Tons of KS backers are demanding refunds, including me.  I spent over $1,000 on this game at the Mount Yishma highest pledge level. 

I told them "At this point I think I'd like a refund of the $1,000 I spent on backing this bait and switch scam of a Kickstarter and sham of a game.  I paid for the tagline of being authentic to REH and the original Conan stories and you have now breached my trust.  I do not want SJW virtue-signaling and soy boy politics in my Conan game.  Leave your politics out of gaming products."

There are tons of people pissed off in the comments for the backers and many are demanding refunds.

Modiphius set themselves up for this with all the quasi-academic wank about having "Conan scholars" on the payroll and fidelity to the source.

I didn't understand this in the first place because Howard's setting doesn't seem anything special to me - just barely-disguised ripoffs of real-world cultures. I cannot get excited about this kind of thing, not because I care about grievance-mongering rent-seekers who pretend to be offended by them, but because it's unimaginative and to me, boring.

That said, if you are going to buy into a pretence it is all so wonderful and special and meaningful, and then turn around and trash the supposed deep meaningfulness, you should expect people who pre-paid to get annoyed.

I'll be sitting back with the popcorn watching them get caught between the two stools of frozen bullshit they have made for themselves.

Quote from: jhkim on November 09, 2020, 08:20:33 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on November 09, 2020, 06:44:20 PM

Quote from: jhkim on November 09, 2020, 04:45:07 PM
Isn't that the point of the complaint? I agree with your point here - but that problem is that in practice, almost no one refers to Conan the Barbarian as a "martial arts film" or Errol Flynn as a "martial arts star". For example, in my copy of GURPS Martial Arts (3rd ed), the cover has a yin-yang symbol and there are seven weapon tables: Chinese, Japanese, Ninja, Philippine, Indonesian, Indian, and Korean. So clearly it's not about all combat forms but rather focused on Asian forms.

Unfortunately that's true, and it came about after the term "Martial Arts" became associated with eastern unarmed styles with the influx of Martial Arts films in the 70s, which continued in the 80s and somewhat the 90s.

However, that was at the turn of the last century. We're living in 2020 now. HEMA is all over YouTube. People know about Capoeira, Krav Maga and other non-Eastern martial arts as well. People should know "Martial Arts" extends beyond just eastern styles of unarmed combat by now, and even if they don't they're still in error and need to be corrected, not change the meaning of the term "Martial Arts" cuz some people are idiots.

This was a pet peeve of mine even in the 90s (the decade I started playing), and I would frequently correct people when it came up during play or character creation, and point out that swinging a sword itself was a martial art.

I think we're just agreeing here. I had exactly the same pet peeve.

As regards Conan - it sounds to me like Conan 2d20 originally had a talent tree called "martial arts" that implied something more like Asian styles, rather than just general combat skills. However, I only have the quickstart rules which doesn't have that tree - so I'm not sure what the deal is.

Thankfully I still have the original version of the PDF BEFORE the virtue-signaling changes.  How does it make any sense to rename this talent trill "Unarmed Talents" when more than one talent in the tree if for melee weapons?

Here ya go:

Here is a good comment from their KS comments:

"As a person who is half Chinese, and therefore being protected by the cultural sensitivity that Modiphius is now embracing, I must say that I am horribly disappointed. I don't read Conan for the woke content. I read it to be entertained. The two tend to not be very compatible.

As far as specifics go, I will say the following

Mysterious, and other terms. The orient is in many ways more secretive and mysterious. After a life spent around Chinese, and decades working with Japanese, one thing that stands out is how much there are two worlds when dealing with east asians. There's the world they show you, especially if you are a round eye, and the reality of things. Why do you think the idea of "Face" can be so divorced from reality? Secrets.

And as for "Unarmed Combat" the idea that martial arts is offensive as a concept is, to be brutally honest. Full Retard. What we call martial arts are not merely combat without weapons. It is tradition. As a child, I was denied proper Kung-fu instruction because I was a half-breed. Not because they didn't want me to know how to fight, but because Kung-fu was Chinese culture, not to be corrupted. It was art. Most demonstrations never involved direct contact even. They were demonstrations of skill and culture, practicing forms and stances, not unarmed combat.

