#hasbro does anything in general

[switch]

hasbro i’m going to beat you to death

[goldeaglefire1]

excuse me for one moment. I need to expose all the non-Transformers fans to the name overlap between Beast Wars and G1 because some of these examples are so fucking funny

"what are you talking about" glad you asked! you see, all the way back in the 90s, Transformers was actually dangerously close to getting canned entirely because after Generation 1 - that being the original toyline and cartoon - Hasbro attempted to continue the success with what they called Generation 2, and it sold like ass. Beast Wars was the solution to that issue, and it worked! the toys sold exceptionally well, the cartoon was well-received, everyone lived happily-ever after

except. because Beast Wars was an effort to revive the franchise it was effectively treated as a soft reboot. it was not a reboot (keep that in mind for later) but the people naming the characters weren't afraid to use names that were already used for G1 characters. this makes things exceptionally funny in hindsight considering how wildly different these characters can be from the original Transformer with their name

now. come along with me. let's journey through these name overlaps together.

going in no particular order (well maybe SOME order because I'm saving the funniest bit for last), let's start off with Scorponok

now, Scorponok is a name that kinda got passed around like a blunt later on in the Transformers series, but we're just focusing on the Beast Wars and G1 versions since that's the important comparison here. so! In Beast Wars, Scorponok is more or less your basic evil goon. guy who goes "you got it boss!" and then fucks it up immediately in comedic fashion. classic. so what did the original Scorponok do exactly?

well, you see, G1 Scorponok was the rival to Fortress goddamn Maximus. If you don't know who that is - which, honestly, is probably most of you - that is the Transformer who, and I cannot emphasize this enough, turns into an entire city. There are several of those fuckers but Fort Max is like. the OG guy who turns into a city. and G1 Scorponok was meant to be his rival.

so, I have to say, dear god can you imagine the amount of pressure that's on BW Scorponok. imagine sharing a name with the guy who regularly fistfought an actual fucking city. insane.

moving on, Silverbolt!

In Beast Wars, Silverbolt is a guy who turns into a wolf-eagle hybrid ("what-" toyline gimmick don't worry about it) who acts like a chivalrous knight with very clear cut black and white views - which, considering his teammates include Rattrap, the guy who gleefully uses every dirty trick in the book to pull ahead of the stronger, tougher Predacons, and [[REDACTED]], who defected from the Predacons but is still perfectly willing to use their methods from time to time, makes for. interesting conversations! anyway, G1 Silverbolt is the guy in charge of the Aerialbots, those guys being a combiner team who forms Superion, who is. The first big Autobot combiner I'm fairly sure? I don't actually know anything about G1 Silverbolt besides that I apologize to all the Aerialbot fans

speaking of guys who were named after combiner components! Rampage!

hooooooo BOY does Beast Wars Rampage make a fucking impression. result of a Maximal experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong, before the entire plot of the show happened he was given to out main cast of do-gooders with the explicit instructions of "please just dump him on a rock in space somewhere where he can't kill people or eat people or BOTH because we can't fucking kill him and we want him very far away from us." unfortunately, the plot happens, and Rampage breaks loose, causing everyone involved to have a very bad day, only punctuated when Megatron manages to get him nominally on the side of the Predacons by cutting his heart in half and putting said half in a cage he could squeeze as a sort of "leash."

this is the basics, by the way. I haven't even gotten into the whole ass guy who comes to prehistoric Earth specifically to kill Rampage. like. my god. there really isn't anything G1 Rampage can do to compare to whatever the fuck BW Rampage has going on aside from being part of Predaking. or possibly some IDW thing I'm not aware of

moving on from all that, Inferno!

now you might have noticed that up until now that, while the designs and personalities between the Beast Wars characters and the G1 characters can be drastically different, the Beast Wars characters tend to be on the equivalent of whatever faction the G1 character was on - i.e. Maximals for Autobots, Predacons for Decepticons. and then with Inferno, the G1 guy is a fire truck, clearly heroic, while the Beast Wars guy is...some sort of horrific ant man. so, what's going on there?

well, you see, in Beast Wars, Inferno is a Predacon who, due to a glitch in his programming, actually thinks he's an ant, and sees the Predacons as his colony (this also results in him she/her-ing Megatron on a regular basis by referring to him as "my Queen." this isn't relevant to anything I just thought you should know). this means he tends to charge in with zero regard for his safety because. y'know. ant mentality. meanwhile, G1 Inferno...well I know nothing about him, but, according to the wiki page, he apparently also does this, not because of the ant thing, but because he's just like that. Honestly, good for him

now, before we get to the funniest example, I would like to make an honorable mention to Megatron, the only guy with an actual reason for the name overlap

see, remember what I said about Beast Wars still taking place in the G1 continuity? Beast Wars Megatron is the first time that really comes into play because what I haven't mentioned before now is that for most of these guys, the names being the same as a G1 character is purely a coincidence because they were Protoforms at the start of the series - those being effectively blank slates/baby equivalents for Transformers - and started their lives on Earth, meaning the references to previous Transformers are purely coincidental. even homicidal crab man cannibal Rampage only got a proper name on Earth, being called "Protoform X" before then. sole exception to this rule is Scorponok, who was part of the Predacons from the start...and Megatron

"so is he the same guy as G1 Megatron? you said it's the same continuity as G1 so he's the same right" that's the fun part! he isn't! he very much is not G1 Megatron, he just looked at the OG and went "you know what. I want to do what you did. godspeed" and then he named himself after that guy. coincidentally, Megatron is also the name of a figure in the Convenant of Primus, AKA the Transformers equivalent of the Bible, which was completely made up for the Beast Wars cartoon and I'm convinced was introduced solely so they could say "hey our villain named himself after his religion's equivalent of the antichrist. and also may or may not be that antichrist due to time travel shenanigans" ("when did time travel get involved-" don't worry about it)

now, onto the funniest name overlap of all

mr. [[REDACTED]] himself

Dinobot

now, to be clear, Dinobot is one of the most popular characters to come out of the Beast Wars franchise. He's well known for his gradual change from "technically a good guy mostly because he hates Megatron's ass, he has a code of honor, and nothing else" to "honorable hero with one of the most heartbreaking death scenes in all of Transformers" over the course of his screentime, and is in fact so popular that he was the third Beast Wars character to get a Masterpiece figure - Masterpiece figures being incredibly complex Transformers figures that boast show accuracy in both forms and typically have the price range of a small kidney - with the first two being Cheetor and Optimus Primal. If you didn't get the implications of that, that means Dinobot managed to beat out Beast Wars Megatron for getting a Masterpiece toy first. MEGATRON. Again, might be a different guy from G1, but he is a Megatron! Still the main villain of the damn show! Says a lot that Dinobot was popular enough to get a toy first. I could go on, but I need to get back to the point - what's so funny about the name overlap here?

well. if you're even tangentially familiar with transformers, you might actually be able to guess this one!

no, seriously! this isn't a "geologists overestimating how much their audience knows about geology" moment, because if nothing else, the leader of these guys ("these guys?" shhhhhhh) is one of the most popular Transformers out there. if I may be so bold, I'd argue that after Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron, and Starscream, the leader's name is like. one of the first Transformers characters who comes to mind. if nothing else I imagine you've seen a picture of this guy at some point

...

alright, ready to see if you were right?

