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Kai Tave posted:I think the bigger criticism I have of the art being previewed for Hack the Planet is that all of it basically looks like someone took a photo of a person and then sort of drew the clothes and cyberware around them. It almost looks like they tossed photos and Poser in a blender and it puree.
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Mar 2, 2018 00:08
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| # ? May 14, 2024 14:30 |
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On the subject of revolutionary RPGs, The Spire sent out links to the finalized pdf to backers the other day and says the files should be at the printers by the end of the week.
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Mar 2, 2018 00:17
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Dawgstar posted:That's fair. I didn't realize that ND was doing so bad on their later releases. After 20+ years of being a Palladium fan and then mostly an interested observer, I find it's too easy to just dump all the blame on Kev's shoulders. It's worth mentioning that Ninja Division was only really involved with the Kickstarter for the first year before walking, but it's not perfectly clear if they stayed that things would have turned out far differently. Kevin Siembieda was intensely unprofessional (based on the Kickstarter updates, and rumors that the break was pretty acrimonious) and likely drove Ninja Division to walk away from the project, but they also likely left it in a bad state it probably wasn't ever going to recover from. And walk they did, which was probably a smart move for Ninja Division, but they also left backers in the lurch. Whether or not the Kickstarter was partly their responsibility... well, that's folks to decide for themselves. But I think a lot of factors played into it making the mess backers were left with. Mind, Ninja Division walking probably the best moment Siembieda had to try and salvage what little he could of Palladium's reputation (such as it is), but instead he doubled down and insisted Palladium could finish it anyway and four years later...
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Mar 2, 2018 01:04
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dwarf74 posted:I don't think so? I mean the artwork is pretty clear at least. if you follow this through, then the old men, the faith, and the makers would all be on the side of the regime. if you recast the faith as like quakers or something, yeah okay i could see that. i don't know of any existing nationalist group that wouldn't immediately side with a regime promising to defend white people from those four groups listed on the poster, so the old men are unsalvageable. the makers would of course be bankrolling the whole operation so that just leaves the party, who are a parody of the people who would be too fragmented to do anything the concept of "people who get superpowers from mysterious numbers stations fight a fascist regime" but the factions they've come up with are just really dumb
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Mar 2, 2018 01:43
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dwarf74 posted:Best to abandon hope now, friend. You are never seeing money back without legal action or a state attorney general who feels like dealing with the nightmare. Haha oh man no I've never and will never give Palladium Books money. I was just curious about the particulars of what invoicing someone through PayPal looks like, especially when it's punitive. Meanwhile, someone alleges they successfully got a chargeback through Discover.
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Mar 2, 2018 01:44
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Mors Rattus posted:So basically, they'd almost have to be sued in Michigan for small claims? Probably not. There's no question that they can be sued in Michigan; whether or not they can be sued in any other state just depends on a) the laws of that state and b) whether or not they did enough business with that state to where they should expect to get sued there. So, like, Kickstarter is in New York, and based on the amount of business Palladium does with Kickstarter, in particular as it relates to this, so you should probably be able to argue that you can sue Palladium in New York. I would tend to think that because Palladium was marketing a product over the internet, most state courts would find that they had jurisdiction over it. Here are some Wikipedia articles that lay out the basics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-arm_jurisdiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Shoe_Co._v._Washington https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World-Wide_Volkswagen_Corp._v._Woodson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zippo_Manufacturing_Co._v._Zippo_Dot_Com,_Inc.
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Mar 2, 2018 01:52
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Serf posted:the concept of "people who get superpowers from mysterious numbers stations fight a fascist regime" but the factions they've come up with are just really dumb The dude was basically espousing Horseshoe Theory and bragging about dialoging with fascists, he was never going to be good.
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Mar 2, 2018 01:56
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:The dude was basically espousing Horseshoe Theory and bragging about dialoging with fascists, he was never going to be good. To be fair I don't think he ever claimed to be dialoging with fascists, he said that his political consultants for the game were one guy who spent time overseas doing missionary and charity work and one libertarian wonk, and this is apparently what provided him with the expertise to deftly and skillfully create a game about magical I Can't Believe It's Not Fascism where you have to team up with ethno-statist militias, neo-Stalinists, and the 1%.
