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Sunday, November 15, 2009

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:19:16 GMT

LSH Campaign Character Guide: Sensor Girl

Due to changes in the storyline of my campaign versus the comics' history, and my own personal preferences, from decisions I had made very early in the campaign, my LSH Campaign's Sensor Girl is a very different character from the DC Universe's, in fact, she's not the same person at all.

(A little note about the history of the Sensor Girl character: Just after Crisis on Infinite Earths, Levitz introduced Sensor Girl into the Legion comic; his original plan was to have it be Supergirl (who had just died in the Crisis), with no real explanation as to why she could be there; Levitz realized that without Superboy/girl, the Legion made no sense, and simply saying "well, we're doing something different over here" would be the best way to address this without utterly fucking up the Legion. Unfortunately, his superiors in DC at the time didn't feel the same way. They felt that under NO circumstances could Supergirl exist anywhere, or the real Superboy, so they decided that instead, they'd totally fuck up the Legion for 20 years rather than go the easy route... which explains a lot of where we are today with the Legion stories, where only now, that basically Levitz's original idea of Not Giving a Fuck About Explaining Continuity has been adopted, is the Legion starting to seriously Not Suck again.
Anyways, when the Sensor Girl = Super Girl idea was nixed, Levitz rapidly explained SG away as having secretly been Princess Projectra instead, which I always thought was fairly lame)

In my own campaign, I decided from the start of the campaign that the universe I'd be running would be the "Glorithverse" universe of v.4. That is to say, it would be Lar Gand, as Valor, who would be the hero that inspired the Legion, and my Legion would not have anyone from the 20th century paying regular visits. I decided that instead of having a "laurel gand"/andromeda/tiger-rose figure (essentially, Giffen's Supergirl-substitute v.2.0 after Sensor Girl), I would instead have a Supergirl, but a 30th Century Supergirl descended from the original and someone in Valor's family lineage.

This left the matter of Superboy. I simply kept him out for most of the history of my campaign; but shortly after the time that Sensor Girl shows up in the Legion, there is an important storyline (the one Levitz tried to use to resolve the "superboy" question), where it is revealed that Superboy is in fact a creation of the Time Trapper from a "pocket universe".
Now, I had neither the Time Trapper nor Superboy as figures of note in my campaign, so I could simply have ignored this, but it also tied into a later storyline of revenge against the time trapper, and this storyline was of massive significance as far as charting the decline of the Legion was concerned.

Instead, I decided to do the following:
Sensor Girl is actually Lauren El-Gand, daugher of Kara El-Gand, the "Supergirl of the 30th Century", and Rond Vidar (famous scientist and secret Green Lantern). She was born in 2983. She joined the legion, her identity hidden as Sensor Girl, in 2986.

How? Sensor Girl is Lauren El-Gand, but from the future. She comes from the year 3006, and traveled back in time 20 years to save the Legion from a catastrophe. In her own time, in the future, it is she who is the Legion's, and the 31st Century's Supergirl:

Sensor/Super Girl had been told of and trained for the moment she would have to travel back in time, by Braniac 5, who we know to be her godfather and to have cared for Lauren for at least part of her childhood. The reason for her travelling back in time would involve the fact that in 2987, a villain known as the Time Trapper would usurp the powers of Glorith of Balduur, becoming the new master of time. The Time Trapper would be, in many ways, far more ambitious and dangerous than Glorith, and in his plots would seek to destroy the Legion and conquer the universe itself, by altering the Legion's personal timeline so that he could gain dominion over all of creation billions of years in advance.

Braniac 5 and Lauren constructed a suit for herself, which would act as a camouflage to tachyon detection, would allow her to project certain holographic tricks, and would maintain her true identity absolutely secret. He also gave her precise instructions on what to do.

When she arrived in the 2980s, Lauren approached Saturn Girl, the one person she had been told to reveal her true nature to, and explained to Saturn Girl the gravity of the situation. Saturn Girl agreed with her plan, and personally proposed "Sensor Girl" to a vote for membership in the 2986 membership drive, without prior testing. This was deeply unorthodox, but based on the Legionnaires' great trust in one of their founders, they accepted Sensor Girl on Saturn Girl's word alone.

Unwilling to reveal her identity to anyone else, immense speculation flourished among the Legion and the public at large as to "who is Sensor Girl?". Theories, credible and incredible, abounded. Several legionnaires began to drive themselves nearly to obsession to try to discover the truth, most notably The Braniac 5 of 2986 and Invisible Kid, both of whom separately and jointly began to gather certain clues, but had not been able to figure out the full equation. Eventually, Invisible Kid settled on the theory that Sensor Girl was in fact Princess Projectra, who had recently left the Legion to rule her world and grieve the death of her husband (Karate Kid). His explanation of his conclusions to Brainiac 5 led the latter to conclude that Invisible Kid was mistaken, and Braniac developed his own theory, based on the facts he'd gathered; he came to believe that Sensor Girl was in fact Kara El-Gand (the present-day Supergirl), sent from the future. He was only wrong in respect to the fact that it was her daughter.

