To help the OSR gain market share and put more of a dent into WotC, go for the Gygax tactic. Negative press is good press. During the 80s, the US was under right wing religious authoritarianism. With the kid who went missing at MSU, Gygax capitalized on the press to sell books. Well, I doubt there will ever be that type of idiocy again, but what about advertising for OSR books that they are specifically edgy and should only be played by 16 year+? They are so edgy, that the company in fact uses Insensitivity Readers to up the action, pump up the TNA and fights to 11, because 11 is larger than 10.
I swear you'd sell more books that way and get free advertising, preferably from blue haired leftist women clutching their microdicks on Twitter. Make the game edgy and get the youth. At the rate WotC is going down in flames on MTG and D&D, there is going to be an opening for something fun and challenging. Remember how easy Nintendo got with the Wii (they literally had a mode where Marios Brothers played for you to solve maps). Well D&D under Winninger and now Brink is that bad. Its written for 8 year olds. Its impossible for anyone to take offense from anything they write, its bland and has no salt.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 15, 2023, 10:02:26 PM
To help the OSR gain market share and put more of a dent into WotC, go for the Gygax tactic. Negative press is good press. During the 80s, the US was under right wing religious authoritarianism. With the kid who went missing at MSU, Gygax capitalized on the press to sell books. Well, I doubt there will ever be that type of idiocy again, but what about advertising for OSR books that they are specifically edgy and should only be played by 16 year+? They are so edgy, that the company in fact uses Insensitivity Readers to up the action, pump up the TNA and fights to 11, because 11 is larger than 10.
I swear you'd sell more books that way and get free advertising, preferably from blue haired leftist women clutching their microdicks on Twitter. Make the game edgy and get the youth. At the rate WotC is going down in flames on MTG and D&D, there is going to be an opening for something fun and challenging. Remember how easy Nintendo got with the Wii (they literally had a mode where Marios Brothers played for you to solve maps). Well D&D under Winninger and now Brink is that bad. Its written for 8 year olds. Its impossible for anyone to take offense from anything they write, its bland and has no salt.
IME "The Youth" are the "blue haired leftist women clutching their microdicks on Twitter".
That said, you don't really need to court controversy that hard, just put on your game's character sheet sex instead of gender with two options to choose from, male or female.
Add a sexy cover with strong masculine men and sexy beautiful women.
You're set, the blue haired landwhales will Reeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Naw, you want to advertise that the writer is specifically pissing in the leftist eye and putting out good content, well written, with good art and good looking women with tits and ass and men with bulging muscles fighting the evil orcs. Full on stereotypical gender rolls, bodies and good ole dragon slaying with swords and magic. Think about what happened when we got that dried up bag Tipper Gore's PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) that put labels on albums and how the worse the rating, the better the records sold. Do the exact same thing for RPG's.
I mean my god, a module with drow slavers using orc slave masters who kidnap a village and you have to hunt them down and kill them all, with your light complected party hunting them down on the cover art. As long as it was well written with good quality art, it will sell and the Twitter a-holes will help you and become the villains for the children. Look at what happened with the Harry Potter game. We are at the point in the culture revolution where you can use it to sell books and help turn the public against them. The economy is tanking hard, inflation is at record high, we have a grossly incompetent Democrat as President, and we have a war going on against the Russians but this time we are the ones bleeding money. This is the early 1980's all over again.
My two cents, is use this to punch a hole through D&D's crap writing and sensitivity writers for content. Hell create a label to put on the plastic wrap "insensitivity Writer Enhanced".
It's all fun and games until the Woke-controlled distribution channels ban your content!
I think there's a gap in the market for something that looks like the Savage Sword of Conan comic covers from the '80s:
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/IMAGERENDERING_521856-T1/images/I/71k1HYlMFIL.jpg)
(https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/marveldatabase/images/b/b2/Savage_Sword_of_Conan_Vol_1_34.jpg)
(https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/869/870/1112870869.0.x.1.jpg)
But if you make a big point of being 'anti-Woke' you'll just get banned. It needs to be primarily a good game/campaign setting/adventure set, with an attractive aesthetic. I think when the Blue Hairs start Ree-ing it's best to maintain a dignified silence. At most "This setting/game of course is not for everyone". Gygax did not advertise AD&D as "This game will teach you to learn the Real Magic from Satan himself!" - be like Gary.
I realize this is a tongue-in-cheek thread, but I will say that I was very interested in the City of Brass by Frog God Games until I saw some essay entitled "A Note on Words" by Elizabeth Murphy, sensitivity editor and gamer. I didn't continue, just stopped reading, and haven't looked at it since. Any company that feels the need to get "sensitivity editors" to make sure some fictional fucking setting doesn't offend "those people" is in no need of my money. What's really stupid is I've met Bill Webb and 90% of the FGG crew and they're not hypersensitive dumbasses from what I can tell, so I am actually perplexed at this stupidity. I guess getting those morons to redo S&W and have it look like the Vagina Monologues wasn't proof enough that you're going to alienate your core audience when you pander to people who literally hate you.
Yup I get that part of the issue. It would have to be established writers with their own web site to sell content. That being said, the idiots will sell your content for you by going onto Twitter and complaining about how sexist it is. Normies will inevitably be fed to see the leftard shit because the algo tries to turn people into leftard, normies see it and go 'Wow, they have real women with boobs and the men, my god they are beating a dragon to death, man I want that", and you sold your product on your own site. You can use the leftards methods against them.
There is already "Parallel Economy" that exists as a pun and payment provider to deal with crap like this. Ask Eric July about things went and what payment provider he ended up using to sell his graphic novels. It can be done and done well getting around drivethrurpg and using leftards against themselves.
I know if I saw a book with "cruelty enhanced" or "now with 10% more demonic overlords" I'd buy it.
I get the whole theory behind "bad press is good press," but if you're actively using outrage tactics to market your product I think you've lost the plot. If I see something with "cruelty enhanced" or "now with more demons" on the cover, I'm going to assume it isn't a serious product. I might still buy it, if it looks fun to play, but I will instinctively run it with the ham cranked up to 11.
Insentivity readers and toxic masculinity, sounds like an awesome combo! 8) 8)
I´d buy products like that just to support the movement if not for play purposes!
Quote from: Effete on March 16, 2023, 10:09:17 AM
I get the whole theory behind "bad press is good press," but if you're actively using outrage tactics to market your product I think you've lost the plot. If I see something with "cruelty enhanced" or "now with more demons" on the cover, I'm going to assume it isn't a serious product. I might still buy it, if it looks fun to play, but I will instinctively run it with the ham cranked up to 11.
This thread feels like the RPG equivalent of a mid-life crisis, only instead of buying a sports car to recapture their youth, they're going for Internet Edgelord.
Just envision that fat slob in his 60's who thinks he's cool as he's hitting on college-age girls in a bar and you'll have about the same level of mass market appeal as this plan.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 15, 2023, 10:10:13 PM
You're set, the blue haired landwhales will Reeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Re-envision hags from being wiry to horrendously fat, and instead of doing green, annis and night, order them according to hair colour. And then place them on the cover as monsters for the heroes to fight.
Quote from: migo on March 16, 2023, 10:24:41 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 15, 2023, 10:10:13 PM
You're set, the blue haired landwhales will Reeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Re-envision hags from being wiry to horrendously fat, and instead of doing green, annis and night, order them according to hair colour. And then place them on the cover as monsters for the heroes to fight.
Or embrace the classic elements of monsters so as to create a timeless product that will remain relevant after the landwhales have clotshotted themselves into oblivion.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 10:52:54 AM
Quote from: migo on March 16, 2023, 10:24:41 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 15, 2023, 10:10:13 PM
You're set, the blue haired landwhales will Reeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Re-envision hags from being wiry to horrendously fat, and instead of doing green, annis and night, order them according to hair colour. And then place them on the cover as monsters for the heroes to fight.
Or embrace the classic elements of monsters so as to create a timeless product that will remain relevant after the landwhales have clotshotted themselves into oblivion.
It is timeless, it has just been made more relatable.
I rarely talk about politics online and I definitely do not want my RPGs to be about this.
(also, I'm not in the US and I think the whole thing is a scam anyway, so there is not point in taking sides)
I do believe courting controversy sells, and we have plenty of examples; I just don't have the stomach or the willingness to do that.
Curiously enough, people tried to drag me into a couple of politics discussions - maybe because they objected to one of my reviews (i.e., because they dislike the author, not the product) or covers.
I can honestly say I didn't intend to be controversial or offend anyone, but maybe this is not enough nowadays, so one would think embracing it would be more lucrative.
Overall, however, I think it is better to be true to yourself; adopting an aggravating personality is just not my thing, no matter the sales.
Re "Toxic Masculinity": Like S'mon said, just use a cover that looks like it could have been used by the 1980s Conan comics, bonus points because it also panders to "The Male Gaze".
"Insensitivity Readers": No need to say anything, just include always evil monsters, slaves for the PCs to free and you're covered. Alternatively make a game set in Earth somewhere around the 18th-first 3/4 of the 20th century and do not say shit about slavery, sexism, racism, etc. during those times. Write proper English (using HE as the gender neutral pronoun it is).
When approached/attacked by the landwhales and their soyboys just ignore them.
The less you do to provoke them the better you look in the eyes of the normies, in contrast they look more unhinged for getting offended over nothing.
Or go and court controversy, it's your God given right, just make sure your product is a damn good one.
I don't read products written from spite. Countering SJW subversive spite with your own spite just makes 2 shit products.
Creativity defined by opposition tends to be shit. Write for what you stand for, not what you don't stand for.
I don't know if it'll help marketing but It will get all the right people pissed off if you get Pundit or Venger to write an introduction.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 16, 2023, 01:19:12 PM
I don't read products written from spite. Countering SJW subversive spite with your own spite just makes 2 shit products.
