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Rand Brittain posted:If not GUMSHOE, the upcoming Ars Magica game based on GUMSHOE. Kevin Kulp and Emily Dresner are also working on a fantasy GUMSHOE game: "Swords of the Serpentine, a fantasy game of city-based intrigue and corruption." Due in 2019.
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Mar 4, 2018 20:29
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inklesspen posted:Do we know anything more about this? Not any risk of me drowning out the Pathfinder 2 glee, right? Good. Couple of quotes from Kevin Kulp recently: quote:Ha! It's more like Conan the Barbarian with a big sword in one hand and a thief's throat in the other, shaking the thief violently until he desperately spills the passwords to the secret entrance of the assassin's guild down in the Tangle, so that Conan can go have a very.. important.. talk with a woman who earlier poisoned Conan's drink. Blood will be shed. And if Conan manages to acquire the antidote, he's going to want to track down the sonsofbitches who ordered the assassination in the first place. There's a complicated plan going on that needs Conan dead, apparently, and someone very rich is going to be very disappointed when they find out the barbarian doesn't plan to do his part. quote:To be serious, this initial perception [Conan with a sword and a deerstalker hat] is the biggest hurdle a fantasy GUMSHOE game will have. While you can play as City Watch or Church inquisitors, there's no need to; like NBA, investigation pushes the action and isn't normally the prime focus. Deerstalker caps not required! I'd much rather my ne'er-do-well Outlander thief be running across rooftops while fleeing from the minions of a demon-possessed noble, than sorting through paperwork or looking at blood spatters. February 1st, from Pelgrane: quote:Kevin Kulp and Emily Dresners’s GUMSHOE game of cities, secrets, and sorcery has now hit 150000 words, and is being polished ready for external playtesting. Kevin has run it himself for more than 100 playtesters. When designers run their game, it helps them hone their design fixing weaknesses and flaws, but it’s very hard to know if the text does the job of transmitting the game they want the players to experience without sending it out for external playtesting. Playtesting also shows flaws in the design, gives us an idea of the market for the game, but making sure people are playing the game we intended is pretty high on the list. I am pretty excited. Further discussion maybe to the GUMSHOE thread I dunno.
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Mar 7, 2018 04:39
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Huh. You know how Pelgrane always does print versions before PDF versions, if there are going to be both -- unless you pre-order? And Simon Rogers is very confident about the numbers? Kevin Crawford's data suggests that Pelgrane is absolutely correct.
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Apr 21, 2018 05:10
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Serf posted:
I'm gonna quibble about this one thing -- I'd actually assume that James Stuart was getting a lot less than $2K. For one thing, obviously Kickstarter and taxes takes a chunk. For another thing, that $2K doesn't come from people who just get the stretch goal. Harper still had to cover the costs of giving some of them physical copies of the book, for example. The reason I'm making this somewhat minor point is because when I see a Kickstarter that has a lot of great stretch goals at $1-3K increments, I assume it's going to be a few pages of work. It's not a ton of money to pay authors. Atlas Games ran their Feng Shui Kickstarter like this, and a lot of Pelgrane Kickstarters also do stretch goals like that. In retrospect, I should have looked at the BitD Kickstarter and said "whoa. $5K additional income may not be enough to cover Jason Morningstar doing a complete reskin for Elizabethan England." This is a good tool to use when I'm evaluating Kickstarters in the future.
