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Saturday, 14 November 2009

Americans Shouldn't Cosplay

Just to give us a little break from the whole Gencon/D&D 4e thing, here's some lighthearted humour with a good social message. And that message is:

Americans Shouldn't Cosplay!

That is all.

RPGPundit

PS: In a way though, this probably is about Gencon. Judging by some of the pics I've seen. My god! Its as one internet wise-man put it: "Gencon is probably the only place in the world where I can reliably and honestly estimate that I'd beat 80% of the population at the 100-yard dash". To that quote, I'd only add "Except if it was to get in the lineup for the Nachos".
What I'm saying is: HOLY FUCK, American Nerds, YOU ARE FAT AND GROTESQUE! Its horrific, because you just KNOW there are camera crews everywhere there, filming all the "freaks" who are trying to cosplay as the Flash in a T-shirt that's two-sizes two small for them (and would be two-sizes too large on any normal human being). Pathetic blob-creatures slowly ambling their way towards all their geek interests that no one really understands.

If Gencon wanted to really help the image of the Roleplaying hobby, not to mention the health of its clients (and, I would hazard to guess, the smell of its convention centre), they would announce right now that as of next year, there will be a maximum weight limit for entry: no one over.. let's say.. 250 lbs is allowed entrance to the con. This is a comfortable figure to allow for those who are just a bit chunky or in the rare and extremely unlikely event that someone quite muscular who weighs that much because of an athletic regime should want to attend. But it will get rid of the morbidly obese eyesores.

The bad news: It would probably mean that 70%+ of Gencon's attendees would be lost.
The good news: Then again, it would reform our image, tell people we're serious about doing something about reforming our image, and it might even bring in new people who were scared to come before. Hell, some of the overweight geeks might even discover something new called "self-control", and lose the pounds just to get into Gencon!
The Really Good News: Bruce Baugh wouldn't get in!

PPS: The more I think about this though, the more I realize that the problem, when it comes down to it, isn't the fatness. I mean, I have a few good friends that are very fat, but they know how to dress themselves, how to carry themselves in society, they don't look like slobs, they have good jobs where they actually have to interact with people, some of them are masons, etc etc. The problem is the SOCIAL RETARDATION. Now, not all fat people are social retards, you get some who actually can go around well-dressed and well-behaved. It just so happens that most of those I actually saw in the Gencon pics were clearly not of that type. If there were some other easy standard we could use to decide who to kick out and who to keep, I'd love to hear it. But fundamentally, we have to kick out the socially retarded, hopefully forever, and judging by those pics of Gencon, there are certainly a LOT of them.

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Solitario Egg + Esoterica's Penzance

(originally posted August 19, 2007)

Friday, 13 November 2009

LSH Campaign: Dispatches From the Apocalypse, By Raoul Duke

Where Have All The Villains Gone?

Long fucking time passing, that's where! What kind of a question is that to ask? The other night, I damn near choked on my insta-burrito when I heard Khfeurb Chee Bez wistfully long for the days when the Fatal Five tried to blow up the Sun, or Lightning Lord massacred a crowd at a Seventh-World-War-Reenactment.

Of course, one must recall Mr. Chee Bez's little fucking secret: long before he was a newscaster, old big-ears was once the utterly pathetic would-be superhero "Antenna Lad", who's main power, aside from being able to pick up radio waves with his ears, and annoy the fuck out of me, was to utterly suck at being a superhero. Shit, its a pity he changed careers for something else he utterly sucks at, becoming a "journalist".

I decided that Mr. Chee Bez's editorial required a response. This article is NOT that response; my response was given to Chee Bez more directly last night, when I jumped naked onto the windshield of his moving hover-convertible, urinated all over his plush upholstery, and fired my Bowel Disruptor at his pet cat, deftly swinging away on a passing tree branch while the panicked big-eared freak struggled to deal with the sheer shock of these unexpected events. You'll be glad to know that nothing of any real value was lost from my antics, Mr. Chee Bez crashed his hovercar safely into a church, destroying both car and church, and leaving cat in traction.