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Mar 2, 2018 02:03
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Serf posted:if you follow this through, then the old men, the faith, and the makers would all be on the side of the regime.
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Mar 2, 2018 02:11
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Kai Tave posted:To be fair I don't think he ever claimed to be dialoging with fascists, he said that his political consultants for the game were one guy who spent time overseas doing missionary and charity work and one libertarian wonk, and this is apparently what provided him with the expertise to deftly and skillfully create a game about magical I Can't Believe It's Not Fascism where you have to team up with ethno-statist militias, neo-Stalinists, and the 1%. i too can envision a world where ushanka kid, mark zuckerberg, some atomwaffen subhuman and jerry falwell jr team up to save america
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Mar 2, 2018 02:19
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There's a strain of thought among the far-right that the nazis were actually a "left wing" movement because they were "collectivist" and used state power to plan the economy. Please release your pearls, I know how inaccurate everything in that statement is--it's kind of a 'No True Scotsman' pull where pure, unvarnished right-wingness is support only of the individual and individual rights, basically a hijacking of anarchy, and also an attempt to absolve right wing thought of its greatest crimes. I think that may be where the author is getting the idea their fascists could be "politically neutral" in any way.
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Mar 2, 2018 02:21
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We know from history that the rise to power of totalitarian movements usually involves brutal purges of elements of the movement that lose out in the power struggle (Hitler vs. Rohm, Lenin vs. the Mensheviks, Stalin vs. everyone) so I can see a sliver of a justification of a fascist who has a massive bone to pick with the fascist government (his faction finished in second place and he lost everything) and teaming up with other disaffected types to fight against it. I don't think that's what this game is going for, though.
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Mar 2, 2018 02:27
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Terrible Opinions posted:Even if you wanted to have it be "all these groups could turn on you later" the faith could have just been some minority religion that in the West tends to get attacked by fascists like Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Nation of Islam, or any of the other sort that would get herded into camps if the fascists win. If the groups you could ally with were Nation of Islam, tankies, Quakers, and a different group of tankies who hate the first group, I would've backed that so hard.
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Mar 2, 2018 02:27
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Kai Tave posted:With all due respect if you had misgivings from the start I'm not sure why you decided to throw your money at it anyway instead of simply waiting to see if it funded, and then if it somehow magically turned out good picking it up after it was released. I'm only in it for a PDF, so it's not like I Palladium'd it up, here. (e: Ah gently caress I actually went for the softcover. poo poo.) Serf posted:if you follow this through, then the old men, the faith, and the makers would all be on the side of the regime. And wow would it be nice to have a lefty group that isn't secretly 'YAY STALIN!' dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Mar 2, 2018 |
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Mar 2, 2018 02:29
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It would be great if the game used the stupid infighting and cliques of the left as a mechanic We can either sneak into the building, go in guns blazing or... the third option. We've made contact with a group of radical 2nd wave feminists who can get us the passcodes and uniforms we need to walk right in. But in return, they want us to not let trans women use the ladies room in our hideout.
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Mar 2, 2018 02:36
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If we help break this Trotskyist out of jail, we'll have access to his printing and distribution networks. But that'll make us lifelong enemies of the tankies, who will tweet increasingly convoluted conspiracy theories about how we're secretly working for the CIA.
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Mar 2, 2018 02:42
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Using the anti-fascist side of the Spanish civil war (republicanists, normal socialists, USSR backed tankies, and anarchists) as your base would probably have been the best idea.
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Mar 2, 2018 02:45
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It's just been discovered that one of our informants re-tweeted a rape joke four years ago. We have to kill him.