3, 2, 1...

eeeeeeyup, the name overlap is with an entire subgroup of Autobots, and not only that, but one of the most popular subgroups of Autobots, led by one of the most popular Transformers of all time: Grimlock

and like. the Dinobots don't really have the whole "gradual redemption" "tragic hero" thing going on but they do have the ability to tickle the five year old within everyone's brain because their characters can be summarized as "caveman robots who turn into robot dinosaurs" and if that didn't cause said five year old in your brain to go "holy shit" you are actively lying to yourself. so it's very understandable why they're popular.

the funny part is that because Dinobot shares a name with the Dinobots, the latter of whom are more popular and will get priotity, every Transformers writer since Beast Wars has effectively been locked out of making their own version of Dinobot, and I imagine there has been at least one guy cursing out whoever decided to give the bot who would be Dinobot a name that overlaps so heavily with other popular characters. the most he's shown up outside of the original cartoon is in the War for Cybertron cartoon (which. I'll be honest I've heard very little about and haven't watched myself but what I have heard is "it's bad" so that hasn't been encouraging) and the IDW comics. and that's it. while any sane person would count those as their own continuities, by Hasbro's logic they're the same universe as G1, so like. if we go by Habsro logic he hasn't even shown up anywhere beyond G1. which is insane given how popular he is - again, see "third Beast Wars character to get a Masterpiece, beating the local Megatron," and did I mention that one time he won the Transformers Hall of Fame in Botcon 2010 purely by fan vote. because he did do that. I guarantee you that the only reason Dinobot has not shown up more is because of that name overlap. The group of Dinobots may be more popular but I have to imagine there's at least one guy at Hasbro fuming over not being able to make money off of Dinobot (the character) toys outside of shit like the Legacy toyline

and like, while I do wish Dinobot would show up more, the thought of that is extremely funny

[littlemisstfc]

We All Owe Jake Foushee An Apology: Why I Don't Like VA Fanbases

Hello, Hola, こんにちは。

Welcome back to this side of the Hundred Acre Woods and I wanna ruin lunch today. You can thank Harriyanna Hook for that last bit akskskskksks. 

If you know me by now, you know that I have the utmost respect for voice actors, especially those who embrace their roles in various Transformers media. They were the voices of our childhoods for a reason, and they deserve much better from the film and tv industry. I don’t have the generous feeling towards their hardcore stans. 

Unfortunately, like everyone who has achieved a level of fame and success, their fanbases has a mix of good, sane fans and fans that make Misery look like a Disney movie. For some reason, when it comes to voice actors and Transformers, a good chunk of the fanbase has an overzealous mentality of, “there could only be ONE voice actor for one character.” If you know where this is going, you are correct. I am calling out the Peter Cullen stans today. 

3, 2, 1, Pingu.

Bad Voice Direction Was The Problem, Not The Voice Actor

Before y’all ask, no, nothing happened to either Peter or the subject of today’s blog post today. This is just something I have been thinking about for a while now.

Do not get me wrong: Peter Cullen is a very kind and caring man who deserves all the accolades and praise for his work in Transformers for the past 39 years. Having met him in person earlier this year felt like meeting Santa Claus. He was genuinely that amazing. However…his fanbase is something else. The best comparison I could think of at the top of my head is the Beyhive, aka Beyonce’s fanbase. Like, at the same time, I’ve seen the best and very worst of this fanbase. The good is that I have made friends and acquaintances that share the same appreciation and adoration I have for PeePaw. The bad is that I have seen people who legitimately worship the ground this man stands on and will do anything to maintain him as the one and only Optimus Prime. Like, within a couple of new years, every time there’s a new Transformers show, take a good guess which part of the fandom shows up the most in the comments section, specifically when there’s an Optimus Prime.

“That’s not Peter Cullen, wtf.”

“I want Peter Cullen as this Optimus.”

“This new Optimus’ voice sucks, I want Peter Cullen back.”

These are the best summaries I can come up with when it comes to how y’all react whenever there is a new voice actor for Optimus Prime. Y’all did it with David Kaye when Animated came around, y’all did it with Alan Tudyk when Earthspark came around, but these pale in comparisons to truly the most crazy, awful moment when shit hits the fan: Jake Foushee, when Cybeverse and the WFC Trilogy came around.

For those who do not know who Jake Foushee is, he was the voice actor of Optimus Prime in Transformers Cyberverse and the War for Cybertron Trilogy. Before he was casted, he gained a fanbase due to his Optimus Prime impression and work as a Vine creator. In fact, it was an interview on the Ellen show that got him casted as Prime in the first place. The only off thing about his casting is that John Hasbro didn’t want to hire union voice actors for these two Transformers shows. Like…they damn well have the money to pay their voice actors, that’s something I’ll still hold John Hasbro accountable for to this day. Anyways, back to the main topic. I remember back when Cyberverse and the WFC Trilogy were airing, I see a surprising amount of people who harbor extreme reactions towards Jake Tillman’s voice acting as Optimus in these shows. 

“The voice actor sucks as Optimus.”

“Ewww, wtf. This is just a bad impersonation.”

“Why won’t Hasbro bring back the REAL voice of Optimus Prime?”

Again, these are simply paraphrases of genuinely nasty ass comments about Jake that basically screams They Changed It, Now It Sucks. Notice that last paraphrase here. What does this remind you of? I’ll give you three seconds.

If you guess correctly, you are correct. A good chunk of the hate towards this voice actor is from the hardcore Peter Cullen purists, aka the #BringBackPeterCullen crowd. Like…did y’all forget the basic value of, “if you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all”? It’s not that fucking hard to say gross shit like this, like you’d be surprised at how many people often forget that these voice actors are real people. They’re real people who will read your hate comments, who will be hurt by your hate comments, and who will be discouraged from doing what they love because of your hate comments. When it comes to moments like this, it seems like y’all forgot the elephant in the room: the voice direction and script.

Cyberverse and the WFC Trilogy are a great way to show how much potential Jake Foushe has and how it will go wrong if it’s in the hands of a bad voice director and script. Cyberverse showed how utterly phenomenal Jake is as Optimus. In the first season, yeah, it was a bit rough around the edges. However, as the show goes on, he was given the direction to be himself rather than be a hardcore impression. His voice as Optimus has improved and it felt natural by the time we get to, “The Perfect Decepticon.” Compare his vocal performance in the third episode of Season One and the finale. It’s like day and night in the best ways.

However…then there’s the WFC Trilogy. For some reason, the voice direction and script set out to undermine Jake Foushee and the other voice actors of these shows as much as they can. As a result, it became the impression that y’all were quick to condemn Jake for. It felt like whoever was in charge of the voice acting for these three shows did not care about the implications of what they were doing with the voice direction. As a result, the nasty ass comments came and it eventually boiled to a point where after these shows ended, he doesn’t bring up his roles in them. I don’t blame him if it has something to do with the huge fan backlash to his casting as Optimus Prime.

Think Before You Speak: Fandom Brain Rot is A Curse

At this point, y’all just need to give up the whole #BringBackPeterCullen thing. It’s fine to feel upset over John Hasbro not giving him the respect he deserves around the hiring non union era. It’s fine to feel upset over John Hasbro not even bothering to ask him if he would like to come back as Optimus. However, it does not give you the excuse to be a shitty person towards whoever’s voicing Optimus in a new Transformers show. Sometimes, a new voice actor is necessary depending on the characterization and age a show is going with Optimus. Don’t worry about Peter. He still got the movies under his belt and there will be another show with him soon. I guarantee it. There’s no way that John Hasbro is gonna miss out on bringing him back.

In the meantime, we need to be better when it comes to whoever will be the next Optimus Prime. A part of the reason why I dreaded the announcement of the voice cast for Transformers: One is because of fans like these ones. Like, some of y'all forgot how to be decent human beings when your fav is not voiced by your fav voice actor. It has gotten to the point of being genuinely irritating. 

