It sounds like something from The Onion.

Edit: Just looked at the website.  Definitely looks like a spoof.

Could be a publicity stunt.

Quote from: jgants;493160Over-hyped marketing nonsense is worthy of mockery, no matter who it comes from.

Cutting people slack is why this industry is in such sad shape IMO.  Way too many customers pay good money for products and fall all over themselves to explain why we should overlook bad production values and poor mechanical design time and time again - even attacking the people who dare make the criticisms.  RPGs should be seen as, and evaluated like, any other product.

Very well said. Whenver I see something get hyped-up like this, especially an RPG, it's almost a sure thing that it's built on shoddy construction and someone is trying to obfuscate this.

Also, when *anybody* claims that they came up with the "perfect" ______, that kind of arrogance is put on full display and should be treated as such.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;493370Could be a publicity stunt.

I've said it before, but if this is a hoax, it's literally the most elaborate of its type I could imagine. I mean 500+ pages of rules, a fake website and Facebook page, combined with a fake news site (that actually is navigable and has other news stories), and sales venues through a number of professional online markets.

Either way, someone had a lot of free time on their hands.

Over at TBP a person posted a pretty detailed review of parts of the game itself, and it's sad and misguided and funny. But not THAT funny.

Quote from: TristramEvans;493377I've said it before, but if this is a hoax, it's literally the most elaborate of its type I could imagine. I mean 500+ pages of rules, a fake website and Facebook page, combined with a fake news site (that actually is navigable and has other news stories), and sales venues through a number of professional online markets.

Either way, someone had a lot of free time on their hands.

Over at TBP a person posted a pretty detailed review of parts of the game itself, and it's sad and misguided and funny. But not THAT funny.

That's why I thought maybe publicity stunt.

Either this guy thought he could sell books by making himself look like a clueless moron, or someone is helping a clueless moron sell books.

I'm kind of leaning towards the former. It's a combination of competence - getting it finished, getting it up for sale, getting the word out - and cluelessness - the names, the crayon-scribbled maps, the ridiculous, overblown assertions and hype.

Basically, until I see video of this guy eating paint chips or stumbling around in an autistic haze, I'm going to assume he's too intelligent to actually believe what he's saying, and is just doing some silly marketing.

It's not a stunt. It's just a guy stuck 20 years in the past. He rewrote D&D with a percentile system, like a lot of folks did then. He added tons of spells and minutia, without really filling in improved rules for trade or overland travel or any of that kind of thing. It's his campaign notes with a marginally adjusted system. Which was a marginally viable project a long time ago.

If you look at the similarities in intent, if not awesomeness, it bears resemblence to Compleat Arduin, the percentile revision or the original Arduin Grimoire that came out in 92 or 93. In that way, it has something in common with the old school movement.

Quote from: stu2000;493394It's not a stunt. It's just a guy stuck 20 years in the past.

Isn't that when he claims to have started writing this thing though?

Quote from: beejazz;493396Isn't that when he claims to have started writing this thing though?

Yeah--he says he's been on it for 18 years. I think he's been focused on his project to the exclusion of researching his market. I do not think that's a cardinal sin as a creative person. But I do think it's going to earn him some ire and ridicule among more state-of-the-art gamers, who it seems like he'd like to be his customers. But if were more aware of his market--particularly the OSR segment--he might be able to move a few more units. Of the e-book version, anyway.

Quote from: Kaldric;493392Either this guy thought he could sell books by making himself look like a clueless moron, or someone is helping a clueless moron sell books.

I'm kind of leaning towards the former. It's a combination of competence - getting it finished, getting it up for sale, getting the word out - and cluelessness - the names, the crayon-scribbled maps, the ridiculous, overblown assertions and hype.

Basically, until I see video of this guy eating paint chips or stumbling around in an autistic haze, I'm going to assume he's too intelligent to actually believe what he's saying, and is just doing some silly marketing.

I've encountered people this creatively 'in-bred'. So far down the rabbit hole that they can no longer tell that they are even in a rabbit hole. There is also the possibility of mental instability of some sort.

My armchair physician diagnosis is high-functioning autistic or asperger's. Known a few in my time and it rings several of those bells. But this sort of fixation is generally harmless, even if prone to tugging on my tender bardic heart strings. I suspect in the future the author won't have the social grace to field the oncoming criticism as well, but this will mostly manifest in a shutting down or general confusion. The worst would be endless arguing over minutiae, but that's par for the course on the internet.

Could be worse though; if this is a hoax mocking shut-ins it's quite impressive, and the labor alone deserving of props, but a tad too real to be light-hearted. I like dark humor as much, if not more, than the rest, but it really helps when your target can take a joke or at least somewhat "get it." Poking fun of the weak who may not even understand why what they did is funny is a bit too easy for my tastes. Like kicking puppies or kittens, the shock value gets old too quickly.

Quote from: Opaopajr;493418My armchair physician diagnosis is high-functioning autistic or asperger's. Known a few in my time and it rings several of those bells.

As a high functioning autistic I say...no. Just a fucking idiot or someone playing a very elaborate prank.

An autistic person has trouble empathizing, discerning social clues, and understanding emotions. They also tend to be incredibly intelligent and obsessive about certain subjects.

This guy is (assuming it's not a prank), obviously not very intelligent, his work shows no signs of obsessive perfectionism (18 years? Pfft. I had written 30 Fantasy Heartbreakers twice that length before I was 17), and his utter ignorance on the subject of RPGs in general does not indicate any sort of obsessive involvement in the hobby.

The only "autistics" who act like this guy are those goddamn "self-diagnosed" morons.

I believe this completely straight.  The Western Canadian RPG scene is kind of odd this way.  I know of number of people from various parts of the Prairies that moved here and this guy would fit right in among them.

One of them told me that the summer is for going out and doing stuff, and the winter is for gaming, because you can't go outside and do anything and the winters are so long.

Quote from: daniel_ream;493466I believe this completely straight.  The Western Canadian RPG scene is kind of odd this way.  I know of number of people from various parts of the Prairies that moved here and this guy would fit right in among them.

One of them told me that the summer is for going out and doing stuff, and the winter is for gaming, because you can't go outside and do anything and the winters are so long.

Oddly enough I think Dostoyevsky said much the same thing in one of his letters.

Quote from: IceBlinkLuck;493486Oddly enough I think Dostoyevsky said much the same thing in one of his letters.

I always wondered why the first printing of Notes From The Underground had an "I Survived The Tomb of Horrors" sticker on the back