OK I might have recovered enough to try and cover some more of this. What there even is. I've been charging up my incredulity meter while watching lambs just god damn body slamming that lavender bush out the back window.
The dregs of the Kickstarter description
I missed a summary point I think
Blah blah, monster entries exist. Did I cover this? I don't think so. I refuse to check.
It's no super interesting. Lets note it gives us 3 links into the bowels of blog hell. One of which is just a link for Lycanthrope which we have the 2 page spread of here already, if they had made that image READABLE then this link would be utterly redundant. But also if you said you have 40 monsters and gave us three samples one of which is a repeat you've already shown us... yeah. Not a great look.
Also "Ultimate Horror RPG" that is also cast as an all purpose RPG for the greater horror related genre... has 40 monsters and 90 "supernatural powers". These are respectable numbers. As a reasonable minimum. They are NOT numbers to BRAG about as a selling point. "Has sufficient number of monsters for advertised scope, and no more!" is NOT a selling point.
Maybe lets look at the links... Lets see, a type of demon... oh god the art is maybe the worst yet and yes, that's right its a sexy temptress demon with a very powerful, "Now, you to players, make out" ability. They are of course. Female. Or beasts (like, basically the same right author?). Specifically prioritizing dogs and then serpents at the top of a list (that almost stops there, quick chuck in owls to camouflage the latent misogyny). NO DEEP PERSONAL ISSUES of the author appearing here. They have laughable weaknesses, and the stupidest most unrealistic impossible to achieve means of summoning you could bother conceiving of.
OK, what about witches.... which are witches AND witch children AND witch lords. Something it decides to remind us several times in TITLES not in text. Could have just titled "Witches" and then given your complex age and gender variants of which in a paragraph of text. Instead of I don't know writing something that people in the real world who consider themselves witches would regard as a repetition of some of the most stereotypical and just nasty slurs imaginable.
Witches you see are all ugly mutants that have sold themselves to demons for "necromantic" powers. Which I suspect would have been better served being called "demonic", but it seems that the author has probably just redefined "necromantic" to mean "evil magic used by evil demonic dudes". Rather than magic to do with death, mostly speaking to the dead. Whatever.
And yep. Between digging up and adding to stereotypes real witches will (fairly reasonably) get mad at... creepy sex creep stuff. A whole ability entry for a witch to curse you with sex like curses were STDs. An ugly mutation table that includes an entry for being supernaturally sexy... until touched... at which point... no description, probably still sexy, at worst return to default why would I assume otherwise the text just stops.
Actually they of course get a whole table of abilities that they randomly get one of and that's where they get STD Curses. OR "Immunity to metal" (???) or seemingly total command of "animals", or city wide teleportation, or a close combat magical attack bonus, or an outright joke like
giving the GM and excuse to demand married PCs cheat on each other in game I mean they just forget each others names, it definitely stops there. OR it could be an "ability" that when you think about it is a fucking weakness like the "ability" to make food rot and spoil in there presence.
Or my favorite definitely serious ability that definitely proves this is a very serious game with a lot of deep thought put into it. The ability to "Induces panic in nuns on sight" (no
save roll "throw")
Kinda... specific there. You, uh, got a lot of nuns in your games there buddy?
The "Tarot" cards are very special you know
Remember the Tarot card mechanic.
We know this much so far.
They are just numbers between 1-10. OR highly contextual special effects you will never draw when they actually apply, and which are then sometimes numbers over 10, or incredible powerful but utterly undefined instructions that make no sense and do not parse in a firm comprehensible manner.
Oh and you don't just draw one card. You can draw more cards for... reasons... and then everyone holds and reveals their cards simultaneously.
Witch however reminds us of something else that has been hinted at with prior monster entries.
Each monster defines a small number of Tarot cards as "Special". And um, sometimes? Always? has a special abiity triggered by those cards when they come up.
So. Now. Lets summarize what the core mechanic of the game apparently looks like at this stage.
1) GM draws
a number of cards possibly at leas partially determined by ass pull. This might have something to do with "Intensity" which is some sort of DC. But it might not. Does not reveal yet.
2) Player draws
a number of cards possibly at leas partially determined by ass pull and begging the GM. But also OTHER players also might be drawing cards simultaneously. Maybe to help or maybe to do their own actions, pretty sure I saw that in "The Movie of..." this thing. They do not reveal.