You may be asking what is the point of this entire blog post. The point is that time and time again, we have forgotten that voice actors are human beings too. This type of fan dumb needs to stop. Y’all did it before and y’all are doing it now with annoying shit like change.org petitions and angry fan letters. At this point, Imma about to say this:

We all owe Jake Foushee an apology big time.

Even if you don’t like his voice acting, you have to at least see something with the points I’ve made here. It will continue to rinse and repeat unless we put our feet down and stop it. We need to be more welcoming and encouraging to new talent who have big shoes to fill in. Having respect and adoration towards the veterans of Transformers while also respecting and being open to new talent who have the potential to co-exist. These are not two mutually exclusive things.

We all owe Jake Foushee an apology. 

Till All Are One: A Lesson To Be Learned

As Cyberverse Week is coming in a few days, I need to make my point very clear as one of the biggest Cyberverse fans out here. Sometimes, the new may be just as good as the old. I always have the hope of seeing Jake one day at a convention such as TFCon, especially since he voiced my second favorite Optimus ever. 

I'm glad that more people are starting to realize that the backlash against whoever voices Optimus Prime in a new show is just plain dumb. Imagine my relief when I Tweeted a bit about this topic the other way on Twitter and saw a lot of people agreeing with how awful the backlash against Jake Foushee is.

We need to do better as a fandom. It starts with unpacking our biases and be open to change. Transformers is a franchise that revolves around robotical organisms that change, yet ironically the fandom doesn't like change.

Still, I won't let that affect my perception of voice actors in the franchise. I encourage you all to not send any hate messages to any voice actor and be open to change. I may not change everyone's minds, but I hope it gave you all something to think about.

Anyways, Pingu.

[thegiftofgabes]

The Gift of Dice - Intro Post

I am Gabriel Caetano (they/them), and I am a queer, Latine parent, TRPG creator, audio producer, and game facilitator (aka GM) from Brazil.

Roleplaying Games

I make tabletop Roleplaying Games, as well as TTRPG-adjacent experiences.

I like fantasy, science fantasy, and weird fantasy the most and I have been more and more invested in looking at games as enablers of social experimentation and questioning.

I like to say that every game I make is a product of excellent taste and developing skill.

You can find my games at https://thegiftofdice.itch.io/

Indie Games Facilitator for Hire

I run and facilitate (aka GM) roleplaying games as a gig.

I have over 100 session under my belt, and growing, and a large catalogue of indie, alternative games to facilitate for players anywhere out there in the world, including Masks, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Nibiru, Apocalypse Keys, Noctis Labyrinth, Troika!, Blades in the Dark, CBR+PNK, and many more.

You can browse through the dates I setup, or make a custom request.

Politics and Ethics

All TTRPG content has a price tag, except when I think it shouldn't, and all of them should have alternate methods of access for anyone who does not enjoy the privilege of earning dollars, euros, pounds, and other hegemon currencies.

Yet, non-white people, non-het, and non cis-male people anywhere who cannot afford to buy anything I make without putting their safety and well-being financially are welcome to get my stuff for free, one way or another.

I also offer seats for free or at a greatly reduced fee to people in the Global South, where the dollar exchange would make access to my game sessions absolutely crushing.

None of the content I create is compatible with Hasbro or Paizo products, or products by any company or individual that shares their ethics and predatory approach to industrializing an art form, on principle.

Additionally I do not use or rely on artificially generated content to create my games or run my sessions.

Game Design Principles

I've come across this game design manifesto and I've decided to adopt it for my own game design as best as I can and let it evolve as I grow as a game designer and writer.

against coercion: a game design manifesto by JPLeBreton

let players wonder about things and trust them to find answers;

connect players with patterns they find intrinsically fulfilling;

never treat a number going up as an inherently positive or meaningful even;

teach respect for the autonomy and boundaries of all things;

posit alternatives to fantasies of accumulation and extraction;

do not think of emotional responses as something you extract from players;

produce and distribute ethically;

aspire to more than escape.

Whether I'll succeed or fail at following these principles, or even how they will evolve over time, all I can say is let's play to find out.

Kindly, Gabriel Caetano

[plinkopie]

STEP RIGHT UP!!! STEP RIGHT UP!!! ASK ME (PINKIE D PIE) your most BURNING and IMPORTANT questions!!!

ASK ME or any of my friends your most prodding, invasive, and deeply personal questions!! I can't speak for everypony here, but I'm an open book!! I'll tell you anything you wanna know!! What's my sign? I'm a Taurus! What's my favorite food? Cupcakes!!! How do you whip up a perfect meringue? Room temperature eggs and LOTS of elbow grease!!

Enjoy your stay!!!

(OOC) howdy!! this is my pinkie pie askblog, created in the year of our lord 2023. i've wanted to make one of these since way back when the pony fandom was at its peak. askblogs are certainly out of fashion, but i thought to myself "hm. who cares. do what makes you happy" so here i am! :)

general content warning:

i was raised by my little pony creepypasta, so there will definitely be references to cupcakes, smile HD, and general early 2010s pinkamena diane pie activities. I'll be keeping it largely nongraphic and implied, but if I do end up getting the urge or an ask that inclines towards the grimdark side of things, I won't be shying away from them. I'll make sure to tag things like blood, gore, and horror elements and apply the 'mature' community label if and when it does come up.

pinkie pie is very excitable!!! this means there will be an overuse of exclamation points, CAPS LOCK, and keysmashes. she will be based around my personal interpretations and headcanons, so while she won't be entirely ooc (she is like a sister to me), she will go a little bit offbrand occasionally.

i am NOT affiliated with hasbro.

to find me, Fry, the creator of the blog, elsewhere: simply click here

[cleverthylacine]

I'm not well versed in Transformers, but who is your favorite Autobot? What's one thing that if Hasbro called you up right now and said they would do whatever you suggested, you tell them?

My favourite Autobot is easy because I don't like most of them very much. I love Decepticons.

It's either Jazz or Ratchet or Rodimus, depending on the phase of the moon and whether my brain is in RavWaves mode or Deadlock mode.

Jazz and Ratchet and Rodimus are all people who probably would have been Decepticons if it weren't for a stroke of fate.

I also love Rosanna, but she's a civilian and she's been in like 3 things, one of which almost everyone hates.

The problems with Autobots:

they tend to use the same colour schemes which makes them hard to tell apart

many of them are boring af

the Decepticon movement was a legitimate revolution against an extremely bigoted and oppressive government, and the Autobots were the liberals who patted them on the hand and said "we can do this the nice way" even though most of them were from social classes that were literally disposable.

some of them are fucking fascists

some of them are just such goodie two shoes rule bound characters you have to laugh (Star Saber in anything other than IDW was probably the robot version of Sheldon Cooper once)

It's really only in TFA that I don't think Optimus Prime is a giant hypocrite. I don't hate him. I think he's an awesome character. I enjoy him a lot! I also write a lot of fic where he gets his aft handed to him, at least verbally.

But I don't really sympathise with him. Because even when he's unfailingly sweet, like in TFP, he's still...a part of the problem, not the solution.

In some series the Decepticons did become horrible and genocidal, which is wrong, of course, but that led in IDW at least to both sides playing atrocity chicken.

In other series the Decepticons are anti-human mostly because we're in their way and we like the Autobots. In the Bumblebee movie they never even wanted to come here, but they had to--it is Prime's fault that their war came to Earth.

