Quote from: jhkim;923359I was curious so I put the covers together below. Yeah, I'm not particularly taken by the cover, either, but then again, I am in the 40-something long-time gamer guy demographic, so the cover pretty explicitly isn't to my tastes.

I'm doubtful that just switching over the artwork like they've would make a significant difference in generating sales to a younger demographic. I expect, however, that controversy over the new artwork will generate a lot of discussion and attention and thus generate sales.

1: I think the disconnect is that it does not fit the previous general styles and Im not sure what the new cover is supposed to be saying about the game? Still looks like a horror game cover. Hows this supposed to attract women?

2: Probably. Its a pretty common marketing ploy now-a-days.

Now they should re-release Wraethru with an Earl Norem cover.

Quote from: Spinachcat;923354It's smart capitalism to prey on a weak point, snap it open (legally) and suck out some juicy cash. I don't begrudge artists for using every angle to make a living. Easy targets and low hanging fruit should be their first targets.

No, smart capitalism would be writing their own retroclone rather than using the SJW extortion playbook.  Simply nagging a successful male creator until he agrees to let the girls ride his coattails with some execrable art isn't exactly the shining example of equality I think people are expecting (cf. also Lovelace, Ada)

Quote from: daniel_ream;923373No, smart capitalism would be writing their own retroclone rather than using the SJW extortion playbook.  Simply nagging a successful male creator until he agrees to let the girls ride his coattails with some execrable art isn't exactly the shining example of equality I think people are expecting (cf. also Lovelace, Ada)

Is that actually what happened though? I mean, I think the cover is awful, pandering, an so off point of the purpose of the game as to make it stick out like a token minority in a straight to video ski comedy, but for all I know this was the game writer's idea.

My inner shitlord must be out to lunch, because this doesn't bother me in the slightest.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I like the character sheet.

This is the field in which my fucks are planted, and yea verily it is barren.

If it does make the cover more attractive to somebody other than middle aged plus males, good on 'em.  I don't need it.

I've got my... I've got my... I've got my D&D....

Quote from: Spinachcat;923322The B/W interior art samples are a mixed bag, but the evocative borders for the various sections looks good. But thank goodness, our long nightmare of the OSR having a bad reputation with women is done. All it took was throwing Stacy some cash...and butterflies.

So it's like an Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson type thing? Give them money so they stop complaining?

Quote from: daniel_ream;923373No, smart capitalism would be writing their own retroclone rather than using the SJW extortion playbook.  Simply nagging a successful male creator until he agrees to let the girls ride his coattails with some execrable art isn't exactly the shining example of equality I think people are expecting (cf. also Lovelace, Ada)

No one held a gun to his head. It was his decision to reach out to her. To me it just sounds like he wanted to try something a little different and maybe wanted to reach a new audience.

Quote from: jhkim;923359I expect, however, that controversy over the new artwork will generate a lot of discussion and attention and thus generate sales.

Attention, obviously. Sales are more iffy. Maybe as a curiosity for collectors. But I doubt anyone who plays RPGs is going to buy this because of the new cover, and people who don't play RPGs aren't going to care either way.

So they get a new cover which sucked ass when we covered the cover before (actually it doesn't suck ass as art, it's cool for that I think, but it's not a D&D cover.  Maybe some LotFP or Nobilis game.  This is the first time I've heard the particulars of the artist's peehole.)

So they get all the interior art to be done by chicks, total gimmick, but whatever, it's art, in the end it will stand or fall on whether it's good or not.  I hope Frog God gets their new audience, then the ladies and SJW's can know what it feels like to be assraped by Frog God's idiotic collector-based KS prices just like the rest of us do.

Quote from: daniel_ream;923334

• Claim X is problematic
• Stir up Internet Outrage Machine against X
• Tell X things would be better if only they hired unproblematic accuser to fix things
• Profit

...is such a common con that I'm surprised anyone is still falling for it.

'Falling'?  My poor Mr. Ream, it's BECOME THE STATUS QUO!  This is why it's constantly working.  And no, I am not being facetious or silly, I sincerely wish I was.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;923390No one held a gun to his head. It was his decision to reach out to her. To me it just sounds like he wanted to try something a little different and maybe wanted to reach a new audience.

That's what it sounds like to me too, but then again I don't think everything is a move in some game of 4d politics.

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;923332But that cover is a very odd choice. Newcomers would never in a million years associate that image with "Adventure game".

I can't associate the cover with anything. Other than the butterflies, I honestly have no idea what I'm looking at. Is that a ribcage in the background? Mushrooms? And I'm completely clueless about whatever is floating in the middle of the cover. Some sort of skull with... tree branches exploding from its ear holes? And pink Cthulhu tentacles? And energy bursting from its top for some reason?

I feel like it's a Rorschach test. And not a very good one.

Quote from: TristramEvans;923374Is that actually what happened though?

QuoteOver on G+, Stacy Dellorfano (founder of the excellent Contessa convention), asked the slightly loaded question "Why does the OSR have a bad reputation among women"?

Quotewe were talking with designer Stacy Dellorfano about the fact that many OSR games have a physical appearance and presentation that really targets the 40 year old guys who’ve been gaming since forever, and doesn’t have nearly as much appeal to younger or female gamers of the generations following that first wave of players from the 1980s.

Is there any evidence that anyone but Stacy Dellorfano thinks that the OSR has a bad reputation among women, or that their physical appearance and presentation doesn’t have nearly as much appeal to younger or female gamers?

You've got trouble - yes, you've got trouble - right here in the OSR. Only Professor Stacy Dellaforno can save your children from iniquity with this here marching ba - er, woman-designed cover.

Everything else aside, that's a pretty shit piece of graphic design.  I don't know what the hell that thing on the cover is supposed to be, but it doesn't say anything about the game.  It's not evocative; it's not even representative of anything.  The other covers show a clear tableau that communicates what the game is about.  And the titles blend in to the colours of the artwork below, making them unreadable - again, unlike the previous covers where the title was in a contrasting colour and pops off the artwork.  It looks amateurish.

Quote from: Ddogwood;923325the OSR needs more women creators.

Why?