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Kai Tave posted:Eh, being inside the letter of the law doesn't make a situation magically not-shifty. Fred Hicks is right, pay-on-publish is a lovely practice that should probably stop, especially given the number of stories in that thread where it turns out "pay-on-publish" actually meant "pay-on-hardcopy-publication" so freelancers' work can get turned into pdfs and sold digitally without owing them a cent in return. I never said it was awesome. I implied it is not awesome. It is the opposite of awesome, whatever that is.
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Dec 1, 2013 03:06
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I and a friend were just talking about the new Games Workshop store in the area, and how we had no interest in buying anything there. 
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Jan 17, 2014 22:55
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Well, much the same is true of my favorite nerd shop (three employees, no game space), so I wouldn't rate a store on those facts alone. But the fact you can't special order minis at a Games Workshop store is a real problem. It's bizarre.
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Jan 17, 2014 23:08
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Does GW even have an "entry-level" game outside of filling out a full army? Or have they discarded the very idea entirely?
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Jan 19, 2014 09:34
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To be clear, I think originality can be awfully overrated. It's valuable, but it's a tool, not a necessity. That being said, saying "This is the X game.", realizing you don't have the license, and instead saying "This is the X-inspired game." strikes me as  It's a lazy way to present your game, I think.If you're going to say, doing a wizarding school game, you can just outline that and it'll be clear what you're drawing from. I think the key is just be willing to do your own thing. I ran a superhero game a number of years back with a setting that had clear analogues for certain comic characters, but I never straight-up copied anything. To me, if you're going to do an "inspired" game, you're going to end up with something different. I think as long as you're not actually copy-pasting, things are fine. Projects like Rivet Wars, though, where they're doing direct lifts and literally just scratching out the name... that's a problem, both intellectually and morally. There's probably no way to stop or really discourage it as long as it drags in backers, save to inform the copyright holders. But, boy, it's really tiresome, particularly in the miniatures market.
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Jan 22, 2014 20:52
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Mr. Maltose posted:Same with Ryuutama. Ryuutama used the term "Hayao Miyazaki's Oregon Trail", but second-hand. Sefer posted:So instead of rolling for dick length and circumference you have to have an auction with the other players at the beginning of the game to determine whose character has the biggest dick? It's a game where the if you roll a big dick the GM is instructed to make you feel impotent.
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Jan 22, 2014 21:28
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PresidentBeard posted:So what exactly was rivet wars ripping off? It's not that I don't believe you, I just am not up to speed on it. They had "The Vet" (Rambo), "Babygirl" (Baby Doll), "The Man in Charge" (Nick Fury), and the Jetpacker (Rocketeer). It wasn't subtle. 
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Jan 22, 2014 23:49
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dwarf74 posted:It's amazing how much poo poo Defiance is getting on their own facebook page - where one would expect their fans to be in abundance. I get the impression there's a dearth of "Defiance Games fans". I mean, they're known for what? Alien Wars, which has been well-received, but didn't make a huge splash. They certainly chose their company name well, though. Yeesh. ED: It's even difficult to find that one game line, mainly on account of their company store being down. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Jan 24, 2014 |
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Jan 24, 2014 17:10
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demota posted:Thanks to Ron Edwards, the story games movement now has its very own FATAL. Well, we already had Poison'd, which Vincent Baker doubled down on and insisted that if you don't include rape in your sessions, you are Doing It Wrong. 
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Mar 18, 2014 21:08
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Rulebook Heavily posted:Well, I wouldn't hold your breath; here's the reports from Fantasy Flight Games. (I guess we can try inputting other elfgame companies on this, if we want to be depressed.) Most of the ex-FFG and current FFG guys I talked to at Gencon (who worked on W40K RPGs stuff) seemed mostly positive about their time there... but then, they were ex-FFG guys who were doing their own thing. But that page sure is pretty damning. If anybody's serious about it, you might want to see if you can hit up Croatian Alzheimers, who freelanced for them and knew a lot of the guys there, but he doesn't seem to post too much here anymore, being busy with his writing and whatnot. Don't know if he'd have much to say professionally, but it'd be worth trying. Palladium has had a lot of damning reports - Coffin is just the tip of the iceberg. Coffin, Carella, Hilden and Sanford, even the people who are professional about their time there tend to be pretty critical.
