Quote from: Maese Mateo;906926To me, SoTDL along with Godbound are two of the best games from 2016 (I know SotDL was released at the end of last year but most people purchased it and played it this year).  The mechanics are super solid and the setting and general vibe of the game feel like an uncensored (darker even) Warhammer.

BTW good choices SotDL was my RPG of 2015 and Godbound looks like it will be my RPG of 2016

I just picked up SotDL about a week ago and... holy crap the game design is awesome.  I'm shocked, really.  It's not D&D and its not WFRP, but it scratches both of those itches at the same time, and with much simpler mechanics than either.  ENnies be damned.  This is a game I'd like to run.

Quote from: The Butcher;906855Second, I do find this somewhat puzzling in business terms, and in fact I vaguely recall reading about suspicious shenanigans involving the ENnies a few years ago. What gives? Since these boards love industry gossip, I thought someone might make more sense of this than I did.

It is entirely possible that he's had some unhappy interactions with Enworld. While I have participated in some interesting discussions there, a few times I have seen people make not-so-terrible and thematically appropriate comments and then get told "we don't allow that kind of talk here" by moderators.

Quote from: Lynn;906991It is entirely possible that he's had some unhappy interactions with Enworld. While I have participated in some interesting discussions there, a few times I have seen people make not-so-terrible and thematically appropriate comments and then get told "we don't allow that kind of talk here" by moderators.

FWIW Rob Schwalb doesn't frequent any internet forums, so I doubt its an issue with the mods at ENworld.

This game looks mighty interesting. I'll probably pick it up, even though I don't know when I'll get a chance to run it. Too many games, too little time. Since it looks like it's designed to run a relatively tight, short campaign, if it really inspires me I might see if my group wants to slot it in between Hackmaster and Godbound. And the Asterix game one of the guys wants to run. And another game another player might decide to run.

SoTL is one of my favorite purchases in the last year. I'd say right up there with Godbound. It's a fantastic, MEAN, game that doesn't really pull any punches when it comes to the horror of the setting.

And yes, the elves are messed up evil faeries who will WRECK YOU UP if you look at them funny.

I picked up SotDL at the game release party Rob held locally. Got to meet him there. It was a pleasure and he was a very nice fellow. My group, however, including one of the guys who went to the party with me and dropped retail price on it too, did not care for it. The atmosphere in the writing is great. But be ready for a very deadly game. It was far more deadly than my guys cared for (with novice level challenges being able to easily drop a character with one hit).

I traded mine away earlier this year.  I had invested heavily and got most of the books available as POD in print. It just didn't play the way the group wanted.

SotDL can be pretty deadly, especially in comparison to more recent editions of D&D. My group is an old WFRP group and we have found that the lethality starts around the same as WFRP and actually becomes less so over time.

Quote from: Skywalker;907020SotDL can be pretty deadly, especially in comparison to more recent editions of D&D.

I haven't got a chance to play it yet, but just the name and the look of it has me expecting dark fantasy/horror... so I'd be really disappointed if it pulled its punches and didn't kill any PCs.

Quote from: Simlasa;907067I haven't got a chance to play it yet, but just the name and the look of it has me expecting dark fantasy/horror... so I'd be really disappointed if it pulled its punches and didn't kill any PCs.

It's signalled pretty strongly, and even then it can be mitigated somewhat with Fortune points if desired.

What's "signalled"?  
The PCs death (like through some mechanic or whatever).
or
The deadliness (through author's description).

The latter. It is a dark horror fantasy RPG, it has Joe Abercrombie listed as an inspiration etc

Sighs, as if I did not have enough RPGs on the reading list already... After playing Age of Decadence I am in a mood for some dark fantasy (as if I ever wasn't)

It would be kind of funny to see Schwalb Entertainment voted Fan Favorite Publisher in the ENnies. It got nominated.

Quote from: Lynn;906991It is entirely possible that he's had some unhappy interactions with Enworld. While I have participated in some interesting discussions there, a few times I have seen people make not-so-terrible and thematically appropriate comments and then get told "we don't allow that kind of talk here" by moderators.

I blame the site owner (Morrus) for this. Just the other day, someone brought up the topic of AD&D 1E having Strength modifiers for female characters (getting the details wrong, as usual), and he quickly showed up to shut the tangent down, saying that "that isn't inclusive game design, and we want EN World to be an inclusive community."

Honestly, I'm not sure if Morrus has always been like that, or if something changed. I say that because I heard second-hand reports about how, several years ago (2008 maybe?), there was a pretty major incident on the forums. From what I heard, someone made an incredibly offensive, but calmly written, statement on the topic of rape; this in turn received a number of very impolite responses.

The kicker here was how the moderators responded. At the time, posts were moderated for tone, rather than content (notwithstanding a blanket ban on politics, religion, and profanity), which meant that the mods were deleting the fiery responses while leaving the original, offensive post alone since they weren't sure if it was in violation of the rules or not.

As such, people saw that the mods were leaving the offensive material alone while deleting the responses, and shit got real. Cross-forum attacks happened, where members of certain other forums (I never got an answer as to which ones, but it seemed to be The Big Purple and SomethingAwful) began mass-registering at EN World so they could heap abuse at the mod staff there, with an emphasis on Morrus in particular. It got so bad that for a short time the site removed the ability to register new accounts.

When the dust settled, Morrus had been thoroughly beaten; the offending comment was removed, and he announced that the topic of rape would now be permanently banned from discussion. If he wasn't on the road to SJW-dom before that, he certainly seemed to be from that point on.