I love Free League, particularly Forbidden Lands and Symbaroum, but I think they'll come to regret getting this license. I hope they didn't outlay a company risking chunk of capital to get it...

Quote from: kreegan;1123761I love Free League, particularly Forbidden Lands and Symbaroum, but I think they'll come to regret getting this license. I hope they didn't outlay a company risking chunk of capital to get it...

Im a bit worried actually. C7 had problems with wokeness in their TOR/LoME products which was pretty unimmersive/ridiculous at times. Mainly imposing gender equity in ME. And from old podcasts with the guys at FL gave the me impression that they dislike anything resembling traditional fantasy. Im afraid this will probably take the licence even further away from spirit of Tolkien than C7. But I am at least curious what will become of all this.

Quote from: Teodrik;1125193Im a bit worried actually. C7 had problems with wokeness in their TOR/LoME products which was pretty unimmersive/ridiculous at times. Mainly imposing gender equity in ME. And from old podcasts with the guys at FL gave the me impression that they dislike anything resembling traditional fantasy. Im afraid this will probably take the licence even further away from spirit of Tolkien than C7. But I am at least curious what will become of all this.

I didn't read TOR/AiME and see it as very woke compared to a lot of stuff. 2E was definitely showing signs of it ("Female dwarves must not have beards because it's not inclusive to women who want to play them beardless" and the general D&Dification of the art) but besides playing a bit looser with gender roles in some areas I thought the overall tone was quite refreshingly hands off in that regard. Even on the gender roles front it didn't seem to go as far out its way as most games would; women who were trained fighters only tended to pop up as NPCs in cultures/regions where not knowing how to fight off an orc or spider was going to get you snacked on very quickly. I give the very diverse party art a pass just because the PCs are the exception to the norm and adventurers were noted as being pretty damn rare (and viewed as a bit queer).

Quote from: Teodrik;1125193And from old podcasts with the guys at FL gave the me impression that they dislike anything resembling traditional fantasy.

While I'm yet to play it, Forbidden Lands doesn't give me that impression.

Quote from: Anselyn;1125202While I'm yet to play it, Forbidden Lands doesn't give me that impression.

This was a long time ago about the time they released Svavelvinter, and before the OSR became a big(ger). As I understand Forbidden Lands was supposed to be their take on OSR/retro/nostaligic style. I've not read it so I don't know about how their previous views might have changed.

Quote from: Snark Knight;1125198I didn't read TOR/AiME and see it as very woke compared to a lot of stuff. 2E was definitely showing signs of it ("Female dwarves must not have beards because it's not inclusive to women who want to play them beardless" and the general D&Dification of the art) but besides playing a bit looser with gender roles in some areas I thought the overall tone was quite refreshingly hands off in that regard. Even on the gender roles front it didn't seem to go as far out its way as most games would; women who were trained fighters only tended to pop up as NPCs in cultures/regions where not knowing how to fight off an orc or spider was going to get you snacked on very quickly. I give the very diverse party art a pass just because the PCs are the exception to the norm and adventurers were noted as being pretty damn rare (and viewed as a bit queer).

My impression from TOR (I have most of the line) has been that the gender stuff applied to the whole world mainly from the NPC from the setting material and adventures.  Not just depicted examples of player characters. The thing is that in all other areas the game(s) have been quite respectfull to the source material. This is why it sticks out so much.

Quote from: Teodrik;1125205This was a long time ago about the time they released Svavelvinter, and before the OSR became a big(ger).

Forbidden Lands kickstarter was October 2017.
Was this an updating and translation of the older game that you mentioned?

Quote from: Teodrik;1125205This was a long time ago about the time they released Svavelvinter, and before the OSR became a big(ger). As I understand Forbidden Lands was supposed to be their take on OSR/retro/nostaligic style. I've not read it so I don't know about how their previous views might have changed.

I'll say this much for Forbidden Lands--the books are absolutely gorgeous. I love the way they were put together, and they're probably the nicest books on my shelf along with Hackmaster and Eoris Essence. That said, the actual setting is a feminist's wet dream. Two of the races (sorry, kin) are pretty unpalatable if you want to be a male with any self-respect.

