Guess who's crowdfunding a new game?

See for yourself.

The setting actually sounds intriguing. No idea about the system, though, other than it's got a GM and uses 2d6 for resolution. Sorcerer was trad enough, so who knows?

You know, I'd never even heard of the guy before I came to this board, and this (the Kickstarter page linked) is the first thing of his that I've read. Bravo to the man for being able to completely turn me off with the first paragraph! What a pretentious clown.

One thing about the Pundit and the Great Beast, Ron Edwards - they both do actually make stuff. Stuff that isn't just a cut & paste of the d20 SRD. I expect this crowdfunder will actually get made. Edwards is pretty horrible and I expect it will be a pretty horrible game, but most of his customers will probably be happy.

Edit: I liked the Trigger Warning at the end, presumably the result of his interrogation by the Go Make Me a Sandwich woman. Another pretty horrible person - saying so ('not a nice person') just got me a threadban/warning on RPGnet yesterday. Of course I'm sure if if I had said that some sexist jerk working for Mongoose Publishing was 'not a nice person' I would have been treated just the same.

I kickstarted.  I'll be interested in seeing what the final product looks like.  As it stands, even if I don't choose to run it, there's some interesting conceptual ideas in the adventure design section, although I'll almost certainly run it at least once.

Let's see.

He says Iron Age, which varies a bit by location, but in its entirely falls roughly between 1250 BC and AD 600. But then he says "and no one knows the first thing about hygiene, long-term agriculture, geography beyond the immediate area, or history besides vague legends."

Well, that's ridiculously full of fail.

Hygiene - They didn't have germ theory yet, but between ritual and recreational bathing, both of which were extremely common throughout the Macedonian(Greek) and Roman Empires, most peoples were really quite clean by modern standards. The "unwashed masses" weren't really a thing until after the Black Death, which didn't happen until centuries after the Iron Age.

Long-term agriculture - They didn't understand the chemistry, sure, but they had such practices as irrigation, crop rotation, and fertilization . . . all of which actually predate the Iron Age.

Geography - This really depends. Travel was extremely rare for most people throughout most of history, so yes, the average person wouldn't have much geographical knowledge or any reason to gain it. But the information was available to the people who actually did have need of it, such as nation and community leaders. It wasn't quite as extensive as the info we'd have today -- most of the information had to do with trade and certain other important travel routes -- but they were by no means in the dark about how to get from A to B.

History -- First off, writing did exist during the Iron Age. It was extremely expensive, and therefore nowhere near as extensive as in the post-printing press era, but it was available. We actually have a number of historical writings from this period, many of which are far more than "vague legends." And even if this wasn't the case, this statement simply discounts the pervasiveness, important, and faithfulness of oral tradition. It's ignorance, or cultural bigotry, or both.

So much fail.

It's not meant to be any specific real-world historical period.  It's "Iron Age" in the sense that the people of the Crescent have developed iron smelting enough where it's common, with the odd individual able to make very simple steel.  It's clearly meant to mimic dirty fantasy along the lines of a lot of '70s and '80s grim fantasy, or early Warhammer novels such as Drachenfels, where people die in horrible ways and the world is terrible.  

He occasionally makes reference to "10th and 11th century Europe" as an example of what he's going for, but outside of certain very specific moments like the Harrowing of the North of England, it doesn't really map to any of that, and ideally he'll strip the manuscript of those references before publishing it, because they cause more confusion than help.  

Once you understand that despite the occasional nod, he's describing a fantasy setting rather than anything based in history, it's easier to understand what he's going for.  His intentions are pretty well-mapped in the course of the introduction and in other places, so it's easy to figure it out from the manuscript.  

The problematic bits -- that is, the parts everybody are singling out about rape and sexism -- are there, but not in the way people are talking about.  It's kind of a blinkered very late 20th century view of rape and sexism that is ahistorical and that most cable drama and pop-culture falls into -- life-is-tough according to Sons of Anarchy or Game of Thrones, if you will.  I can't blame Edwards for it when everybody else but a handful in mass media make the same errors.  A few of the people in the thread on RPG.net make some pretty good points about where it runs aground.  It's not trying to be real or historical, it's trying to be grim and dark and gritty.  It's possible he'll look at some of the more astute criticism and make changes without softening it over much -- I'll be interested in seeing if that happens.

Again, though, haven't played it yet, but it's on the rotation for as soon as I can get to it.  Maybe if I can set up a couple Hangouts sessions if I can find people on G+.

Backed

I . . . don't give a shit.

Looking through the playtest documents, the game itself seems rather... confining. Which seems odd for a rules lightish game.

Quote from: GeekEclectic;739606Let's see.

He says Iron Age, which varies a bit by location, but in its entirely falls roughly between 1250 BC and AD 600. But then he says "and no one knows the first thing about hygiene, long-term agriculture, geography beyond the immediate area, or history besides vague legends."

Well, that's ridiculously full of fail.

Hygiene - They didn't have germ theory yet, but between ritual and recreational bathing, both of which were extremely common throughout the Macedonian(Greek) and Roman Empires, most peoples were really quite clean by modern standards. The "unwashed masses" weren't really a thing until after the Black Death, which didn't happen until centuries after the Iron Age.

Long-term agriculture - They didn't understand the chemistry, sure, but they had such practices as irrigation, crop rotation, and fertilization . . . all of which actually predate the Iron Age.

