What is the biggest debacle of RPG history?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Jul 22, 2013 12:15 pm

Do i really have to mention the SR4 "go to auschwitz, kill jewish zombies/spirits/ghouls/whatever and obtain the scalpell of a nazi-clerk" and "go to europe (i forgot where) and poison gypsie wells"?

Warthur · Post by **Warthur** » Mon Jul 22, 2013 1:00 pm

Didn't White Wolf have a Black Dog imprint designated for books which they on some level realised were inappropriate but wanted to print and sell anyway? And didn't that imprint release a Wraith sourcebook about the Holocaust? I remember hearing some bile about that.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Mon Jul 22, 2013 1:07 pm

some more debacles in RPG history in video format...

G4TV MMO Report 4th edition D&D special
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3J_YPwGVj0

4th edition red dragon interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azcn84IIDVg

D&D 4th edition teaser by Gamer_Zer0 (aka Ze game will remain ze same!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbbqMoEwDqc

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Mon Jul 22, 2013 6:27 pm

Warthur wrote:Didn't White Wolf have a Black Dog imprint designated for books which they on some level realised were inappropriate but wanted to print and sell anyway? And didn't that imprint release a Wraith sourcebook about the Holocaust? I remember hearing some bile about that.

Yeah but Black Dog was also kind of a meta joke, since in Werewolf it was a subsidiary of Pentex and pumped out toxic waste content of RPGs to help rot peoples' minds. It was clearly a lampoon of White Wolf, and that was at a point where WW could actually laugh about itself.

Pushing out a core book under the Black Dog imprint would just confuse the nWOD era customers (all what, 3000 of them?) and imply that they still have a sense of humor, which can't be allowed.

Fucks · Post by **Fucks** » Mon Jul 22, 2013 7:25 pm

Stahlseele wrote:Do i really have to mention the SR4 "go to auschwitz, kill jewish zombies/spirits/ghouls/whatever and obtain the scalpell of a nazi-clerk" and "go to europe (i forgot where) and poison gypsie wells"?

You are an idiot.

The adventure hook in War! is probably total shit, but far away from anything that qualifies for this thread.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Mon Jul 22, 2013 7:28 pm

Yeah but Black Dog was also kind of a meta joke, since in Werewolf it was a subsidiary of Pentex and pumped out toxic waste content of RPGs to help rot peoples' minds. It was clearly a lampoon of White Wolf, and that was at a point where WW could actually laugh about itself.

True, just look at the game HoL. It's nothing but a parody.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Mon Jul 22, 2013 10:57 pm

I must have referred to HoL a half dozen times on here, and I never before realized it came from Black Dog.

Huh.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jul 23, 2013 5:29 am

Black Dog tread the "[EDITED]" line a lot. Sometimes if you're rude, crude, and vile "as a joke", it's still just rude, crude, and vile. "I was only kidding" only goes so far. Still, nothing Black Dog ever came out with that was supposed to offend common decency is ever going to be as offensive as the stuff they let slip in their "normal" lines. The bestiality of Werewolf, the child-rape of Exalted, and the entire thing of World of Darkness: Gypsies are more offensive than any amount of vagina beetles or penis teeth.

-Username17

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Jul 23, 2013 9:18 am

Nathan Stewart....

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/ ... hats-next/

Earlier this week, owner Hasbro announced a collaboration with video game company DeNA to develop two new free-to-play D&D mobile games; WotC is planning to release an enhanced edition of the classic video game Baldur’s Gate 2 later this year; and Cryptic Studios’ massively multiplayer online role-playing game Neverwinter recently went into beta, and should be released soon.

All of these products are being developed in tandem with D&D’s core developers in an effort to create a unified whole, says Nathan Stewart, brand director for Dungeons & Dragons at Wizards of the Coast. “I think the future of Dungeons and Dragons is not the D&D Next rule set or even the tabletop RPG, but it’s this feeling that you get playing Dungeons & Dragons, no matter where you do it.”

except D&D IS a TTRPG, so if you are doing it somewhere other than with a tabletop rules set then you AREN"T playing D&D. you might as well let Paizo tell its players to say to everyone they are playing D&D as you just ruined the brand name because you won't even stand behind it, you just want to use its logo! cross-stitch patterns and wood burning sets and D&D Maker projects, here they come!

Drizzt based legos is NOT playing D&D, if fucking around with Drizzt. Drizzt =/= D&D, MMOs =/= D&D. this fuck is dumber that Scott Rouse!

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Thu Jul 25, 2013 6:27 am

Since Shadzar gets to spout whatever, I'll cue in my thoughts. I think it's utterly terrible, that after a decade more, people are still fairly ignorant of popular rulesets (like 3rd edition D&D line, Shadowrun etc). Not only that, but built faulty habits, and likely terrible GMing mindsets to go along with it. This behavior continuing, encouraging new blood to become more of this terrible culture, seems very much more damning than some terribad ruleset.