So THAT was the response; THIS, on the other hand, is an answer. To Mr. Fucking-Antenna-Lad and all the rest of the Dork-brigade (auxilliary) who still believe we're in the fucking good-old-days of rocket-shaped-clubhouses, I will tell you where the supervillains have gone: PRISON.

The Legion of Superheros was an anomaly, but a lovable one, that made sense in its time. Why did it make sense? In what way could a gang of barely-pubescent mutants running around in tight costumes getting all sweaty be sensible to anyone but the likes of Mr. Chee Bez And His Pussy?

At the time, there were three reasons why it made sense:
1. We were living in an age of unrivaled prosperity. People could afford to care about stupid things. They could imagine stupid ideas. They could think that someone named Triplicate Girl or Sun Boy could actually solve all of their problems.

2. The Government was fat and incompetent. It didn't need to work, it didn't need to be thin. We were floating in so many credits that no one gave a fuck if the government failed, even in some of its most basic responsibilities. Hence, I give you Takron-Galtos. The "prison planet" that the Fat Stupid Old Government thought was going to solve the United Planet's entire crime problem. One central, poorly built, poorly guarded planet with no special containment protocols for metahumans, where we were going to round up all the best super-powered criminals and put them there. Where they would promptly learn how to be better criminals, bribe the corrupt guards, escape from the flimsy defensive barriers, or be liberated by their allies. Fucking brilliant.

3. There were supervillains.

To be fair, however, the third point didn't really start to happen in any meaningful way until the Legion first showed up. Before 2973, no supervillains to speak of. After 2973, you have guys running around in tights committing crimes, calling themselves things like "Starfinger" or "Moleculo". Which only goes to show that emotional retardation isn't something limited to the good.

So at one point, the Legion made sense, because we had (point 3) supervillains AND (point 2) an unbelievably stupid prison system that allowed them to escape over and over again. And the legion would catch them over and over again. And all the fat drooling morons in the LSH Fan Club would sit at home watching their Hypernet Uplink eating Bachelor Chow and touching themselves with excitement.

But what's changed? Well, for starters, binky, we don't eat Bachelor Chow anymore. That company's gone out of business. We eat Dominion Chowder now. Well, you do. By you, I mean the non-famous, those who don't have Iris Allen showering them with credits, fancy apartments, and upscale dinners. You know, the underclass.

Oh, yes, there's another little change: we have an underclass now. A real one, I mean, not one for whom "underpriviledge" meant only owning ONE hover-car. This new underclass is producing a new kind of villain, or rather, a very old one: gangsters and pirates. People who don't feel the need to dress up or have a silly name, and don't give a shit about going after the Legion. Sure, the Legion can go after them, but it just looks kind of sad, doesn't it? The Legionnaires going after common street scum in their shiny uniforms and capes come off looking a bit like a cross between Fascists and Elvis (may the Great Magnet rest his Zombie bones).
The whole spectacle shows them off for the silliness of what they really are: a source of entertainment, in a world that's not entertaining anymore.

And the old villains? Well, they're all locked up in Labyrinth now; Takron-Galtos' replacement prison-world. Only this one has an impenetrable force-field created by Braniac 5, state of the art internal security, and, let's not forget: brainwashes criminals to force them to be good people. But that last little human atrocity is something I'll have to save for a future article.

Mahalo,
Raoul Duke

Currently Smoking: Stanwell Deluxe + H&H's Namaste

Thursday, 12 November 2009

The Benefits of My Infamy

Apparently the whole FFG-rumours thing has triggered off a small landslide of people sending me stuff. Now everyone wants to send me links, info, insider information, etc etc.

Ok, great. Carry on. But there's no guarantee of what will be published or not. Remember that I only do one post per day, and once in a while its got to be about me.

Meanwhile, the goons at RPG.net have once more locked the TWO threads that sprung up there about me (one was on "trouble tickets"). Of course, the more that conversation veered towards something other than mindless poo-flinging at my person, and more people showed up on there to defend me, and it seemed like it was risking generating too much attention for me or, you know, the Truth, the modclique decided that wasn't for them. So down it went.

