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TheDiceMustRoll
Jul 23, 2018

Coolness Averted posted:

Sorry "when how bad the culture was" like all the stories of how poorly minority contractors were treated and stuff came up about how lovely and not actually progressive WotC, especially the D&D side was coming to light around 2018 and 2019 iirc. Not some "We at WotC have decided D&D is a bad game, and our culture reflects it."

lol okay I was really confused, the game you make being poo poo isn't a firing offence anywhere, especially if it makes money while being terrible.

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Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Big Hubris posted:

Did Wizards commit someone or was that another company?

That was the folks who make Cards Against Humanity.

PoontifexMacksimus
Feb 14, 2012

KingKalamari posted:

Mystara's actually a pretty rad setting, and sort of the D&D campaign setting equivalent to the Burgess Shale: It was one of the earliest official settings created for D&D but took a much different trajectory in terms of tone and worldbuilding than its contemporaries. So it has a lot of details that are similar to, but different from the expected cliche of a D&D setting. It's also weird in the raddest loving way possible.. I've actually been tossing around the idea of doing a FATAL and friends write-up of the setting as a whole for a while now.

That said: Mystara is also home to some infamously/inexplicably racist moments, like the race of Austrailian Aborigine stereotype lizard people and the Polynesian Islander stereotype orcs of the infamous module Drums on Fire Mountain.

Fun fact: I've come to suspect that Raven C.S. McCracken's infamous World of Synnibarr evolved out of a Basic D&D campaign set in Mystara. It explains where the idea of adventurers ascending to godhood once they reach a high enough level, the fact Synnibarr is hollow and has civilizations on its interior, the weird relationship Synnibarr has with race/class distinction and a bunch of other weird setting details are things that were also present (And better explained) in BECMI/Mystara.

That would be an extremely cool F&F, the setting has always seemed very interesting (accounting for the more poorly aged parts as you note)

Edit:

shimmy shimmy posted:

some part of wizards has to take a stand against white supremacy, and it's not going to be DnD

:holymoley:

PoontifexMacksimus fucked around with this message at 13:50 on Sep 28, 2021

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

KingKalamari posted:

Fun fact: I've come to suspect that Raven C.S. McCracken's infamous World of Synnibarr evolved out of a Basic D&D campaign set in Mystara. It explains where the idea of adventurers ascending to godhood once they reach a high enough level, the fact Synnibarr is hollow and has civilizations on its interior, the weird relationship Synnibarr has with race/class distinction and a bunch of other weird setting details are things that were also present (And better explained) in BECMI/Mystara.
That never occurred to me before! I suppose the world-ship idea must have come from Metamorphosis Alpha.

Bony-Eared Assfish
Oct 4, 2018

Halloween Jack posted:

That never occurred to me before! I suppose the world-ship idea must have come from Metamorphosis Alpha.

I thought everyone knew by now that Raven C.S. McCracken was a fictional character created by forums posters theironjef and Gargamelsmurf for their podcast.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

gradenko_2000 posted:

I wouldn't rule out Dragonlance. Didn't WOTC have that whole writing deal with the authors that they got into a legal fight over?

It's referred to as one of the key settings in the core book, and they don't have to include Weis or Hickman. It might be controversial, but it's not like Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide has Greenwood in the credits.

KingKalamari
Aug 24, 2007

Fuzzy dice, bongos in the back
My ship of love is ready to attack
Weren't the ownership rights on Dragonlance a little bit more complicated? I know that Wizards basically has ownership of the rights to the Forgotten Realms setting provided they abide by the terms set in the initial acquisition agreement they made with Greenwood (Which, funnily enough, is probably the reason FR has become the default setting for 5e since that contract specifies Wizards has to publish a minimum number of Forgotten Realms supplements per year to retain said ownership), but I think Weiss and Hickman retained a greater degree of ownership of the Dragonlance setting through Sovereign Press and would need to be involved in official uses of the setting?

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Bony-Eared Assfish posted:

I thought everyone knew by now that Raven C.S. McCracken was a fictional character created by forums posters theironjef and Gargamelsmurf for their podcast.

