Just food for thought ....

[Karl]

So THAT OTHER GAME has been experiencing some difficulties of late. No need to go into what those things are but I have heard a lot of rumbling's about the BIG COMPANY that owns it mothballing it if things continue. For a decade or so and then trying it again. This is the sort of thing they are known to do.

Make no mistake I am not happy with this situation but it does seem to be a sign of our times. While chatting about it with friends a thought suddenly occurred to me. This doesn't make things any better with that other game BUT ....

if that OTHER GAME is mothballed for a decade or so...does that mean Tunnels and Trolls becomes the oldest continual role playing game? Does my old Favorite underdog rpg with a giant heart suddenly take the lead? 

BY JOVE! That one simple thought dispelled the Doom and Gloom in that conversation and brought a smile to my lips.

2021 might just be THE YEAR OF T&T, BABY!


lol anyway...im not even sure if its been continually in print ect..the entire time so thought id post this and see.

[quoghmyre]

More people are playing TTRPG than ever before. As players become more experienced they are inclined to try other systems. The only thing that will increase T&T is people playing T&T, that means running games, lots of games.

There is no comparison, T&T has 1,000s of players, the other game millions.

[zanshin]

I would be surprised if it did that. D&d sales are growing and the IP is valuble for digital spin offs.

Be interesting to see any sources?

Obviously with Trollszine relaunched 2021 is going to be the year of the Troll 😁

[Karl]

Sorry I can't. at least not directly. I can however say that you can find many postings about the growing bad press the IP has been getting.
Most of the money from the IP doesn't come from the actual role playing game. It comes from the card game and to a lesser extent board/video games and other merchandise.
So far the folks at WOTC have tried to appease and make token gestures but it hasn't helped at all. In fact things are far worse than before.
Twice now (supposedly) talk of shelving the rpg book side has come up in house meetings and now outside agencies are starting to echo similar theories. After all this is what Hasbro has done to other IP's that got into issues like this. Why risk the issue spreading to its other MUCH more valuable areas?
For them it's better to shelve the rpg company and just keep making money on the other more lucrative aspects of the IP.

You can find both YouTube video's on this and online bloggers discussing it. For sure at this point it's just unverified rumor the subject of wild speculations. That's basically what my friends and I were doing at the very start of this when I suddenly thought of a silver lining.

[nebless]

Well I couldn't find anything about mothballing the game and honestly with all the material that's out anything they did wouldn't really have an effect on the game.

What I did find was they're looking at the old material and making plans to reprint it as they acknowledge that how the races have been shown in the past is racist.

Although why anyone would think a totally fictional world had to conform to RL I don't know. Sounds more like the woke police are pulling a Dan Quayle being upset that Murphy Brown was a single parent type of thing.

[Karl]

Well I honestly hope all works out in the end. I prob shouldn't have mentioned it. No need to stir the pot and bring drama that isn't even about T&T!
I must had eaten a bad mushroom!
Haha that's a joke.
There are not Bad Mushrooms! At least if your a Cave Troll Wizard!

[quoghmyre]

I agree, sanitising our hobby to modern sensibilities is a growing problem for the whole industry. All publishers are dealing with the problem, we lost White Wolf due to a misstep in this area. And many companies are in the damed if they do/ damed if they don't quandary. FBI is working on updating its products too. The gaming world is changing, bah humbug.

[nebless]

The really crap part of all of this, is it seems that the guy that started the crusade doesn't even like D&D.

Do these guys not see that the 'bad guys' are SUPPOSE TO BE one dimensional? It's a whole good vs evil thing, but I guess they'd rather have adventurers going down into the dungeons to battle with some poor smuck of a salaryman just doing his 8 to 5 so he can feed his growing family.

[zanshin]

I enjoy 4 dimensional bad guys as well - Shoggoth, I am looking at you! (Except you make my brain explode...)

I don't have a problem with removing barriers to people from all backgrounds enjoying and playing RPG's by making writing inclusive. I think Ken made a really smart move calling the different kindreds kindred rather than races.

I clearly haven't been reading the interwebs widely enough to follow this. I know Drow have been considered problematic, and there has been debate on the model of the origins of Orcs going back to the Tolkien source material. The original game had a random prostitutes chart in it's DMG which my teenage self sniggered about, but I haven't seen anything like that in D&D for a long while.

[quoghmyre]

My current GM has fun with voices, being from the UK he has a large variety of accents. Fun and entertaining, yes, but it is a fine line. Yet another Scottish dwarf, y'say. kindred, culture, sexual bias, race, OMG we are lost in the swamp.

[quoghmyre]

Regional Accent Discrimination

fb.watch/3MrzEBouoC/

next thing presented by FB trackers hehe.

[Karl]

The funny thing is the games do a awesome job of at least representing racial human variances in a entirely decent way.

Do you know who represents White people in rpg's? Or Black People? or any other human variance? HUMANS! And funny enough they are all the same other than the slight variations in appearance.

