Necromunda The Sump: General hobby venting thread (Beware: old men shouting at clouds)

[ntw3001]

I think there's a lot of benefit to putting an 'official stamp' on optional rules, because it's much easier to get a group to use rules if they come from some outside authority rather than being a group member's suggested house rules. But I do wonder what the value is of that stamp when the authority in question constantly seeps rules in a thick, bubbling sludge. Are the target audience going to see through it? Yaktribe is a grognard-heavy community and tends towards the negative, but Reddit also seems to be split. Plenty of people seem to be actively looking for something to be excited about with every release, but plenty also seem pretty tired and uninterested.

For me, I just don't see the need for this much sand in the box. It's not a series of one-off games, it's a campaign system. My group's campaigns took about a year each. What's the use of a thousand half-baked special systems when almost no player will get through a double-digit number of campaigns in their life?

I dunno, it's just a weird (imo negative) direction that entertainment media has taken, and the youth who grew into it seem fully bought-in. Expcting a stream of endless new product, can't bear to explore a consistent and stable system. And the difference in discussion between relatively-unchanging games and those sustained by endless hype engines is enormous. Discussion being primarily conducted on sites like Reddit doesn't help either; those systems churn through information in a way that encourages shallow engagement. Communities will get some new content, spend two weeks exploring a tiny fraction of the content, then loftily declare it 'stale' (Magic Arena, this is you). Good for businesses wanting to churn through products, terrible for the players being trained to sit in the nest with closed eyes and open beaks.

 

[TopsyKretts]

 

[MusingWarboss]

Yaktribe is a grognard-heavy community and tends towards the negative

I wouldn’t say negative, I guess it can read that way but I think it’s more just being sceptical about the motivations and direction of the games creators. Often in comparison to the original 1995 boxed game.

If we were that negative then no-one would bother with the game at all!!

My group's campaigns took about a year each.

Yeah… that’s an issue. The ideal put forward in the books is that you probably play a campaign in 7 weeks. Three on, one downtime, final three.

Reality is that with life, seven weeks could easily span seven months instead. Or longer.

On the reverse, an intensive weekend like YakMeet you could get a campaign done in two days of solid playing.

Given, say… four players, that’s only six games for each player (where you play each of the other three players twice) and any bonus matches in the downtime.

What I’m saying is… it’s not unfeasible to do a campaign in less than a year. Unless you go silly and have no real end date for it.

If you have to keep waiting for players to become available though, you’ll never finish. Best to set an end date and let those who can join in do so, or if they’re super busy, dip out of that campaign and join the next and maybe just play a few skirmishes when they can.

it's just a weird (imo negative) direction that entertainment media has taken, and the youth who grew into it seem fully bought-in.

Same with computer games. In the 80s and 90s you mostly got your game on tape, disk/c or cartridge and that was it. You’d have to buy the sequel if you wanted more, assuming there was one.

Then in the late 90s/2000s you started to get online access and with that the advent of updates, extras, bonus levels and then stuff like loot boxes came about.

Its not surprising that the physical game manufacturers have followed that business model as it’s less work for more money.

 

[Heart of Storm]

I dunno, it's just a weird (imo negative) direction that entertainment media has taken, and the youth who grew into it seem fully bought-in. Expcting a stream of endless new product, can't bear to explore a consistent and stable system. And the difference in discussion between relatively-unchanging games and those sustained by endless hype engines is enormous.

This is an astute observation, it seems to be osmosis from video gaming polluting other forms of gaming as this idea that something needs to always be getting updates or else it's "dead" has been entrenched in a large swathe of (mostly younger) games through the toxic "games as a service" model you see in the hands of the likes of EA and Ubisoft, and now apparently GeeDubs.

Sometimes a game, or system, is feature complete, it doesn't need to keep having new bells and whistles attached to keep it "good" particularly when those bells and whistles are poorly thought through and just being added for the sake of creating content to sell.

 

[DamianK]

This might have to do with how saturated the market is with games (both digital and physical) and having to constantly compete for attention of player base, and constant, even small updates are something to grab that attention.

That being said, it`s annoying for someone like me, who realises that the time is finite, and I can play only so many games. I`ve made conscious decision to limit the amount of games I collect and play, for the simple reason that I want to actualy spend time playing, and not constantly looking at new game rules, buying & assembling new models, etc. Constant new addons to Necromunda, while not necessarily prevent me from just playing with what I have, are nevertheless often changing the "core" rules, not just adding new optional content.

I could happily just ignore ash wastes entirely, as I have no desire to expand into vehicles or another new gangs. But GW used it to "update" some of the core rules, and again, while I could just ignore it, they`ve at least tried to repair some of the past damage, which should be a good thing... But it ends up being convoluted mess of proper updates & fixes mixed in with new content I have no desire to use. Just give me a fixed, definitive edition core rules (and maybe at best some yearly errata/balancing) and do as many separate, self-contained expansions as you like. Don`t give me constant stream of stealth updates and fixes mixed with expanded optional stuff.

 

[MedMos]

This is an astute observation, it seems to be osmosis from video gaming polluting other forms of gaming as this idea that something needs to always be getting updates or else it's "dead" has been entrenched in a large swathe of (mostly younger) games through the toxic "games as a service" model you see in the hands of the likes of EA and Ubisoft, and now apparently Geedubs.