Creativity defined by opposition tends to be shit. Write for what you stand for, not what you don't stand for.
So much this.
The SJWs WANT edgelord bullshit from the right. It makes it so much easier to look not insane while opposing it.
Put out normal, good quality content and their REEing about it makes them look like the batshit whackos they are.
Advertise using "insensitivity readers"?
Or, crazy thought here, just make a really good, innovative, well-written, well-edited, properly play-tested, professionally produced, interesting game. You know, a game that stands on its own without needing to trumpet its politics one way or the other.
Quote from: Festus on March 16, 2023, 02:09:03 PM
Advertise using "insensitivity readers"?
Or, crazy thought here, just make a really good, innovative, well-written, well-edited, properly play-tested, professionally produced, interesting game. You know, a game that stands on its own without needing to trumpet its politics one way or the other.
Exactly!
In a way this feels like "thee who hunts monsters risks becoming a monster" territory.
The SJWs hate and try to do provocative things for outrage marketing.
This is the same damned thing just directed back the other way.
Hate is great at tearing down, it really sucks for building. Hate polarizes and drives many normal people away, because normal people don't enjoy hating perpetually and continually; its exhausting.
Love what you're creating and people will feel that and respond to it... and the SJW's who wish only to destroy will hate it naturally.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 10:52:54 AM
Quote from: migo on March 16, 2023, 10:24:41 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 15, 2023, 10:10:13 PM
You're set, the blue haired landwhales will Reeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Re-envision hags from being wiry to horrendously fat, and instead of doing green, annis and night, order them according to hair colour. And then place them on the cover as monsters for the heroes to fight.
Or embrace the classic elements of monsters so as to create a timeless product that will remain relevant after the landwhales have clotshotted themselves into oblivion.
Look at Hogwarts Legacy and how the left did everything they could to sell the game. Look at TSR and how it used the Satanic Panic to sell their games. I get that a lot of people are scared, like you, but I'd rather have a game with fun in it than something written to D&D's standards, which frankly are horrible. D&D is supposed to be 12 and up, in reality its at an 8 and up and moving down to 6 and up very soon. Putting out adult games of D&D will sell quite well.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 02:15:22 PM
This is the same damned thing just directed back the other way.
That was GamerGate, and it brought Gawker Media to their knees. Using left wing tactics against the left wing absolutely works. Because left wing tactics work. If they didn't, they wouldn't use them.
Make a game that is good, and specifically does things they don't like, so people shriek and complain about it, and because of that more people are aware of it, check it out (make sure there's a comprehensive free quickstart), and decide it's a neat game and they'll try it out anyway.
This of course depends on having a distribution platform, so for the time being that means not making OBS think it constitutes whatever they feel 'hostile marketing' is.
My current strategy with DtwenD is to boast that it's the next D&D killer on whatever forums or chat I'm currently on. It draws someone's attention, at least, and I can respond to it in short order.
Hulk Hogan bought Gawker to their knees.
How many games make things for explicitly GG sensibilities specifically? Beyond Steam trash, nearly nothing.
How many games are made explicitly because of SJW sensibilities? More then 2016.
Edgelording only makes cultural progress when the larger culture allows it.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 16, 2023, 03:23:42 PM
Hulk Hogan bought Gawker to their knees.
Hulk Hogan delivered the coup de grace.
GG brought Gawker's advertising revenue down to nearly nothing, which meant their war chest was depleted and they couldn't handle the damages they were forced to pay.
Quote from: migo on March 16, 2023, 03:33:11 PM
GG brought Gawker's advertising revenue down to nearly nothing, which meant their war chest was depleted and they couldn't handle the damages they were forced to pay.
How. How did saucy clickbait articles reduce revenue?
Thinking GG did something to gawker is like thinking woodstock ended vietnam. Or thank Punk ended the War on Drugs.
It's such a self-serving attitude. I also listed a bunch of other arguments beyond "woah a tabloid journalist website went out of buisness! Must be me!"
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 16, 2023, 03:39:53 PM
Quote from: migo on March 16, 2023, 03:33:11 PM
GG brought Gawker's advertising revenue down to nearly nothing, which meant their war chest was depleted and they couldn't handle the damages they were forced to pay.
How. How did saucy clickbait articles reduce revenue?
Thinking GG did something to gawker is like thinking woodstock ended vietnam. Or thank Punk ended the War on Drugs.
It's such a self-serving attitude. I also listed a bunch of other arguments beyond "woah a tabloid journalist website went out of buisness! Must be me!"
It wasn't clickbait articles. It was going after advertisers. After Gawker went bankrupt they specifically called out GamerGate with a fuck you. They knew who was responsible for cutting their income. Gawker was the first platform that was hit hard with demonetization.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 16, 2023, 03:23:42 PMEdgelording only makes cultural progress when the larger culture allows it.
Pretty much. The whole "Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics" thing worked because religious conservatism was in the decline in the 90s when that whole thing started out. But having quasi-religious moral take on racism, gender BS and LGBT stuff has been in ascendancy for decades and is the cultural norm now. If you go against that you're only gonna look like an asshole at best, or an outright bigot at worst, which not even most on the anti-SJW side like.
I do think that GG was instrumental in bringing Gawker down, though, but not by stupidly copying SJW tactics just for the sake of copying them, but by dragging them into the light and exposing them for what they were. Before GG nobody even knew WTF "SJWs" were, and Intersectional Feminism was unknown outside of leftist circles (and even there I only became aware of it like two years before GG happened despite frequenting Left-Anarchist/Socialist pages before that). GG exposed all that and helped set things on track. But without Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel's money Gawker would still be around.
*Edit* Visonstorm already posted what I said. Nevermind
Quote from: VisionStorm on March 16, 2023, 03:45:14 PM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 16, 2023, 03:23:42 PMEdgelording only makes cultural progress when the larger culture allows it.
Pretty much. The whole "Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics" thing worked because religious conservatism was in the decline in the 90s when that whole thing started out. But having quasi-religious moral take on racism, gender BS and LGBT stuff has been in ascendancy for decades and is the cultural norm now. If you go against that you're only gonna look like an asshole at best, or an outright bigot at worst, which not even most on the anti-SJW side like.
I do think that GG was instrumental in bringing Gawker down, though, but not by stupidly copying SJW tactics just for the sake of copying them, but by dragging them into the light and exposing them for what they were. Before GG nobody even knew WTF "SJWs" were, and Intersectional Feminism was unknown outside of leftist circles (and even there I only became aware of it like two years before GG happened despite frequenting Left-Anarchist/Socialist pages before that). GG exposed all that and helped set things on track. But without Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel's money Gawker would still be around.
When you look at woke, you look are purse puppying and writing being written down to a 6 year old level. Putting in content to state you are specifically NOT doing that does not mean you are racist, it means the content is written for humans to enjoy and the content is not written for Zombies in the woke cult who don't buy rpg content in the first place.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 02:58:10 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 10:52:54 AM
Quote from: migo on March 16, 2023, 10:24:41 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 15, 2023, 10:10:13 PM
You're set, the blue haired landwhales will Reeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Re-envision hags from being wiry to horrendously fat, and instead of doing green, annis and night, order them according to hair colour. And then place them on the cover as monsters for the heroes to fight.
Or embrace the classic elements of monsters so as to create a timeless product that will remain relevant after the landwhales have clotshotted themselves into oblivion.
Look at Hogwarts Legacy and how the left did everything they could to sell the game. Look at TSR and how it used the Satanic Panic to sell their games. I get that a lot of people are scared, like you, but I'd rather have a game with fun in it than something written to D&D's standards, which frankly are horrible. D&D is supposed to be 12 and up, in reality its at an 8 and up and moving down to 6 and up very soon. Putting out adult games of D&D will sell quite well.
Hogwarts Legacy didn't succeed by being Edgelordy. It succeeded by being a well-crafted game with a good story that would have fit right in to any point of pre-Woke culture. The same with Top Gun Maverick; no anti-woke edgelording... just a solid well-crafted story with heroes to root for and gorgeous non-CGI cinematography.
Its not fear that has me objecting... its that I think the idea of going Edgelord in the opposite direction is stupid and counterproductive and its not going to attract anyone but other fringe edgelords.
I wasn't Edgelording in the 90's when it was cool. I'm certainly not doing it now as some desperate gasp for attention. I have my own work on a Superversive* setting that is every bit as toxic to the Woke but without the pretentious "look at me" wankery.
So, yes, enjoy your pretentious "now with extra offensive language and demonic imagery from the 80-90s" and "more lines on pages depicting breasts with twice the cup size" being sold off of websites which need NSFW disclaimers and then wonder why no one takes you or your product seriously.
* Superversive means having fun with your friends playing in a world where heroes are heroic, where people are basically good (and those that are not are villains you can defeat), where courage, honor and virtue matter, where true love and beauty are eternal, hope is real and, even though it may struggle and stumble, good can triumph in the end. Whether these things are really true or not... they are worth believing in and, God willing, the love I have for the setting and its themes of timeless virtue will carry over into my finished product and that will in turn draw people to it.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 02:58:10 PM
When you look at woke, you look are purse puppying and writing being written down to a 6 year old level. Putting in content to state you are specifically NOT doing that does not mean you are racist, it means the content is written for humans to enjoy and the content is not written for Zombies in the woke cult who don't buy rpg content in the first place.
Again, Hogwarts Legacy and Top Gun Maverick didn't need "Artist Statements" declaring themselves anti-woke. Good stories and content are anti-woke by definition and need no statements to say so.
Quote from: VisionStorm on March 16, 2023, 03:45:14 PMGG exposed all that and helped set things on track. But without Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel's money Gawker would still be around.
Agreed. GG made people aware that a culture was was being fought AT ALL. But it didn't carve out a space.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 04:09:50 PMWhen you look at woke, you look are purse puppying and writing being written down to a 6 year old level.
