TG Kickstarter Thread II - Son of the Stretch Goal

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG Kickstarter Thread II - Son of the Stretch Goal

Ningyou: Aug 14, 2005; we aaaaare
not your kind of pearls
you seem kind of pho~ny
everything's a liiiiie

we aaaare
not your kind of pearls
something in your make~up
don't see eye to e~y~e

quote:

Your friends will #FeelTheBurn with our second expansion, featuring a range of cards designed to attack your friends' weaknesses for massive damage with cutting insults. Includes 64 new cards for #FML, plus another 8 blank cards so you can really make it personal.

"ahhhhh yes i know what will make me PARTY GAME MILLIONS, cah but with a TRIGGERED REVERSE RACIST BETA CUCK SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR WHITE KNIGHTS expansion and an Insult Your Friends Until They Aren't Your Friends Anymore expansion"

# ¿ Jan 22, 2016 02:10

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 11:03

Ningyou: Aug 14, 2005; we aaaaare
not your kind of pearls
you seem kind of pho~ny
everything's a liiiiie

we aaaare
not your kind of pearls
something in your make~up
don't see eye to e~y~e

Hiro Protagonist posted:

I see it either being an insightful, powerful game that explores the nature of crime, greed, poverty, and the economic gap that has enough of a fantastical setting to allow a respectful distance, or the most heavy handed, shallow, "greed is bad, guys" product ever.

Is it just me, or does Red Markets' KS blurb read a lot less like 'this is going to be an insightful game about the intersection of crime, greed, poverty, and economic inequality' and more like lovely libertarian nerd futurism?

Like, between the poor people in this scenario literally being called Takers (uhhhhh) and the whole 'after the zombie apocalypse the poors live in a nightmarish zombieghetto BUT THE RENT'S STILL DUE EVERYONE HAS A CLEAR FINANCIAL MOTIVATION AND ZOMBIES ARE DEADLY BUT SO IS NOT HUSTLING HARD ENOUGH but see it's cool because there are drones and supercooled floating wifi servers and ZOMBIETOWN BITCOIN (zombitcoin if u will) and robot arms!!!!! and the government abandoned everyone who wasn't cishet white ppl but even The Queers and The Minorities can survive bc the horrifying zombieghetto is a meritocracy! ~the turbocapitalist zombie apocalypse only discriminates against the unprofitable~' thing this seems kinda gross in a way that i can't fully articulate?

like there were a few bits that sounded interesting but mostly i sorta get the feeling it's either going to be the kind of game that's going to have potential in spite of how it's written or it's going to end up being like.....the hc svnt dracones of zombiegames or something.

Ningyou fucked around with this message at 20:40 on May 24, 2016

# ¿ May 24, 2016 20:35

Ningyou: Aug 14, 2005; we aaaaare
not your kind of pearls
you seem kind of pho~ny
everything's a liiiiie

we aaaare
not your kind of pearls
something in your make~up
don't see eye to e~y~e

clockworkjoe posted:

At its core, Red Markets is a horror game. The core conflict comes the emotional/mental costs involved with work versus profit - fighting zombies is scary and most jobs involve hurting other people in some way. There are mechanics in the game to encourage players to do things like destroy medicine or other vital commodities in order to drive up demand. Every time you have to tap into your retirement fund, you have to make a self-control check to avoid taking humanity damage. In Red Markets, you can easily become the villain of the story. I see it as a critique of global capitalism - the rich turn the population against each other by offering scraps to the most ruthless who will do their bidding.

It's also a critique of the murderhobo lifestyle in RPGs. You can spend profit to get new gear and improve skills and abilities, but that further delays retirement. Most gear has an upkeep cost, so you can't easily hoard tons of weapons and gadgets.

The near future stuff like floating wifi servers and encrypted currency are more of framing devices to make the entire setting work. The government separated people by geography, not by race or orientation.

I ran a game of Red Markets once where the PCs took cooking oil to a farmstead near their enclave. They found out that the farmers couldn't full pay them but just expected to give them a bunch of eggs to pay the balance of the bill. The players nearly got into a gunfight over that - carrying a bunch of eggs through the wasteland was pretty loving dangerous and the farmers lied about this little detail when they took the job. They were willing to threaten parents in front of their children to get more payment for the job. After that, I think they had a bit of "Are we the baddies?" thoughts going through their heads. It wasn't heroic or badass. It was desperate and serious.

Like if people actually do play it as a subversion or critique, that could be interesting, but a lot of the KS writeup read to me less like that and more like playing the turbocapitalist zombie apocalypse pretty straight*. i c o u l d b e w r o n g t h o u g h

_{*and honestly between that and the overlap between zombie apocalypse enthusiasts and weird libertarians and the stuff about drones and bitcoins and etc. it was kinda hard to give it the benefit of the doubt? but yeah.}

grassy gnoll posted:

You can't fully articulate your point because it's something you're projecting onto an explicit criticism the things you're worried it will become.

If you liked this game, you may be interested in Upton R. R. Sinclair's The Jungle, a story about the glamor and glitz of owning a meat processing plant.

Wow, uh, you don't have to be such a dick because I got a different read off it than you and went 'hey, is it just me or...?'

# ¿ May 24, 2016 22:43

Ningyou: Aug 14, 2005; we aaaaare
not your kind of pearls
you seem kind of pho~ny
everything's a liiiiie

we aaaare
not your kind of pearls
something in your make~up
don't see eye to e~y~e

Hiro Protagonist posted:

You... You do realize he wrote it, right?

yyyyyeah that's kinda why i was responding to his post and saying 'hey this could be neat if players actually play it a certain way but a bunch of the ks blurb read to me like etc. etc.'

and like i'm just some rando on the internet and y'all can take or leave my opinions but if i didn't know he wrote the thing i probably would have just left it at 'wow gnoll you're being kind of a jerk' or w/e

jesus christ

Ningyou fucked around with this message at 23:48 on May 24, 2016

# ¿ May 24, 2016 23:37

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG Kickstarter Thread II - Son of the Stretch Goal