SLA Industries 2nd Edition

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The Carrien didn't really have an origin until recently. The long-standing fan theory of "failed Stormers" persisted from the Dept. of Misinformation days.
The writer's bible (AKA The Truth) does provide an origin for the Carrien, in fact - it doesn't just include the whole "the universe is a hallucination in Brent Walker's dying mind" angle, it had a bunch of details of a bunch of other setting secrets. The Carrien's origins in this edition seem to flatly contradict what's there, so that's one instance where the Truth genuinely has changed.

But, of course, that's not the bit of The Truth that everyone keeps coming back to talking about.
 
Again. It was stated when 2e was announced that the old truth no longer applied.

In fact, it was stated back in the day, that the old truth never really applied in the way people thought it did and that's whay they were so upset about being released. (It was entirely possible that it was some kind of placeholder - a kind of way of imagining the setting aesthetically - and they had some vague notion that if they ever expanded the line enough to begin revealing secrets* they would revise it).

*It was a 90s game, the idea that you kept secrets from the GM was a thing then - it hasn't entirely gone away - see Symbaroum for a modern example.
 
Again. It was stated when 2e was announced that the old truth no longer applied.

In fact, it was stated back in the day, that the old truth never really applied in the way people thought it did and that's whay they were so upset about being released. (It was entirely possible that it was some kind of placeholder - a kind of way of imagining the setting aesthetically - and they had some vague notion that if they ever expanded the line enough to begin revealing secrets* they would revise it).

*It was a 90s game, the idea that you kept secrets from the GM was a thing then - it hasn't entirely gone away - see Symbaroum for a modern example.
Which is why having the opening and closing bits of fiction from this edition of the game be largely based on stuff from the old Truth is so incongruous in a way.
 
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Again. It was stated when 2e was announced that the old truth no longer applied.

In fact, it was stated back in the day, that the old truth never really applied in the way people thought it did and that's whay they were so upset about being released.
With all due respect, I can't take Nightfall's word on this any more. They had many, many opportunities over the past 30 years to lay their cards out and clear things up with the correct version of things. With 2nd edition they had one last opportunity to put up or shut up and they blew it.

In the 90's my friend Paul would joke-serious say that the Nightfall guys must all be drug addicts living on welfare because they couldn't get their shit together enough to release a product that people obviously wanted very much. Obviously that's a dick thing to say but I have to agree that a lot of Nightfall's decisions make no fucking sense.
 
In the 90's my friend Paul would joke-serious say that the Nightfall guys must all be drug addicts living on welfare because they couldn't get their shit together enough to release a product that people obviously wanted very much. Obviously that's a dick thing to say but I have to agree that a lot of Nightfall's decisions make no fucking sense.
2nd Edition is 100% theirs to own, both the good and the bad, but it's worth noting that for much of the game's history Nightfall hasn't had sole control of the line and so a lot of the delays with it genuinely haven't been their fault.

They got signed up by Wizards within a year of the original core book coming out, then Wizards screwed them by closing down their entire RPG department about a year after that. Then Hogshead picked up the game, but Hogshead never exactly had a brisk release schedule at the best of times. Then Cubicle 7 pick up the licence in late 2003 and basically sit on it for some 8 years, managing to produce only two new products before handing the rights back to Nightfall in 2011. At which point most of them probably had other jobs to pay the bills and couldn't necessarily devote themselves to the game full time.

If I had to lay a bad decision at Nightfall's feet in terms of the sluggish pace of releases, it was that they kept trying to make a relationship with a publisher work over and over again rather than biting the bullet and striking out a lone much earlier. It seems pretty clear to me that whilst Nightfall have always been passionate about the game, they've more or less never been partnered with a publisher who was as enthusiastic about it as they were.
 
it's worth noting that for much of the game's history Nightfall hasn't had sole control of the line and so a lot of the delays with it genuinely haven't been their fault.
I am aware of this but I seriously doubt Nightfall was sitting on a bunch of print-ready material waiting for the right publisher, either.

Edited for clarity and grammar
 
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SLA Industries releases have been frustrating, with promised (or at least expected) books never coming out and books by other writers deemed non-canon.
 
What Sla Industries always needed (like many 90s games) was a better emphasis on campaign structure and what you were supposed to do with it.

If it was better understood end emphasised that the game was about being black comedic agents of a dystopian government and a satire on commercialisation and reality TV and that ultimately your PCs could never win, then it wouldn't matter what the truth was. They could have had the truth be what it is for the sake of aesthetic consistency alone.

It's not that we didn't understand those elements of the game above in the 90s - we did, but it wasn't all that coherent in focus. It also presented the secrets of the setting as if they were something to be discovered and mysteries to be solved - and therefore people felt they needed to know the truth. There was also the suggestion that eventually (if only in endgame) your players may begin discovering this stuff.) And it felt like the setting did need something of an endgame. because there was so little structure to support keeping the black comedy aspect of the game interesting.

