Do you think RPGs are better or worse than 20 years ago?
>>98876675My games are better than the ones I was running 20 years ago and that’s all that matters to my group.
>>98876675This is the neat thing about books. They don't go bad. There was a lot of very badly written ttrpgs and games 20 years ago and 40 years ago. We tend not to talk about them, they fall through the cracks and are forgotten because they had enough problems and small enough fanbase there's no real interest in them and they play poorly. This is much the same as it is now and with most entertainment. Most of it is pretty lame. There sure is a lot of it though and the base design variance is a lot broader and the selection pool is significantly larger while being easier to find what you like combined with a resurgence of indie and diy games and remembering crossover with wargames again. So yeah, its same as it ever was in terms of quality but better in terms of capacity and variety. There's more slop to parse which can be irritating at times but is not actually difficult to become good at filtering if you think about it for a few minutes.
>>98876675Those army men are getting lower quality because the people making them are becoming less competent, it's because they are making things more and more cheaply.
There's more choice of systems for every style of play, and an abundance of potential players, so they're better by default. The rest is up to you.
>>98877113It uncanny resemble what happened to the Roman coins across the ages
>>98877332That would be a MUCH better image than OPs, which puts the blame on the degradation of the common man and not the increasing rapacity of the ownership class.
>>98877113It’s AI slop retard
>>98877113They're cherrypicked examples from different manufacturers using different materials and different processes at different price points, to artificially present an argument about a decline over time when you might as well be arguing that a $600,000 flatscreen in the year 2000 was larger than a $600 flatscreen than you can buy today, flatscreen televisions have gotten worse over time.
>>98877351One begat the other. The Epstein class might have been responsible for decimating the common man through infinity immigration, but at this point the common man is degrading itself just fine.Though you do bring up an interesting parallel with the slow degeneration of Roman coinage; did the common Roman citizen know when the Empire died? When was it? Was it the Battle of Adrianople? The deposement of Romulus Augustulus in 476? Was it the Crisis of the Third Century? Everyone ogles the Roman Empire, but we ogle a very specific period of time; the Principate, usually under Augustus or Trajan. The Empire lasted 200 years after the Principate when Diocletian formed the Dominate. That's almost as long as the United States has been around. Yet it's the period nobody ever uses as an example of why they yearn for Rome. It's like it's an embarrassment to them, a "not really Rome" despite being around in relative stability.Is that really it? Is that what America is going to become? Historians ogling a very specific period of American history, and the stuff we're living in now is ignored entirely?
>>98877113>>98877382I decided to check out amazon's most sold army men toys and they do indeed look like shit compared to the ones labeled "90s army man toy" on ebay.So whether OP image is AI slop or not, army man toys are worse.Good thing I never threw mine away when I was a kid. Still useful for RPG games.
>>98877430Maybe the same molds are degrading. It is still sad to see. The top armyman is a good shade of green and pretty good quality looking.
>>98877113No shit. It's corner cutting corpos every time. It's the financialization of everything. They're all playing games with imaginary value for imaginary products, and their real world markets are a side hustle they constantly try to make cheaper. But the line goes up and they must be doing great because of that. The only reason we're not deep in a lengthy recession is because we let them decide the stock market was the best thing to judge the economy by, then we let them disconnect the stock market from reality. So the line goes up and up and up and nothing is ever actually bad.
>>98877435it's not the molds, they're definitely using cheaper plastic. The reason lego is so pricey and gets pricer over time is they take the quality of their plastic super seriously. The army men likely are made with cheaper plastic to keep the price down because people expect it to be a dollar store toy. But shit is getting worse, and the quality has to drop so the price can stay low. And they're still likely several times what they cost in the 90s.
>>98876675worse, because of who plays them now.Yes I mean exactly what you think i mean, and if you're mad or in denial, you're one of the people who contributed to the problem
Are they using the same mould from the 60's?
>>98877530>who plays them nowclose friend groups mostly. Same as has always been the case. fuck off political tourist. Broadening demographics in california don't mean shit for me running the games I've always run.
