Interesting Kickstarter Projects

Did anybody mention this documentary:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/showrunnersfilm/showrunners-a-documentary-film

I looked at your post too quickly and went through the following internal discussion:

Oh, a documentary about Shadowrunners? Will it focus on the history and recent revival of the brand? Or will it be more of a faux-documentary set within the universe?

<click the link>

Oh, Joss Whedon is involved? Is he a fan of Shadowrun, or is he maybe working on a project?

Wait...Damon Lindelof? Well, now this is just getting weird. And unpleasant.

<pause>

Ah, I see.

I unbacked Up Front. I was hoping for a nice explanation from Valley Games, but there was none. And while I think the game sounds good, I don't really think I need it. I have Combat Commander which was apparently inspired by Up Front and it's basically my favorite game. I can't see a reason to get another version of that (though they seem VERY VERY different).

Dammit, I did the same thing, and that was after glancing slightly at your post before going to the kickstarter.

I just canceled my pledge as well. Screw 'em.

I see the FATE folks are making a new version of their core rules. It's an awesome RPG system, and backers get immediate access to the most recent core rules draft, so I gave them some monies.

Already been done.

Hillfolk preview PDFs dropped for kickstarters. Still chewing on it, but man it is so story and narrative and not at all crunchy. I'll never get my gaming group to try it.

WTF

Perfectly captures the feel of decking in Shadowrun, meaning that the rest of the group has to stand around with their thumbs up their asses for half of the adventure while the decker works the Matrix or whatever they called it.

In the future, we don't need shirts!

I played a bit of shadowrun back in the day; I don't remember any extended periods of shuffling awkwardly along the side of a building with my back to the windows.

He's looking for rats coming out of rat holes.

So the creatively named Kingdom Death has some nice monster miniatures and I was about to dig into the mechanics a bit more, but then scrolling down the reliance on boobs and pinups kind of bugged me as a marketing tool (and then I found as I was writing this that some brave soul dared risk the MRA blitzkrieg over at BGG). Maybe it's just being fresh off the discussion in #1 Reason that came up around miniatures and boardgames.That gave me the space to realize "oh, I already have a shitload of Bones miniatures forthcoming that I won't know what to do with, and moreover why would I even consider a coop dungeon crawler that doesn't have rules and mechanics front and center". I asked about the rules for the sake of due diligence, but I assume they will just refer me to the gameplay vid that someone else watched and critiqued for me.

Edit: also, the answer of "it's the lore!" gives me even more pause. Not as much as "cannon", but almost as much.

In other news, the raging success of dice rings continues to surprise me when it shouldn't.

Fuck me, Kingdom Death sounds awesome. Such a simple setup, yet it is so utterly compelling. Hell, I wish a computer game had used that, what great possibilities! It's a great video, and the reason rules aren't front and centre I suspect is because a video like that sells so much more than dry rules ever will.

I'm not a fan of the art, though not because it features boobs, rather because the proportions (including the boobs) seem so horribly off. The only effect that's going to have on me though is not buying art related to the project.

The pin-up models are nonsense, but they're entirely optional with no game impact. I'd be more concerned about the silly armour shown for the Dragon King expansion.

EDIT: The designer clarified in the post Lizard_King linked to that there will be more around the chest.

The mechanics dullness topic is something I'll read through though.

That wasn't the entirety of his response

Kingdom Death has some terrific miniatures that I would never paint. It is also expensive and looks boring.

I was kind of sort of interested in it until I saw that Lioness sculpt. Yeah, I know it's entirely optional, but I also know I'm hesitant to throw money at people who solve the "no sane female fighter would wear a G-string for armor" problem by removing the G-string entirely.

I figured someone would be interested, and I'm glad the link works in the spirit of the thread as well.

I'm not concerned about game impact. I just find it off-putting as a marketing tactic, and I felt it was important to say why specifically I was dismayed before my more rational side could get around to why I don't need more coop miniature dungeon crawl games. In the BGG link, I applaud the OP's point and I think it's useful to say it just to make it clear that not everyone is on board with that.

Correct, that's why I linked it. If you believe either of his two main points (my lore relies on sex kittens because <spoilers!>, you can't distinguish women in miniatures without boobs and nudity) are a sufficient rationale, good on you. I don't find either of them compelling, and honestly I don't really think a defense that I would find apt is possible; I was just morbidly curious about what explanation other than crass titillation targeted at the stereotype of the miniature gamer was available.

Well, I believe his point on exaggerating characteristics to make it easier to identify models, yes. Perhaps it's all a filthy lie, but I've seen enough people struggle to tell what, to me, were obviously different miniatures that I can see the logic in it. It's hard to tell due to a lack of close-ups of the non-pin-up models, but they don't seem that exaggerated to me.

As for lore, well, that's probably going to boil down to something along the lines of modelling them as the perfect man and woman, because the perfect woman suffers from back ache, or some such.

Yeah, but there are plenty of solutions to the all-our-minis-look-alike problem other than giant exposed boobs.

I mean, I have plenty of Warmachine minis that manage to look distinct without that solution. For example, Kayazy Eliminators look pretty different from Kayazy Assassins, and everybody's fully clothed. The eliminators are even recognizably female and they didn't have to look like they came from a stray Frazetta painting to do it.