You all know the crap, like ignorance & emotion is better than objectivity, MTP + good art equates to "good design", GM is GOD, and Rules are bad (shakes head). Also the likes of being older than someone equates to both superiority & Authority over other RPG players, regardless of this older person's actual Knowledge and understanding of the rulesets themselves.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu Jul 25, 2013 6:38 am

Aryxbez wrote:I think it's utterly terrible, that after a decade more, people are still fairly ignorant of popular rulesets

yeah like AD&D, BD&D and games that were built on those playstyles, not playing pretty-pretty-princess and dress up and calling it D&D while you only try to decorate your christmas tree. said that these people for 14 years have bastardized D&D to being something other than the game it was made to be. sad they couldn't jsut go create their own fantasy heartbreaker and fuck off trying to feel important by being able to claim, and NEEDING to claim that they play D&D and having an edition or more made to completely change what it is in order to allow them to stop their bitchfest because they were unsuited and incapable of playing it before WotC took over.

you seem to confuse popular, with a winner or that everyone agrees. obviously you are mistaken, and popular doesnt mean accepted by all. nor did D&D need everyone to accept it until HASBRO got their hands on it to steal what it was to become something else like the recent lawsuit against HASBRO from HArmony Gold where they stole Robotech designs to make Transformers toys, violating their rights because HASBRO is a god of all, and the consumer has no right except shut up and buy the new trash because HASBRO gets to rewrite history, with that, AND D&D.

Rommie · Post by **Rommie** » Thu Jul 25, 2013 4:00 pm

My personally-felt worst debacle is Battletech. It's truly craptacular how badly mismanaged the line has become that it makes the asshattery of Stackpole look Angelic.

But the overall crown is 4E, with 3.5E the stumble that revealed WotC was drunk in hindsight. I've witnessed a few MMORPG disasters, but nothing that risked the collapse of the entire industry like 4E.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Thu Jul 25, 2013 4:25 pm

CGL does seem to be singlehandedly destroying two of the most popular rpg's of the 80's and 90's. It's really rather impressive.

But FASA's line of goodness never really stacked up money wise to D&D.

CCarter · Post by **CCarter** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 2:27 am

Rommie wrote:My personally-felt worst debacle is Battletech. It's truly craptacular how badly mismanaged the line has become that it makes the asshattery of Stackpole look Angelic.

But the overall crown is 4E, with 3.5E the stumble that revealed WotC was drunk in hindsight. I've witnessed a few MMORPG disasters, but nothing that risked the collapse of the entire industry like 4E.

What did Stackpole do to Battletech?

Here's an article on what he wanted to do to TSR...(if he'd had a spare million bucks)

http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=584

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 2:45 am

Wonder how he felt about 3e actually doing well.

Nath · Post by **Nath** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 10:33 pm

On February 1999, Mike Stackpole wrote:The biggest problem I see with the coming product is the direction from which TSR is coming at it. I think the folks working on the project may not be designing a game suited to today's market. I think they may be using this opportunity to turn AD&D3 into what they think AD&D should have been. Game designers (and gamers) are all notorious for this: thinking we know better than the original designer of the game. Working from a basis of nostalgia that contains not a little contempt for the changes made when the second edition came out, I think TSR may be working on a game that would have been state of the art in 1982. I worry it will be rules-heavy, written in an impenetrable style, unintelligible to a beginning player and idiosyncratic enough to annoy players outside the design team.

By this analysis, D&D4 should have been much more successful than D&D3.

I can't help thinking this analysis nonetheless has some truth in it, and could be applied to quite a few other RPG lines in the last decade.

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 1:26 am

Nath wrote:By this analysis, D&D4 should have been much more successful than D&D3.

I can't help thinking this analysis nonetheless has some truth in it, and could be applied to quite a few other RPG lines in the last decade.

Bear in mind that AD&D3 wasn't necessarily the same game as the D&D 3e we know now. The biggest improvements 3e brought about weren't things like feats or new spells it was math where rolling high was always good and using the same die for all ability and skill checks. A TSR written AD&D3 likely wouldn't have had those high points and wouldn't be the benchmark 3e is today.

infected slut princess · Sat Jul 27, 2013 4:30 am

Dragonborn. The answer is Dragonborn.

rasmuswagner · Post by **rasmuswagner** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 6:19 am

infected slut princess wrote:Dragonborn. The answer is Dragonborn.

Pfff. That shit was just dumb, but even Gygax had dumber shit in his game. Even 3E had playable catgirls.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 7:10 am

Hell, dragonborn started in 3.5. Races of the Dragon. Given that Gygax wrote an essay about how players shouldn't be allowed to play monstrous races or females because it would be too much of stretch, Dragonborn aren't even a contender

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 7:33 am

Prak_Anima wrote:Hell, dragonborn started in 3.5. Races of the Dragon. Given that Gygax wrote an essay about how players shouldn't be allowed to play monstrous races or females because it would be too much of stretch, Dragonborn aren't even a contender

i dont think Gary was like James Cameron and wanted to put tits on lizards though. somewhere along the lines the allowed Wayne Reynolds to put phallic symbols on every piece of armor, and tits on everything else in D&D.

