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moths posted:It's frustrating when people say Lovecraft was more racist than the times, because the times were really goddamn racist. Much other media from that era has been heavily sanitized, but the fact that someone, anyone was free to be as nakedly bigoted as HPL without consequence should speak volumes about the era. He really was that bad though, and even other racists thought he was weird.
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Nov 23, 2016 01:08
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Lovecraft was racist as gently caress, but that is less important than people copying his works wholesale with an uncritical eye to to ugly poo poo he laced it with. Same with Conan. Nothing wrong with doing more Conan stuff, but you gotta be conscious of the underlying themes.
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Nov 23, 2016 01:14
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Context only matters so much, with both Lovecraft and Howard (or with anyone). You can talk all day about how racist one might "expect" them to be, or how racist they were relative to the times. But the fact remains that we're not taking in their works in the time that it was written; we're reading them now, and with our current lens upon them. It only matters so much if it was acceptable at the time; should we not be bothered by what was considered acceptable? Is someone wrong for not wanting to read/etc something that is, straight-up, pretty racist? Like, it is not okay; the fact that it was considered so once does not make it so. That doesn't mean the work has no merit, but it does mean it's got a fair bit of racism in it. I don't think we should be shying away from that or writing it off as being a distasteful part of a time capsule. There is merit in considering the cultural mores that went into the creation of a work, but those mores don't change the resultant work and I think it's ultimately a bit of a distraction when they're brought up when someone tries to go "yeah this is kind of racist". There's an unspoken, implied "it's more okay because of the culture of the time", even if it isn't necessarily intended. And yeah, I think when taking in something like Conan or Lovecraft's works, it's good to keep in mind the racial biases pressed forward by the works. Taking it as a given as being part of the work goes toward normalizing it, and god knows nerds as a collective love to roll around in excuses to be historically racist. I love me some Conan but the racism needs to be confronted, not waved off.
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Nov 23, 2016 01:23
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neongrey posted:There's an unspoken, implied "it's more okay because of the culture of the time", even if it isn't necessarily intended. This better contextualizes what I was trying to say. "A product of its time" doesn't justify a problematic work - it's an indictment of the environment that enabled its creation.
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Nov 23, 2016 01:54
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I would say that racism is still a product of our time, as has been very obvious to anyone still engaging with the world outside gaming at all for these past months. Also just as much a product of our time as it was then were anti racist sentiment and attitudes. Assholes then were called out and challenged just as they are now and were tolerated and even put into important positions, just as they are now. I always feel like saying that a work is of its time is like saying water is wet, of course it is, but fire is hot too, and anti racist works were just as of the time as racist ones and still are. Basic sentiment: If the people we prefer to identify with as like minded in a given time period would have found it objectionable, it's objectionable. remusclaw fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Nov 23, 2016 |
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Nov 23, 2016 02:51
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That's the other thing too, shunting it off as being of its time is a great way to divorce ourselves from the racism (etc) of our own time. It takes as given that we are somehow better, when, I mean, collectively sure, everyone can use the same water fountain, but let's not kid ourselves; we're not doing as much better as we'd like.
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Nov 23, 2016 03:45
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I think we're pretty much all in accord at this point. It's okay to use Conan or Mythos stuff, just need to be careful about using it exactly as Howard and Lovecraft used them, with no regard for the racism they brought to the table. One last shot in regards to Howard. Dude wasn't just pretending to be racist in his works to appeal to racists. We're talking about a guy who wrote approvingly about the smell of black people being burned "pacifying his fellow tribesmen" in his private letters. Not in a story, but as an example of how things should be done when non-whites get too uppity. We have some evidence that he softened later on, but he's still the guy who thought that a murder trial over a dead Mexican was way too much to-do. If you're only looking at his stories, it's possible to think that maybe the guy wasn't all that racist, but no. He was pretty racist.
