This is a very interesting article on why per-word rates are so low for writers for tabletop RPGS.
Pie for everyone, just sliced very thinly: The economics of RPG book production http://t.co/c3FZAhIrdV by @simonjrogers
— Pelgrane Press Ltd (@PelgranePress) February 13, 2015
Continue reading Link: Simon Rogers’ ‘The Economics of RPG Book Production’
I should know better by now than to click the damn link. There’s always a damn steal of a roleplaying game supplement or core rules in there that justifies buying the whole damned thing, just by itself. Thank God they’re PDFs: otherwise, I’d be drowning in good indy RPGs right now.
Have these people no SHAME?
Hillfolk is a roleplaying system from Robin D. Laws that emphasizes inter-party relationships and dynamics in a tabletop RPG setting; which is to say, it’s a game that encourages the players to play off of each other’s characters, instead of genially tolerating occasions where that happens instead of, say, attacking the orc stronghold*. It’s well-loved (my wife raves about it, and more or less told me to kick into the KS without me having to hint at all) by the people who know about it, and is currently having the small problem that the book is getting fatter and fatter with all the stretch goals for added material being met.
LOCKED: $50,000: GUMSHOE OPEN LICENSE: We will release GUMSHOE, Robin’s previous game engine for Pelgrane, under an open license with its own GUMSHOE-compatible trademark for products in the English language. Robin will create a stripped-down system reference version of GUMSHOE to support the license.
Continue reading An exciting (and challenging) stretch goal in @RobinDLaw’s Hillfolk Kickstarter.
Not the bit about evolution/homosexuality bit – as I understand it, Darwinian theory is a little bit more nuanced than that when addressing the ways that traits that affect the group/pack/tribe can be valuable for the species in general even when they’re personally evolutionary dead ends – but the suggestion that gamers and/or bloggers don’t have the opportunity to breed. I mean, speaking as a gamer… sure, back in the 1980s and 1990s there was a pretty lopsided gender ratio, but I know lots of female gamers these days. It’s been that way for a while: I’m trying (and failing) to remember the last campaign that I was in that didn’t have a minimum of two female players in it, or a female player and a female GM. Heck, my wife’s a GM herself.
Maybe we should update that particular cultural stereotype?
Moe Lane
I’m not going to say anything about it – spoilers, and all that – but I expected a bit more. On the bright side, space cleared for more Mass Effect 2 DLC! No, wait, they’ll release the bridge DLC and shut that down, too. Just you wait.
And so the eternal cycle of expectation, happiness, and crushing disappointment continues. At least we got Leiliana’s Song out of them.
The video below should be useful material for any gamers out there trying to convince their GMs that, yea, indeed, their character with the peg-leg can do that ridiculously acrobatic thing after all:
Remember: your PC does have that high a level in his or her dexterity/coordination/agility stat, and he or she does have his or her dancing/acrobatics/tumbling skill maxed out. Or he or she should, at least, if you’re trying to justify tap dancing with a peg-leg to a GM. The point is that your PC really is a beautiful and unique snowflake; that’s part of the point in playing a roleplaying game in the first place*.
Moe Lane
*For the non gamer geeks: this assertion is not… universally held.