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May 31, 2018 03:49
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Nystral posted:I wonder if this is will also bite the Delta Green people as well, as IIRC they followed a very similar model (abet at a much higher per backer floor) Delta Green's relevant pledge levels: $20 -- the Agent's Handbook PDF, a bunch of random adventures, and the Control Group campaign book $25 -- the above and any one extra PDF $80 -- the above and all stretch goal PDFs $100 -- everything funded in PDF (basically an extra $20 to get the Case Officer's Handbook for GMs along with the Agent's Handbook for players) During the campaign they took several of the smaller free PDFs and turned them into a book called... The Complex, IIRC? The other substantial books: Falling Towers, Deep State, and Impossible Landscapes. So If you went in at the $100 level, you were getting seven PDFs for $14 apiece. $80 level is consistent with that, roughly $13 per PDF. Getting the Agent's Handbook plus any one other PDF plus Control Group plus The Complex for $25 is a good bargain, but it's not a deadly one. And most of the small adventure PDFs were older adventures that just needed conversion to the new rules. Not a ton of work. It'll take a while for Delta Green to complete, but I have faith. Now, 7th Sea charged me $40 for every single PDF. 12 books. 3 bucks a PDF. OW. And no reason for anyone to go higher unless they love physical books. Average pledge, btw: $115 for 7th Sea, $143 for DG.
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Nov 11, 2018 02:08
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Justin Alexander's "disassociated mechanics" crap pissed me off as much as anyone, and still does. As far as I know he has never apologized or given any indication that he knows he was being a jerk. I'm not worried about him screwing up Atlas' RPGs, because at some point in his life he went from "the core concept of GUMSHOE is stupid" to "here's how I spent 90+ hours of my life running a Trail of Cthulhu campaign." I dunno what happened. Doesn't make up for anything, and in particular the dead naming stuff is ugly. But he is capable of writing competent, useful gaming material.
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Jan 25, 2019 03:55
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Ferrinus posted:4e actually works just fine for popcorn fights - a few years ago I played a month-long weekly game of 4e that largely involved going theough an as-written 3e dungeon and it was a lot of fun. You open up a door, there’s three kobolds behind it, you crush em in a couple combat rounds and roll right along. The challenge was using your encounter and utility powers to ablate, block or dodge every hit and thus win without losing any hp, since any hits the popcorn got on you would eat into your surge reserves. Yeah, I figured out really late in the game's lifespan that an encounter designed by the rules didn't have to be one single room -- you can put that much challenge into a series of smaller fights and it works out just fine as long as you're not doling out rests after every fight. Maybe up the monster count a bit to account for the lack of focused fire. Someone online pointed this out and I started running that way in my Greyhawk and it made my dungeon crawls much more fluid.
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Jan 27, 2019 21:11
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You know, the hour Justin Alexander spent on Twitter last night arguing that Numenera's intrusion mechanic is exciting GM tech that's completely unrelated to Fate compels suggests that I was dead wrong a few pages back. https://twitter.com/boymonster/status/1090430046823636992
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Jan 30, 2019 16:19
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gradenko_2000 posted:I personally cut my teeth on RPPR and haven't really found anything else to my liking since, and if clockworkjoe is saying that their APs are unedited, then I guess I listen to and enjoy the unedited clips? I haven't listened to much RPPR but the God's Teeth sequence is fantastic. I want to listen to the unedited material sometimes, because if it's done well it's a lesson in how to pace my own games. I like that. I also like Magpies, which runs for an hour at a time and they often get a whole session done in that hour. I haven't asked or researched it but from the lack of "ums" and "wait while I check that" and the outtakes at the end, I assume it's heavily edited. The editing skill is impressive and it cuts right to the story and the mechanics, which is helpful and educational in a different way.
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Feb 5, 2019 05:12
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Oh neat, he does the thing where you assume that “I like sexual act X” means “I consent to doing it with you right now.”
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Feb 14, 2019 07:05
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Nessus posted:So where did The Human Eyeliner here get the money to make people financially dependent on him? He come from money? Selling crank to schoolchildren? His paintings sell for at least 20K a pop. He’s not a major artist but he’s not selling his art at flea markets either — he does fine.
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Feb 14, 2019 15:45
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That Old Tree posted:https://twitter.com/IPRTweets/status/1097022709710479360?s=19 The McFarlands have transferred ownership of the Chill titles on DTRPG over to the IP owner, according to his Stepping Away post. This seems to me like obfuscation -- there are plenty of DTRPG titles from Growling Door which are not Chill.