If Hasbro was willing to do whatever I said I would ask them to create a series of all the femme characters most people don't know about. And not make them teeny tiny Core Class dolls. (I own a few of them because they're cute, but.)

I would get them to include Ravage now that ES has confirmed her for a femme. (She is ACAB, assigned cat at birth.)

This would also include:

Esmeral, who should really be a leaderclass because her husband is the size of a small planet (from the Victory manga)

General Strika, who is the least feminine female character in all of transformers and a butch goddess of war (from TFA and Beast Machines)

Botanica because she's cool AF

Rosanna and her evil twin Flipsides (Rosanna's in KP but both of them are in... TFA, I thought? For a heartbeat.)

Howlback (done like her twin sister Ravi, with biped-to-quad transformation that does not involve extra limbs hanging off, because both MMC and Xtransbots have done it just fine) from the Cobalt Sentries who never got a show

Lyzack (from Victory -- the twin sister of Leozack who defends the home front and is a teal and pink seeker)

Nautica (from the IDW comics, who is the most adorable of nerds even if she is Ravage's unwanted aemula/kismesis/hatecrush until they make friends)

the Megatronia combiner which includes Megaempress, Trickdiamond, Lunaclub, Flowspade and Moonheart)

Minerva (yes there's a legacy but it's tiny and they made it a walgreens exclusive)

Clobber (from Cyberverse)

Nightbird (G1 not ROTB)

Termagax (Megatron's mom from the IDW 2019 series)

I have nothing against Elita-1, Arcee, Windblade, Chromia, Moonracer and Slipstream but some people can name hundreds of male characters and only those six and not even all of them.

If I was also G-d of the Transformers franchise as a whole, I would revive Kiss Players, cut out all the bad sex jokes and dropped panties of teenagers, rename a few things -- we do not need a base called "the spiral vagina" -- and take the plot we were actually given in between sex jokes, which was very cool, and write it all out as a comic/story/cartoon. They did the plot in the last few episodes of the radio show after kind of leading up to it very slowly between dirty jokes.

Everyone says Kiss Players is the worst thing Transformers ever made. I'm sorry, that's RID 2015, which is a Transformers show for the "Blue Lives Matter" crowd where the entire plot of the show is to find all these low-class Decepticons who are from denigrated castes that escaped from a prison ship and throw them all back in jail. Like seriously fuck you very much.

I will take perverted panty jokes over asskissing the cops any day. Besides some of the stuff that looks so bad and gross looks so bad and gross because it is--you're not supposed to be down with it, you're supposed to guess that a certain person is being groomed looooong before she figures it out. and the main human characters are actually Secretly Lesbians

I'm sorry this is way more info than you asked for but this is my main hyperfixation other than thylacines, fossas, small wild cats that can't eat you, and other cute weird predators.

[neonriser]

For those who can't see the screenshot post, for whatever reason it may be:

@sillyrookie posted:

Ok, since @hairiclilred asked, I'll start my dumb rant.

Over here in the US, the videogame market fell off a cliff in 1983 due to a reckless oversaturated market flooded with low quality dreck that killed player interest. So many unsold Atari games ended up filling landfills.

Revenue dropped by 97%. It was catastrophic. Videogames died in America for a couple years due to short-sighted business decisions by major corporations.

The American market was revitalized when Nintendo came over and instituted limits to third parties to keep quality up, while also ensuring that quality was their brand. America only has a video game market today because of Nintendo.

I think the current environment of constant remakes, mergers, layoffs, diminishing returns on blockbuster products, and corps thinking they can use "AI" to regurgitate their once valuable IP will cause a similar crash.

What I find interesting is how many classic IP will end up dying in the wake of this.

At the moment so many distinguished studios with established IP are getting bought up by corps, only to lay off the workers and shutter the studios.

The workers don't just lose their jobs, they lose the IP they created. Even if the team can regroup, they can't use the stuff they made anymore. The IP dies with the studio.

So stuff like this makes me feel like we're right at the brink of a collapse that will kill ALOT of once profitable IP when audiences are made sick and tired of alot of stuff they used to love.

These IP owners don't understand the products they own, the workers that make it, and the audience that buy it; and many in the c-suite have actual contempt for all three things.

When an IP stops being profitable, corps shut it down, lock it away unless somebody has the capital to buy it from them.

The only thing they understand is that an old movie made by humans generated billions of profits for them because an audience enjoyed it, and instead of taking new risks it's "better" business short term to just rehash the stuff that made money before. And if they expect "generative AI" to make more content even faster, expect a sea of endless remakes, each shittier than the last one.

Things are bad now, and they're gonna get way worse real fast.

I expect a cultural massacre. What does that look like?

It's obviously a different world today than the 1980s, but Nintendo's core business ideology has stayed consistent, and they'll weather a AAA crash with no problem because they don't play the AAA space at all.

They make a sustainable lower-tech console that's sold at a profit (the traditional model before the Wii was to make a powerful console and sell it at a loss so that you made your money on software sales) and their brand still means quality even 40 years later. Not every game they do is amazing, but their batting average is high and they go out of their way to avoid dropping anything half-baked.

I think every other industry is gonna need their own Nintendos to rise from the ashes. The more I learned about the history of the industry, the more respect I have for them.

And they are NOT perfect. But it the broad strokes they're the example I think most should follow to have a sustainable industry that keeps everyone happy.

Heck, I'll define "everyone happy:"

Artists properly paid, having job security, and able to BE creative.

Players having quality games to enjoy.

Businesses being sustainable for the long term, properly using the revenue from successes to experiment with new ideas, and not screwing anyone over.

[Image: Sonic saying "I WANT SHORTER GAMES WITH WORSE GRAPHICS MADE BY PEOPLE WHO ARE PAID MORE TO WORK LESS AND I'M NOT KIDDING".]

If the collapse I'm imagining does actually happen, the only possible thing to grow out of it are new IP from all the artists that got laid off.

New stuff would be the only things coming out for a while and the only things people want if the big franchises burned them out.

Depending on how audience sentiment is by that point, public domain stuff might become suspect as well, which is also an interesting scenario to me.

I think about how the current remake ecosystem is targeted at millennials (which I am) while the pendulum is already set to swing in the other direction.

Sorry for not talking about this part first. 😂

74% of that survey wants new stuff. The major IP holders are about to commit suicide if they go through with the "AI will make us 30 remakes per second" scheme.

One thing I hope DOESN'T happen is a backlash against honesty in the creative process.

We were culturally at a point where the average joe could understand that new ideas don't come from nowhere and are all mutations of old ideas.

Game of Thrones exists because Lord of the Rings came first, which owes it's existence to Norse myth and Beowulf, ect ect.

We're at the point where youtubers make games out of seeing what a song sampled from, the references a movie made, on and on.

But right now a popular spiel from "AI" charlatans to justify IP theft is the assertion that there's no difference between stealing copyrighted media for an LLM to regurgitate and a human being inspired by the ideas and experience they felt from another creator's work and creating a new thing under the established rules of copyright. It's a lie, but it keeps getting repeated to justify theft.

As the scam cycle winds down, I think they might be poisoning the discourse in a lasting way. We could go back to people lying about how ideas work, and that has only negative effects on human expression as a whole.

I want a world where everyone understands the difference between inspiration and a ripoff and can appreciate human creation better than previous generations have. We were right there before the scammers showed up.

So yeah, another rant out of me. 😂

So when people want new IP, they also need to understand what it means that Dragonball was a goofy parody of Journey to the West.