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Apr 20, 2014 04:30
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There are also those that use their defense of booby minis (or loli-hitler card games, in an experience I had last week) as a point of pride, that since there are people willing to speak out against it, that's the reason they should be for it! Because nobody should tell them what to do. And not like, a teenager. An actual adult.
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Apr 20, 2014 08:24
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Leperflesh posted:Anita Sarkeesian exposes and deconstructs a number of video game/comic book/movie tropes which are harmful to women (and to men, because they warp ideas about women) many of which are subtle and insidious. I think the subtle and insidious misogyny in trad games is much more pervasive and perhaps much more harmful than the titty-models, in fact. Well, I'm running my group through the Double Cross adventures myself at the moment, and - of the adventures designed for the first five pregenerated characters, all four feature a damsel in distress, generally connected to Wild Card (aka "PC1"). Naturally, a lot of it is genre emulation. But that emulation is of a genre that's historically had a lot of problems with women. Granted, there are a lot of strong female NPCs in Double Cross... and a few problematic ones. It's no Maid, certainly, but just something to consider.
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Apr 21, 2014 11:52
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moths posted:That link could have gone to: Some of those things were actually successful, though, like the Mechwarrior or Dawn of War videogames. Mechwarrior (the RPG) wasn't exactly a failure with a litany of sourcebooks, but subsequent Battletech publishers haven't picked it up for whatever reason. Some, like Dragon Dice or Spellfire, were spectacularly wrongheaded, but also bear in mind some things, like CCGs, run their course. For example, Vampire: the Eternal Struggle was successful, but it ran its sales course and petered out eventually, but it still lasted over 15 years. D&D Miniatures had 20 sets and lasted for 8 years. Man, I wish I could have a "failure" like that. There are probably more failures than successes, but there are crossover successes. Any game that continues on ad infinitum like Magic or Warhammer 40K is extreme rarity in the industry, and we put undue weight on them being the norm because they're so such forces in the industry. Just because a game doesn't still have content coming out tomorrow doesn't necessarily make it a failure, however. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 13:33
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, Warmachine / Hordes deckbuilding game, Bloodbowl Team Manager card game
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bunnielab posted:So how else are you supposed to signify a given model is a woman? I guess anyone in enough armor is going to look pretty androgynous and I don't think facial features are really recognizable when said face is like 3/16" big. The argument "but how do you tell if a figure is a woman?" may be a little off-center given I never hear "how do you tell if a unit is a man?". Well, until I just typed it, anyway.
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Apr 22, 2014 04:06
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Literally The Worst posted:Yeah I'm not arguing against this at all, I'm just saying that going "Well why don't we hear about being able to tell if it's a MAN" when the default is, in fact, a man, is really dumb. Or maybe that's the whole problem in the first place. It's not something that's going to change on account of little plastic figures, of course, but the argument seems to be that women should be singled out... because... they've been singled out before, so why not keep doing that? Maybe that's not what you mean, but that's what it sounds like you're saying.
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Apr 22, 2014 04:57
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I don't think it's bad, all I was saying is that it it doesn't necessarily have to be the only way you go about it.
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Apr 22, 2014 05:15
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Nonsense, I'm sure it'll turn out as fine as Kindred: the Embraced. Or Battletech: the Animated Series. Or the Dungeons & Dragons TV... Well, at least Doomtown is coming back.
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May 1, 2014 16:04
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Mors Rattus posted:On the other hand, I remember the Deadlands metaplot. Yeah, I've tried hard not to pluck at that low-hanging fruit. Hell, Doomtown had a far better metaplot, and that was a CCG. And that's without getting into the game's treatment of, uh, the South or Native Americans. I actually really like the basic concept of Deadlands and would wish it the best, all things considered, but this going to be a very difficult thing to make into a episodic show. Granted, the resources and culture are much better for this sort of thing now than they once were, so it's not dooooomed, but there's a fair amount of risk here.
