Quote from: Sigmund;372588Dunno. Honestly, never looked at the PA site before now, although I have heard it mentioned in the past here on this forum. Then again, the only online comic I read is Order of the Stick, and I don't read blogs at all, about anything. Still, as far as I'm concerned, they could be discussing S&W on Meet the Press and my only reaction would be "Eh, look at that..." before moving on. I suppose if one were to think of attracting potential players then one might be happy to see these PA people mentioning it, guess I just don't believe it's going to have all that much effect.

Exactly.  If Robin Williams had talked a bit about RPGs on Jon Stewart the other night, I would be excited.  If Vin Diesel started mentioning S&W or LL on his Facebook page, I would drop them a note to warn of the impending flood.

I think the way Jerry Holkins played OD&D sucks.  He doesn't quite seem to "get it", but that's fine, he barely grasped what an RPG was until he picked up 4e, so, "whatever".

If any of you posted that report to your 'blog, or here, or on another forum, it'd be straight up LUL TROEL TEH GROGNERDS fodder, but again, all he knows about "old" D&D is through museum exhibit glass cases or library entries.

In the overall the exposure for S&W matters more to me than his "mumble mumble old D&D mumble mumble."  Also I have a member of my family who has benefited from Childs' Play so yay for that and them.

Quote from: J Arcane;372589And they just put a whole post about your precious S&W on the front page.  Even assuming their traffic hasn't improved in the slightest in the last 4 years, that's still 2 million bloody people that just saw Gabe talking about OD&D.  

That's exposure you simply will never, ever see the game get otherwise.

And?  Are you familiar with the response rates on advertising or mass mailings?  You are assuming that every single hit is going to then have an interest in S&W and go to their site.  A good response rate is something like 1-2%.  So, if every single hit they get for the day is on that page exclusively (hint: it isn't) and every one of those hits is a distinct individual (hint: it isn't) and each of those distinct individuals is an actual person (hint: they aren't), then S&W may get something like 20,000 hits.  Maybe 40,000 if the response is really good.  But let's shoot the moon and say online responses are much better.  10% = 200,000.  I guarantee a large percentage of that will simply skim it, and click away.

2mil people seeing Gabe talk about S&W is very, very different than 2mil people rushing over to download S&W.

I do not dig PA -- I don't play video games, so 95% of their humor goes right over my head. And I've set J Arcane on ignore here.

But all that said, I am astonished by the responses from so many grognards in this thread. (I was not in the least surprised to see Jamie Mal pooh-pooh this development, though.)

J Arcane is absolutely, 100% right here: Penny Arcade is fucking huge, and their interest in Swords and Wizardry -- for whatever reason -- should be seen as nothing but a complete and total CRAZY WIN for the OSR. PA probably gets more pageviews in a day than a combination of all P&P RPG forum sites in a week.

And yet, we get lots of mehs and grousing.

For all the cheap palaver about bringing "the Old Ways" to a new audience and bringing new energy to these cool games, far too many OSR people live the caricature: they would prefer to hermetically seal themselves under a big glass bell with their bong, 8-tracks, and tattered copies of the three little books.

If the OSR fails, it won't be because greedy cooperate interests swooped in and co-opted the movement with their filthy commercialization and pretty packaging. And won't be because a bunch of obnoxious young punks infected everything with their strange anime and video game references.

It will be because too many old, out-of-touch fucks couldn't stop bitching and actually make something fresh, exciting, and -- I don't know, inviting? -- for a new audience.

All of the grognard angst and kvetching is completely misplaced. We Have Met the Enemy…and They is Us

Ad responses are much lower than honest links from people though. Not that it'll approach 100% or even 25%, but honest links from a website author direct a lot more traffic.

Y'all could be a little less crusty. I wouldn't play the game the way he does (I'm not enough of an antiquarian to be especially interested in OD&D but the bit about "playing a game where your weapon might break" made me roll my eyes) but he is directing attention to the game and, I dunno, try to be a little friendly?

Quote from: Garnfellow;372606For all the cheap palaver about bringing "the Old Ways" to a new audience and bringing new energy to these cool games, far too many OSR people would prefer to hermetically seal themselves under a big glass bell with their bong, 8-tracks, and tattered copies of the three little books.

And that is the other point.  This isn't bringing 'the old ways' (whatever the fuck you mean by that) to a new audience.  The man says it himself, it's going to be D&D with safety bumpers.

PA does some really good stuff, and within the video game scene, they are very popular.  That is nothing like 'mainstream', however, no matter how many more people jump on here to gush about how ginormously fucking huge they are.  They are popular among video gamers.  Fuck, most of them who are over 30 are already captured, or have no interest in role playing of any sort, let alone a retro-clone.

Quote from: Garnfellow;372606I do not dig PA -- I don't play video games, so 95% of their humor goes right over my head. And I've set J Arcane on ignore here.

But all that said, I am astonished by the responses from so many grognards in this thread. (I was not in the least surprised to see Jamie Mal pooh-pooh this development, though.)

