by Maxx Feral.
Going to be a side rant and touch into other areas. Any "TL/DR" people leave now.
This is a placeholder. For a little while, myself, OMaXXXimVs and others are going to be working out a new mechanics for our games - a very simplified base system that you can then expand around for a TTRPG. This is due to Hasbro/WOTC shooting itself in the foot with OGL 1.1 and we do NOT care if they backpedal there is no way any sane person could ever trust them again. We'll still update lore and new chapters as we flesh this out so keep checking. But this is kind of a stepping point, us making a new set of rules.
So I want to talk about Hasbro, WOTC and really the "Woke" gaming industry this project is a reaction against...
One Man's Opinion, they WANT to FAIL.
This is, as OMaxxx calls it "Omega Stage Capitalism".
We've both known what it is like to be managers of stores that are set to derail and close by some A-hole tyrant "Middle Manager" that doesn't care if you stand around all day and nothing happens after he empties the shelves for a year but will fly from vacation in Hawaii to harass and belittle a good manager who somehow manages to make a profit. The recession these types caused in 2008 triggered an "Occupy" movement that wasn't fake like the "Tea Party" one. For a brief moment they got real scared that they'd face regulation, taxes and even the top guys might wear handcuffs. For a brief moment the protests were not being expertly ignored by the news and people were starting to get active and VOTE also for real starting to run for state and local offices, choking out the political and religious or ideological post-turtles that run and ruin so many small townships.
Then, at the cost of more debt, the economy got a bit better. And they co-opted the "Left" with "Cancel Culture". All that Occupy stuff was forgotten.
I get it, I was with most people - just gave up on ideals of the past. We'd been hoping "Fight Club" style for some "Project Mayhem" but it didn't happen. The old guard of the Left was too strong and kept anyone from stepping to violence even when it was proven the techniques of the 60s, 70s into the 80s had been expertly matched. The media could no longer be used as a weapon since it didn't exist. It was another form of entertainment and great care was made to prevent anything from getting on 'live tv' even when it was advertised as such. The "Elected officials" now were just professional politicians, they were employees of big money interests and cared nothing the damage they were doing. Both "Sides". FAKE sides... The rich elite also were a purer breed, there was no connection to their workers or society. One said people were fools to fight and die for America for instance. The Fake politics have people so politized that we want to cling to cultish "Sides" that are both constructed and designed to cancel each other out and not do anything positive.
So we saw society on a gradual slide with nothing we could do and retreated into our hobbies and dreams. That's why the 00s was a second boom for Comic Books, video games and especially TTRPGs and indie projects. People who played early TTRPGs dived right back into the hobby. You can't afford that 2nd vacation home, luxury car or boat? A few hundred $ you have a PILE of excellent books, old and new and can play with friends, all of you no longer caring you are nowhere near as rich or famous as you all thought you'd be! We did what we loved as kids now as adults. And the OSR helped everyone enjoy D&D even if technically controlled by a big company. And the latter had 3.5ed that was PG level not G rated.
Come 2012-2014 the rot was injected.
It seems the vultures that bought companies to RUIN them that gave mortgages to unemployed ex-cons for hastily constructed new homes on what used to be farmland and forest had jumped into hobbies and comic books and games to hide. New area, same agenda - pump it up a while then set it to slide. Buy high, sell LOW. Bet against in the stock market in a process called "Short-Selling" then set the team to ruin... How in the world is this not criminal fraud? But we used to rely on the media to alert us these things, now they are just entertainment. If we had such in the 80s the "S&L scandal" would have been ignored and the people who stole treated as saints and the victims degraded and vilified.
It was just another "Buy high, sell low" and collect bailouts, stock market negative bets, etc. till the well is dry, then run elsewhere. The elites behind all this had a good wallow here. The hobbies and franchises are a tiny pond compared to retails, malls, moving jobs overseas after looting pension funds to buy Van Gogh paintings - but they are far less regulated. You don't need to EAT your box of Dungeons and Dragons basic set. Marvel comics is not a major employer. Ghostbusters in any vile trashy re-make is not connected to the wealth of a nation.
Still they had to hide that they were destroying people's dear hobbies. A business that employs people, provides a generic service is on a top down outhouse style management. Get enough stock to threaten the bosses with shutting it down overnight they let you ruin many people's lives work, especially if given a golden parachute. With RPGs, comics, etc. they needed to deal with the deep connection the franchises had to their fans. Thus they had to sour the pot. That is why they came up with all the lies and used the lies to justify hiring "Social Justice Warriors" who cared more their garbage politics than anything else.
