Development Info Tim Cain at Reboot Develop 2017 - Building a Better RPG: Seven Mistakes to Avoid

[Davaris]

I can't explain it.

I can. Board games cost hardly anything to develop, so they can afford to take risks. Meanwhile computer game developers spend the bulk of their budgets on graphics. So they try to recoup their expenses by targeting dummies, because dummies are the largest demographic. If gamers could get over their graphics whoring, they could have the games they want, but they can't.

 

[Darkzone]

It turns out, however, Wizards of the Coast wasn't against the idea of licensing Planescape at all - or so it told me.
"We would absolutely consider licensing out Planescape, or any of our other great D&D IPs, if we were approached with a proposal," Wizards of the Coast told us through its presumably bushy beard.
"We often get proposals and are actively pursuing opportunities to make great digital D&D experiences.
"Brian [Fargo] suggested Baldur's Gate 3 had proven difficult in the past before we regained our digital rights, so, that probably didn't help the situation."

The last quote is just the guy being polite. He's basically saying "we are willing to license Planescape, we just don't want to do business with him". This is because Fargo was Interplay's CEO when Hasbro sued them for unpaid royalties for the first time.
The weird part is that they said Fargo himself brought up the BG3 situation, but that only happened after Fargo left the company. It's possible he fucked that up by not explaining the story correctly and getting the blame for no reason.

So in other words they would rather let Planescape rot and be forgotten than to give a one time lizense to someone that WoC doesn't like. Thank you for validating my point about WoC. I understand the reservations from WoC against Fargo, but not to use something is to lose something, at least in this case. And i really love WoC for what they have done with the OGL, but they have to step up the game or else DnD will follow the same path like many other now dead franchises.

 

[Roguey]

So in other words they would rather let Planescape rot and be forgotten than to give a one time lizense to someone that WoC doesn't like. Thank you for validating my point about WoC. I understand the reservations from WoC against Fargo, but not to use something is to lose something, at least in this case. And i really love WoC for what they have done with the OGL, but they have to step up the game or else DnD will follow the same path like many other now dead franchises.

Given how Tides of Numenera turned out, they were right to reject them.

 

[mondblut]

So in other words they would rather let Planescape rot and be forgotten than to give a one time lizense to someone that WoC doesn't like. Thank you for validating my point about WoC. I understand the reservations from WoC against Fargo, but not to use something is to lose something, at least in this case.

Old shit directly competes with new shit.

And I'd rather see Planescape rot and be forgotten than have a 4e rape reboot of it.

 

[Darkzone]

So in other words they would rather let Planescape rot and be forgotten than to give a one time lizense to someone that WoC doesn't like. Thank you for validating my point about WoC. I understand the reservations from WoC against Fargo, but not to use something is to lose something, at least in this case. And i really love WoC for what they have done with the OGL, but they have to step up the game or else DnD will follow the same path like many other now dead franchises.

Given how Tides of Numenera turned out, they were right to reject them.

Ok i cannot argue against that. But perhaps if inXile would have gotten the license, perhaps then it would have turned different out. You know Butterfly Effect (not Madam) and so.

Old shit directly competes with new shit. And I'd rather see Planescape rot and be forgotten than have a 4e rape reboot of it.

Yes, but we would had an official D&D 3.5 Planescape and an 5ed Planescape, likewise Dark Sun. So one shit, one good and one ok is not a bad relation.

 

[Lurker King]

Board games cost hardly anything to develop, so they can afford to take risks.

They are expensive too.

 

[Davaris]

Board games cost hardly anything to develop, so they can afford to take risks.

They are expensive too.

Nothing like computer games. A small company could develop a AAA board game, but a small company couldn't develop a AAA computer game.

 

[mondblut]

Yes, but we would had an official D&D 3.5 Planescape and an 5ed Planescape, likewise Dark Sun. So one shit, one good and one ok is not a bad relation.