Really if they'd just spelt out clearly that the truth wasn't something actually important to playing the game - and put more focus on what you were supposed to do with it, then there wouldn't have been such an issue in the first place.
 
If it was better understood end emphasised that the game was about being black comedic agents of a dystopian government and a satire on commercialisation and reality TV and that ultimately your PCs could never win, then it wouldn't matter what the truth was. They could have had the truth be what it is for the sake of aesthetic consistency alone.
...

Really if they'd just spelt out clearly that the truth wasn't something actually important to playing the game - and put more focus on what you were supposed to do with it, then there wouldn't have been such an issue in the first place.

That's exactly what "The Truth" was...it was an internal, living document meant only as a reference for freelancers working on the game. It was never intended for public consumption.
 
That's exactly what "The Truth" was...it was an internal, living document meant only as a reference for freelancers working on the game. It was never intended for public consumption.
Yes. But part of the reason it was leaked is that people thought they needed to know that to run the game.

There was the impression that discovering this information was part of the game. The game teased it.
 
Yes. But part of the reason it was leaked is that people thought they needed to know that to run the game.

There was the impression that discovering this information was part of the game. The game teased it.

Fuck yeah they did. For an internal writer's bible with no bearing on the game they sure as hell liked to cocktease us with The Truth LOL
 
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This whole 90s phenomena of teasing out setting info to the GM like some sort of RPG LOST or Twin Peaks is really interesting (as somebody who missed it). Deadlands and Vampire are other examples. Was it cool or something you're glad is gone?
 
This whole 90s phenomena of teasing out setting info to the GM like some sort of RPG LOST or Twin Peaks is really interesting (as somebody who missed it). Deadlands and Vampire are other examples. Was it cool or something you're glad is gone?
It was sort of cool from the perspective of being a fan of the books. You could read and slowly build up the big picture of the setting from hints and the like. (Symbaroum is a modern setting that does this).

From the point of view of actually running a game it sucked big time of course, because you either had to make your own shit up to fill in gaps (which rendered later products obsolete) or you had to try and keep the game on rails to stop the players getting into a position where they might find answers to questions you as GM didn't know the answers to.

But if you were buying the books to collect and read it had a certain appeal. This was the early days of the internet too so you could go online and discuss theory and possibilities with others so it could help prompt discussion and word of mouth for a setting.
 
This whole 90s phenomena of teasing out setting info to the GM like some sort of RPG LOST or Twin Peaks is really interesting (as somebody who missed it). Deadlands and Vampire are other examples. Was it cool or something you're glad is gone?
At the time we didn't know any better. Back in the day White Wolf and Nightfall would release tiny snippets of meta plot in every supplement which I would happily buy. Maybe it was their marketing plan, who knows? Nowadays I don't have the patience or time for that.
 
I think the whole 90s setting metaplot thing reveals a sad truth about gaming - especially at that time.

People tend to spend more time dreaming about and planning to run games then they do actually running games.
 
Yes. But part of the reason it was leaked is that people thought they needed to know that to run the game.

There was the impression that discovering this information was part of the game. The game teased it.

In all honesty, after reading the Truth, it had no bearing on my game. My game never centered around such things, so it never bothered me. Then again, I never buy into metaplots in games, but run the game I want to in the setting. It's one of the reasons that I don't run adventures as they stand- I just can't be assed to get into someone else's mind of the way that things should be run. That's not fun to me, and I'm not really an effective game master running things that way.
 
I think the whole 90s setting metaplot thing reveals a sad truth about gaming - especially at that time.

People tend to spend more time dreaming about and planning to run games then they do actually running games.
Back in the day, totally man. DM David talks about the lonely fun back in the 90's and how game companies published tons of material to capitalize on that.
 
In all honesty, after reading the Truth, it had no bearing on my game. My game never centered around such things, so it never bothered me. Then again, I never buy into metaplots in games, but run the game I want to in the setting. It's one of the reasons that I don't run adventures as they stand- I just can't be assed to get into someone else's mind of the way that things should be run. That's not fun to me, and I'm not really an effective game master running things that way.
If I read it now, rather than when I was 19, I would know what to do with it and also understand that the truth was irrelevant. But back then I didn't know that and the book didn't help me.
 
This whole 90s phenomena of teasing out setting info to the GM like some sort of RPG LOST or Twin Peaks is really interesting (as somebody who missed it). Deadlands and Vampire are other examples. Was it cool or something you're glad is gone?

Tribe 8 was another example, but in that case, they went through the metaplot with a series of published adventures, and then, in the 2nd edition players guide, laid the whole thing out from top to bottom.

