TG July Chat Thread: Now with 20% less uncanny valley

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG July Chat Thread: Now with 20% less uncanny valley

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Misandu posted:

Like something with some pre-gen characters, some sort of adventure framework for a new DM to use to get themselves on the right track, some dice. The sort of stuff you see in like the Star Wars Edge of the Empire box or the 4th Edition Essentials Redbox. I know for a lot of these games you can get the entire game for like $20, but it's hard to talk up books to people who maybe don't have a ton of RPG experience.

Hell, just getting paper copies into FLGSs can be pretty difficult. I have seen Fiasco, the Companion, and Dogs in the Vineyard in terms of "storygames" on the shelf. I guess maybe DFRPG but I don't count that. I would love to see a Fiasco boxed set with detached playsets, oversized tilt tables, and custom dice, but I dunno if it'll ever happen.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 02:54

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 15:26

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Rulebook Heavily posted:

The flagship RPG product gave them money and put their names in their big release book.

Yes, they are tiny voices. And they were given the mother of all RPG shoutouts.

And without properly attributing them as whatever Zak S's real name would be if he had worked out what a name is in that context and John Tarnowski. I mean, I know people who were credited in Star Wars books for their online stuff, but they were credited by name, not by handle.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 03:59

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Rulebook Heavily posted:

They were attributed under their most easily googlable identity and they presumably want people to google them and asked for their handles in there for that specific reason. I've worked with an artist who wanted a similar arrangement.

Exactly. They want exposure rather than proper credit, apart from John Tarnowski, the RPG Pundit, having a complex about the use of his real name by English-speakers.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 04:06

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Rulebook Heavily posted:

People are already doing this and you know what they loving get? Twitter harassment and threatening emails and bombardments from personal fanbases from shitlords like the ones that are now getting money for appearing in the biggest RPG product of the year. The acknowledgment earned is that there's two paragraphs of wonky text in the book and then a dude who actively stalks trans people online and tells them to commit suicide is lurking in the credits.

So you know.

gently caress you.

But just a little.

Avery Mcdaldno gets harassed Jesus Christ.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 04:24

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Bucnasti posted:

I think what a lot of people are missing is exactly why they're on the credits page. I can pretty much guarantee it's not because they gave valuable feedback.

WotC bought their silence, and they bought it cheap.
They flew these two wastes of oxygen out to the fabulous city of RENTON WASHINGTON for a couple of days of sitting in a conference room and shaking some hands. Then they put their names in the book and now they have two less shitheads that are going to poison the well on 5e, because now no matter what WotC does with DnD these guys names are on it and they can't bitch about it.

They bought a little bit of positive publicity, and silenced a lot of negative publicity for the cost of some plane tickets and ink.

Let me re-iterate that, these two chucklefucks are so worthless and desperate for any form of validation that putting their name in a book was all it took to buy their silence.

I doubt that they paid for airfare for them.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 05:29

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Rulebook Heavily posted:

This blog has a much more thorough take on organized harassment in the hobby than I could give you. It focuses on a specific event, but don't be fooled by pseudonyms; our man Z S was involved.

If you mean the credits thing specifically, RPGPundit and Zak S are in the credits of D&D 5e as consultants. Consider that in light of the above link.

They were fairly transparently chosen because they have fanbases, though, and unless you can really threaten a major loss of sales (considering that if they pay attention to SA they probably wrote us off as a lost cause long ago) there's not much you can do beyond expressing your distaste.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 05:59

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Illvillainy posted:

"Why don't you create your own [ART/MEDIA] then?"/"Be the change you want to happen" is typical handwaving bullshit that puts the responsibility upon victims marginalized people and people that possess basic empathy hear every loving day. It gets immensely annoying.

What responsibility? On John Tarnowski and Zak Smith to change? Is that a reasonable expectation? On Wizards of the Coast to redress the problems here? That's a matter of economic pressure. On the RPG online community to become less of a shithole? How are you going to do that without either shifting the makeup of the community or shifting the circumstances around it, and how are you going to do those things without creating things? Or is the only progressive way the path of learned helplessness?

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 00:51

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Comrade Gorbash posted:

The problem with it is that those people already are doing those things, and asking others to help out.