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Mar 2, 2018 02:45
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Leperflesh posted:I loving SPOTTED IT Sorry, was posting while dumb. I meant nobody doing the editing (hahaha) spotted it. And you're completely right, tenet/tenant is going the way of decimate and literally. Guy Goodbody posted:It would be great if the game used the stupid infighting and cliques of the left as a mechanic If we're doing that, I want to know if the system supports pee v pee conflict, 'cause I gotta go somewhere. Bieeanshee fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Mar 2, 2018 |
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Mar 2, 2018 03:00
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Terrible Opinions posted:Using the anti-fascist side of the Spanish civil war (republicanists, normal socialists, USSR backed tankies, and anarchists) as your base would probably have been the best idea. I would be bad at this because I'd dack the tankies and stuff them into a locker as soon as the GM lets me talk
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Mar 2, 2018 03:03
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I was going to ask why the only vaguely left-wing group are tankies, but then I remembered this is written by the guy who said that the left wing of the political spectrum doesn't do armed resistance. e- Here's what he said when someone messaged him the thread's concerns before: quote:Thank you for supporting the project The game's politics do not align with You see, you are merely teaming up with a bunch of wingnuts until they go killcrazy, too! Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Mar 2, 2018 |
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Mar 2, 2018 03:37
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Game by a literal Chad
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Mar 2, 2018 03:50
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"Armed resistance against against state tyranny is very right wing." Why on earth would anyone believe that?
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Mar 2, 2018 03:58
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Guy Goodbody posted:"Armed resistance against against state tyranny is very right wing."
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Mar 2, 2018 04:05
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dwarf74 posted:I don't think so? I mean the artwork is pretty clear at least. This is a poster from the game, right? So why aren't those arms the four factions? An LGBT faction fighting for survival and their rights, a commie/socialist faction that wants a better/more just world, a liberal faction that doesn't really want anything to change from the way they were in the 90s but knows what's going on right now is wrong, and an immigrant faction of refugees who fled from one terrible place only to end up in this even worse place but they are sick of running. That seems like a much more solid lineup than 3 right wing militias with different motives for being right wing militias and a parody of union workers. gnome7 fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Mar 2, 2018 |
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Mar 2, 2018 04:14
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gnome7 posted:This is a poster from the game, right? So why aren't those arms the four factions? I've borrowed what you said here and posted a version of it in the KS comments - hope you don't mind.
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Mar 2, 2018 04:25
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UrbanLabyrinth posted:I've borrowed what you said here and posted a version of it in the KS comments - hope you don't mind. No, that's cool. It just seems like such an obvious oversight - make your propaganda posters actually aimed against people the heroes are playing as! Also, as an aside, the fact he designed the game to only have four factions is a flaw in and of itself. If I were writing a game where disparate factions must team up for the greater good, I'd have written a dozen different factions, and have the PCs pick and choose among them to create the 3-5 faction group they need to actually succeed.
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Mar 2, 2018 04:26
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Weird Radio-Transhumanism Facism Fighting hack for Blades In The Dark when?
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Mar 2, 2018 04:35
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Kai Tave posted:
Is this really all the factions? Are we sure there isn't a trade union or immigrant faction or something that never goes counter-revolutionary?
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Mar 2, 2018 04:45
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gnome7 posted:A liberal faction that doesn't really want anything to change from the way they were in the 90s but knows what's going on right now is wrong, Keep in mind the game is set in an alt-80s, but some post-hippy faction could work for that too rumble in the bunghole posted:Is this really all the factions? Are we sure there isn't a trade union or immigrant faction or something that never goes counter-revolutionary? iirc, the PCs have their own faction that's just all Adam Jensen cyber-aug fighters. They have to babysit the other factions.
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Mar 2, 2018 04:46
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In terms of games which are at the very least worth reading for interesting ideas, and a much more palatable revolutionary scenario to boot, The Spire seems pretty neat on a casual readthrough. It's only about 180 pages or so, but it packs a lot of evocative plot hooks and setting details and it has some reasonable discussions about setting the tone for the sort of game you're looking to run with regards to how villainous you want the ruling power in charge of the city to be and what lengths you and your players are comfortable with members of the revolution going to in order to take back their city.
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Mar 2, 2018 04:50
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Nuns with Guns posted:iirc, the PCs have their own faction that's just all Adam Jensen cyber-aug fighters. They have to babysit the other factions. If those choices are it, the game's a really cynical take on politics for something starring cyborg antifa. Might as well play shadowrun at that point.