3) Then EVERYONE REVEALS AT ONCE. People now have either memorized the table in the book and determine what the value between 1-10 is for each card. Cause its like, not on the cards, nothing it. We do not yet know how this contributes to the final "roll" but we do know this number needs to be looked up or memorized for EACH CARD for EACH PLAYER/GM. And because of simultaneous reveal
this all happens at once
4) ALSO
AT THE SAME TIME everyone needs to look up each card for their one of contextual ability determine if it applies, and apply the number greater than 10 (instead? as well?) or apply the complex incomprehensible freestyle instruction (instead? as well?).
5) ALSO
iAT THE SAME TIME The GM must look up their monster entry to see if each/any card they drew is on the "special card" list for the monster. Just gonna guess. Player characters with supernatural abilities might also have to do this.
6) Special effects of cards CAN INCLUDE DRAWING MORE CARDS.
So to be clear. The basic RNG from this game requires multiple look ups for multiple players, simultaneously, and the RNG gives you ranges from 1-10 or maybe 1-16 or maybe 2-20 or maybe 3-30 or perhaps 4-52 AND maybe add "Intensity", somehow? and also requires you to do two separate look ups for non-numeric components per card "Thrown". You also have to say you are "throwing" cards. I did joke about immitating gambit and throwing cards at the GM as an RNG method... but... maybe you do?
Maybe you should?.
The Shape Of Things To Come
So yeah. I've spoiled this by mentioning the coffee table book. But remember that
at some point sample pages of this thing were changed from a relatively standard format to some other deformed format?
Well it's a "coffee table book". This is meant to be a book you leave out prominently on display for it's pure beauty and because you want to show it off to guests. So they can just like leaf through it and enjoy.
No. Not with this art style. Not with this writing. Not with this author. Hide it. Hide it and show no one.
Testicle Title Evolves
First the title background image was more like a rock with skin disease. Then it was more obviously just a tea bagging scrotum with skin disease. NOW for later titles its more like a badly lit portion of a colonoscopy holiday snaps collection. With skin disease.
All bold and attractive choices.
Moar samples of the BEST available materials!
Lets see. "Choking Ghosts". Uhuh. "Foetal Gods". Look I just want to ask. When does it stop being a REAL Freudian slip and start becoming a fake "Performative Freudian Slip" of some form? And when do you fake your Freudian slips to deliberately insinuate a disturbing sexual and misogynistic undertone long enough and hard enough that it wraps back around and once more becomes a disturbing insight into author that was never intended?
Am I being unfair in my horror vs creep factor standards?
Hey! It's horror right! And I mean. It's meant to be a bit wrong and confronting and...
NO. Stop it. There are limits. This is over the limit. That's the point. When I mention these things it's because as far as I can tell they went too far or in the wrong tangential directions. Your limits may vary, I hope to hell you find them on a line this project steps over at some point.
In fact. It REALLY feels like this stuff is the material the author really really wanted to obsess over and the "horror" tag is just a post facto convenient and all too inadequate fig leave for it.
Not that the scrotal title bars can be bothered wearing fig leaves.
Is this because of what we know from experiencing this guy in the past or the allegations against him? I think not. This material,
on it's own screams out "Bad Touch GM" to me. And it keeps doing it. Again and again.
The Stretch Team
We already got lots of meaningless self praise. This extends to other authors and artists I don't really know or want to know.
But for thoroughness and because I've seen so many names of former collaborators and supporters denouncing the main author.
I searched the author with each collaborator name just to check. And also to learn anything at all about these guys the kickstarter acts like I should recognize by name.
The main kickstarter project guy. Mike Evans... has done his best to distance himself without destroying the project and bankrupting his up yours logo RPG publishing business. Posting things which look more like a low key disowning than an outright denouncement of the main author.
Shawn Cheng, probably the next most important collaborator is an artist very slightly better than Zak S at another genre of art I also personally dislike. No sign of internet drama with the author, updates suggest that even if he isn't working with them they are still working with his layout. If you recall, they are somehow still at least recently "inserting it into the narrative". Otherwise all you get on a shallow search is pictures of him an Zak at an art event. Someone gave Zak a baby. Baby looks unimpressed.
The first stretch goal content is, for who knows what reason, "monsters from Filipino folklore". By Mabel Harper. Who seems to have at least disowned the material itself and asked for her name to be taken off the project. Her name is of course somehow still on the kickstarter selling the project. This is over all a net positive for the project because at least her disowning of the material seems to have confirmed she at least completed it.