Planescape doesn't work with dumbed down "streamlined" cosmology of 3e onwards, so a hypothetical 3.5 Planescape would not be good. Also, the whole reasoning behind 3e was "let's get over with all those countless settings which splinter the auditory and cannibalize our own sales", hence only FR and Eberwhatever. At best, Planescape would be licensed away much like Ravenloft, only making it partly official. And then even Ravenloft 3e wasn't permitted to explicitly refer to other settings, i.e. Bane, Lord Soth, Lathander et al had to be masked out. Imagine Planescape getting the same treatment - being a sum of other settings, it would consist of nothing but obfuscations.

As for 5e, did they even release anything past the core rules and a couple of promo adventures? It's like that whole "D&D Next" was a one-off event.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Also, the whole reasoning behind 3e was "let's get over with all those countless settings which splinter the auditory and cannibalize our own sales", hence only FR and Eberwhatever.

Then it should've been simple: make everything Planescape instead.

 

[Darkzone]

Yes, but we would had an official D&D 3.5 Planescape and an 5ed Planescape, likewise Dark Sun. So one shit, one good and one ok is not a bad relation.

Planescape doesn't work with dumbed down "streamlined" cosmology of 3e onwards, so a hypothetical 3.5 Planescape would not be good. Also, the whole reasoning behind 3e was "let's get over with all those countless settings which splinter the auditory and cannibalize our own sales", hence only FR and Eberwhatever. At best, Planescape would be licensed away much like Ravenloft, only making it partly official. And then even Ravenloft 3e wasn't permitted to explicitly refer to other settings, i.e. Bane, Lord Soth, Lathander et al had to be masked out. Imagine Planescape getting the same treatment - being a sum of other settings, it would consist of nothing but obfuscations.
As for 5e, did they even release anything past the core rules and a couple of promo adventures? It's like that whole "D&D Next" was a one-off event.

WoC have reduced the amounts of settings and RPG systems (ADD was outselling D&D). The DnD 3rd move from WoC was a good idea despite some minor things. But because WoC have reduced the settings, they have naturally reduced the cosmology to focus on the core of DnD. If they had intorduced Planescape in 3rd then they would have expanded also the cosmology.
Shannon Appelcline stated that CG were shrinking the industry and that TSRs own products were cannibalising their own sales, but i think that it is a false statement (since i bought many many of the supplements, and if you bought one then you bought more).
The production costs were simply to high and they invested much amounts into bad selling products like Spellfire and Dragon Dice. According to wikipedia: Hearing rumors that the Blumes were trying to sell TSR, Gygax returned from Hollywood and discovered the company was in bad financial shape despite healthy sales. (Gygax: "I was alerted to a problem: Kevin Blume was shopping TSR on the street in New York City. I flew back from the West Coast, and discovered the corporation was in debt to the bank the tune of circa US$1.5 million." "Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part XII, Page 28)". EN World. 2007-01-21. Retrieved 2009-03-15.) And David M. Ewalt, in his book Of Dice and Men, adds that Spellfire and Dragon Dice "were both expensive to produce, and neither sold very well".[26]:174
The other settings were selling quite good, even the Al-Qadim thing. And despite good sales TSR made dept and that can only be due to high running and production costs and bad overreaching investments.
WoC did what they did, to save the rest. FR was the highest selling setting, followed by Dragonlance and Ravenloft for TSR, so it is naturally that FR will be continued and became the core of DnD.
The Eberron (can only remember the name, because i associate it with Oberon) thing seems to be quite popular, but i have never seen and read about it, but it is also a late (2003-2005) addition to DnD.