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Feb 17, 2019 17:37
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xiw posted:I think part of what's going on here is that Zak isn't writing this for the rpg community - because this is something that's hitting him in the IRL social networks he's abandoned trying to defend himself on the RPG side and writing purely for the real-life people. And the art world, where he makes his real money.
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Mar 4, 2019 16:57
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Did Sean Patrick Fannon ever produce an actual apology for his harassment, or were there other developments I missed? Dude is all over the Prowlers & Paragons Kickstarter.
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Mar 21, 2019 15:24
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Nuns with Guns posted:Here's excerpts of the article he refuses to correct about Zak and Pundit consulting on 5e D&D: Bending over to be precise: he can't correct it himself, he no longer writes for them and doesn't have edit access. However, as far as I know he hasn't asked Bleeding Cool to correct or update the article either.
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Apr 23, 2019 03:55
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Nuns with Guns posted:Sorry, yeah, meant to grab the full screenshot moths found to show how he went "I can't change it now, but even if I could I wouldn't!" but twitter is the worst about properly compiling tweet threads. But you're right that Bleeding Cool would probably be fine placing an update on the article if he asked them, so even that's a weak excuse. Yup on all counts and no sorry needed -- Twitter bites.
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Apr 24, 2019 05:00
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90s Cringe Rock posted:Everybody's favourite edgy designer named Zak is asking his Kickstarter backers to help him compile an enemies list again. Maybe he was keeping his old one in google plus? Aw, and look at his twitter: Molly Crabapple is still buying into his sensitive artist crap. Someone didn’t spend a lot of time reflecting on why Weev was able to sucker them, huh?
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May 10, 2019 18:54
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PST posted:Best Game Is the website accurate when they say that Mothership is still an alpha version?
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Aug 3, 2019 18:41
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King of Solomon posted:Amazon actually owns it? Like, it isn't just hosted in AWS or something, Amazon actually went to WotC to license the D&D name to make the product? Not any more. D&D Beyond is a Curse property; Curse was bought by Twitch in 2016. In 2018, Twitch spun off most properties and sold them to Fandom.
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Oct 4, 2019 23:46
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Kurieg posted:The issue with Mearls is that he was perfectly capable of understanding 4e, and communicating it to players in a simple, welcoming manner. In the run-up to 4e he wrote a bunch of mini-books that were basically "CHANGE IS SCARY PLEASE EXPLAIN THE FRIGHTENING NEW EDITION TO ME MR. WOTC!" It's still very weird to me. He wrote a 3.5 book dedicated to the idea that martial fighters should be able to handle the same challenges as arcanists. He got the problem.
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Oct 7, 2019 01:59
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:My introduction to Ken Hite was the double take I made when I got to the bit of background lore in Ashen Stars that implies the protagonist faction is committing genocide against the bug people (artificially limiting their population under color of law) and is right to do so because otherwise they would just breed out of control. Except Ken Hite didn’t write Ashen Stars.
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Oct 8, 2019 06:18
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Ultiville posted:Getting a regular paid gig in gaming is incredibly difficult. FFG probably wasn't hiring, because they rarely do, and FFG and WOTC are probably the only two games in town in terms of actually giving people regular jobs rather than contract work. Anyone have any strong reason to assume the role reports into Mearls, as opposed to being on digital products or Magic or both? Anyone actually asked DC politely if they're aware that the cover art looks like it was derived from the Gundam art? (Related: anyone bothered to notice that the cover is credited to someone else, who might not have told DC the truth?)
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Nov 17, 2019 02:48
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Lemon-Lime posted:If you're writing a game about anime mecha protagonists, this excuse doesn't fly. Yes, you can tell how obvious it is because the game won an Ennie and *nobody noticed this*.
