I think it's the same logic that cuase me to cringe whenever someone tells me Final Fantasy is an RPG. I like to call those "Story based games" in that they have a story, but you are not really playing a role.

And yet, you are. That avatar, that's a role - and you're playing it.

This is why I want new terms. Gives them to me Giiiiiiivezzzzz

For what it's worth, I actually agree with most of John's supporting observations, but I flatly refute his central thesis: that D&D isn't an RPG. It is, but it's clearly not one that John enjoys playing. I'd like to think the games he likes and the games someone else likes (pick anyone whose tastes are mutually exclusive - that person isn't me) can share the term "roleplaying game" and carve out new terms for themselves therein.

But if Wick can't claim D&D isn't a roleplaying game, how else will he express the internet's largest case of RPG penis envy?

LOL! Touche.

lost odessy was  turn based, though more eastern style

Waaaaas it? Hmmm...

::added to list::

Thanks!

Never, as long as I live, will I understand NMA. It's like they want to be miserable.

I can understand one of their gripes, though it isn't a deal-breaker for me. If any company would make an RPG with turn-based combat, I'd be pretty much obliged to buy it, no matter what it was about. Bring me Teletubbies: The (turn-based) Reckoning, baby!

:ahem:

 

I'd really like to see someone build a lexicon and system of classification in which the term "roleplaying game" is vorbotten. Let's all stop trying to lay claim to it because, really, it's so vague as to apply to pretty much everything out there, from make believe to chess with names to LARPing to, yes indeed, 4E.

In my mind, that's the next step. Anything less is just flailing in shallow water.

[is]

Does spycraft 2.0 have a quick-rules pdf? I know shadowrun, gurps, d20, and battletech (not an RPG but you get the idea) all have one.  I think it might be easier to draw players in online if you distributed a quick rules pdf and had experienced GM's (Volunteers from the spycraft community who like doing the job)  going around to yahoo groups and the like and handing out pregen'ed character sheets and the like and hosting pbem style games.  I do wish printed book prices weren't getting so outrageous (WOTC changed their core book prices from around 20-25 bucks to 35 for 4th edition, what exactly is making things so expensive now?). 

To be fair, it's not that they're getting expensive "now," but rather that WotC's prices are finally catching up with the realities of the market. The only reason they weren't losing money with full color books under $35 is because they printed them in the hundreds of thousands (something pretty much no other company can pull off).

Spycraft 2.0 Lite is in the works (alongside Henchman). We're not sure exactly when it will release, though. We'll post an update as soon as we know more.

We completely agree that online marketing is key to expanding our player base and welcome all suggestions for how to make that happen. Unfortunately, the intertubes have become somewhat scattered over the last several years. There appear to be only a few places where folks congregate en masse and they tend to be so crowded that it's hard to gain lasting traction there.

Okay, rock on.  Figured it was something like that.

* Sits and tries as hard as possible to wait patiently for the Flags and the fiction re-release *

We've made really good progress on this front, too. I'm about to turn some fairly substantial text over to Scott for review...

I'm not much of a character builder, and even I squeed when I noticed Lore Keeper was getting two effective High Magic feats at level 1.  I wasn't sure what the usefulness, but I'm sure it was useful.

So this will be the third upgrade Light of Olympus will be getting?

If we update the product again - and we're not guaranteeing that we will - this will definitely go in. Until then, it'll wind up in the errata. (We've talked about a new errata update, but it's nothing we'll be focusing on until Fantasy Craft and the World on Fire PDFs are out.)

No joke - at least, not according to Bethesda's Todd Howard

 

Something for the Jericho fans to ponder over and watch for.

Jericho Seeks A New Home

Saw that. Not sure it's realistic to expect much more, but I live in hope.

The sidebar's wrong. I thought I'd rewritten that section but it apparently slipped through.

Setting design is frequently a fluid process, where you're making and changing continuity all the time and nothing's final until it's in print. In this case I'd been playing with Gregory Goodchilde surviving for a while longer and eventually becoming a Day of the Bullet victim, but it didn't fit a lot of the other (cooler) stuff going on in the final draft of World on Fire . Unfortunately, I missed that section when finalizing it all.

A list of Day of Bullet victims will be included in the PDFs, most likely in the Alliance of Evil Geniuses product. I'll clear up what happened with the sidebar there as well.

Those packs make it look like a creepy, wingless fly. I like it.

I call this stage of the design process 'spinning in circles' or 'second guessing myself'. It must be an important part of the process, 'cause I do it so often.... (Does anyone else do this? Everyone else?  )

I know I do. I feel it prevents me from putting out every first idea I've got - many of which are unrefined, unfinished, or just plain bad. Makes it hard when you're on deadline with very little prep time, though. 

Some folks complained that result caps were getting in the way when Spycraft 2.0 first hit. I bet most of them - not all, but most - fall into the category that now laud pointless d20 skills (absolutely no pun intended, though it's an amusing one if you take it out of context).