A lot of people seem to think this is good, so I bought issue 1 on Drivethru.
It's rather like a fast-food cheeseburger. Tastes good, but mostly a reminder of all the better things you could be eating.
I enjoy it--its a comic (in Muncie, just down the road--whooo!), and a generic sourcebook. The articles aren't all home runs, but I've ended up with some great ideas out of it.
As for the comic, yeah, they live in the sort of organized, widespread gaming community that is myth to nearly all of us, but I enjoy some of the powergaming and stupid things the group does, as well as the antics of Hard 8 and Gary Jackson...
It was funny, but at the end, I was thinking 'Nodwick is funnier'.
You only have the first issue which is just a series of short jokes. Later on the comic starts to have long story arcs which run for months. I really enjoy KoDT although I don't keep up with it as much as I used to. I find OotS to be superior now days but KoDT still runs a close second.
Narf,
If you want to see what it looks like now, you should download the free promotional PDF copy of #132.
Download the free KODT #132 PDF (http://www.kenzerco.com/ccount/click.php?id=1).
Quote from: Narf the Mouse;272603It was funny, but at the end, I was thinking 'Nodwick is funnier'.
Nodwick funny? When?
Yeah, you really, really can't judge the comic on issue one. The same is true of just about any comic.
Some runs of the comic are brilliant, almost perfectly capturing the spirit of D&D gaming back in the early to mid 80s, D&D's heyday. Other times, like now, it gets a little too bogged down in its own mythology - Good Lord, when will the whole turgid "Heidi Jackson" storyline end? or God-DAMN how long did the "Cattlepunk" focus last? - and drags on with plots and subplots that just aren't that compelling...which is also true of just about any comic.
KoDT's strength comes from its characters (it sure ain't the art). They came into their own when the comic evolved into one with ongoing storylines, rather than one-off gag pages like in Dragon. I'd say picking up copies of issues from anywhere from 75 to 100+ would give a better indication of what the comic is like, and why it's appealing.
I followed it from #1 to issue #99.
IMO, #1-late 70s are the best, while the closer you get to 100, the more the editors phone it in. KODT take as an on-going read is a good satire of games, gamers, and geeks. There's the nice-guy GM who gets pushed around by his players, the combat junkie, the munchkin, the rules-lawyer, and one real role-player. Most of the cast are protrayed as losers who live to game.
It depicts (at first) RPG companies as super corporations, and later as starving entities.
Along the way it manages to cover some campaigns that actually sound interesting.
What lost me was that it went from a gamer comic book to a effort to create a gamer magazine; the Knights page-count dropped, while gaming articxles (usually about Kenzer products) and editorials about self-publishing and small-company subjects expanded. And around 90, the strips radically declined in quality; before, the plots advanced at a fairly brisk clip, but starting in the 90s, the pace went to slo-mo.
Kenzer as a whole went from a shining star in the gaming business with several very promising lines, to the nearly-dead entitiy it is now at about the same time. Its down to publishing (late) generic supps for Kalamar, a decent enough setting. Its various systems (Hackmaster & varients) are gone due to the loss of their license, and the promising new lines (Aces & Eights) are years behind shedule, or to be more accurate, dead. PDFs sales of abandoned lines such as Fairy Meat are about all that is sustaining them. They claim that they are planning a comeback as soon as they get their licensing issues solved (and funding), but that's unlikely.
KotDT is a classic. It reminds me of some of the people I have gamed with over the decades.
I dunno OneTinSoldier, Aces & Eights seemed to sell pretty well, based on the C&GR figures - and they've put out a handful of supplements for it (print and PDF) since it came out. Also, they've managed to keep the magazine going come hell and high water, and God knows there's very few people out there who have manage to do that in the current climate in the industry.
That said, I do agree that the comic suffered when it tried to become a general gaming magazine. That's why I've been sticking to following it through the "Bundle of Trouble" compilations.