Definitely better as a whole. Back then we were on the long tail of d20 shit, jesus christ.
>>98877574Yeah I think OP was thinking the 90s was 20 years ago or something, but that wasn't a great time for TTRPGs. The satanic panic was hardly fully over. But 2006 was not a fun time for it. The quality of life for playing these games is way better than it was. Whether the game systems are better or worse over time... it's hit or miss with different systems.
>>98877530
>>98877549lmao
>>98877585I'd say 96 was pretty bad as well as rules go, but the community was presumably better.
>>98877113i thought most army man looks like shit nowdays because they have been using the same mould for dacades
>>98876682Underrated post. I have been playing MERP for 25 years and that's all I need.>>98877113Woah. Take it easy Wise guy.
>>98877622The community was far more whatever you had on hand, and ttrpg was a lot more niche and a lot less accepted than it is now. If you had a good group, or pool of players and GMs if you lived in a populous area, it was probably awesome. But if you were forced to play with assholes, you had literally zero other options. As much as I'm not about online play, the fact that you can play with people you like who might be geographically incompatible is a massive game changer.
>>98877622That's the tricky thing. People were much more isolated. Even with early online communities, it was the dialup era so it priced people out of participating there. Community was extremely local and minor. Then it wasn't until the mid-late 2000s that dialup went away. Then you have a few years of the small online communities growing before the big scam that was social media swept in. Basically it's like saying cities have too much discourse and the community was much better when it was two clans living in opposite sides of a valley refusing to talk to each other because of an ancient feud. Just not really comparable. And you have the age old pre-interest problem of "I'm the only person with my niche interest and my only connection to any community is a magazine subscription." For people who dealt with that, anything post 2006 is an improvement.
>>98877090Availability is another thing. You can have a great game, but if you can't get a copy, who's gonna even know about it?>>98877430Meanwhile, 1960s army mans...
>>98876675Way worse. It's been a few years since I've even bothered looking for a campaign to join or a group of players looking for a DM. More people that have our playing but they're people I have no interest in playing with. The last time I tried I found a group that refused to allow evil characters actually be evil because it was triggering. I am not exaggerating.
>>98877549oy vey
YeahAnd if I don't like the current version I can easily get the older one, which wasn't an option at all in the early 00's or before. And if I don't like any option there's a handful of people who share whatever bizarre gripe I have making something that addresses that bullshit.20 years ago was the OGL peak with every system trying to become 3e.>>98877122Also, player availability. Even if I hate everyone at my FLGS or don't have one, there's a facebook or whasapp group. And if there isn't one and you live in a place with zero existing interest, you can give strangers a copy for free and see if they want to give it a try. Back in the purely physical days you had to get them home, lend it to a stranger, or xerox your book (maybe wrecking it in the process).
>>98877423>Is that what America is going to become? Historians ogling a very specific period of American history, and the stuff we're living in now is ignored entirely?Isn't it already? WW2 was almost a hundred years ago but it's more widely taught than something that happened ten years ago.
>>98877774"Triggering" is lame, but banning evil characters is generally good practice. Evil PC's barely work in anything except edgy horror systems. For any kind of traditional rpg its just more work for the GM while the players who actually want to be evil are generally garbage human beings with some kind of chip on their shoulder.The ability to exclude people like that is a reason games have got better.
>>98877627that is also a part of it
>>98878023You could make it work in a villains game, but the problem with an actually evil character in any villain group is either they or the group will break apart eventually, because their involvement, tolerance, and support is a delicate balance. Because most villains are out for profit or actual motive but evil is about being a bastard for a love of the game. And that's only fun for one person.