And making things edgy for the explicit reason of being edgy raises it from 6 to 16 years old, but that still leaves allot of people underserved.
If you want to use SJW tactics that they used to dominate the entertainment space until recently where they where forced into overt force: Be subtle about your message.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 04:12:51 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 02:58:10 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 10:52:54 AM
Quote from: migo on March 16, 2023, 10:24:41 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 15, 2023, 10:10:13 PM
You're set, the blue haired landwhales will Reeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Re-envision hags from being wiry to horrendously fat, and instead of doing green, annis and night, order them according to hair colour. And then place them on the cover as monsters for the heroes to fight.
Or embrace the classic elements of monsters so as to create a timeless product that will remain relevant after the landwhales have clotshotted themselves into oblivion.
Look at Hogwarts Legacy and how the left did everything they could to sell the game. Look at TSR and how it used the Satanic Panic to sell their games. I get that a lot of people are scared, like you, but I'd rather have a game with fun in it than something written to D&D's standards, which frankly are horrible. D&D is supposed to be 12 and up, in reality its at an 8 and up and moving down to 6 and up very soon. Putting out adult games of D&D will sell quite well.
Hogwarts Legacy didn't succeed by being Edgelordy. It succeeded by being a well-crafted game with a good story that would have fit right in to any point of pre-Woke culture. The same with Top Gun Maverick; no anti-woke edgelording... just a solid well-crafted story with heroes to root for and gorgeous non-CGI cinematography.
Its not fear that has me objecting... its that I think the idea of going Edgelord in the opposite direction is stupid and counterproductive and its not going to attract anyone but other fringe edgelords.
I wasn't Edgelording in the 90's when it was cool. I'm certainly not doing it now as some desperate gasp for attention. I have my own work on a Superversive* setting that is every bit as toxic to the Woke but without the pretentious "look at me" wankery.
So, yes, enjoy your pretentious "now with extra offensive language and demonic imagery from the 80-90s" and "more lines on pages depicting breasts with twice the cup size" being sold off of websites which need NSFW disclaimers and then wonder why no one takes you or your product seriously.
* Superversive means having fun with your friends playing in a world where heroes are heroic, where people are basically good (and those that are not are villains you can defeat), where courage, honor and virtue matter, where true love and beauty are eternal, hope is real and, even though it may struggle and stumble, good can triumph in the end. Whether these things are really true or not... they are worth believing in and, God willing, the love I have for the setting and its themes of timeless virtue will carry over into my finished product and that will in turn draw people to it.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 02:58:10 PM
When you look at woke, you look are purse puppying and writing being written down to a 6 year old level. Putting in content to state you are specifically NOT doing that does not mean you are racist, it means the content is written for humans to enjoy and the content is not written for Zombies in the woke cult who don't buy rpg content in the first place.
Again, Hogwarts Legacy and Top Gun Maverick didn't need "Artist Statements" declaring themselves anti-woke. Good stories and content are anti-woke by definition and need no statements to say so.
What you claim is edgelording is in fact having fun. Injecting some fun into a RPG is a good thing. Woke sucks the fun out of the content and turns its into a flavorless husk. And by "Artist Statements", its called marketing. How many people really want to buy a module written by a sensitivity reader to do edutatinment about the troubles of the black eskimo who caught HIV from the non-binary white supremacist dragon? D&D isn't at that level yet, but the gay cripple in the combat wheel chair with the gay Mandingo is approaching that level of dried out cringe.
You can use marketing to show that the content is not woke, use the woke to market for you and make quite a bit of money. You don't have to be afraid, you do have to put out good content however and you should use the woke to market for you.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 04:34:19 PMWhat you claim is edgelording is in fact having fun.
Doom (the games) are fun. Superjail is fun. I think Dark Sun is fun. While I consider it absolute trash, I can concede that Goblin Slayer can be fun. I consider Berserk on the preachy side philosophically, but it is also fun. What makes something edge-lording is explicitly setting out to piss people off.
Making niche product for the niche crowd that buys it anyway, isn't in any way underpinning SJW stranglehold. You're locking yourself away for their benefit, and somehow think you're making a difference.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 16, 2023, 01:19:12 PM
I don't read products written from spite. Countering SJW subversive spite with your own spite just makes 2 shit products.
Creativity defined by opposition tends to be shit. Write for what you stand for, not what you don't stand for.
I'm not sure I agree completely, but I will say that your position is closest to mine. From a practical perspective, the only types of things that make sense from a product perspective are "You built something you stand for" and sometimes "You built a parody or satire of something you don't stand for". The second is arguably also the first, but I think it's different enough.
I think an issue is how unfair things can be. Take
Coyote and Crow, whose initial supposition is that some magic meteor killed all the Europeans (I'm not sure if it also nuked Asians, Africans, or Australians, but the point is that whites were all genocided). The story then takes place in the Americas, where, guided by their magic meteor powers, the Americans have created a utopia. The utopia is generally explicit- everyone has tribes (checkmark good in the mind of the developer) but there's no nationalism (because that's a bad white guy thing). This is an extremely race-obsessed story, making a political statement that if all white people were killed, utopia would follow. Then the author goes on anti-white rants, demanding white people buy his product but not actually play any Indian that maps to this or that or who fucking cares. The community has dealt with this entire thing by realizing that he's a lolcow and the entire thing is absurd, right?
But this race-obsessed guy made a ton of cash with his race-obsessed game, and gets all manner of attention and publicity that a real game designer would have to fight so hard for in every direction. Is it really out of line that, in light of this general injustice, that someone would put some ire into their product in response?
I agree, such a thing is a trap, but I totally get it. And even the guys with the best of intentions flee from real-world content. Alexander Macris provides a type of beastman it's safe to beat up, an irredeemable bad-guy, and he is careful to supply no actual valid complaints to his critics, stepping around any of the tropes that would be flavorful and cool, but would be used against him. For this extraordinary effort he is openly libelled on reddit, a
wonderful platform where he is called "a self-avowed Nazi" and similar (emphasis on the "self-identified / self-avowed / self-proclaimed" portion, because that means he said such a thing about himself- when of course he did not). Call out these random shitbirds on that worthless platform and get downvoted or banned. One thing they'll never provide is a source for their lies.
Anyway I get the ire. It's all extremely frustrating. I also agree it's been poured into everyone who pays attention, and it's likely a kind of a trap- if you coat your creativity in that, it's likely to make your creativity be less fit for its original purpose. With perhaps an exception for parodic or satiric expressions, but that's simply not the entirety of everything.
I just don't think anything that says "People who disagree with me go away" is a useful thing, especially not if overt.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 04:34:19 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 04:12:51 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 02:58:10 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 10:52:54 AM
Quote from: migo on March 16, 2023, 10:24:41 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 15, 2023, 10:10:13 PM
You're set, the blue haired landwhales will Reeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Re-envision hags from being wiry to horrendously fat, and instead of doing green, annis and night, order them according to hair colour. And then place them on the cover as monsters for the heroes to fight.
Or embrace the classic elements of monsters so as to create a timeless product that will remain relevant after the landwhales have clotshotted themselves into oblivion.
Look at Hogwarts Legacy and how the left did everything they could to sell the game. Look at TSR and how it used the Satanic Panic to sell their games. I get that a lot of people are scared, like you, but I'd rather have a game with fun in it than something written to D&D's standards, which frankly are horrible. D&D is supposed to be 12 and up, in reality its at an 8 and up and moving down to 6 and up very soon. Putting out adult games of D&D will sell quite well.
Hogwarts Legacy didn't succeed by being Edgelordy. It succeeded by being a well-crafted game with a good story that would have fit right in to any point of pre-Woke culture. The same with Top Gun Maverick; no anti-woke edgelording... just a solid well-crafted story with heroes to root for and gorgeous non-CGI cinematography.
Its not fear that has me objecting... its that I think the idea of going Edgelord in the opposite direction is stupid and counterproductive and its not going to attract anyone but other fringe edgelords.
I wasn't Edgelording in the 90's when it was cool. I'm certainly not doing it now as some desperate gasp for attention. I have my own work on a Superversive* setting that is every bit as toxic to the Woke but without the pretentious "look at me" wankery.
So, yes, enjoy your pretentious "now with extra offensive language and demonic imagery from the 80-90s" and "more lines on pages depicting breasts with twice the cup size" being sold off of websites which need NSFW disclaimers and then wonder why no one takes you or your product seriously.
* Superversive means having fun with your friends playing in a world where heroes are heroic, where people are basically good (and those that are not are villains you can defeat), where courage, honor and virtue matter, where true love and beauty are eternal, hope is real and, even though it may struggle and stumble, good can triumph in the end. Whether these things are really true or not... they are worth believing in and, God willing, the love I have for the setting and its themes of timeless virtue will carry over into my finished product and that will in turn draw people to it.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 02:58:10 PM
When you look at woke, you look are purse puppying and writing being written down to a 6 year old level. Putting in content to state you are specifically NOT doing that does not mean you are racist, it means the content is written for humans to enjoy and the content is not written for Zombies in the woke cult who don't buy rpg content in the first place.
Again, Hogwarts Legacy and Top Gun Maverick didn't need "Artist Statements" declaring themselves anti-woke. Good stories and content are anti-woke by definition and need no statements to say so.
What you claim is edgelording is in fact having fun. Injecting some fun into a RPG is a good thing. Woke sucks the fun out of the content and turns its into a flavorless husk. And by "Artist Statements", its called marketing. How many people really want to buy a module written by a sensitivity reader to do edutatinment about the troubles of the black eskimo who caught HIV from the non-binary white supremacist dragon? D&D isn't at that level yet, but the gay cripple in the combat wheel chair with the gay Mandingo is approaching that level of dried out cringe.
You can use marketing to show that the content is not woke, use the woke to market for you and make quite a bit of money. You don't have to be afraid, you do have to put out good content however and you should use the woke to market for you.