Quote from: Warthur;272706That said, I do agree that the comic suffered when it tried to become a general gaming magazine. That's why I've been sticking to following it through the "Bundle of Trouble" compilations.
Yeah, I agree. I have almost no interest in the gaming articles. I'm just waiting on the BoT's to catch up to where I left off reading.
To me, KotDT is an example of the endless capacity of most gamers for self-loathing, like many threads on tBP.
-clash
Quote from: OneTinSoldier;272668I followed it from #1 to issue #99.
.....
What lost me was that it went from a gamer comic book to a effort to create a gamer magazine; the Knights page-count dropped, while gaming articxles (usually about Kenzer products) and editorials about self-publishing and small-company subjects expanded. And around 90, the strips radically declined in quality; before, the plots advanced at a fairly brisk clip, but starting in the 90s, the pace went to slo-mo.
I won't argue quality with you, since that's subjective. ;) But the gaming articles started appearing in the #30s and #40s (though I may be off by a few issues). Plus, the Knights' page count never started falling - for the most part, the strips actually gained pages. It might have just seemed like a decrease since the rest of the magazine got bigger.
QuoteIts various systems (Hackmaster & varients) are gone due to the loss of their license, and the promising new lines (Aces & Eights) are years behind shedule, or to be more accurate, dead. PDFs sales of abandoned lines such as Fairy Meat are about all that is sustaining them. They claim that they are planning a comeback as soon as they get their licensing issues solved (and funding), but that's unlikely.
Actually, I'd say KODT is sustaining us much better than Fairy Meat... :)
Yes, many of the HackMaster (4th edition) books were produced under our license agreement with Wizards of the Coast, and when that agreement expired, any books produced under that license went out of print. We do still have several original HackMaster 4th edition products (print and PDF) available as you can see on our web store. We are currently working hard on the next edition of HackMaster, many rules spoilers of which have been posted on our discussion forums. There's no licensing to deal with anymore.
As for Aces & Eights, it was released in 2007, with reprints and new material this year. Then we've got four new Aces & Eights products planned for 2009 (two adventures, a supplement, and a GM Screen).
Hope that clears any misconceptions!
Quote from: Warthur;272706I dunno OneTinSoldier, Aces & Eights seemed to sell pretty well, based on the C&GR figures - and they've put out a handful of supplements for it (print and PDF) since it came out. Also, they've managed to keep the magazine going come hell and high water, and God knows there's very few people out there who have manage to do that in the current climate in the industry.
That said, I do agree that the comic suffered when it tried to become a general gaming magazine. That's why I've been sticking to following it through the "Bundle of Trouble" compilations.
Yeah, they are hanging on-and in the industry, that does say a lot. But the glory days are gone.
I was a huge fan in the heyday-I thought there was a lot of potential there, and Kalamar is still one of the best vanilla fantasy settings around.
But its a far cry from where it was five or six years ago. And they're still stuffing KODT with pointless crap. The bundles are nice-if they ever pass 99 I may pick up the pdfs.
Its too bad-they had promise. Our gaming group even was mentioned in one of the KODTs, before the transition to gaming rag became terminal.
Bagwars, man. NOTHING in gaming comics tops Bagwars.
KODT was one of the first gamer comics that really SPOKE to gamers. We all knew guys like that, and we all played in games like some of those at one point (We had the whole "Gazeebo" episode happen in our group, but it evolved around the misinterpretation of "grassy knolls" vs. "grassy Gnolls". Having a group of characters going around stabbing piles of dirt because they thought some guerilla force of Gnolls were covering themselves in sods and hiding in ambush in a field was hilarious in and of itself).
Its not the greatest thing ever, but it was the first gamer comic I was aware of the spoke directly TO gamers, and ABOUT gamers.
Quote from: flyingmice;272730To me, KotDT is an example of the endless capacity of most gamers for self-loathing, like many threads on tBP.
-clash
Well, I can see why you'd say that, to an extent. However, I think there's a difference between self-loathing and self-recognition. Pretty much everything in KoDT is based on at least a kernel of truth. Trouble is, sometimes those kernels are embellished upon to such an exaggerated extent that they cease to be recognizably amusing.