>>98877951>WW2 was almost a hundred years ago but it's more widely taught than something that happened ten years agois it really? the average person has a very basic if any real understanding of WW2. the only thing that is ceaselessly talked about is a certain mathematically impossible event perpetuating our societal foundation myth. but ask the average american what the geopolitical goals of any faction were and you will get some marvel tier good vs evil answer
>>98878047There is also the very specific "bomb collar" style implementation. Where a player is allowed to play an evil character but is bound by strict orginisational controls up to and including litteral chains and bomb collars. This way the rest of the party gets to keep their action in line with group goals, but does limit the player to not sharing equal status in the party. To a lesser exctent it can work in a military themed campaign where the players have freedom of action but will face court martials for going too far.These are still all examples of how evil pcs are more work for GMs though.
>>98877951The fuck you need to be taught about something that happened 10 years ago. Surely you were alive to experience it.
>>98878085>but ask the average americanNo one does this expecting to be impressed by the answer.
>>98878102That works, but it also proves the issue with evil characters. They cannot willingly be part of a group without being a problem to the group. You need to contrive a method of forcing them to play nice. So you can't have evil characters in a group.
>>98876675In terms of rules they're better since there's a million games out there.
>>98878085It's still more than you can get out of them for shit that happened ten years ago.>>98878107Then tell me about the shit America was up to militarily ten years ago nigger-anon.
>>98876675One things for sure, the RPG miniatures were better when they were metal.You used to be able to go into a hobby shop and dig through the discount bin full of loose lead minis.The guys playing with flats had arms that looked like they were covered in graphite from the forearm down.
>>98878176Need to be 18 to post here, buddy.
>>98878204Faggot I'm on the wrong end of forty.
>>98876682Fpbp>>98876675Yes.
>>98877627Considering how many of them they churn out, it's likely they've had to replace those molds at least a few times. Of course, the cheapest way to do that is to make a new mold around your most recent run of product, which is also the run with the most defects, which then get baked into the new mold.
>>98877530Said the dumb faggot who never play any RPG.
>>98878107>The fuck you need to be taught about something that happened 10 years ago.Because then you have more facts and perspectives on the event. Compare 2003 War in Iraq with 2013.
>>98877423>did the common Roman citizen know when the Empire died?One day a bridge collapsed, and no one came to fix it.For a lot of people, this is what the fall of the empire was like. It was not some singular moment of defeat when the empire broke. It's that gradually, the authority of the empire declined and declined and declined until it just stopped entirely.
>>98877090TPBP.Survivorship bias makes us like the past, but the fact is that there was a lot of crap.Conversely, game design has had some good innovations. Yes, things sometimes go overboard, especially in the name of "usability", but there are good ideas. For example, d20 vs THAC0 (yes, I know that this is 20 years ago vs 40 years ago, not today vs 20 years ago, but innovation didn't halt).As time goes on, you can harvest more material for good ideas.
>>98876675Mechanics will change, but themes remain eternal. The second post is on the money. If your group is having fun the game is working. The Genre of the game has the most impact on play. RPGs of the same genre follow the same formulas. A fighter in D&D is a fighter in RQ. A fighter pilot in Star Wars is a fighter pilot in Traveller. The flavor and story is determined by the folks playing. The mechanics are just task resolution. ANY game can be played using ANY rule system, and no rule system is better than another. That's game designer ego. There is simply works or doesn't work. Current game genres follow social trends.
>>98879093what's with the comparison between those dates when current year is much more like 2003.
>>98876675>Do you think RPGs are better or worse than 20 years agoIf we're talking about the state of RPGs AS AN INDUSTRY, it's both better and worse.We live in the post-OGL world, and the OGL is bad for the industry unless you are Cardboard Rectangle company Wizards of the Coast.The slow death of the local game store as a nexus for roleplaying games (they are all, effectively, cardboard rectangle stores now) has been a blessing and a curse for people who do not want to spend their time and effort building market share for someone else's product. You no longer have to compete for physical shelf space for someone who's selling their "D&D Compatible" splat books, which is good. However, you instead only exist digitally - which means instead you have to fight an endless tide of garbage digital only books; the kind of shit that NO ONE would waste paper printing, but because digital books don't have to be printed, bound, shipped and stocked these exist. And now you're fighting for discoverability against these. Which leads to a problem; the way to get your system noticed is by building a social media following. For example, I think Draw Steel is a cool game. However, you and I are only aware of that system's existence because Matt Coville spent years building a following. If Draw Steel was released into the digital forefront without that years of audience building, it would have died in obscurity.You have some legacy games that manage to trudge along, but for the most part there's really two things that can happen - You're either indirectly working for Wizards of the Coast, releasing books in order to build *their* marketshare while they offer you the opportunity to borrow some of their audience, or you're building a social media following and then making a game afterwords. Especially since you're probably not going to have a second Paizo situation where a company manages to parlay enough internet backlash to repackage D&D to people who already owned D&D books.