Generally, no, I didn't think it was cool, but I also ignored it. despite being heavy into White Wolf in the 90s, I never followed or even knew the metaplot. I always thought that was for the people who read RPGs rather than playing them. I knew folks like that even back in high school.
 
Tribe 8 was another example, but in that case, they went through the metaplot with a series of published adventures, and then, in the 2nd edition players guide, laid the whole thing out from top to bottom.

Generally, no, I didn't think it was cool, but I also ignored it. despite being heavy into White Wolf in the 90s, I never followed or even knew the metaplot. I always thought that was for the people who read RPGs rather than playing them. I knew folks like that even back in high school.

Yeah... same here. I don't think it's a function of age, but rather method of play. It also could be because I knew and hung around with a lot of them, which took some of the gloss off of it. I thought the whole thing was rather pretentious, from the special covers to the strange layout.
 
SLA Industries releases have been frustrating, with promised (or at least expected) books never coming out and books by other writers deemed non-canon.
Yeah, I mentioned this in the review but when Cubicle 7 had the licence they announced seven books (that I was able to find announcements for - they may have hinted at more) but in the end were only able to produce two of those, and that's after holding onto the rights for eight years. And theoretically it was one of their flagship lines! Dave Allsop co-founded the company! It's just baffling that they just completely failed to put anything out and I can only assume there was some sort of behind the scenes drama we've only seen hinted at, and/or an epidemic of writers' block.

What Sla Industries always needed (like many 90s games) was a better emphasis on campaign structure and what you were supposed to do with it.

If it was better understood end emphasised that the game was about being black comedic agents of a dystopian government and a satire on commercialisation and reality TV and that ultimately your PCs could never win, then it wouldn't matter what the truth was. They could have had the truth be what it is for the sake of aesthetic consistency alone.

It's not that we didn't understand those elements of the game above in the 90s - we did, but it wasn't all that coherent in focus. It also presented the secrets of the setting as if they were something to be discovered and mysteries to be solved - and therefore people felt they needed to know the truth. There was also the suggestion that eventually (if only in endgame) your players may begin discovering this stuff.) And it felt like the setting did need something of an endgame. because there was so little structure to support keeping the black comedy aspect of the game interesting.
It's odd because the game almost has a really tight structure, what with the BPN mission structure and working your way up the ranks and whatnot. But it near constantly flirts with saying that actually the real important action happens outside of that context, despite the fact that this is the sole context that the core rulebook actually gives you decent support for. The 2nd Edition was a golden opportunity to refine that structure and actually devise some kind of endgame but whoops, gotta wait a decade for a supplement that'll do it (if they ever decide to write one) I guess.

(The big problem with the structure is that the view never changes. I don't think we've ever been given enough meat to make missions for high-ranking operatives meaningfully different from missions from starting characters.)

Really if they'd just spelt out clearly that the truth wasn't something actually important to playing the game - and put more focus on what you were supposed to do with it, then there wouldn't have been such an issue in the first place.
Yeah, you're 100% correct and I think this is why I like the 1st Edition presentation of the setting to the 2nd Edition.

In the 1st Edition core book it was clear that the setting had all these question marks, but we at least didn't know that there was actually meant to be a canonical answer behind them, which meant it was possible to just imagine the setting as a surreal and arbitrary place riddled with secrets for the sake of secrets and where any bizarre shit might turn up on a BPN job. That's fine, I can work with that as a referee.

The revelation of the Truth not only established that nah, actually there really was a canonical answer to all this stuff - which of course makes referees want to know it, if only so they can run campaigns which won't get massively contradicted by later publications bringing some of those secrets to life. That made it an issue to begin with, and then when refs looked at the Truth document and realised it wasn't presented in a particularly useful way for their purposes they got disappointed.

And now with all of these flirty references to the Truth in 2nd Edition you're in the worst of all possible worlds: you're telling referees that there's this canonical answer behind the setting mysteries, but you aren't telling them what it is in a way that'd make it meaningfully gameable.

That's exactly what "The Truth" was...it was an internal, living document meant only as a reference for freelancers working on the game. It was never intended for public consumption.
Well, "The Truth" is the basis of several bits of fiction and some information in the timeline in the new edition, all of which present information which the 2nd Edition book doesn't adequately explain (the timeline just mentions "Brent Walker" as someone who's trapped on White Earth without really properly describing who he is, for instance). These allusions - and, for that matter, the entire intro fiction will look like bizarre, meaningless non sequiturs to anyone who has not read The Truth.

Somehow, far from making The Truth irrelevant, Nightfall have gone and made it essential to understanding the new rulebook - because there's content in there which you just won't be able to understand the relevance of unless you read The Truth. This will remain the case unless and until Nightfall put out some product which presents new or revised information to take its place but at the moment despite the fact that the Truth wasn't intended for public consumption and parts of it have clearly been retconned, it's more relevant than ever.