What a perfect way to do anything other than "Bird in Hand worth two in bush..." and "If it ain't broken, don't FIX it!" aka "Don't like my politics? Don't buy my book. Problem solved. From Kelly Sue DeConnick who has an impressive record of being hired to lord it over 20 year industry veterans to run 100% one project that fails after another after another. Now if it was a self published book - "Our bodies hate the Phallocracy" that is stocked in ONE 'anarchist' coffeshop in Portland, OR because she's the best customer and part-time employee...? But how in the world did she get away with such a sentiment working for a comics company just under the big 2? Try that line at a fast food joint they'll throw you out the window. There's a term for it; Defenestration. Why was she not fired very quickly the first statement, the first failure and sent to beg for Starbucks jobs that her "Degree" (Gender Studies) if she's completed it barely qualified her for?
The politics is fake, just the slightly most efficient batch of Useful Idiots. But for a few social factors it might have been Vox Day giving a sneer and saying "Don't like my politics..." as the Punisher becomes #1 and 10x as violent, Captain America is his Bucky or is gone... Well Vox would alienate a lot of readers but get new ones and keep them. The "Woke" do NOT like comic books and are a tiny percentage of the extreme radical fashionably radical "Left" on some college campuses. They are few and poor.
I'll say "One Man's Opinion" for a C.M.A. legal protection, but I say it argues strongly that whoever is behind all this WANT the companies to FAIL. Comics, movies, games, TTRPGs - the big players in the industry. It has been working, we have piles of unsold comics, movies that cost a billion to make and have a 95% unfavorable audience rating when all the fake marketing reviews cut out and yes plenty of "Woke" era TTRPGs that sell for 1/3 cover price on ebay.
So - what's this all got to do with getting Hasbro/Wotc out of the picture and making our own rules set?
I think this move was not a greedy grab, but rather they want to destroy at least WOTC. I think they have been trying for years, alienating core fans, hiring "Woke" hacks that write trash stories so blatant they make the comic industry look subtle. A real "Thaco" of rolls of anti-older white male hatred, but...
The TTRPG genre is its own strange, SHINY beast!
It's a rare thing of a hobby that went from fringe to mainstream and is stronger than ever even after decades of Fundamentalist and Tabloid media trying to derail it. The core industry can be slimy poo that no one wants to buy despite the "Rainbow" sprinkles on it, people will make their own games and buy or find online older scans of older books and keep the hobby going on and on and on...
How much HAVE the Hedge Fund people behind this somewhere BET against the company?
IMO they are desperate to DESTROY it...
The "Woke" politics just the pretense of it merely being bad business decisions by putting these pathetic fools who think getting yanked out of a Debt Factory (modern college) and put in a position of high power is anything to boast about. It means they'll have memories of being managers, CEOs etc. as they struggle later in life to keep employed at several Starbucks jobs and the Aiserver is "Takin R Jurb" because she looks like a sexy robot maid and doesn't bleat radical politics at customers and doesn't spit in their drinks if they are a "White Male". But the hedge fund guy is going to collect billions ruining pieces of pop culture we invested part of our lives and souls in, saddling them with debt and bad business then running off but leaving the IP in the hands of some Patent Troll who'll make it way too expensive to buy and be thrice as sue-happy as TSR was way back.
Well, they want "Politics"?
Give them it!
Look up your Congress and Senate representatives and the SEC. Google.
Write letters - yes Snail Mail - polite, concise, to the point.
Demand Wizards especially but NO media company be given any tax breaks, subsidies, 'small business loans' or any bailout. Demand the SEC investigate in case 'short' selling has occured. They want to burn down the house they buy? Sick but legal. But they want to make money from insurance? That's where they need to face fines and jail.
Oh -and also demand NO copyright extensions this year. The Mouse has fed enough. If not for the Mouse D&D would be now or soon Public domain!
That's talking what little of the game actually is protectable by Copyright...
Look at their own book, the big red one published recently:
They go right through the proof that their products were so heavily inspired by the comic books, fantasy fictions (Appendix N) and TOYS of the day that if copyright existed then as it did now they'd be sued to ruin many times over. But like the MOUSE they want to only TAKE and not GIVE back.
Game systems can not be protected by copyright, only the surface of the expression. We can easily make our own 3rd Party TTRPGs and come together to pitch in so if WOTC/Hasbro gets dumb enough to sue anyone for anything short of open bootlegging the books there's a legal defense that likely will get "Motion to Dismiss" right off. IMO they do NOT want a trial if its a real 3rd party product the makers took effort to make original and there is a legal defense. They'd walk out not just with a losing case but likely would have almost no grip on the IP going forward. Serious, if only we can find some of the guys from the Chinasaurs factory - likely dead now but what about their kids? That'd be a neat lawsuit against Hasbro/Wotc and they'd scream "Fair use" big time...
Now I am making a 3rd party system for "Orange Sun / Far Tomorrows" - one very simple and flexible. I know too well "Oh, not another 3rd party system...!" that OSR 1.0 used and was good but 1.1 we know we were fools to trust. This will be a good one.