The next high priority goal is... realistic military and wartime horror? For a setting that has the singular defining trait of being based on some sort of gritty 90s Punk City. That author somehow gives me AFL results. I think I found a RPG related twitter presence, but got no hits on him being ever associated with ANY Zak other than the Demon City kickstarter itself. The lack of results seems ominous, but hey, probably fine right?
THEN we get the priority stretch goal of "research" so. Only on a stretch goal you get text on... research? In this investigative horror game with a "research" skill as a base skill? They farmed THAT out to another guy? As a stretch goal. AFTER Filipino monsters and realistic military? Also this goal includes European Cities. Which seems. Better, but also seems out of place
as a stretch goal by a
guest author for a game that claimed to be the ultimate horror game specifically for
any city ever. This guy was not found on the shallow name search so I call too hard and give up. But. This guy, his name is "Richard Guy". Yep. An actual "Dick" Guy. He is probably real, his name is probably that unfortunate. Sorry man, blame your parents for me next time you see them. He seems like he has a rambling blog rabbit hole of his own I don't want to go down. He has recently been obsessing about James Bond for at least 4 long posts running.
Next priority is... " rituals and south-east asian folk magic"? Wait. What. So we get Filipino folklore monsters AND later and separately and by someone else this... the Philippines is IN South-east Asia. Anyway. It's by Zedeck Siew. The second result on the name search was him regretting any association with the main author, refusing to disown the quality of his own work (good for him?) but saying he will never produce work for the main author again. Or defend him. Or consider him a friend. Still again, low key confirmation the work was actually done!
At $37000... Zzarchov Kowolski provides... a monster. Zzarchov has a history of working with Zak and no obviously drama on a five second search. I suspect other Gaming Den people would know more. Whole lot of flame princess stuff in there, I don't remember the details of it myself only that there were details and complications. Still though I think its more damning that this goal is ONE MONSTER.
Ben Laurence writes something on "Meta Cults" (whut). Anyway Ben Laurence has a long apologetic post about Zak. Which includes this.
He said that it sucked getting kicked out of my game, but I could make it up to him by writing a piece for his upcoming horror game Demon City. It felt transactional and icky. His framing it as something I owed him made it hard to write the thing, and I refused money for it in the end although Mike Evans offered. But I wish to God I hadn't agreed to write it, and hadn't promoted his game by posting about the kickstarter on google plus. So I'm sorry for that too.
Again though. Low key confirmation of a text complete piece of content!
Now a "Modern Horror Scenario" from... Christopher Zeischegg. Creditted with names of things that seem sketchy just based on their names. Oh. They are semi-fictional porn memoires and stuff. Ah. This is another porn industry turned artist turned writer guy that cross promotes with the main author. There is bound to be more. But it didn't turn up in 5 seconds and I'm increasingly worried what I would dig up if I keep going on this one. Even if it is in no way incriminating towards this project in any way.
Another few thou down the drain and its both one monster AND one witch "from OSR’s queen of glittering weirdness, Scrap Princess."! Who is firmly on the list of people who have denounced the main author on the internet. Also. One monster and one witch. Yep.
Next up is Cursed Internet (haha, highly relevant) by Jordan Shiveley. Not that much on the 2 second denouncement search. Seems to have worked with main author in the past. But like a lot of guys its surprisingly hard to see any recent link to the main author. Often not much of a presence at all. I don't think this is censorship or shunning, not all the time. I think this list of "big names" selling this project... are just a random grab bag of anyone and everyone Zak S can convince to write a few pages for him no matter how low profile, or in some cases reluctant. I mean... that quote from Ben even suggests that attempts were made to bum these contributions off people FOR FREE. To his credit, Mike apparently has offered at least Ben some sort of payment. It's just that implies OTHERWISE he and maybe others weren't being paid. I bet their "payment" was going to be "exposure". Just not the kind they ended up getting.
Lets pause for a moment. NOT ONE of the stretch goals so far is anything other than the main Author offloading the work to OTHER authors.
Then Evan Elkins writes about horror in the woods. STILL not work by the main author. Yet ANOTHER guy who seems to be... just someone who GMed a game for the author in 2018 and uh... nothing much going on since detectable by a 5 second google search. But also. horror in the woods? For this game explicitly about horror IN THE CITY.
And now...
Mike Evans creates a table of horrific murders that can be used to as inspiration or to launch a scenario.
