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Halloween Jack posted:Wow. I should have known how far down the rabbit hole it goes, but wow. Someone wants to take him to task for his choice of editing software before learning that there's a free PDF of the game. A bunch of people try to interrogate him to establish that he's part of the Rebel Alliance, and a spy. Tarnowski tries to debate LaTorra about a game he admits he hasn't actually read, and asks LaTorra to disprove his assumptions about the game by reading it to him, piece-by-piece. It's one thing to meet people like that when you're 15, it's a whole other when you realize these are grown men arguing about whether DW is an RPG or not and just crying to themselves ''B-b-b-but it's trying to be OSR when it's n-n-n-nooooot.'' Jesus Christ. edit: ''OK. I got to tell you something. I think you are a smart guy. I think you created with Dungeon World a very finely tuned game, a good game, for what it is: a story game. So either you have no idea and are a totally blind follower joining in the lol-band on twitter when it comes to laugh at people like us, so you are basically a brain-dead moron who has no idea what he's laughing at in the first place, a loser, who just happened to come up with this really good Forge design by pure chance, OR you actually are disingenuous here and know exactly what I'm talking about, and actually came up with a really tight design knowing what you were doing. '' WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE ravenkult fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Nov 22, 2013 |
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Nov 22, 2013 16:22
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This is getting pretty grogs.txt in here.
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Nov 22, 2013 20:40
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That's pretty much inevitable when you're talking about the RPG industry, to be perfectly honest. Or any other small-scale industry with a niche fandom.
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Nov 22, 2013 22:06
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I didn't want to derail, so perhaps I can thread things back towards being on-topic. Does anyone have any idea if the weird ideological battles on fora actually influence sales? I've often heard it said that while some games are forum darlings and some games are bitterly debated and criticized, all of the people posting are a vocal minority of the people playing the game. I think that's certainly true of Magic, but probably not true at all of RPGs. I wish there were more data available on sales.
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Nov 22, 2013 22:13
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I would suspect not, at least judging from how much that sort of thing affects comic sales (Before Watchmen, hated on the internet with the fiercest of vitriol, manages to sell perfectly well, for example). But it could be that more RPG players are online and that the smaller pool makes it easier to splash everyone, I dunno. But I think the majority of the RPG-playing audience isn't involved, doesn't care, and isn't quite so critical in general, whether it's Dungeon World or Cthulhutech.
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Nov 22, 2013 22:37
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FWIW, back when you could look at Amazon's top selling RPGs 4e D&D titles regularly dominated sales, occupying over half of their top selling items in that category. Obviously it's a snapshot of one retailer at one time, but it's the complete opposite of what many forums were screaming at the time.
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Nov 22, 2013 22:50
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I suspect that the statistically average gamer is someone who plays whatever flavor of D&D their friends are playing and is barely aware that online conversations about RPGs are a thing. I have run into people who have Strong Opinions about D&D in person, but they're generally people who formulated their own opinions, or are going with the general sentiment of a relatively small group, rather than glomming onto a larger group of forum posters. On the one hand it's weird to me to put in the kind of time one has to put into playing D&D seriously while being seemingly incurious about the wider hobby scene, but on the other hand I can respect people who know what they like and play it without much concern for outside opinion. The forum-checking crowd is an order of magnitude smaller, but does have enough spending power to be notable to those of us publishing RPGs that aren't D&D. The people who care enough about "traditional vs indie" or whatever enough to type swear words into an internet forum post about it are another order of magnitude fewer in number. RPGSite may be full of storygame haters, and RPGnet has a vocal minority, but the vast majority of people aren't really aware that "story games" are even a thing. On the plus side, that means there are a lot of people without Pundowski-influenced prejudices, so for example although my sister and her friends mainly play Pathfinder, she took to Fiasco pretty much immediately. I've been really impressed with how well Sage has handled all the crap he's gotten for, you know, making a game he thought would be fun. Even so, I'm going to keep up my policy of not engaging with the people on Certain Forums at all.