In your sad effort to shine the Virtue Signal, you expose the utter ridiculousness of the whole "woke" movement. "Cultural Consultant" What a joke.  Also, will there be an errata to provide us with the preferred pronouns of all characters presented, and will character generation be modified to account for all 1000+ genders? I would hate to mis-gender an NPC prior to the players brutally killing them. That would just be wrong"

Quote from: Batjon on November 09, 2020, 09:50:55 PM
Tons of KS backers are demanding refunds, including me.  I spent over $1,000 on this game at the Mount Yishma highest pledge level. 

I told them "At this point I think I'd like a refund of the $1,000 I spent on backing this bait and switch scam of a Kickstarter and sham of a game.  I paid for the tagline of being authentic to REH and the original Conan stories and you have now breached my trust.  I do not want SJW virtue-signaling and soy boy politics in my Conan game.  Leave your politics out of gaming products."

There are tons of people pissed off in the comments for the backers and many are demanding refunds.

Good luck to you - but I have to say - a grand is sort of a ridiculous amount of cash to put into a single game, especially before you've seen it. I think I probably gave a bit more than that to Games Workshop over the years, but that was over the course of more than a decade with multiple armies and three different game systems.

That level of Kickstarter support just reminds me of the Star Citizen backers who bought a theoretical digital battle carrier or whatnot. (To be fair - I did buy Star Citizen nearly a decade ago now - but just the base game. I'm an optimist who liked Wing Commander and Freelancer - I'm not crazy.)

It's bemused me for a while that Modiphius both publish Conan (and place such an emphasis on being 'faithful' to Howard) and on being woke.

That's always quite obviously involved some kind of weird mental gymnastics on some level.

Quote from: Batjon on November 09, 2020, 10:08:12 PM
Thankfully I still have the original version of the PDF BEFORE the virtue-signaling changes.  How does it make any sense to rename this talent trill "Unarmed Talents" when more than one talent in the tree if for melee weapons?

Thanks, Batjon! So it looks like it is both armed and unarmed, but it definitely has a specifically Asian connection in style and by specifying Vendhya and Khitai (which are Hyboria's India and China). So in the original, "martial arts" is synonymous with "Asian-style martial arts". That's similar to the position of the half-Chinese commenter you quoted.

I agree more with VisionStorm, though.

Quote from: VisionStorm on November 09, 2020, 06:44:20 PM
Unfortunately that's true, and it came about after the term "Martial Arts" became associated with eastern unarmed styles with the influx of Martial Arts films in the 70s, which continued in the 80s and somewhat the 90s.

However, that was at the turn of the last century. We're living in 2020 now. HEMA is all over YouTube. People know about Capoeira, Krav Maga and other non-Eastern martial arts as well. People should know "Martial Arts" extends beyond just eastern styles of unarmed combat by now, and even if they don't they're still in error and need to be corrected, not change the meaning of the term "Martial Arts" cuz some people are idiots.

This was a pet peeve of mine even in the 90s (the decade I started playing), and I would frequently correct people when it came up during play or character creation, and point out that swinging a sword itself was a martial art.

The term "martial arts" shouldn't mean just "Asian martial arts". It's a generic term, and should be inclusive of styles of fighting from Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

There is no way I would drop $1000 on a game line without seeing the contents of those game products before I paid up. That's one of the reasons why I didn't back any of the Modiphius licensed game Kickstarters. The situation stunk like dead fish. No matter how interested in what they had licensed I might have been.

They were all promises and no proof of what people were getting from the outset. Which is an even bigger pie in the sky promise than just single-game Kickstarters. Backing something of that magnitude seems extremely foolhardy to me.

Conan, Star Trek, Infinity are all properties that interest me. But without guarantees on all of the proposed products? No. Just no.

Quote from: Batjon on November 09, 2020, 09:50:55 PM
Tons of KS backers are demanding refunds, including me.  I spent over $1,000 on this game at the Mount Yishma highest pledge level. 

I told them "At this point I think I'd like a refund of the $1,000 I spent on backing this bait and switch scam of a Kickstarter and sham of a game.  I paid for the tagline of being authentic to REH and the original Conan stories and you have now breached my trust.  I do not want SJW virtue-signaling and soy boy politics in my Conan game.  Leave your politics out of gaming products."