The recent "paintball assassin" storyline is an example. So is the (tangentially related) HackCon storyline. The main problem with such storylines is that they explore no new ground - yeah, we know that everyone will be paintballing each other at every opportunity, and the most innocent-seeming characters will turn out to be more ruthless than anyone else. Yeah, we know some "door nazi" will make some of the major characters miss all or most of the con. Fuck, either make this stuff just a minor backdrop to some other stories, ones which take the Knights and their allies and enemies into new territory, or don't do them. They're the kinds of tropes that have been done to death in one form or another in sitcoms and cartoons. Gosh, I wonder if there is an eventual nasty break-up in store for Bob and his girlfriend, one that will cause all kinds of mayhem at the gaming table?
All that said, I really do love the comic. The gaming stuff I liked a lot back when it was HackMaster-specific. I still like Westermeyer's reviews, as well as the other review columns
besides the late (and, for me, unlamented) "Gamer's Rants," as well as what HackMaster stuff still makes it in.
The draw seems to be "we should all like third-rate humour because this is about US!", as if that's a good reason. I've never seen a comic about gaming that I've found regularly amusing, and can only conclude the fans of these types of comics are such rabid followers only because they want to feel like they're part of some kind of a "culture", rather than a hobby.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;273013The draw seems to be "we should all like third-rate humour because this is about US!", as if that's a good reason. I've never seen a comic about gaming that I've found regularly amusing, and can only conclude the fans of these types of comics are such rabid followers only because they want to feel like they're part of some kind of a "culture", rather than a hobby.
RPGPundit
I wouldn't say it was third-rate humor; it was satire.
At the core, besides mocking many conventions of our hobby, it showed gamers as what many gamers are: social nobodies whose only achievements are within a narrow genre hobby. And it touched on issues that face every gamer: the difficulty in finding a group, maintaining a group, of coming up with ideas for campaigns, and to keep a campaign fun for all.
But it also showed the good in gaming in a fashion that was not heavy-handed: the intelligence of gamers, the social interaction that helps many people out of their shell, the relief of stress, the entertainment of the hobby.
Of course, it fell apart around #90, when the writters started spending whole issues depicting game designers coping with budget cuts and deadlines (about the same time Kenzer was taking the fatal hits that reduced it to a pdf-pusher and 'soon we'll have something-just wait!' it is today), but the early material was very good. Of course, you had to read it as a continuation; the individual strips or even comics of themselves are not sustainable humor.
At its best, KODT was a ballad or on-going tale. Not a 'punchline' humor source.
People used to talk about it all the time in the 90's like an episode of last night's M*A*S*H* kind of thing. Dragon really was kind of weak at that time so it might actually have been the best thing about the mag. The girl and the DM were pretty typical of cheesy games I've attended over the years as far as behavior (groaning "Jerry Springer" DM and his eye-rolling "girl familiar". Give me a nickel for every time that I seen that!) but the other three I just never see that type. I think they were trying to be too comedy snuffing politically correct with the "bad" players perhaps.
Quote from: Gene Weigel;273040People used to talk about it all the time in the 90's like an episode of last night's M*A*S*H* kind of thing. Dragon really was kind of weak at that time so it might actually have been the best thing about the mag. The girl and the DM were pretty typical of cheesy games I've attended over the years as far as behavior (groaning "Jerry Springer" DM and his eye-rolling "girl familiar". Give me a nickel for every time that I seen that!) but the other three I just never see that type. I think they were trying to be too comedy snuffing politically correct with the "bad" players perhaps.
:confused:
Man, where to start?
Sara, the female in the group, was an excellent role-player, the only one who had a PC with more depth than the sheet of paper the PC was written on. She was there to show that not all gamers are geek losers. She was the GM's cousin, BTW.
