|
I don't think McCarthyism was as damaging in '84 as racism is in 2014. And I suspect that if you asked 100 Americans to draw a terrorist, most of them would draw stick figures with turbans. It's still all a distraction from how the game looks like poo poo, and that's ignoring the tone / terrorism issue completely.
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 19:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 21:45 |
|
|
moths posted:I don't think McCarthyism was as damaging in '84 as racism is in 2014. Nuclear war with Russia was still a threat in 1984. There's already a good model for handling the war on terror in dystopian black comedy. Just run Alpha Complex like Terry Gilliam's Brazil. And let's be honest- Crystal Skull's problems aren't that it's about Commies and aliens instead of Nazis and magic. It's about plot structure, characterization, photography. As Roger Ebert said, a movie is not good because of what it is about but how it is about it. It's execution that matters, not fidelity to a prior work.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:04
|
|
|
Maxwell Lord posted:Again, the Cold War was also a real and present day issue in 1984, less than a year after WWIII very nearly happened because the Russians mistook NATO wargames for a legit buildup. The Commies were real. Are you even remotely aware of cold war era fiction? A lot of it was dark, fatalistic and humorous. This does not apply to terrorist fiction. It does not apply to how terrorists exist in the modern public imagination. The two situations are completely different and terrorists are not interchangeable with communists for about a couple of essays' worth of reasons ranging from the fiction tropes of the time, the entire cold war mindset (Watchmen is very good for showing what it was like, in fact) and more besides. Cold war era spy fiction is not like modern counter-terrorism fiction, either. The two just aren't interchangable and it's pointless to pretend they are. It's thoughtless, too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:05
|
|
|
Maxwell Lord posted:One attempt at updating a franchise didn't work therefore it must never be done. What I'm saying is this: Paranoia is a comedy routine that's been told over and over. Sometimes it's been told well! Sometimes it's been told badly! But it's hard for a joke to be repeated with any greater impact than the first time. The key to Paranoia isn't the rules or setting specifics, it's is the joke still funny?
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:08
|
|
|
Rulebook Heavily posted:Are you even remotely aware of cold war era fiction? A lot of it was dark, fatalistic and humorous. So it will be different. Satire has to be relevant. There's no point in doing a dystopia that has absolutely nothing to do with our modern society and only attacks those long dead.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:08
|
|
|
If you think the Paranoia book from 1984 isn't still relevant then you need to go read it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:09
|
|
|
Maxwell Lord posted:And let's be honest- Crystal Skull's problems aren't that it's about Commies and aliens instead of Nazis and magic. It's about plot structure, characterization, photography. As Roger Ebert said, a movie is not good because of what it is about but how it is about it. It's execution that matters, not fidelity to a prior work. All of those things were also problems, but I disagree: the film being about commies and aliens felt wrong, and even if it had been scripted and filmed better, it still wouldn't have felt "like an Indiana Jones movie." It might not be a perfect analogy.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:10
|
|
|
So why do it in Paranoia? Why keep the Communists at all? Why not create a "spiritual successor" instead of torturing the round peg to fit a square hole?
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:11
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:What I'm saying is this: Paranoia is a comedy routine that's been told over and over. Sometimes it's been told well! Sometimes it's been told badly! But it's hard for a joke to be repeated with any greater impact than the first time. The key to Paranoia isn't the rules or setting specifics, it's is the joke still funny? That's an ossifying attitude. Paranoia has never limited itself to just being about the 50s Red Scare- it has as much in common with Brazil and Brave New World as anything else. XP already incorporated the War on Terror somewhat. What have they specifically said beyond "we'll be including the concept of terrorism"?
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:14
|
|
|
moths posted:So why do it in Paranoia? Why keep the Communists at all? Why not create a "spiritual successor" instead of torturing the round peg to fit a square hole? Why do what? Mention terrorism at all when XP already did?
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:15
|
|
|
Do what you were posting - make it relevant to current events and Snowden et al.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:17
|
|
|
moths posted:Do what you were posting - make it relevant to current events and Snowden et al. XP did the same thing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:19
|
|
|
So why do it again with worse art and maybe-existing rules?
