There is a Gamer with multiple personalities, he varies between: An idealist, a cynic and an attack dog.
He writes a response about Sandy’s article on C.A.S.T.E and spends most of the time deciding how polite he can be.
One day while walking down the street of analogies I stumbled across a bar for gamers. It was a loud and energetic place that had a lot of customers. I noticed a sign in the window that a fellow by the name of Sandy was selling his voice to the highest bidder. Seeing the chance for my friend Bryant to get free publicity and an informed opinion of his game system I brought him to the table of the bidding war. Victory ensued and I left that bar and waited for the review to come.
The review comes and I am left disheartened by what I see, so I decide to do something.
My name is Devon, I did not create CASTE but I am a gamer that has stuck with it from its first version up to now.
The History
Back in July 2007 my roommate Bryant started publishing pieces of a game system he cooked up on our group forum, at the time we all generally ignored it. No one really knew what to think of it, I saw a sort of BESM derivative and others saw GURPS etc. Bryant and I weren’t on speaking terms back in the two weeks it took him to make version 0.1 (due to, of course roommate problems.) so I didn’t really hear any of the reasoning behind some of the system. Or even why it needed to be.
In August things had patched up and I had come home after a late night game of running Star Wars Saga and found Bryant and our other two roommates sitting down as he went over the system with them from a print off. It took five minutes for him to explain the gist of how the system, Combat, Academic, Social and talents worked. So we thought of characters to play. One played a Cowardly Ninja, the other a Bloodthirsty Samurai and I, being the shit disturber, decided to play a steam-punk-alcohol-powered-necromancer-cowboy-robot. It took another five minutes for us to write up characters and the game began. As the game started we all decided what type of world existed that supported our characters, after all games should conform to the GM and players, and we came up with a futuristic Tokyo that had feudal lord set ups for corporations that had just survived a war with the devil of the west Jessie James Khan the cyborg and his Guncrow army. The game ran into the light hours of the morning and we ended so that I could catch a plane flight. (protip for gamers who have long flights, stay up all night gaming and you can sleep on the plane!)
The Gamers Tale
We have never stopped using CASTE since. The system is the solution to Every Problem we have ever encountered in a game system.
There is no chug or stall in CASTE, any rules dispute happens between players and GM based on circumstances, so you don’t have to reference the book for obscure and convoluted rules.
More of
“I jump onto the jet as it speeds by the cliff I’m on”
“You can’t its going impossibly fast”
“Actually I can I took the abstract talent Lightning Reflexes”
“So you did, well its possible then.”
Less of
“I’m playing D&D 3.0, I’m going to grapple.”
Game stops and everyone starts referencing the grapple rules in the PHB
CASTE allows any character imaginable to written up and balanced with everyone else. Knight, Sorcerer, Blacksmith, Diplomat, Mecha Pilot, Solar Exalt, Vampire, Mummy, Wraith, Nova. All these can be done in vanilla CASTE or in games that are specifically for them, a module built to emulate the feel of that game.
CASTE is readily accessible to any audience from beginner to venerable. As time went on and gamers in our town moved in and out of our house, we introduced them to this streamlined and simple CASTE System. We convinced people we knew who have never gamed to come and hang out on game nights, we showed them CASTE and they immediately picked it up.
CASTE has become so indispensible to our gaming group that a day we never thought could exist arrived a few weeks ago, in March. During a break in one of my games we began to talk about old D&D campaigns that had run and I suggested we rerun some of them and, for old times’ sake, use D&D 3.0. Every one of the half a dozen or so players at the table new and old visibly grimaced at the thought, including me because d20 is clunky. That’s when Bryant and I realised that CASTE, despite our misgivings of touting or own horn, was something worth pursuing further.
The Cynics Explanation
The purpose of CASTE is not to be a setting and system book, which is the most disgusting marketing technique I have ever seen, but an avenue through which players (this includes GM) can articulate their role playing experience.