Edit:
Btw. It just dawned on me as i saw the video for "the legend of drizzt board game" (yes i know that it was made in 2011 and is therefore 4th edition):
But the 4ed was also made for board game modules OR computer games, especially for single player and few party members: Very few powers (per day, per encounter, at-will ) on play cards, high starting HP and healing surges.
Hence the board games: The Legend of Drizzt, Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, Lords of the Waterdeep, Scoundrels of Skullport expansion.
But it didn't sell and was dislked, therefore they went back and developed the 5th edition as a traditional "streamlined" RPG.
Edit 2nd:
Also it seems that WoC is slowly going digital with DnD Beyond announced last month. So yes they seem to be slowly adapting. So perhaps the digital iron age of RPGs could be on the horizon.
Edit 3rd:
Just for the record what they have released of the DnD Next and 5th.
DnD Next from 2012 - 2014: Dreams of the Red Wizards I and II(Scourge of the Sword Coast, Dead in the They), Sundering Adventure I and II(Murder in Baldur's Gate, Legacy of the Crystal Shard).
DnD 5th edition releases of adventures 2015 - 2017:
Hoard of the Dragon Queen, The Rise of Tiamat, Prince of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Sword Coast Adventurer's Guild, Curse of Strahd, Storm King's Thunder, Volo's Guide to Monsters, Tales from the Yawning Portal (a collection of some old adventures). Next to be released is "Unearthed Arcana" in my opinion.
There are also some Board Games released that i do not list.
WizKid have relased a Minatures and Board Games for the Adventures and Board Games since 2015.
And btw the core books and translated into german and will be released on 1. April 2017 and 1. Mai 2017.
The starter set (Einsteigerset) will be released on 1. Juni 2017.

 

[Bohrain]

The only remotely confusing thing in Fallout character creation was figuring out the number bloat on skills.

 

[Lurker King]

Nothing like computer games. A small company could develop a AAA board game, but a small company couldn't develop a AAA computer game.

They have a smaller market too, so it evens out. You make a board game with high quality material and pieces and the game flops, you take a heavy loss.

 

[Lurker King]

Computer games continue to degenerate and their creators seem to not even know how or why their first games were popular.

They lost their passion and resolve. I see this with tenured professors all the time, man. They do brilliant work when they are younger because they have a consuming passion for discovery, but as time passes they publish less and less, until they end up losing the interest all together. Only a few people can continue working in the same creative process for a whole life without burning out. If anything, their bad games show how capable they can be, because they are not engaged at all, but manage to deliver games on autopilot. Developing games is a complex intellectual activity. You need to be engaged 100%. If you treated like just a job to afford the things that really matter to you, you are done.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

No. Obviously. I have no idea what he meant. I just know he quoted those studios.

I can't speak for him but he probably meant narrative RPGs developed by these studios.

How are they extremely limited? Have you seen this?

Having a campy romance scene doesn't make their game a dating seam, just like Witcher 1 is not a fighting game despite having 2 people punching each other from time to time.

FO1 or FO2 are not like AoD. AoD is its own thing. So plain disagree here.

They are fairly similar, AoD is more focused on branching storylines while Fallout is more focused on exploration.

Not to me. Watch
"Hey I played a inXile shitty game yesterday"
"Ugh, is that another Obsidian shit game? Yah, no thanks"
See? Works fine.

Yes, if you limit your conversation to calling every game you dislike garbage then it works fine. Still totally useless when discussing RPG Developers talking about making narrative RPGs, which by coincidence is what this tread is about.

How is this any different than describing rogue-likes, ARPGs, SRPGs, and or JRPGs?

Because when you want to describe all of them at once you just call them RPGs.

 

[l3loodAngel]

I can't explain it.

I can. Board games cost hardly anything to develop, so they can afford to take risks. Meanwhile computer game developers spend the bulk of their budgets on graphics. So they try to recoup their expenses by targeting dummies, because dummies are the largest demographic. If gamers could get over their graphics whoring, they could have the games they want, but they can't.

Gfx at least for me are irrelevant after they reach FO:Bos level.

 

[mondblut]

WoC have reduced the amounts of settings and RPG systems (ADD was outselling D&D).

