Quote from: Bren;790756My first real exposure to mecha anime was the 1980s Bubble Gum Crisis series which had an all-gal team of heroes with a little brother side kick/mechanic. Thus I think his assessment of mecha is about as on target (which is to say low and way to the left) as is most of his assessments about anything. The Knight Sabers team:

Spoiler

Why I said most. Magic Knight Rayearth and Sakura Wars being similar (though the "leader" in Sakura Wars was a guy who somehow had enough spiritual energy to pilot one). (And also the irony that he created something that did already exist, even if there wasn't as much of it as male hero mecha fiction)

But I mean, look around the mecha genre as a whole, Gundam, Macross, Mazinger, Getter Robo, even series that have a lot to appeal to female viewers (such as Visions of Escaflowne) feature the hero pilots as male.

Though thinking back on it, I will say that mecha anime definitely is leaning more towards equal than I initially was thinking. FMP! had 1/3 of the main pilots as a woman, Code Geass featured several female pilots, Eva of course features more female than male pilots, Nadesico has 3 and 3, but of the 3 male ones, one is introduced halfway through, and one dies in the first 2 episodes. But even going through those, the main character of FMP!: male, the main character of Code Geass: Male, the main character of Nadesico: Male, the main character of Eva: Male.

I think really it seems like you end up with either all female (BB Crisis, Sakura Wars, Magic Knight Rayearth) a bunch of dudes (a lot of super robot anime, Gundam for the most part), or the main dude and some side ladies (Nadesico, Eva).

I still wouldn't say there is a TON of mecha anime featuring female main protags, but its definitely out there.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;790758I still wouldn't say there is a TON of mecha anime featuring female main protags, but its definitely out there.

I'm sure my sample is skewed. But of the Japanese series with mecha that I recall watching and enjoying it's 50% female. Battletech - what I recall of it, seemed more male dominated, but included quite a few important female mech pilots and leaders. But as I wouldn't describe myself as a big fan of mecha (or a big mecha fan ) one should take my POV with a grain of salt.

Quote from: CRKrueger;790729Topher doing a "magic girl" anime game is more than a little creepy.

If you value your sanity, do not image search "magic girl anime" without a safe search filter. That is more than a little creepy, knowing what he was looking at.

Someone upthread mentioned FFG. This is another odd one. Friend of mine wont touch their product after some incident with their forums. Personally after seeing them actually opt in some game designers and then steal their game system. I have had alot less interest in getting anything from them since.

Once upon a time, I had a strong dislike for David Hill based on some RPG shit that happened some years ago on a site where he and I played.  I am willing to let that slide now on account of it being RPG shit which I confess I might have overreacted to, but I will not let slide that his frequent calling of people "idiots" (even for such simple reasons as trying to enact an in game assassination of his PC for valid IC reasons) speaks worlds of his apparent arrogance.

Now, as I have said, I have gotten over a lot of that past stuff, because it is just that.  Past stuff.  RPG shit.  Stuff that doesn't matter.  And since then, his name has popped up in the credits of the vast majority of second edition nWoD releases.  His actual contributions are actually interesting, and have fixed some glaring issues which were present in the first edition.  Some contributions might even be seen as self serving, but I would sooner a writer have a passion for what they write, than simply churn out some half assed bullshit, and it's not like he'll be the only one playing that particular clan/covenant/faction/whatever.

I was even ready and willing to play under him on Wanton when he ran his Tokyo set Blood and Smoke game, and was happily doing so until he got busy and left the game in the hands of a player who had a less than acceptable grasp of the rules, or ST attitude.  A conversation with another player did make me consider that with it being a new edition, not everyone was going to be as knowledgeable about the rules as I assume I am, but that's another story and it did give me time to reflect.

But, I digress.  I still think David is arrogant.  And some of his D&D grudge has even been slung around the Wanton Wicked lobby, though I didn't understand (or give a shit about) the reasons behind it till I joined these forums.  However, I enjoy his contributions to Onyx Path products, and I shall continue to use them so long as the current trend of second edition releases stays the course.

It's a tricky question, personally, whether I'm willing to buy a game written by someone I don't like.

Generally speaking, if there's several writers involved it is less of a problem. Particularly if a number of the other writers are people I have some respect for. I have some Cortex+ books that involved people I don't really like but there are others who also worked on those books that I do hold in high regard, such as Jack Norris and Rob Wieland. So I didn't have any qualms with getting Marvel Heroic, Firefly or the Hacker's Guide.

If I find someone irritating, who is solely or largely responsible for a game I'm interested in, that could put me off buying a product but, more often than not, it won't. If this wasn't the case then I would never have picked up Burning Wheel, Sorcerer or any number of Palladium books.

The real issue, as others have touched upon, is whether or not I have a personal problem with a writer or designer. Topher is a great example. He strikes me as an elitist, intellectual snob who enjoys "putting people in their place" and belittling others and sometimes resorts to unpleasant tactics in order to do this. Bullying other people basically. These traits alone might not stop me buying something he created though. What would definitely stop me would be my personal interactions with him. Sure, there haven't been many of these interactions but in all of them he's been condescending and snarky towards me at best. I wouldn't buy from a shop where the staff treated me that way and I won't buy from him either. As a result I won't be buying his Rosemont Bay game, despite an interest in it's premise, or any other he produces.

