Quote from: yosemitemike on May 11, 2024, 05:43:49 AMThe SJW crowd can't seem to decide if sex work is empowering and sex workers must be respected or whether it's exploitation and bad.  Their outrage or lack of it seems highly instrumental. 

They are nothing if not incoherent.

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 11, 2024, 09:22:32 AMReleasing the older editions to creative commons is a minefield for them.

Not really, because the only people who will be playing them are the folks who already were. Meanwhile most players and services will continue to focus exclusively on supporting the 'current' edition.

I'll add that Michael Scotus served in a similar capacity as Dee for Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in earlier times.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on May 13, 2024, 01:07:42 PM

Quote from: Omega on May 13, 2024, 01:35:07 AM

QuoteI never understood classifying Darkman as a superhero movie. It's like saying Evil Dead 2 is a superhero movie. Kinda, sorta, maybe if you squint and broaden the definitions to their maximum.

er. The Darkman movie about the scientist who is disfigured and fights crime using synthetic skin to disguise himself as different people?

Thats like claiming Batman isnt a superhero because he has no superpowers?

Darkman is a deranged psychopath. He doesn't fight crime. He wants cruel and bloody revenge on the specific criminals who caused his situation. Even at their worst, "dark and gritty" superheroes like Batman or Punisher still have some kind of code of morals and a goal to help people. Darkman is just some poor guy's ID run rampant. If anything, he has a lot more in common with supervillians.

Agreed but then... Isn't The Crow the same? He's NOT fighting criminals, hes getting cruel and bloody revenge on those who killed him and his fiance.

And I looooove them both.

Furthermore, isn't Batman, Punisher, The Executioner (especially those who do kill) just extending his revenge to ALL criminals? Just playing devils advocate here but you could make THAT argument and not be 100% wrong.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 14, 2024, 12:33:50 AM

Quote from: Zelen on May 13, 2024, 09:22:41 PMMy stance is that lore is incredibly important, but anyone who cares about lore at this point should see the writing on the wall for Battletech.

It's a lot less damaging for "the lore" to accept a spin-off with renamed factions + characters that keeps the underlying themes, tone, style, than to continue on supporting a game/IP which is compromised by malicious actors whose expressed goals are to subvert that story/setting.

What part of the Battletech story/setting has been subverted? How has it been subverted, and what do you believe is the "writing on the wall" and anyone should see?

Oh I don't know, maybe go buy the Battletech Pride Anthology 2023? Since you seem determined to play defense for Catalyst and want to give them money.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 14, 2024, 12:31:43 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 13, 2024, 10:50:04 PM

Quote from: Zelen on May 13, 2024, 09:22:41 PMMy stance is that lore is incredibly important, but anyone who cares about lore at this point should see the writing on the wall for Battletech.

It's a lot less damaging for "the lore" to accept a spin-off with renamed factions + characters that keeps the underlying themes, tone, style, than to continue on supporting a game/IP which is compromised by malicious actors whose expressed goals are to subvert that story/setting.

100% Let Catalyst and it's IP burn, make a new thing or embrace an existing one, if possible one that (while keeping the game free from IRL politics) is made by explicitly anti-woke people.

If it's free from IRL politics, then why would it matter who it's made by?

Because I won't give my money to people that have made it very clear they hate me and want to see me and mine dead. Something all the woke assholes have made perfectly clear.

Feel free to give YOUR money to those who want to see you and yours dead if you like.

Quote from: yosemitemike on May 11, 2024, 05:43:49 AMThe SJW crowd can't seem to decide if sex work is empowering and sex workers must be respected or whether it's exploitation and bad.  Their outrage or lack of it seems highly instrumental.

I'd settle for the GenZ and GenAlpha 'tards simply not being schizos that can't differentiate fiction from reality. They seem to alternate between porn brain and shrieking like banshees if they see anime tiddies or something. Or them clutching their pearls over the cover of Eldritch Wizardry. It's frustrating that we have to put up with absolute slop like Aphrodite Pandemos being a tranny in the Hades 1 videogame, which was celebrated as being 'representation', only for them to scream bloody murder when someone altered the art to make her stop looking masculine. And yes, I get that 'art fixers' are hypocrites, but it's friggin hilarious when their BS is flipped back on them causing them to go apoplectic. These ESG/DEI/BRIDGE nimrods are going to run out of money one day and all the house of cards they've built will come crashing back down on them.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on March 20, 2024, 01:23:19 PMWhat 0 level character gets 10 HP? A man at arms has 4-7 and non-fighter types have less than that.

Did you fail to read what I wrote or something? The average HP is going to be 10hp at lvl 0. That means most 0-lvl adult humans are going to have 10hp. The same would be true for Men-at-Arms. This is just a simple adjustment I made for my own game.

Quote from: Votan on May 13, 2024, 08:36:17 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 09, 2024, 07:01:56 PMWotC (and Wizkids) are full of people for whom the word "truth" means something totally different from what that word means to normal people.
#dnd    #ttrpg    #osr 

I think the red box fighter thing was just trolling for attention. Tenkar's video on it led me to notice (after decades!) that it is the same fighter on the cover of all of the BECMI editions. There is also an action figure.

So clever sculpting but if they wanted to highlight cool female characters, the Red Box has Aleena, who is both memorable and taught players important lessons about the way that the game was meant to be played. Sure, the character has a typical female presentation, but that isn't necessarily a bug in a game about heroic fantasies. Archetypes are good, right? Right? Or am I too old fashioned?

WotC is following the Marvel Comics and Disney marketing strategy where you insult the fans, pander to communists who hate their products and have no money to buy their goods and then relish in the fact that they are a hated brand and go bankrupt.  A brand can only shit on the fans till they no longer hate the brand, they no longer think about it and then they lose their jobs while a new CEO gets on his hands and knees and debases himself to try to save his retirement.

For online play, go to Fantasy Grounds.  It had an established user base before woke was a thing.  You can play a game with normal people.

Quote from: Lurkndog on May 13, 2024, 11:19:00 PMOne problem with stealth is that there are a lot of different levels of stealth, and they don't always work together.

You have your ninja/sniper/scout/thief level of stealth, which is a small number of people hiding and sneaking around, and probably doing most of their movement under cover of darkness, or slowly creeping into a contested area.

But there are also stealth aspects to modern regular infantry operating with night vision.

Thirdly, stealth is also present at the level of an entire army maneuvering for tactical surprise. They're not going to sneak up on Ninja Guy, but they can sneak up on another army.

Likewise, there is a strong element of stealth in tank warfare. Tanks can and do sneak up on other tanks, even though they will rarely sneak up on alert infantry.

Then you have stealth among fighter aircraft, both actual stealth fighters and regular fighters using stealthy tactics like attacking out of the sun or flying below radar.

There is stealth in submarine warfare, and in space warfare modeled on submarine warfare.

In all of these situations, too, the non-stealthy operators can combat the stealth units, either with dedicated antistealth units like antisubmarine aircraft or satellites or spotters or scouts, or with tactics like sweeps of areas and skirmish lines, and artillery strikes on sniper positions, or even just good intelligence work.

Making a single system that can model all of these things seems like it would be difficult. And you might not even want to. If your characters are Army infantry, you don't need submarine warfare rules. But to get to the point where you can simplify your rules set, you need to make good campaign design choices. 

Lastly, yes, I am aware that I overthink things.

Good post. Thank you.