TG as an Industry: A pendulum swing against the excesses of Rule 0 culture

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG as an Industry: A pendulum swing against the excesses of Rule 0 culture

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

I�ve been exhibiting at the UKGE and an RPG was run with the GM describing the characters getting raped. This was the reply by UKGE: https://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/morenews.php?id=497

tl;dr UKGE apologised to the player that reported the issue, is trying to reach the other players involved, cancelled all other games by the GM and kicked him out of the convention, banned him from submitting in the future and is now reviewing their submission guidelines to prevent this happening in the future

# ¿ Jun 1, 2019 21:28

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 08:27

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

I don�t think the reactionaries understand what the term �witch hunt� actually refers to.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2019 11:44

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

The mental gymnastics to call people fascists while talking about �sexual deviants� and �degenerates� is astounding.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2019 16:28

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Nystral posted:

Can someone help me unpack this one?

It seems like fellow goon Oliva Hill is calling out Mearls for past bad acts re: Zak S. And Travelgorge is saying that Hill doesn�t have a place to talk because they published previously with WOTC, but this is like 4 months after Hill�s initial post.

I�m just lost here and I think I�m missing something important.

Travelgorge was replying to alphastream and using olivia�s post as proof, if you click through to twitter you can see the whole thread

# ¿ Jul 12, 2019 15:20

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

BetterWeirdthanDead posted:

Does the Hell Train have a stop in Suplex City?

I'm pretty sure there's no stopping the Hell Train.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2019 15:42

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Found this while trying to search for that reddit post as well.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2019 15:46

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

I had a bunch of EVE Online CCG cards, but now I just use them as card backers when I'm making custom cards. The game itself was very swingy and once one side had an advantage, it was hard to catch up, but it had some interesting ideas in it.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2020 12:09

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Rachel Simmons is probably my favourite board wargame designer ever, and she has made what is basically my holy grail game, Napoleon's Triumph:

http://www.simmonsgames.com/

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 15:31

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Panzeh posted:

In the cardboard world, I don't really see all that much that i'd chalk up to bad historiography in modern designs. OCS The Third Winter is based on a modern understanding of the Soviet forces in Ukraine in 1943-44, for example, and does a pretty good job of capturing their strengths and weaknesses, same for the Axis forces.

Yeah, modern hex and counters games are pretty good about how they handle historiography in relation to the Eastern Front nowadays. In some ways, it was kind of unavoidable that there would be bad historiography in terms of games developed within the 70s and 80s, because the Soviet archives hadn't been opened yet and all anyone had to rely on was just acocunts by incredibly biased sources.

A good book (although I think in some respects a bit out of touch in terms of the modern board wargaming sphere), is the The Myth Of The Eastern Front, which isn't so much about the Eastern Front itself, but how the Myth of it affected media in the US and how it came about that small time US printers created books mythologising the deeds of the SS/Wehrmacht. It has a chapter on wargaming that is interesting but not entirely accurate to the modern landscape.

Classic hex and counter designs have declined in terms of sales, but in general the modern wargaming sphere has expanded partially thanks to the boardgaming renaissance/golden age. The crucial factor is that only the most resiliant rulesets really survived, so in terms of what becomes available, ASL is the only real tactical hex and counter system that has any success nowadays, OCS is the same but for Operational-level, etc etc. The real boom in wargaming has been with simpler system like CDGs (although they boomed and busted that bubble long ago) and semi-euros like the COIN games.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2021 13:39

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Warthur posted:

My personal theory on this is that hex and counter wargames are fairly amenable to this because a lot of them seem to be very big on being true to history and so aren't so invested in presenting a scenario of two evenly opposed sides. I've seen hex and counter scenarios, for instance, where one side is considered to have "won" if they avoid being curbstomped to the same absolutely humiliating extent that they were in the historical situation being simulated, but there's no real prospect of them actually getting a "win" in the sense of convincingly defeating the opposing side.

If you're big on the exploring-history-through-simulation aspect of wargames there's zero excuse not to take in better historiography because if you don't then you end up with not just a politically dodgy/outright toxic game, but you also end up with a game which is bad at doing the thing it is trying to do.

I largely agree with this, but there are some exceptions to this, and they center around mostly tactical-level games. I'm not an expert on ASL, but as far as I'm aware, there is both the ability to play historical scenarios (I think they term it HASL, but I could be wrong), along with random scenario with relative force-parity (the latter also being a capability of other tactical-level games like Combat Commander et al). The latter mode of play is very reminiscent of miniature wargaming. and I think it's there that the issue with historicity can congregate, because without connection to a real life battle with a known outcome, the value of certain sides versus the other becomes a value judgement: it isn't possible to run it like you would a historical scenario and go "this outcome is widly outside of what happened historically, we need to tinker the scenario a bit more".

EDIT: I guess you made that point though, still, an interesting topic.

Tekopo fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Nov 25, 2021

# ¿ Nov 25, 2021 14:03

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

They sent out an article saying that the reason why the game was not popular was due to how competitive players played the game:

� Be careful what you wish for. We set out to make the cleanest, most balanced miniatures game you could play at that time. And we achieved this hands down, flat out, nailed it!

Guild Ball truly was a competitive player�s dream. It rewarded player skill and experience, with a very flat probability curve to minimize variance. The competitive scene grew and grew.

But this ended up hurting the lifespan of the game.