When you buy a White Wolf or WOTC product you are buying two things that have been welded together for the purpose of cranking prices high. One is the flavour of the setting you play in, it’s what we all want and enjoy. The other is their chain and iron clunky and broken chuggy system, which ensures only the books they get money off of can legally be printed for their game. Nobody likes Exalted because you sit down and roll d10s for hours on end and sometimes try and figure out how many dice get added or subtracted for various “what if” circumstances. People like Exalted for the ability to be awesome, in an awesome movie they all would totally produce then have their memories wiped so they can see it opening night and say “Fuck yeah this movies rocks, we should play a game based on it”.
To ask of a setting for CASTE is to undermine everything it represents, dispensability. CASTE is an option, an option granted that I push as better than any other system out there. When people play games they don’t talk about how fun their D&D session was, they talk about how fun the actual game was, system be damned. That is the experience that CASTE crystallizes, the fun of the character actions. The thief running away, without the need for a square or hexagon map and feet/inch conversions. The Jedi using a killing strike to cinematically slice off his opponents hand even though stat wise he did enough damage to kill him, in any other system they need extra rules to do that, in CASTE player option is intrinsic. Think of every time you did something or wanted to do something cool in a game, think of when the system held you back, CASTE doesn’t hold you back it doesn’t even enable you to do it, it simply is there to allow you to take the risk with dice so to add tension and a sense of adventure.
The reason behind CASTE even existing is so that Bryant and the rest of us and all of you can write pure and interesting setting guides without the need to grovel at White Wolf or Wizards of the Coasts feet for permission to use their god awful cash cow golden idol of a system. Publish your settings, don’t bother with a new system to balance or beg to be included in the product line of another Megacorp. Let the players who buy your books use whatever system they want to use. And if you feel like it put your version of CASTE that emulates your game out somewhere so that people can just pick up and go.
The Idealist’s Hope
The dream we aim for, that may very well be impossible to attain, is the bulk of writers out there who want to publish a book, but don’t want to sit down and crunch out a system, don’t even bother wasting space with a system. If this happens then CASTE doesn’t need to explain why its indispensible and its not just another system, it’s the only system you’ll ever need to know for every single game you run or play, with infinite customization and innumerable variations and modules to augment it with.
CASTE represents more than a system; it is the dispelling of the homebrew stigma. Sandy himself uses the term with an almost patronizing quality. How many times have you heard that anything you have developed for your game is fine, but you should use the official material over it because it has more clout? I was on the Cthulhutech forums earlier and the creators were railing against one of their customers for trying to ask why he couldn’t do something that the rules disallowed. The creators told him anything he did that went against their rules and tied in setting was homebrew and never considered official. They even cited being a product line as the strength for their rulings. The philosophy of CASTE is that you buy the materials in the case of setting books and can do whatever you and your players want from there. Canon is a lie and stopping players from making the character they want to play because of rules that are arbitrary are the ghosts of a power trip. The idea that someone who is part of a company has more authority on gaming than you is ridiculous because the only actual difference is the company man gets paid for his ideas, sometimes, and you don’t. Who here reads the exalted posts on RPG.net and hears of the constant unbalancing of the Abyssals book? Apparently someone just added stuff in behind the author’s back and it broke balance. With CASTE that Abyssals book is just the delicious flavour with it being up to you to represent it with rules.
Release the Hound
To answer the few and scant critiques about what matters, the system, and not the PDF Bryant put together to present to Sandy, which isn’t finished because opportunity waits for no man.
15 is the target number because most people have a stat of 2, and talents in the CASTE grant you a +3 or with a restriction +5 to a roll. So if you have a stat of 2 and a bonus of +3 then you have to roll a 10 to succeed. 10 a nice easy number that is frequently occurring in the CASTE.
Turns are 6 seconds as a default but so much can be done in 6 seconds, time people talking or walking, you cover a lot. But most importantly 6 seconds is one tenth of a minute which is a, easy number to deal with. This is probably why D&D and everyone else generally use 6 seconds. What would you prefer? A wheel with seconds on it that coloured stones move across each second to determine order of actions? Simplicity and 10 go hand in hand in CASTE.