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Nov 22, 2013 23:36
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Yeah, I just think of the play groups I've been involved in, and how many are involved in online RPG talk as much as I am. Of probably two dozen people, I can think of... one, mmmaybe two. A lot are just folks who play what they play and aren't too concerned around rules unless they bypass whatever crunch vs. smooth threshold markers they are.
Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 22, 2013 23:57
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Ewen Cluney posted:I suspect that the statistically average gamer is someone who plays whatever flavor of D&D their friends are playing and is barely aware that online conversations about RPGs are a thing. In my current group, no one but me even has an interest in elfgames except for playing in the games I run. So you might well be right.
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Nov 23, 2013 00:52
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Of the people I game with face to face, and the people I used to, I think I'm the only one who does much on-line beyond Facebook or MMO X. Still, one insists on rattling off the same canned '4E is WoW!' sound bites, despite never having played either. The actual existence of other games is carried as rumour by myself or a co-worker, but that's about it.
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Nov 23, 2013 03:17
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Bieeardo posted:Of the people I game with face to face, and the people I used to, I think I'm the only one who does much on-line beyond Facebook or MMO X. Still, one insists on rattling off the same canned '4E is WoW!' sound bites, despite never having played either. The actual existence of other games is carried as rumour by myself or a co-worker, but that's about it. Thing is that the 4th Edition designers admitted to drawing upon video games for inspiration, but it was not a primary one. Considering that D&D derived plenty of tropes from fiction, sci-fi and fantasy, myth and legend, and even Eastern tropes, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The ironic part is that the most common complaint I hear is that 4E provides instant gratification by granting all the cool stuff right away with no hard work, "just like World of Warcraft!" World of Warcraft, the MMO which popularized the concept of grinding. It betrays a lack of knowledge and often seems to have an "I hate kids!" vibe to it. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 23, 2013 03:57
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It also ignores the fact that unflattering comparisons of new D&D editions to video games and other popular media has literally been going on as long as the hobby has been alive. I don't have sources immediately handy, but I distinctly remember lots of complaints about how 3e was too much like Diablo or anime, and if you dig deep enough into usenet archives there's at least one person whining about how AD&D1e is too much like Rogue and how it "ruined the spirit" of D&D. There's just a huge but subtle streak in RPG fandom towards hating and avoiding anything that makes games more accessible to people, sadly.
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Nov 23, 2013 04:06
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JackMann posted:I'm still pissed he's sitting on the Bas-Lag license. What's the story behind this? A New Crobuzon RPG could be bloody brilliant.
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Nov 23, 2013 04:07
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Asimo posted:I don't have sources immediately handy, but I distinctly remember lots of complaints about how 3e was too much like Diablo or anime... We definitely compared 3E to Diablo a lot, before we dug our heads out of our asses. Referring to item slots, and buffs in a tabletop context weirded the Hell out of me for a long time after that, even still. Asimo posted:There's just a huge but subtle streak in RPG fandom towards hating and avoiding anything that makes games more accessible to people, sadly. It's not just tabletop RPGs. Hardcore MMO raiders rail at 'casuals' being given 'welfare epics'; WoW's designers learned at the knee of Everquest, the granddaddy bastard of godawful grinds and setbacks, and unlearned much of it when they realized that making content that only 2% of the player base would see was counterproductive. It happens all the time with other forms of gaming, pop literature, and music, anything with a perceived exclusivity. Most of those other industries and fandoms are far too large to be remotely affected by their grumbling grognards. Traditional RPGs might (probably) be the same, but we're a lot more conscious of its relatively tiny size.
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Nov 23, 2013 05:00
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The Supreme Court posted:What's the story behind this? A New Crobuzon RPG could be bloody brilliant. Adamant got the license back in 2008. They've made announcements, called for artists and writers, but to date, nothing's appeared. So far as I know, they still have the license.
