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Trustworthy posted:I feel pretty dumb that a significant portion of my income already comes from self-publishing, and yet I hadn't even considered that angle. Thanks for reconnecting my loose wires! Chaosium isn't a bad tree to bark up. They've got their submissions guidelines laid out here. They're also looking for fiction submissions, if that's in your wheelhouse.
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 00:36 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 15:38 |
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On the one hand I get it. On the other hand nearly every AP I watch/listen to is predominantly white dudes and sometimes white gals. I can see that the sheer cost of the game sends a different message, but it still seems weird to single MCG out for this.
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 00:57 |
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Someone better not show them Games Workshop bat reps, unless I’m missing something,
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 01:03 |
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dwarf74 posted:On the one hand I get it. On the other hand nearly every AP I watch/listen to is predominantly white dudes and sometimes white gals. I can see that the sheer cost of the game sends a different message, but it still seems weird to single MCG out for this. Well I mean it's also Monte Cook's ludicrously expensive bespoke gaming experience with custom molded plastic feelies because it's so deep maaaannnnn.
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 01:20 |
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I think we'd need to establish whether or not you're actually missing anything by not having The Invisible Sun as part of your gaming experience first.
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 01:25 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I think we'd need to establish whether or not you're actually missing anything by not having The Invisible Sun as part of your gaming experience first. Why don't you have your gaming group buy it for you to find out?
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 01:31 |
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Yeah GW really seems to be a significantly bigger offender in how disgusting the privilege involved is.
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 02:14 |
Alien Rope Burn posted:I think we'd need to establish whether or not you're actually missing anything by not having The Invisible Sun as part of your gaming experience first. Has anyone been posting reviews, play reports?
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 02:20 |
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Oh wow that is some of the weakest stuff to be grandstanding about how great MCG is over.
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 02:24 |
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LatwPIAT posted:Oh wow that is some of the weakest stuff to be grandstanding about how great MCG is over. Someone who's buddies with Zak S doesn't need a good reason to grandstand. The greater the terribleness the better, really.
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 02:35 |
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Milotic posted:Someone better not show them Games Workshop bat reps, unless I’m missing something, Also, MtG tournaments.
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 05:24 |
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Kurieg posted:Why don't you have your gaming group buy it for you to find out? I'm just not ready to have the very nature of roleplaying be changed.
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 14:30 |
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I cant wait to buy a copy from my local Goodwill
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 15:55 |
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Barudak posted:I cant wait to buy a copy from my local Goodwill I'm not sure they'd take something that appeared to be a gigantic lament configuration.
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 16:11 |
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So are people actually streaming Monte Cook's Big Box of Mystery now?
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 16:15 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:So are people actually streaming Monte Cook's Big Box of Mystery now? I don't think there's an RPG out there short of FATAL and its ilk that people won't try to stream
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 16:21 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:So are people actually streaming Monte Cook's Big Box of Mystery now? Can you touch the cube!? Can you touch yourself with Monte Cook's molded plastic hand?
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 16:34 |
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Kurieg posted:Can you touch the cube!? I don't know; is that one of the thousand loving spell cards in the box?
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 17:50 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:I don't think there's an RPG out there short of FATAL and its ilk that people won't try to stream I wouldn't put FATAL past Zak S.
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# ? Aug 12, 2018 18:03 |
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Spending 500 dollars on your hobby is not privilege. Joe Magliano's custom D&D room full of 500 dollar dragon heads and ten thousand bucks in miniatures? Sure. I'm with you on that. Some dude dropping 500 bucks a year on their favorite RPG? Not really.
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# ? Aug 14, 2018 22:11 |
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Spending 500 dollars on your hobby is not privilege.
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# ? Aug 14, 2018 22:18 |
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Having $500 available to drop in one go on what does largely amount to a vanity item is not the same as spending $500 in increments across a year. Could have saved up for it?
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# ? Aug 14, 2018 22:21 |
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Angrymog posted:Could have saved up for it? And honestly even that's not really the point of the tweet that started this. It's more about creating a $500 vanity item that many people in the hobby can't access, and then repeatedly demonstrating no awareness of the demographics of who can access it. That's the fault of larger structural issues in society, yes. But if you're calling your product "the future of role playing games" and then price it so the majority of people who can afford it are those already advantaged by those structural issues... well, that is pretty much textbook privilege at work.