Dragonball is alot of things, it's inspirations are loud and obvious (even the Terminator is in there), but it's also a unique work created through the mind of one talented individual that nobody else could have made, because nobody else was Akira Toriyama, and ALL the subsequent works inspired by Dragonball (One Piece, Naruto, Hero Academia, Sonic the Hedgehog, ect) are their own original works that stand on their own, but still owe their existence to Toriyama's work as much as he owes his work to the things that inspired him.

The best ecosystem is where everyone encourages new IP and also fully understands how they come into being.

(Using this example for obvious reasons.)

Discord Post Reaction: [☝️ 1]

To go back to the topic of videogames, Toys for Bob recently made themselves layoff proof by going full independent.

With the level and volume of world class talent being laid off in the industry, I think we'll see more and more indy teams pop up if they can organize the means to do so.

There is too much high pedigree talent out there right now to just disappear or eventually go back to the people that screwed them over. The current ecosystem allows smaller teams and projects to flourish.

I am 100% down for an industry with less games like Immortals of Aveum and WAY more games like Pizza Tower.

[quetzalpapalotl]

Anyway, Energon Universe Transformers spoilers under the cut

Ok, so first of all, they fucking killed Bumblebee. Oh my god, if nothing else, I gotta admire the audacity of it. But I guess it makes sense, not just for the shock it would have for Transformers fans, but also because they're trying so hard to get non-tf fans to read this. Bumblebee is one of the few Transformers those people would be likely to recognize, so it's the best choice for it to have any sort of impact. I hope it sticks because otherwise it would feel really cheap.

(Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they want to kill Bee in idw1 phase 1 and Hasbro said no?)

But also I fucking hate it, oh my god, that's my boy!!!! You gutted him like a pig!!! Why!!! I get everyone is tired of Bee getting the spothlight all the time, but you didn't have to kill him!!!

Well, it creates a link between him and the Witwicky's, which is as good as any hook.

Killing Jetfire does feel like a waste tho. RIP Ravage (is he actually dead) but nice that the Decepticons also got a fridged character so we can feel for Soundwave. Equality.

Now, for the most important thing, which is of course the man himself Optimus, he seems good. I greatly enjoy how much he's suffering and how troubled he is, but they seem to be sticking to a noble characterization. Not that I don't enjoy a gritty Optimus on principle, I just don't trust people to be able to do it right. Anyway, god, look at this man, I can already feel how he's regretting all his life choices.

The preview of issue 2 seems to imply that Optimus doesn't need energon to run thanks to the Matrix, which is cool and makes sense.

No trace of Arcee despite how prominent she's in the covers, but for that reason I'm sure she'll show up soon enough, very excited.

Speaking of covers, it's a sure thing Megatron won't show up at least until the first arc. Strascream is very vicious in this, so it'll be fun to see what happens when he inebitably returns.

What I'm interested in is how short the war seems to be. Strascream says they're been at war for a hundred years, I suppose he's not counting the years they were offline, but how much is that? I really hope is not millions of years this time, but on VD #1 Jetfire deduced he was stranded for millions of years (and he hadn't seen SS in centuries before that?) so the war could have started at any time after that.

Well, given everything they're saying and VD #4, it would make sense that it started due to lack of resources, which is supposed to be a component of the war in many continuities, but in this one you can really feel the shortage. If I had to guess, the most obvious conflict would be that the Decepticons wanted to exploit other planets for energy and the Autobots refused to do that, but even if that were true they don't seem to have actually taken the war to space given how unfamiliar they act with encountering other life forms.

That Squish typed in blood was really nice.

Anyway, it's too early to say anything, but this seems like a good start. I'm pleased with how the Autobots are in a really thigh spot, it actually makes me a bit nervous and excited to see what comes next. I don't really have any complaints expect that the Johnson still doesn't seem used to drawing robots and lot of the angles and poses are really awkward. Which is a pity because I would love to ogle at Optimus while he's in pain. Otherwise is pretty good, the flow, shots and general feel of it is very, vey good. The humans look better than anything from IDW and the colors are nice.

[warrior-of-the-sands]

So I guess you could say that I am More Than Meets the Eye because while this blog is pretty much exclusively dedicated to Skylanders, I actually have been a huge Transformers fan all along! Don't worry, im not gonna pivot the subject of this blog to TFs now, but the Transformers One Trailer came out today, and I felt like giving my 2 cents about it. Overall, I think the trailer looks ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffun! (Spoilers for the trailer below)

The big thing to remember with this, above all else is that: this is a kids movie. This is not gonna be some grand, sci-fi epic that FINALLY proves to the normies that Transformers was always good! it's gonna be a decent quality film to get the younglings interested in the series and get them to buy toys, which is really Transformers back to square one. I've heard a lot of people complaining based on the trailer at how bad the humour is and yeah, it's not that special, it definetively carries a bit of that "Uhmm, that just happened" energy But. Have you never watched a trailer for a kids movie? It's almost always a bunch of obnoxious gags taped together, while an actual synopsis of the plot is squeezed somewhere in there. And that's the kind of thing that gets kids into seats at the theater. I would know! I was a kid who was duped into watching tons of terrible movies based on these type of trailers! Not saying it's a good thing, just. It's clear that for some people, this is the first time they watched a kids movie trailer in a long while. So, moving on to the animated part of this animated movie: I think it looks quite impressive! Overall, aesthetically I really vibe with how they made this robot planet look! Maybe not so much the actual robots. The overly smooth faces and basic proportions aren't exactly how I like my Transformers to look, but I don't think they bad either. I can live with it. The thing I am REALLY excited for are the QUINTESSONS. I am so happy to see them back! I always thought that they were such a good part of the TF lore (And the superior origin story) and it's such a relief to see them used here as the main antagonistic threat! I know that at their core, they're just generic bad guys, but, in a franchise that had it's main villain be a righteous revolutionary who OOOPS! Becomes the most evil tyrant in the galaxy, I think some generic, uncomplicated baddies are welcome. And yeah, this movie still sorta does the Megatron, revolutionary backstory and im just so tired of it. It's just white noise, it's just his default backstory at this point. It's almost never expanded upon because it's just alredy there, whenever anyone decides to write their version of Megatron with their own ideas. I guess in this version everyone in the main gang is a slave worker but it doesn't really change anything. This could be a bit of a comeback for Transformers that I think Hasbro has been trying to achieve. I know we said the same thing with ROTB, but when it came to the trailers and marketing of ROTB, it was quite a mess. We didn't really know what movie we where getting up until it's release. This meanwhile is incredibly clear about what it is, and that makes me more confident in actually excited about. Also remember that Paramount is funding IDF and to pirate this movie when it comes out.

[tumblhurgoyf]

great proxies on the cheap

I’m gonna share something with you if you promise to only ever do it for yourself. Seriously, don’t be a jackass and bring this crashing down by making it too widely known or trying to use it to make some illicit cash.

1. Get MSE2. Choose an unofficial card frame (Wizards/Hasbro owns the rights to their card frames) and unofficial mana and tap symbols (W/H owns the rights to these as well)

2. Make your card file and put in all the cards you want proxies of (optionally, find some cool creative commons non-commercial use art to put on them--or get just one unique image per card type so you can at least more easily reference what you’re looking at)

3. Export the cards as image files (I usually go JPG, not sure if it’s because this is the default/only option or I choose it for whatever reason)

4. Google something like “custom card printing” or “custom playing cards” and find a printer that does more than just custom 52 card poker decks

5. Upload your card images and a non-Magic card back (they typically offer a few generic poker card backs so I go with one of those)

6. Boom! In about a month you’ve got a bunch of professional-looking proxies that probably will hold up pretty well.

Oh, and depending on how many and what sort of options are available through whatever website you find, you want poker size cards which are 63 mm x 88 mm, and S30 standard smooth card stock, with a standard game card finish (as opposed to a gloss finish--I think the standard finish shuffles how you expect and is easier to read). Optionally you could actually choose a better quality card stock if you want and are willing to spend more. The standards I outline above probably run around $50 from most places for nearly 200 cards. Proxy your two favorite commander decks for $50 including ABUR dual lands.