Guild Ball became the type of game where you win your first game (demo) and then lose the next 100 games. When matched against a lesser skilled or inexperienced opponent, a better player would simply win the vast majority of games.

As the competitive scene began to dominate, the design space for wilder, more �fun� elements began to shrink. New minis were either �OP� or �trash-tier� the second they were announced. Why take a new model when model XYZ already filled the role?

The style of gameplay changed to low-risk, ultra-conservative play where the ball was often deliberately side-lined.�

They deleted that article now btw after the backlash.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2021 13:09

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

I mean, Steamforged just found a lovely excuse for giving Guild Ball the boot, instead of just saying that the game wasn't making money and that they stopped concentrating on it after the success of their licensed kickstarters.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2021 16:48

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Even in terms of boardgames, coop games can get away with a lot of poo poo (like extreme post-decision randomness) that would create negative experiences in a competitive setting. One example in a game that overlaps with MtG is Hearthstone: I really enjoy someone of the solo game modes, but I have never played an actual competitive game of Hearthstone.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2022 12:57

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

I�d even go to say that nowadays, complex hex and counter games like ASL and OCS are the anomaly, not the rule. It�s only really MMP that is still somewhat profitable making them.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2022 12:44

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Rutibex was also misogynist, if you ever read anything about how he believed women weren�t smart enough to play games at a high level.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2023 21:55

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Arivia posted:

Rutibex was an actual dipshit. He got banned from the path of exile thread because he just couldn't admit he was wrong, even when it ruined other peoples' experience with the game, and he came pretty close to doing the same on several occasions in the D&D/OSR threads here.

He did the same for any thread he frequented. He gave the shittiest advice in the board game thread as well to newbies, and from what I know he did the same in other threads.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2023 22:03

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

So what you are saying is that WIld Conjecture makes us more powerful and resiliant, and we should keep doing it? idk, i'm not a magic player

# ¿ Apr 27, 2023 17:10

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Xelkelvos posted:

Here's a Polygon article reporting on it
https://www.polygon.com/23759783/dnd-dungeons-dragons-lawsuit-tsr-bankrupt-chapter-7

quote:

Documents filed in North Carolina paint a grim picture for TSR. They show gross revenue for the first 23 weeks of the year of just $621.93. Total liabilities � which include money owed to LaNasa himself, as well as another of his businesses, plus legal fees � total $384,941.99.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2023 13:40

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

That�s the battle of Baader-Meinhof actually.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2023 11:01

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Not trying to do any sort of gotcha or anything, just curious, but do you extend the same analysis to Verhoeven's Starship Troopers? Is Starship Troopers a fascist film because it portrays the actions of the protagonist in a positive light?

# ¿ Jul 13, 2023 12:05

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

I've been playing in a Demon: The Descent game and it's really quite cool (it's one of the CoD games). Shame about the author, but the background and lore of the game is probably some of my favourite in any WoD-adjacent game.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2023 18:36

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Putting on a video of That Scene when you manage to predate succesfully.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2023 22:11

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Dawgstar posted:

Aw. Now I get to learn Parker Posie's a lovely person too. Oh well.

Posie Parker is not Parker Posey, if that�s what you are thinking

# ¿ Sep 23, 2023 12:36

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

I enjoyed Solo more than Rogue 1, which people seem to really like.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2023 12:53

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 08:27

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

gradenko_2000 posted:

somewhat tangential, but as someone who very recently got back into Advanced Squad Leader, I was able to play it essentially for free:

- download the Starter Kit rules PDF from the Multi-Man Publishing site
- download the VASSAL module for the game
- download either some user-made Starter Kit scenarios

(I did buy the electronic rulebook on DTRPG, and I do own the dead-tree boardgame, but still)

and I was able to do this with at least one other game. For B-17 Queen of the Skies you even only need the VASSAL module, though I don't feel bad about that one at all because it's been out-of-print forever.

I guess I bring this up because I wonder if it's on anyone's radar that this is a thing that can happen. Are boardgame publishers concerned about the ability of people to play their games without purchasing the physical product? I'm not saying that there should be "boardgame DRM", I just feel like I couldn't be the only person that's figured out that this is possible.

What some companies do is provide rulebooks (because outright not allowing free access to them is a pretty bad idea) but don't allow free access to their scenario rulebooks (at least, in a legal way): GMT often does this, which means that although you might be able to see the rulebook and be able to access the Vassal module for a game, you don't know how to set it up correctly or what the special scenario rules are. MMP doesn't seem to care though and just provides absolutely everything you need to play a game on Vassal, without having to access anything illegal or buying the game to get access to all the rules.

My own feeling in terms of why MMP has such a laissez-faire attitude to people technically playing their games for free is that it probably doesn't really impact sales. They have an extremely niche market with very limited print runs, and thanks to the way that both MMP and GMT handle their pre-orders, they already know that a significant majority of their print runs will sell after printing. Being able to play on Vassal also probably doesn't impact the purchasing decision of someone getting a complex wargame either, and from my own personal experience, I have bought games on the back of trying them in Vassal first.

I think there is something to be said about the physicality of board games as well, and this really touches on both board wargames and more normie fare: there is a tangible difference between playing on TTS/Vassal/etc over playing the game in real life, and the tactile feel of playing games is a huge plus for a lot of people.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2024 10:05

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG as an Industry: A pendulum swing against the excesses of Rule 0 culture