The problem with this response is that instead of saying "hey maybe I should help out" it's saying "hey maybe you should do more."

That's why its condescending and counter-productive. If the person saying this actually gave a poo poo about the problem and wasn't just concern trolling, the question would be "what games/art/media are there that are better about this so I can support them?"

I don't think that dictating that there be one proper way of thinking is a progressive, liberal, leftist, or decent way of looking at the world. It's perfectly reasonable to say to someone that feels that the RPG community is hopelessly awful that they should make games because the person may not think that things are so bad as all that. I personally think that people massively overestimate how awful the hobby is and somewhat overestimate the online community's problems. The bigger problem, from my perspective, is less that Zak S enables harassment and more that people still take him seriously as part of the online community and allow him in Google+ Circles and so on.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 01:24

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Gau posted:

Maybe he subscribes to the idea that Kipling was being ironic, despite being an avowed imperialist?

If you read the thread he totally believes that the British Empire was a force for good and civilization. Not to the extent of a Niall Ferguson or a Dinesh D'Souza, but still. Also poo poo-talking Chinua Achebe.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 03:34

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Glorantha A) requires a lot of prep work to create basal exposition for players and B) doesn't have any game systems that capture the best part of the setting very well. One of the few that approaches it conceptually is DnD 4th, but it would require almost complete reworking to have the Gloranthan feel in actual play and the highpower mechanics are sparse.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2014 13:32

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

I'm, no sarcasm, no irony, no nothing, just all-out sincere, cheered up to see people that haven't been embittered by long years in the trenches of Livejournal.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 01:20

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Hashtag Yoloswag posted:

Don't worry, you don't have to say it.

I don't know why you think passive-aggressiveness is a good thing to practice, on the internet or anywhere.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 03:00

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

neongrey posted:

You're the one who trotted them out in the first place.

Well OK, let me put this in local parlance: I regularly trot out allusions to old sci-fi, the Pali Canon, etc. in my daily life, and fly off the handle when people misinterpret them or are plain ignorant of them.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 03:15

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Asymmetrikon posted:

You should try not posting in TG.

I don't think that you should focus on driving people out for not knowing the particular context like you're doing with SunAndSpring. If that makes me incompatible with you, well, I don't care about you, sorry.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 03:21

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Hashtag Yoloswag posted:

The particular context would be easy to find if you cared enough to do even 10 minutes of research.

Wrong. The particular context, as in the thing which provoked all this, is that you do not care for people thinking negatively about anyone that waves the banner of justice on high. Because SunAndSpring, (or for that matter, me) did not say anything about Mike Mearls being actually a really great guy who picked heroic figures to endorse.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 03:26

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

K Prime posted:

The thing is, the mindset that there are THOSE CRAZIES undermining the movement enables that harassment. Because guess where victims of harassment get lumped? Harassers are often people with connections, friends, and a lot of clout, so the idea that there are people SO DUMB AND CRAZY DESTROYING THE MOVEMENT gives them a shield- "I didn't do anything, they're just those drat SJWs!" Zak and his ilk use that literally every day. So frankly, telling people who bring that poo poo up to gently caress off is pretty mild.

Oh, for gently caress's sake. Saying that someone who thinks that all tomboyish characters in fiction are trans women is bad is not enabling harassment in any real sense. Or someone that demands furries be treated as on par with LGBT people.

Traveller posted:

Is this the part where it is posted that Zak did, in fact, harass people to poo poo and that it's really lovely to stand up for him? Yes, it is!

Zak did, in fact, harass people to poo poo over their gender and their opinions on elfgames. Calling him out and anyone who endorses him is the right thing to do. Stop being deliberately disingenuous.

This has not happened in the last few pages, at all. You are delusional.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 03:35

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 15:26

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

K Prime posted:

No, but the idiotic focus on them does. The vast majority of people wasting their time getting unduly mad at randos teenagers on tumblr are the same bigots that make people miserable, sorry. The venn diagram is a circle. People who actually give a poo poo are busy, so only the assholes have time to spend mocking I_HATE_CISSIES or whoever.

Okay, so we're circling around the central problem of people reading entire volumes into simple statements that reverse the meaning of what was said outright.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 03:43

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG July Chat Thread: Now with 20% less uncanny valley