But where are the giant exposed boobs outside the pin-ups?

Also, note how in the pictures you link the painter has used hair colour as a differentiator.

I really didn't get what you guys were getting at and then I scrolled down.

Is the Lioness really just straight up bare-assed?

Just from a quick scan of the Kickstarter page, look at the Dragon King expansion, the Lion armor, and the collector's edition starting survivor sculpts and concept art.

Especially the Dragon King armor. I mean, what the hell is going on there?

Also, I'm not really buying the idea that the pinups are so easily separated from the game given how big a part of the Kickstarter's marketing they are. You have to spend a lot of time scrolling past pinup flesh on that page in order to see the things that are actually part of the game.

The figures are pretty different even as bare metal. Also, the fact that you can differentiate through paint is another argument against needing to go the exaggerated pinup route -- surely if the survivor figures were so identical in this game, giving them different hair and clothing colors would be an easy fix.

Yes. AS GOD INTENDED!

That was covered up-thread, the designer claims the Dragon King ones are incomplete and there will be additional chest coverage.

That was a weird explanation, though. What, they got all the way through concept art and 3D modeling and only then noticed after releasing it to the world that she's basically topless? Whoops!

Not sure it passes the smell test, but all that matters is what the end product will look like.

It's all that matters to you. In my case, what actually gets on the miniatures is secondary to the idea that I should find it neutral or appealing to have fantasy pron as the marketing for their product. He gets his target audience as I can see by the numbers; it probably doesn't bother many people, and he might even get a little more from self-righteous MRA concerned about the (slightly) shrinking numbers of spaces that cater to sexist boorishness. But I think it's important to comment when he loses people and be clear why, and to pay attention to the responses because it's an issue that matters to me.

Man, that is a lot of boob on display.

Plus it isn't just boobs out warriors, boob armour and bare asses; even on the 'more acceptable' sculpts shown there is a prevalence of men in armour while the female variants have bare legs & arms, exposed midriffs and impractical raised heels on their supposed 'warrrior boots'. It's a shame because a couple of the monster sculpts do look pretty good.

Who else's view did you think I was expressing? Fuck me, we're not going to have to prefix every post with IMO are we?

Yeah, never mind the substance of his rebuttal. Let's focus on this in the worst possible way.

Good grief.

I had nothing to say in response to his point. Should I have quoted it too just to make you feel better?

I remember playing with tons of houserules on decking, just because it took for fucking ever and was no fun for anyone involved. 4th edition SR streamlines it quite a bit.

Obviously.

It's sort of amusing that you make a flat assertion and then when someone responds to it you won't defend the assertion or move on. Instead you accuse them of not understanding that you're just, like, expressing your opinion, man. Something that everyone reading this thread already knows, and that is completely beside the point, yet you somehow feel compelled to spell out.

Sort of amusing, but not really.

I disagree with him but felt the conversation wasn't going to go anywhere. Christ almighty.

I can turn it into a warzone of opinion if you'd like though. I'm sure that'd be much healthier for the thread.

No, dumbass. He points out it's all that matters to me, indicating that I don't understand there are other points of view, which is why I felt the need to point out that the only view I can express is my own. Others are free to express theirs, I cannot speak for them.

Aaaand chalk up another delivered Kickstarter. Dreadball has arrived! Woo.

First impressions are the miniatures are smaller than I thought they would be (not BB sized, a little bit smaller than that) which is going to make my storage headache a lot easier to bear. The rulebook is lovely. And I have a shitload of gluing and painting to do.

SO JEALOUS. I probably have an extra week or so to wait for it to wend its way across the ocean.

I was assuming they'd be about the same size as Mantic's regular Warpath / KoW figures -- are they smaller?

I ended up buying some of their plastic storage boxes to help with this; I figure I can easily get a full team in each box, which should make things pretty tractable.

I don't have any of Mantic's other minis unfortunately.

They're a little bit smaller than GW Imperial Guard models (I have some old stormtroopers knocking around on my desk). I have a ton of PP Trolls next to my keyboard which are obviously pretty big so the size difference is probably being exaggerated. Actually, give me a few minutes, I'll take a photo.

I'll be going for the cardboard carry cases from KR Multicase to handle these I think. They're pretty sturdy.

Right. Sorry for the terrible iPad pics.

First, box contents (I have 2 boxes, one is unopened...):

Then the contents of the Forge Father team bag:

Finally a size comparison between the Number 88 MVP and PP's Commander Strakhov :

To be fair, looking at the rest of the minis - which I'm loathe to unbag until I have some storage space for them - there does appear to be a decent range of heights. There's what I think is a human coach model that's taller than Strakhov, and the Orx Guard are definitely big bastards. The thing is the bases are small and the pitch itself has pretty small hexes so there's nothing too chunky.

I'm now thinking about your suggestion last Bord Geems day and agreeing furiously.

So, Pelgrane Press just posed the best Hillfolk setting.

The War On Christmas

NUTSHELL
In the Empire of the Claus, Joy = Duty. The snow-dusted land of England shivers under the heavy yoke of the Kringle. But a small band of revolutionaries gather to strike back against the tyrannies of St. Nick and his red-booted thugs.