I'm not going to waste time getting worked up about games to the point where I "hate" people though.

If someone is right or wrong about something has nothing to do with whether I like or dislike them.

The two are completely separate things. I don't quite understand what people imagine the connection to them is; I suppose its a function of cancerous post-modern thinking that suggests that TRUTH is somehow a matter of opinion or personal taste.

There's what you like and don't like, and what's Right and Wrong. Those aren't even on an axis with each other; there is no causal relationship between those two spectrums whatsoever.   Someone you like could be Right, someone you dislike Wrong, and there's no actual connection between those things.

Now, it can happen that you end up liking someone because they're usually right and say insightful things, or disliking someone because they usually say stupid things and are generally wrong. But they're not right BECAUSE you like them, and can sometimes be wrong about specific things; or people who are usually wrong can occasionally end up being right about something.

I can think of more games that I do not want to play because of the fans associated with them than I can think of games I do not want to play or buy because of the authors. But there are a few authors that I think are real assholes who do some good work or have some good subject knowledge.

I love Spider-man. Really love him. Grew up with him, slept in beds with sheets featuring him, and spent the better part of a decade collecting every single comic of his (Yep, even THAT one).

I hate Disney. I despise every aspect of that company, everything they stand for, I find their business practices abhorrent, their films abominations, and I think Walt himself was a tool of epic proportions.

Disney now owns Spider-man.

It's a conundrum.



OTOH, if I were you I'd just run Tri-Stat's Sailor Moon rpg. Its damn awesome.

Quote from: S'mon;790680But I think "Skarka is a dick - his game will be crap" filtering is a bit different from the OP's suggestion that a morally repulsive author makes a game unenjoyable, whereas if you didn't know the author you might enjoy the game. Eg there are only a very few hints in "Sorceror & Sword" concerning Ron Edwards' character. You have to go to his Forge posts and other Internet postings to really see him for what he is.

Mm, but that wasn't the filtering I claimed to use.  I have no idea, in fact, whether GMS is a good game designer or not -- I've never bothered to glance at one of his works.  For all I know he's a brilliant one.

I know the notion sometimes bites me in the ass.  I had the famous mystery writer Robert Parker as a creative writing professor, many a long moon ago.  The class was a near-complete waste of time, no one learned jack shit, and in consequence it was over twenty years before I troubled myself to read anything by Parker.  My loss, because he was an excellent storyteller who wrote the most quintessentially Bostonian novels ever penned.  What I didn't known as a 1970s college student, of course, was that Parker hated teaching, only did it to pay the bills, got the post because Northeastern University in the 70s was a blue-collar commuter school desperate for any star power on the faculty they could wrangle, and quit as soon as his book sales permitted.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;790591What is your thoughts on games made by people you hate? Do you play them anyway if you like them? Does it sour the game for you entirely?

I don't know about hate. But if I don't like the politics of a game designer, I don't buy their game. So I don't know if I'd like their game or not.

It's just a game. As long as it stays a game, and it's good, I don't let it bother me.

I'm actually surprised by how many people pay attention to who writes something before they check it out.

Other than specific instances where the writer was one of the things the marketing of the game was selling off of (Numenera), or the dudes name is huge on the cover (HERO) I rarely know who wrote what I play before I check out the book.

The only reason I even realized this time was I saw him talking about it when I was looking for supplemental materials for it.

My thoughts on this topic are the following : since the deeds and personality of the author of a book are not very relevant to my enjoyment of it, the way I feel about them should not prevent me from buying their stuff, e. g. : I am not very fond of David A Hill and Filamena Young internet personas but the two of them have become proeminent OPP freelancers. Since I like theirs products (I'm more a fan of the WW era but whatever ...), I'm liable to buy a book they wrote. Fortunally, the new stuff they are doing do not bring someting new comparing to the older editions of oWoD and nWoD, so I will probably buy more things.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;791453I'm actually surprised by how many people pay attention to who writes something before they check it out.

Other than specific instances where the writer was one of the things the marketing of the game was selling off of (Numenera), or the dudes name is huge on the cover (HERO) I rarely know who wrote what I play before I check out the book.

The only reason I even realized this time was I saw him talking about it when I was looking for supplemental materials for it.

The Internet helps us learn more about a game writer. Whereas before, we only saw their name on a shipping box (maybe).

Quote from: yabaziou;791500My thoughts on this topic are the following : since the deeds and personality of the author of a book are not very relevant to my enjoyment of it, the way I feel about them should not prevent me from buying their stuff, e. g. : I am not very fond of David A Hill and Filamena Young internet personas but the two of them have become proeminent OPP freelancers. Since I like theirs products (I'm more a fan of the WW era but whatever ...), I'm liable to buy a book they wrote. Fortunally, the new stuff they are doing do not bring someting new comparing to the older editions of oWoD and nWoD, so I will probably buy more things.

I don't like seeing a writer's agenda bleed through into some aspect of their game.