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:21
|
|
|
moths posted:So why do it again with worse art and maybe-existing rules? Because products have a life cycle and drift out of print. XP was amazing but support petered out despite a planned "year of the Computer", so time for someone to try again. It may suck, but if it does it won't be because they mention Edward Snowden. You may as well ask why they made XP to start with instead of just reprinting the original box set.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:26
|
|
|
And if you do it right, you get the Wraith 20 Kickstarter. E: I don't want to continue this derail.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:30
|
|
|
You're proposing a Paranoia that is the equivalent of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. It shares nothing with those preceding but the name and a vague feeling of "similar genre". So why make a Paranoia game? Other than obvious name recognition. Again, see Halloween 3.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:34
|
|
|
moths posted:And if you do it right, you get the Wraith 20 Kickstarter. There's no way of knowing for sure whether or not you did it right until the drat thing is done. (Even then it's subjective.) Misgivings about art and execution are all well and good, "they're changing it therefore it will be terrible" is and always has been stupid. It's what they said about D&D 4th edition.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:37
|
|
|
Lord Frisk posted:You're proposing a Paranoia that is the equivalent of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. No, the developers are proposing a game in the same setting except there are a few more elements of the modern war on terror hysteria. This is not a radical adaptation, any more than making Bond movies set after the fall of the Soviet Union.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 20:40
|
|
|
Maxwell Lord posted:That's an ossifying attitude. Presuming the world needs another edition of a game written thirty years ago strikes me as practically fossilized by comparison. Keeping in print isn't a reason. Keeping it "modern" isn't a reason. Those are things that operate on presumption that another edition of Paranoia is, somehow, necessary. And so my question is: is it still funny?
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 21:02
|
|
|
I thought the topic of discussion was find/replace "commie" = "terrorist". Are there still commies? Is it mainly about commies? Is the communist threat the prevailing menace?
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 21:08
|
|
|
I think, from talking with Howitt in particular last month, that the main theme they're looking to play up with the terrorist angle is more "you are under ever-present surveillance in the name of vaguely-defined security," which is workable, though honestly I'm not sure I can see it as a change in any meaningful sense to the setting. The art concerns me a lot more, in either case, because it is dire (and, not to mention, overwhelmingly white dudes).
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 21:57
|
|
|
Adept Nightingale posted:I think, from talking with Howitt in particular last month, that the main theme they're looking to play up with the terrorist angle is more "you are under ever-present surveillance in the name of vaguely-defined security," which is workable, though honestly I'm not sure I can see it as a change in any meaningful sense to the setting. I feel like they've said either in an interview or in their reddit AMA that yeah, you could just replace "terrorist" with "communist". That, in the setting of Alpha Complex, both are just meaningless buzzwords used to justify The Computer's crazy surveillance state. And I gotta say I kinda like that, because while I can enjoy the irony of fighting dirty commies despite living in a communist society, the irony of fighting evil terrorists while being involved in terrorist acts of one's own is much more blatant, and thus way easier to mine comedy from.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 22:18
|
|
|
Again, I am really loving confused because I swear that Paranoia XP added terrorists to the game as a boogeyman already and added capitalism to the game in defiance of the previous iterations where the punchline was that Alpha Complex was a communist society itself, and to the best of my recollection XP was considered a pretty good Paranoia. I'm not saying this version is going to be good, but the way people are talking it's going to be bad because of changes that were already made. I wasn't here when XP was first released, did it garner the same sort of response?
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 22:37
|
|
|
It was the level of apparent thought put into it that mattered. The level of thought put into this new Paranoia... well, the art reflects the effort, doesn't it?