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Nov 23, 2016 07:48
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JackMann posted:I think we're pretty much all in accord at this point. It's okay to use Conan or Mythos stuff, just need to be careful about using it exactly as Howard and Lovecraft used them, with no regard for the racism they brought to the table. Didn't know that, and I've clearly got some reading to do. And, I hope that I've been clear, because I have repeatedly stated that Howard's Conan stories - which are the ones I'm familiar with - are definitely both racist and sexist. My impression from reading Conan was that re: sexism, Howard wrote some women characters in a more progressive way than his peers, which I still think is the case: and that re: racism, there were some cases in his stories that were very definitely racist, and others that didn't seem so to me. And, most importantly, I agree with the general sentiment that if we're going to re-use and revisit these stories for pleasure (as opposed to academic study - and I think they do have literary merit, and are worthy of that) - then we have a duty to not just make excuses and then make products that are racist or sexist. Gerund posted:For all of Howard's hatred of civilization, his world-view that we label "the setting" is that the proud aryan race- the Sons of Aryas- is what allowed civilization to manifest in history, and the failures and inherent corruption of civilization around Conan in the Hyborian age was because of a lack of Aryan people. This is worth reading for an introduction to the history of the idea of Aryans. It goes way back, and based on how he frames the origin story (that "...between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas...") I'd guess he was referencing works of the 19th century that attempted to tie the modern era to peoples originating in Atlantis. Racist? Yeah, you betcha, but also not yet contradicted by the hard evidence of humanity's origin in Africa that would be gradually discovered and studied in the 20th century. And likely a mythological basis that Howard could draw on not only for his own inspiration, but that some of his readers would vaguely recognize, lending it more of an air of plausibility. Not dissimilar to Tolkein's "Middle Earth," although Tolkein didn't reference a fundamentally racist concept for his setting (I assume). Point being, "the rise of the Sons of Aryas" isn't Howard specifically winking at Nazis to say "yup Aryan Race, what up brosephs," he's instead giving a nod to one of the less plausible but more mythologically exciting popular theories for why white Europeans were so obviously more successful and better than everyone else, what with them inventing all the best technologies and then sailing all over the world easily conquering all the backwards non-white people. I'm getting a bit lost here, I don't want to seem like I'm defending this. I want people to understand the context, though. e. Howard in particular is obviously borrowing from The Secret Doctrine, although I'm not sure directly - did Lovecraft do the same, perhaps first? Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Nov 24, 2016 |
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Nov 24, 2016 07:47
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While googling about Howard's racism, I came across this article, which - along with his longest reply in the comments - really says what I wanted to say, but better. I imagine the thread is sick of talking about Conan. I'm happy to drop the topic, if so.
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Nov 24, 2016 19:18
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Leperflesh posted:I imagine the thread is sick of talking about Conan. I'm happy to drop the topic, if so. Nah, it's pretty illuminating. It also makes it easy to see why so much of the hobby is the filth pit that it is-- a decent amount of the thematic underpinnings of the hobby are a mess (Lovecraft and Howard, and I've heard some pretty poo poo things about Tolkien as well) so of course the game built on top of them has similar issues. The good thing is there's been plenty of decent fantasy stuff made to draw from and have a better but somewhat different kind of fantasy gaming from. Of course, as soon as anything on the shelves get rearranged (see moves away from using absolute alignment morality, or just making the Drow less racially awful in D&D, to say nothing of D&Disms that are just bad design choices) the old grogs start throwing a poo poo fit. Hell, I might as well be an old grog, but I see how awful the rump end of the hobby can be and I actively want to see something fresh and big tent in hobby before it ends up dying with my generation of nerd shut-ins.
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Nov 24, 2016 20:42
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So, thread's sorta falling off, but I thought I'd share something. My local store runs a business blog that I like reading. Interesting insight into what it takes to run a games store (my key takeaway is do not run a games store). They just announced that they're expanding from one location to 7 locations. 3 of them were other local stores they were absorbing, and keeping the same staff under new ownership. Then two weeks later they announce they're closing one of them, due to stupidly high rent and a huge slowing of the comic book category. 
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Dec 17, 2016 00:46
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Yeah my FLGS is shutting shop and moving to a smaller town, too many shops in the area nowadays and cost of rent as their reasons.
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Dec 17, 2016 00:51
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canyoneer posted:So, thread's sorta falling off, but I thought I'd share something. From one location to seven is insane for almost any brick & mortar. Much less a hobby shop.
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Dec 17, 2016 00:59
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PJOmega posted:From one location to seven is insane for almost any brick & mortar. Much less a hobby shop. I was thinking the exact same thing.