Please my mind isn't large enough for that many gladii and mustaches. Also his post RPG career where he's been trying to become like a reality show host or something was outside the scope of our predictions.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!
I remember that when InQuest included Synnibarr in a Worst Games of All Time list, he send them a rambling letter where he bragged about his TV hosting career and his deadly martial arts skills. So that actually isn't a surprise to me.

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

theironjef posted:

Please my mind isn't large enough for that many gladii and mustaches. Also his post RPG career where he's been trying to become like a reality show host or something was outside the scope of our predictions.
In one of the old grognards.txt threads there is a post of his recent (full color) business card, which features him in his Star Wars LARP outfit and full details of his particular lightsaber fighting technique

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!
Juyo, right? He seems like a Form VII type of guy.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
I like Soresu / Form III

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



KingKalamari posted:

Weren't the ownership rights on Dragonlance a little bit more complicated?

There was a big lawsuit between Wotc and Hickman/Weis over Dragonlance novels being cancelled, that wrapped up earlier this year.

https://boundingintocomics.com/2020...hout-prejudice/

quote:

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance Lawsuit Against Wizards Of The Coast Dismissed Without Prejudice
John F. Trent December 21, 2020

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance lawsuit against Wizards of the Coast was dismissed without prejudice.

Weis and Hickman initially sued Wizards of the Coast for over $30 million claiming they breached a License Agreement for a new Dragonlance trilogy.

The lawsuit revealed that Weis and Hickman had contracted with Wizards of the Coast to license a new Dragonlance trilogy that would be published by Penguin Random House.

It went on to detail that Weis and Hickman had begun working on the trilogy and had even sent Wizards of the Coast the manuscript for the first book, who approved it in January 2020. Even foreign language editions were reportedly being translated.

However, by August 2020 the lawsuit claimed that Wizard of the Coast “would not approve any furthers Drafts of Book 1 or any subsequent works in the trilogy, effectively repudiating and terminating the Licensing Agreement.”

The suit went on to allege that “no reason was provided for the termination” and “the termination was wholly arbitrary and without contractual basis.”

It goes on to claim that “the termination was unlawful and in violation of multiple aspects of the License Agreement (arguably almost every part of it, in fact). The termination also had the knowing and premediated effect of precluding publication and destroying the value of [Weis and Hickman’s] work not to mention their publishing deal with Penguin Random House.”

The suit also claimed that Wizards of the Coast terminated the Licensing Agreement because Wizards of the Coast “was embroiled in a series of embarrassing public disputes whereby its non-Dragonlance publications were excoriated for racism and sexism.”

“[Weis and Hickman] are informed and believed, and based theron allege, that a discussion was made jointly by [Wizards of the Coast] and its parent company, Hasbro Inc., to deflect any possible criticism or further public outcry regarding [Wizards of the Coast’s] other properties by effectively killing the Dragonlance deal with [Weis and Hickman],” the suit goes on to state.

Weis and Hickman would bring three claims against Wizards of the Coast. The first was breach of contract, the second was breach of implied duty of good faith and fair dealing, and the third was tortious interference with contract. Weis and Hickman were seeking in excess of $10 million for each claim.

The suit would be voluntarily dismissed without prejudice.

A court document reads, “Pursuant to Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Plaintiff Margaret Weis, LLC and Tracy Hickman hereby gives notice that hte above-captioned action is voluntarily dismissed as to Wizards of the Coast LLC, without prejudice.”

The document continued, “Defendant Wizards of the Coast LLC has not filed an answer or motion for summary judgment, no proceedings or discovery have been undertaken as to these claims, and this action is not subject to any federal statue which would preclude the dismissal of this action under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i).”

For those unfamiliar with legal jargon, the Legal Information Institute defines Dismisal without Prejudice. They state, “When a case is dismissed without prejudice, it leaves the plaintiff free to bring another suit based on the same grounds, for example if the defendant doesn’t follow through on the terms of a settlement.”

Weis would take to Twitter to confirm that the lawsuit was dismissed.

