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Author Topic: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!  (Read 2865 times)

Armchair Gamer

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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #15 on: May 06, 2021, 09:13:58 AM »

As long as parketing can keep pushing the combined screeds of "diversity at all costs!" and "Outrage Marketing is freeeeee advertising!" we are not going to see it die anytime soon.

Its much the same with the marketing obsessions with the damn "5 year plan" and "subvert expectations!" and any other marketing fad they have locked on.

   I don't think it's just marketing. As much as people don't want to hear it, I think there's strong evidence that many on the design team at WotC are True Believers in this stuff.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2021, 11:28:35 AM by Armchair Gamer »

Stephen Tannhauser

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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #16 on: May 06, 2021, 12:14:39 PM »
I think there's strong evidence that many on the design team at WotC are True Believers in this stuff.

People need to feel a sense of meaning and purpose in how they spend their life. When your career is essentially the creation and promulgation of a luxury leisure activity, the temptation to buy into a philosophy that tells you these games aren't just games, that they actually can and should improve their players and the world somehow, must be quite overwhelming.
Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. -- Mark Twain

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Armchair Gamer

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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #17 on: May 06, 2021, 12:21:23 PM »
People need to feel a sense of meaning and purpose in how they spend their life. When your career is essentially the creation and promulgation of a luxury leisure activity, the temptation to buy into a philosophy that tells you these games aren't just games, that they actually can and should improve their players and the world somehow, must be quite overwhelming.

  Good point, and a strong argument for the proposition that this hobby should have a lot more stuff produced by hobbyists than by people who need to make a living at it and thus make a life out of it. :)

This Guy
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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #18 on: May 06, 2021, 01:47:25 PM »
People need to feel a sense of meaning and purpose in how they spend their life. When your career is essentially the creation and promulgation of a luxury leisure activity, the temptation to buy into a philosophy that tells you these games aren't just games, that they actually can and should improve their players and the world somehow, must be quite overwhelming.

  Good point, and a strong argument for the proposition that this hobby should have a lot more stuff produced by hobbyists than by people who need to make a living at it and thus make a life out of it. :)

Hey whaddaya know a thing I agree with, stripping out the money aspect as much as possible would be great for this tirefire of a hobby.
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Steven Mitchell

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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #19 on: May 06, 2021, 04:16:52 PM »
People need to feel a sense of meaning and purpose in how they spend their life. When your career is essentially the creation and promulgation of a luxury leisure activity, the temptation to buy into a philosophy that tells you these games aren't just games, that they actually can and should improve their players and the world somehow, must be quite overwhelming.

  Good point, and a strong argument for the proposition that this hobby should have a lot more stuff produced by hobbyists than by people who need to make a living at it and thus make a life out of it. :)

Especially when the paid "talent" are hacks where the intersection of their contributions and "talent" (and work and thought and other useful things) would be drawn as an asymptote on the extreme tail end of the diagram.   They are a living illustration of the difference between mathematically zero and "for all practical purposes" zero.

Shrieking Banshee

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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #20 on: May 06, 2021, 05:24:41 PM »
I was about to go 'But Ravenloft is already pretty high fantasy its just also gothic'
But then I read it was a POLYGON article.

Nuff said.

Jaeger

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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #21 on: May 06, 2021, 05:47:51 PM »
That article does not get off to a good start: "Lead designer Wes Schneider told Polygon that the goal was to move beyond the derivative tropes that have plagued the Ravenloft setting in the past."

Derivative tropes exist because they're time-tested, and they're precisely the things that people loved about the setting. So they're ditching that, and replacing it with what's going to end up as a new of set of derivative tropes, because anyone who thinks they're so original that they're not going to use derivative tropes is deluding themselves with hubris.

This. Tropes work.

So called "Originality" does not = Quality.
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Omega

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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #22 on: May 06, 2021, 06:04:49 PM »
An additional point (you're not wrong btw) is this belief that social media reflects the overall trends in a market, when... that's not really true at all.

Yes. Why practically everyone thinks this is true has been baffling since the advent of online forums and online surveys.

Omega

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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #23 on: May 06, 2021, 06:08:21 PM »
   I don't think it's just marketing. As much as people don't want to hear it, I think there's strong evidence that many on the design team at WotC are True Believers in this stuff.

True. But they would not be getting traction everywhere if marketing were not pushing it so relentlessly. We've seen it over in board gaming too.
"You cant have George Washington in your historical game! He was Wacist! (The SJW idiot version of racist)" or, I kid you not. "You cant have a game about exploring Africa! That promotes Genocide!!!"

Ghostmaker

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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #24 on: May 06, 2021, 06:11:10 PM »
An additional point (you're not wrong btw) is this belief that social media reflects the overall trends in a market, when... that's not really true at all.

Yes. Why practically everyone thinks this is true has been baffling since the advent of online forums and online surveys.
What is it, like 90 percent of the traffic on Twitter is generated by maybe fifteen percent of the accounts?

Hell, I'd be leery of using online surveys as well. Do we need another reminder that 4chan tried to send Justin Bieber to North Korea?

Pat
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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #25 on: May 06, 2021, 06:13:13 PM »
What is it, like 90 percent of the traffic on Twitter is generated by maybe fifteen percent of the accounts?
Pareto rule: 80% of anything comes from 20% of the population.

Hakdov

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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #26 on: May 06, 2021, 08:41:51 PM »
unpopular opinion- Ravenloft was always a shit module. 

Svenhelgrim

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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #27 on: May 06, 2021, 08:54:11 PM »
Relax people.  All the old shit is available on .pdf.  Let Hazards-of-the-bro try in vain to remake the world in its image.  The internet is forever...

Ratman_tf

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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #28 on: May 06, 2021, 10:33:36 PM »
Relax people.  All the old shit is available on .pdf.  Let Hazards-of-the-bro try in vain to remake the world in its image.  The internet is forever...

I don't know about you, but I'm plenty relaxed. I have my old books (and reprints from POD) and my popcorn to much while watching this dumpster fire.
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Steven Mitchell

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Re: Let's turn Ravenloft into a high fantasy settting!
« Reply #29 on: May 07, 2021, 08:43:40 AM »
My only objection to the OP is that it is unfair to label what they are doing as an attempt at "high fantasy".  Some high fantasy may very well be dreck.  Some of it may even be dreck because it is high fantasy.  But with this crowd, it's just dreck, period.  Any resemblance to high fantasy is an accident.