Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 10, 2023, 07:23:11 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on October 10, 2023, 04:16:47 PM
  Its hard to find SJWs that regularly actually play RPGs, rarer still are the ones that buy them.  Combine these two rarities together and not so hard to understand why blatant SJW games failed.  It was geared to a market that does not exist.

This. 

RPG's are still niche.  They're more accepted these days, but real players are still a minority.  Now let's make a niche of a niche.  Yeah, that customer base is tiny.

If I ever get around to making an RPG, it's not going to reference any woke talking points.

I don't see how this adds up. You claim that SJW buyers are even rarer than players, but Coyote & Crow made $1 million in its Kickstarter, despite being an unknown designer with no track record.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/connoralexander/coyote-and-crow

And Avatar Legends RPG made $9.5 million for its Kickstarter, which is the biggest RPG Kickstarter ever, even more than 5E products.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/magpiegames/avatar-legends-the-roleplaying-game

Those may well be flashes in the pan, but that still suggests market potential.

Quote from: jhkim on October 10, 2023, 10:45:31 PM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 10, 2023, 07:23:11 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on October 10, 2023, 04:16:47 PM
  Its hard to find SJWs that regularly actually play RPGs, rarer still are the ones that buy them.  Combine these two rarities together and not so hard to understand why blatant SJW games failed.  It was geared to a market that does not exist.

This. 

RPG's are still niche.  They're more accepted these days, but real players are still a minority.  Now let's make a niche of a niche.  Yeah, that customer base is tiny.

If I ever get around to making an RPG, it's not going to reference any woke talking points.

I don't see how this adds up. You claim that SJW buyers are even rarer than players, but Coyote & Crow made $1 million in its Kickstarter, despite being an unknown designer with no track record.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/connoralexander/coyote-and-crow

And Avatar Legends RPG made $9.5 million for its Kickstarter, which is the biggest RPG Kickstarter ever, even more than 5E products.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/magpiegames/avatar-legends-the-roleplaying-game

Those may well be flashes in the pan, but that still suggests market potential.

Greetings!

Come on, Jhkim! Yes, he was probably writing with some hyperbole. After all, I myself have hedged against the popular narrative that WOKE people are somehow all unemployed, broke troglodytes that never buy anything.

Somewhere I even cited evidence, but I argued *bullshit* Lots of Woke fucking Liberals have very high-paying jobs, and make *BUCKETS* of money--more than a few of them are also very much under the age of 40, as well. Many in the 20's or early 30's, swimming in money from having fantastic jobs.

What's the term I'm thinking of? A Dichotomy? Two seemingly contradictory things may both be true all at the same time.

Having said that--yes, there are good numbers of very prosperous Woke Liberals. There are also, however, a huge number of them that are unemployed and broke, or barely capable of holding down a part time job at fucking Starbucks.

Then, you have seemingly large numbers--testified by some industry study somewhere--that there is a large segment of Woke Liberals that buy trainloads of gaming books--but seldom actually play RPG's at all.

A subset of these Liberal types--generally--are these extra Woke Hippy types that also just buy game books to be "Coffe Table" books that they look at, read, and gibber to their friends about--but again, such books are seldom actually played with in games by such people.

Am I making sense?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Avatar at least has a huge fanbase and plenty of people willing to shell out for it, which make it even sadder that such a trash product got released for it.  It deserved much better.  And Coyote and Crow got a huge boost from random medias fawning all over Indian Wakanda, product sight-unseen.  In both cases people were putting money on the table because of name recognition or hype, not because they were proven contenders.  Because they weren't released yet, it would've been impossible.  I'll note that post-release both of them basically dropped off the map, aside from an occasional puff piece still talking up how innovative C&C's setting is and with no mention about the mechanics of the system.

Quote from: SHARK on October 10, 2023, 11:07:42 PM
Come on, Jhkim! Yes, he was probably writing with some hyperbole. After all, I myself have hedged against the popular narrative that WOKE people are somehow all unemployed, broke troglodytes that never buy anything.

Somewhere I even cited evidence, but I argued *bullshit* Lots of Woke fucking Liberals have very high-paying jobs, and make *BUCKETS* of money--more than a few of them are also very much under the age of 40, as well. Many in the 20's or early 30's, swimming in money from having fantastic jobs.

What's the term I'm thinking of? A Dichotomy? Two seemingly contradictory things may both be true all at the same time.

Having said that--yes, there are good numbers of very prosperous Woke Liberals. There are also, however, a huge number of them that are unemployed and broke, or barely capable of holding down a part time job at fucking Starbucks.