On the subject of -10 your dead, this is a misnomer. You have HP in CASTE, when it drops to 0 it stays at 0. It never goes below and you gain the, for lack of a better term, status effect “Swooned”. This means you are incapacitated and without proper care you will die of injuries. If you lose all of your hit points +10 in a single attack or are injured once more after being swooned then your character dies. The reason for the number 10 is that all characters start with 10 and double an average mans health in damage sounds reasonable enough to kill him. Also another example of simple 10.
Enhancement talents and Meta Talents are indeed Enhancement Talents, but Meta Talents are a subgroup that modifies supernatural effect talents.
In the end the whole review would have stuck better if I knew you had tried CASTE, because that’s all it takes to understand how good it is. All you suggested about formatting is what we all agree on. A bulk of the things you suggested for CASTE we already have in the works and you can’t be faulted for not knowing because you were never told. But I talked to the other people who use CASTE and read your review, and they all agree that it sounded like you missed the point. CASTE isn’t an attempt to replace D&D, because D&D is so much more than system, what CASTE does is render utterly useless and impotent the systems produced by WOTC and WW along with any other big company that thinks they can continue charging 35+ dollars for their product simply because it’s official. But from what I can tell, and this is what matters, you did not or could not find faults with the actual system. Which means we have succeeded and can move away from tweaking CASTE and move towards our Setting goals. Bryant has Merrango (a corporate Sci-Fi Setting) and the Rotting Realms (A Fantasy Setting) and my purpose lies with Magi-Nation. So thank you Sandy, your review was worth its cost, it tells us we're doing something right.
A Conclusion
So I see the three Sandy’s proudly displaying their review and I’m going to leave when I see a fourth Sandy sitting in the corner nursing a drink. I walk up and ask why he looks so alone and he tells me because he’s the Gamer and he’s just waiting for the other three to get back over here so they can work on the next article. I ask why he doesn’t take part in the celebration of the CASTE article; turns out he never was a part of writing it. I ask why and don’t get an answer; I think “how can you include a reviewer an entrepreneur and even an editor without even including the Gamer?” I would offer the Gamer to come with us and see how fun CASTE is but I know that while the distance in this metaphor is a few, feet in reality a country divides the distance between us, and try as I might I never seem to be able to commit to online role-play.
Hate to break it to you, but you and your buddy's homebrew, while sounding fine enough (as Sandy pointed out), doesn't do anything particularly new. Even as you describe it, it's not particularly new. There are quite a few systems like it. Some good stuff out there. This is a great time to be a gamer with the variety of game systems and ideas out there.
It doesn't mean you should stop working on it - by all means, keep it going. Start throwing up some PDFs. Post in Game Design forums and see what feedback you get.
Keep playing and having fun. That is, after all, the most important thing.
Homebrew Eh. Define for me Homebrew, what is the physical difference between homebrew and published games besides SUCKERS paying hundreds of dollars for gaming books to people hell-bent on turning a profit and selling them tabletop WORLD OF WARCRAFT and their Dongles.
Doesn’t do anything new, okay I don’t know every system and you seem to be more intelligent then myself when it comes to games and I haven’t seen these systems…Name Them, show me the light. Break it to me gently even.
Where are these systems, why aren’t they popular? How come I haven’t given up on this homebrew generic system that does nothing new and instead play those?
I’m going to ignore the PDF statement. It seems another point was missed.
Allow me to throw a challenge out there, show me one thing CASTE can’t do. Defeat me, call me on my rant and I’ll concede the point.
Side Note:
So the story goes, I called Bryant about not doing anything new. Now Bryant has only read the Sandy article (aside: he’s not unhappy with it, ah temperance) and I had to direct him to my craziness. So after informing him he made an interesting point to me in conversation. Why do you always have to create something new? Why can’t you take the best of the old and assemble it In what may be a superior way? Why does their have to be a new Gimmick?
And quite frankly I agree, Power Cards, Miniatures, Initiative Tick Wheels, One Roll, Playing Cards. Why is a new complex trick required to make something great.
