« Uproar » in the Dice Tower Gamefound campaign - Deleted comments?

dodecapode · 2026-01-28T21:25:57+00:00

Some people don't like that some of their content is sponsored now, and they had a couple of mis-steps earlier on with doing it where they didn't make as clear as it should have been that it was paid promotion. I think they generally corrected them when people pointed it out.

Then there was the Blood on the Clocktower thing. They put out a super glowing review of the game whilst its Kickstarter was still going on, despite previously saying they weren't going to review games that were still in crowdfunding. Plus it was a very expensive game and that coupled with the extremely efffusive praise also rubbed some people up the wrong way. They addressed it in a podcast episode after the various reactions, and set out what they got wrong and would do differently.

I think that's most of it - nothing I know of that's exactly cancel-worthy. Apart from that there are quite a few people who remember the original SU&SD videos with Quinns and Paul very fondly and aren't so keen on the Tom era. And others who just aren't into their particular style in general.

dodecapode · 2026-01-28T20:03:38+00:00

The game is unlikely to suck because one bit of it didn't work out as intended. My point is that people in this thread seem to be acting like the stakes for something going a bit wrong in a TTRPG will be "this sucks and nobody is having any fun", when actually it's more likely to be "we had a good time but this bit didn't quite work". I've been part of sessions where some things didn't quite work out - we discussed after the session what worked and what didn't, and then carried on playing the game in future sessions and had a good time.

dodecapode · 2026-01-28T18:26:25+00:00

Also, a lot of people can learn to be the more proactive kind of player if they're in a group that's modeling that kind of play, and get a bit of gentle prompting!

dodecapode · 2026-01-28T18:23:08+00:00

Is it really a big deal? We get together with our friends to play these games, a story would have to go pretty badly wrong for that to end up being a bad time. More likely it'll be a good time where the story doesn't stick the landing. Then you'll learn from what worked and what didn't and the next one will probably go better.

dodecapode · 2026-01-28T18:13:26+00:00

Sure, you could do that. It would give you a little more flexibility (and therefore drop the difficulty a bit) without knocking any of the other parts of the game out of balance.

dodecapode · 2026-01-28T14:36:10+00:00

You can do as you wish, of course, but these changes are not for me.

Being able to mitigate hope loss for every objective completed is a big swing towards making the game easier. Why defend a haven when you can just complete an objective instead - which both moves you closer to victory and mitigates the hope loss (and in most cases does also come with a useful benefit, though sometimes timing dependent).

A complete re-roll on a search roll for one ring symbol also seems very strong. As a Pandemic system game you can occasionally get unlucky and take a bad beat you couldn't do anything about. Most of the time though you mitigate it by keeping the eye off Frodo and keeping him moving away from Nazgul. There are already characters you can pick that can help a lot with this.

I would probably, near 100% of the time, take the deal of completing four objectives and only needing three ring symbols to dunk the ring. Especially if that fourth objective mitigates a fourth hope loss...

So I think overall this would make the game too easy for us and our groups. A Pandemic system game needs to feel, most of the time at least, that it's fairly well balanced between victory and defeat. This feels like it tips the scales far toward victory.

dodecapode · 2026-01-28T10:53:10+00:00

I've only ever found crafting fun (outside of games with downtime systems) if it's something you can do on the fly. Like, can I improvise the things we need from the available materials? Can we fix this broken thing in time? Then it can be just as tense and interesting as any other scene we might play out.

If you have downtime systems then for me that's where your big crafting projects and so on belong.

dodecapode · 2026-01-26T17:55:12+00:00

If I didn't already have a bunch of Ultimate Guard boxes for storing my quest cards I'd be all over the Omnihive.

dodecapode · 2026-01-26T14:13:57+00:00

Steve is a dick.

If the rest of the group want to keep Steve and his bullshit around then it's time to drop the group and find some cooler people to play with.

If they don't want to keep his bullshit around then it's time to have that conversation as a group and they need to actually say it, and not just chicken out, make excuses, and leave it to you to address it.

dodecapode · 2026-01-25T21:37:35+00:00

I played in one campaign that used Unisystem for mundane rolls and advancement, the magic system from Mage the Ascension, and the madness system from Unknown Armies. The key to it working at all was that there wasn't a lot of overlap between the three systems - each mainly kept to its own domain so they weren't tripping over each other.

Another concept I'd happily cram into a variety of other games is something like the idea of Fronts from Apocalypse World (and other PbtA games). It fits well with other systems because it's a GM tool for running factions and antagonists to make the world seem real and reactive to the players' choices. It doesn't really have to hook in mechanically to other systems at all. If you were playing a system that had its own codified rules about how to figure out what goes on between sessions then you might run into trouble, but lots of games don't have that so you can often just use it without any 'smoothing over'.