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# ? Aug 14, 2018 22:32 |
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Having $500 available to drop in one go on what does largely amount to a vanity item is not the same as spending $500 in increments across a year. I'm trying really hard not to be snarky here....if you could put 10 dollars a week into a "fun money" account you have enough to buy this in a year. I have a friend who backed Invisible Sun, he did the 500 dollar tier - it's his only RPG purchase for a while, he's basically theme parking it, it's his big indulgence. The dude is not well off financially, he rents a room at a friend's house. Insane to call that privileged. Edit: Also the 500 dollar bombshell split 5 ways is 100 bucks a person - this is a real bullshit angle of attack IMO. There are VERY few fuckin' hobbies in this world that cost less than 100 bucks every six months or so. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Aug 14, 2018 |
# ? Aug 14, 2018 22:33 |
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Perspective. Average cost of a single NFL ticket, not including parking, to an average team's game: around $200. Bring a partner and add parking and concessions and you're pushing $500. Average cost of a single weekend vacation to a touristy spot, for two people (one hotel room), including gas, hotel, restaurants, and a couple souvenirs... probably around $500. Average cost of a subscription to HBO for a year: around $240. Average cost of a single competitive Magic deck: around $300, maybe? A bit more? The BLS says the average "consumer unit" expense on entertainment for 2016 was $2,913. (Consumer units include families, single persons living alone or sharing a household with others but who are financially independent, or two or more persons living together who share expenses.) Exactly how much you should spend on your hobbies is a matter of personal financial situation, of course. But I think the above numbers suggest that A) even a $500 expenditure on a hobby, if it only happens a few times a year, is entirely in line with normal entertainment spending, and B) One does not have to have above-average means to afford or make such expenditures. For some people, blowing $500 on a single game is too much money to spend. For others, it's fine. I don't think it's reasonable to judge someone on this dollar amount unless you know something more about their personal finances. e. For the record, I think Cook's game isn't worth $500, but mostly because I think he's a hack and the quality is lacking in that respect, not because I think too many people can't afford a $500 product. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Aug 14, 2018 |
# ? Aug 14, 2018 22:41 |
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:I'm trying really hard not to be snarky here....if you could put 10 dollars a week into a "fun money" account you have enough to buy this in a year. In fact this describes exactly the problem the tweet raises. As you just pointed out, this is a game that was expensive to the point that it's his one big indulgence, that as a result it will be his only RPG purchase for quite some time. The way everything around Invisible Sun is presented, including the cast of the actual play, strongly presents a world view that fails to acknowledge just how much of an opportunity cost this is for many people in the hobby. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Aug 14, 2018 |
# ? Aug 14, 2018 22:42 |
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I'll be honest, any hobby object that costs 500 dollars, sight unseen, is pretty much making it clear that only the truly dedicated (and why should they be?) and the well-off will go for it. The future of the hobby isn't 'people buy whatever Monte Cook makes because he made it,' I hope. And the cost is basically deeply unnecessary from everything we've seen; the board game Mysterium costs 10% as much and appears to involve at least as much art and I'm certain more than 1/10th the bits. ^^^^Comrade Gorbash said it better
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# ? Aug 14, 2018 22:44 |
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Gorbash, I really think you are right about this being a poorly-priced product in terms of ignoring the normal pricing of competitive products. But I think tying the price point into a discussion of privilege is something of a stretch. All products that are available in several different kinds and price points include some that are priced at the high end, and that's hardly a situation unique or special to gaming. It's not like Monte Cook is deBeers, part of a gaming cartel conspiring to keep game product prices high: if anything, most RPG products seem to be priced so low that almost nobody can make a living making them. Maybe Monte Cook pricing this thing at $500 is a tiny step towards normalizing the idea that RPG products should cost enough to provide a living wage to the people who make them...
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# ? Aug 14, 2018 22:49 |
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Yeah I don't think it's any crazier to spend $500 on an rpg than it is to spend it on a television. I realize a book and some miniatures or whatever (guilty admission: I have no clue what this product is other than "an rpg"), but I think people are conditioned to think it's normal to spend money on what's obviously a big chunk of physical materials the way they wouldn't on a book, even if the latter involves just as much labor in its creation.
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# ? Aug 14, 2018 22:52 |
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Yup. And I suspect that RPG players who self-identify as such spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on games they'll never play, which... well, still isn't necessarily a waste, if reading and collecting those books provides entertainment value. I do not want to defend Cook's thing. All the impressions I've gotten of it, from when it was first kickstarted to now and based on others' discussions of it, is that it's definitely not "worth" $500. But luxury products exist and they're all tied into systems of privilege and income inequality etc. and singling out monte cook's latest box game as a notable instance of privilege and inequality feels to me like an especially underwhelming and unimportant data point.