So what, though? I'm pretty sure I've gained some proxies from the thing, and some new posters to theRPGsite; and my games got plugged. I'm going to call that Win for me.

Meanwhile, someone sent me a link from a storygames thread. In following with my own policy of not providing assistance to the Swine in promulgating their filth, I will not post this link, but I will feel free to talk about it: it was a very amusing thread that began with one of the Storygames Swine (in a moment of introspective self-doubt) asking the gang "Hey, could it be that regular gamers are more committed about gaming than we are"?

I could easily have told him "No shit, sherlock. For starters, we play games that are actually fun; and we're doing it BECAUSE OF THE GAME, not because of some weird fucked-up psychological quest for pseudo-artistic pseudo-intellectual self-validation all because mommy made us eat broccoli when we were little, and there was a stranger in a park with a present in his pants, and we never got over that, but rather than actually get real help or have to do anything resembling actual WORK to accomplish something to justify real self-confidence, we just want to talk with a lot of made-up jargon and pretend we're beatniks".
You fuckers are committed, to be sure. Committed in the sense of "you should be committed to some kind of asylum", yes, but also committed in the sense of dedication. Unfortunately, none of that dedication is to actually gaming, its all to propping up and maintaining your little Forge-fantasy-life where you're all such brilliant edgy deep-thinkers full of edgy deep-thoughts. It takes a great deal of commitment to scatter that much bullshit; the same kind of commitment that it takes for a dedicated slacker to avoid work, or for a fraud to perpetuate a lie. Games just don't enter into your radar, there's no room left for them.

Amusingly, their conclusion from this thread was "you know, maybe they are more committed than we are... but I'm sure they're miserable! And we're more "Free"!"

You all keep on telling yourselves that, you dumbfuck meatsacks. Deep down, you know the truth, you see the hollow little shell that is your lives.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Meerschaum Masonic + Altadis' Fox & Hound

Wednesday, 11 November 2009

The True, Sinister Reason For Thread Closure

So I seem to have really hit a nerve here, with this whole FFG thing; threads on theRPGsite, FFG's forums and even rpg.net.
The latter was briefly pulled, then reinstated. It appears that it was Darren MacLennan who tried to censor the thread, no doubt upset over the attention I was getting, but the other mods basically thwarted his attempt. Pity for him.

However, Brett Bernstein has a different theory. He thinks that more sinister motives were involved. Who knows? He may be right.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Blatter Diplomat + Altadis' Fox & Hound

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

Responding to The FFG Controversy

Apparently, the information I published a couple of days ago, based on an anonymous source's email, has caused quite a stir around these parts. A lengthy thread has emerged about it on theRPGsite, and another on the FFG forums.

Anyways, I thought I'd respond to the comments that have been made, particularly in that latter site. To those who defended me, particularly Mr. Allen, thank you.
As for the FFG-people, who's official editorial response was the following:

" The article posted on the "RPG pundit" has no bearing on reality in any form, factor, or detail. In fact, other than the spelling, there is nothing accurate in this fabricated post whatsoever.
FFG is always willing to listen to critique, everyone is free to dislike our products or form opinions on our product -- even on our own message boards, but outright lies and slander against our staff is not acceptable in our eyes (as well as illegal in most of the Western world).

I am 100% certain, however, as to the rumors that, yes indeed, Mr. Pundit's pants are on fire.

cP"

The thing is, first of all, you may want to reconsider your legal advisory panel, or whoever it is that is telling you that this is "slander": I was reporting something that was sent to me, and made clear that it was in the capacity of a leak, sent from an anonymous source. I did not qualify these statements as true or false, or presented them as anything other than hearsay, from someone who did not wish his identity revealed. What I published is no more slander than your shocking claims about the incendiary condition of my pants.
Now, if you're finished threatening me; I'd like to say that for the record, I have always been a big fan of Warhammer. Its is my hope that it does well. I've also never had an issue with Fantasy Flight. Of course, I do have some serious concerns about why they're turning WFRP into a Descent-based Boardgame and destroying the excellent RPG that was already there.
Likewise, if you'd known my posting history, I'd have been more inclined for Rogue Trader to do well than for Dark Heresy, as the former is at least closer to a general-purpose WH 40K rpg. I do not know how your sales have actually been, time will tell that anyways.