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May 1, 2014 16:40
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On the Edge? The last game of that I was in may have been one of the least child-friendly games I've ever been in. Maybe we can come up with other less child-friendly games, tho? Child-friendly Unknown Armies. Child-friendly Exalted. Child-friendly Cthulhutech?
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May 5, 2014 21:35
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Davin Valkri posted:The only one of those that seems true is the Dr. Seuss one (Geisel did do some WWII propaganda posters), He also worked on the Private Snafu cartoons and Your Job in Germany. There is such a thing of context, and I wouldn't condemn Geisel based on his propaganda work given that, but there's some pretty unacceptable stuff by modern standards. Ettin posted:If you actually wanted to hurt your chances in the RPG industry a nice fast way is calling out bullshit and people who accept it. It's troublesome in many industries, really, but the fact that it's getting called out at all is a big shift. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 14:06 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 13:21
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Well, as far as I'm concerned, Paizo has fallen down a long hill, and it's good to see them stop and start climbing back up again, but they're still the folks who doubled down on one of their core races being the product of rape. It's good to see them moving forward but they're not anywhere close to the top of that hill yet. There are certainly reasons to buy Paizo products, but doing it because they're "progressive" seems very premature on account of a lot of their core products still being fairly immature.
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Jul 25, 2014 20:04
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Asymmetrikon posted:However, relative to WotC and most other TG companies, they're goddamn saints. Does the new D&D Monster Manual, like the Pathfinder Bestiary, also include creatures that can only reproduce through rape? I'm not defending WotC by saying that, mind, they're apples and oranges sort of issues. But it's also not a seesaw where if WotC does wrong, Paizo suddenly stops being a company that promotes and publishes Rise of the Runelords. (Hell, Pathfinder was effectively devised so they could publish... Rise of the Runelords.) JerryLee posted:Keep on finding that dark cloud to go around the silver lining, goons. I read Pathfinder cover-to-cover. I know too much.
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Jul 25, 2014 21:46
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Tendales posted:Paizo has come a LONG way since Runelords. gently caress Runelords. This is true. The problem is that a some of the problematic material is right there in the core game and bestiary, and those aren't going anywhere. Hopefully that'll change someday, but until it does, it's going to keep being a problem for me, at least.
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Jul 25, 2014 22:10
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Tendales posted:It could happen. Most of the people that insisted on never correcting anything ever, the text must stand as written, prone shooter is a totally valid feat for flavor, those folks have pretty much all moved on now. Well, James Jacobs, of "doubling down on orc rape" above and rape incubi and all that stuff... is still Creative Director. Granted, he does seem to listen to criticism, but whether or not he does anything about it is something I'll have to wait and see on. Also folks like Jason Bulmahn are still heading up a lot of rules stuff. Bulmahn seems like a pretty chill guy compared to the histrionics of Sean K Reynolds, but he's still a guy with a long record of questionable design. Winson_Paine posted:If it would take PF 2nd Ed (or probably at this point, PF Core Revised is more likely) without the elements you object to included to be printed, that is fine, but flat out denying that anything is happening seems a little much. I'm not denying that it's happening, but two NPCs don't make for a sea change for me yet. Pathfinder has had some inclusive elements from very early on, like with Seelah. So I'm aware of that. But it's also a game with unnatural lust, too. It has a lot of writers and a lot of myriad takes, but it'll take time and some stronger evidence to convince me things have firmly changed for the better. I'm Also, there's still Goblinworks, which is a whole ethical quagmire a lot of folks have forgotten, but is still... what it is.
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Jul 25, 2014 23:08
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Winson_Paine posted:I agree, but (and again this is sort of a derail) I am not sure if a monster based on supersitions that more or spring from a fear of sex and an idea that sex is in and of itself corrupt are the best basis for an exploration of sexuality itself being corrupted. You would need some different monster for that; you can even see a refinement of it in Stoker's Dracula. The Succubus as presented in PF/D&D is not the vehicle to explore that particular topic in any real way. Mind, with Golarion, succubi are the tricky supernatural seductresses, Incubi just straight-up force surprise sex on people. Also, you can guess which is depicted more art-wise, too... but then, they know their audience. Ettin posted:This is basically where I am at. I don't think trashing your core book and reprinting it later because you've decided you want to take a few things you said back isn't really a great idea. 3E did that and everyone flipped out! It's probably not reasonable to expect them to pulp their stock to remove all mention of manticore / lamia sexing, I think. But since I'm a consumer and can buy other games, I don't have to reasonable! 