Male orcs are treated as objects of derision by orc females and looked down on by pretty much everyone. Plus the female orc NPCs have better stats than males. So even though females are only a tiny percentage of the population and males are portrayed as brutish, aggressive thugs with anger issues, they somehow haven't risen up to overthrow and enslave the females who belittle and degrade them.

Halfling males are practically cuckolds. There's a whole thing where halflings and goblins are two halves of the same race, so they can be born to any parent (a goblin baby from halfling parents, for example). So all the females have places set up where they go to have their babies, and they swap if the baby is of the other kin. The problem is that only females are allowed in these places; husbands have to stand guard outside. And the women never tell them if the baby they come out with is their own child or someone else's.

Honestly, there's a lot of good stuff to be had in Forbidden Lands, but there is some stuff in the setting like the things above that I'd definitely tweak if I were to ever run it.

Quote from: Anselyn;1125212Forbidden Lands kickstarter was October 2017.
Was this an updating and translation of the older game that you mentioned?

No. That game never got translated. This was about 2012-ish. What I was refering to was some old podcast discussions they had about that time, which made them (to me) seem dismissive and not very keen on germanic/Tolkien-ish inspired fantasy. Henceforth me raising an eyebrow over them wanting to do Middle-Earth.

Quote from: Brand55;1125295I'll say this much for Forbidden Lands--the books are absolutely gorgeous. I love the way they were put together, and they're probably the nicest books on my shelf along with Hackmaster and Eoris Essence. That said, the actual setting is a feminist's wet dream. Two of the races (sorry, kin) are pretty unpalatable if you want to be a male with any self-respect.

Male orcs are treated as objects of derision by orc females and looked down on by pretty much everyone. Plus the female orc NPCs have better stats than males. So even though females are only a tiny percentage of the population and males are portrayed as brutish, aggressive thugs with anger issues, they somehow haven't risen up to overthrow and enslave the females who belittle and degrade them.

Halfling males are practically cuckolds. There's a whole thing where halflings and goblins are two halves of the same race, so they can be born to any parent (a goblin baby from halfling parents, for example). So all the females have places set up where they go to have their babies, and they swap if the baby is of the other kin. The problem is that only females are allowed in these places; husbands have to stand guard outside. And the women never tell them if the baby they come out with is their own child or someone else's.

Honestly, there's a lot of good stuff to be had in Forbidden Lands, but there is some stuff in the setting like the things above that I'd definitely tweak if I were to ever run it.

Sounds like standard hobby/industry practice over here. And the reason I zoomed out a long time ago.

Quote from: Brand55;1125295Halfling males are practically cuckolds. There's a whole thing where halflings and goblins are two halves of the same race, so they can be born to any parent (a goblin baby from halfling parents, for example). So all the females have places set up where they go to have their babies, and they swap if the baby is of the other kin. The problem is that only females are allowed in these places; husbands have to stand guard outside. And the women never tell them if the baby they come out with is their own child or someone else's.

It says alot about the author if he thinks that a woman would have more loyalty to her gender than to the man she's married and starting a family with. Or that's it's logistically possible for two groups of people to all have exactly the same number of babies at the same time.

John Wick did something similar in his OrcWorlds where male orcs were completely oblivious to the fact that sex and pregnancy were related (it was a secret the women knew, of course) yet these same orc men had successfully domesticated, bred, and raised several types of livestock.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1125437It says alot about the author if he thinks that a woman would have more loyalty to her gender than to the man she's married and starting a family with. Or that's it's logistically possible for two groups of people to all have exactly the same number of babies at the same time.

John Wick did something similar in his OrcWorlds where male orcs were completely oblivious to the fact that sex and pregnancy were related (it was a secret the women knew, of course) yet these same orc men had successfully domesticated, bred, and raised several types of livestock.

Yeah, the whole setup with regard to the halflings and goblins just seemed unworkable to me. I get what they were going for, even if I really dislike the way it's implemented. But there's just no way I can see the logistics working out. It's definitely something I'll change if I ever get around to running a Forbidden Lands game. The good thing about FL is that the stuff I see that needs changing is setting material that really has no impact on the mechanics, so making alterations to the setting so that things make a bit more sense is really easy.