I came out and published, as I do regularly, information that is sent my way by people who know that what I write is going to be read. If you have a dissenting opìnion on the situation, you can feel free to write directly to me too, Mr. FFG-editor-guy. Shit, I'd be glad to do an interview on here, with Ross Watson, Jay Little, or ANYONE ELSE from your company. Likewise, I'd be quite glad to write a review of your WFRP 3e game, Rogue Trader, Dark Heresy, or any other game you wanted to send my way. My reviews have been known for being fair, thorough, and for increasing sales regardless of the review result.

So instead of stonewalling, maybe you could use this as a PR opportunity. I'm sorry for having to do your job for you, but that's the way to do good public relations, and to garner good publicity. And for my part I will be glad to give you the chance, both to respond to these claims about your company and to promote your new games. Do it, I dare you.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Davidoff 400-series + Esoterica's Penzance

Monday, 09 November 2009

Legion of Super-Peanuts Mondays

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Stanwell Compact + H&H's Namaste

Sunday, 08 November 2009

Thoughts On Obama, One Year Later

So, a year ago (plus a couple of days) Barack Obama was elected president. I was quite pleased, as you will recall.

Today, I'm a little bit disappointed. I suppose its a question of high expectations. I suppose its because I should actually be grateful for the fact that he hasn't committed atrocities; it wasn't that long ago that you couldn't have a year go by without a US president committing an atrocity.
In other words, I should be happy enough with the fact that he's not Bush.

But I'm getting a little tired of that being Obama's only real selling point. I didn't just want "not Bush" to win, but to actually have Obama, the Obama who was going to make the United States a place worth admiring again. And while America is now "not bad", it certainly hasn't gotten there yet.

Its amazing, how whenever Republicans are in power it seems so obvious the difference between the two parties; but whenever the Democrats are in power I feel like "they're all the same".
Of course, the real reason for this is that the Democrats love to talk the talk, but not walk the walk. Its not that Obama is REALLY "the same" as Bush, obviously he's not, but he's also not going out of his way to FIX any of what Bush did. The Democrats don't make anything actually better, no matter how much they promise they will. The only real difference is that they don't make things any worse, and that's really pretty pathetic.

Just once, I would have liked to have been pleasantly surprised by them. I really had hopes that Obama was going to be the United States' long-awaited answer to Pierre Trudeau. Its starting to look like that will very much not be the case, sadly.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Brigham Anniversary Pipe + Planta's Image Latakia

Saturday, 07 November 2009

Some News From the FFG Grapevine

Here's some information I received from an anonymous source. Take it as you will:

"According to a source inside the company, things are not happy at Fantasy Flight Games. Rogue Trader has failed to achieve the market penetration of Dark Heresy, putting the future of Death Watch, the third installment of the line, into debate. Ross Watson, already in a precarious position after the row that led to the stormy departure of Mike Zebrowski and the collapse of Fantasy Flight Game's play test program, and is now said to be considering his position.
Pre-orders of the new version of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay are said to be 'very soft' with interest in The Emperor's Decree launch event so low that Fantasy Flight Games staff have resorted to ringing game store managers pleading with them to participate. Fantasy Flight Games will officially explain this failure on the poor worldwide economy, although Jay Little is said to blame management interference in forcing him to move away from the system used in Dark Heresy and towards a variant of Fantasy Flight Game's own Descent board game."

Well, there you have it. It appears something is rotten in the FFG machine...

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Mastro de paja bent apple + Planta's Image Latakia

Friday, 06 November 2009

Letters Day

I haven't had one of these in a while.
But today we have a couple of letters for your viewing pleasure. The first is from Doug M., who writes:

----
Re. Green Devil Face
I would agree that the self-referential stuff and the inside jokes are stupid at best, actively obnoxious at worst. But those are pretty minor points. What's creepy about this is the vibe of fiftyish guys trying to recapture the experience of their high school senior year circa 1978 -- Billy Joel and Abba on Dad's Hi-Fi, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant under the six-pack of Tab, and the Keep on the Borderlands spread out on the basement ping-pong table. Wow, look at these weird dice!