>>98878085>a certain mathematically impossible event perpetuating our societal foundation mythThe Holocaust was weak as fuck compared to other mass killings. Vasily Blokhin personally executed 7000 Polish PoWs over 28 days during the Katyn Massacre using a pistol. 50 executioners working at his rate would clear the commonly accepted Holocaust death count in about 29 months. The only thing notable about the Holocaust was German autism having them write everything down and making something as simple as killing a lot of people overly complicated and inefficient.
>>98877530>worse, because of who plays them nowYou mean who MAKES them now. If I open up one more Lovecraft derived RPG and see a disclaimer about how he's racist I'm going to have an anuerysm.
>>98877113They are not getting lower quality. It's ai slop image and you took the bait hook line and sinker.
>>98877549It will affect your games when this propaganda starts affecting your players by osmosis.>uhh that never happensWell it does happen to other people, and they have a righto be mad about it you fucking queer.
>>98877090>There was a lot of very badly written ttrpgs and games 20 years ago and 40 years ago. We tend not to talk about them, they fall through the cracks and are forgottenReminds me of the >muh 80s anime were all so gooddiscussions
>>9888004380's animes were, on average, better produced and were better from an animation point of view because the animation industry in Japan was lush with money and still used traditional animation techniques and such. Also, there were actually LESS animes being produced in the 80's compared to 2000's onwards because the business model changed and turns out all those 80's gorgeous animes were mostly either vanity projects or a single movie/OVA series deal. By the 2000's, Japan was not as rich as it once was to just throw money around in big animated productions and studios were making more money with several cheaper produced anime rather than a single release each year or so.And, even in the 80's, there were terrible animes in terms of plot or just story.
>>98877951Because it's the founding myth of the modern world.
>>98881696I was here before you CEO worshiping freaks stopped pretending to support free speech and started demanding censorship for 'problematic' things, you are the invader and your hateful ideology has no place here.
>>98876675mechanically they are vastly superior, period. we only put up with the endless tables and clunky buckets of dice back then because we simply didn't know any better. but while that mechanical layer has been perfectly smoothed out, modern scenarios and campaigns feel completely barren by comparison. i can't think of a single recent release with the sheer weight of The Enemy Within or Masks of Nyarlathotep. it's not even that those are necessarily worse nowadays, it's that they straight up don't exist anymore.
>>98877384This is a stupid argument. Nobody is making $20/figure green army men that look like the 1968 version.
>>98879498While not as bad at the op image, those are definetly lower quality. Look at their side profiles, modern toysoldiers are thiner to save on material since everything is more expensive than in the old days.
>>98879249>what's with the comparison between those datesI didn't know I was talking to a zoomer. I lived through 2003 and despite being "in the moment" I had no idea what we learned in 2013 that the war was more American imperialist bullshit meant to satiate the Military-Industrial Complex with the blood of brown people.
>>98881980>since everything is more expensive than in the old days.At least we've got sizzling fajitas.
>>98876675On the whole, better. 2006 was still in the D20 boom. White Wolf had shot themselves a few years earlier, and hadn't made the game that actually made people excited about the New World of Darkness - Changeling the Lost. Pondsmith had really mismanaged Cyberpunk. It was peak, "if it isn't 3.5, good luck finding players." I've never been a SR guy, but I imagine SR4 which had just come out had of a lot of confusing stuff that eventually turned into extensive errata - although probably not as bad as post-Porchgate SR.I'm not a 3.5 hater by any means, and 5e has basically sustained another D20 boom and kicked the shit out of everyone else in 2026 in terms of popularity and sales by a large margin. However, I think the non-D&D game space is much healthier than it was in 2006. And game designers had really internalized a lot of the things that made indy games RPGs in the 90s and to a lesser event in the 00s suck. Imagine how bad at math the average idea guy RPG designer is now; now imagine them coming up with their own special snowflake dice pool system and without tools like anydice to get a sense of the odds.