OD&D has been over since, like, 1992. Even Mystara (the default OD&D setting) was converted to AD&D before being canned.

But because WoC have reduced the settings, they have naturally reduced the cosmology to focus on the core of DnD.

Planescape was using the D&D cosmology. Scrap Sigil, dumb cockney lingo and quirkyquirk genderfluid crap, and you end up with Gygax' Manual of the Planes.

By the time of 3e, the sheer number of planes was too big for an average mouthbreather to memorize. If 3e Planescape would somehow make it, it would have the current D&D cosmogony, not the other way around. That being, "down with needless symmetry, let's have, uh, Gloomwrough, Burnstoohot, Homolove and, uh, that should suffice".

Shannon Appelcline stated that CG were shrinking the industry and that TSRs own products were cannibalising their own sales, but i think that it is a false statement (since i bought many many of the supplements, and if you bought one then you bought more).

No, he was right. If you were into Ravenloft or Dragonlance, chances were, you wouldn't give rat's ass about anything Birthright or Dark Sun. Sad but true.

Strange that the same reasoning didn't particularly hurt White Wolf, but I guess they weren't as generous with their money.

Just for the record what they have released of the DnD Next and 5th.
DnD Next from 2012 - 2014: Dreams of the Red Wizards I and II(Scourge of the Sword Coast, Dead in the They), Sundering Adventure I and II(Murder in Baldur's Gate, Legacy of the Crystal Shard).
DnD 5th edition releases of adventures 2015 - 2017:
Hoard of the Dragon Queen, The Rise of Tiamat, Prince of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Sword Coast Adventurer's Guild, Curse of Strahd, Storm King's Thunder, Volo's Guide to Monsters, Tales from the Yawning Portal (a collection of some old adventures). Next to be released is "Unearthed Arcana" in my opinion.

Not one campaign fucking setting? Not the fucking Forgotten Realms 5e?

This game is officially dead, folks.

 

[Fairfax]

WoC have reduced the amounts of settings and RPG systems (ADD was outselling D&D). The DnD 3rd move from WoC was a good idea despite some minor things. But because WoC have reduced the settings, they have naturally reduced the cosmology to focus on the core of DnD. If they had intorduced Planescape in 3rd then they would have expanded also the cosmology.
Shannon Appelcline stated that CG were shrinking the industry and that TSRs own products were cannibalising their own sales, but i think that it is a false statement (since i bought many many of the supplements, and if you bought one then you bought more).
The production costs were simply to high and they invested much amounts into bad selling products like Spellfire and Dragon Dice. According to wikipedia: Hearing rumors that the Blumes were trying to sell TSR, Gygax returned from Hollywood and discovered the company was in bad financial shape despite healthy sales. (Gygax: "I was alerted to a problem: Kevin Blume was shopping TSR on the street in New York City. I flew back from the West Coast, and discovered the corporation was in debt to the bank the tune of circa US$1.5 million." "Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part XII, Page 28)". EN World. 2007-01-21. Retrieved 2009-03-15.) And David M. Ewalt, in his book Of Dice and Men, adds that Spellfire and Dragon Dice "were both expensive to produce, and neither sold very well".[26]:174
The other settings were selling quite good, even the Al-Qadim thing. And despite good sales TSR made dept and that can only be due to high running and production costs and bad overreaching investments.
WoC did what they did, to save the rest. FR was the highest selling setting, followed by Dragonlance and Ravenloft for TSR, so it is naturally that FR will be continued and became the core of DnD.
The Eberron (can only remember the name, because i associate it with Oberon) thing seems to be quite popular, but i have never seen and read about it, but it is also a late (2003-2005) addition to DnD.

TSR had major debt because they overextended with both Dragon Dice and hardcover novels. In 1996 alone they published 12 hardcover novels, and ended up owing $12.5 million (IIRC) to the publisher from unsold copies. They also owed a lot of money to the printer, who eventually took over TSR's headquarters and controlled their revenue to pay the debt.