There are tons of people pissed off in the comments for the backers and many are demanding refunds.

Can you keep up updated as to your progress on this please. I only backed at a base level for the pdf's, but did so in part to use the Mophidius edition for reference (and probably play with a non 2d20 system). But if their authenticity is going out the door then I worry that other things will be retro'd into the other pdfs.

Quote from: TJS on November 09, 2020, 10:53:27 PM
It's bemused me for a while that Modiphius both publish Conan (and place such an emphasis on being 'faithful' to Howard) and on being woke.

That's always quite obviously involved some kind of weird mental gymnastics on some level.

The ability to hold two contradictory positions, and believe in both of them, is a prerequisite of leftist thought.

GURPS Conan and D20 Conan are both good for source material, even if you're not into those systems.

Is there an OSR Conan with the serial numbers barely filed off?

Quote from: Spinachcat on November 10, 2020, 03:33:37 AM
GURPS Conan and D20 Conan are both good for source material, even if you're not into those systems.

Is there an OSR Conan with the serial numbers barely filed off?

D20 Conan was actually OGL Conan. It was printed on the spine of the core rulebook of both editions.

I'm sure somebody could make an OSR version quite easily. And it's pretty much my favorite D20 based fantasy game.

Quote from: jhkim on November 09, 2020, 11:06:12 PM

Quote from: Batjon on November 09, 2020, 10:08:12 PM
Thankfully I still have the original version of the PDF BEFORE the virtue-signaling changes.  How does it make any sense to rename this talent trill "Unarmed Talents" when more than one talent in the tree if for melee weapons?

Thanks, Batjon! So it looks like it is both armed and unarmed, but it definitely has a specifically Asian connection in style and by specifying Vendhya and Khitai (which are Hyboria's India and China). So in the original, "martial arts" is synonymous with "Asian-style martial arts". That's similar to the position of the half-Chinese commenter you quoted.

I agree more with VisionStorm, though.

Quote from: VisionStorm on November 09, 2020, 06:44:20 PM
Unfortunately that's true, and it came about after the term "Martial Arts" became associated with eastern unarmed styles with the influx of Martial Arts films in the 70s, which continued in the 80s and somewhat the 90s.

However, that was at the turn of the last century. We're living in 2020 now. HEMA is all over YouTube. People know about Capoeira, Krav Maga and other non-Eastern martial arts as well. People should know "Martial Arts" extends beyond just eastern styles of unarmed combat by now, and even if they don't they're still in error and need to be corrected, not change the meaning of the term "Martial Arts" cuz some people are idiots.

This was a pet peeve of mine even in the 90s (the decade I started playing), and I would frequently correct people when it came up during play or character creation, and point out that swinging a sword itself was a martial art.

The term "martial arts" shouldn't mean just "Asian martial arts". It's a generic term, and should be inclusive of styles of fighting from Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

This is the kind of nerdy nitpicking that makes my eyes glaze over. Technically correct, and sucks all the fun out of the room like a miniature black hole of awkwardness.

Quote from: Jaeger on November 10, 2020, 02:04:59 AM

Quote from: TJS on November 09, 2020, 10:53:27 PM
It's bemused me for a while that Modiphius both publish Conan (and place such an emphasis on being 'faithful' to Howard) and on being woke.

That's always quite obviously involved some kind of weird mental gymnastics on some level.

The ability to hold two contradictory positions, and believe in both of them, is a prerequisite of leftist thought.

The expected delivery of the Conan Kickstarter was 2016, so the game line has suffered long delays. I don't think they had decided to go woke back then yet. The only 2d20 game line launched before Conan was Mutant Chronicles, which, by Woke standards, is pretty "insensitive" too.

Quote from: Jaeger on November 10, 2020, 02:04:59 AM

Quote from: TJS on November 09, 2020, 10:53:27 PM
It's bemused me for a while that Modiphius both publish Conan (and place such an emphasis on being 'faithful' to Howard) and on being woke.

That's always quite obviously involved some kind of weird mental gymnastics on some level.

The ability to hold two contradictory positions, and believe in both of them, is a prerequisite of leftist thought.

Quote from: 1984
You are a slow learner, Winston." Said O'Brien gently.

"How can I help it?" he blubbered. How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."

"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.