She wrote, “I know some of you have seen that our lawsuit against WoTC was dismissed. I can’t say anything yet, but watch for exciting news in the weeks to come! And thank you so much for your support!”

Weis would also seemingly reveal that Draconians will be showing up in Dungeon & Dragons 5E ruleset.

Draconians were teased by Deathstroke actor Joe Manganiello in a video for Wired.

Manganiello would be asked by a user if he had any abstract ideas for homebrew races.

He responded, “I don’t know, man. I always thought about like, you know, a civilization of dark gnomes.”

He would continue by name dropping the Draconians, “I have all kinds of other ideas that I use, you know, in my game and float around. I mean, I’ll give you one. I wanted something between dragon and draconian because, you know, I have the Fifth Edition draconian stats. Don’t tell anyone.”

Weis would retweet a Draonlance Nexus’ tweet referencing Manganiello’s Draconian reveal.

They wrote, “The Dragonlance lawsuit has been settled, folks. This is definitely good news and probably leads to the name drop of 5E draconians by Joe Manganiello earlier this week!”

I'd be shocked if this wasn't the result of some contractual stuff to get Dragonlance back into print in a 5e form, especially given that the trilogy the lawsuit was over is back on.

https://twitter.com/trhickman/status/1341265375053246464

https://twitter.com/trhickman/status/1353735475194814466

https://twitter.com/trhickman/status/1354826799868383236

https://twitter.com/trhickman/status/1435731598150823937

Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Sep 29, 2021

PeterWeller
Apr 21, 2003

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

KingKalamari posted:

Weren't the ownership rights on Dragonlance a little bit more complicated? I know that Wizards basically has ownership of the rights to the Forgotten Realms setting provided they abide by the terms set in the initial acquisition agreement they made with Greenwood (Which, funnily enough, is probably the reason FR has become the default setting for 5e since that contract specifies Wizards has to publish a minimum number of Forgotten Realms supplements per year to retain said ownership), but I think Weiss and Hickman retained a greater degree of ownership of the Dragonlance setting through Sovereign Press and would need to be involved in official uses of the setting?

They made the setting as part of a large team under contract for TSR. If anything, the ownership should be even less complicated. They licensed the setting for 3E materials under the OGL, but WotC ended the licensing agreement around the time 4E was in the works.

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



1) just for the record, are those typos from the quoted source or just usual transcription shenanigans? It changes how I view things if they come from a real document (gross incompetence) vs an internet poster (general forgettable user error).

2) I never knew Tracy Hickman looked like a Mormon Jim Broadbent. Huh.

Deptfordx
Dec 23, 2013

Young teenage me in the 80's wasn't that impressed by the Dragonlance novels. God knows what 2021 books would be like.

Puppy Time
Mar 1, 2005


Tracy Hickman should change the spelling of his name and drop the r so he can be thiccman

That'd get the kids into Dragonlance.

Especially if they updated the art.

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


Mors Rattus posted:

That was the folks who make Cards Against Humanity.

... what. I knew they made a lot of racist jokes, but committed somebody? To a mental institution?

Vox Valentine
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Arsenic Lupin posted:

... what. I knew they made a lot of racist jokes, but committed somebody? To a mental institution?
https://medium.com/@nicolas.j.carter/how-to-know-youre-not-insane-and-how-a-cards-against-humanity-staff-writer-was-fired-40fe07fbbfe4

WaywardWoodwose
May 19, 2008

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Nicolas Carter posted:



I was admitted on a Friday at 6pm so I didn’t see a psychiatrist until Monday.
She was tall, blonde and flanked by two med students.
When I told her I had been in a stressful home environment growing up due to poverty and the fact that my parents told me I had to be better than the white boys to compete, she told me that was preposterous.
Why would two anti-racist scholars teach their son to see white boys as competitors?
Anti-racists would teach their son that race didn’t matter at all.
I asked her if we could bring a single person of color into the room besides me to illustrate how common I felt it was to be taught this, she said no.
She later listed my concerns as “spontaneous delusions” on “racial topics.”