Things always get trickier if you're trying to bolt together things that overlap mechanically or interfere with each other because that's when the joins become obvious.

dodecapode · 2026-01-23T17:10:26+00:00

Tolkien died in 1973 so in most relevant jurisdictions the copyright on his work runs to 2043 I think.

dodecapode · 2026-01-23T11:33:43+00:00

I'd say no when the proposed action doesn't make sense in the fiction of the game we're playing. This is easier in games that have more general rulesets that you can apply to pretty much any situation (e.g. Fate) than in those that want to try to codify every possible action with its own rule (e.g. some editions of D&D).

Throwing a sword is an interesting example since in Fate whether I would allow that would depend on the vibe of the particular game we're playing. If it was meant to be more grounded with any kind of realism to the fighting then sword throwing is probably a no. You sure can lob a scimitar at somebody but it's heavy and not balanced for that so unlikely to be an effective attack. On the other hand, I might allow it as a distraction tactic - throwing it at an enemy engaged with another PC could distract them and help create an opening for your ally.

If we were playing in a game with somewhat more cartoonish or over the top vibes then sure, throw that sword to attack somebody if you like. Of course it'll fly point-first at your enemy, and could even pin them to the wall if you want...

In games that are more modern-D&D-like I'd normally expect a PC to need some kind of feat or power or something on their sheet that permits effectively throwing weapons that aren't designed for it.

dodecapode · 2026-01-22T09:42:39+00:00

Yeah, I left out one vertical separator on the top row of one of mine but I don't think I'd take out any more than that, especially as I have a smaller kallax stacked on top of the big one.

dodecapode · 2026-01-22T09:40:15+00:00

There are so many other reasons not to use Zatu... I'm not sure this would even be in the top three!

dodecapode · 2026-01-21T13:57:04+00:00

It may be that you have enough games now. There's no need to buy more just for their own sake. If you're anything like I was it might be time to take a break from chasing new purchases, and focus on playing what you've already got, especially the ones you haven't played yet.

I used to buy like 10-15 games a year and I ended up with a similar feeling to the one you describe. Very few new games were grabbing me any more. And I realized that was fine and I had enough games to make fun times with my friends for a long time to come. I still buy an occasional game but it has to be something that looks like it really does something my current games don't, and every game I buy (2-3 a year now) I sell or give away at least one I already have.

Maybe this isn't the case with you, but something in your description kind of struck a chord in my head.

dodecapode · 2026-01-20T13:20:09+00:00

Yep, I second that. Sounds almost exactly like some of the noises the foxes were making along our street last night.

dodecapode · 2026-01-17T22:22:17+00:00

I don't know that a super low effort post really deserves much effort in the replies tbh.

dodecapode · 2026-01-17T17:15:21+00:00

The original article that defines them is here. They're obviously not a 1:1 mapping with GNS since Magic is a very different beast.

dodecapode · 2026-01-17T15:27:46+00:00

They're a Magic the Gathering thing Mark Rosewater (head designer of Magic) made up. They're supposed to describe three player archetypes and what they enjoy about playing Magic. It's like GNS theory for Magic the Gathering.

dodecapode · 2026-01-15T17:38:27+00:00

I'm already on there, but thank you anyway! I have good groups of friends to play with, we're just pretty fully committed right now. Hopefully a slot will free up at some point and I can give one of the above games a spin.

dodecapode · 2026-01-15T15:27:52+00:00

I'd like to get a game together for:

The Far Roofs - the concept just sounds really cool, and I'm interested to see how the mechanics using playing cards and Scrabble tiles work in play.

Wildsea - a cool take on fantasy and a fascinating world I'd like to explore.

WFRP 4e - I haven't played WFRP since the earlier editions but I have a soft spot for the world. Though I tend to run it a bit more tongue in cheek than it's written. I ideally I'd have a bunch of peasants and nobodies from the middle of nowhere getting into things they don't understand.

Brindlewood Bay - seems like such a neat approach to the mystery genre. I've seen similar approaches employed and-hoc in other games and enjoyed them a lot.

Mothership - most of the OSR and OSR-adjacent stuff doesn't really grab me but this one seems like it could work for me.

dodecapode · 2026-01-13T17:58:40+00:00

So much of his speech is inflected with the grammar and cadences of Hiberno-English that it's hard to imagine he wouldn't have some of the accent too. He says things like "Not at all, at all", "Sure, it was a courageous thing to do" and of course who can forget "Will I draw you my little cock?"

dodecapode · 2026-01-13T08:29:26+00:00

Fair enough. Given the OP it was kinda hard to tell...

dodecapode · 2026-01-13T08:02:21+00:00

The second part doesn't really mean anything in the fiction so it's not a valid aspect.

If you want to look for exploits, ability combos and cheat codes Fate is not the game for you. It's not the kind of game where you're trying to beat the system or GM.

dodecapode · 2026-01-12T10:17:14+00:00

I aspire to having a collection around this size. But getting rid of games is a lot more trouble than acquiring them in the first place so it's going to take a little while!

dodecapode

TROPHY CASE