Importantly, don’t be dumb and try to do this and then sell them. Personal use mostly just flat out won’t be noticed. But if you’re trying to sell fakes or even just overpriced proxies for a quick buck it’s gonna come back to bite you (and potentially anyone else trying to proxy cards like this in the long run). Save yourself some money and have some fun. Proxy that power cube you’ve always dreamed of. Have a “set” of Alpha to fool around with. Don’t try to pass these off as anything other than cheap proxies. But also don’t spend a grand on 4 boosters where your four rares are going to be, not Power Nine, but instead Animate Wall, Fungusaur, Mahamoti Djinn, and Savannah Lions.

[t-cognoscente]

Thanks again for answering our questions I'm just wondering from your past posts you mentioned specific continuities is there one you consider if not the most cannon, the most important for a fledgling Transformers fan? Also I'd love to hear your personal favorite if that differs.

Answer below

There is no continuity which is more or less canon than the others. Each continuity has its own canon: while there is a multiverse and crossovers do happen, what's canon for one isn't necessarily canon for another.

(You will find that the Transformers world is very forgiving in what it does and does not consider canon! The wiki considers anything officially endorsed by Hasbro with the Transformers logo on it to be canon - which is how you end up with a wiki page for Pepsi Prime. )

As for what's most important for a fledgling Transformers fan, there's a real answer and a technical answer. The real answer is whatever you want, fandom is for fun. The technical answer, if you're talking purely in terms of understanding the lore on a meta level, is where it all began: the Generation 1 TV show and comic books. You'll get to see the origin for most of the big name characters, and you'll learn what stuff has been around since the beginning and what's been added since then.

You can find the show on YouTube. Be aware that there's a time skip in between seasons 2 and 3 which won't make sense unless you watch the 1986 movie in between. The comics can be bought off of Amazon for $12.

Transformers: Beast Wars also introduced a lot of new lore, and will be fun for you if you liked ROTB (and if you can tolerate really, really, really shitty animation). However you should definitely either watch or read at least some of G1 first because Beast Wars is a sequel.

Personally my favorite is IDW2005, specifically More Than Meets The Eye. It's like if the cast of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia were crewmen on the starship Enterprise, homosexual, had Catholic guilt and also happened to be giant robots. Also there's 4 gay marriages. I'm not being hyperbolic here, there is literally actually for real 4 separate gay marriages. You can find the whole thing for free on readcomicsonline.com, but PLEASE send me another ask if you intend to read these because it can be very hard to figure out where to start. Also, I can give you a list of trigger warnings. IDW2005 is very adult.

I hope you have a fun time in the Transformers fandom! I've been greatly enjoying your asks!

[itcamefromthetoybox]

It’s Prime Time!

Greeting and salutations, dear readers! It has been a while, hasn’t it? My apologies for the delay in reviews. Some life stuff came up that was very great (I got married!) and not so great (shifting weather patterns affected my chronic illness and left me absolutely too drained to write), but I am back now! And I’m going to start this review by talking about something I actually got as a wedding gift that I’ve been wanting for a while, “Transformers Bumblebee Cyberverse Adventures Smash Changers Optimus Prime!”

If you know anything about Transformers, you know who Optimus Prime is. Big guy, red and blue truck, leader of the Heroic Autobots, and guy voted “most likely to die” 30 years running. The Optimus featured in “Transformers Cyberverse,” though, breaks the trend by actually not dying. It’s saying something that the thing that makes him unique is having a decent life expectancy.

The weird thing is, though, this Optimus, despite being released as a Cyberverse toy, doesn’t seem to be Cyberverse Optimus Prime. Instead, based on his detailing and general design, he seems to be the Optimus Prime who will be featuring in next year’s movie, “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” the long-awaited sequel to “Transformers: Bumblebee.” Right now, the theory is that this figure was meant to be released in that movie’s toyline, but got shuffled into the Cyberverse line when “Rise of the Beasts” got delayed so Hasbro wouldn’t have a bunch of Optimus Primes taking up space in a warehouse somewhere.

So who is this Optimus? Well, unlike the Optimus of the Michael Bay movies, this Prime isn’t a berserker warrior who solves all his problems via gratuitous violence and killing everyone in his path. This Optimus is very much the OG Prime, just in a movie. So he’s brave, friendly, heroic, and, and this is a big difference between him and the other Movie Prime, he shoots to disable first. I love this guy.

The figure’s meant to be a more kid-friendly toy, which means that it fits in perfectly with Cyberverse’s kid-friendly toys. It’s a straightforward toy that transforms into what seems to be a garbage truck in a few steps and then transforms back into a robot when you press a button on the roof. The button’s made of the same plastic and has a similar shade of paint as the rest of the roof, so it doesn’t stand out or take away from the design, while also being easy to find so you don’t have to actively look for it.

With only slightly less articulation than the robot mode.

In terms of looks, Optimus’s robot mode looks really good and feels like it should be more articulated than it is. He has a lot of detailing and a thorough paint job, which really makes me happy with him. His vehicle mode feels very much like a brick, but this isn’t a bad thing since he’s a bulky truck. He honestly reminds me of “Transformer Prime” Optimus Prime’s season 3 vehicle mode. I also love how, unlike so many Optimus Primes before him, this Optimus does not have fake chest windows. The chest windows he has in robot mode are the same windows he has in vehicle mode.

That one friend standing awkwardly in the back of the room.

When it comes to articulation, you’re getting basically as much articulation as a One-Step figure. In other words, not that much. Prime’s elbows can move and his head can turn, and that is about it. The gimmick means the designers couldn’t give him a lot of articulation, which is very noticeable. In vehicle mode, he has two rolling wheels, but his design means he doesn’t roll well, which isn’t great. If you’re going to give a toy truck to a kid, it should be able to roll, I’ve always figured.

Transforming him can honestly be a surprising pain. It’s not that getting him into vehicle mode is complicated, it’s that you need to get everything lined up just right, or else panels and parts will pop back out of place. I ended up having to physically hold his back wheel in place while trying to feel what wasn’t connecting and slide it forward just enough to connect. The issues with getting Prime into truck mode mean that what should be a simple “press the button and Prime transforms” gimmick can be really annoying. Pressing the button makes some parts pop open for robot mode, but other parts stick. So I found myself having to pull and press and poke things until Prime VERY reluctantly finished transforming to robot mode. Honestly, I was worried I was going to break him. In fact, on one occasion when he transformed, I noticed the long screw connecting his back parts and body had come almost all the way out and had to push it back into place. It slid in easily enough, but it clearly wasn’t screwed in all the way, and I do have some concerns with if this is just a QC problem with my specific figure or an issue with the whole toy. I feel like if you’re going to give a toy to kids, like you’re meant to do with this one, then screws shouldn’t be coming out of it.