Geography - This really depends. Travel was extremely rare for most people throughout most of history, so yes, the average person wouldn't have much geographical knowledge or any reason to gain it. But the information was available to the people who actually did have need of it, such as nation and community leaders. It wasn't quite as extensive as the info we'd have today -- most of the information had to do with trade and certain other important travel routes -- but they were by no means in the dark about how to get from A to B.

History -- First off, writing did exist during the Iron Age. It was extremely expensive, and therefore nowhere near as extensive as in the post-printing press era, but it was available. We actually have a number of historical writings from this period, many of which are far more than "vague legends." And even if this wasn't the case, this statement simply discounts the pervasiveness, important, and faithfulness of oral tradition. It's ignorance, or cultural bigotry, or both.

So much fail.

Trying to think of somewhere - I guess parts of sub-Saharan Africa during the Bantu Expansion might have been a bit like that... there was iron smelting, not sure about hygiene - but due to diseases like malaria there were mostly low population densities and no big cities; agriculture small scale 'garden' style; no literacy, so geographic and historical knowledge fairly limited. I guess parts of Siberia might have been similar, iron smelting but agriculture impractical so again low population densities.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;739614The problematic bits -- that is, the parts everybody are singling out about rape and sexism -- are there, but not in the way people are talking about.  It's kind of a blinkered very late 20th century view of rape and sexism that is ahistorical and that most cable drama and pop-culture falls into -- life-is-tough according to Sons of Anarchy or Game of Thrones, if you will.  I can't blame Edwards for it when everybody else but a handful in mass media make the same errors.  A few of the people in the thread on RPG.net make some pretty good points about where it runs aground.  It's not trying to be real or historical, it's trying to be grim and dark and gritty.  It's possible he'll look at some of the more astute criticism and make changes without softening it over much -- I'll be interested in seeing if that happens.

Well, so was FATAL. That kept reminding readers about every other page that rape was common.

So basically this is a rules light, pretentious version of that?

Quote from: Future Villain Band;739614The problematic bits -- that is, the parts everybody are singling out about rape and sexism -- are there, but not in the way people are talking about.  It's kind of a blinkered very late 20th century view of rape and sexism that is ahistorical and that most cable drama and pop-culture falls into -- life-is-tough according to Sons of Anarchy or Game of Thrones, if you will.  I can't blame Edwards for it when everybody else but a handful in mass media make the same errors.  A few of the people in the thread on RPG.net make some pretty good points about where it runs aground.  It's not trying to be real or historical, it's trying to be grim and dark and gritty.  

Yeah, typical 'crapsack world' stuff.

Quote from: K Peterson;739641Looking through the playtest documents, the game itself seems rather... confining. Which seems odd for a rules lightish game.

That's Forgist design for you.

It's interesting to see Ron's paragraph of explanation of the darker aspects of the setting and making a point of saying that there are no mechanical links to that stuff.

He's blown off half of Baker's games with that statement.

About time someone at the Forge did so.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;739614(...) problematic bits (...)

Quote from: Benoist;739624I . . . don't give a shit.

I concur.

Quote from: JeremyR;739667Well, so was FATAL. That kept reminding readers about every other page that rape was common.

So basically this is a rules light, pretentious version of that?

Not at all.  Much like Monte Cook's Niberians, this is a minor element of the game that's been focused on to the exclusion of a lot of the larger elements.  Rape and torture are background elements of the game along the lines of coercive martial force as a political tool and mob action as a persistent threat.  This isn't FATAL or even, really, Cthulhutech.  (Admittedly, I've read a rough draft and not the final product.)

The Forest for the "rape" Tree in this instance is, this is Edwards' "Fantasy Heartbreaker."  There's a big discussion about it on the Kickstarter, talk of starting a new writing effort among multiple writers, etc.  From the Kickstarter page:

QuoteIn my weird little mind, Circle of Hands is part of a larger Heartbreaker Redemption effort. I coined the term  "fantasy heartbreaker" in 2002.They used to be really common: games bursting at the seams with naive ambition and vision, but hamstrung by limited assumptions. To read more about that, check out my two essays here. Circle of Hands is itself re-imagined and re-designed from my early 90s manuscript called Gray Magick. I dug it up, played it again, discovered what I was excited about, embraced it, and re-designed it to make that happen. I've changed everything, but somehow, only brought that much more of Gray Magick into the spotlight. You'll see this yourself because the original manuscript is scanned into the book, and some of the best stuff was already in there.

Other game designers have embarked on their own redemptive projects, perhaps to be published someday as well. I'm offering a friendly, non-binding imprint we're all using, with the only requirement being to include the original work.

Paul Czege's In a Dimension Syncopatic with Ours
Nathan Paoletta's Kildarrin: Role-playing in a Doomed City
Aaron Kesher's Mansion
Matt Snyder's Numina
Ralph Mazza's Gemini
and the original Gray Magick

That, to me, is the interesting thing. My impression is that the book will actually include both of Edwards' Fantasy Heartbreaker essays. I have my own opinions on what it's trying to do vis a vis the OSR and the like, and will probably keep them quiet unless an interesting discussion breaks out.  But that to me is the thing that's worthy of discussion more than the darkness of the world, which is pretty bog-standard (positively mainstream, if we accept that ASOIAF is a television show on a major cable network and has inspired a half-dozen big budget imitators) unless the end-treatment is going to be remarkable in some way.