The other three are Brian, a cat-piss-type rules lawyer who has weekly 'rules drills'; Dave, a munchkin whose PC is just a deployment tool for his enchanted sword (a hackmaster +12); and Bob, who quits jobs to attend cons and for whom every adverse action in the game is a personal attack by the GM.
I've seen Brians, Bobs, and Daves at game stores and interviewing prospestive players (and, God help me, gamed with a couple in the early years) for my games over the years. They are an unfortunate staple of the hobby. Geeks for whom gaming is the only thing they have in their lives.
To be fair: Dave is also the sort of casual gamer 'I don't know the rules that well but my gear totally rocks' sort of player, or at least he was supposed to be. It can be understood that he has more of a life outside the game than Brian or Bob, though it isn't delved into with any regularity.
Then again its been a few years since I read it with any regularity.
Quote from: Spike;273053To be fair: Dave is also the sort of casual gamer 'I don't know the rules that well but my gear totally rocks' sort of player, or at least he was supposed to be. It can be understood that he has more of a life outside the game than Brian or Bob, though it isn't delved into with any regularity.
You're right-now that I think of it, he has ex-girlfriends crop up, and he is in college.
Quote from: OneTinSoldier;273035Of course, it fell apart around #90, when the writters started spending whole issues depicting game designers coping with budget cuts and deadlines (about the same time Kenzer was taking the fatal hits that reduced it to a pdf-pusher and 'soon we'll have something-just wait!' it is today), but the early material was very good.
Wow, you really didn't like the #90s issues, huh? :)
Ive been reading it pretty regularly since issue 1. (Still have my first 3 issues bagged and boarded!)
I preferred it when it was just a comic and not 1/3rd comic 1/3rd gaming mag 1/3rd house organ.
(Though sometimes the house organ bits creeped their way into the other 2/3rds of the magazine...)
Its a good read and for what you get the price IS right, but the magazine parts can sometimes be off. Hell, I have close to a complete set of the issues if we count a few Bundles of Trouble I needed when my local comic shop closed and getting them from the not so local game store was a pain, and I never even KNEW about the stupid vote for what stays in the mag thing they did.
Which seems to have mostly been used by the forum posters at the Kenzer site. If the Net has taught us anything, its that FORUM POSTERS DON'T REALLY MATTER. They are the hardcore lunatic fringe in a product. Its nice to have a fanforum and all, but it services about 10-20% of the actual customer base.
And because of those 10-20% we lost some perfectly good things. (Fuzzy Knights and Gamer's Rant being the most notable.)
I'd rather lose anything directly related to Hackmaster or A&8 myself. I don't play either, and the former sucked and the latter sounds cool but its so far back on the "I want to buy this!" list I may as well wait for the inevitable 2nd edition.
Its pretty much useless material to anyone BUT the folks who play those games. Yet they stay in and some actual entertaining/amusing content gets dropped?
I dunno. Once that vote thing happened my enthusiasm for the book has dropped to an all new low.
Quote from: Captain Rufus;273131Its a good read and for what you get the price IS right, but the magazine parts can sometimes be off. Hell, I have close to a complete set of the issues if we count a few Bundles of Trouble I needed when my local comic shop closed and getting them from the not so local game store was a pain, and I never even KNEW about the stupid vote for what stays in the mag thing they did.
Which seems to have mostly been used by the forum posters at the Kenzer site. If the Net has taught us anything, its that FORUM POSTERS DON'T REALLY MATTER. They are the hardcore lunatic fringe in a product. Its nice to have a fanforum and all, but it services about 10-20% of the actual customer base.
And because of those 10-20% we lost some perfectly good things. (Fuzzy Knights and Gamer's Rant being the most notable.)
I dunno. Once that vote thing happened my enthusiasm for the book has dropped to an all new low.
To be clear - we didn't pull any features based on a forum poll. The poll was simply asking "Do you agree with the decision?" and as the discussion continued so did the poll. (Even if we had, generally most forum-goers seemed to like what we pulled, so the result would have been the reverse.)