“Transformers Bumblebee Cyberverse Adventures Smash Changers Optimus Prime” is aimed at kids ages 6 and up and currently goes for about $33 (damn inflation). Now, would I recommend this figure? Honestly, from my experiences, no. It feels like this toy has too many issues with the transformation gimmick that would make it super frustrating for kids, and that’s “frustrating” as in “my son threw this across the room and broke a window because it got stuck while transforming.” Also, I just don’t feel right giving a 6 year old a toy that had a screw literally pop out of the back of the toy. That just screams “safety hazard.” And considering Prime’s size, limited articulation, and the problems we discussed, $33 is way too much money. Prime does look great, but that price tag is absurd. Wait until he’s on clearance. Hopefully by then, Hasbro will have sorted out the QC issues. This is JS, formerly JL, signing off and wishing you Happy Toy Hunting!

[estirose]

Wizards of the Coast’s badly-thought-out OGL 1.1

I thought I’d take a break from my usual screenshots and tips posts to talk about something that is really pissing the tabletop gaming community off.

To give some context, if you don’t play ttrpgs or ccgs (tabletop role playing games and collectible card games), you may not be familiar with Wizards of the Coast (WotC for short).  They’re owned by Hasbro and they put out ‘Magic the Gathering’ and ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ (D&D for short).

About 23 years ago, WotC (then not owned by Hasbro AFAIK) put out this wonderful document called the OGL, or Open Gaming License. It allowed third-party publishers to put out Dungeons and Dragons supplements without getting sued in return for community goodwill and increased sales of the (then-new) 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons. This was OGL 1.0 (shortly followed up by 1.0a, which is the most widely used version today).

The OGL became, over time, the most common license in the tabletop gaming community. Even companies that never used WotC’s IP used it because it basically said “Here, this is what I’m allowing you to use, and if you use something from it, you need to put in a copy of the OGL that includes what you used from our stuff”. In other words, it was an open-source license for tabletop gamers and spread well beyond the D&D fanbase.

Let’s jump to late 2022-early 2023. At this point OGL 1.0a has been around for over twenty years. Hasbro’s looking at this and saying “we need to rein in all these people and get them to pay us and use our subscription services”. Therefore they put together OGL 1.1. Now, if it was just “we’re putting out 1.1 and you can use it if you want” a lot of us would be a bit irritated but, well, life would go on.

Unfortunately, Hasbro essentially revoked 1.0a. Sure, they (likely) wouldn’t go after anybody buying stuff that was published under 1.0a, but they didn’t want anyone to be able to continue to publish under 1.0a after the release of 1.1 and depriving them of revenue that they should be entitled to.

Which causes an issue with people using the OGL 1.0a license to publish stuff that’s not D&D at all. If 1.0a is gone, do you have to go to 1.1? Does it matter if the only thing you use from WotC is the OGL?

As an example, say that I publish my own RPG, called “Esti’s Amazing and Fantastic Adventure System”. I don’t use anything from the WotC SRD (the reference document for D&D stuff). I’m just using the OGL to say “hey, if you want to create third-party content, here’s the stuff I’m willing to have you use from my game, and in return, you will put an OGL in your own publication to say “here’s what I used from Esti’s Amazing and Fantastic Adventure System, and here’s what you can use from what I published”.

Does Hasbro/WotC have a right to go after me because I used OGL 1.0a instead of OGL 1.1? Why should Hasbro/WotC need to know about my sales and profits for a gaming system that doesn’t use any of their content? (And when I say “any of their content”, I will point out that if I have a fantasy game with magic-users and paladins and bards and clerics, that this is too generic to be WotC IP).

Why should i need to slap on a WotC badge and report to WotC on a game that they have no rights to?

We won’t even go into the fact that they’re suddenly trying to invalidate a 23 year old document that a very large amount of people have relied upon over the years and which basically states that you can ignore versions you don’t agree with.

Anyway, so that’s my soapbox for today, hopefully soon I’ll be able to put my soapbox away and go back to screenshots and gaming tips!

[fang-wolfsbane]

Transformers Generation One: A Seeker’s Triangle: Intermission: Chapters Questions and Answers Session 01

Twenty five chapters in, can you believe it? Now, anyone who has ever read all of my fanfictions would know that I never made it to the quarter mile in terms of fanfictions, so to make it to this point is a really big achievement for me.

First of all, I’d like to thank everyone that took the time to read this fanfic and for showing it all the support you have. I know I say this a lot, but it really does mean a lot, especially from the regulars. Yes Rumble lover, I see you there and thank you so much for being the first person to show this fanfic as much attention as it had gotten from you and everyone else. You guys are the best!

Believe it or not but I’ve gotten into the habit of writing the chapters out ahead of time (we’re currently already at chapter 125!) and boy, have things taken a turn from the expected.

In order to celebrate getting to the first quarter mark, I want to ask you, the reader, to participate in this achievement with me. As the title suggests, I want you, the reader, to post any questions you have about the fanfic, the story, etc. Anything at all, and by the time we get to chapter 50’s bonus intermission, I will try my best to answer each and every one.

Now, because four of the websites I post on are strictly for chapters – namely Toyhou.se, Fanfiction.net, Wattpad and Archive of Our Own – this intermission won’t be posted on there, nor will the others, so I need you guys to help me out with this through my website, Twitter, DeviantART and Tumblr.

Because I am currently writing other fanfictions as well, they will all follow the same quarter sessions for their own respective stories.

With that said, I would really appreciate it if you guys joined in on this, but that is totally up to you.

Once again I hope you will all continue to be part of this story and its development and I hope to see each and every one of you in the future chapters.

Thank you so much!

Transformers Generation One © Hasbro A Seeker’s Triangle © Fang Wolfsbane

[feyariel]

Fey Reads Oriental Adventures 3.0 (2001)

Part 1: The Beginenings

In which Fey Rues the Twilight laments the problems (racist and otherwise) of this book

Remember how I talked about the Collective forming an OA party? Well, that inspired me to review OA. But since it's a favorite, I figured it'd be best to go chapter by chapter. My introduction dwells on the material people usually skip so as to address the elephant in the room: the fact that OA is not in and of itself a fantastic resource when it comes to authenticity of anything it discusses.

OA was one of the first two RPG (let alone D&D) books I ever bought (the other being the Psionics Handbook). I loved it to pieces -- quite literally: I carried it in my backpack so much that the corners of the cover frayed, which led to a friend of mine repairing them with brown duct tape (it doesn't match the cover, but it does complement it). It still remains a sourcebook I find incredibly helpful, with plenty of good ideas.

And yet...

To say that OA has its share of problems is an understatement. I'll explain as I go, but the title itself is a clue.

Alternate Alternate Subtitle: Why I Hate James Wyatt

James Wyatt's discussion of the origins of this book -- the L5R RPG and the original Oriental Adventures for 1st edition AD&D (1985) -- is a great reflection of what Tumblr will note is White (Liberal?) People Ignoring Racism.

Wyatt opens this foreword with an offset quotation of the opening line OA 1985 ("...The mysterious and exotic Orient, land of spices and warlords, has at last opened her gates to the West."). He ruminates on this as an outdated theme only: he says that society has changed, but he doesn't discuss the underlying issues -- of how the word "oriental" is now considered pejorative, of how exoticizing a culture necessarily others it and thus creates an inherently demeaning caricature regardless of intentions (for it is one which is always in contrast with the viewpoint culture of the exoticizing person [in this case, the West in general]), and how in the '90s and early oughts there had been major calls for representation of othered peoples (mainly by race, culture, and certain disabilities; gender and sexual minorities were still largely taboo at this point and we were grappling with having equal representation of women). He glosses over this entirely; it reminds me of Todd Lockwood's comments on the subject while working on concept art for 3.0 D&D.