Meanwhile, Sensor Girl proved to be an excellent Legionnaire, skilled in both ability and training far beyond any of the other new inductees (obviously, because as Supergirl she had been in the 31st century legion for some time now). She combined her natural powers, the powers of her suit, and her knowledge (hazy as it was) of future events, to regularly astound the other Legionnaires as to her abilities.
Aside from knowing many details about missions the rest of the Legion was yet to have, Lauren was half-Daxamite and one-quarter Titanian. She had inherited, from her mother, most of her mother's Kryptonian-like superabilities. Unlike her mother, it appears that Lauren was immune to Kryptonite, though whether that was because of her suit, because Braniac would in the future develop some kind of serum/treatment against that as he had against the Daxamites' Lead Poisoning, or because she was born immune, is not clear. From her father, she inherited much of Rond Vidar's incredible intelligence and capacity to learn, which is believed to be due to latent, subconscious, psychic abilities. Her "Sensor Girl" suit could change appearance, protected her in a variety of environments, made her impossible to scan with any technology from the 2980s, and allowed her to manipulate time-energy on a small scale (she used it in two conflicts against the Emerald Empress, for example, to destabilize the Emerald Eye of Ekron).

In 2987 it was revealed to the Legion that the Time Trapper, believed to have been a servant of Glorith of Balduur, had somehow overthrown her and taken her place as the Lord of the End of Time. It was further revealed that Legion Academy student Laurel Kent was an automaton, an agent of his. She attempted to destroy the legion, activated from a "sleeper agent" status after the beginning of a "crisis"; but was ultimately defeated. Even so, it appears her real goal was to keep the legion busy while the Trapper shifted the timelines; he altered history, creating a whole new timeline where Supergirl had never existed, and in her place, as a legionnaire, was Superboy (Clark Kent, from the 20th century). None of the Legion remembered the original timeline, except for Lauren. Protected by the defenses in her suit, she obviously remembered her mother having existed, and that Superboy was never meant to be in the Legion.
Her position was strengthened when Cosmic Boy, legion founder (now retired) came back from a trip through time; being in temporal flux he remembered the original timeline, and realized that Superboy's presence in the future was wrong. On his insistence, the Legion sent a team back to Smallville in the 20th century. There they discovered the Time Trapper, who had set a trap for the group, and had manipulated the young Clark Kent into betraying his companions. Unfortunately for the Time Trapper, the Legion resisted, Clark had a change of heart, and the Trapper was forced to kill Superboy, triggering the Blinovich Limitation Effect (a law of time that, in this application, meant that the fixed importance in time of Clark Kent was such that, killing him long before he could become Superman and do all the things he was meant to do was so beyond the universes capacity to accommodate itself to the temporal paradox that the universe started to collapse).

In the chaos, it was revealed that the Time Trapper was apparently none other than the future version of Cosmic Boy himself! Convincing the shocked Legionairres that the only way to save all of creation was to work together, the Time Trapper restructured the timeline and then fled, leaving the Legion to limp back to the 30th century, where they discovered that in this new timeline, neither Superboy nor Supergirl had ever been a part of the Legion.

Sensor Girl thus knew that the job wasn't done. And when those legionnaires who remembered all that had occurred and what the Time Trapper had done (particularly Cosmic Boy and Braniac 5) began hatching a secret plot to travel to the end of time and kill the Time Trapper, Sensor Girl knew it was her time to act. She revealed her true identity, as the future's Supergirl, and joined the conspirators traveling to the end of time.

There was a cataclysmic battle against the Time Trapper, at the end of which the Trapper was defeated when the Legion managed to liberate Glorith of Balduur and restore her to her place as the Lady of the End of Time; and the Time Trapper was finally slain, and the original timeline restored. But this event had massive consequences for the Legion. One of Duo Damsel's bodies was killed, Valor was left comatose and unlikely to ever recover, and as a consequence of their actions, Braniac 5 would end up leaving the Legion. Supergirl was returned to her own time period, in 3008, rather than 2988 with the rest of the team, effectively ending her time as "Sensor Girl" and that heroine's story in the Legion.
However, she was able to send one last message to the Legion. By harnessing the energies of a supernova, with the help of 3008's Braniac 5, she transmitted a final message to the Legion of 2988. She told them that she was alright, and warned them of dark times that were ahead for them. Her tone implied that some of the Legion team would not survive (it was hinted that neither of Lauren's parents are alive by then), but urged them not to give up, and to know that the Legion endures.

Her final message also suggested that she might have developed an attraction for the younger Braniac 5 that she got to know in the past. Whether this would mean anything for her and the older Braniac 5 in the future is not certain; although considering that he had dated her mother, is old enough to be her father, and took care of her as a child; there would be a number of arguments against such a relationship blossoming. On the other hand, this Supergirl, unlike her mother, has a level of intelligence much closer to Braniac's own and could act as much more of an equal to him in intellectual terms. Braniac himself chose not to comment on the other Legionnaires' speculations about this, but it is noteworthy that he left the Legion right after the battle with the Time Trapper, and has now returned to Colu where it is assumed he is making use of his new role as Science Tyrant of that world to construct the technology he now knows will be needed for the events surrounding Sensor Girl's appearance to take place. Recently, Supergirl and Rond Vidar have joined him there, using Colu as their base-camp in their campaign in the war against the Khunds, and they've brought seven-year-old Lauren with them. History is beginning to fall into place.

RPGPundit

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

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:41:00 GMT

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, November 13, 2009

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:33:03 GMT

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, November 12, 2009

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:29:10 GMT

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, November 11, 2009

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:25:21 GMT

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, November 10, 2009

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:07:02 GMT

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, November 09, 2009

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:47:11 GMT

Legion of Super-Peanuts Mondays

RPGPundit

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

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:57:08 GMT

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, November 07, 2009

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:40:36 GMT

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, November 06, 2009

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:54:19 GMT

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:

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"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 :)"
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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

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