Greetings!
*Laughing* Hilarious, honeydipperdavid! Just awesome. Also, oh damn, very much on-point, too. "Non-Binary White Supremacist Dragon"!!!!
The absurdity that Woke Libtards have ass-graped into the hobby creates a huge demand for ridiculing them and mocking them in the most absolutely ruthless of ways. Yes, a more restrained and conservative approach certainly has merits--and probably should be the normal approach, business and marketing wise. However, I think there is definitely also room for making products that ruthlessly and intentionally attack the Woke Libtards and their entirely nonsensical ideology.
For me, it is not a question of "It must be either or!"--but "BOTH".
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 16, 2023, 04:45:25 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 04:34:19 PMWhat you claim is edgelording is in fact having fun.
Doom (the games) are fun. Superjail is fun. I think Dark Sun is fun. While I consider it absolute trash, I can concede that Goblin Slayer can be fun. I consider Berserk on the preachy side philosophically, but it is also fun. What makes something edge-lording is explicitly setting out to piss people off.
Making niche product for the niche crowd that buys it anyway, isn't in any way underpinning SJW stranglehold. You're locking yourself away for their benefit, and somehow think you're making a difference.
No, you are differentiating your product and letting people know its different, they will have fun and it will not be built where all resolutions should be solved by talking about your feelings and hugging it out. For the DM, the art is compelling, women and men actually are attractive and match anatomical norms and you might have an emotional response. The damage done by the woke fuckers to the hobby has trained the younger generation to think that there is only one type of RPG, boring. The stickiness of a new D&D player is 6 weeks and they quit. They quit because the content is boring and the DM is using content set up to bland and flavorless to not offend anyone and the side effect is there will be no emotional response.
Compare Dragon Age Origins which is set up specifically to give you an emotional response and then Dragon Age Inquisition that had sensitivity readers and the only emotional response it could elicit would be pity for the dragons as they get wounded before you kill them. When you compare pre-sensitivity reader Bioware to to post Bioware you can see a change in sales and ratings, its night and day. Bioware is going to be shuttered when the depression hits, it won't be sellable by EA. By letting people know your content is fun, they will buy it. That can be by labels and it can be by art.
Take a look at D&D's art to get you to resubscribe to D&D beyond:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/store/subscribe
A 10 year old child in plate mail, with an owl bear pup on a rope swinging away from a red dragon, this is the art D&D Beyond is using to get you to resubscribe. Hmmm.... no sane person wants to RP a 10 year old boy. Maybe an 8 year old would. So WotC's CRM team came up with put a child in plate, that will speak to 40 year old DM's with spend to resubscribe. That is work content, it tends to not sell. This is WotC's approach, make art of 10 year olds to get 40 year olds to buy their product?
I'd much rather buy content with an 18+ label, now with 10% more demons etc, than buy the standard woke content.
I'm a fan of Occam's Razor. All of the most popular, highest selling games are published by companies on this site's Consumer Guide's "red" list. But that's not because of marketing tricks or liberal conspiracies. It's because those companies make games that appeal to a larger audience than the games by companies on the "green" list. They know which side their bread is buttered on and have tapped into the current zeitgeist.
So what?
I don't need society at large to validate my tastes by deeming what I like to be popular. Good, original games will find an audience. And I don't even need new games to play what and how I want. I have 40 years worth of RPGs on my shelves already. Nevertheless, new games are being produced all the time.
If you want to attack "wokeness" with a game specifically designed and marketed as hostile to that ethos, that's fine. But thinking it will somehow grow the OSR is simply naive.
Quote from: SHARK on March 16, 2023, 04:57:24 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 04:34:19 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 04:12:51 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 02:58:10 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 10:52:54 AM
Quote from: migo on March 16, 2023, 10:24:41 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 15, 2023, 10:10:13 PM
You're set, the blue haired landwhales will Reeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Re-envision hags from being wiry to horrendously fat, and instead of doing green, annis and night, order them according to hair colour. And then place them on the cover as monsters for the heroes to fight.
Or embrace the classic elements of monsters so as to create a timeless product that will remain relevant after the landwhales have clotshotted themselves into oblivion.
Look at Hogwarts Legacy and how the left did everything they could to sell the game. Look at TSR and how it used the Satanic Panic to sell their games. I get that a lot of people are scared, like you, but I'd rather have a game with fun in it than something written to D&D's standards, which frankly are horrible. D&D is supposed to be 12 and up, in reality its at an 8 and up and moving down to 6 and up very soon. Putting out adult games of D&D will sell quite well.
Hogwarts Legacy didn't succeed by being Edgelordy. It succeeded by being a well-crafted game with a good story that would have fit right in to any point of pre-Woke culture. The same with Top Gun Maverick; no anti-woke edgelording... just a solid well-crafted story with heroes to root for and gorgeous non-CGI cinematography.
Its not fear that has me objecting... its that I think the idea of going Edgelord in the opposite direction is stupid and counterproductive and its not going to attract anyone but other fringe edgelords.
I wasn't Edgelording in the 90's when it was cool. I'm certainly not doing it now as some desperate gasp for attention. I have my own work on a Superversive* setting that is every bit as toxic to the Woke but without the pretentious "look at me" wankery.
So, yes, enjoy your pretentious "now with extra offensive language and demonic imagery from the 80-90s" and "more lines on pages depicting breasts with twice the cup size" being sold off of websites which need NSFW disclaimers and then wonder why no one takes you or your product seriously.
* Superversive means having fun with your friends playing in a world where heroes are heroic, where people are basically good (and those that are not are villains you can defeat), where courage, honor and virtue matter, where true love and beauty are eternal, hope is real and, even though it may struggle and stumble, good can triumph in the end. Whether these things are really true or not... they are worth believing in and, God willing, the love I have for the setting and its themes of timeless virtue will carry over into my finished product and that will in turn draw people to it.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 02:58:10 PM
When you look at woke, you look are purse puppying and writing being written down to a 6 year old level. Putting in content to state you are specifically NOT doing that does not mean you are racist, it means the content is written for humans to enjoy and the content is not written for Zombies in the woke cult who don't buy rpg content in the first place.
Again, Hogwarts Legacy and Top Gun Maverick didn't need "Artist Statements" declaring themselves anti-woke. Good stories and content are anti-woke by definition and need no statements to say so.
What you claim is edgelording is in fact having fun. Injecting some fun into a RPG is a good thing. Woke sucks the fun out of the content and turns its into a flavorless husk. And by "Artist Statements", its called marketing. How many people really want to buy a module written by a sensitivity reader to do edutatinment about the troubles of the black eskimo who caught HIV from the non-binary white supremacist dragon? D&D isn't at that level yet, but the gay cripple in the combat wheel chair with the gay Mandingo is approaching that level of dried out cringe.
You can use marketing to show that the content is not woke, use the woke to market for you and make quite a bit of money. You don't have to be afraid, you do have to put out good content however and you should use the woke to market for you.
Greetings!
*Laughing* Hilarious, honeydipperdavid! Just awesome. Also, oh damn, very much on-point, too. "Non-Binary White Supremacist Dragon"!!!!
The absurdity that Woke Libtards have ass-graped into the hobby creates a huge demand for ridiculing them and mocking them in the most absolutely ruthless of ways. Yes, a more restrained and conservative approach certainly has merits--and probably should be the normal approach, business and marketing wise. However, I think there is definitely also room for making products that ruthlessly and intentionally attack the Woke Libtards and their entirely nonsensical ideology.
For me, it is not a question of "It must be either or!"--but "BOTH".
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
In the next node my players enter does have a trio of white dragons. I'm really tempted to have them get a bronze dragon cornered and have the players listen to the white dragons talk about working hard and merit to build their horde while the brass dragon talks about how they really need to get with the program and stop all this colonizer talk about work and time to see if any players get the White Supremacist Dragon joke.
Quote from: Venka on March 16, 2023, 04:54:49 PM
Coyote and Crow
I agree there is space for satire, but there are always side cases.
Coyote and crow I find is a good example because while this doesn't always happen but:
It made a ton of money, but the guy is out and now is
begging demanding white people play it because he underestimated costs and this big publicity stunt is going nowhere fast.
And yes it's a racist as hell creation.
Hate clicks bring money. Apathy brings death.
I'm a fan of Occam's Razor. All of the most popular, highest selling games are published by companies on this site's Consumer Guide's "red" list. But that's not because of marketing tricks or liberal conspiracies. It's because those companies make games that appeal to a larger audience than the games by companies on the "green" list. They know which side their bread is buttered on and have tapped into the current zeitgeist.
So what?
I don't need society at large to validate my tastes by deeming what I like to be popular. Good, original games will find an audience. And I don't even need new games to play what and how I want. I have 40 years worth of RPGs on my shelves already. Nevertheless, new games are being produced all the time.
If you want to attack "wokeness" with a game specifically designed and marketed as hostile to that ethos, that's fine. But thinking it will somehow grow the OSR is simply naive.
Here's the thing: I'm not making a game for children nor for people easily offended by a sexy woman in chainmail bikini. I'm making the game I want to play, which makes it 16+ (because I am a puritan and won't include nudity nor explicit sex/sex jokes).
IF/When I publish it the cover will reflect the game, or convey what it's about if you like, the interior art will be appropriate for the game, if that offends someone, too bad, don't care.
If it was a S&W or Fantasy game I would commission a cover a la Conan comics in the 1980s, because that reflects the spirit of the game.
I will write it in correct English BECAUSE it's easier, it will offend someone, too bad, don't care.
The Character Sheet will have a section to choose the SEX of your character, because SEX is real, gender is woke wankery. It will offend someone, too bad, don't care.
It will have racial modifiers, because it makes sense that the strongest halfling can't be as strong as the average human. It will offend someone, too bad, don't care.