Then, you have seemingly large numbers--testified by some industry study somewhere--that there is a large segment of Woke Liberals that buy trainloads of gaming books--but seldom actually play RPG's at all.

A subset of these Liberal types--generally--are these extra Woke Hippy types that also just buy game books to be "Coffe Table" books that they look at, read, and gibber to their friends about--but again, such books are seldom actually played with in games by such people.

Am I making sense?

Sort of, but there's an extreme of hyperbole and "SJWs suck" that moves into head-in-the-sand ignorance. If a $9.5 million Kickstarter and the biggest RPG Kickstarter in history is being touted as proof that there's no market for SJW games, then that's past the line.

I haven't read the Avatar Legends RPG and have no opinion about it. From reviews, it apparently adapts the system from Masks: The New Generation. It has a list of eight writers, who were probably contracted. It's possible that it's like a bunch of previous low-effort licensed RPGs from the 1990s onwards like Masterbook, Decipher, and Cortex. That wouldn't surprise me, though it might be more work. I'm sure those previous lines made money - that's why the company kept making new adaptations.

Coyote & Crow is a different beast. One might dislike the system, but it isn't the same model of production. It's a startup RPG from a new designer, with no pre-existing setting or system that it adapts.

Quote from: jhkim on October 11, 2023, 02:34:45 AM
I haven't read the Avatar Legends RPG and have no opinion about it. From reviews, it apparently adapts the system from Masks: The New Generation.

Which is the reason the game is seen as a failure despite having caught a ton of money on Kickstarter.
You can't use a system that practically treats fights as window dressing (PbtA; the fact that is also a bad system to boot doesn't help) and use it to model a world where martial arts are used to shape elements (and where, therefore, fights must be detailed and well simulated). You're missing the point by a couple of lightyears if you use PbtA for an Avatar game.

Quote from: Valatar on October 11, 2023, 12:02:44 AM
Avatar at least has a huge fanbase and plenty of people willing to shell out for it, which make it even sadder that such a trash product got released for it.  It deserved much better. 

I'm one of those fans, and I'm really sad to hear that it got a crap RPG.  It really does deserve much better.  Maybe someday...

Money generated by a kickstarter is no guarantee of game quality. Whether a game raises several million on KS or less than 50k makes no difference. All that matters is the game play and how many people love the final product and actually play it.

Quote from: jhkim on October 11, 2023, 02:34:45 AM

Quote from: SHARK on October 10, 2023, 11:07:42 PM
Come on, Jhkim! Yes, he was probably writing with some hyperbole. After all, I myself have hedged against the popular narrative that WOKE people are somehow all unemployed, broke troglodytes that never buy anything.

Somewhere I even cited evidence, but I argued *bullshit* Lots of Woke fucking Liberals have very high-paying jobs, and make *BUCKETS* of money--more than a few of them are also very much under the age of 40, as well. Many in the 20's or early 30's, swimming in money from having fantastic jobs.

What's the term I'm thinking of? A Dichotomy? Two seemingly contradictory things may both be true all at the same time.

Having said that--yes, there are good numbers of very prosperous Woke Liberals. There are also, however, a huge number of them that are unemployed and broke, or barely capable of holding down a part time job at fucking Starbucks.

Then, you have seemingly large numbers--testified by some industry study somewhere--that there is a large segment of Woke Liberals that buy trainloads of gaming books--but seldom actually play RPG's at all.

A subset of these Liberal types--generally--are these extra Woke Hippy types that also just buy game books to be "Coffe Table" books that they look at, read, and gibber to their friends about--but again, such books are seldom actually played with in games by such people.

Am I making sense?

Sort of, but there's an extreme of hyperbole and "SJWs suck" that moves into head-in-the-sand ignorance. If a $9.5 million Kickstarter and the biggest RPG Kickstarter in history is being touted as proof that there's no market for SJW games, then that's past the line.

I haven't read the Avatar Legends RPG and have no opinion about it. From reviews, it apparently adapts the system from Masks: The New Generation. It has a list of eight writers, who were probably contracted. It's possible that it's like a bunch of previous low-effort licensed RPGs from the 1990s onwards like Masterbook, Decipher, and Cortex. That wouldn't surprise me, though it might be more work. I'm sure those previous lines made money - that's why the company kept making new adaptations.

Coyote & Crow is a different beast. One might dislike the system, but it isn't the same model of production. It's a startup RPG from a new designer, with no pre-existing setting or system that it adapts.

FWIW I think you're right. I have been trying to point this out in other threads too. Of all the hobbies I love, RPGs are the most heavily infested by SJW-types.

