I'm starting to have a hard time separating politics from gaming, when talking about developers.  It's more than a little irritating at this point.  And it's saddening.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1041254Zak, tell us about what you're working on!

What is Demon City?

New horror RPG with all new rules but based on old-school principles. Tarot cards instead of dice. Almost done. 400 Pages--mostly ideas and bonus tables and stuff. More details here:

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2017/03/demon-city.html

Donate to the Patreon if you're into it.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1041329Everyone in this thread needs to calm the fuck down.

Psssh. This is milquetoast so far.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1041282I think I'll keep my politics to my politics forums and enjoy discussing RPGs here. Besides, how long do you think a thread like that would last?

Who knows? It's always interesting hearing people's thoughts and definitions.

Quote from: Omega;1041260Part of me watches these antics and hopes that some of the OSR design thieves get caught in the crossfire.

What do you mean "OSR design thieves"?

Personally, I'd rather be an OSR design assassin/magic-user. AD&D half-elves 4tehwin!

Quote from: KingCheops;1041307So do these SJW types in the OSR not use Lovecraft or Howard as inspiration for their games?  Or are most OSR games at enough degrees of separation that these no longer count as inspirations?  Considering the content or these stories I'm surprised anyone into the thought control type leftism would be interested in "old school" gaming.

Very good question.

However, the SJWs have this strange "It's okay to like problematic things" if they agree among themselves. Of course, I am sure that "rule" will go out the window as they continue to constrict their community with further purity tests.

The next "thought purge" could very well be against any fans of HPL and REH.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1041340I'm starting to have a hard time separating politics from gaming, when talking about developers.  It's more than a little irritating at this point.  And it's saddening.

Just remember that Online Bullshit =/= Offline Gaming.

The worthless fucks might want to control the hobby, but they can't do shit at your table. They even may eventually control all of "the big titles" in the hobby and every hardcover will drip with their idiocy. But so what? There is a non-stop gusher of games being produced via PDF/POD and Kickstarter and they will never control that.

At absolute worst in the future, you will play previously published RPGs (there are hundreds) and new stuff from small publishers (there are thousands) and the human garbage can't ever do shit about that.

Quote from: Zak S;1041341New horror RPG with all new rules but based on old-school principles. Tarot cards instead of dice. Almost done.

Very cool. Crimson Cutlass (an old pirate RPG mostly sold by the authors in SoCal) used the Tarot (+D8s) and it worked great. Do you have any videos of gameplay?

Also, why Patreon instead of Kickstarter? Or does that happen next?

Quote from: RandallS;1041311It's much more complex than that. The original party was socialist is many ways (worker's rights, etc.). That's how it got its name, after all. However, once Hitler took control of the party in the early 1920s it moved away from this position while still giving lip service to it (as it got votes). When Hitler became chancellor in 1933 some in the party (mainly the Strasserists) tried to push for the socialist reforms they thought the party was for and Hitler stepped on them. The socialists in the Nazi party found themselves removed from what few positions of power in the party they had and in the case of some of the leaders of the socialist faction in the party, removed from the living during the Night of Long Knives in 1934. So while the Nazi party that ran for power during the 20s and early 30s tried to appear somewhat socialist to attract votes, the Nazi party that governed Germany from 1933 to 1945 about as socialist as it was democratic -- in that it gave lip service to both while actually being neither.

Stop posting stuff that isn't directly related to the RPG hobby. This is a WARNING.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1041366Very cool. Crimson Cutlass (an old pirate RPG mostly sold by the authors in SoCal) used the Tarot (+D8s) and it worked great. Do you have any videos of gameplay?

Yes, will eventually be uploaded, but here's a very short one:

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2018/05/demon-city-combat-using-tarot-cards.html

The idea is only your highest card matters.

The different specific cards have a number of side effects attached to the experience mechanic.
 

QuoteAlso, why Patreon instead of Kickstarter? Or does that happen next?