And on that note then I’ll preemptively agree that all of those similar to CASTE systems you show me will in fact share qualities with CASTE, because good ideas are contagious.
Well, for one thing, I'd encourage you to check out the great game design stuff going on at places like the Forge (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/) or Story-Games (http://www.story-games.com/forums/). There is a whole indie game movement that I think you guys would identify with - small press, cool games, designed with love, fun to play (most of the time). You can buy them at places RPGNow.com or Indie Press Revolution. Or on a game designer's website.
I'm not sure what you have against game design companies either. They do their thing, and there is a tremendous amount of design, playtesting, and production in their work. They may not be perfect games by any means, but a lot of people have fun playing them. That's good.
Homebrew isn't a bad word either. Homebrew is most often identified as modified rules to a game (or a reaction to a game) that comes out of a particular group's play experience. Homebrew games can be great. Other times, they can just feel like D&D with a few tweaks and serial numbers filed off. Sandy in the article was responding to how your buddy's game design felt like it was still responding to his reactions to some other game. That's what made it feel like homebrew, I guess.
There is plenty of room out there for new ideas in the gaming scene. As far as rehashing what has already come before, there's a lot of competition out there for that too. Just check out all the recent old school fantasy games available.
BTW, I'd suggest you guys check out some games like Wushu, the PDQ system, Donjon, FATE, and even some of my stuff. You should find it on Google - if not, send me a message, and I'll get you URLs.
This topic has gotten off topic and I now see the angle you are playing in this inexplicable defence of Sandy. Allow me to ask some more direct questions, as you are full of answers, selective as they may be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanHill
A weird reply, dude.
Why is my reply weird? What’s wrong or different about it? In the event you didn’t bother to read it, I called Sandy on writing a review on CASTE without ever playing the game. I provided some back-story to personalize the setting and then argued away his self admitted nitpicking of the system. The review was lacking a gamer’s perspective and i wanted to know why. So tell me why that is weird. Why is it necessary for you to disregard my opinion?
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanHill
Hate to break it to you, but you and your buddy's homebrew, while sounding fine enough (as Sandy pointed out), doesn't do anything particularly new.
CASTE is not mine, it is Bryant’s in name, CASTE belongs to the world, in hopes of ending the money sink of constant system book ownership. I don’t see where you get off being derogatory calling the system homebrew, a valid slight in its own right. Doesn’t do anything new? Where do you get your information? Did you read CASTE, for some reason i doubt it. Sandy read CASTE but never played it and i wanted to know why but he at least has a stance to talk of it. You have nothing and tear the system down as if you know what it is even about. I doubt because you wouldn’t recommend Wushu as a comparison to CASTE if you read through the whopping 25 pages of system. Again, does it need to do anything new? What is new? Is innovation not New? Is better not new? What is CASTE? Do you know? I told you but you seemed to ignore that point. If you don’t know what CASTE is then how can you say it’s not particularly new?
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanHill
Even as you describe it, it's not particularly new. There are quite a few systems like it. Some good stuff out there.
I didn’t describe the system, i described a system descending from the clouds to guide you from slavery to monolithic corporations and deliver you to a land rich in milk and honey. How do you even know from my description what CASTE is? Again I challenge you to show me these systems, specifically the better ones. Do not lead me to the rest show me the best. You obviously have at least one in mind or you wouldn’t have claimed such, unless you didn’t know what was going on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanHill
This is a great time to be a gamer with the variety of game systems and ideas out there.
Every time is great to be a gamer. This time actually is the worst in quality though. Huge companies that own systems that everyone, while having fun, admits are flawed control the market with cheap mass produced low quality cash cows. But when they go to Chapters to buy a different better game system all they find is D&D because people like you stop good games from being mainstream with your patronizing and marginalizing of independent game writers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanHill
It doesn't mean you should stop working on it - by all means, keep it going.
After just saying that CASTE is not good, doesn’t innovate At All and that better systems exist you then suggest to “truck on brave little toaster you can do it!” Patronizing, How unprofessional.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanHill
Start throwing up some PDFs. Post in Game Design forums and see what feedback you get.