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Dec 17, 2016 01:08
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PJOmega posted:From one location to seven is insane for almost any brick & mortar. Much less a hobby shop. I know, right? Slow rollout though. The locations are diversified across town (this is in the Phoenix area), and the current store is a top 1% worldwide Magic retailer that does a ton of volume. The one they're closing is walking distance from student housing inside ASU campus, so it's unsurprising that the lease is expensive and crappy. I went to a single X-Wing event there and I hated it, because the store was tiny and traffic/parking was a zoo (it didn't help that there was a charity marathon around campus that day and an ASU football home game hours later) It's mostly comic books and Magic, so the comic book decline is probably hitting them hard. The thing I'm most excited for is the 2017 planned 14,000 sq ft location they're opening that's going to add the retro arcade back in and be the largest game store in AZ. We'll see.
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Dec 17, 2016 01:09
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PJOmega posted:From one location to seven is insane for almost any brick & mortar. Much less a hobby shop.
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Dec 17, 2016 01:11
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Now I'm really curious which one it is. I wonder if they'll be stupid enough to try expanding into Tucson?
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Dec 17, 2016 02:16
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I can't remember if Kingdom death was being mentioned here, or another thread, but... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3VzOayLcYs Yeah, I wasn't really interested before. This just confirms all the more. This weird sort of over the top dark style just feels like trying to pander off the Souls game popularity, adding a weird grossness to it (punching off a lion's dick, is this supposed to be funny? The typical lack of clothes in art). The game just looks to be unfairly random too (though, the review of combat isn't super indeph, maybe it's unintentionally misrepresenting it). If it is, then it seems to miss the point of dark souls, which is tough but fair. I backed the Dark Souls game, and I'll see if that's any good.
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Dec 17, 2016 05:04
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I've played Kingdom Death Monsters and enjoyed it quite a lot, I just played it on Tabletop Simulator though so I didn't really see much of the art or much of that stuff really, but I thought the gameplay was fun. And building your armor sets Monster Hunter style is fun if you enjoy that kind of thing. Edit: There is a lot of randomness, but it kind of reminds me of a roguelike? I never played super far into it, but it never felt more unfair then your average roguelike, and you get a lot of chump people that can die to monsters. goldjas fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Dec 17, 2016 |
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Dec 17, 2016 05:10
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Ignoring the art/style - which is definitely worthy of critique but has been covered many times - KD is a game designed for roleplay people (campaign permanence, character growth) and wargame people (high quality minis, lots of rule exceptions, price point), and those groups really don't care about randomness for dice rolls. It definitely isn't designed for board gamer hobbyists who generally expect more control over outcomes than KD offers.
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Dec 17, 2016 05:14
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It sounds like it's not very rewarding if you don't like repeating the same starting scenarios over and over, either
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Dec 17, 2016 06:06
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JackMann posted:Now I'm really curious which one it is. I wonder if they'll be stupid enough to try expanding into Tucson? I really hope not. We can barely sustain the, what, six we currently have? And that's after Hat's Games collapsed in late 2015. And the Game Daze chain collapsed in 2014. Basically the market is already fractured, and I don't think we can speciate any more than we already have.
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Dec 17, 2016 07:03
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Didn't know there were so many Tucson peeps here. I grew up there and I'm there often to see family. The store in question is Desert Sky Games in Gilbert. They are not opening a Tucson location, but they are opening one in Payson of all places. A huge, staple store (Empire Games in Mesa) closed earlier this year, and left a good opportunity for other stores. Word is that Empire was doing just fine as a store, but the owners were tired of the hobby games retail industry and just wanted to move on to something else. I sorta doubt that but whatever. There's some poor dude who just opened a game store in Queen Creek that I'm pretty sure is going to disappear quickly. Hardly anyone lives out there, and the guy posts things on the local Facebook Xwing group for X Wing events all the time. At 4PM the guy created an event for a $5 tournament at 6 that night, prize is the (then new) Heroes of the Resistance pack which is $40 MSRP. Then at 8AM the next morning he posted photos of the 3 dudes who went out for the event.  When I still lived in Tucson (pre 2012), I think the only game store I ever knew about was Game Daze in the mall. Since then, I have only been to Tucson Games and Gadgets and TBH it was sort of a bad experience. I was browsing killing time while my wife was getting her hair cut. I asked to use the bathroom, and they told me I had to buy something first. So, uhh, they got an $8 sale for a pack of Dragon Shield sleeves and I don't expect I'll ever go back.