Mike... next to Zak you've been looking pretty reasonable and rational about this, but between this and that one bit of that one video of yours I watched... Without Zak in the room you would be the one triggering the "If he tries to shake hands just jump out the window" vibes.
Then "Author/activist Linda Tirado" writes on political corruption. Last mention I found before my definitely real 5 second time limit was someone saying somewhere that Linda was one of the only additional authors on this project that didn't essentially disown and have her payment donated to charity. Which just makes me ask? Some of these guys were getting a payment now?
Then its Vanessa Veselka STILL NOT ZAK writing on god damn it, just three miscellaneous things no one cares about. Another rando from a game the author once played in/ran last linked to the main author pre 2018. No obvious denunciation in 5 seconds flat?
AN ONLINE RANDOM NPC GENERATOR. No wait. An Online Random NPC
NAME generator. That is... less impressive. The most important thing about "Logan Knight" and "DIY RPG Productions" (isn't that just Mike Evans?) doing this, the possible most meaningful piece of bonus content (a... name list/randomize on the internet) is that even when someone was like "and who will MERELY HELP compile the backer name list for the promised name generator and provide other names?"... the main author said something like "Mike get some other rando to help you do it".
At $62000 Logan and DIY and... Zak finally? Will make a "whole pack of online random generators for Hosts to use". If they STILL just generate the equivalent of a NAME rather than and NPC that is still shit, but hey, probably the BIGGEST most AMBITIOUS goal yet, AND the main author finally makes an appearance. With help.
Edit: Oh and these generators don't exist yet
I feel like these generators, which remember are probably just online lists of nothing more than names/subject titles you don't get to see all of in one go. SHOULD BE DONE BY NOW.
There is no reason for them not to be up and operational for all the world to see.
In fact it would be something to produce to re-assure the backers that the late project IS actually real and nearing completion, 3 years ago.
But I did a google search and couldn't find them.
I however found enough OTHER rando rpg themed name and "content" generators to
totally devalue them as a product at a fundamental level.
And then Kickstarter Stretch Goals somehow get slightly weirder
$62000 is the last unlocked stretch goal. WHICH IS ODD. Because they raised enough money to meet the NEXT two stretch goals.
They are apparently last minute ones from Kenneth Hite. Who must have instantly regretted it having since denounced Zak and promised never to work with him again or even share a credits page with him. Still again. Low key confirmation of completed content TWICE and low key confirmation of payment! ... and subsequent donation to charity.
But... why is it still unconfirmed despite being funded AND completed?
Last goal is best goal
There is one more stretch goal both unfunded (as marked) AND unfunded compared to actual funding.
ITS A FUCKING TAROT CARD DECK MADE TO ACTUALLY BE USED WITH THE GAME.
The one fucking thing that would to me make this game at least be a coherent project, the illustrated (and presumably properly marked with rules text) Tarot deck for this game's key unique mechanical feature on which it could also show off the also key featured "Gorgeous Art". THAT is an unfunded and the most expensive by far stretch goal.
Is it a coincidence that THIS is the goal that would require lots of actual real work by the main author/artist. No shit it isn't. Illustrating a whole tarot deck IS real work I know a professional artist (a good one) who has done it, more than once, it makes sense it's a solid 10 thou ish over everything else. If anything, it's kinda a low price, but I guess its... um... art that clearly isn't as hard to knock out...
But then hilariously. Not met. Not funded. The core feature that should have made or broken this project (if we just pretend an ideal world where EVERYTHING ELSE does not break it), was walled behind the highest stretch goal and failed so the main author/artist could avoid doing the work.
Not at all a bad sign for the whole project and clearly not something explaining everything that has happened since.
Anything Else
25 people paid $1 each to this project and will get NOTHING in return. Except their names in the NPC name generator. So they paid $1 each to REDUCE the work
the author Logan has to do making up names for a list.
I'm not going to assume they are all rando idiots and craven boot lickers.
Instead I assume there are 25 REALLY interesting names the Author is now obligated to include in the project no matter how much they might not want to.
There are some cryptic comments to NOT pay $30 extra (what?) and about postage not being included. And NOW the only remaining material I have access to is Comments and Updates. I don't know? Maybe I'll look, more, into those?
If anyone has more to contribute...
I am sure in the list of stretch goal contributor names I have DEFINITELY missed details, and I SUSPECT I have missed some juicy ones. I also suspect there are posters around here who know where additional denunciations, or worse, defenses, are. So if anyone wants to elaborate...