I won't include ANY text apologizing or speaking about isms and phobias, this will offend someone, too bad, don't care.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 16, 2023, 06:01:38 PM
Here's the thing: I'm not making a game for children nor for people easily offended by a sexy woman in chainmail bikini. I'm making the game I want to play, which makes it 16+ (because I am a puritan and won't include nudity nor explicit sex/sex jokes).
IF/When I publish it the cover will reflect the game, or convey what it's about if you like, the interior art will be appropriate for the game, if that offends someone, too bad, don't care.
If it was a S&W or Fantasy game I would commission a cover a la Conan comics in the 1980s, because that reflects the spirit of the game.
I will write it in correct English BECAUSE it's easier, it will offend someone, too bad, don't care.
The Character Sheet will have a section to choose the SEX of your character, because SEX is real, gender is woke wankery. It will offend someone, too bad, don't care.
It will have racial modifiers, because it makes sense that the strongest halfling can't be as strong as the average human. It will offend someone, too bad, don't care.
I won't include ANY text apologizing or speaking about isms and phobias, this will offend someone, too bad, don't care.
I have absolutely no problem with any of this. If it's well executed, I'd probably buy it. Do I think it will sell as well as whatever WotC and Paizo put out? No. Do I think that's important? Also no.
Quote from: Festus on March 16, 2023, 06:17:24 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 16, 2023, 06:01:38 PM
Here's the thing: I'm not making a game for children nor for people easily offended by a sexy woman in chainmail bikini. I'm making the game I want to play, which makes it 16+ (because I am a puritan and won't include nudity nor explicit sex/sex jokes).
IF/When I publish it the cover will reflect the game, or convey what it's about if you like, the interior art will be appropriate for the game, if that offends someone, too bad, don't care.
If it was a S&W or Fantasy game I would commission a cover a la Conan comics in the 1980s, because that reflects the spirit of the game.
I will write it in correct English BECAUSE it's easier, it will offend someone, too bad, don't care.
The Character Sheet will have a section to choose the SEX of your character, because SEX is real, gender is woke wankery. It will offend someone, too bad, don't care.
It will have racial modifiers, because it makes sense that the strongest halfling can't be as strong as the average human. It will offend someone, too bad, don't care.
I won't include ANY text apologizing or speaking about isms and phobias, this will offend someone, too bad, don't care.
I have absolutely no problem with any of this. If it's well executed, I'd probably buy it. Do I think it will sell as well as whatever WotC and Paizo put out? No. Do I think that's important? Also no.
If anyone's goal is to sell like the big guys on their first foray that someone needs to tamper it's expectations a few notches.
If someone lets himself to be dissuaded because his shit probably won't sell like the big guys that someone doesn't want it enough.
Do I think there's a market for what I'm making? Yes, how big? Small to tiny in comparison with the 500 lbs gorilla, but I might be wrong and not sell anything or even wronger and it sells like pancakes.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 16, 2023, 01:19:12 PM
I don't read products written from spite. Countering SJW subversive spite with your own spite just makes 2 shit products.
Creativity defined by opposition tends to be shit. Write for what you stand for, not what you don't stand for.
This, plus, I'm not actually out to piss anyone off. That's not the point. I just don't much
care if I do.
Quote from: Bruwulf on March 16, 2023, 07:18:39 PM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 16, 2023, 01:19:12 PM
I don't read products written from spite. Countering SJW subversive spite with your own spite just makes 2 shit products.
Creativity defined by opposition tends to be shit. Write for what you stand for, not what you don't stand for.
This, plus, I'm not actually out to piss anyone off. That's not the point. I just don't much care if I do.
We are in an economic downturn, all the woke crap has turned the companies to crap and its failing. Netflix is fighting for its life now and what are they doing, they are cancelling their woke content because it doesn't sell. Marvel and Disney are no longer to able to make money off their former merit in their films, people are watching their new woke crap and are vomiting at home seeing the ads and refusing to spend. Solo lost money and Antman is going to lose money. Disney did an all hands to cut a ton of their woke crap. Eiger is trying to find a way to put his toxic woke politics in a movie and still sell, well it ain't working. We'll see two more years of woke SW and Marvel and its over as will be Eiger. We are at the point in the culture war where woke is now is becoming despised by the consumer. Listing your content as being fun and enhanced aluding to the fact your content is normie and not woke will sell and sell quite well.
From financing, Vanguard had to drop ESG and SVB that was filled with woke polyps to the point where a doctor would ask the patient if he could shoot him to save him from his fate is now dead. The worse the economy gets its acting as chemo on woke and killing it. Bernie Sanders just said that he is for Equality of Opportunity and was never for Equity and we have Cenk Uygur stating he's for Equality of Opportunity and always have been. Don't get me wrong, woke is trying to mutate to a new cancer, but their crap can't financing to sell because it never sold well in the first place.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 09:24:49 PMListing your content as being fun and enhanced aluding to the fact your content is normie and not woke will sell and sell quite well.
Except that none of the evidence bears this out and none of the other stuff that you mention means that "and therefore we have to make our stuff explicitly anti-woke and then it will sell (somehow)".
If being not woke was such a hot selling point on its own—specially in the TTRPG industry—then woke games wouldn't sell better than ones from openly anti-woke authors, and people wouldn't be trying to haunt and defame any designer that steps out of line and get their crowdsourced stuff cancelled. Yet that's precisely what happens, none of the anti-woke authors are actually making it big, other than maybe Pundit, and he ain't exactly huge. Plus none of his stuff is explicitly anti-woke or marketed as such, and he only uses anti-wokeness as outrage advertising in his own channel, but not his books.
The only people that have used anti-wokeness in their marketing with any significant success have been ComicsGate, and that's a completely different industry, plus none of the really big ones uses politics in their actual products. The only exception being Trump's Space Force, and that book was extremely niche and not part of the main CC crowd.
I eagerly await your next attempt to push the same points, though. :P
Make a game that has its own merits.
Quote from: VisionStorm on March 16, 2023, 10:02:03 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 09:24:49 PMListing your content as being fun and enhanced aluding to the fact your content is normie and not woke will sell and sell quite well.
Except that none of the evidence bears this out and none of the other stuff that you mention means that "and therefore we have to make our stuff explicitly anti-woke and then it will sell (somehow)".
If being not woke was such a hot selling point on its own—specially in the TTRPG industry—then woke games wouldn't sell better than ones from openly anti-woke authors, and people wouldn't be trying to haunt and defame any designer that steps out of line and get their crowdsourced stuff cancelled. Yet that's precisely what happens, none of the anti-woke authors are actually making it big, other than maybe Pundit, and he ain't exactly huge. Plus none of his stuff is explicitly anti-woke or marketed as such, and he only uses anti-wokeness as outrage advertising in his own channel, but not his books.
The only people that have used anti-wokeness in their marketing with any significant success have been ComicsGate, and that's a completely different industry, plus none of the really big ones uses politics in their actual products. The only exception being Trump's Space Force, and that book was extremely niche and not part of the main CC crowd.
I eagerly await your next attempt to push the same points, though. :P
Here why don't you steel man my point and show how its wrong? I'm talking culturally and financially. Now if you want to look at trends, the first to get woke was video games then the cancer spread to the media and table top had elements of it present but it didn't take of at D&D fully till the BLM Murder riots of 2020 that murder 25 people and did $2B damage to the inner cities. At that point, that was when the leftards at WotC took control, put up their virtue signal about how evil Gary and content was for DM's guild. TT was lagging from being absorbed.
Taking a look at it now, woke is failing left and right. Woke Video game companies are shutting down studios, look at Bioware shutting down its woke Canadian studio. Look at Embracer CEO stating he has to do a different direction for Saint's Row and saying a lot of fans "not happy with the new direction of the game". Look at EA chief creative officer Patrick Söderlund for Battlefield V either buy it or don't, well they didn't and he's gone. Look at Hogwarts, the left sold it for free and their boycott failed. Those video game companies that put wokeness in are failing and ESG funding is going dead. The DIE departments are being cleared out in the silicon valley layoffs because they build nothing, they slow production, they spread nothing by hatred and discontent and the ESG funding that made the viable is going away very very quickly. The funding kept failing video game studios afloat but now that the economy is going to shit, there is no funding. Video Games are going back to profitable and fun, the edutainment is being removed. Video Games were the first to get the woke cancer and they are the first moving away from it to maintain profitability. Media was being pushed hard woke by Disney and Disney is losing money on wokeness, Solo and Antman lost money. Disney is trying everything possible to put woke politics and not go bankrupt and it isn't working out well for them. Tabletop is the next area to lose the wokeness. The content D&D keeps putting out is not being received well at all. TT will most likely follow the trend and be one of the last refuges to lose the woke cancer because it has the cheapest input cost compared to video games and media. No one is going to spend $50 on a woke book to virtue signal when hamburger costs $10/lb. They will only buy content that benefits their game and most of D&D content for the last 4 years has been as useful as tits on a bulls.
Hmm. This all begs the question: What's the best way to piss off the blue-haired woke crowd without sabotaging your product? You know - keep it based, but also retail-friendly.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 09:24:49 PMListing your content as being fun and enhanced aluding to the fact your content is normie and not woke will sell and sell quite well.
Market your game as fun. Don't try to win me over on your politics. Even if I agree with them, I'm just going to be annoyed.
People aren't just sick of "woke". They're sick of it
all. If you try to sell me your game based on your politics or your refutation of the other guy's politics, or whatever, just count me out. It's not that I'm apolitical. I'm not. Not even remotely. But I'm so
fucking sick to
fucking death of "everything is politics". I don't wanna think about if I'm disrespecting insidious cultures somehow, or having to roll for the size of my barbarian queen's tits while she gets -2 int. This is a hobby for me. It's escapism. It's to decompress and spend time with friends and have fun.
I just want to kill me some damned orcs.