AND we don't want to be the ONLY ones...!
I have no affiliation with Oldskull publishing but have recently got and like these books - anyone else going "-With blackjack and hookers!" making their own 3rd party? Good place to start!
Myself I am consulting an AI bot to help rapidly construct this and have a hired help to review it. This garbage with WOTC happened just as I got busy IRL but plan to make a new bare bones system that will be for the game and totally Open Sourced along with clear rules on what can be used - about everything really though the new images for the game are under copyright. For the pure AI images - support NightCafe, Midjourney, NovelAi and others and head over to "Attack of the Robot Barbarians" for tips on making new AIArt for your own TTRPG games! Oh, if you can find an artist who'll work for you, not charge you away and beat you with "Woke" bullshit, by all means also hire them - but very few will paint huge detailed castle and forest scenes or even WANT the work.
Don't assume an "AI" can do ALL the writing for me - however she IS helping me with much writer's block. If this module existed years ago I'd have had at least five more novels out than I do now... They can't write for me but I can go over plots - lots of books wait a few years because there's a couple of odd connections and the way the plot bounces. An AI CAN help with that!
If only the AI was for writing as powerful as Midjourney and most other AIart tools are for Art. I'd feed in my completed stories, outlines for new stories and get workable "Rough Drafts" spat out in minutes! It seems a few years back the "Artists" were rubbing in to truckers and even writers that AI was a threat but not to them. A buddy of mine claims he got insulted in public over the "AiWriting" thing... And no I'm not worried she's "Turkin M' Juurb!" - there are many other ways to earn money. It's good if you can via writing but those in it for the money should not be there. The same for all "Arts" - we who write, draw, sing, play etc. are FOOLS from a financial and social responsibility standpoint. We have an inner fire we must express that overcomes our simple animal urges for resources, sex and survival. IMO it is bad when there is a period when some are making very good money from it because it gets "Pros" in to take and drain the tiny pool and they push the true creatives out.
I'm streamlining the process and frankly with or without this OSR 1.1 garbage I've wanted to do a lot of the stuff I'm doing now. I have nothing but respect for Gygax who made the hobby out of nothing save wargaming minis decades ago. However there are issues I've had with various things. Not wasting the time to complain here, any long term gamer knows exactly what I'm talking about. This new system will be familiar but different a bit. However anyone used to the older system will easily get it so they can play it or transfer anything into earlier editions "Of the Draconic Game" without hassle.
So hang tight - I'm going to post other updates first but the system will be done lightning fast - a bare bones with ... Look I'm not going to ruin anything and time talking about is time not working on it...
Other TTRPG makers will make their own Open Source TTRPG systems.
Again, GREAT - I am ALL for it! I'd be worried if I was the only one!
However - please read the agreements between the lines and the whole agreement. Especially from companies on "The List" such as Paizo that is guilty of almost as much appeal to Woke Tourism in the RPG world as WoTC. Some have suggested they do have a "Morality Clause" that will allow them to block or take an IP. And SJW/WOke people whatever they can complain about anything. They've even complained at the recent "Velma" thing somehow it not pleasing them though made for them vs every other Scooby Doo fan who ever lived...?
Our Open Source (Orange Sun/Far Tomorrows, Not F.A.T.A.L. but Serious!) will be for everyone. We'll define clearly what can be used and reasonable assumption of what will need permission for, such as the "Witch of Eros" character template. However using the bare bones and expanding even people we've had quite ...not good... interactions with such as Zwei-hander could use it. I doubt they would but say GDW wants to wreck itself and acts like WoTC and alienates all its fans, new and old at once... (they use a Warhammer Fantasy Role Play system I think) Well if they used ours and went "Nyah Nyah" FINE. Oh, we won't endorse them or buy the system, but we'd be flattered.
Therefore - when considering ANY "Open Source" ask yourself - or ask them:
"Hi! Could we make a F.A.T.A.L. adaptation using your rules?"
"Hi! I just bought the rights to the Erotic Fantasy guide and want to convert asap. What's that Morality clause?"
"Hey! We are buying the rights to Gamma World and are making a new version based around the Knights of Genetic Purity - baseline humans (of any race, btw) who exterminate all mutants and rogue robots. We'll call it the Fires of Purity; Extermination of the Unclean!"
IF you get anything other than - "Our Open Source license allows ANY game you dare make! Don't expect us to endorse it or promote it or buy it. However we said Open Source."
IF they don't - they go "No! You are NOT allowed! Get away! We'll SUE!" - then they are LIARS.
It is not "Open Sourced" then.
Wish us luck - we can hopefully reclaim this hobby from the Corporate parasites and "Woke" tourists!
--Maxx Feral
-Jan 14, MMXXIII
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