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Mar 2, 2018 04:55
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occamsnailfile posted:There's a strain of thought among the far-right that the nazis were actually a "left wing" movement because they were "collectivist" and used state power to plan the economy. Please release your pearls, I know how inaccurate everything in that statement is--it's kind of a 'No True Scotsman' pull where pure, unvarnished right-wingness is support only of the individual and individual rights, basically a hijacking of anarchy, and also an attempt to absolve right wing thought of its greatest crimes. I think that may be where the author is getting the idea their fascists could be "politically neutral" in any way. While there's some truth that the "nationalism" half of National Socialism was leveraged so that people would hold their noses for the "socialism" half (but only for the herrenvolk), we also know from history that the socialist part was done away with right quick for unvarnished fascism as soon as they got the chance.
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Mar 2, 2018 04:59
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rumble in the bunghole posted:If those choices are it, the game's a really cynical take on politics for something starring cyborg antifa. Might as well play shadowrun at that point. The creator seems really, really invested in the whole "what UNCOMFORTABLE CHOICES will you make to FIGHT THE FASCISTS?" angle and seemingly doesn't care if anyone's response to that is "none of the above, thanks." Like it's not that you couldn't make a game like that work, the problem is just that this dude's lineup of choices are all real dumb because they make no sense as strange bedfellows in the fight against the Unnamed Fascist Regime. When people talk about verisimilitude this is a great example of a lack thereof, if you tell me that gun-clutching survivalists, religious fundamentalists, and the mega-rich are going to band together to oppose a hard right wing fascist government with propaganda that looks like this: then you've completely lost me because I'd have less trouble believing that chemtrails are real and that black salve really does cure cancer. I mean swap out the generically antagonistic Regime for some Half Life style alien occupational force and it at least makes marginally more sense for all these disparate groups to be coming together to oppose the Combine, but even if you did that I still don't want to play a game where the creator thinks it's thought-provoking to ponder the deep philosophical quandaries of "so how much would you like to pal around with ethno-statists, tankies, and religious fundamentalists on a scale of 1-10?"
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Mar 2, 2018 05:08
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Except the Combine are also fairly openly fascist analogues and none of the resistance you team up with in Half-Life are unpleasant right wingers. Except maybe Magnuson, though he could just be a normal douche.
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Mar 2, 2018 05:10
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Is there any reason for it to be set in the 80s? Other than cowardly trying to distance themselves from current politics?
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Mar 2, 2018 05:11
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Guy Goodbody posted:Is there any reason for it to be set in the 80s? Other than cowardly trying to distance themselves from current politics? The justification he gives is it poses an interesting challenge for resistance fighters to have to wage a shadow war in a time period before widespread use of the internet and cellphones. He also describes the game as "cyberpunk" and I'm not sure those two hooks work well together. Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Mar 2, 2018 |
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Mar 2, 2018 05:17
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Terrible Opinions posted:Except the Combine are also fairly openly fascist analogues and none of the resistance you team up with in Half-Life are unpleasant right wingers. Except maybe Magnuson, though he could just be a normal douche. Oh sure, I'm just saying that if you're absolutely intractably married to the "strange bedfellows" angle that you might as well just go for a good old fashioned alien invasion because it's more plausible than right-wingers actually taking up arms against someone promising to stamp out the gays and keep immigrants out. Guy Goodbody posted:Is there any reason for it to be set in the 80s? Other than cowardly trying to distance themselves from current politics? Cyborgs = cyberpunk = the 80s is the thought process, I believe.
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Mar 2, 2018 05:17
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Guy Goodbody posted:Is there any reason for it to be set in the 80s? Other than cowardly trying to distance themselves from current politics? Distancing yourself from real-world politics is probably an essential requirement if you want your gaming groups to not dissolve into vicious angry fighting between the players.
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Mar 2, 2018 05:23
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maybe don't game with people who have political views so incompatible with your own that you try to tear their throat out with your teeth actually that would be an accurate recreation of what would happen if the four factions from this dumb game actually tried to work together so actually maybe go for it
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Mar 2, 2018 05:37
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