I played SR1e, I intentionally avoided the printed archetypes and instead used the full character creation system. Most of the rest of my group did as well. Picking an archetype in that case felt like playing someone else's character instead of our own, despite the fact that we pretty much built according to type anyway.
I sue the archetypes when I need a character right now, because I hate bucket-of-points character gen (And yes, Priorities are close enough to being that).

The Post-Apocalyptic aspect of the game is the thinnest of skins draped over an interpersonal mechanics game.
Fair point.
 
Thread Note: I moved the Bard Druid tangent over to it's dedicated discussion for clarity
 
Yes, you have a point. Apocalypse World is a small part PA genre and a big part shit from the author's head (psychic maelstrom? Sex moves? Gender looks? Rutger Hauer character names? Fronts!?). I happen to find that shit compelling as fuck ( Baeraad Baeraad non-dull edgy) but I understand lots of folks don't.

I think Baker is pulling on some 70s/80s post-apocalyptic New Wave sf in those elements in AW, less familiar because they aren't present in the films derived from the fiction.
 
The Post-Apocalyptic aspect of the game is the thinnest of skins draped over an interpersonal mechanics game.
Cool rethorical image and summary of the game, but maybe from a Player's perspective? The Gm tools & rules, on the other side have more to say about depicting a world without status quo, driven by scarcity and shaken by factions, or not?
 
The Post-Apocalyptic aspect of the game is the thinnest of skins draped over an interpersonal mechanics game. That's why people always yammering about it in threads about PA games grinds my gears.

Dunno about that. Was too busy shooting mutant cultists to figure out the interpersonal stuff.

Krugs, I love you man, but you are way out of your comfort zone here. It’s like a story gamer discovering B/X D&D has Morale rules and subsequently declaring that it’s a game about chasing monsters down. Forest for the trees and all that.
 
:shock: Not The Bullwinkle and Rocky Role-Playing Party Game! How could you?
I've never actually seen Rocky and Bullwinkle; as far as I can tell TVNZ never picked it up. Maybe I shall have to take a look on the interwebz some time.
 
I've never actually seen Rocky and Bullwinkle; as far as I can tell TVNZ never picked it up. Maybe I shall have to take a look on the interwebz some time.


Skip it, and look for Tom Slick instead. He had a racecar called The Thunderbolt Greaseslapper! Which is really apropos of nothing. But I will never pass up (or even create) an opportunity to say Thunderbolt Greaseslapper.

Thunderbolt.

Greaseslapper.
 
I've never actually seen Rocky and Bullwinkle; as far as I can tell TVNZ never picked it up. Maybe I shall have to take a look on the interwebz some time.


It's....not really worth it, in all honesty. Imagine Looney Toons with substandard animation and jokes that were hackneyed 50 years ago. They exist more as cultural icons now.

The Brendan Fraser movie adaptions weren't bad though.
 
I loved Rocky as a kid, mainly for the other segments such as fractured fairy tales and Peabody and Sherman. But I haven't seen them in ~30 years so I don't know if they'd hold up. Watching the reruns in the 70s, I got the sense that many of the jokes were aimed a people who were adults in the 60s and 50s.
 
I loved Rocky as a kid, mainly for the other segments such as fractured fairy tales and Peabody and Sherman. But I haven't seen them in ~30 years so I don't know if they'd hold up. Watching the reruns in the 70s, I got the sense that many of the jokes were aimed a people who were adults in the 60s and 50s.


I think one could very tongue in cheek call it the "Rick & Morty" of it's day. Just two people doing all the voices, completely improvised and then animating around that.

It's just, well, two generations on, it's the sort of stuff that would have been "edgy" to my grandparents.
 
I think one could very tongue in cheek call it the "Rick & Morty" of it's day. Just two people doing all the voices, completely improvised and then animating around that.

It's just, well, two generations on, it's the sort of stuff that would have been "edgy" to my grandparents.
If it was getting dated in the '70s it sounds like it was very much of its generation.
 
I still remember one joke from the show.
Dragon facing castle: "Come out here with your battle axe and fight me."
Knight in castle: "My wife stays inside."
 
The Wizard of Id used to make similar jokes.

Yeah, that's about the humour level I'd put it at.

Apropos of nothing, did anyone see the Wizard of Id TV show pilot that was all puppets? It's from a really long time ago, but I'm sure it's on Youtube somewhere
 
It's....not really worth it, in all honesty. Imagine Looney Toons with substandard animation and jokes that were hackneyed 50 years ago. They exist more as cultural icons now.

The Brendan Fraser movie adaptions weren't bad though.
HEATHEN!!!
 
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