Quote from: The Traveller;616486after a troll was successfully landed (now sitting stuffed on various mantlepieces).

I got a piece, right? My first Goon. :cheerleader:

(Although, given their long-standing history of trolling and flame-baiting, I expected Bruce Lee but got Barney Fife.)

EDIT: Same Goon, different thread. My mistake.

Hey I said it before and I'll say it again: the front page stuff at SA is genuinely funny and interesting.  I love the RPG humor pieces; hell, I love most of SA's content.  The forum goons, yeah, no.

I've found some useful things on Something Awful, but I tended to like them better in the old days, when they didn't actually imagine that they were being morally superior to 4chan.

RPGPundit

Hmm... Looks like I missed out on something while not paying that much attention to forums over the holidays.

Quote from: One Horse Town;611830But, but, Grimgent and Andy K say it's all tongue in cheek and 'light'.

Hey, Maid's light and tongue-in-cheek tone is pretty darn rarely called into question even by its retractors.

But although the game admittedly does include its share of bits and pieces in questionable taste, this review does a fairly poor job of illustrating them. Omitting the mechanics in favor of disjointed jokes frankly makes it read like vaguely Maid-themed freeform roleplay with the kind of players you wouldn't want at your table in the first place. I wouldn't expect the treatment to be even-handed, but seriously, this is silly: the article is in such a hurry to take cheap shots that it even keeps overlooking examples that could have been used for stronger effect. For instance, why bring up the "space slavers" random encounter, only to choose the version from the basic chart instead of the expanded one in which the slavers carry away maids whose Favor is too low?

Looking at what's especially worth pointing out...

Page 1: In hindsight, that comment about having any maid for the playtest as long as she follows the rules rings kind of hollow, considering how fast and loose the whole text seems to play with the material...

Page 2: ...And speaking of which, a "Pooping" Stress Explosion? Yeah, right away that one's made up by the writers of the article instead of rolling up on the book's charts. Masochism, on the other hand, can be a valid Special Quality... if the players have agreed to use the alternative "darker" Perversion chart instead of the "lighter" Relationships, on which the same result would simply make another character a mentor figure for the PC.

Page 3: I can only assume that the line about Fake Crying (which permits substituting Cunning for Affection during appropriate actions) was thrown in purely for the lulz. If that was an actual attempt to establish a pleasant atmosphere with the Master, then why start off at all with Affection, one of the character's weaker attributes? And if the seduction rules are in effect, then bringing up the Power would be completely pointless because they already allow Affection and Cunning as equally effective options for anyone. (Note, too, that failing in assigned duties, or designs on the Master, will reduce Favor, and "Dolph" doesn't have much of that to spare before being fired.)

Page 4: This, again, looks an awful lot like it's being run with pure GM fiat rather than any kind of a system beyond freeforming.

Page 5: Murder Condom is, of course, a quick riff on the German horror comedy Killer Condom. Most of the items in the book's inventory tend to be pop culture references of one sort or another.

Page 6: Being out of proper uniform imposes a general penalty on all actions, depending on how many pieces of clothing are missing, torn, or dirty. Running around half-naked would effectively guarantee that a maid won't succeed in anything at all: even losing nothing more than the frilly cap in practice reduces all d6 rolls by two. The optional exceptions to this are the Costumes, which let maids go "off-duty" or take on another role temporarily, from cops to mad scientists to space opera heroes, or final boss monsters, or Masters.

Page 7: As mentioned before, Fake Crying grants one very specific advantage, and so saying that in this game it can mysteriously protect against radiation (aside from, say, guilt-tripping someone else into fetching you a radiation suit) makes about as much sense as claiming the same about social abilities in other RPGs. Also, maids, or significant characters in general, simply don't die from Stress. In fact, under the basic rules they don't die at all, and even the expanded options which allow that are typically invoked by the players themselves, by for example putting on Armor (which increases fighting prowess at the expense of switching the Stress Explosion to "Death") or resorting to The Only Neat Thing to Do (which eliminates any single problem by sacrificing the character's own life).

Page 8: That's the front seam on an NGE-style pilot suit, not camel toe. The illustration is for a scenario called "Invincible Justibine", in which the maids hired by a secret research base on a remote island end up doubling as mecha pilots against an impending alien invasion.You know... one of those regular scenarios which are as much a supported style of playing Maid as just rolling events in the "totally random" fashion for a little while. See here for five of them that were left out of the English-language version for reasons of space and diversity in the published selection. (The third recommended playstyle is competing for Favor over the course of an ordinary day at a more detailed Mansion.)

Page 9: "Seduction" in Maid refers to a particular (and optional, especially given that it was originally published in a later supplement) mechanic that inspires others to love the seducing character, with effects not entirely unlike the Charm Person spell in D&D. Several scenarios bring it up as a way of earning the trust of NPCs and gaining more information from them. While sex certainly can be employed as a method of seduction, and further options may open up the possibility of the seduced parties gaining Favor or losing Stress from being on intimate terms with their seducers, it's by no means limited to manipulating others into sleeping with you. (Yes, you can seduce an artificially intelligent computer. No, you probably can't have sex with it.)

Quote from: GrimGent;617427Hmm... Looks like I missed out on something while not paying that much attention to forums over the holidays.

Hey, Maid's light and tongue-in-cheek tone is pretty darn rarely called into question even by its retractors.

But although the game admittedly does include its share of bits and pieces in questionable taste, this review does a fairly poor job of illustrating them. Omitting the mechanics in favor of disjointed jokes frankly makes it read like vaguely Maid-themed freeform roleplay with the kind of players you wouldn't want at your table in the first place. I wouldn't expect the treatment to be even-handed, but seriously, this is silly: the article is in such a hurry to take cheap shots that it even keeps overlooking examples that could have been used for stronger effect. .............. ....... ....

Jesus fucking christ, have you ever read anything else on that fucking website?

"HUMOUR WEBSITE POSTS INACCURATE REVIEW"

Fucking halfhead.

Quote from: Planet Algol;617433"HUMOUR WEBSITE POSTS INACCURATE REVIEW"

An inaccurate review that's been hailed as gospel in every respect throughout this long thread. That is the problem.

Quote from: GrimGent;617427Hmm...

man what

The strident defense a few posts back just makes it funnier.

Quote from: Zachary The First;617508The strident defense a few posts back just makes it funnier.

It's like that counter to the review of FATAL that the authors posted.

No, it's really exactly like that.

"It's just terrible how SA misrepresented Call of Cthulhu"

Quote from: GrimGent;617436An inaccurate review that's been hailed as gospel in every respect throughout this long thread. That is the problem.

Shine on you crazy diamond....

Quote from: jeff37923;617579Shine on you crazy diamond....

Mate, Grimgent cited Murder Condom as one of his favourite magic items in gaming a year or so back when we had a thread about magic items.

Quote from: One Horse Town;617581Mate, Grimgent cited Murder Condom as one of his favourite magic items in gaming a year or so back when we had a thread about magic items.

I remember, GrimGent and Maid are connected at the hip. Have been from the beginning and will do so until the end.

Quote from: One Horse Town;617581Mate, Grimgent cited Murder Condom as one of his favourite magic items in gaming a year or so back when we had a thread about magic items.

Eh? No, I didn't. I brought it up as one example in a thread where you asked "What quirky magic items are there in other systems?"

Aren't all condoms "murder condoms" when it comes down to it?