Quote from: Validin on November 24, 2022, 06:00:05 PM

I was interested in Warhammer for a while, or tried to be, and that involved ignoring a lot of things about it. Eventually, I cut and left it, and this article really puts into words why - to me - it fails as a setting cosmologically, and why it doesn't present an engaging, authentic late medieval/early modern setting properly: the pitiful, insipid and sniveling post-modernist ultranihilism that pervades its themes throughout.

Quote from: Spinachcat on February 06, 2023, 03:17:25 AM

As for CoC, I don't get the idea that nothing you do matters. The majority of the Mythos don't care about humanity or have no idea we exist. It's the cultists who drag these entities into our reality and when you tommy gun those bastards, the world becomes a little safer and a little brighter.

I'm only vaguely familiar with Warhammer, but in CoC, the Mythos aren't from some alternate reality - they're an integral part of our own reality and history.

Still, I agree that PCs can make the world a little safer and a little brighter. I had a CoC PC for a while who became a devout Catholic, and was convinced that what was happening was the Biblical end of the world. He saw lots of horrible things, but he considered it all part of the Judgement which was testing everyone's faith. He was convinced that everyone was going to die - but that those who behaved virtuously in the face of the end would still go to heaven.

That said, this was definitely against the Lovecraftian ethos. I can see characterizing Lovecraft's nihilism as insipid -- but it isn't in any way post-modern.

Hasbro stock has 29% downside potential as it continues to dilute the brand value of Magic: The Gathering.
That's according to Bank of America, which reiterated its "Underperform" rating on the stock in a Tuesday note.
"Within its Wizards segment, Hasbro continues to destroy customer goodwill by trying to over-monetize its brands."

Hasbro continues to dilute the brand value of its popular Magic: The Gathering card game, according to a Tuesday note from Bank of America, which said that the company faces a steep decline in its share price if it continues to "destroy customer goodwill."

The bank reiterated its "Underperform" rating for Hasbro and its $42 price target, which represents potential downside of 29% from current levels. In November, BofA warned that Hasbro was "killing its golden goose" by over-monetizing Magic: The Gathering.

According to BofA, Hasbro continues to over-monetize the brands within its Wizards segment, which includes Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons.

"Within its Wizards segment, Hasbro continues to destroy customer goodwill by trying to over-monetize its brands," Bank of America said. The bank said that while it preannounced negative earnings, the stock is still not de-risked "given a host of outstanding issues."

Mainly, Hasbro is attempting to squeeze out as much profit as possible from its Wizards products in the short-term without any thought as to the long-term durability of its brands. And the over monetization is irking customers, according to BofA.

"We remain especially cautious on Hasbro's Wizards segment given its over-monetization of Magic. Wizards recently tried a similar tactic with D&D-proposing changes to its licensing agreement which led to substantial pushback from the community including calls to boycott the D&D movie," BofA explained.

Hasbro wanted to change its 20-year-old open game license for Dungeons & Dragons in a bid to boost revenue ahead of an upcoming movie release based on the game.

The specific changes would have required independent publishers and content creators to report financial data directly to Hasbro and pay significant fees if they generated a certain threshold of revenue.

Hasbro has since dropped its proposed changes to Dungeons & Dragons after receiving a strong amount of backlash from customers, with nearly 70,000 D&D fans signing a petition protesting the proposed licensing change.

The snafu by Hasbro validates BofA's view that management at the toy company remains willing to risk customer loyalty for short-term profit.

"We've spoken with several players, collectors, distributors and local games stores and have become aware of growing frustration. The primary concern is that Hasbro has been overproducing Magic cards which has propped up Hasbro's recent [earnings] results but is destroying the long-term value of the brand," Bank of America analyst Jason Haas wrote in November.

The oversupply of Magic cards means "card prices are falling, game stores are losing money, collectors are liquidating, and large retailers are cutting orders," Bank of America explained.

The bank names "weak fan engagement with Hasbro's brands" and "fading appetite for Magic releases" as key downside risks for the stock.

Well, Kyle Brink, WOTC's Executive Producer thinks that WOTC needs to get rid of white guys as fast as possible.  I am starting to think we need a category beyond Red.

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 07, 2023, 07:20:30 PM

You need to build a time machine that can go back at least 50 years to find the systemic -isms in society that your brain fever-dreams still exist.

Your godless-religion looks at gaps naturally formed from demographics and natural group preferences, and through it's twisted kaleidoscope it can only see oppression and -isms.

For example, men way overrepresented in tech? Well men and women are interchangeable, so men must be keeping women out! All the money and effort you threw at getting women in to tech, and it's barely moved the needle?  Let's start artificially blocking men and only accepting women, even if the men have better scores or skills. For the sacred tenet of equity must be honored!

Eh, no, in the 21st century we still had, for example, senior professors of computer science who would tell young female students that *because they were women* they weren't well suited for a career in tech.

That's 15-20 years, not 50, and I have little reason to believe it's reversed since I left academia.

It's a tangent to this thread, but there's pretty good data showing that young 20-year-old guys can *completely unintentionally* drive young 20-year-old women out of the career, and that changing how we teach introductory computer science and even doing some sex-segregated classes can radically improve the young womens' success & mastery.

... I wouldn't be surprised if the same sort of thing happens at our RPG tables: the dumb extremes of "male culture" can be pretty obnoxious. I believe I've lost players of colour over cultural issues; it's been years since I lost any female players, and not clear what drove them off then.