Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 10, 2023, 05:25:44 PM
I tried to paint miniatures when I was younger but the skill was beyond me. Also, moving house so many times means I don't have many of my physical possessions anymore. I would love if there was some way to store painted miniatures digitally.

You can use cardboard/paper miniatures, lots of PDFs to buy and I can link you to some free ones.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on June 10, 2023, 09:28:37 AM
In August of last year, Battletech fired a writer than had been writing Battletech novel for 37 years because his some social media posts. So this doesn't surprise me at all.

https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/08/08/battletech-writer-and-new-york-times-bestselling-author-blaine-pardoe-cancelled-by-publisher-over-false-claims-made-by-online-stalker/

There was more to it than just 'social media' posts. Pardoe is an unrepentant conservative, and was releasing a non-BT line of novels with a strong thread of those politics in them.

The problem was that he also had a lunatic stalker calling itself 'Faith McCloskey' who was a contributor to the Shrapnel e-zine. They had built themselves a little 'persona' which was utterly constructed out of whole cloth, and then went after Pardoe because of his politics and fairly outspoken nature. When Pardoe turned the tables and partially doxed McCloskey, the stalker cried and stamped their feet and riled up enough social media bullshit outrage to get Pardoe turfed from Catalyst (despite the fact that a) Pardoe hadn't had any problems with management, and b) had in fact advised Catalyst he was having problems with a loony stalker).

Now, I've heard a number of accusations that 'Pardoe was an asshole', but I've yet to see any receipts, so to speak. No emails, no posts. He had his opinions and could be blunt but there's a bit of a difference there. No, my guess is the 'asshole' complaint boils down to 'he said something I don't like! waaaaaaa!'.

I'll be honest, I'm deeply disappointed with Loren Coleman over this. I tried to be supportive of Catalyst when they had their massive accounting fuckup (which some people still think was Coleman embezzling money) and I still think Frank Trollman is a laughable retard with an overinflated ego. But Coleman should've stepped up instead of bending to a screeching psychopath who promptly abandoned the McCloskey persona as soon as they'd collected Pardoe's scalp.

Well, looks like the subreddit is back to actually talking about BattleTech.

I figured the distraction would last all month.

A ton of creators have been doxxed and attacked just for publicly being conservatives after their fandumb assumed they were liberals.

I don't care. If I don't like how your politics affect your work, then I just don't buy it. I don't try to destroy your career.

Although I would be lying if I said I don't feel schadenfreude whenever some old fandom I got chased out of has self-destructed into a complete dumpster fire, the company that currently owns it turned it into a skinsuit that alienated all the fans, etc.

In general I think the monopolization of monolithic IPs has been terrible for the entire media landscape. Not only do they make the media landscape bland and homogenous, they're extremely vulnerable to political conspiracies. So I'm actually happy whenever these monopolies crash and burn. Oh sure, these IPs are destroyed, but fans can just go Rippaverse.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on June 10, 2023, 12:04:21 AM
Make your own. Stop giving them money, attention or promoting their shit by playing it at stores, etc.

That's what I did a long time ago (not having anything to do with wokeness).   I wanted a Mecha rpg and I couldn't find one The only ones I could find were Anime (which I hate) so I created my own.  Been updating it and making it better and better and fixing holes in the the rules for years.

However, my love of Mecha came from Battletech and I hate seeing it destroyed by woke idiots.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 12, 2023, 08:58:56 AMIn general I think the monopolization of monolithic IPs has been terrible for the entire media landscape. Not only do they make the media landscape bland and homogenous, they're extremely vulnerable to political conspiracies. So I'm actually happy whenever these monopolies crash and burn. Oh sure, these IPs are destroyed, but fans can just go Rippaverse.

When I was a kid in the mid 80s, the only "old" franchises I cared about were Star Trek, which was less than 20 years old, and James Bond, which was less then 30. Yet today most franchises are at least 40 years old and many are pushing 50. Even Harry Potter, which I consider a new franchise, had it's first movie 21 years ago.

So lately I've pretty much divorced myself from all corporate IP. Right now my friend and I are working on a flyer vs flyer combat game set on Barsoom. A franchise that's already dead and buried.

The problem is weak antitrust laws and ridiculously long copyright terms. Notice how every worthwhile franchise is in the public domain? Public domain is poison to corpos, but useful resources to actual creatives.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on June 10, 2023, 12:04:21 AM
Make your own. Stop giving them money, attention or promoting their shit by playing it at stores, etc.

https://onepagerules.webflow.io/games/grimdark-future-ftl

https://github.com/ScornMandark/GundamHammer/find/main

One Page Rules is excellent and way less bloated than 40k's current rules. Yes including 10th. If you 3D print your own minis you've completely cut yourself off from Games Workshop whilst still enjoying your games. And that's a good thing. Me and my local group haven't turned back. And I make a bit of pocket money printing minis for people.

Same play for BTech, if Catalyst is in the dog house for you.  The amount of 3d stuff for BattleTech is stunning.  Actually, my fav version of the rules was the fast-kill streamlined rules I wrote for me son and his friends when they were kids.  [Sadly lost to time...]

Battletech has had the same rules sice its release in 1986.  There is plenty of matereal from old publishers that you can get, used.  Also, you can get any B-Tech book you want if you sail the high seas.  No need to patronize people who hate you.

Quote from: King Tyranno on June 17, 2023, 09:09:32 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on June 10, 2023, 12:04:21 AM
Make your own. Stop giving them money, attention or promoting their shit by playing it at stores, etc.

https://onepagerules.webflow.io/games/grimdark-future-ftl

https://github.com/ScornMandark/GundamHammer/find/main

One Page Rules is excellent and way less bloated than 40k's current rules. Yes including 10th. If you 3D print your own minis you've completely cut yourself off from Games Workshop whilst still enjoying your games. And that's a good thing. Me and my local group haven't turned back. And I make a bit of pocket money printing minis for people.

They also sell the .stl of the miniatures for their games.