>>98877774>The last time I tried I found a group that refused to allow evil characters actually be evil because it was triggeringIt's an inarticulate way of saying that they don't the disruptive antiplay that's not fun for the rest of the table that "evil pcs being evil" usually entails.
>>98877508>But the government wouldn't EVER cut corners, right Comrade?
>>98881886$58.68 Canadian. Didn't look very hard, I'm sure you could find more expensive ones if you want, etsy is fucked up like that.
>>98877627>using the same mould for dacades>>98878042>that is also a part of itNot in OP's example image. Many of the changes from '95 to '26 could be explained by a worn mould but the change of '68's two magazine pouches with two slightly curved flaps interrupted by the vertical to '95's single pouch with a single straight flap isn't the the result of wear, it's a simplified design in a new mould.We also can't get much idea of depth on the last figure there but cheap modern ones look like they've been squashed in one dimension to save plastic costs. From the side normal but from the front or top they're only half as wide as they should be and the overall detail is like an impressionist painter's version of a soldier.Took me a couple of minutes to find a photo since the advertisements like to show them from the front to hide the abominations but a few photos show them up.
>>98876675Well, I preferred D&D 3.5 over 5.0 for several reasons, so yeah, I do think it got worse. It's not just D&D though. Same happened with Storyteller.That being said, what matters the most is that your group is fine, rather than the system itself, like >>98876682 said.
>>98891131>That being said, what matters the most is that your group is fineCorrect, what matters most is that the person responsible for running the group has the sense to gut and replace shit that doesn't work. You can make up for a bad book, whether that's bad lore or bad systems, but then that's you modifying the game. As you say, the actual books are worse now for a lot of reasons one of which is the political angle the thread segued into.
>>98881980Again, op's image is slop. It's made to be this way.
>>98877524Control for inflation and you'll find they definitely don't cost more than the 90s. Always control for inflation when comparing prices across decades. Especially since half of all money was printed in the last five years.
>>98876675Is this real?
>>98876675Way, way, way fucking better. Like it's not even a contest.Do you have ANY idea how bad the mid-00s were?>Average game is utter shite, and the concepts of quality control is barely implemented>3.X and d20 peak presence>Hardcore realism simulation is still lingering>90s edgelords still lingering and still making their crap>Forge's Story Now is already polluting the scene>Internet gaming communities are still in their infancy, so you are stuck with whatever is available in your region/town>Whatever is online, it's Gaia-tierThere is a reason the hobby basically collapsed around that period globally outside of the 3.X circles and it wasn't till like 2008 recovery started (in no small part thanks to economy being in shambles). The early-to-mid 00s were easily the worst point of the hobby's history, and that's an achievement all by itself, given late 80s also existed.If we were arguing now vs. decade ago, that would be a serious consideration. But 2026 vs. 2006? It's a no-brainer.
>>98901219Say what what you will about the Dw0 boom, but the industry was collapsing post-TSR bankruptcy. Imprints like White Wolf's Sword and Sorcery making D20 shit kept the lights on.
>>98901281>but the industry was collapsing post-TSR bankruptcy... is this what DnDrones believe in?The industry was thriving for the first time on industrial level since EVER, and the post-TRS was the first golden era of the hobby on mass scale. You know, the 90s
>>98901281Literally one of the best things that ever happened to this hobby was TSR bankruptcy, the fuck you are even talking about? The 1991-96 window was one of the best period overaly, and the fact DnD was basically dormant was a godsend. It was the first time in a decade people actually wanted to play other games and also first time since the hobby gained traction that those games were coming out en masse and outside of fanzins or micro-prints. Bonus points for the shitfest that of 88-90 that proceeded it
>>98881864tables and dice buckets are badass u idiot *throws 10 d6 at you*
>>98901296>was thriving Creatively, maybe. Financially, no.