Quote from: FF_Ninja on March 16, 2023, 10:39:20 PM
Hmm. This all begs the question: What's the best way to piss off the blue-haired woke crowd without sabotaging your product? You know - keep it based, but also retail-friendly.
Easy, state how a sticker that says: "Now with 10% more demons" is going to not be retail friendly when Barnes and Noble has books in the young adults section where they have pictures and instructions on how young males showing males how to engage in anal sex is not going to be placed in a retail store? Believe it not, you can use an upset leftards for marketing, its been done plenty of times. Hell look at how D&D markets when its on leftard social media it plays up the racism in the hiring of the writers and how they banned whites from writing but on the books themselves for the vast majority of customers who are normies, they don't realize there is a culture war they just know movies sucks and D&D is getting bad they don't list any of the woke shit on the book cover or back to prevent their book from getting passed over.
Gender Queer
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/gender-queer-maia-kobabe/1129752894?ean=9781549304002
Can you tell me how a book with a sticker stating "Now with 10% more Demons" are going to bother you politically, I'm all ears man. Or if you released a module called "Orcs Must Die" and put a sticker on it "No insensitivity writers were hurt in the making of this product" is going to bother you politically?
I'm listing out the trends. Thanks to economic collapse, the money for ESG is gone, and the people paying for this shit to be made, don't have the money to do it. Books are having tog return to merit. So why not show the book is based on merit and fun. People want fun content, they don't want Battlefield V, Saints Row or Van Richtovens Guide to crap.
Quote from: Bruwulf on March 16, 2023, 10:55:15 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 09:24:49 PMListing your content as being fun and enhanced aluding to the fact your content is normie and not woke will sell and sell quite well.
Market your game as fun. Don't try to win me over on your politics. Even if I agree with them, I'm just going to be annoyed.
People aren't just sick of "woke". They're sick of it all. If you try to sell me your game based on your politics or your refutation of the other guy's politics, or whatever, just count me out. It's not that I'm apolitical. I'm not. Not even remotely. But I'm so fucking sick to fucking death of "everything is politics". I don't wanna think about if I'm disrespecting insidious cultures somehow, or having to roll for the size of my barbarian queen's tits while she gets -2 int. This is a hobby for me. It's escapism. It's to decompress and spend time with friends and have fun.
I just want to kill me some damned orcs.
Greetings!
What are you drinking tonight, Bruwulf? *Laughing* That's the second commentary you have made tonight that has me cracking up! You must be great at parties! (I mean that as a complement). "Disrespecting insidious cultures!" Ahh, yeah. Fucking great!
Yeah, the whole politics in everything gets so tiresome. It makes me often roll my eyes in frustration. Sometimes, I feel like screaming at these people, in the books, like, dude, can't you just fucking stop? STOP. I wonder if these people actually listen to themselves as they go off on yet another 'teaching moment" so smugly lecturing the reader on how super-duper special some culture is, and how sensitive everyone must be talking about them or interacting *in the game* with whatever culture.
The real mind boggling moment is to realize that most of the cultures talked about--in the game books--are *fictitious* ;D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 10:59:06 PM
Quote from: FF_Ninja on March 16, 2023, 10:39:20 PM
Hmm. This all begs the question: What's the best way to piss off the blue-haired woke crowd without sabotaging your product? You know - keep it based, but also retail-friendly.
Easy, state how a sticker that says: "Now with 10% more demons" is going to not be retail friendly when Barnes and Noble has books in the young adults section where they have pictures and instructions on how young males showing males how to engage in anal sex is not going to be placed in a retail store? Believe it not, you can use an upset leftards for marketing, its been done plenty of times. Hell look at how D&D markets when its on leftard social media it plays up the racism in the hiring of the writers and how they banned whites from writing but on the books themselves for the vast majority of customers who are normies, they don't realize there is a culture war they just know movies sucks and D&D is getting bad they don't list any of the woke shit on the book cover or back to prevent their book from getting passed over.
Gender Queer
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/gender-queer-maia-kobabe/1129752894?ean=9781549304002
Can you tell me how a book with a sticker stating "Now with 10% more Demons" are going to bother you politically, I'm all ears man. Or if you released a module called "Orcs Must Die" and put a sticker on it "No insensitivity writers were hurt in the making of this product" is going to bother you politically?
I'm listing out the trends. Thanks to economic collapse, the money for ESG is gone, and the people paying for this shit to be made, don't have the money to do it. Books are having tog return to merit. So why not show the book is based on merit and fun. People want fun content, they don't want Battlefield V, Saints Row or Van Richtovens Guide to crap.
Greetings!
Returning to MERIT. That's right, Honeydipperdavid. As the economy gets jacked even more, more of the Libtards are going to be unemployed, and starving. They will be lucky to be eating Macdonald's Hash Browns. Companies are also likely to get far more mean-spirited and hard-nosed with how they invest their resources, what kinds of people they hire, and what kinds of product gets the greenlight.
I'm looking forward to more REEEing from sobbing Libtards on TikTok.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Bruwulf on March 16, 2023, 10:55:15 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 09:24:49 PMListing your content as being fun and enhanced aluding to the fact your content is normie and not woke will sell and sell quite well.
Market your game as fun. Don't try to win me over on your politics. Even if I agree with them, I'm just going to be annoyed.
People aren't just sick of "woke". They're sick of it all. If you try to sell me your game based on your politics or your refutation of the other guy's politics, or whatever, just count me out. It's not that I'm apolitical. I'm not. Not even remotely. But I'm so fucking sick to fucking death of "everything is politics". I don't wanna think about if I'm disrespecting insidious cultures somehow, or having to roll for the size of my barbarian queen's tits while she gets -2 int. This is a hobby for me. It's escapism. It's to decompress and spend time with friends and have fun.
I just want to kill me some damned orcs.
This right here, make a fun game, market it as fun, make something you yourself want to play (chances are there's other people that want to play it too).
It's not as if you HAVE to do ANYTHING to piss the woketards, just look at Hogwarts Legacy, the game is woke as fuck, it takes place BEFORE the HP books, yet it's filled with "British" people that look like they come from current year London, it has a transgender bartender, and yet the woketards hate it.
So, if you're making such a game that putting a sexy woman in chainmail bikini and a strong dude in loincloth on the cover fits do so (if that's what you want), write in proper English, put always evil Orcs (or whatever) and racial modifiers.
Now your game is sexist, transphobic, racist and exclusionary.
If you didn't notice I just described D&D from back in the day with a different cover.
I'll repeat myself: You don't really NEED to do anything to piss the Sparkle Troll Brigade, hell you can even try to make something to please them and they'll come after you ANYWAY!
Make the game you want to play, make it fun, if possible unique in some way, and market it as "now 100% more fun!"
Quote from: Bruwulf on March 16, 2023, 10:55:15 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 09:24:49 PMListing your content as being fun and enhanced aluding to the fact your content is normie and not woke will sell and sell quite well.
Market your game as fun. Don't try to win me over on your politics. Even if I agree with them, I'm just going to be annoyed.
People aren't just sick of "woke". They're sick of it all. If you try to sell me your game based on your politics or your refutation of the other guy's politics, or whatever, just count me out. It's not that I'm apolitical. I'm not. Not even remotely. But I'm so fucking sick to fucking death of "everything is politics". I don't wanna think about if I'm disrespecting insidious cultures somehow, or having to roll for the size of my barbarian queen's tits while she gets -2 int. This is a hobby for me. It's escapism. It's to decompress and spend time with friends and have fun.
I just want to kill me some damned orcs.
Hear, freaking hear!
People want to play games and watch movies to ESCAPE from real life for a bit. The goal of the woke is to make everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING) political... and here comes hippydippydoc wanting to ensure that no game is an escape... it must be political; right or left.
Congratulations honeydipped... you're giving the woketards exactly the war they want to fight you on.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 11:25:50 PM
Quote from: Bruwulf on March 16, 2023, 10:55:15 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 09:24:49 PMListing your content as being fun and enhanced aluding to the fact your content is normie and not woke will sell and sell quite well.
Market your game as fun. Don't try to win me over on your politics. Even if I agree with them, I'm just going to be annoyed.
People aren't just sick of "woke". They're sick of it all. If you try to sell me your game based on your politics or your refutation of the other guy's politics, or whatever, just count me out. It's not that I'm apolitical. I'm not. Not even remotely. But I'm so fucking sick to fucking death of "everything is politics". I don't wanna think about if I'm disrespecting insidious cultures somehow, or having to roll for the size of my barbarian queen's tits while she gets -2 int. This is a hobby for me. It's escapism. It's to decompress and spend time with friends and have fun.
I just want to kill me some damned orcs.
Hear, freaking hear!
People want to play games and watch movies to ESCAPE from real life for a bit. The goal of the woke is to make everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING) political... and here comes hippydippydoc wanting to ensure that no game is an escape... it must be political; right or left.
Congratulations honeydipped... you're giving the woketards exactly the war they want to fight you on.
OK, so tell me how a sticker that says "Now with 10% more Demons" or a module called "Orcs Must Die" or a sticker stating "No insensitivity readers were hurt in the making of this module" is going to cost you sales. It shows the content is fun, non-woke and normie. It's what DM's wnat for content and players do as well. The stickiness of a new D&D player is less than 6 sessions and they quit, they quit because D&D modules are poorly written edutainment and are not written to be fun.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 11:48:24 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 11:25:50 PM
Quote from: Bruwulf on March 16, 2023, 10:55:15 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 09:24:49 PMListing your content as being fun and enhanced aluding to the fact your content is normie and not woke will sell and sell quite well.
Market your game as fun. Don't try to win me over on your politics. Even if I agree with them, I'm just going to be annoyed.