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Jul 26, 2014 03:54
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I imagine most of that seems to go down in the podcast arena? I know there are at least some that do interviews, but finding ones that are suitable is another story. Maybe talking to some FATE blogs would be a start? Or a FATE podcast? I know there are some youtube outfits that do that sort of thing as well... ... they're out there, but I think the main issue is that finding them and approaching them. They're all over the place and the general devaluation of the term "RPG" makes them hard to find.
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Sep 11, 2014 04:58
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What bewilders me is how much easier it's become to research other cultures and history in general in the past ten years. When I'm reviewing old Rifts books I do realize that it was still kinda hard to find information on some cultures or societies, not that such is necessarily an excuse, but within my lifetime all you had were the books you can find and if you couldn't find the book you needed... you were just out of luck. And reading is certainly no substitute for talking to the actual people involved, but sometimes when doing stuff for an RPG I need to know what it's like to live life in a different way or in a different place, and I'm amazed at how much you can find. I recently made a blind PC, and didn't want to fall into the usual traps of stereotypes, and you can go around finding a lot of threads where people talk honestly about the subject on SA and elsewhere. I ended up reading a lot more than I needed just because it was good reading, in fact. Dismissing the experiences of other people these days is just plain callous and lazy, and seeing somebody like Cordell double down on it is pretty disappointing to see.
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Mar 19, 2015 05:59
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I love the use of percentages in fantasy games, because nothing evokes otherworldiness and magic quite like dry population statistics.
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Mar 21, 2015 07:15
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Halloween Jack posted:Consider Robin Laws' Hillfolk instead. I love a particular sidebar from Hillfolk, which sums up a necessary thing for the majority of fantasy games: Robin Laws posted:WE DIDN’T CALL IT “HILLMEN,” DID WE?
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Mar 22, 2015 07:52
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clockworkjoe posted:Really? I'd never heard of her before someone linked to her on the metafilter discussion about the RFRA. Many Republicans of Indiana are talking a lot about the "need for clarity" to try and make the "intent of the bill clear", which is of course just another way of saying "we really, really need to spin this better than we have", and certainly not "we did a wrong thing". He doesn't need to add protections to the bill, he needs to add protections against sexuality-based discrimination into state law, which Indiana lacks. It's not a repeal, and anything else is just him trying to find a way to cover his rear end.
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Apr 1, 2015 04:03
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Morrus posted:Please don't take this as an opportunity to slam him, or the work he's done. I'm amused that it's taken as an assumption even at ENWorld that the mere mention of Sean will result in a tremendous dump being taken on the boards. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 04:50 on May 5, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 04:17
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Evil Mastermind posted:I thought Insider was another "shoot ourselves in the foot" thing, since having a subscription meant you didn't have to buy new character-based books. Doubly so because the money from Insider was siloed away from the publishing division, so it's not like it was even allowed to shore up the money it was taking away from the actual books.
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May 6, 2015 19:36
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thespaceinvader posted:Thing is, having Insider didn't stop my group and I buying books. At all. E: Insider is great for building characters and referencing rules in forum arguments. Books are great for reading on the toilet and referencing rules in games. I'm not saying it killed the books or that it wasn't a very consumer-friendly product. But saying it didn't damage book sales seems like a really rose-colored assertion.
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May 6, 2015 20:10
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Pope Guilty posted:Aaron Diaz promised that if his Patreon hit 4K/month he'd put out a comic every two weeks, but that turned out to be every bit the lie that every other time he's claimed he was going to start regularly putting out comics was. I was wondering how he was going to manage that, mystery solved.  Leperflesh posted:Those are all worth pointing out, and they all muddy the waters. But what is definitely not going to fly, is some kind of blanket assertion that $35 in 1985 is "the same" - in any sense - as $35 today. Today, $35 is less money, no matter how you measure it. Generally speaking entertainment is ridiculously cheap compared to what it was thirty years ago... but necessities (food, gas, utilities) have jumped up hugely for the most part, which is a much, much larger problem than what you're spending on elfbooks.