Let me expand on that a little. I can think of two reasons why TTRPGs became a canary in a coal mine when it comes to SJW capture:
-RPGs are attractive to people who think of themselves as outsiders, day dreamers, and nerds. Many of these seem to have an irrational hatred of successful business types and cowboy types (both of who can tend to be more conservative)
-RPGs seem to be attractive to people with gender issues, perhaps because role-playing lets you play someone you're not.

Quote from: jhkim on October 11, 2023, 02:34:45 AM

Quote from: SHARK on October 10, 2023, 11:07:42 PM
Come on, Jhkim! Yes, he was probably writing with some hyperbole. After all, I myself have hedged against the popular narrative that WOKE people are somehow all unemployed, broke troglodytes that never buy anything.

Somewhere I even cited evidence, but I argued *bullshit* Lots of Woke fucking Liberals have very high-paying jobs, and make *BUCKETS* of money--more than a few of them are also very much under the age of 40, as well. Many in the 20's or early 30's, swimming in money from having fantastic jobs.

What's the term I'm thinking of? A Dichotomy? Two seemingly contradictory things may both be true all at the same time.

Having said that--yes, there are good numbers of very prosperous Woke Liberals. There are also, however, a huge number of them that are unemployed and broke, or barely capable of holding down a part time job at fucking Starbucks.

Then, you have seemingly large numbers--testified by some industry study somewhere--that there is a large segment of Woke Liberals that buy trainloads of gaming books--but seldom actually play RPG's at all.

A subset of these Liberal types--generally--are these extra Woke Hippy types that also just buy game books to be "Coffe Table" books that they look at, read, and gibber to their friends about--but again, such books are seldom actually played with in games by such people.

Am I making sense?

Sort of, but there's an extreme of hyperbole and "SJWs suck" that moves into head-in-the-sand ignorance. If a $9.5 million Kickstarter and the biggest RPG Kickstarter in history is being touted as proof that there's no market for SJW games, then that's past the line.

I haven't read the Avatar Legends RPG and have no opinion about it. From reviews, it apparently adapts the system from Masks: The New Generation. It has a list of eight writers, who were probably contracted. It's possible that it's like a bunch of previous low-effort licensed RPGs from the 1990s onwards like Masterbook, Decipher, and Cortex. That wouldn't surprise me, though it might be more work. I'm sure those previous lines made money - that's why the company kept making new adaptations.

Coyote & Crow is a different beast. One might dislike the system, but it isn't the same model of production. It's a startup RPG from a new designer, with no pre-existing setting or system that it adapts.

  Dude you have to have a head injury if you think everyone who put up money for Avatar is some SJW type.  It is a massively popular IP with a massive fan base.   Most people buying things anywhere do not bother checking how much the authors rant about white privilege of how much money they gave BLM.   Avatar was not marketed specifically as a big woke project.  It was marketed behind its MASSIVELY popular ip.... if you are going to look at that as some proof SJWs are a big market to cater to you are not actually looking at the situation with a hint of honesty.  Perhaps now you can tell us a tale of the one thing that happened that one time? 

Quote from: jhkim on October 10, 2023, 03:51:43 PM

Quote from: BadApple on October 10, 2023, 12:46:35 PM
When you dig into the background of the products you're talking about, you'll quickly see that it's a package of shit crated by people from the art world, not gamers.  Fake RPGs are just one more grift along with comics, children's books, community projects, etc.  I'm not saying all artist are con men, I'm saying that the art community is a good place for con men to ply their trade and learn the craft of selling low effort materials. I know there's a lot of people that just play because it's their hobby and then they turn their setting, collection of house rules, or some other homebrew into a product.  Even when it fails, even when it's garbage, you can see that it's an attempt to make something playable.  There are certainly left leaning products like this too but that's not the same as the recent flood of high visual impact product with an obvious failure to play test the mechanics.

Historically, there's a category especially of licensed games that have good art and marketing but are low-effort generic rules at best. Back in the 1990s, I'd call out West End Games' Masterbook this. WEG put a bunch of design into Ghostbusters, Star Wars, and Torg -- but then they rolled out low-effort adaptations like Indiana Jones, Necroscope, Species, Tales from the Crypt, Tank Girl, World of Aden, and Hercules & Xena -- all of which were just sort of cursory book-making for fans. Take generic Torg rules, throw in a handful of customizations, and add a lot of art and filler text from the series. In the early 2000s, Decipher made similar with their Star Trek RPG and Lord of the Rings RPG.

I played Decipher LotR, and I wouldn't call it a fake RPG, but it was poor and low-effort game design with a lot of stuff that was clearly not playtested. Though, there are a ton of amateurish, badly-designed RPGs out there - and plenty of people have fun playing them.