People aren't just sick of "woke". They're sick of it all. If you try to sell me your game based on your politics or your refutation of the other guy's politics, or whatever, just count me out. It's not that I'm apolitical. I'm not. Not even remotely. But I'm so fucking sick to fucking death of "everything is politics". I don't wanna think about if I'm disrespecting insidious cultures somehow, or having to roll for the size of my barbarian queen's tits while she gets -2 int. This is a hobby for me. It's escapism. It's to decompress and spend time with friends and have fun.
I just want to kill me some damned orcs.
Hear, freaking hear!
People want to play games and watch movies to ESCAPE from real life for a bit. The goal of the woke is to make everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING) political... and here comes hippydippydoc wanting to ensure that no game is an escape... it must be political; right or left.
Congratulations honeydipped... you're giving the woketards exactly the war they want to fight you on.
OK, so tell me how a sticker that says "Now with 10% more Demons" or a module called "Orcs Must Die" or a sticker stating "No insensitivity readers were hurt in the making of this module" is going to cost you sales. It shows the content is fun, non-woke and normie. It's what DM's wnat for content and players do as well. The stickiness of a new D&D player is less than 6 sessions and they quit, they quit because D&D modules are poorly written edutainment and are not written to be fun.
Greetings!
I like "Orcs Must Die!" *Laughing* That would be a great title or advertising banner!
Beyond that, as I mentioned earlier, I don't see the problem. Market some games in a conventional manner, and market some games, books, or modules, with presenting a more "edgy" flair. Who cares if the Libtards are offended and Reeing? And as far as "Tactics" go, it can be advantageous to be ruthless and bold. Libtards go out of their way to make bold statements and make a big splash. It does--and has--been quite successful, at least sometimes. What's with the crying about "Wel, that's what the Libtards do!" AND? So what. It has been successful, and it makes MONEY. Success, money, fame, translates into *power* and *influence*. To some extent, gaining power and influence is critical to WINNING.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Some of y'all are just living in fantasy land. It's going to be interesting to see how you're feeling in a couple of years when the liberals still aren't starving, Disney still isn't bankrupt, and WotC D&D is still outselling everything else.
I was reading some of my old Savage Sword of Conan issues from the 70s earlier today. Loved every second of it. Doesn't mean I have to be delusional about the times we live in.
Quote from: Festus on March 17, 2023, 12:05:10 AM
Some of y'all are just living in fantasy land. It's going to be interesting to see how you're feeling in a couple of years when the liberals still aren't starving, Disney still isn't bankrupt, and WotC D&D is still outselling everything else.
I was reading some of my old Savage Sword of Conan issues from the 70s earlier today. Loved every second of it. Doesn't mean I have to be delusional about the times we live in.
Disney has over $45B in debt, it has lost money on Buzz Lightyear (a Pixar film)
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DIS/disney/long-term-debt
As to movies in 2022, very woke, and generally not performing well. Some of the lowlights Turning Red $175M budget and a $20M box office, Lightyear $200M budget and a $226M box office, Pinocchio $150M budget and no box office because it was so bad it went to Disney+, and then Strange World $180M budget and $74M box office.
Then you have The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder where the level of wokeness is to the level that it could kill Xindi X Khandi if he was exposed to more than 10 minutes of it, everyone else its 5 minutes. The bad PR and response from parents turned the show into a PR nightmare, then having the show runner talking about she could do whatever she wanted and no one stopped her, didn't help.
Disney has high debt and its movies are running into issues because they went very woke and parents won't take their kids to groomer films. What is keeping Disney alive is the parks, and it lost some of it's tax benefits in Florida. And Universal Studios offers a much better offering with Harry Potter. And then we have Disney trying to remove Splash Mountain and Disney fans organizing protests at the park to stop them is becoming a PR Nightmare.
Disney almost died in the 70's and 80's and lived off its parks because a good bit of its movie releases (Fox and Hound, Black Hole) were financial failures. It's overextended its credit and it can't write a good Marvel or Star Wars movie to save its financial life now. Even when Disney tries to write non-woke content that is good (Andor), Disney has pissed of the fan base they won't watch good content that Disney puts out for Star Wars now. We have Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny coming to leave even a fouler taste in the fans mouth. You can't spread that amount of feces at the fans expect them to come back for more.
With the amount of debt, the bad relations with fans of the parks, bad relations with parents no longer looking at Disney films as safe for families and Disney+ not doing well, and then economic calamity, I would not bet on Disney surviving the Decade. Plenty of big companies come and go. The parks has always saved Disney's bacon and Universal is cheaper and gives a better experience than Disney. I've been shorting DISN and I'm doing ok and haven't lost money yet on it, I'm sure I'll get caught eventually but for the most part Disney has a negative slope the last two years. I did that as soon as I saw how bad Marvel and Star Wars was and the fan hatred of them.
Quote from: SHARK on March 16, 2023, 11:58:45 PM
I like "Orcs Must Die!" *Laughing* That would be a great title or advertising banner!
Just FYI, "Orcs Must Die" is the name of a video game franchise about, you guessed it, killing orcs in droves.
Quote from: Festus on March 17, 2023, 12:05:10 AM
Some of y'all are just living in fantasy land. It's going to be interesting to see how you're feeling in a couple of years when the liberals still aren't starving, Disney still isn't bankrupt, and WotC D&D is still outselling everything else.
I was reading some of my old Savage Sword of Conan issues from the 70s earlier today. Loved every second of it. Doesn't mean I have to be delusional about the times we live in.
BTW for something that feels like old school Conan, the Xoth stuff is great - https://xoth.net/publishing/
I was just looking over the free 5e Player's Guide - https://xoth.net/publishing/freebies/world_of_xoth_players_guide_5e.pdf - 72 pages of Politically Incorrect goodness. 8)
;) Sounds a bit try-hard edgelord for it to be worthwhile. 8) Cool should be effortless excellence. Try for that instead.
I started a blog page with plenty of inspirational S&S art - I love Brocahl especially! 8)
https://simonyrpgs.blogspot.com/2023/03/sword-sorcery-cultures-for-dragonbane.html
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN5hSDYzdTLYToW_RS8yeWuio4_Usk3ElcysXniJ1WzXzzAu3aA0PsVPi1bufVPFCeGTxKOaY2BNiBmFvXlCEgGYskAYHRgEu2VfdRnJhyc5ZBoC0owi0vy82SCDBdfgaRM_B2fcrC4q_l7B8E6TbDve7hKH9aogexZziwQhvg8HJ45J0WwQCknrK9/w478-h640/20cdc6d06d19aa80af8843665eafec8a.jpg)
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 10:33:41 PM
Quote from: VisionStorm on March 16, 2023, 10:02:03 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 09:24:49 PMListing your content as being fun and enhanced aluding to the fact your content is normie and not woke will sell and sell quite well.
Except that none of the evidence bears this out and none of the other stuff that you mention means that "and therefore we have to make our stuff explicitly anti-woke and then it will sell (somehow)".
If being not woke was such a hot selling point on its own—specially in the TTRPG industry—then woke games wouldn't sell better than ones from openly anti-woke authors, and people wouldn't be trying to haunt and defame any designer that steps out of line and get their crowdsourced stuff cancelled. Yet that's precisely what happens, none of the anti-woke authors are actually making it big, other than maybe Pundit, and he ain't exactly huge. Plus none of his stuff is explicitly anti-woke or marketed as such, and he only uses anti-wokeness as outrage advertising in his own channel, but not his books.
The only people that have used anti-wokeness in their marketing with any significant success have been ComicsGate, and that's a completely different industry, plus none of the really big ones uses politics in their actual products. The only exception being Trump's Space Force, and that book was extremely niche and not part of the main CC crowd.
I eagerly await your next attempt to push the same points, though. :P
Here why don't you steel man my point and show how its wrong? I'm talking culturally and financially. Now if you want to look at trends, the first to get woke was video games then the cancer spread to the media and table top had elements of it present but it didn't take of at D&D fully till the BLM Murder riots of 2020 that murder 25 people and did $2B damage to the inner cities. At that point, that was when the leftards at WotC took control, put up their virtue signal about how evil Gary and content was for DM's guild. TT was lagging from being absorbed.
Taking a look at it now, woke is failing left and right. Woke Video game companies are shutting down studios, look at Bioware shutting down its woke Canadian studio. Look at Embracer CEO stating he has to do a different direction for Saint's Row and saying a lot of fans "not happy with the new direction of the game". Look at EA chief creative officer Patrick Söderlund for Battlefield V either buy it or don't, well they didn't and he's gone. Look at Hogwarts, the left sold it for free and their boycott failed. Those video game companies that put wokeness in are failing and ESG funding is going dead. The DIE departments are being cleared out in the silicon valley layoffs because they build nothing, they slow production, they spread nothing by hatred and discontent and the ESG funding that made the viable is going away very very quickly. The funding kept failing video game studios afloat but now that the economy is going to shit, there is no funding. Video Games are going back to profitable and fun, the edutainment is being removed. Video Games were the first to get the woke cancer and they are the first moving away from it to maintain profitability. Media was being pushed hard woke by Disney and Disney is losing money on wokeness, Solo and Antman lost money. Disney is trying everything possible to put woke politics and not go bankrupt and it isn't working out well for them. Tabletop is the next area to lose the wokeness. The content D&D keeps putting out is not being received well at all. TT will most likely follow the trend and be one of the last refuges to lose the woke cancer because it has the cheapest input cost compared to video games and media. No one is going to spend $50 on a woke book to virtue signal when hamburger costs $10/lb. They will only buy content that benefits their game and most of D&D content for the last 4 years has been as useful as tits on a bulls.
There's nothing to steelman. You're so desperate to try to push this point you're not addressing one single point anyone else makes and keep repeating these asinine points absolutely NO ONE is arguing against. Nobody—and I mean absofuckinglutely NOBODY—is arguing that Get Woke Go Broke (which is what everything you keep repeating ad nauseam ultimately comes down to) isn't a thing. But none of that shit means that anti-woke marketing specifically will work. And I provided specific examples of EVIDENCE why it wouldn't—concrete fucking evidence of shit that's actually gone down in the direction of what you're proposing, not just leaps of logic and wild speculation that ignore anything that contradicts them. And rather than address them or refute them you keep desperately trying to push the same points, like everything rests on other people trying out this innovative anti-woke marketing you keep harping on about.