Patreon is basically just people being nice (which has worked out very well for a year). Kickstarter requires delivering things. Publisher (Mike Evans who did Hubris) is currently working out the print plan.

It will look like this:

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2018/05/love.html

and this:

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2018/02/demon-city-preview-with-sexy-sexy.html

Quote from: Mistwell;1041236Why do so many seem pissed at Zak these days?

Quote from: Zak S;1041251Lack of a common enemy has finally made them realize I don't like trolls _even when they're on Team OSR_ .

That and you turned out to be exactly the kind of cunt people suspected you were when you got caught impersonating someone else.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1041392That and you turned out to be exactly the kind of cunt people suspected you were when you got caught impersonating someone else.

This is the last place I'd hear someone repeat an RPGnet conspiracy theory.

QuoteAlso, tell me about how tarot cards work in Demon City!

...but thanks for your question about Demon City!

As we've already said, before each adventure, after the Host has decided what the ultimate creature or creatures will be lurking behind the events in the day's adventure, the Host creates the Horror's Deck. The Horror's Deck should be used by the Host in every session until the Horror that formed that particular deck is defeated. Then a new one is created for the next session.

The Horror's Deck should include:

-A few (typically 1-4) cards specifically associated with the major horrors that will ultimately feature in the course of the adventure--even if the Horror itself may not appear in this session. For example, if the adventure includes a werewolf, the deck would likely include The Moon (18) and possibly Strength (. The associations of cards with specific horrors is detailed in the Horrors section.

-A few cards associated with specific places or NPCs that are important in the adventure. For example, if a rich woman features prominently in the adventure, the Queen of Pentacles would appear in The Horror's Deck, if an abandoned factory was an important location, an 8 of Cups might be in the deck. The connections of cards with specific ideas, kinds of people and kinds of places are noted on the endpapers of this book.

-Enough other cards that the deck contains at least one card worth every number one through ten. So: One card worth One (any of the four Aces--Wands, Cups, Swords, or Pentacles, or the Magician--the card marked 1 at the top), a single card worth two (two of Wands, Cups, etc or the High Priestess, the card marked 2 at the top), a single card worth 3 (3 of Wands, Cups, etc or The Empress--the card marked 3) etc all the way up through ten--so, ten cards allowing a random throw of 1-10, plus some extras. These other cards should be chosen with an eye to making them as consonant with the ideas you want to include in the adventure as possible--if indulgence, passion and drunkenness feature heavily, feature the suit of Cups prominently, if violence and pain, then feature Swords, if money and power are important, use Pentacles, if magic or creativity--Wands. Again, these meanings are detailed in the Host's section. Note "court" cards--Pages, Knights, Queens and Kings--are worth 10.

-The Horror's Deck won't inclde the current Significator Cards of any PC present.


The Players' Deck:

... is made from most of the cards left over after making The Horror's Deck. As noted above, it should include The Fool unless the Host has decided to put it in the Horror's Deck, as well as 3 number cards of each value 1-10. The only other cards in the Players' Deck should be Significator Cards--discussed in a second.

-Even if any of the PC's Significator Cards are worth 1-10, the Players' Deck must still include 3 of each value in addition to these cards.

When used in resolving action, The Horror's Deck has a few kinks:

-The Horror's Deck will often be unbalanced--a deck including the Wheel of Fortune and the Knight of Swords has at least two tens in it. This is fine--sometimes horrors have an advantage, that's why they're horrors.

-The deck may also include cards worth more than 10. These powerful cards are worth face value and count as Critical Successes unless someone throws a higher card.

These cards represents something especally horrific and immediate happening. A blunt and immediate "sting" showing the power of the menace at hand.

Significator Cards:

-When a major challenge is defeated, shuffle the Horror's Deck and fan it out face down and have each player choose a card. This is their PC's Significator Card (see below).

-It is possible to meaningfully defeat a hostile NPC without combat (for example, discovering evidence of their guilt and making it public) or meaningfully defeat a foe that isn't a creature as such (like, say, a complex trap). In both cases, if the achievement is significant, the group should be eligible for a Significator at this point.