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Nov 23, 2013 06:28
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Bieeardo posted:It's not just tabletop RPGs. Hardcore MMO raiders rail at 'casuals' being given 'welfare epics'; WoW's designers learned at the knee of Everquest, the granddaddy bastard of godawful grinds and setbacks, and unlearned much of it when they realized that making content that only 2% of the player base would see was counterproductive. It happens all the time with other forms of gaming, pop literature, and music, anything with a perceived exclusivity. Most of those other industries and fandoms are far too large to be remotely affected by their grumbling grognards. Traditional RPGs might (probably) be the same, but we're a lot more conscious of its relatively tiny size. It's always nerd poo poo. You have to suffer because we suffered, but we can't make you go back to middle school and feel how bad it was that Suzy Jenkins never talked to you so get in loving line and let us lord it up. If you're lucky you get to eat at the kids table instead of picking up our crumbs.
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Nov 24, 2013 03:01
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If I wanted to get a copy of Paranoia for the local RPG society library, which edition would I be best off buying? It looks like they recently brought out new books but split them into Troubleshooters and High Programmers, and then you have anniversary editions and old editions too. I'm just looking for a book new roleplayers can pick up to learn how to play Paranoia.
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Nov 24, 2013 16:07
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Flavivirus posted:If I wanted to get a copy of Paranoia for the local RPG society library, which edition would I be best off buying? It looks like they recently brought out new books but split them into Troubleshooters and High Programmers, and then you have anniversary editions and old editions too. I'm just looking for a book new roleplayers can pick up to learn how to play Paranoia.
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Nov 24, 2013 16:16
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dwarf74 posted:I like xp. Easy enough rules, lots of advice, and one of the best Paranoia adventures I've ever run. The new black Troubleshooter book has basically the same rules as XP. It's a nice book but the art seems to lack the charm of the old school books.
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Nov 25, 2013 08:19
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I have already asked this in the " FATAL and friends thread" but seeing as it is related: where can I get Paranoia: troubleshooters book, either in print or pdf? I have been searching the web but the only results have been old editions at outrageous prices and the High Programmer book that Mongoose sells in its website (someone helpfully pasted a link to an UK vendor but sadly I do not live there)
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Nov 25, 2013 10:02
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papasyhotcakes posted:I have already asked this in the " FATAL and friends thread" but seeing as it is related: where can I get Paranoia: troubleshooters book, either in print or pdf? I have been searching the web but the only results have been old editions at outrageous prices and the High Programmer book that Mongoose sells in its website (someone helpfully pasted a link to an UK vendor but sadly I do not live there) Well I was about to suggest Amazon.com where I got mine a couple years ago but it's currently listed for $400.00  Maybe I shouldn't leave my copy under my bed.I have no idea where else to get it.
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Nov 25, 2013 12:09
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papasyhotcakes posted:I have already asked this in the " FATAL and friends thread" but seeing as it is related: where can I get Paranoia: troubleshooters book, either in print or pdf? I have been searching the web but the only results have been old editions at outrageous prices and the High Programmer book that Mongoose sells in its website (someone helpfully pasted a link to an UK vendor but sadly I do not live there)  , I haven't the slightest.
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Nov 26, 2013 05:26
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I am pretty sure many distributors have it in stock, or at least they did months ago when I ordered some for my stores. I would ask your FLGS if they can order it for you from Alliance or ACD.
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Nov 26, 2013 06:34
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Have you checked Noble Knight? It seems to come up frequently when talking about out-of-print/hard to find gaming books.
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Nov 26, 2013 08:44
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I have three copies at the store I work at but we don't sell RPGs online, only M:TG and Boardgames.
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Nov 26, 2013 09:06
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So this is just a vague thought at the moment, but I'm hoping someone has the experience to help flesh it out. Do any of you fine folks have experience with trying to get people outside of the usual RPG demographic to give elfgamery a shot? I've been toying with the idea of something more aimed at non-gamers, but while I've designed a little thing or two, I've never tried aiming outside of the depths of the RPG market. So, anybody ever try it and have some stories of how it all worked out? Or some good ol' data to look at, or even blog posts from other industry folks or something on the subject? Either for personal group-gathering, or larger marketing stuff.
