DoD was pretty good actually. Long post about evaluating retro games.

[Ram]

Det är en dungeon (eller ett "underjordskomplex" för att avgöra den debatten en gång för alla, vilket ju kan, som i det här fallet, innebära en sorts rälsning. Det finns bara en väg igenom och ett tydligt klimat på slutet

Nu smutsar jag ner tråden med mer rälsning... @runequester, säg till om du vill att vi slutar.

Jag håller med om att Dimön skulle kunna ses som rälsad. Man får lite luddig info som start, det är en resa med random encounters, undersökning på ön och slutligen ett underjordskomplex. Det finns inga tankar på att man skall avvika från spåret.

Men samtidigt så är det inte styrt alls. Det bygger på att spelarna själva vill röra sig i uppdragets riktning.

Så högst eventuellt är det rälsat i upplägg, men inte alls i upplevelse och genomförande.

Och scenariot tycker jag ganska väl följer strukturen som beskrivs i grundboken.

Så vad säger jag då...? Ja, säg det... Jag tror mest att jag inte håller med @Genesis om att det egentligen uppmuntrar till rälsning. Att det troligen var något som kom i spelledares implementation av egna äventyr. Det var snarare så att strukturen som uppmuntrades var uppdragsbaserad.

 

[Genesis]

Jag tror mest att jag inte håller med @Genesis om att det egentligen uppmuntrar till rälsning.

Jag tycker att jag har varit tydlig upprepade gånger i tråden med att jag inte tycker att DoD uppmuntrar till rälsning. Bara att det inte gör något för att förhindra det.

 

[Ram]

Jag tycker att jag har varit tydlig upprepade gånger i tråden med att jag inte tycker att DoD uppmuntrar till rälsning. Bara att det inte gör något för att förhindra det.

Ah, stämmer. My bad.

 

[runequester]

Id add the skill Woodcarving 13 (if thats a skill) also helps the player to visualize his Charchter and could be a most defining skill even if the player never rolls it. Its all in the mind!

One thing I really liked from White Wolf games was the idea of secondary skills. Players in our group almost always took some sort of nonsense secondary like "Old cowboy movie lore" as a character thing. Sometimes you even found a way of using it!

 

[runequester]

A second item that I think DoD did extremely well: Magical items (at least in the 87 book). Since they are just spells assigned to an item, it is trivially easy for the GM to create almost any item you can think of, including a lot of really interesting stuff (like a flying sword or armor that turns you into a wolf) without having to create any new rules.
The Expert rules also have very straight forward rules for players creating magical items, which avoid the "Ask the GM to make something up" sequence that is the norm in most fantasy RPG's.

 

[olaberg]

One thing I really liked from White Wolf games was the idea of secondary skills. Players in our group almost always took some sort of nonsense secondary like "Old cowboy movie lore" as a character thing. Sometimes you even found a way of using it!

I remember GMs awarding bonuses for using secondary skills!

 

[Svarte Faraonen]

One thing I really liked from White Wolf games was the idea of secondary skills. Players in our group almost always took some sort of nonsense secondary like "Old cowboy movie lore" as a character thing. Sometimes you even found a way of using it!

Det är en sak jag gillar med Eon 4, färdigheter som Skylla på andra, Kända gladiatorer, Fräknar och Tandsmed finns i spelet och kommer dessutom från en annan budget än de vanliga färdigheterna, så att det inte blir en konkurrenssituation mellan användbart och roligt.

 

[Khan]

Det är en sak jag gillar med Eon 4, färdigheter som Skylla på andra, Kända gladiatorer, Fräknar och Tandsmed finns i spelet och kommer dessutom från en annan budget än de vanliga färdigheterna, så att det inte blir en konkurrenssituation mellan användbart och roligt.

Hundra procent med på det! Vi har haft utmaningar där mina spelare fått användning för sina färdigheter i Citera Libera, Svordomar, Repslageri, och mycket mer oväntat. Det är riktigt kul att se när "onödiga" lösningar på problem blir de som används.

 

[runequester]

Hundra procent med på det! Vi har haft utmaningar där mina spelare fått användning för sina färdigheter i Citera Libera, Svordomar, Repslageri, och mycket mer oväntat. Det är riktigt kul att se när "onödiga" lösningar på problem blir de som används.

Absolutely agree yeah. Having them be awarded as part of character creation (like it is in Eon IV) is a perfect solution to the problem of utility. In a points buy, I suppose you could just give everyone a few points to spend on "flavor" skills.

 

[Max Raven]

A thought occurred to me, reading the thread: Wouldn't the business model have been to sell adventures, and so tools to design adventures would be nice for players but mostly uninteresting to the publisher? I recall the D&D modules.

So you'd buy the core stuff, get a short adventure. Then buy more adventures. Or that was the thought, I assume.

(Also later on you get people who learned design from making their own, fairly linear adventures who then do the same when they start working in the industry)

 

[JohanL]

A thought occurred to me, reading the thread: Wouldn't the business model have been to sell adventures, and so tools to design adventures would be nice for players but mostly uninteresting to the publisher? I recall the D&D modules.

From what I understand, adventures don't tend to make money. You may have to publish them to support the game, but it's not where you make your earnings. Part of it is that only the GM needs to buy them.

This is part of what's so smart about Community Publishing programs - you get other people to make the adventures you would like to exist but prefer not making yourself.

 

[zo0ok]

Wouldn't the business model have been to sell adventures, and so tools to design adventures would be nice for players but mostly uninteresting to the publisher?

I can see a few problems with this:
- some people will buy the rules but not the adventures, nobody the other way around
- adventures tend to be cheaper/smaller products than the rules
- to actually produce enough adventures to keep the more enthusiastic players busy playing only bought adventures seems daunting (so the need for self-created content is always there)
- the idea of making more money by intentionally making a worse product may not work out in a real market economy with real competitors

 

[Max Raven]

From what I understand, adventures don't tend to make money. You may have to publish them to support the game, but it's not where you make your earnings. Part of it is that only the GM needs to buy them.

You're making these statements based on hindsight and RPGs as a different market from boardgames, though. Does everyone playing a boardgame buy it? Of course not. Also consider that RPG products were much easier and faster to produce, which is part of why Äspel liked them, IIRC.

 

[Max Raven]

I can see a few problems with this:
- some people will buy the rules but not the adventures, nobody the other way around
- adventures tend to be cheaper/smaller products than the rules
- to actually produce enough adventures to keep the more enthusiastic players busy playing only bought adventures seems daunting (so the need for self-created content is always there)
- the idea of making more money by intentionally making a worse product may not work out in a real market economy with real competitors

I addressed the other points above - you're thinking with the perspective of the RPG market now, not the boardgame market of the 80ies. But the last is misreading my post. Like I said - it likely wasn't intentionally, it was merely not a priority.