The BALLS

zachol
Feb 13, 2009

Once per turn, you can Tribute 1 WATER monster you control (except this card) to Special Summon 1 WATER monster from your hand. The monster Special Summoned by this effect is destroyed if "Raging Eria" is removed from your side of the field.
Even the best possible interpretation of the events is "guy relaxes a little and stops using his white voice and everyone panics, is he having a nervous breakdown, is he about to kill himself, whoah whoah whoah, better send him to an institution."

CitizenKeen
Nov 13, 2003

easygoing pedant
Apparently Rowan, Rook, and Decard are publishing the DIE game? I missed that it was RRD. I'm delighted that RRD keeps finding success. Grant Howitt's going to end up living his personal nightmare, as an established RPG publisher who makes games with actual, mechanical weight.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

KingKalamari posted:

I think Weiss and Hickman retained a greater degree of ownership of the Dragonlance setting through Sovereign Press and would need to be involved in official uses of the setting?

They licensed it and have a strong association with it in the fandom, but WotC owns it entirely.

Goa Tse-tung
Feb 11, 2008

;3

Yams Fan

CitizenKeen posted:

Apparently Rowan, Rook, and Decard are publishing the DIE game? I missed that it was RRD. I'm delighted that RRD keeps finding success. Grant Howitt's going to end up living his personal nightmare, as an established RPG publisher who makes games with actual, mechanical weight.

do you know how hard it was to actually find this on KS?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gshowitt/die-the-roleplaying-game

Kestral
Nov 24, 2000

Forum Veteran

It has quite possibly the least-optimal name for a Kickstarter project, a truly impressive feat.

Coolness Averted
Feb 20, 2007

oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

Kestral posted:

It has quite possibly the least-optimal name for a Kickstarter project, a truly impressive feat.

In general Rowan, Rook, and Decard have had a trend of their bigger RPGs never being at the top of search results without being very specific.
A shame, because they consistently make good stuff. But yeah Spire or 'Spire RPG' tends to get you Slay the Spire results, Heart if you add RPG is at least a top hit. I can only imagine DIE is gonna be the hardest.

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

Coolness Averted posted:

In general Rowan, Rook, and Decard have had a trend of their bigger RPGs never being at the top of search results without being very specific.
A shame, because they consistently make good stuff. But yeah Spire or 'Spire RPG' tends to get you Slay the Spire results, Heart if you add RPG is at least a top hit. I can only imagine DIE is gonna be the hardest.

Not much for them to do about that, that's the name of the comic and this RPG before they got involved.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.


Oh no no, you've got it all wrong, this is German for THE The Roleplaying Game.

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



Der die.

Coolness Averted
Feb 20, 2007

oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗
Boy I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder

forkboy84
Jun 13, 2012

Corgis love bread. And Puro


theironjef posted:

Oh no no, you've got it all wrong, this is German for THE The Roleplaying Game.

Finally, a roleplaying game about a popular but underrated post-punk band

Foolster41
Aug 2, 2013

"It's a non-speaking role"

theironjef posted:

Oh no no, you've got it all wrong, this is German for THE The Roleplaying Game.

No one who speaks German can be an evil man

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


"ironcrown.co.uk posted:

To all in the ICE family

It is with the greatest sadness that we must inform you that the incomparable Terry Amthor has died. We extend our most heartfelt condolences to his sister Tamara, his family and his friends.

The cause and circumstances of his death are still under investigation, so we cannot provide any details on this and will defer to his family on what they choose to disclose in due course.

Terry was a founder member of the original ICE and a cocreator of Rolemaster and Spacemaster, writing and contributing to many of its most iconic products, and to some of the most exceptional 1st edition Middle-earth modules. Most of all, he has shaped our imaginations with his masterful Shadow World epic fantasy setting. He continued to develop Kulthea through his own Eidolon Studio company, before joining forces with Guild Companion Publications to create new sourcebooks and adventures bringing ever more of Shadow World to life, and working as our layout guru for most of our other products.

Author, designer, world builder, and friend, Terry’s genius has enriched our lives for decades. His creations will continue to inspire us all for years to come.

