Scott Ruggels

Apparently, WoTC has failed Market Research 101. Their survey of recent changes may pull One D&D on a different direction. 
 

Welp, they are heading for the life boats. This just dropped.  
 
https://koboldpress.com/raising-our-flag/
 
As we look ahead, it becomes even more important for our actions to represent our values. While we wait to see what the future holds, we are moving forward with clear-eyed work on a new Core Fantasy tabletop ruleset: available, open, and subscription-free for those who love it—Code Name: Project Black Flag. 

Honestly I’m kind of excited. Aside from new players possibly finding Hero, this will inspire all kinds of new systems with new and interesting mechanics. I just feel bad for people who made their living under the OGL and are now looking at having their work straight up stolen by WotC. 

This time he has 3 female characters treating him as the buffoonish sidekick, so its different, you see.

Welp, they are heading for the life boats. This just dropped.  
 
https://koboldpress.com/raising-our-flag/
 
As we look ahead, it becomes even more important for our actions to represent our values. While we wait to see what the future holds, we are moving forward with clear-eyed work on a new Core Fantasy tabletop ruleset: available, open, and subscription-free for those who love it—Code Name: Project Black Flag. 

I wouldn't say I'm burned out, but the overall direction of the MCU toward a pervasive comedic tone is a turnoff for me. As an old fart, I also dislike the studio's reliance on mining comic story lines from this millennium, which I've often found to be lackluster.

Oh, I think mutants can be used effectively as a symbol for other anxieties. I just think they don't work very well as an allegory for racism, and only marginally better as an allegory for homophobia.
 
In part this is because allegory is by its nature heavy-handed. Symbols are shiftier. They ask questions but are not so much insist on the answers.
 
For me, the most effectivde symbolic use for mutants is: Our children are not like us. And they have powers we do not comprehend, such as navigating social media on smartphones. (Back in my day it was programming VCRs.) And they will supplant us and take over the world. So how do you feel about that? Some people hind this hopeful. Many people find it terrifying.
 
Dean Shomshak

Violent Night is now on my Christmas movie list. An odd mix of Die Hard, Home alone, and Hallmark
 
 

OSR has been my go-to for a solid decade now. Hero was in regular cycle up until 2009, and I ran an on/off game for a short while in 2015 but these days it is mostly a nostalgic memory, though I still collect books on occasion and sometimes think about how to build this or that.
 
That said, with Hasbro going cancelling the OGL I'm shopping for new game systems. Two days ago I sat down and read some Hero books for the first time in a while. Time will tell where I end up. Maybe I'll try to 5E demo for some newbies and see how it goes.

Right but regarding Hero specifically we’re back to the fact that in Hero you still need to build a game to play the game. I see a major draw of OSR is simplicity to pick up and play. Hero needs a basic sample game that can be picked up and play.

Purina?

I'm guessing it would, or that similar reasoning would apply, but I can't be bothered to watch youtube videos most of the time.
 
Honestly for all the controversy around AI art, ChatGPT is far more interesting (and frightening).  ChatGPT can write fiction.  It can write essays.  It can write news reports (factual, slanted, or otherwise).  It can write code.  It can write malware.  It can write legislation.  The ramifications with ChatGPT are far more serious than deepfakes and starving artists (which are quite serious in and of themselves).

THe world of illustration has been roiled these past four months by the release of Dall-E, and Stable Diffusion since.  Charges of art theft, due to the researchers scraping publiucally posted art, and photographs, up to 5 billion images, without regards to ownership, and getting to the point, that the text prompts can specify a certain artist's style, have generated protests on gallery sites and concept art boards, across the net. However, a court precedent has decided that only humans and human generated art can be protected.  Therefore A.I. generated art, is automatically in the public domain.
 
 

This was how things were done in the days before sixth edition. In third addition, the package deals didn’t balance, and encouraged people to take them by being “bargains”. I much prefer that method as Encouraged players To take skills, and perks, that they would not otherwise purchase for efficiency sake.

Wont lie:
 
I used to play a _lot_ of GW stuff over the years; I thoroughly enjoyed a great deal of it, to include the original Warhammer FRPG.
 
Then they came along with Warhammer 40k-- or as my wife calls it: "Catholic Traveller"-- and I didnt much like it.  The lore was the biggest turn off, honestly, official or otherwise.  Then the board game- him, I mean, tactical miniatures far-future science fiction warfare simulation game (the "Crusades" for Catholic Traveller), and I liked that even less.
 
I kept thinking "well, let's see what they come up with next."  That turned out to be lore up on lore upon lore, and they essentially put all their eggs in that one basket, and I have come to the point that I just dont like eggs anymore. 
 
I don't expect that to change: it is clearly making money for them, as the fans love to buy, assemble, paint, and battle their yugi-o fight--uh, miniatures, and let's face it: if you want a gloriously-painted mini, you take it to a warhammer guy, period.
 
 
still, I do miss seeing Games Workshop printed on a box and that excitement it used to bring me, and how quickly I would snap up the box to read the back.
 
Now I am happiest that the logo is so bold and vibrant: it's like a caution sign telling me to leave it alone.
 
now when I hear someone menrion them at a game store I like to ask "Oh-- aren't they the guys that killed White Dwarf?"
 
The very rare chuckle from someone in the shelves is always worth it.