What happened was simply that we pulled some features that had lost their popularity -- slowly -- over a period of years, with people weighing in on all sides through email, conversations at conventions, etc.
Yes, we did choose to do a larger readership online survey - we emailed people that shopped on our online store and hadn't chosen to opt out of emails from us. However, the survey wasn't the sole deciding factor. It was just a final bit of data.
A lot of comments mentioned "I wish I hadn't missed the survey I could have made a difference." We understood many readers want to be heard and would have liked to have participated, but the survey was never attempting to get every reader to "get out and vote". The goal was to get a "sampling" of responses which were in turn analyzed and crunched by a professional. According to her, the sample was statistically relevant, in fact, we had double or more than what was needed. She claimed that any additional surveys wouldn't have changed the results with a 98% (or something) certainty. So the fact that some people weren't notified or respond probably wouldn't have changed the results any.
We always leave open the possibility of any feature's return based on reader feedback. Of course, in the case of the Rants, they were always (and still are) also published on the author's website, and I suspect he'll continue to do them. So if you want new Rants they're still available.
Quote from: Captain Rufus;273131(Fuzzy Knights and Gamer's Rant being the most notable.)
See, those were my two least favorite things - a photo-comic of stuffed animals playing a RPG and a movie column based on the writer hating every movie he talked about, using poorly-constructed analogies and flat-as-15-year-old-Pepsi hyperbole.
The former was, at best, mildly amusing once in a great while, while the latter could have benefited by the writer reading and trying to emulate genuinely good movie reviewers who could actually be funny - Steve Puchalski of Shock Cinema (and many of the other reviewers in that magazine) is a good example, as is Roger Ebert and Joe Bob Briggs.
Paul Westermeyer, who reviews books in KoDT, is a great reviewer and a good contrast to the "Gamer's Rant", his reviews being well-thought-out and showing a mastery of the English language sorely lacking in most KoDT articles (and in the comic - jeez, when will Jolly shake off the Random Comma Syndrome?). No, his reviews aren't funny...but they're good writing.
Quote from: RPGPundit;273013The draw seems to be "we should all like third-rate humour because this is about US!", as if that's a good reason. I've never seen a comic about gaming that I've found regularly amusing, and can only conclude the fans of these types of comics are such rabid followers only because they want to feel like they're part of some kind of a "culture", rather than a hobby.
RPGPundit
Says the man who has obviously read none of the Bagwars saga. :)
Quote from: OneTinSoldier;272668Kenzer as a whole went from a shining star in the gaming business with several very promising lines, to the nearly-dead entitiy it is now at about the same time. Its down to publishing (late) generic supps for Kalamar, a decent enough setting. Its various systems (Hackmaster & varients) are gone due to the loss of their license, and the promising new lines (Aces & Eights) are years behind shedule, or to be more accurate, dead. PDFs sales of abandoned lines such as Fairy Meat are about all that is sustaining them. They claim that they are planning a comeback as soon as they get their licensing issues solved (and funding), but that's unlikely.
say whaaaa.....?
licensing issues? funding?
That's so far off base i don't even know where to begin. I don't blame you however. I know how the "net" is. There's a lot of misinformation out there.
Whatta ya going to do?
Aces and Eights was a few years late largely because we bit off a LOT to chew and underestimated how long it would take to write/develop the game.
Funding has zip to do with it being late. We just suck at keeping deadlines. ;) It all worked out in the end though. First print run blew out the door. Took best rpg of the year. yadda yadda. No complaints.
BTW pdf sales and fairy meat (Fairy Meat?) are really a very, very, very small part of our revenue stream.
Aces and Eights and KODT are currently our best sellers last time I checked.
We've been spending our time quietly working on HackMaster 5 which I can confidently say will be out this summer.
Our licensing agreement for HackMaster 4 had a finite end date. We knew that going in. Which is why we stared working on HM5 well before that license ended. It was yanked. We werent' caught off guard.
It simply ended and we moved on.
We've been play testing HM5 over a year now and and frankly having a great time doing what we do.