J Arcane is absolutely, 100% right here: Penny Arcade is fucking huge, and their interest in Swords and Wizardry -- for whatever reason -- should be seen as nothing but a complete and total CRAZY WIN for the OSR. PA probably gets more pageviews in a day than a combination of all P&P RPG forum sites get in a week.

I honestly had no idea PA was that popular. Very cool.

Quote from: Garnfellow;372606And yet, we get lots of mehs and grousing.

For all the cheap palaver about bringing "the Old Ways" to a new audience and bringing new energy to these cool games, far too many OSR people would prefer to hermetically seal themselves under a big glass bell with their bong, 8-tracks, and tattered copies of the three little books.

If the OSR fails, it won't be because greedy cooperate interests swooped in and co-opted the movement with their filthy commercialization and pretty packaging. It will be because too mnay old, out-of-touch fucks couldn't stop bitching and actually make something fresh and compelling for a new audience.

Excluded middle, and OD&D/Ford Model T fallacy.

I'm getting serious subcultural whiplash from fellow geeks that are like "What's the Penny Arcades?" Granted, I just went to PAX (with thousands of other geeks, including thousands of active TTRPG players), so I'm probably at one corner of the skew. Still: in my various circles, the PA crew are one of the more important voices in gaming (yes, far above IGN, Gamespot and all that.) YMMV.

ETA: I obviously don't care about what comics you read or don't, which blogs are popular or not, etc., nor am I requiring any of you to enjoy their rather specific humor. Just surprised at subcultural differences.

i'm in the "this is BIG" camp on this one.  if it makes one or two folks try something other than 4e and expand their gaming horizons, the mention is a success.  i'm also surprised at the amount of "meh" responses.  had no idea so many folks in this hobby were clueless in that regard. :confused:

Quote from: Imp;372607Ad responses are much lower than honest links from people though. Not that it'll approach 100% or even 25%, but honest links from a website author direct a lot more traffic.

Y'all could be a little less crusty. I wouldn't play the game the way he does (I'm not enough of an antiquarian to be especially interested in OD&D but the bit about "playing a game where your weapon might break" made me roll my eyes) but he is directing attention to the game and, I dunno, try to be a little friendly?

Ok, I knew my response numbers were a bit low, but I just wanted to throw some examples out there.  The point being, and you seem to agree, is that 2mil readers does not equal 2mil S&W downloads.

I don't think anyone here is being less than friendly, honestly.  Benoist, myself, several others are saying 'Good for S&W!'.  Despite claims to the contrary, no one here is saying they are assholes or baby-killers.  When the S&W guys come along to say their site was crashed with 200,000 hits, or they have a consistent uptick of 5,000 more hits a day or something, then I will be excited.

Quote from: Garnfellow;372606All of the grognard angst and kvetching is completely misplaced. We Have Met the Enemy...and They is Us

Unless I missed a thread various forums devoted to Old School D&D are pretty sedate in their responses to the penny arcade article. They are either "meh? who cares." or "Way to go!". It only here, enworld, and rpg.net that I see numerous argumentative posts. And most of those seems to involves those who argue with each other no matter what the issue is.

Quote from: StormBringer;372608And that is the other point.  This isn't bringing 'the old ways' (whatever the fuck you mean by that) to a new audience.  The man says it himself, it's going to be D&D with safety bumpers.

PA does some really good stuff, and within the video game scene, they are very popular.  That is nothing like 'mainstream', however, no matter how many more people jump on here to gush about how ginormously fucking huge they are.  They are popular among video gamers.  Fuck, most of them who are over 30 are already captured, or have no interest in role playing of any sort, let alone a retro-clone.

This shows how far your head is up your ass here: video games are mainstream now. They are not some niche little geek product only for the computer nerds. The jocks play video games. The prom queens play video games. The Grandmothers have wiis and play video games.

I don't play 'em, but that doesn't mean they aren't ubiquitous or enormously influential on American culture. The influence of video games is probably 2 or 3 orders of magnitude greater than pen and paper games.

Penny Arcade is not mainstream, and they aren't household names, but if they have even a fraction of an audience that is 2 or 3 orders of magnitude greater than pen and paper games, that means they are still reaching a large, and largely untapped, market for S&W.

Any person who loves pen and paper roleplaying games and is not retarded or insane should be over the fucking moon about this development. It's not like there is any imaginable downside to having a whole bunch of new people check out S&W.

Will they stay? I don't know. But given the likely reception they will receive, I'm not sure why they would.

Quote from: Garnfellow;372615This shows how far your head is up your ass here: video games are mainstream now. They are not some niche little geek product only for the computer nerds. The jocks play video games. The prom queens play video games. The Grandmothers have wiis and play video games.

Yes, this is exactly what I said, because the last console I played on was an Atari 2600.

Moron.

Quote from: StormBringer;372613When the S&W guys come along to say their site was crashed with 200,000 hits, or they have a consistent uptick of 5,000 more hits a day or something, then I will be excited.

PA can definitely direct that kind of traffic. I mean, I wouldn't guarantee a number, but you're looking at somewhere in the same order of magnitude I think, esp. on the hits-per-day figure.

Quote from: Garnfellow;372615Penny Arcade is not mainstream, and they aren't household names

Thank you.