But as to OSR, I'm sincerely confused. If "OSR" is limited to people who want to use 1st Ed rules to play Tomb of Horrors again, then yeah, it's a pretty teeny tiny group. (Thank goodness.) If it's people trying to recapture the wacky, anything-goes flavor of tabletop RPGs' first decade, that's something else again.

Is playing Pathfinder Old School? (Serious question.) It seems... at least somewhat so. Pathfinder is really 3.75, no? And the "look and feel" is very much 3.x, which in turn was a callback to AD&D circa 1982.

If Pathfinder doesn't qualify, would Hackmaster? I mean, it's the old AD&D books with a lot of house rules. Of course, it's out of print now. But still.

Is there a consensus on this point?
---

Well Doug, as much as it may surprise you, yes, the consensus is to use only old-games for old-school play, or "clone games" which either directly copy an old game, or copy with some modifications. New games, of any kind, with or without old-school feel, are not welcome by most of the OSR (contrary to what some say).
So AD&D 1e or Labyrinth Lord are in, Pathfinder or Two-fisted Tales are out.

Next, we have anonymous, who writes:

---
"Have you looked at the rpg.geekdo hotness list recently? Even more swine games are on it - of course, they all have tons of comments and such. Look at how many 10s they get. At least now, we can see who is swine by their ratings :)"
---

Yup, its pathetic, in fact. But that's what the Swine do, you have to give them credit for shameless and endless shilling, while we don't do enough of it.
There is an entry on WIKIPEDIA for the Storygame Swine who wrote "Breaking the Ice", an RPG that maybe 5 people have played (and that's her biggest "success"), but on the other hand there's no Wikipedia entry for, say, C.J. Carella, a vastly more successful game designer who happens to not be from the Forge. Nor is there one for theRPGsite, one of the largest and most relevant forums about RPGs on the internet, which is bigger than the Forge (which of course does have an entry). Nor, might I add, is there an RPGPundit entry, even though while I'm no C.J. Carella, I'm much more likely to be known by the average internet gamer than the author of "breaking the ice".
Not to mention, I've published a more successful game than she has.

So what to do about all this?
Well, I would suggest that if this bothers people, they should mobilize. Get on wikipedia and write entries, and CHALLENGE the relevance or veracity of all the Forge-influenced entries already on there.
Do the same with "Geekdo". Get on there and point out that these people are falsely exaggerating the popularity and quality of these games because they're on a religious crusade.
Its as simple as that.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Poul Winslow 40th Anniversary "Tulip" Freehand + Altadis' Byzantium

Thursday, 05 November 2009

Xiang Qi

My blogging time today has been taken over by the fact that Jong came over, and after watching a bit of Arrested Development we sat down and I taught him how to play Xiang Qi (Chinese Chess). Yup, the white guy taught the Asian how to play Chinese Chess. Of course, Jong isn't chinese, he's Korean; but hey, there's a version of Xiang Qi in Korea too (even though they actually play it wrong there, god knows why, but while the board and general concept is the same, in Korea they play all the moves differently).

Anyways, Xiang Qi is an awesome game, a cousin of western Chess, descended from the same ancestor from India (that was imported west and became Chess, and imported east it became Xiang Qi). Jong and I noted some of the more particular differences between chinese and western Chess, and we both noted that Xiang Qi seems to put far more emphasis on the defence part of the strategy, or at least it makes defending far easier than offense, since there are 5 pieces which can't cross over to the opposite player's side of the board (3 of those can't move more than two squares away from their starting point, in fact).

Anyways, I strongly recommend anyone, especially if a fan of western chess, to find a set of Xiang Qi and learn how to play.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Ferndown Bulldog + Hearth & Home's Mt.Marcy

(Originally posted August 13, 2007)