This lack of understanding pervades the book from the very first page -- by which I mean the credits. The only credits that seem to be for people of Asian decent are artist Raven Mimura and pronunciation guide Moe Murayama. While Wyatt provides a mini bibliography on the same page, the only sources he cites in full are various D&D ones. He does cite "the Legend of the Five Rings™ roleplaying game, written by John Wick" (tee hee), but there had been two editions by that point by a few years and he doesn't indicate which he references. He otherwise cites "numerous L5R supplements by John Wick, Ree Soesbee, and others," in the manner of a YouTube plagiarist. Very helpful, James! This is the only bibliography in the entire book, so the only way to know if he does any justice to Rokugan (the L5R setting), Kara-Tur, or Asia past the -stans not belonging to Russia is by knowing or learning about those things from outside sources. (We shall see why this is a problem as we go.)

The credit for this fault can't solely be placed on Wyatt -- we are talking Hasbro-WotC business practices, after all, and there are typos in this credits list anyway. And though I checked a good portion of the major names (all but Mimura were white; I'm not sure who Murayama is), I couldn't check all of them, so it's possible someone involved was a person of color.

We don't necessarily need someone of color to write a book about Asia in fantasy so long as we have someone who is well familiar with the subject matter. Wyatt presents himself as this, bringing up his own "interest" in India and Southeast Asia while discussing the new OA book and its antecedents. If you weren't familiar with the original OA, you'd think that this would be a sign that he was responsible for the inclusion of non-Chinese/Japanese/Korean elements.

And, again, we'd be wrong. Most of those were already in OA to begin with.

Wyatt's philosophical approach to the book as a whole is inadvertently revealed when discussing L5R:

"In the meantime, a collectible card game somehow accomplished what generations of roleplaying games based on the fantasies of Asia never quite did: create a living world drawn from Asian history and legend that did not pretend to be history, never claimed to be accurate, and yet appealed to a larger and more vocal fan base than the original Oriental Adventures setting of Kara-Tur or historical Japan ever did."

(Emphasis mine.)

First of all, Rokugan is emphatically Japanese. It does include a few things from other cultures (e.g., naga), but 90-99% of things in Rokugan are Japanese. Not only are they Japanese, they're obviously and vehemently Japanese. To say that it doesn't pretend to be history or claim to be accurate is to mistake the conventions of the fantasy genre artistic license for an excuse not to do research and not to be faithful to source material.

Second of all, L5R did something that RPGs didn't for a few reasons. There's an implicit understanding in this paragraph that Asian RPGs failed because of lack of interest in historical recreation, but that's like talking about D&D as if it were a byproduct of Ren Faire culture. (Granted, the wargames it grew out of did have an element of that, but they were always about the wargame first and the period details second.) As with the rest of his intro, Wyatt's focus overlooks real-world connections in a glaring fashion -- in this case, the rise of anime and the subsequent popularization of all things Japanese in the mid-'90s onward. L5R wasn't a success in a vacuum, a work of awe-inspiring popularity that fell from the heavens, but part of the craze for all things Japanese that is still ongoing (and has in turn led to the growth of other imported Asian media fandoms).

"Fey, what are you getting at?"

Wyatt has a nasty habit of 1.) not understanding the material he's working with, be it Asian cultures or the alignment system and 2.) imposing his very constrained opinions on such material in a way that simply doesn't work. Such missteps are usually pretty obvious; they are frequently wrong as in just incorrect, but at least as frequently wrong as in also bad/evil in a way that it takes only a brief reaction to see. This isn't just true of OA, it's true of everything the man's hands have touched.

Now, to give credit where credit is due, Wyatt does try to keep OA operable for all forms of play: the Rokugan enthusiast, the weirdo who likes Kara-Tur, or the person who just wants to shake up D&D a bit. He spends the majority of the rest of the introduction on this, talking about what variety you can use and how to differentiate pieces hither and thither. He does mention that there is a chapter devoted to Rokugan itself, but not that the preceding chapter discusses pastabilities with cultural presentation, which is lamentable. This book is indeed worthwhile in featuring lots and lots and lots of options. It could be better if it were able to contextualize some of these, not least of which by labeling things by culture and not just whether or not they're from L5R. (There is one table that provides names of weapons by culture and another with Japanese, Chinese, and "Indian Culture" names for classes, but no additional translation notes, let alone explanations for how these things might differ.) However, if it were much better, it would have to sacrifice something elsewhere, as it's already nearly as big as the original third edition Player's Handbook.

The amount of material in this book should be enough to give a cursory outline of a Rokugani campaign. It provides a lot -- a lot -- of detail on the major clans, general details about the society at large (organizational structure, religion, history, economy, class immobility, etc.); with the amount of purely Japanese material in it, it should be possible to run a Rokugan campaign. I do recall at the time that there were mixed reviews, though: people who weren't already familiar with L5R loved it, but fans of L5R gave vague but always semi-negative reviews. This would allow for AEG (publisher of L5R) to cash in on the "everything must be d20 System" fad and release a series of Rokugan supplements (including a Rokugan Cmapaign Setting of roughly equal length).

The Short of It

The thing to take away from OA is not that it itself is a masterwork of writing, editing, cultural representation, authenticity, or even reliability regarding its featured campaign setting. Rather, it's that as a 250-something page book, it does a remarkable job of inspiring interest in Rokugan and Asia in general while also providing just enough material that you have a jumping off point for both gaming and further research. It's imperfect in the extreme, but it's very much worth the read anyway.

[uboat53]

Okay guys, it's been a bit and… there's something we need to discuss about the new WotC OGL that just got taken down. We need to talk about how insanely generous it was.

I know, I know, evil corporation bad, but hear me out here.

Let's start by understanding that the rules of D&D cannot be copywrited. In other words, nothing that any of our favorite publishers do is actually covered by the OGL in the first place, it's simply legal right off the bat. Paizo, MCDM, Critical Role, Apocalypse World, etc… nothing in the new OGL would affect them at all because they're already legally in the clear even without it.

No, the OGL covers the stuff that WotC/Hasbro specifically owns the copywrite on. Stuff like the D&D logo, the art in the books, the style of the books, the characters from official D&D materials, the official settings of D&D, and direct quotations from the books or the SRD. What the OGL says is that you can use THAT STUFF to make your own things AND SELL THEM FOR A PROFIT.

And I'm flabbergasted at that realization, do you realize how insanely generous that is for… well, not even for a corporation, for anything or anyone?

Imagine if Disney said "yes, you can take any of our thousands of characters and make any content you want out of it and sell it to make money." I know Disney is famously litigious about these kinds of things, but I cannot think of a single corporation that does this and yet WotC is specifically allowing this with the only restrictions being that (1) once you reach $50,000 a year in revenue you tell them about it, (2) that once you reach $750,000 a year in revenue you start paying them a cut, (3) they get a veto over anything they think damages their brand, and (4) that they are legally in the clear if they like your idea and build off of it themselves.

I mean, I get it, compared to no restrictions at all it's incredibly restrictive but it's probably the most open policy I've ever seen any individual or corporation put out with respect to their intellectual property… maybe ever.

Now, did they handle it well? No. They should have been far more transparent about what changes they were making and why and definitely more transparent about the fact that they were making changes at all. And when the uproar started it was definitely a bad idea to wait almost a week to respond.

But I keep coming back to how good this OGL, even with all of its flaws, is for anyone who wants to create anything based off of their product. I'll be interested to see if they handle the public-relations side of things better next time around because I think this could actually work if they do it right.