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# ? Aug 14, 2018 23:03 |
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RPG products as a whole, are extremely inexpensive relative to the amount of labor that goes into them and enjoyment received from them. I'd be happy if products were more expensive up front, if and only if that money actually goes to game designers, artists, who currently are paid peanuts by large publishing houses. If fixing the problem requires $500 rpg products becoming more common, bring it on. Privilege is assuming you're entitled to hundreds of hours of enjoyment for a group of 4-6 for $50. If you are genuinely put into the position of having to choose between playing the expensive rpg, or feeding your children, pirate the drat thing and do both. Otherwise, it'd still be quite inexpensive per hour if it were double that.
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# ? Aug 14, 2018 23:09 |
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Leperflesh posted:Perspective. I mean, I don't 100% disagree that it's not a crazy amount and all but you get a major issue with thinks like plummeting vacation rates and NFL stadiums and all is that a huge amount of people super can't afford to have those as 'hobbies' either, right? Like, yea man I agree for a hobby dropping a big chunk of change for a long term enjoyment thing isn't unusual but yea there's a fairly statistically significant amount of people in the country that can't do that without assistance and the whole thing of recreation slowly becoming more and more of a 'higher income' world is a pretty real pressing issue when talking about issues like privilege and social dynamics.
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# ? Aug 14, 2018 23:20 |
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sexpig by night posted:I mean, I don't 100% disagree that it's not a crazy amount and all but you get a major issue with thinks like plummeting vacation rates and NFL stadiums and all is that a huge amount of people super can't afford to have those as 'hobbies' either, right? Like, yea man I agree for a hobby dropping a big chunk of change for a long term enjoyment thing isn't unusual but yea there's a fairly statistically significant amount of people in the country that can't do that without assistance and the whole thing of recreation slowly becoming more and more of a 'higher income' world is a pretty real pressing issue when talking about issues like privilege and social dynamics. Sure. Income inequality and wage stagnation are real and pressing issues. Monte Cook's contribution to them is so trivial and insignificant as to be absurd to even bring up. e, and more broadly I think it's generally an error to place blame on the creators of luxury products; I'd much rather see people getting paid better and see the wage gap closing.
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# ? Aug 14, 2018 23:21 |
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Leperflesh posted:Sure. Income inequality and wage stagnation are real and pressing issues. Monte Cook's contribution to them is so trivial and insignificant as to be absurd to even bring up. 100% agree there, I just think it's unfair to completely deny that sadly in our capitalist hellhole dystopia hobbies like, say, magic and warhams and these weird prestige RPG products and all do involve some level of social privilege to be able to 'fully enjoy'. It's the meme where a pig's laughing while two worker's fight then gets scared when they get up together, it's a lovely situation but yea, the root cause isn't Monte Cook.
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# ? Aug 14, 2018 23:28 |
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The real privilege is being able to convince yourself that giving Monte Cook $500 for a "prestige RPG" is a worthwhile expenditure.
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# ? Aug 14, 2018 23:36 |
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:I'm trying really hard not to be snarky here....if you could put 10 dollars a week into a "fun money" account you have enough to buy this in a year. Many people do not have the ability to do this, for a large variety of reasons. Many more people just flat out do not have the ability to drop $500 of their money on anything that isn't rent or keeping their car running so they can get to work and keep making just enough money to not end up homeless and starving. $500 is a lot of money no matter how you slice it. The ability to spend it on something that isn't strictly necessary for your survival absolutely is privilege. It doesn't matter that your friend isn't well-off and rents a room in a friend's house, he is still more privileged than many other people because privilege is not a binary state, it's a scale*. *Technically it's a number of different scales. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Aug 15, 2018 |
# ? Aug 15, 2018 00:37 |
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I see spending 500 dollars on invisible sun as a bad thing because invisible sun is dumb. I can't really knock the middle class having money to throw around, but I can laugh at spending 500 bucks on an rpg that probably isn't good. At least get one of those Cthulhu board games with the giant models.
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# ? Aug 15, 2018 00:47 |
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More than anything I'm upset that people are paying Monte Cook for something RPG related.
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# ? Aug 15, 2018 02:21 |
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Also bear in mind buying a game line can be similarly expensive. you just don't think of it that way because you're nickeled and dimed. Granted, is a shelf of Vampire: the Requiem or whatever more or less valuable than Invisible Sun? In any case, if Invisible Sun is privileged, wouldn't any game line of sufficient size be equivalent?
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# ? Aug 15, 2018 02:28 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 15:38 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Also bear in mind buying a game line can be similarly expensive. you just don't think of it that way because you're nickeled and dimed. RPGs, by contrast, are cheap. Most people participate in the hobby by buying a single corebook, maybe a splatbook or two, and a set of funny dice. Lots of people manage to spend even less than that. Cook's ridiculous $500 mystery-campaign-in-a-box for people with more money than sense is at the highest end of ridiculous RPG spending, and it's still a bargain compared to any other hobby.
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# ? Aug 15, 2018 04:44 |