Last time I checked RPG.NET is a forum and does give feedback , telling CASTE to go to the cyclical kiddie pool of independent forums out of your sight is something I refuse to recommend. Why can’t you offer actual suggestions to CASTE instead of tearing down something new. Why can’t you help Gaming?
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanHill
Keep playing and having fun. That is, after all, the most important thing.
More patronizing, your smile was so big I almost didn’t see the knife.
There is a whole indie game movement that I think you guys would identify with - small press, cool games, designed with love, fun to play (most of the time). You can buy them at places RPGNow.com or Indie Press Revolution. Or on a game designer's website.
What are you even trying to say here? Are you saying big corporations don’t make fun games with love? There is always an indie movement going, the problem is nobodies buying, because again people aren’t being allowed to see these fun new games, their being shuffled off to the graveyard of indie forums, where no one cares.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanHill
I'm not sure what you have against game design companies either. They do their thing, and there is a tremendous amount of design, playtesting, and production in their work. They may not be perfect games by any means, but a lot of people have fun playing them. That's good.
I have everything against game designers, because they can’t design games. Design? Play testing? Production? This is all busy work they do in the gaps between releasing the next overpriced system module with setting crucified to it for effect. I cited examples even in my opening statement to why companies suck, you chose to ignore and dismiss it. Not my problem but i am curious if this lack of comprehension is intentional or not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanHill
Homebrew isn't a bad word either. Homebrew is most often identified as modified rules to a game (or a reaction to a game) that comes out of a particular group's play experience. Homebrew games can be great. Other times, they can just feel like D&D with a few tweaks and serial numbers filed off. Sandy in the article was responding to how your buddy's game design felt like it was still responding to his reactions to some other game. That's what made it feel like homebrew, I guess.
Homebrew is a stigma and means through which pretentious people marginalize the game developers of the world. Homebrew calls to mind clammy nerds in a cavernous basement who make up nonsensical rules to make a the new big D&D. Amateurs who have no experience and no proper say in the industry. Buy the way this is what Gygax and co were when they started, amateurs with no experience because they had yet to pioneer the industry that would become their field of expertise.
Homebrew is not a word to describe success, it is a word that describes a game that will fail.
Point of notice, Your description of homebrew “modified rules to a game” does not encompass CASTE which are not modified from anything but the whole bolt of cloth from which it was weaved. So even your derogatory labels do not apply.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanHill
There is plenty of room out there for new ideas in the gaming scene. As far as rehashing what has already come before, there's a lot of competition out there for that too. Just check out all the recent old school fantasy games available.
Again there is no point to this line, it simply sounds like you are waxing philosophically for the sake of reading your own print.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanHill
BTW, I'd suggest you guys check out some games like Wushu, the PDQ system, Donjon, FATE, and even some of my stuff. You should find it on Google - if not, send me a message, and I'll get you URLs.
Why? Why look a them if they are not even on the same thought as CASTE? Wushu is substantially different from CASTE, its Amber but with dice as a twist. PDQ shares some thoughts but doesn’t have the infinite variability I was speaking off. Donjon is also not CASTE like it’s a self admitted D&D clone. Did you even read these systems? Do you ever read systems? Or do you sit upon a parapet and make proclamations with the idea that you can’t be called on your claims; will you next tell me you invented the question mark?
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanHill
Happy Gaming!
I see the dagger, I am not amused.
To summarize for your i guess short attention span.
Sandy reviewed CASTE, he didn’t play, so i want to know where his opinion on CASTE came from. I know it came from the book, this is not a proper representation of CASTE. Its a review of a bad PDF that was rushed, unedited so that Sandy could have something to review.
So I decided to give a review of CASTE as a gamer. I decided to provide a second bias.
You found it weird and began being dismissive and glib.
This is an actual rpg? Oh. How sad. The column was fun and it read like pure irony. It's sad it is not just irony.
In any case, it's a good warning. There's a game I will pass.
I'm sorry that you are finding daggers in my posts, dude.