It seems possible Avatar: The Last Airbender is in a similar category, but I haven't read it, so I don't know.

I have read Coyote & Crow, and while I think it's too difficult on learning curve to be interested in, it is by no means low-effort. It is clearly a labor of love from the author, who worked hard to put together an original system. It might not be good, but it isn't low-effort.

I checked out the Species ttrpg once. While it did introduce some lore for the aliens who sent the message that depicted them as amoral observers seeing how humanity used the knowledge they sent, it was otherwise fairly low effort as you said. It had nothing that a sufficiently creative and learned GM couldn't invent themselves. Indeed, it had weird contradictions with the sparse source material: the titular species were depicted as being able to turn into various terrestrial animals, not Giger monsters. It's like the writers didn't actually watch the movie but operated off an abridged synopsis of the plot. You can listen to a review here: https://systemmasterypodcast.com/2018/12/04/the-world-of-species-system-mastery-137/

The dryden PDF is more faithful to the movie. It has three versions respectively for D&D, d20 Modern, and d20 Future. The D&D version is just another weird fantasy hero option. The d20 Modern version is identical to the movie, except that it has a month-long pregnancy and is... hermaphroditic. The d20 Future version is a mix of Aliens and Species II, which is just as repugnant as you would think. The product is very... exploitative, so keep that in mind. If I was using the concept, then I'd reflavor it to be more like genestealers and have the human hosts be brainwashed into helping the aliens. I know mind control is still non-consensual, but it's less visually exploitative if you know what I mean. I am not touching that dumpster fire with a ten foot pole.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on October 10, 2023, 06:14:59 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 10, 2023, 02:11:42 PM
Werewolf: The Apocalypse 5th edition has it bad right now with the critical reception from fans. This is especially hilarious because the game was a proto-woke nightmare when it first released in the early 90s.

This brings me joy. 

I'm tired of schadenfreude myself. Seeing Paradox constantly fail was funny the first few years, but after nobody else tried to make better games I got sick of it. I want to play games that don't suck. But it seems that indie devs are only interested in cashing in on transient fads to get rich and famous... which never works but they don't learn from that.

The paranormal romance genre has vampires, werewolves, dragons, unicorns, leprechauns, mummies, angels, demons, etc. as hunky love interests. It is oversaturated. But modern urban fantasy is almost non-existent in video games (not counting mobile games, those suck ass). Troika's Bloodlines has shown that there's no shortage of players who will play that sort of thing (by some estimates it has 500k lifetime sales on Steam), but thus far almost nobody has tried unless they can tack Paradox's worthless brand name onto their shovelware.

But of course the Tolkien-ripoff genre is oversaturated. As if we need more of those to be made when there are more custom modules for Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 than it would take to play in a lifetime.

Quote from: jhkim on October 11, 2023, 02:34:45 AM
Sort of, but there's an extreme of hyperbole and "SJWs suck" that moves into head-in-the-sand ignorance. If a $9.5 million Kickstarter and the biggest RPG Kickstarter in history is being touted as proof that there's no market for SJW games, then that's past the line.

Consumerist culture cultivates impulse buying and boom/bust cycles, not building communities around new franchises. How many of these wildly successful projects are still remembered or still supported even a few years later?

I will point out that if Kickstarter money is an indication of actual merit for a product, Star Citizen is the best videogame in history.  The unfortunate fact is that people get taken for rides on Kickstarter 24/7 between inflated promises, eternal delays, and outright scams.

"Exalted"

Anyone remember "EXALTED" ?

Wasn't that an 'SJW' role playing game?

-Ed C.

Quote from: Valatar on October 11, 2023, 10:14:15 AM
I will point out that if Kickstarter money is an indication of actual merit for a product, Star Citizen is the best videogame in history.  The unfortunate fact is that people get taken for rides on Kickstarter 24/7 between inflated promises, eternal delays, and outright scams.

There's plenty of gamers who will tell you that Star Citizen is the best videogame in history already, and a larger number that will tell you it may well end up as that should it ever stop being mostly vaporware.  Star Citizen already does a lot of things that other games do not, even in its highly incomplete state.

By contrast, the reskinning of an unrelated existing product for millions of dollars is both successful and a failure; it's much more of a ripoff than Star Citizen honestly.  I think it's successful because if the same company came right back and promised a second edition with unique new mechanics and this and that, all those players would sign right back up.

Quote from: jhkim on October 10, 2023, 03:51:43 PM
I have read Coyote & Crow, and while I think it's too difficult on learning curve to be interested in, it is by no means low-effort. It is clearly a labor of love from the author, who worked hard to put together an original system.

More a labour of hate.