Hope that clears some things up.
;)
Interesting thread btw. I don't get this way very often but a good read.
I don't usually comment on KODT criticisms. I figure the reader best knows his/her reason for liking/not liking the comic.
It's enough (for me anyway) that it's been a fun ride and I enjoy doing my part on the magazine. Thankfully enough people seem to enjoy it to allow me to keep fat and happy and doing what I love.
Peace all.
Quote from: ColonelHardisson;273203jeez, when will Jolly shake off the Random Comma Syndrome?).
lol. yes it is my curse. Dyslexia
I'm glad someone's been paying attention.
Quote from: Mark Plemmons;273080Wow, you really didn't like the #90s issues, huh? :)
wow. almost sixty issues ago.
Makes me tired thinking about it. ;)
The Hackmaster game was made to give the feel of the comic strip so it could go in any direction for laughs. Why did they take on such a less humorous tone (I don't know if I can say serious) after a few books? I think I was up to WHITE DOOM MOUNTAIN when it didn't seem funny for quite a few of these and I fell off the wagon. Heh, I recall some people were dead set that this was the second coming, was that what it was? Perhaps the designers were taking it too seriously as the need for a working game outweighed the humor?
The referee, player and monster books still give me a laugh but the adventures and class books seemed to have lost the funniness on the road.
Sorry for the digression but I figured I'd ask as its somewhat in the zone....
Humor is something the game doesn't need to force. If the players find the comics funny, trust me, they'll put in LOADS of their own humor. Forcing humor into the game beyond what it already had would make it a farce, a shtick, a gag. People already treat it as a "one-off gag" game, when it is a seriously well designed (if cumbersome in the extreme) game.
I think another issue I have with KoDT is that the joke has run thin. The most recent issue I cared more about the Hard 8 storyline than I did the actual Knights. Its been that way for a while.
The characters really haven't grown much and Brian & Bob are so intensely dislikable I just get angry. Their antics aren't funny anymore. Seeing a pair of game destroying tools every issue for a good 15 years has run its course. I'd rather see them with the equally dislikable Black Hands and the kid nerd and the gay guy with the wheelchair switch over to the Knights' table. The jerks go to where they belong and the nice if somewhat screwed up guys have a place where they aren't insulted every other panel.
Back in the day KoDT was new and I wasn't getting much RPing in so the cool sounding adventures being discussed even if they never happened that way were an RPG campaign by proxy.
Now its just getting to the point where I see a pair of assholes in one group and a trio in the other ruining some decent people's evenings every issue they appear and its just pissing me off.
Even in a humor strip Brian is a complete douchebag and no sane person would ever put up with his nonsense for that long. First time some gamer took a swing at me or flipped my table and his ass would be on the street, with police assistance if necessary. Hell, I didn't deal with a guy yelling at me very well, and the only time I personally got physical due to a game I was reminded how dumb it was and I myself still beat myself up over it! (And it was just a light push on my way out the door. PKing my character AND giving me a shit eating grin? FUCK. YOU. Of course the PKer fell out of a mooring hatch on a ship into the ocean one time while he was smoking a cigarette so he was never the brightest bulb in the box. But I digress..)
I guess there are more reasons for me to stop reading KoDT than to stay. Ill probably give it to 150 to either get awesome again or just for old time's sake then I will move on as to not be like those comic fans who bitch and moan because their favorite comic has been crapped on as is Marvel and DC's wont for the last 8 years yet still keep on buying.
I'll have to vote with my dollars. :(
Quote from: Gene Weigel;273585The Hackmaster game was made to give the feel of the comic strip so it could go in any direction for laughs. Why did they take on such a less humorous tone (I don't know if I can say serious) after a few books? I think I was up to WHITE DOOM MOUNTAIN when it didn't seem funny for quite a few of these and I fell off the wagon. Heh, I recall some people were dead set that this was the second coming, was that what it was? Perhaps the designers were taking it too seriously as the need for a working game outweighed the humor?