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Nov 17, 2019 18:46
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Jerik posted:Thanlis made a good point, actually, that that might not even have been the author's fault; the credited cover artist might have passed it off as their own work without the author knowing it wasn't. (I know I certainly wouldn't have recognized the cover to an anime Blu-ray.) But I wasn't trying to address that specific case at all; I and I think most of the other posters in the last page or so were just talking about art theft in general, and in particular Meinberg's bizarre posts about how we should all have more sympathy for the poor, misunderstood art thieves. Yeah, that's my point. It's horribly obvious once you see the original cover. I can imagine Mikey Zee thinking it's within the bounds of fair use, insofar as the game is a commentary on the genre. I can imagine DC thinking the same thing. I can imagine DC not realizing, although it's a pretty distinctive mecha look. Personally I think it's a bit close to the edge for fair use (see also this), plus the original should have been credited. But gently caress, that's a more interesting discussion than "HA HA WE CAUGHT YOU."
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Nov 18, 2019 02:22
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He’s been chatting recently about how attractive anarcho-nihilism is to him, which makes sense. His games are more coherent if you read them as accelerationist.
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Nov 23, 2019 03:01
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Kai Tave posted:This ties in to what I mentioned earlier re: him having a fascination with making games about violent revolution, emphasis on "violent," regardless of anything else. Yeah yeah, Sigmata jerks itself off about not killing cops when they're off duty but there's no real message or critical examination there, it's shallow as a puddle. All of his games basically seem to start at a premise of "I want to make a game about fighting, lemme roll some dice here, [SPACE CAPITALISTS] with [CYBER MAGIC]" and then he just sort of works backwards from there to wrap a premise around it. Yeah, whether or not he realizes it, he's really glorifying the transgressive violence.
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Nov 24, 2019 04:40
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Hot Guys Making Out and Bliss Stage are terrible. If you leave it at that without grappling with the way the Forge influenced designers to center transgressive sexuality, you’re letting a couple of cis people slide while condemning a trans designer. Start with this, then find a copy of Ron Edwards’ Sex and Sorcery and think about how the gender essentialism of that book might gently caress up trans designers. Especially since Ron deliberately positioned himself as a wise guru. Don’t let P H Lee slide. Do think about the context.
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Nov 29, 2019 16:24
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Warthur posted:I mean, I guess? It's worth noting that the last post on the Forge was in 2012, which means that if my Googling is accurate Bliss Stage came out in its latter days and HGMO about a year after it was done and fine, fair enough, its influence was still very much felt in the indie RPG world at the time. A minor note: the Internet says that Bliss Stage came out in 2011, but it actually came out in 2007. Either way, P H Lee should own their own crap, without question. Again: not making excuses for P H Lee. Putting HGMO on itch is a decision they made this month, as Meinberg says. It's not about excuses for HGMO, it's about taking the time to ask what else is left over from those days. When we argue about sex moves in Apocalypse World, that's a Forge legacy. When we think about the implications of the Turn Someone On move in Monsterhearts, that's the Forge. When Ron Edwards says that stories where males take female roles are inevitably tragic, that's the Forge. Some of the legacy is good, and some is hugely problematic. If we don't talk about HGMO in the context of the Forge, though, it becomes a story about that hosed up perv queer creator who just happened to write sick games. I don't think anybody here intends to play into the stereotype of pervy queers, but we risk doing so regardless.
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Nov 29, 2019 18:52
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dwarf74 posted:He's basically been driven out of the industry, last I checked. Nobody gives a gently caress about his OSR game anymore. He's still floating around. You will not be surprised to hear that he staged a redemption tour over on Pundit's site. By carefully avoiding actual dates he proposed a timeline in which he quit hanging out with Milo just as soon as the pedophilia scandal broke. Spoiler: he didn't.
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Feb 13, 2020 16:19
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Kickstarter United did it! https://twitter.com/ksr_united/status/1229798975693299712
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Feb 18, 2020 17:14
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Are there game stores running? They're not essential businesses. It varies. South Carolina just issued a shelter in place order that didn’t close retail shops. Tattered Cover, the big bookstore in Denver, has an exemption for the purposes of mail order.