Like Bruwulf said, people are SICK of "everything is political", not just the woke shit. And like Geekybugle mentioned, you don't actually have to try hard to piss off the woke if that's what you're going for. You just have to do normal shit, like including "Sex" instead of "Gender" in your character sheet and that will set them off. But injecting your game with crap about the current political zeitgeist is only going to make it dated ten years from now, when all the woke shit is nothing but a bad memory, and it's only gonna limit your reach to the edgelords at the other side of the political shitfest rather than make anything of lasting value.
Short version - the pendulum in entertainment has swung so far that just unironically presenting what was normal a quarter century ago is radically counter-culture. No need for stupid labels on the cover.
Hell, you don't even really need Conan and chainmail bikinis. THIS for a cover would be enough to send the Woke REEIng...
(https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/f283d4f2-9927-4dee-bf30-71d0206462c2/d8fhel5-da5fcd70-9aaf-414a-a28f-c50aaca48648.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwic3ViIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTpmaWxlLmRvd25sb2FkIl0sIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiIvZi9mMjgzZDRmMi05OTI3LTRkZWUtYmYzMC03MWQwMjA2NDYyYzIvZDhmaGVsNS1kYTVmY2Q3MC05YWFmLTQxNGEtYTI4Zi1jNTBhYWNhNDg2NDguanBnIn1dXX0.mDP_wcpxjaF7AxYAnGYNz8Q1f8IbYtq3opHbrbcBS_E)
My favorite part about all the cheesecake art is that woke morons seem to think normal women don't appreciate the beefcake stuff...then again, most of them have never met a normal woman before, so that might have something to do with it.
Quote from: Brad on March 17, 2023, 06:57:29 AM
My favorite part about all the cheesecake art is that woke morons seem to think normal women don't appreciate the beefcake stuff...then again, most of them have never met a normal woman before, so that might have something to do with it.
IME a lot of normal women appreciate the cheesecake art too.
Sees Red Sonja cutting bloody swathe -
"I want to be her!"Sees naked damsel at hero's feet -
"I want one of those!"Still getting used to the latter reaction. ;D
Quote from: FF_Ninja on March 16, 2023, 10:39:20 PM
Hmm. This all begs the question: What's the best way to piss off the blue-haired woke crowd without sabotaging your product? You know - keep it based, but also retail-friendly.
Use race as a term instead of ancestry.
Have orcs be evil.
Have art featuring attractive women, and only attractive women.
Have white men as the classic heroes, where they would be expected instead of the expected subversion. So Fighter/Paladin/Wizard.
If you want to go detailed and can roll up your character's family, only have one mother and one father as an option.
Simple stuff that a sane well adjusted person wouldn't notice or bat an eye at, but would immediately piss off SJWs.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 11:48:24 PMOK, so tell me how a sticker that says "Now with 10% more Demons"
"10% more demons" wouldn't annoy me, although it seems... dumb. It's a meaningless statement. As well to say you have "10% more elf". And I don't think the woke crowd is anti-demon.
Now, "100% more dwarf" might tempt me...
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on March 16, 2023, 11:48:24 PMa sticker stating "No insensitivity readers were hurt in the making of this module" is going to cost you sales. It shows the content is fun, non-woke and normie.
No, it doesn't. All it shows me is that it's "anti-woke". That doesn't automatically mean "fun". It doesn't even mean "normie". Even if the average normie is getting burned out of the constant woke agenda, that doesn't mean they want "anti-woke" stuff. They just want off the bus, not to switch to a different seat.
Quote from: migo on March 17, 2023, 10:21:59 AM
Have art featuring attractive women, and only attractive women.
If you mean "only attractive women" as in none of that awful cal-art inspired "every-character-looks-quirkily-ugly-as-fuck" style that a lot of the woke crowd use, like in TSL? Yeah, I'm all for that.
But throw the women and gay men a bone, we like some cheesecake too now and then.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 17, 2023, 06:55:34 AM
Hell, you don't even really need Conan and chainmail bikinis. THIS for a cover would be enough to send the Woke REEIng...
The more I look at it, the more that picture goes from awesome to cringey to me, but not for any woke reason. Something is very wrong with the knight's arm.
Quote from: Bruwulf on March 17, 2023, 10:28:03 AM
Quote from: migo on March 17, 2023, 10:21:59 AM
Have art featuring attractive women, and only attractive women.
If you mean "only attractive women" as in none of that awful cal-art inspired "every-character-looks-quirkily-ugly-as-fuck" style that a lot of the woke crowd use, like in TSL? Yeah, I'm all for that.
But throw the women and gay men a bone, we like some cheesecake too now and then.
I meant that all the women are attractive, not that there aren't any men. In fact my next line was white men as classical heroes.
So yeah, having a totally ripped barbarian in the art is a part of it.
Quote from: Bruwulf on March 17, 2023, 10:30:03 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 17, 2023, 06:55:34 AM
Hell, you don't even really need Conan and chainmail bikinis. THIS for a cover would be enough to send the Woke REEIng...
The more I look at it, the more that picture goes from awesome to cringey to me, but not for any woke reason. Something is very wrong with the knight's arm.
Yeah, it looks like he's going to throw his sword like a discus. Capturing action does seem to be challenging. That shows how good Larry Elmore was as an artist.
Quote from: migo on March 17, 2023, 10:35:39 AM
Quote from: Bruwulf on March 17, 2023, 10:30:03 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 17, 2023, 06:55:34 AM
Hell, you don't even really need Conan and chainmail bikinis. THIS for a cover would be enough to send the Woke REEIng...
The more I look at it, the more that picture goes from awesome to cringey to me, but not for any woke reason. Something is very wrong with the knight's arm.
Yeah, it looks like he's going to throw his sword like a discus. Capturing action does seem to be challenging. That shows how good Larry Elmore was as an artist.
My favorite part is how the guy is valiantly standing BEHIND the damsel in distress, rather than in front of her, leaving her in between himself and the dragon instead of actually protecting her. ;D
Quote from: Bruwulf on March 17, 2023, 10:30:03 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 17, 2023, 06:55:34 AM
Hell, you don't even really need Conan and chainmail bikinis. THIS for a cover would be enough to send the Woke REEIng...
The more I look at it, the more that picture goes from awesome to cringey to me, but not for any woke reason. Something is very wrong with the knight's arm.
Upon further inspection, I think you're just bothered by the angular nature of the plate armor. The arm underneath it is extended, but the joints - while allowing for mobility still - are very rigid. I think it looks pretty fuckin' dope.
Quote from: VisionStorm on March 17, 2023, 12:39:37 PM
Quote from: migo on March 17, 2023, 10:35:39 AM
Quote from: Bruwulf on March 17, 2023, 10:30:03 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 17, 2023, 06:55:34 AM
Hell, you don't even really need Conan and chainmail bikinis. THIS for a cover would be enough to send the Woke REEIng...
The more I look at it, the more that picture goes from awesome to cringey to me, but not for any woke reason. Something is very wrong with the knight's arm.
Yeah, it looks like he's going to throw his sword like a discus. Capturing action does seem to be challenging. That shows how good Larry Elmore was as an artist.
My favorite part is how the guy is valiantly standing BEHIND the damsel in distress, rather than in front of her, leaving her in between himself and the dragon instead of actually protecting her. ;D
The knight just got there and dismounted from his steed, the "photography" was taken at the point in time before he steps forward to face the dragon.
If it was a movie you could take a still frame to make it seem like the knight is hiding behind her.
Let's see how well The Red Room does in the next year before making any conclusions.
Quote from: migo on March 16, 2023, 03:07:52 PM
Using left wing tactics against the left wing absolutely works. Because left wing tactics work. If they didn't, they wouldn't use them.
Yes, and they work for
destroying value and culture, not creating it.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 04:12:51 PM
Hogwarts Legacy didn't succeed by being Edgelordy. It succeeded by being a well-crafted game with a good story that would have fit right in to any point of pre-Woke culture. The same with Top Gun Maverick; no anti-woke edgelording... just a solid well-crafted story with heroes to root for and gorgeous non-CGI cinematography.
Indeed.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 04:12:51 PM
Good stories and content are anti-woke by definition and need no statements to say so.
Thread. End.
Hank Hill said it best...
"Can't you see you're not making Christianity any better? You're just making rock and roll worse!"
If the agenda comes first, then quality goes last.
I'd ignore an overtly Anti-Woke RPG just like I ignore all the Woke ones.
Plus, like... I hate to break it to anyone planning this... Well, actually, I suppose I don't, really? But... This has been done before. Not explicitly to be "anti-Woke" per se, but this no different than plenty of other games that deliberately tried to be "edgy" to draw in sales.
Hell, some of the worst offenders in Woke Gaming? Pioneered this shit. White Wolf, for example.
At least one good thing came out of this thread - I was inspired to start a new hardcore swords & sorcery "Dragonbane: Xoth" campaign. 8) https://simonyrpgs.blogspot.com/2023/03/sword-sorcery-cultures-for-dragonbane.html First session was on Saturday and it was brilliant! ;D
Quote from: Bruwulf on March 19, 2023, 09:42:47 PM
Plus, like... I hate to break it to anyone planning this... Well, actually, I suppose I don't, really? But... This has been done before. Not explicitly to be "anti-Woke" per se, but this no different than plenty of other games that deliberately tried to be "edgy" to draw in sales.
Maybe not the absolute edgiest, but if I had to think of someone thumbing their nose at the woke cause, I'd think of Venger Satanis.
I do love that man for being true to his leanings.