I find it bewildering to read this hidden sinister meaning in monster races or non-human races nonsense. NON-HUMAN means NOT HUMAN the only thing human about them is the often unskilled human trying to role play not being human.

Also rpg's are FILLED with ISIMS of all sorta and im happy they are. Racisms and Sexisms and the vast majority of the other unpleasant bad words BELONG in rpg's just like they belong in fiction! Without MURDER and other crimes rpg's wouldn't work. Bad guys need to do bad stuff. Good guys need to rise to oppose them!

I would argue rpg's and fiction are the ONLY places we need to see all this horrible stuff! Well I guess video games as well but you take my meaning.

We understand and even learn from it. I have seen kids who have never faced a day of oppression(well for anything other than being kids) learn at least on some minor level what it means to be oppressed(at least in some minor way). Seen them acknowledge the unfairness of it and decide to fight it. I have seen the entire foul range of human failings exposed and fought against!

We need those things in our rpg's. Not only do they teach but..they are what makes the games fun. Fighting a bad guy who embodies some of the worst aspects of these things is more fun! In defeated them we defeat them within ourselves and sure its only a game. You have to start someplace and starting with thought is about how its done every time.

Heck some of my kids friends growing up I swear learned why you shouldn't lie and cheat people, from our rpg's. Oh sure I'm sure they "knew not to" in real life but it wasn't until given the freedom of a rpg that they saw first hand what happens(Eventually) to people who make a habit of victimizing other people just because they could. They saw why Evil always seems so STRONG on the outside and at first but how weak it is on the inside and over time.

I could say a lot more but talk about stirring the pot.

[zanshin]

I can see there is room for a conversation if a race in a roleplaying game was presented in a clearly stereotypical way that drew on racist analogies from our world, as being problematic. However, to have a humanoid kindred that eats the flesh of sentient beings that is not portrayed in such a way - that's all the drama of the roleplaying experience and an antagonist species. "Meats back on the menu boys!"

However that doesn't mean it hurts to flesh out their worldview and motivations - the Trolls from Glorantha are both eaters of sentient flesh, an enemy race of most humanoids, but thanks to their hatred of Chaos, are an occasional ally, and their background is really well examined in supplements such as Trollpak.

What I would say is I don't think we have anyone at the Trollbridge who is 'policing' how we play and present our games. Without someone here critiquing it, we don't have an argument.

If someone wants to link to a blog about it, that could extend the conversation, if thats what we want to do.

[ProfGremlin]

Sci-Fi and Fantasy have always served as a safe way to provide commentary on real-world social concerns. They are one step removed from the audience and allow the viewer to inspect and ruminate upon the attitudes and behaviors portrayed within the fictional world. Sanitizing the fictional world so it aligns with currently held real-world views does a disservice to the audience.

Stories, in any medium, are a conversation between the author and the audience. If the author simply recounts the beliefs and attitudes of the audience in the fictional setting there is very little to stimulate further conversation. It becomes merely an echo chamber reinforcing current views.

There needs to be an awareness by the audience of a separation between them and the fictional setting, which is to say, they do not dwell within said setting. As such, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors acceptable in the fictional setting are there for a purpose - to stimulate the audience to reflect upon them and grow as sentient beings. Onlookers from outside this conversation who call for a change to the fictional setting to align with currently accepted social 'norms' are missing the point.

One wonders if the social norms championed today will become the targets of rallying cries tomorrow.

[quoghmyre]

Dungeons & Dragons Gets a Bigger Role at Hasbro – The Wall Street Journal

FEBRUARY 25, 2021 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS GETS A BIGGER ROLE AT HASBRO – THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Toy maker Hasbro Inc. is reorganizing to capitalize on a pandemic-fueled boom in old-school tabletop games, creating a separate division around the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering.

Dungeons & Dragons, the fantasy role-playing game, and Magic, a collectible card game, have been bright spots for the maker of Monopoly and Transformers action figures. Their publisher, Wizards of the Coast LLC, posted revenue of $816 million last year, up 24% from 2019, fueled by what Hasbro says were record years for the two brands.

Overall, Hasbro’s net revenue fell 8% last year to $5.47 billion, due in part to retail shutdowns related to Covid-19.

Under the new structure, which the company plans to unveil at an investor event on Thursday, Hasbro will be divided into three units. Consumer products will encompass toys like Transformers action figures and classic board games like Monopoly. Entertainment will be dedicated to licensing, distribution and production of film and television content. Wizards & Digital will house the assets of Wizards of the Coast and focus on expanding the existing games, creating new ones and overseeing digital licensing for the entire business.

Hasbro hopes the reorganization will allow it to replicate Wizards of the Coast’s success in digital games and licensing in other parts of the company and boost other properties like G.I. Joe, Ouija and Transformers, according to a person familiar with the matter. According to Hasbro Chief Executive Brian Goldner, the Wizards unit is on track to double revenue from 2018 to 2023.