Friday, March 13, 2015

We're DIY D&D. We Do Good Work.

Yoon-Suin is out. This may mean nothing to you. To me it means (in the author's own words):

Tibet, yak ghosts, ogre magi, mangroves, Nepal, Arabian Nights, Sorcery!, Bengal, invertebrates, topaz, squid men, slug people, opiates, slavery, human sacrifice, dark gods, malaise, magic.

I am excited about this because Noisms has been blogging about Yoon-Suin for ages and it was the first DIY D&D setting I saw that did something truly new while maintaining its own feel throughout. Plus having Matthew Adams on the art is kind of a dream come true. This is no Oriental Adventures style pastiche, this is a fever dream of a fantastic pseudo-Asia. And anybody who reads his blog Noisms thinks about mechanics and presentation, too, so the book is going to be useful at the table, not just inspirational. Here's a review that says what I'd say. Here is one describing the contents in detail. Buy it.

This is what I use as the Exotic East in my home game.

This is 100% the kind of book the PROBLEMATIC CONTENT!!! Squad would've trashed had it come out a year ago. But this is the Year of the Goat and they are all gone now, since they fucked up so bad harassing us over 5th edition .

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Fire On The Velvet Horizon is out. This is the insane folk-art D&D that the world needs and is too wretched to deserve. It's by Scrap Princess and False Patrick, and, unlike, Yoon-Suin, it has not been a long time coming. This is a stunning vortex of words and art hot on the heels of their extremely well-received (like: nobody doesn't like it) adventure Deep Carbon Observatory.

They have a fancy expensive book by a major indie publisher coming out soon and you'll be kicking yourself you didn't get these when they were cheap.

This is 100% the kind of book the Oh Noes Not Up To My Precious Precious Indie Font Nazi Standards Squad would've trashed had it come out a year ago. But this is the Year of the Goat and they are all gone now, since they fucked up so bad harassing us over 5th edition.

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And lastly and not leastly, Stacy Dellorfano and Contessa--the people who brought you the best online gaming convention in the world--are organizing events for Gen Con and they have a call for women to come run games.  They've done an amazing job making RPGs less boring ever since they showed up, here's an opportunity to help out.

This is 100% a group of women who have had to weather the Oh No Not Being A Feminist The Right Way! Squad trashing them a year ago. But this is the Year of the Goat and they are all gone now, since they fucked up so bad harassing us over 5th edition.

11 comments:

brackish meadows said...

problematic content squad checking in

yeah yoon suin is good, scrap and patrick are brilliant, all these guys do good work. has shit all to do with this other thing

contessa is social justice, these other things are product reviews, though. zak you may be saving rpgs (im not entirely sure) but your methods are very suspicious

brackish meadows said...

were there a lot of good rpgs being maligned before we started shitting so hard on the people who feel otherwise about them? i mean im doing all this shit too but i'm confused about it

Zak Sabbath said...

Yes, there were.

Carcosa was getting called a "rapegame"
Numenera was attacked on a huge thread on RPGnet with several mods involved for having a succubus in it.
RPGnet mods were attacking LOTFP openly on the site
Anna Kreider attacked the POC artist Hyun Tae Kim
Fred Hicks attacked Kingdom Death
All the pigfuckers attacked 5e
Story Games pretty much shit on every single retroclone every week as if that was the only thing DIY D&D ever did
and I know people who buy Vornheim or R&PL and go "Wow, I'd heard _____ about these OSR games but they were totally wrong"
...which means their attacks and bullshit were working.

Troll pigs must all fuck off now so we can do the good work.

brackish meadows said...

i hear you but it continues to make me uneasy. now that we, the gritty gonzo types, are on top, it seems very important that we should shit on the elfy welfys for im not sure what reason. so they don't do it again? im not clear on the details. what about when they rise up again? will they treat us well?

Zak Sabbath said...

I am unconcerned about who is "on top" or whether bad people "treat us well"

The job is always the same: Do the right thing. Tell the truth. Get rid of trolls. Do not allow them a foothold.

That job never changes.

brackish meadows said...

well, i'm glad you do it i guess

Soyweiser said...

Hm... I'm getting a strange feeling of deja vu reading this.

Devin H. said...

Somewhat related: I'm guessing you get a lot of requests from people doing DIY D&D asking you to take a look at their work, provide feedback, endorse their work, etc. Do you have a policy for this kind of thing?

brackish meadows said...

send them to me, i'll look at them, im a weak copy of zak, i do incisive criticisms and also i never stop trying to help nerds

Zak Sabbath said...

my policy is I try but make no guarantees. I got a lot to read over here.

However--anyone in DIY D&D is allowed to ask me one question and then name me as a consultant on their product, just to keep the pearlclutchers from buying it.

Sean McCoy said...

Year of goat is turning out pretty fucking awesome.