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Nov 27, 2013 10:20
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Yalborap posted:So this is just a vague thought at the moment, but I'm hoping someone has the experience to help flesh it out. My only attempt was with a co-worker when I worked at a FLGS who refused to play RPGs for years. After Cubicle 7 published their Doctor Who game I jokingly suggested to him that I'd run it for him and his girlfriend for his birthday. He's a huge Doctor Who fan. To my surprise he actually said yes, so I picked up the game and ran a session with him as the Doctor. Everyone enjoyed themselves and he even asked me to run it again last Christmas which is how my "The Dalek's Stole Christmas" game came about. He's played a few other non-d&d rpgs since (Fiasco, Do, and some flavor of Fate I can't rember) but I still haven't gotten him to elf it up with D&D/Pathfinder yet.
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Nov 27, 2013 13:57
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I'd like to ask your folks' thoughts on whistleblowing in the industry. I mentioned this in Grognards.txt, to a question of why Frank Trollman got banned from Dumpshock (Shadowrun fan site). Basically back in early 2011, things came to light about Catalyst Game Labs, that one of their head guys was embezzling money from the company and refusing to pay freelancers for their work. The freelancers were worried that if they brought the allegations to light they'd never be hired again in the industry, so they passed along the information to Frank Trollman, a man who already burned all his bridges in the industry and would never be hired again. Frank's handling of the situation was...less than stellar, as you can imagine, but there were raw numbers of financial discrepancies, an acknowledgement of such by Catalyst Game Labs, and the developers of CthulhuTech and Eclipse Phase broke off and formed their own companies in light of the scandal. So my question is, why is whistleblowing so pariah-worthy in the table-top industry? That people are worried that the act of shedding light on criminal activity will make even other companies not want to hire them? Or is it this way for gaming industries in general? Libertad! fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Nov 28, 2013 |
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Nov 28, 2013 03:00
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A lot of whistleblowing boils down to folks making GBS threads in their own pot, and whether or not you think it was justified, it establishes you're willing to throw your employer to the online wolves. It's a small industry and word gets around, and it's not hard to build a reputation. It gets hard to tell the difference between whistleblowing and retaliation, to boot. Take Bill Coffin, for example, who revealed a lot of unkind facts regard Kevin Siembieda's running of Palladium, which seemed pretty clearly done out of anger, and it severely damaged his reputation as a result. At lot of it depends on how professionally you handle it. An artist that reveals they haven't been paid for an unreasonable amount of time by a company (hey, Guardians of Order) will probably come across better than say, John Wick taking potshots at Dancey on his column. I'm not familiar with Trollman's posts on Catalyst, but I think I can make an educated guess that "professional" probably wasn't a word one could use to describe them.
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Nov 28, 2013 03:49
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How was Bill Coffin's reputation damaged and, if so, does he have any reason to care?
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Nov 28, 2013 03:57
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Halloween Jack posted:How was Bill Coffin's reputation damaged and, if so, does he have any reason to care? He got known as somebody who dragged personal matters into a public arena?... I mean, there's a reason he made an apology later. As a fan it was fascinating to see all the dirty laundry dragged out, but it remains a big black mark on Palladium's reputation. I have nothing against Coffin myself, but it's easy to understand why a company might not want to risk that sort of lambasting, justified or not.
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Nov 28, 2013 04:02
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I think people have a moral obligation to publicly report these things, and we're seeing a shift to more open information as we see more indie authors and people less tied to traditional publishing houses. Keeping these things secret only hurts people looking to enter into the industry - RPG authors are gossipy, catty people, and anyone who's even kind of in the loop knows about this stuff. Nobody wants to be the one who goes public with these things but it leaves predatory publishers and awful people open to take advantage of new talent entering the industry, while the existing authors nod their heads and pretend to be shocked if it's ever revealed.
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Nov 28, 2013 04:19
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Alien Rope Burn posted:He got known as somebody who dragged personal matters into a public arena?... I mean, there's a reason he made an apology later. As a fan it was fascinating to see all the dirty laundry dragged out, but it remains a big black mark on Palladium's reputation. I have nothing against Coffin myself, but it's easy to understand why a company might not want to risk that sort of lambasting, justified or not. The thing is, Palladium deserves to have some black marks against their reputation because it isn't just stuff like "Kevin Sembieda doesn't use computers, let us mock him!" or "Rifts sucks lol," it's stuff like "Kevin Sembieda will yell at you like a crazy dude, also if you're a freelancer he'll gently caress you out of the money he promised you and take credit for your work." This isn't really in the same league as what happened with Catalyst in terms of gross financial misappropriation, but it's still stuff that I feel is a level beyond simply airing dirty laundry and petty gossip, freelancers just getting into this hobby should know to avoid Palladium. And to be honest, Bill Coffin apologized and that was classy of him, but I don't think he did it because his reputation suddenly tanked.