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Apr 1, 2020 00:05
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Apparently Australia is worse on defamation than Canada: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/nov/24/australias-unworkable-defamation-laws-what-the-governments-changes-could-mean
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Apr 9, 2020 01:24
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Kai Tave posted:I think it's pretty weird that a game based on a movie about fighting moon Nazis has an intro adventure that has you investigating on behalf of someone concerned about "dangerous alt-left and pro-socialist circles" is the thing. Man, that's not weird, that's 100% standard "let's pretend there's a significant difference between my alt-right views and white nationalism." I can't be a bad person, I hate the *real* Nazis!
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Apr 22, 2020 16:19
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JohnnyCanuck posted:Just as an FYI folks: because Zak is bringing suit against Mandy in Ontario, there is an Ontario-based anti-SLAPP law that's been in place since 2015. So thankfully, she has that going for her - it's not anywhere near as bad as it used to be. Good news! Also makes me want to repost her GoFundMe so I will: https://www.gofundme.com/f/gxywr5-legal-funds
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Apr 30, 2020 19:42
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Critical Role seems big enough that WotC would notice if they did something. I mean, what percentage of 5E books are about them? Exactly the same percentage as are about Acquisitions Incorporated, Eberron, or Rick and Morty.
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May 24, 2020 18:44
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homullus posted:I don't follow the Ennies. Do they nominate games that aren't done? Yep. Mothership won a few last year and it’s in beta (although it’s a high quality beta).
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Jun 29, 2020 19:03
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Xiahou Dun posted:I was being polite and keeping D&D in the math but unmentioned. Oh god no. Blades is rules heavy. The action roll core mechanic is 10 pages all by itself, including the material on effect, positioning, and consequences — which is important. It’s one of the most complex core mechanics I’ve ever seen. “I want to hurt the thugs.” “OK, first you need to decide which action you use. Then I’m going to decide what the position is. If you don’t like it you might choose a different action rating. Then I’m gonna choose an effect level, same deal. Then we go through bonus dice, which requires decisions on your part and on the part of other characters. Then roll, and we narrate the result, but I decide consequences.” “I want to hurt the thugs.” “OK, roll a d20 and add your Strength modifier. Tell me what the total is. If you hit, roll 1d10 plus the same modifier for damage.”
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Jul 14, 2020 14:45
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Glazius posted:Okay, I'm going to be charitable here and assume you just have no idea that you've deliberately crippled your Blades example to create maximum confusion. That's understandable! D&D and Blades have two different philosophies of dice. Ah, I see your error. I don't think using the Blades mechanics is a nightmare at all. I've run and played a lot of Blades, and I enjoy it very much. Nonetheless, the core mechanic is complex. It absolutely does more than the core D&D mechanic! It definitely flows well once you get a handle on it. Understanding the importance of the story is part of getting a handle on it. But it is also more complex. Which is not a bad thing.
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Jul 15, 2020 03:31
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The 2020 Diana Jones Award goes to Black Excellence in Gaming. This is undoubtedly the award Misha B was talking about on Twitter last week (they got her name wrong in the invite email). Some black designers were willing to be listed, and some were not. Make sure to read Jabari Weather’s bio in particular.
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Jul 30, 2020 16:34
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admanb posted:They could've come up with lots, which is the problem. They put themselves in this dumbshit position by repeatedly failing to recognize non-white creators even when they gave themselves an easy way to do it. For example, in 2018 they gave the award to the concept of Actual Play, and listed Critical Role, TAZ, Maze Arcana, Acquisitions Inc, and One Shot Network. Friends At the Table, which even in 2018 was making $15k on Patreon, was not mentioned. Mmm. I think this would have been more powerful if they’d highlighted designers they’ve missed in the past because of their own bias, exactly like the above. Thanks, that was a great post and helped me refine my thoughts.
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Jul 30, 2020 19:38
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