>>98901572>Everyone is making money like crazy, bunch of companies gets established to last for decades to come>Financial disasterStay mad, DnDrone
>>98901648You're in the wrong time period. You're thinking of the early-mid 90s. CRPGS, TCGs ate into ttrpg sales. White Wolf was well on itself over with splats and game lines nobody gave a shit about, like TSR. A bunch of licensed properties turned out to be busts, so financial backing was stingier. FASA was sliding into bankruptcy: the long term downward trend of that era was part of why they closed.It was creative, but those guys were burning seed money and mostly died unless they pivoted to D20 slop in the 00s.
>>98876675with the advent of 3d printing it's practically a golden age for cheap plastic army men
>>98877113The same mold has been used for upwards of 70 years now, it's a given that the details are all worn out.
>>98881980Plastic costs nothing. It's like 2€ a kilo.
>>98882084? we knew that from jump, it's why the French passed on the bad intelligencehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMyJWuvW_9kwas 2004
>>98904382The plastic itself, maybe. The fuel to ship it, the parts for the vehicles that carry it and even the food for all the workers involved is another story.
>>98902693it's a little column a, little column b.Molds wear out and the real manufacturer's replace em from time to time.Knockoffs keep using the destroyed molds or make molds off defective figures and keep on trucking.
>>98904772No. The material costs nothing, end of story.
>>98877423>the common man through infinity immigrationHow Jose working on the construction is degrading you, specifically and individually? And how is Jose forcing Hasbro to degrade their RPGs? I'm all ears.
>>98901323>Literally one of the best things that ever happened to this hobby was TSR bankruptcyCool, cool. One of the best things to literally happen was a thing that literally never happened.Literally, TSR never went bankrupt. TSR was or probably was about to be insolvent in fact, having accrued more debts than it had assets and in all likelihood would have been unable to pay its debts as they became due, but it never filed for bankruptcy and neither did its creditors.
>>98904382It's not just the plastic costs. Flats are easier and cheaper to mould, making the mould is cheaper since the mould is smaller, less detail needed because it doesn't exist on the sides, cooling time is shorter, mould release is easier without deep cuts and side details.The plastic cost is still a factor. It's more like $1.20 US per kilo for PP as a raw material rather than 2 euro. They could easily be saving 50% of the plastic and all of that adds up for the manufacturer since they are making small margins anyway.
>>98904983>How Jose working on the construction is degrading you, specifically and individually?I don't actually think you're all ears, anon. I think your ears are closed. I could spend the next 20 minutes finding the words to explain how infinite immigration ruined my delivery job and you'd probably find some neat little quip to explain how everything I said is meaningless and is in fact because we don't have *enough* immigrants, actually, and it's all secretly my fault. Your mind was made up a decade ago and it's most certainly not going to be open now.
I dunno, I just take things from game systems I like and make completely homebrewed games.
>>98904983I appreciate that this post about how immigrants don't effect you personally comes in the form of a broken English post bumping a low effort /pol/bait thread by snidely insulting anyone who doesn't think importing infinite migrants is a good idea. Thank you, Luis Jimenez Sanchez Delgado for the perfect demonstration.
>>98905583>Company goes under>Which has neat effect on the hobby>But technically it didn't go bankrupt>So time to make it a semantics discussionMy reply: go fuck yourself, you fucking child
>>98901219>90s edgelords still lingering and still making their crapHey now, they were all playing World of Darkness. If you encountered them that's on you.
>>98906207>Anon says something literally happened.>It literally did not happen.>You literally get triggered.>You feel some weird need to say that your reply is just the bit at the end of your post without the quote indentation.Hope you feel better soon.
>>98904983>how does increasing the supply of labour decrease the value of labour?How could it possibly not?
