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

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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

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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:

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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?
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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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