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Dec 17, 2016 07:31
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canyoneer posted:When I still lived in Tucson (pre 2012), I think the only game store I ever knew about was Game Daze in the mall. Sorry about your TGG experience, that's kind of weird. I go there semi-regularly, and they do have a rule that you have to at least buy a soda or snack item to use the game tables, but this is the first I've heard about the bathrooms. If you liked Game Daze, the manager opened his own store up on Broadway and Pantano called Isle of Games. It's pretty decent, if you're ever in town again. Probably for the best that you never ran into Amazing Discoveries, Heroes & Villains Comics, or the now-defunct Hat's Games. They're all various degrees of stanky unfriendly nerd basement.
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Dec 17, 2016 08:23
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Yeah, Games and Gadgets isn't my favorite store. Buddy of mine was running a game there for a while, but they required everyone to buy something for the use of the room. I prefer Isle's method of just having the DM pay a set fee each time. Or using one of the public tables for free. G&G actually started up a new location at the Tucson Mall, speaking of expansion. We'll see how that goes. It's a nice space, and there's nothing super close there, but... Again, how many game stores can Tucson support, even with the university and the base? Maybe we ought to have a Tucson goon-meet sometime.
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Dec 17, 2016 08:28
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Countblanc posted:Ignoring the art/style - which is definitely worthy of critique but has been covered many times - KD is a game designed for roleplay people (campaign permanence, character growth) and wargame people (high quality minis, lots of rule exceptions, price point), and those groups really don't care about randomness for dice rolls. It definitely isn't designed for board gamer hobbyists who generally expect more control over outcomes than KD offers. Yeah. I've played few sessions of it too and it isn't balanced boardgame at all. Flavor trumps balance in design every time. For example child birth: at the start you need to get parents on the mood to copulate and roll a die, on 1 parent dies on child birth, mid numbers give pretty much nothing and with high numbers a child is born to tribe. (simplified explanation). After few rounds you get to choose what kind of family values your tribe will have that modifies this. The choices: Caring and nurturing: When trying to get babies, roll twice and pick higher. That is pretty good right? OR THIS IS SPARTA! (not actual name): Babies get +1 strength. Roll twice on baby-table and pick worse result. The sparta option is clearly worse and will probably wipe your tribe as you can't replace population that dies naturally while hunting dickmonsters.
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Dec 17, 2016 13:50
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Hey, good news, guys! There's a Kingdom Death thread! I made it myself, just for you.
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Dec 17, 2016 18:38
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Desert Sky isn't opening a bunch of locations entirely, at least half of that was acquiring established stores that were going under and rebranding, as I understand it from talking with the owner on the retailer forums. I get the occasional request, but I wouldn't dream of bringing in comics at this point in time. Diamond is an absolutely awful company from what everyone says, and comics requires a lot of process and maintenance to pull off. I'd rather just sling cards and board games.
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Dec 17, 2016 21:56
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Dr. Clockwork posted:I get the occasional request, but I wouldn't dream of bringing in comics at this point in time. Diamond is an absolutely awful company from what everyone says, and comics requires a lot of process and maintenance to pull off. I'd rather just sling cards and board games. You pretty much have to sell off your unsold stock, offline or online, within a month to stay on top and for your stock to retain its value. Having a big back catalog is a bad idea, especially today with Marvel Unlimited, and you want to be as lean as possible.
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Dec 17, 2016 22:08
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:You pretty much have to sell off your unsold stock, offline or online, within a month to stay on top and for your stock to retain its value. Having a big back catalog is a bad idea, especially today with Marvel Unlimited, and you want to be as lean as possible. Yeah a lot of people who are successful with comics say if you do it right it can make a lot of money, but it just seems like a huge undertaking and I'm not interested in taking the plunge anytime soon. Especially after seeing DSG dump them and reading his reasoning on the state of the industry.