Nath wrote:
On February 1999, Mike Stackpole wrote:The biggest problem I see with the coming product is the direction from which TSR is coming at it. I think the folks working on the project may not be designing a game suited to today's market. I think they may be using this opportunity to turn AD&D3 into what they think AD&D should have been. Game designers (and gamers) are all notorious for this: thinking we know better than the original designer of the game. Working from a basis of nostalgia that contains not a little contempt for the changes made when the second edition came out, I think TSR may be working on a game that would have been state of the art in 1982. I worry it will be rules-heavy, written in an impenetrable style, unintelligible to a beginning player and idiosyncratic enough to annoy players outside the design team.
By this analysis, D&D4 should have been much more successful than D&D3.

I can't help thinking this analysis nonetheless has some truth in it, and could be applied to quite a few other RPG lines in the last decade.

yeah, but while it may understand some things, it ignores the fact that you can't make a Model A Fors for today's market. aside from legal reason such as safety and such, it jsut doesn't provide what people want in a car, and changing it to meet today's standards in automotive manufacturing means it no longer will be a Model A Ford, but a knock-off, even if made by Ford itself.

also more of that nostalgia bullshit. people keep using this term with no idea of its meaning, they think it means something akin to retro. in truth that is the only meaning they can have because retro means was popular, but comes back into styles. though there have been plenty of people that may have still used it while it was unpopular, because they didn't give a flying fuck about pop-culture or living in it. see how hooded sweatshirts are popular now, but 30 years ago only nerds were wearing them as they were a fashion faux pas.

one thing there is truth in is the game is too fucking bloated. there is a reason that D&D and AD&D were two different games. it wasn't play one to prepare to add things to the move to the advanced game. there were similar games for different wants of people. sure you could bloat D&D depending on how much of BECMI you through into it, but the game wasnt an introductory version like First Quest, Night of the Vampire, Treasure Hunt, etc. D&D was as-is. you add as much as you wanted, or moved to a new rules system with AD&D.

what DDN is trying is the wrong idea, because they have too much shit in the "basic" version of the game because the "advanced" version needs it to be there. this is a failure just as mentioned in that quote you pulled.

so he understood in that passage about introducing the game to first time TTRPG players, but thinks that some new philosophy needs to be applied to D&D like putting airbags on a Model A Ford, when it doesn't. and of course some people never have the nostalgia cause they never left that time. sorry, the Amish people exist, so colonial days are not nostalgia, a Renfaire to them is likely technological sorcery at work!

also in regards to "1982" comment he moves the goal post by saying it is good to change it after he jsut fucking said

Game designers (and gamers) are all notorious for this: thinking we know better than the original designer of the game.

which is what WotC thinks, yet they cant create a game worth a fuck. all the failings in the foundations of 3.x, the fact that 4th doesn't even resemble D&D and was replaced quicker that the Chainmail supplement of OD&D. (OD&D '74~'77, 4th 2008~2010, 4E 2010~2012).

how many parts of a ship can you replace before it is a new ship?

this again goes to why i say WotC is one of the biggest debacles for canning BD&D so there was no introductory and jsut throwing a mass of people into 3rd that had no idea what they were doing, and still don't understand the premise of the game, such that DDN is making something that is offending old and new school players alike with DDN, just as they did with 4th.. thus the comments on Forbes from that D&D Brand Manager Nathan, that said "the future of D&D doesn't really le in the RPG, but in toys and board games because people will just be happy to be able to play something called D&D."

yeah, putting a Chevy logo on an F-350 is going to get Ford lovers to start liking Chevrolet? it doesnt work like that, these corporate modrons are out of touch with reality.

can we do that? just start calling Mearls and his ilk modrons, or would that be offensive to the living platonic shapes of the Nine Hells?

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 9:32 am

Um. Last I checked the Modrons lived in the Clockwork Nirvana... (Mechanus, if you prefer.)

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 9:43 am

I've never seen a phallic symbol in Wayne Reynolds' pieces (unless we're going freudian and counting swords), and given how much I love cock, I think I'd notice.

Also, as I said back on page 2, I think, dragon tits should have actually helped player numbers.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 10:13 am

i always put everything in the Nine Hells, cause i really dont give a shit for any global cosmology be it from WotC or Planescape. even Ravenloft is a demi-plane in the Nine Hells. Either way, i am sure a modron, ANY modron is capable of more productivity than Mearls.

who was the artist for 3rd or 4th that put spikes on every damn thing? bullet, sword, spear, spike... all phallic symbols.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 10:33 am

That really doesn't bother me as much as Wayne "I don't know what a neck or proper perspective are" England or Jim "I've somehow reached adulthood and never seen a spider" Nelson. It's D&D, people have swords, spears, spikes and occasionally bullets. Plus, so far as I can tell, he's protestant, so it's either impossible for him to include phallic symbols, or he can't help it.