The referee, player and monster books still give me a laugh but the adventures and class books seemed to have lost the funniness on the road.
Sorry for the digression but I figured I'd ask as its somewhat in the zone....
all I can say is we sold 20,000 copies of the core books and a butt load of supporting material. HM was very very good to us. Backstock was moving respectable well right up til the license prevented us from selling it.
Even with HM5 fans can't seem to agree if it should be silly, serious, somewhere in between. Not every who came to HackMaster had the same tastes/likes. So we simply went with what we ourselves wanted to see in the game and hoped for the best.
At the end of the day we tend to make games we we enjoy and hope that's enough. So far it's been working fairly well for us.
Quote from: Captain Rufus;273781I'll have to vote with my dollars. :(
As you should. I've been telling readers that for years. I certainly don't want a pissed off reader spending five bucks each month and regretting his purchase.
KODT can't be all things to all people.
We monitor readership closely of course. Only way you can be sure if you're doing a good job or not.
Thanks for the replies.
The humor seekers perhaps were supplanted, etc., etc., etc...
The humor was very funny in the "core books".
Can I just say that I would have liked to have seen the 2e D&D type material to have really gotten mauled by parody? It seems to have been avoided in favor of poking OD&D/AD&D but perhaps it was too soon for that as it was freshly defunct and a lot of contributors/designers seemed to be still be taking it seriously and using formats (class expansions, etc.) as a means of production instead of giving it a good "rogering". For example, if the class expansions negated all the abilities in a "catch 22" that would've really summed up 2e in humorous way. Another humorous approach might be the blandness of late 1e/2e (i.e. entire books with no real game content, etc.). of course both of those wouldn't click with people who were just using it to game! ;) Perhaps, if there is ever another edition they can then use the opposite approach and have bestiaries full of harmless, ordinary and "misunderstood" creatures that was rampant in that 2e era! ;)
Thanks for listening!
Quote from: Captain Rufus;273781The characters really haven't grown much and Brian & Bob are so intensely dislikable I just get angry. Their antics aren't funny anymore. Seeing a pair of game destroying tools every issue for a good 15 years has run its course. I'd rather see them with the equally dislikable Black Hands and the kid nerd and the gay guy with the wheelchair switch over to the Knights' table. The jerks go to where they belong and the nice if somewhat screwed up guys have a place where they aren't insulted every other panel.
Back in the day KoDT was new and I wasn't getting much RPing in so the cool sounding adventures being discussed even if they never happened that way were an RPG campaign by proxy.
Now its just getting to the point where I see a pair of assholes in one group and a trio in the other ruining some decent people's evenings every issue they appear and its just pissing me off.
Even in a humor strip Brian is a complete douchebag and no sane person would ever put up with his nonsense for that long. First time some gamer took a swing at me or flipped my table and his ass would be on the street, with police assistance if necessary.
While I agree with some of the sentiment you express, I have to point out that it would be damned uninteresting to read about groups wherein everyone got along and played well together.
That said, I agree that the joke, in regards to Bob and (especially) Brian, has worn thin. I disagree that Bob and Brian haven't grown as characters - we've seen glimpses into Brian's pathetic life, and Bob has somehow landed a girlfriend, and we've also seen some of his family life.
Trouble is, they are both so exaggerated in their table antics that it gets tiresome and monotonous - there's too much stuff along the lines of "we're Lawful Good but we can slaughter villagers wholesale" without the counterpoint of "oh yeah? Well here's a bolt from the blue that says otherwise, and oh yeah, the gods have decreed that your entire bloodlines have been eradicated so your new characters get jack-shit for an inheritance - hell, take -2 on all attributes you roll for new characters." Yeah, I get that B.A. is supposed to be wishy-washy and a pushover most of the time, but the premise has just worn itself out, for my taste.
I like the Black Hands because there is a strong dialectic (yeah, I said dialectic) going on between a number of characters with strong viewpoints. Plus, everyone has gotten their comeuppance in that group, including the powerful DM. In the Knights, it just doesn't seem that way.