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Dec 17, 2016 22:13
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Dr. Clockwork posted:Desert Sky isn't opening a bunch of locations entirely, at least half of that was acquiring established stores that were going under and rebranding, as I understand it from talking with the owner on the retailer forums. Yep, 3 are acquisitions and one is an announced closure two weeks after the acquisition announcement. All I know is from being in the store and reading the dudes blog.
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Dec 17, 2016 22:16
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Foolster41 posted:I can't remember if Kingdom death was being mentioned here, or another thread, but... It's a crap review that doesn't give a really any sense of how the game works in practice. You can always go watch out video series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gF6v61pxAU&t=169s
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Dec 18, 2016 03:37
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It's not the job of a review to demonstrate how the game is played. That being said, the review totally gives you an idea of how the game works: Poorly
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Dec 18, 2016 04:21
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dr_ether posted:It's a crap review that doesn't give a really any sense of how the game works in practice. You can always go watch out video series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gF6v61pxAU&t=169s One's a review of the game, the other's a play session of the game. They're different beasts.
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Dec 18, 2016 06:48
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Bruceski posted:One's a review of the game, the other's a play session of the game. They're different beasts. Yeah. I agree that the review is a bit sparatic, but I think it's mostly due to how big the game is, and how little they can really say without spoiling it. I guess I wasn't trying to say that KD:M is bad, just that it's not something I'm interested in at all. If I were going to play a sort of board-game style roleplaying thing (and there are a ton of them), I'd want something less involved than a RPG (and there's lots, like Super Dungeon Explore, Catacombs or Mice and Mystics[*]) Heck, as I said, even Dark Souls looks to be pretty dense but still MUCH lighter in terms of number of cards (holy crap does KD:M have a lot of cards) and do dads (I might be wrong, it's not out yet). If I was going to play a full RPG experience, i'd rather just play 13th age, or FATE or a more light game like a Apocalypse RPG. [*}I admit, I've only gotten a chance to play the first once, and I haven't played that last one, but looks fairly light, and I've been wanting to try it
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Dec 18, 2016 07:08
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Bruceski posted:One's a review of the game, the other's a play session of the game. They're different beasts. Sure but the review gives a bad impression of how the game is actually well organised if you make use of the tray and follow the book. It is not the mass of cards strewn across the board as the review would make you think. Plus it gives the impression that loads of models are on the board at anyone time, when again, that is not the case. So while sure it is a review, it gives no impression of what the game is like in practice. Ultimately the review just gives you a sense of how the reviewer is uncomfortable with a huge box that he has not taken the time to look at properly (again it may seem like a lot of paperwork, but honestly it's less than an rpg), and on the one hand quite rightly says some people will like the tone of the game and others will not, but then in the next moment makes a sweeping generalisation about people who own the game are "that weirdo cousin with a porn stash". It's a level of patronising moral judgement that is not needed. That is a matter of individual taste, which is not a reflection on a persons own public morality.
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Dec 18, 2016 18:29
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Save your white knighting for the KD thread. We've hashed over this game a dozen times in half as many threads and it's really no longer appropriate for the industry thread unless they do something more noteworthy than a reprint Kickstarter.
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Dec 18, 2016 18:39
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dr_ether posted:Sure but the review gives a bad impression of how the game is actually well organised if you make use of the tray and follow the book. It is not the mass of cards strewn across the board as the review would make you think. The reviewer never said the cards or minis were a haphazard mess. And he's also said he's played it multiple times and plans on playing it even more. Ultimately he's intrigued by the game but finds that it's a dense game, and it takes time to acclimate to all of the rules. The closest he comes to any of that is saying that a few of the rules or systems feel redundant or extraneous. Also with the amount of sexualized tits in it, yeah it does come off as the kind of thing your weird cousin would keep under his bed, so just own up to it being a gory, titty game and move on with your life
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Dec 18, 2016 18:44
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Does anyone know what happened to the original PDF version of Sixth World, the PbtA Shadowrun game? I thought it was a free thing, but it seems to have entirely disappeared from the internet. Is it available anywhere? Happy to buy it if it's for sale now.
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Dec 20, 2016 06:26
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AlphaDog posted:Does anyone know what happened to the original PDF version of Sixth World, the PbtA Shadowrun game? They may have discontinued it in light of The Sprawl's popularity. Google is your friend, though; old PbTA hacks never really die.
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Dec 20, 2016 11:20
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