Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

That logic didn't stop them the first time around.

[Le Redditeur]

Yeah, but how's that our problem, exactly? They want to stop selling the books on am already very little lucrative market? Let them. We will always just pirate the banned books.

[Guest]

We will always just pirate the banned books.

And really, who hasn't already pirated those books if they wanted them?

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

The useful idiots are obsessed with physical, glossy hardcovers, anyways. Almost ever comment section on DriveThruRPG has at least one idiot asking "Can I have a print-on-demand option, plz?"

[Le Redditeur]

Ok. I do like hardcover prints myself, I own the ones for 3D&D and 4D&D and I love those books. But then again, I can pay for a printing company to do a hardcover print for me for a similar (probably lower) price.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

OGL 2.0

We are back in the Dark Ages, when everything needed to have a d20 version.

Anyone heard of Talislanta? It's some weird fantasy game that prides itself on the lack of conventional fantasy races. Had quite a few editions - including a d20 version back in the OGL days, of course - and they're all free aside from the newest one.
But what if you get triggered by a game that uses d20s but isn't actually D&D? Fear no more, there's a 5e version.
Also a d6 version like in Star Wars d6, because sure, why not?
Apparently the new edition is also getting a bestiary that has everything dual-statted for both actual Talislanta and 5e, which brings to mind some of the darkest moments in the OGL days (like the Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles RPG books wasting page space with d20 conversions).

And did you know that Big Eyes, Small Mouth has a 4th edition? Afraid and confused of a 2d6 system? Fear not, they're working on a 5e version, too!
Except they already did that in the OGL days with their BESM d20.
Which was kinda shite, especially since they thought it was a good idea to have a point-buy system that still insisted on people picking classes instead of just templates or doing their own shit (the closest being the Adventurer class, but they gave you less points than everyone else just to fuck with you, even though the other classes can always just cash in their class abilities for points to buy other shit). Naturally the classes include stuff like "Mecha Pilot", "Samurai", "Magical Girl" and "Sentai Member", which will probably rarely come up within the same context.
Also note that the FAQs specifically spells out this is for fantasy stuff only, giving you a narrower scope than either the old BESM d20 or literally any edition of BESM proper.

Paizo and Slavery

I've already mentioned this before when talking about D&D's retcon autism, but the specifics of Paizo's attempts to one-up WotC are a bit lulzy.
So they announced that they would erase slavery from their precious Pathfinder 2e setting entirely, without explanation. Except they then did some damage control to assure us that slavery will be alive and well, but they will just never focus on it. There is little chance that you will ever fight slavers in an official Pathfinder adventure, and even if you do you will never see them doing some slaverin'. Guess it's ony a matter of time till they fully embrace indie hack writer doctrine of telling, not showing, that the bad guys are bad. Because actually showing them being evil would be triggering.

(Reminds me of Extreme Meatpunks Forever, where supposedly a fascist regime is in charge, except the writers are well-off trust fund kids so their vision of a fascist regime includes gay marriage, income high enough that families can comfortably live on a single salary, and concessions to disabled people that include making even the most hidden nazi bunker wheelchair-accessible)

So anyways, supposedly the thing that caused them to unperson slavery was a single open letter - and an anonymous one at that, so this could be anything from a troll to Paizo themselves to distract everything from that drama about shitty work conditions.
And what triggered this totally-real person?

• slavery is legal in the city of Absalom (which is basically Paizo's version of Baldur's Gate)
• naturally the sourcebook for Absalom lists prices for slaves
• the sourcebook is also one of the books allowed for the Pathfinder Society (their organized play thingie)

So naturally this means that fiendish strangers you sit together with for an organized play session can buy as many slaves as they want, witout anyone being allowed to complain.
Never mind the Pathfinder 2e corebook having some kind of default "code of conduct" thing that prohibits players from owning slaves.
Never mind that buying slaves during an organized play event will most likely get you banned for life.
Never mind that the Pathfinder Society has an extra rule book, which among other things restricts what you can do with your money (aka it would've been much easier to ban slaves from organized play than to rewrite slavery out of every future product).

Apparently they also tried to make some damage control by having an organized play adventure about abolishing slavery in Absalom, but apparently their "sensitivity editor" was on vacation when they came up with "Let's have a slave revolt where the slaves decide to go back to their masters as regular employees".

[Le Redditeur]

So they basically wanted to erase Octavia and Regongar's background from Kingmaker? I remember that you can even get a Lawful (non-evil) choice to recognize the Technician League's rights over their slaves.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Pretty sure they're are video-game-exclusive.

[Guest]

(Reminds me of Extreme Meatpunks Forever, where supposedly a fascist regime is in charge, except the writers are well-off trust fund kids so their vision of a fascist regime includes gay marriage, income high enough that families can comfortably live on a single salary, and concessions to disabled people that include making even the most hidden nazi bunker wheelchair-accessible)

The most accurate criticism of rpg writers I've ever heard is that they can't imagine a world where the lights don't work or where drinkable water doesn't come out of the faucet.

[rabidtictac]

(Reminds me of Extreme Meatpunks Forever, where supposedly a fascist regime is in charge, except the writers are well-off trust fund kids so their vision of a fascist regime includes gay marriage, income high enough that families can comfortably live on a single salary, and concessions to disabled people that include making even the most hidden nazi bunker wheelchair-accessible)

The most accurate criticism of rpg writers I've ever heard is that they can't imagine a world where the lights don't work or where drinkable water doesn't come out of the faucet.

A lot of them handwave "we do this with magic" so they can create a "fantasy world" with all the exact same amenities and lifestyles as our current one.