The book "30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons" goes in detail about what happened with TSR and how the acquisition went down, including Peter Adkinson's first hand account of the events. The only problem is that it has an annoying format with tilted pages.

 

[cherry blossom]

Wow, all this time, I actually was holding out hope for Tim Cain than anybody else. Seeing Tim Cain, more than anybody else, utter this shit made me feel like we truly are leftovers of a bygone era.

I understand old age, lack of time and all that shit but FFS, Fallout was about as accessible as they got (without losing substance). Maybe if they invested less into the FUCKING GRIND than meaningful systems, that would buy us all our enjoyment back for a good retirement.

 

[Fenix]

Lol FO system is NOT complicated. In fact it's so easy to use that anyone can succeed at it in their early teens, without knowing proper English. Just that we are having this conversation it's Pure decline™... If someone being 11-12 can do it without much thought, than your target audience is what: 4-7? You are contributing only decline with your posts...

Yesterday on some Russian forum someone said he played Fallout in his 6, and felt fine. "Overcomplicated they say"..

 

[FeelTheRads]

Much of this "overcomplicated" things stems from this recent bullshit that any choice you do at start should be immediately useful and usable in the same amount through the whole game. Basically instant gratification. And this is even pushed on this forum, see the bunch of Sawyer cultists. That's why say, NV has everyone and their grandmother using and MANUFACTURING super complex energy weapons. durr balance
And certainly in FO you can make a gimped character from the start if for example you don't take any combat skills. You can probably fix it as you go, but if you insist in your stupidity that your character must prevail in a postapocalyptic world using only science books and lockpicks then kill yourself.
The funny thing is that pretty much any concept is doable with some metaknowledge and with the help of party members. But it's not immediately obvious, and this triggers newfags.
But that is why the system is great, because it allows you to explore it instead of locking you into builds the developers have decided to support (ie muscled wizard).

 

[Infinitron]

Wow, all this time, I actually was holding out hope for Tim Cain than anybody else. Seeing Tim Cain, more than anybody else, utter this shit made me feel like we truly are leftovers of a bygone era.

I understand old age, lack of time and all that shit but FFS, Fallout was about as accessible as they got (without losing substance). Maybe if they invested less into the FUCKING GRIND than meaningful systems, that would buy us all our enjoyment back for a good retirement.

What's considered unaccessible here isn't the complexity or "difficulty" of the system as such. It's the basic fact that you have to go through a big wall of numbers before starting the game, regardless of the true complexity/difficulty of that wall of numbers.

Again, I believe the true issue here is the speed of getting into the game. "Difficulty" is of course correlated with that, but secondary to it.

 

[Severian Silk]

And yet we still can't define RPGs.

Why, yes. That is because it is difficult to operate with numbers and letters. But if we use geometric representation, defining RPG is really easy:

That's right. RPG is a triangle!

Spoiler

New high-tech state-of-the-art 100% correct Codex logo detected.

 

[Fenix]

they've been to the moon

true issue here is the speed of getting into the game

Whu it counts as issue? By who?

 

[CyberWhale]

TimCain still hasn't endorsed my insanely creative picture? For shame, Timbro.

TBH, when Obsidian first announced/leaked a Tim Cain project I was hoping for a turn-based, Fallout/Arcanum-like game/setting with Divinity: Original Sin kind of graphics (but less cartoony and more grimdork). It seems to me that I'm going to end up p. disappointed.

 

[l3loodAngel]

TimCain still hasn't endorsed my insanely creative picture? For shame, Timbro.

TBH, when Obsidian first announced/leaked a Tim Cain project I was hoping for a turn-based, Fallout/Arcanum-like game/setting with Divinity: Original Sin kind of graphics (but less cartoony and more grimdork). It seems to me that I'm going to end up p. disappointed.

Yup, we all did. I thought TC would be last one to jump popamole train... but he did...