-If any of the PCs have a Significator when the deck is fanned out, they lose the old one and it is replaced with the new one. The Players' Deck must be remade.

-The player notes the new Significator Card on their character sheet and the new Significator Card will be placed in the Players' Deck next time they play.

-Each Significator has three functions...

+First, as noted above, drawing your PC's own current Significator counts as a Critical Success if that card also would normally win the contest it's being drawn for.

+Second, a specific PC reward associated with each card is listed on the endpapers. Once they gain a given Significator, players do not have to wait to draw this card during a throw to use the reward--they can use the reward at any time when the situation described in the reward ("Gain a throw vs Calm loss at the sight of violence or death") could happen, or, if a specific situation is not described, at any other time it would physically be possible for that thing to occur, including Downtime (see below). Once used this way, however, it's gone. The connection between PC and Significator Card is no more, the card is crossed off the character sheet, and it's removed from the Players' Deck. "Burning" a Significator takes away a PCs chance of Critical Success until the next major menace is defeated, but is often worth it since it allows a PC to seize control of a situation in the moment. And the card will be changed out after the next menace is overcome anyway.

+Third, the Significator is, in occult terms, an actal tarot card that actually was chosen randomly on behalf of the PC. Outside of any mechanical restrictions, The Significators traditional divinatory meanings can guide the player in how they're going to play their PC, and can guide the Host in what kind of situations they might derive for them. The traditional meanings are easy to find online.

-When it's time to switching cards, an unusued held card is gone--a PC cannot use the reward from the old card immediately just to hog both benefits.

-The Significator Cards represent chance favoring a PC, not supernatural intervention--the card cannot make something otherwise physically impossible in the game world possible.

-The Host should note down who got what Significator.


Other Uses Of the Tarot Deck:

The Host can use the cards in many other ways:

-Some foes will have specific attacks or effects that activate when a given card or combination is thrown, noted in the Horrors section.

-Cards can be used to generate random NPCs and locations during the adventure, like any other random table. Using cards from the Horror's Deck ensures a range of results in line with the ideas the Host wants to emphasize in that adventure--like a carefully built Random Encounter Table in a dungeon game that echoes the themes of that dungeon.

-The Host can create specific events that will be triggered when a given card or combination appears in a given situation.

-Supernatural abilities allowing precognition or divination can allow a character to read the Horror's Deck to gain insight into what is to come--depending on the precise method used, this will allow a general reading (what the cards broadly can imply) or a specific one (what the cards signify in this particular adventure) or both.

Quote from: Zak S;1041413This is the last place I'd hear someone repeat an RPGnet conspiracy theory.

When I first heard about RPGPundit (I had encountered him previously during the DWAITAS playtest, but had no idea who he was), it was because of things people accused him of saying. I wanted to see this bad stuff, so I read everything he posted on G+ as well as his blog, which eventually why I ended up here. Though he does venture into Cloud Cuckooland from time to time, I can honestly say that I never found anything bigoted against a particular group. If I had, I would not be here.

As for the OSR being usurped by the Alt-Right, some names would be nice. I mean, the number of OSR content creators out there is small enough to fit on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper. If there is a list of suspects, I would go through it and find out if there is any truth to the allegations. I can read really really fast, especially when reading nonfiction where pacing your mental voice for the sake of tone isn't really needed. Very handy for news articles. If someone is accused of something, and there is truth to it, I will find it. Especially when I have a Google algorithm that wants to help while it struggles to figure out what kind of ads to send me. But honestly, I'm not really interested in doing that. You don't get wasted time back, and I'd rather be reading about history or science with that time, or writing games I will never run or publish in my coil notebook because I like experimenting with dice probabilities and have a fondness for bell curves.