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Nov 28, 2013 09:14
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Libertad! posted:
Because everyone is a huge loving nerd and they can't take criticism. At least in my experience, even the slightest comment will make them circle the wagons and call on anyone and everyone who will support them, to try and shut you up by pretending you're the one who is being unprofessional and a bully. I sometimes wish I was a cold enough rear end in a top hat to just write down all the dumb, petty poo poo I know and just put it up on a website. Alien Rope Burn posted:Take Bill Coffin, for example, who revealed a lot of unkind facts regard Kevin Siembieda's running of Palladium, which seemed pretty clearly done out of anger, and it severely damaged his reputation as a result. And this is how assholes protect themselves. Why the hell would Bill's reputation be damaged, unless you are a terrible person yourself? (I don't mean you, Alien Rope Burn.) ''Oh man, I better not hire Bill, he'll me out me on all the terrible poo poo that I do!'' ravenkult fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Nov 28, 2013 |
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Nov 28, 2013 13:33
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ravenkult posted:Because everyone is a huge loving nerd and they can't take criticism. At least in my experience, even the slightest comment will make them circle the wagons and call on anyone and everyone who will support them, to try and shut you up by pretending you're the one who is being unprofessional and a bully. I remember talking about CthulhuTech on RPGnet back when people gave a poo poo about that and being told that I shouldn't criticise the people who made it because they're designers. 
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Nov 28, 2013 14:58
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Yeah, you get a lot of that in places where game designers descend from their money-thrones made of hookers and blow to talk to the common gamer. RPGnet's not quite as bad as it used to be about it but there's still a strong undercurrent of "how dare you criticize game designers, don't you know they might leave!? And won't you be sorry!" that rears its head from time to time. And it was recently brought up in the Exalted thread that part of the reason the White Wolf forum is so echo-chambery is largely due to writers getting pissed and threatening to take their ball and go home, so the community actively works to shut down criticism in order to prevent being denied sweet previews. A lot of gamers can be terrible, but a lot of game designers really don't know how to A). accept criticism and B). tune their mental filters so they don't get riled up over dumb poo poo they shouldn't pay attention to while still listening to the stuff they ought to. That's admittedly a fine line to walk when it comes to this hobby, but these are learned skills that a lot of designers don't bother learning because why bother? I highly doubt it has any effect on sales either way, and plenty of people are eager to rush to the defense of maligned game designers.
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Nov 28, 2013 16:14
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I've always been put off by describing the White Wolf Exalted forum as "echo-chambery." It's friendlier to the writers than it could otherwise be, but there's still a pretty constant stream of criticism. I think it mostly has to do with high-profile criticism, aka really loud assholes, being shut down. It's a far cry from Pundit's Own. That bullshit with the social Charm previews didn't help disabuse anyone, though. 
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Nov 28, 2013 16:32
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There's very little actual criticism on the White Wolf forums, though. There's just dozens of people with their own pet issue, who are more than willing to turn any topic even tangentially related to that issue into the hill they're willing to die on.
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Nov 28, 2013 16:36
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BryanChavez posted:There's very little actual criticism on the White Wolf forums, though. There's just dozens of people with their own pet issue, who are more than willing to turn any topic even tangentially related to that issue into the hill they're willing to die on. We are all the echo chamber?
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Nov 28, 2013 16:41
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Oh yeah, totally. I suppose saying 'White Wolf forums' implies that the same isn't true everywhere else, but at the very least, Something Awful hasn't yet had someone argue for the emancipation of the Lunar Exalted (a group that they seem to personally consider themselves a part of) from the tyrannical developers that have misunderstood them for so long. And I have many pet issues, thank you.
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Nov 28, 2013 16:51
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