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 22:41
|
|
|
Quite possibly, on the other hand it would hardly go down in history as the first RPG to be a decent game with really lovely artwork, it's not like that's an uncommon occurrence.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 22:57
|
|
|
I would much rather see a new Paranoia that's a love letter to the original. High quality art and a great presentation, even if it didn't improve on the rules I would buy that without hesitation. Paranoia is a product of it's time and I feel like trying to update it is just going to alienate existing fans while not bringing in any new ones.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 23:34
|
|
|
Yeah, I think if you're going to "update" it, the best thing would be to go back to first principles from the original and build something new from the ground up. You could probably say some sharp things about the present political climate and our modern fears in a future satirical dystopia (What if the "drones" of the game were like our modern military drones? Hm.). But trying to shoehorn it into the Paranoia setting strikes me as very self-limiting. Granted, you're likely to sell more copies with the Paranoia name, but the idea could be a lot more compelling without the baggage of tradition.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 23:42
|
|
|
ElNarez posted:...the irony of fighting evil terrorists while being involved in terrorist acts of one's own is much more blatant, and thus way easier to mine comedy from. They wouldn't have the balls to do this, but I'd love to see a few pages of "anti-terrorist" missions like this:
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2014 00:01
|
|
|
Basically Paranoia is Red Dawn (1984) and the new edition is looking a lot like Red Dawn (2012)
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2014 02:30
|
|
|
jmzero posted:There's a new fantasy coins type KS up. The coins are larger than previous sets I've seen, have high relief, and a nice artificial patina. There's a good variety of sets available, though some of the prospective ones don't seem to be up to the quality level of the one's they've prototyped (eg. the steam punk ones feel kind of obligatory rather than something they're actually interested in). Finally got my coin sets in from this kickstarter and I have to say I'm disappointed. The colored patina has apparently been applied only to the faces of the coins; on some of them it spread to cover the edge, but not on others. One set I selected is missing entirely, replaced by a set I didn't order. And (as has been mentioned on their kickstarter comments thread) their shipper put absolutely no padding into the boxes, so the coins just shook around in there.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2014 05:57
|
|
|
Less than four hours left on the Legacy Kickstarter, and we've unlocked super-fancy art and layout in addition to an extra family playbook. The next stretch goal is only £300 away - if we hit it I'll put together a whole new supplement on the technological marvels of the World Before, including advice on how to use them in your game, ways to adapt them to fit your particular flavour of hyper-advanced pre-apocalypse civilisation, and 25 wondrous devices to give out (each with their own custom move). Last chance to back!
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2014 10:17
|
|
|
Just found out I have a package waiting for me in the mail from abroad. I'm suspecting/hoping it's Lagoon, but I'll have to wait until Sunday to know.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2014 13:38
|
|
|
So much of Paranoia is also the still-relevant Orwellian surveillance state. I don't need it to be updated; I think the original is still super-relevant.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2014 16:00
|
|
|
inklesspen posted:Finally got my coin sets in from this kickstarter and I have to say I'm disappointed. The colored patina has apparently been applied only to the faces of the coins; on some of them it spread to cover the edge, but not on others. One set I selected is missing entirely, replaced by a set I didn't order. And (as has been mentioned on their kickstarter comments thread) their shipper put absolutely no padding into the boxes, so the coins just shook around in there. I will agree that the coins aren't quite everything I hoped they'd be, but I certainly don't feel cheated. The patina is a little hit or miss on the edges, but mine don't look bad, ymmv. I got my full and correct order, so that helps. With regard to shipping, I know packing material is standard, sometimes to the point of madness:  But since these coins aren't really collectors pieces and the first thing I did was dump them all in the "leather" pouch, I'm not dismayed that they got jostled during shipping. Not trying to pick a fight with you or white knight the KS, just giving my impressions of the same project.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2014 16:10
|
|
|
My friends project met their goal recently and they've also released their rule book online in the past week. Check it out if you're interested
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2014 20:51
|
|
|
The D&D5 character builder project, having been dumped by WotC for being too innovative, has started a kickstarter for what they actually want to do. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/trapdoortech/codename-morningstar?ref=nav_search They want $425,000.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2014 19:59
|
|
|
xiw posted:The D&D5 character builder project, having been dumped by WotC for being too innovative, has started a kickstarter for what they actually want to do. quote:No more lugging piles of paper, spending hours looking up and debating rules, or hunting for the latest version of your character.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2014 20:06
|
|
|
xiw posted:The D&D5 character builder project, having been dumped by WotC for being too innovative, has started a kickstarter for what they actually want to do. Not even the name of Robin D. Laws helped the last "Cloud" rpg fund. This sounds like Storyscape all over again
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2014 20:15
|
|
|
enigma105 posted:Not even the name of Robin D. Laws helped the last "Cloud" rpg fund. This sounds like Storyscape all over again
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2014 20:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 21:45 |
|
|
I don't get how these projects don't seem to realize that for a lot of people, part of the appeal of face-to-face RPGs is that you don't need electronics or smartphones or tablets to play them. They're all trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2014 20:21
|
|