Certainly there are many in the OSR who are Conservative, but Conservative =/= Nazi. Sometimes I vote for them. It depends on the person. I like to meet the candidates and talk to them myself. I also happen to live in the most Conservative neighbourhood in the country. Jason Kenney's MLA office is in the building where I have worked for the last 10 years (as of this month). Stephen Harper's MP office was in the same building. You can't get more Conservative than Calgary Heritage/Calgary Lougheed. My mom is Conservative, and very very well educated, having worked 35 years for Service Canada. If a left winger gave her a hard time, I'd politely tell them to fuck off. By oldest friend is Conservative. I bought him the core 5e books because he has fallen on hard times, whereas I get paid quite nicely. People are people, and having a face to face discussion with someone is nothing at all like the internet, where everyone wants to dehumanize the people they don't like. So as for the OSR, just because you disagree with a person's political opinion, does not mean that person is now some sort of monster. I mean sure, they could be some sort of monster, but that was probably not brought about by politics unless the person is particularly weak minded or gullible. And I am willing to bet a good chunk of the population would fail a Turing Test, which is actually a neat little argument to support the potential existence of Strong AI.  

Bottom line. I think the Alt-Right OSR is fabricated bullshit.

Quote from: Krimson;1041419Bottom line. I think the Alt-Right OSR is fabricated bullshit.

Yes, it is.

To the SJWs, anything that is not full-bore SJW is Alt-Right. Since the OSR refuses to cater to the SJWs in toto and ad infinitum, the SJWs therefore declare that the OSR is Alt-Right. Disagree with them? They declare that you are Alt-Right.*

All of which is, as you correctly identified, fabricated bullshit.

*And the SJW purity spiral that is currently underway (even in RPGs, as per the SPF case) means that even this morning's SJW in good standing is this afternoon's target to be purged.

You can call bullshit on  the OSR being Alt-Right (correctly) but I bet my membership here I couldn't demonstrate that the SJW have nothing to do with traditional left wing politics without getting a warning.

Such is the way of the interwebs.

Some trains are never ever late.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1041469You can call bullshit on  the OSR being Alt-Right (correctly) but I bet my membership here I couldn't demonstrate that the SJW have nothing to do with traditional left wing politics without getting a warning.

  Well, what are you calling 'traditional left wing politics'? They're definitely not inclined to classical liberalism, and while sympathetic to socialism and buying into certain elements of Marxist thought (primarily the dialectic, although transferred from 'capital-labor' to 'privileged-subaltern' or the like--note that my familiarity with Marx is very limited), they are not at all concerned with the lower class except as it intersects with other marginalized groups.

   I would be inclined to call them the offspring of the 60s radicals and counterculture, though.

Quote from: Koltar;1041284Admins and Pundit,

Shouldn't this thread be in a different section?

Seems way too political for the RPG section of the forum.

- Ed C.

The ongoing blowup is part of the problem of the SJW mindset, agendas and screeds spilling over into the gaming, and other media, community more and more.

And theres been a few points where you just cant remove the political from the RPG because someone just had to stick something in there and then crow about how "inclusive" they are. Or someone else making some crackheaded claims about some book being "racist" or whatever. Just look at a few of the recent threads here or in Pundits section where at one point or another some village idiot claims that forcing inclusivity and all that on players and DMs is just and right and good for the gaming community.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1041340I'm starting to have a hard time separating politics from gaming, when talking about developers.  It's more than a little irritating at this point.  And it's saddening.

Same in board gaming and art. And I know a-lot of artists and some of the stuff going on in the background is more than irritating and saddening. Moreso because pandering to these agendas is gradually, and sometimes not so gradually, killing various designers and/or their games or product. Or at the very least driving off customers.

Politics diffuses into gaming for the same reason politics diffuses into music:  they are creative media people use to interact and express themselves. This is more noticeable now than ~10 years ago because we are in cultural moment not unlike the mid 60's or early 80's, when there is an unusually high level of conflict and debate. You don't have to game with people who are left of your politics, just like you didn't have to listen to The Clash in the early 80's. But they are still there and are still going to say what they want to say.