Rest in peace, Terry.

Nicholas, Colin, John and Thom

Terry was a pretty cool guy, kind and approachable, pretty much always positively engaging with fans in his little niche-of-a-niche. I didn't interact with him too much myself, but the couple of times I did he was unfailingly kind and insightful. He was responsible for a lot of the bolder, weirder bits and pieces of Middle-earth Roleplaying, including the bizarre early module Court of Ardor. I hadn't been following Shadow World for some time, but it looks like he was still plugging along at the age of 62 right until the end.

StratGoatCom
Aug 6, 2019

Our security is guaranteed by being able to melt the eyeballs of any other forum's denizens at 15 minutes notice


https://twitter.com/col_bosch/status/1444728544228265988

:smithicide:

TheDiceMustRoll
Jul 23, 2018

Literally all of the major facebook pages/discords are filled to the brim with Arch Warhammer fans, I still see them seething about that Warhammer is for everyone post. One of the biggest Battletech lore youtubers did a video with Archie not too long ago and then had a big cry on his patreon to his followers about how he knew Arch was not liked but didn't know why and didn't feel the need to do due diligence. Also he reads books to the blind, so criticizing him for spending time with a guy who freely associates with The Quartering, The Golden One, called a faction in Warhammer 40k the n-word, made jokes about raping politicians, freely associated with a pedophile and had him moderating his discord is just below the belt. It's below the belt you guys!

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



I’ve vaguely heard of Arch but only enough to know that he’s a terrible chud and never really bothered to learn more because well, terrible chud.

Is there some kind of boiled down specifics so I’m reasonably informed on why he’s specifically awful without wading through a vast morass of monstrous poo poo?

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


Xiahou Dun posted:

I’ve vaguely heard of Arch but only enough to know that he’s a terrible chud and never really bothered to learn more because well, terrible chud.

Is there some kind of boiled down specifics so I’m reasonably informed on why he’s specifically awful without wading through a vast morass of monstrous poo poo?

He doesn't say "I'm a Nazi" but he says a lot of Nazi poo poo and consorts with other like-minded folk. He likes racial slurs. He will go through contortions in his lore ramblings to erase the already pathetic level of diversity that exists in 40k (though it has improved somewhat recently). He is friends with the Golden One, who is like if Varg refrained from murdering anyone or trying to burn down churches, and channeled all that energy into Youtubing his bodybuilding, MRA poo poo, and streaming Skyrim where he "cleanses the lesser races" by specifically targeting the black and Middle Eastern-coded character types. Arch has (had?) a secondary politics-focused channel where he mused what to do about the inherently terrorist ideology of Islam, specifically "more draconian measures are required." He is very clearly big into the fascism of 40k for the sake of the fasc, however he is minimally brand-aware enough to know that's a bad look, but he's also stupid enough to paper this over by just saying 40k isn't fascy.

TheDiceMustRoll
Jul 23, 2018

Xiahou Dun posted:

I’ve vaguely heard of Arch but only enough to know that he’s a terrible chud and never really bothered to learn more because well, terrible chud.

Is there some kind of boiled down specifics so I’m reasonably informed on why he’s specifically awful without wading through a vast morass of monstrous poo poo?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sigmarxism/comments/grhqcg/tired_of_telling_people_arch_warhammer_is_altright/

He deleted all of the videos cited, almost 50 million views worth, so I think ol' Archie boy was more than a little scared of losing his livelihood.



Edit: that didnt take long lol
https://mwomercs.com/news/2021/10/2555-important-announcement-on-trans-rights

TheDiceMustRoll fucked around with this message at 10:09 on Oct 4, 2021

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

The bit about having no control over decals or cosmetics you can put on your big stompy robots came from people asking why other people putting the Confederate flag on their Uberwolf or whatever was cool.

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Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Dawgstar posted:

The bit about having no control over decals or cosmetics you can put on your big stompy robots came from people asking why other people putting the Confederate flag on their Uberwolf or whatever was cool. retweeted by the company president.

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