They tried with dnd, apparently, as well. In the words of a (Hasbro?) ceo, the game was "under-monetized". The plan was for a monthly subscription fee, for using various online tools and the books you already paid for! Frankly appalling. I haven't played dnd for almost two decades now, and the thought still pisses me off. And the community wasn't having it either. I still get angry when I think of the term "under-monetized", as if you somehow owe the company money for using the e-books and for playing their game that you already paid for.

 

[Punktaku]

Isn’t that what some car manufacturers do as well? I watched a news piece on some car manufacturer that has heated seats in all its cars because it’s cheaper to make one type of seat than multiple types. BUT if you want to use that feature, you have to pay a subscription fee to unlock them.

As for the other stuff, I think just looking at the existence of Yaktribe proves a game doesn’t need constant influxes of new rules to be playable or popular. I joined a bit before N17 was released because I loved that game from 1995. And this place was loaded with new stuff in the form of fan-made scenery and gangs and whatnot.

 

[MusingWarboss]

Isn’t that what some car manufacturers do as well? I watched a news piece on some car manufacturer that has heated seats in all its cars because it’s cheaper to make one type of seat than multiple types. BUT if you want to use that feature, you have to pay a subscription fee to unlock them.

BMW.

BMW introduces new heated seat subscription in UK https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-62142208

All cars will be like this in the future, once they all have to have smart chargers, online connected systems etc it’ll be a case that you won’t get access to things unless you pay, perhaps even unless you have compatible insurance policies (with self driving modes etc).

 

[Punktaku]

I almost put BMW, but I wasn’t 100% on of it was them.

 

[Stoof]

It's not just the heated seats, it's the seats, heated steering wheel, cruise control, auto-dipping headlights etc. Not one subscription either - each system is a separate one.

Volkswagen and Audi are starting to do it as well. I fully expect more car brands to jump on this particular brand of evil in the near future.

I recently saw a theory that the whole Mayan calendar world ending thing was actually true - they just didn't mean the actual "end of the world" in 2012, they meant nothing good was going to happen after that. Gotta say, the theory has a point...

 

[ClockworkOrange]

I’m getting a new EV BMW in early Jan and I must admit I’m intrigued by this, mind you having the heating on in an EV at all is a luxury in itself!!! Can I get there vs can I get there warm is a range debate I have far to much with the current Volkswagen.

 

[MusingWarboss]

I think we need to give a round of applause to the Graphic Designer of the latest book to be released, who presumably has just left to go to a new job…

Stunning work from the GW Graphic Design Team!!

• MusingWarboss
• Dec 6, 2023

From now on it shall be known as Anus Apocrypha!!

 

[Stoof]

Gotta be careful trimming maps as backgrounds!

 

[MusingWarboss]

I can’t believe whoever did the design didn’t notice the spine would obscure the rest of the word.

It had to be a deliberate placement. If you’d noticed, you’d photoshop the cropped word out surely…??

 

[Mr. M]

They weren't satisfied with demeaning their fan-base with garbage-tier rules writing, cynical strip-mining of nostalgia, and books littered with empty pages of weirdly ambiguous art... This time they took a more direct approach and decided to get as close to the publishing version of showing us the "full moon" as they could. On the other hand, "anus" might be the first honest description of quality applied to the cover of a Newcromunda book...

 

[Tiktaalik]

Im feeling pretty burnt out at the moment. I want to arbitrate a campaign for the first time and my prospective players are asking about using the N23 Rules (bookromunda i think it’s called) I was planning on using the newest rules until I saw that all of the gangs got changed and were given different equipment lists for some reason. I dislike the homogeneous feel that it gives me, but my players seem to have the “newest rules always” disease. Naturally this screws up my plan of sending everyone to the gang manager here on Yaktribe, because it’s based on the gang lists in the “house of” books! Gaaah

 

[Galtarr]

Im a little out of touch can't you select House of books in the gang manager? I think it supports both GotU & House of era gangs.

 

[Tiktaalik]

Im a little out of touch can't you select House of books in the gang manager? I think it supports both GotU & House of era gangs.

Yes you are correct.

 

[TopsyKretts]

We had endless discussed on gangs, differences and compared gang equipment lists to fighter equipment lists (or gang table if you like). It is an extremely noisy topic. Without a better alternative, my preferred solution was to default back to the the previous edition when everything was cleaner and simpler. But more homogeneous as you say. If it helps, Bookromunda (my house rule project) is on hold and haven't been updated in ages, so the newest is actually the official rules from GW. Since the official rules change more or less from book to book and year to year, it is sometimes called N**. So for the most up to date books and rules changes this year (2023), that would be N23. As compared to the different books and older rules of last year (N22) and so forth. It's mostly useful when referring to a specific historic state of the game. Ie. the most impactful change to gang structure happend from N19 to N20.

 

[Tiktaalik]

thanks for responding. I thought that something fishy was going on when so many things were changed drastically. I realize now that Bookromunda is something different from N**. No wonder I was getting so frustrated and confused.