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May 7, 2015 05:58
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The lack of design breadth on the part of the current WotC / Paizo elfgame designers hits the nail on the head, I think. When I did the Pathfinder review, I noted that almost all their designers were grounded almost solely in d20 design with a smattering of other TSR product experience like AD&D 2e or Alternity. As a result, cargo cult design runs rampant, with their games acting of sets of house rules on D&D 3e rather than taking a serious look at the fundamentals of the games they're making. gently caress, say what you want about Sean K. Reynolds, at least he is (was?) trying to confront some of his "common wisdom" with Five Moons, even if he was still doing it from deep within his elfgame myopia. A friend of mine long ago compared the weekly gaming group to a religious ritual - that is, a social gathering where people meet, engage in a series of symbolic actions dictated by a book, support each other's belief, and seek a kind of greater mythology. That may be oversimplifying, but boy, some people got pissed off by that comparison. And though it's purely anecdotal, I find those most upset are also those most interested in it as a ritual. But it's also a technology, and a lot of goons are more interested in the technology and design aspect of game design. Grogs are ritualists, and though there's nothing wrong with that if that's what you in for - I can enjoy a spot of AD&D even though it's an incoherent, confusing, fetal sort of game - but man, you have to recognize that for what it is. Fandom is notoriously bad at self-reflection, but it's the only way this industry can move forward. I think ultimately the grogs will lose out, and what we're looking at with something like 5e is more a symbol of how hard the reaction to change can be than the actual prevention of change. But boy, it can be frustrating to watch in the meantime.
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May 9, 2015 01:12
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Evil Mastermind posted:And Kevin Siembieda got into the "Hall of Fame" because Despite all of Palladium's stumbles and mistakes, I don't see why he shouldn't get in. Also, Heroclix? In YOOL 2015? Did they seriously improve the rules or something? (That doesn't seem likely, but I haven't paid attention.)
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Jun 8, 2015 00:50
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FMguru posted:He's kept a game company going and publishing for 35-plus years without interruption. It's the oldest going concern in the hobby. Chaosium has had crises and changed hands a bunch of times (and is going through one right now), FGU barely exists producing a trickle of reprints, same for Flying Buffalo, SJG is still going strong but I think Palladium predates them, TSR was eaten by WotC almost 20 years ago, and GDW and Avalon Hill and SPI are long gone. SJG and FGU both predate Palladium as far as companies still run by their founders. SJG is a year older than Palladium. Bucnasti posted:As I recall Siembieda basically pioneered licensed RPGs with TMNT and Robotech. Whatever his more recent crimes he played a formative role in the industry. I wouldn't go that far - there were a lot of licensed games beforehand - but I would credit TMNT, Robotech, and Rifts for getting a lot of people into the hobby. They haven't had a major impact on the hobby in the last two decades or so, but they were pretty influential for awhile.
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Jun 8, 2015 01:23
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signalnoise posted:I actually really enjoy HeroClix gameplay as an idea and I have enjoyed playing it quite a bit but gently caress all randomized collection miniatures I've enjoyed Heroclix in the past but gently caress, I changed and though the ruleset has been revised numerous times since 2002, it hasn't changed in any foundational sense. Hell, I'm not sure it even saw any substantial revisions since 2012 or 2013; I have to wonder why it'd even be eligible.
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Jun 8, 2015 02:00
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Quarex posted:Oh, FMGuru kind of nailed that point with authority. Maybe they are hoping by giving him a lifetime achievement award he will retire! Though I have enjoyed some of his books solely for the random tables contained therein. Apparently it was a total surprise to him; he found out through the grapevine. I guess Origins doesn't bother contacting people first? Weird.
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Jun 8, 2015 03:55
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Mors Rattus posted:Their booth was fuckin' embarrassing, by the way. Terrible Escher Girl anime titties everywhere you turned. Well, those are the Tentacle Bento and Relic Knights guys, for anybody who had the mercy of forgetting. Also this, too. What I'm getting at is that they're a bunch of classy guys, y'know?
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Jun 8, 2015 12:07
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