I enjoy the storylines in which there is an actual adventure being run, like the Temple of Horrendous Doom. Maybe more specifically, I like when something is really going on in the adventure, like a huge horde of pitbulls devastating the countryside or the Knights besieged by undead in a tomb with no clear route of escape.
As for HackMaster, I love the core books, and I like the splatbooks. Many of the hacked adventures are cool - Little Keep, Temple of Existential Evil, and the Lost Caverns are particular favorites. There are too few original modules, and many of the more recent ones (especially "hacked" versions of more obscure AD&D modules) are lackluster. But overall, I love the attitude of the game as it was originally. I'm still baffled (and I admit it's not tough to baffle me, but I digress) at how so many just didn't get the joke, or took offense at it.
Quote from: JollyRB;273538lol. yes it is my curse. Dyslexia
I'm glad someone's been paying attention.
Hell yeah, I pay attention. I used to read 20-30 comics a month; now, KoDT is the only comic I read on a monthly basis.
Quote from: JollyRB;273800all I can say is we sold 20,000 copies of the core books and a butt load of supporting material. HM was very very good to us. Backstock was moving respectable well right up til the license prevented us from selling it.
Well, if no one else will say it I will. Congratulations Jolly and the rest at Kenzer! That is a great accomplishment.
Bill
Quote from: JollyRB;273800all I can say is we sold 20,000 copies of the core books and a butt load of supporting material. HM was very very good to us. Backstock was moving respectable well right up til the license prevented us from selling it.
Even with HM5 fans can't seem to agree if it should be silly, serious, somewhere in between. Not every who came to HackMaster had the same tastes/likes. So we simply went with what we ourselves wanted to see in the game and hoped for the best.
At the end of the day we tend to make games we we enjoy and hope that's enough. So far it's been working fairly well for us.
Very cool, Jolly. I'm still using the Hackmaster GMG--with Castles & Crusades this time around. There's just too many cool charts and items not to use it with every fantasy game that it'll work with.
Quote from: Zachary The First;274095Very cool, Jolly. I'm still using the Hackmaster GMG--with Castles & Crusades this time around. There's just too many cool charts and items not to use it with every fantasy game that it'll work with.
Thanks. I always glad to hear folks are still using the books. It was an incredible opportunity to play in Gary's sandbox and a fun ride.
Quote from: HinterWelt;273862Well, if no one else will say it I will. Congratulations Jolly and the rest at Kenzer! That is a great accomplishment.
Bill
Thanks, Bill.
Quote from: Gene Weigel;273834Thanks for the replies.
The humor seekers perhaps were supplanted, etc., etc., etc...
The humor was very funny in the "core books".
Can I just say that I would have liked to have seen the 2e D&D type material to have really gotten mauled by parody? It seems to have been avoided in favor of poking OD&D/AD&D but perhaps it was too soon for that as it was freshly defunct and a lot of contributors/designers seemed to be still be taking it seriously and using formats (class expansions, etc.) as a means of production instead of giving it a good "rogering". For example, if the class expansions negated all the abilities in a "catch 22" that would've really summed up 2e in humorous way. Another humorous approach might be the blandness of late 1e/2e (i.e. entire books with no real game content, etc.). of course both of those wouldn't click with people who were just using it to game! ;) Perhaps, if there is ever another edition they can then use the opposite approach and have bestiaries full of harmless, ordinary and "misunderstood" creatures that was rampant in that 2e era! ;)
Thanks for listening!
While a good deal of the 2e material was used in HM4e it probably didn't get the same treatment as AD&D coz none of us on the design team were huge fans of 2e nor played it much. So we ran with what we knew best.
Gary Speak and the layout/style of AD&D was a better fit I think as far as portraying the game the characters played in the comics.
I don't think any of us were familiar enough with 2e to adequately spoof it.
Spoofing something you love I think always works out best.
Nothing against 2e. It just didn't do it for me personally.