Hilarious. Thanks for this!
And, yeah, I'm always behind schedule. Such is my life.
I give you all these gifts and you still do not answer my queries. Alas. Perhaps I was wrong about you. Is there no one who can find fault in CASTE?
Quote:
Originally Posted by smascrns
This is an actual rpg? Oh. How sad. The column was fun and it read like pure irony. It's sad it is not just irony.
In any case, it's a good warning. There's a game I will pass.
Is this website one that traffics only in ignorance? You do not provide a particularly good example against such an accusation.
Yes this is an RPG. It seems Sandy's straightforward review, was lost on you.
IRONY: the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.
Sandy was not ironic in his words. I personally could not see it reading as much, even accidentally. I guess your criticizing his writing style. If you read the article Sandy gives valuable advice on how to properly write a book, useful for all who wish to make something new. Advice you should take when you next release a meal into the wild. He hit the nail on the head, just the wrong one.
How is no one hit by all of the missed points flying around?
Find me a flaw in this system and you will be my new best friend. I want to talk to the person who can give us a valuable critique. Again, anyone, everyone, prove me wrong!
Of course you will pass, but not before I grant a much needed upgrade to your attempt at System. I had it Fixed! Enjoy!
Well, personally the flaw I see is that there's no reason for me to use it. You say this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Invictus
The purpose of CASTE is not to be a setting and system book, which is the most disgusting marketing technique I have ever seen...
Your goal might be to simply make another rule system without a setting, but the fact of the matter is that gamers _want_ settings to go with their rules. If they didn't, the books wouldn't sell. People spend money on what they want and game companies publish what sells.
Why should I bother going to the effort of learning your system and then having to develop an entire setting to go along with it, when I can stay with a system I already know?
It's great that you're going for the whole "do whatever you can imagine!!!" thing. The problem is that these days, a lot of people don't have the time or inclination to do this. You can say it's a shame, you can say that 20 years ago it wasn't this way (I'd argue with you about that to an extent), you can say a lot of stuff... but that doesn't mean that people are suddenly going to go, "Damn, you're right!!" and switch.
Whether you like it or not, your "audience" for this game is going to be the group of gamers that kicks around online. In general, the gamers kicking around online are either going to be A) very focused on their Favorite Game and uninterested in others, or B) Exposed to an awful lot of rpgs already.
Around rpg.net, you're dealing with both groups, including a chunk that are focused on their Favorite Game after having been exposed to quite a few rpgs.
I doubt you'll take this advice, but I'll offer it up anyway:
If you want to convince people to play your game, insulting them, acting smug, "challenging" them, and so forth... not really the way to achieve your goal. Your posts so far have only convinced me that I wouldn't want to play a game with you. Since rpgs are a social activity, if I'm turned off from playing the game because the people that are into the game and represent it act in a way I find grating, it means I'm going to avoid having anything to do with the system they're advocating.
My job isn't to justify why I don't want to play your game or why I think there's flaws in it. I don't have to do this, because _I'm_ the one that's deciding whether I'm going to take the time and effort to learn your game, or continue having fun with the games I've already got.
Your job is to convince people how your offering is superior. So far, you haven't done that from what I've seen.
__________________
I play to be awesome, and I run games for others to be awesome in.
RPGS are nothing more than folks playing Invisible Barbie.
I don’t like the writ of “In ancient days, when mystical shit was BIG and IN YOUR FACE, somebody FUCKED UP and BROKE EVERYTHING and now THINGS SUCK.” - Bailywolf
Yes, I play rpgs, NO that doesn't make me a "gamer", and No, I don't care enough to try explaining it anymore.
Gamer type: Casual Gamer 75% | Storyteller 60% | Character Player 60% | Tactician 40% | Weekend Warrior 40% | Power Gamer 30% | Specialist 25%
Fuck that, they're using my hobby as their industry. As evidence I'll point out that one can survive without the other, but not visa-versa. - Piestrio
90% of all interpersonal conflicts stem from the need to get the last word in. I swear by this. - Future Villain Band
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