This whole 90s phenomena of teasing out setting info to the GM like some sort of RPG LOST or Twin Peaks is really interesting (as somebody who missed it). Deadlands and Vampire are other examples. Was it cool or something you're glad is gone?
I despise it. It's an example of publishers losing sight of the fact that their task is to give referees and players tools to create their own stuff at the table and falling into the idea that the metaplot is a story the publishers are telling to the audience. It requires a regular stream of products to make it work at all, and the number of publishers who can actually maintain that stream was very limited back in the day and is still limited now - frankly, for anyone other than White Wolf or TSR to try it back in the 1990s was astonishing hubris (and the fact that SLA had entire periods where only two new products would squeak out over the course of nearly a decade illustrates that).

It's good only if you are the sort of person who buys RPG books to read but aren't bothered about actually playing them, but even then there's better and more satisfying and more regularly-supplied sources of episodic stories. It's very much the sort of design which makes me want to tell a designer "Go write your novel, get it out of your system, and then come back when you are ready to design RPGs for play, not write stories for consumption".
 
Update: finished my review, it's here.

That's one hell of a review. Kudos for going into such depth.

It's funny, I don't think I ever really thought about the structural and stylistic similarities between SLA, Gargentihr, and a|state in any significant way. But now that you point it out, there's a real 'moment' during that decade when those games appear. I'll be interested ot see if the 2nd ed of a|state sticks with the 90s paradigm or takes a more radical route.
 
That's one hell of a review. Kudos for going into such depth.

It's funny, I don't think I ever really thought about the structural and stylistic similarities between SLA, Gargentihr, and a|state in any significant way. But now that you point it out, there's a real 'moment' during that decade when those games appear. I'll be interested ot see if the 2nd ed of a|state sticks with the 90s paradigm or takes a more radical route.
Wait, they're doing a 2nd edition? Which publisher, where's their site? (Can't seem to find the old Contested Ground home page and haha, well done gang, you gave your RPG a name it's near-impossible to meaningfully Google.)
 
Wait, they're doing a 2nd edition? Which publisher, where's their site? (Can't seem to find the old Contested Ground home page and haha, well done gang, you gave your RPG a name it's near-impossible to meaningfully Google.)
Handiwork Games, using a bunch of the original team. There's a demo mission, to get the feel for it, up on DTRPG. Uses the Forged in the Dark engine.
 
Update: finished my review, it's here.

Good read!

“I am going to be frank here: given the struggles they’ve had to maintain a small, small trickle of new SLA Industries products issuing forth over the quarter century of the game’s existence, I think any approach which says “We’ll save that until the next product” represents astonishing hubris. They are practically begging the Gods to strike them down with lightning and bankruptcy by doing this.”

Amen to that!
 
All I have wanted for these many years is a White Earth sourcebook with some crunch for the Monitors and such. I can fill in the gaps for everything else. My concern is that Nightfall is gonna cover familiar material v2.0 with a sourcebook or two until they run out of steam and disappear, this time for good.
 
All I have wanted for these many years is a White Earth sourcebook with some crunch for the Monitors and such. I can fill in the gaps for everything else. My concern is that Nightfall is gonna cover familiar material v2.0 with a sourcebook or two until they run out of steam and disappear, this time for good.
What I know about White Earth from the 2.0 core book:

- It's a grim desert where brutality and violence is the rule, rather than a grim city where brutality and violence in the rule. The key philosophical difference seems to be that Bitterness doesn't seem to care about a nice media-friendly facade and is more keen on blood cults than corporations.

- Apparently it's full of monkeys. Because Brent Walker was afraid of monkeys so Tyde trapped him on a planet full of monkeys so he'd be helplessly afraid and terrified all the time. The implication is that this broken him and now as Bitterness he has gained strength from being broken, so now he lords it over the monkeys, the master of this little empire of creatures he absolutely hates and despises.

- There's some other stuff which you can largely infer from the Shir'an blood cult stuff in the book but honestly the "planet full of monkeys" thing is so silly I forget most of the rest.
 
- Apparently it's full of monkeys. Because Brent Walker was afraid of monkeys so Tyde trapped him on a planet full of monkeys so he'd be helplessly afraid and terrified all the time. The implication is that this broken him and now as Bitterness he has gained strength from being broken, so now he lords it over the monkeys, the master of this little empire of creatures he absolutely hates and despises.


And with that, Tristram was never able to take SLA Industries seriously again...
 
- Apparently it's full of monkeys. Because Brent Walker was afraid of monkeys so Tyde trapped him on a planet full of monkeys so he'd be helplessly afraid and terrified all the time. The implication is that this broken him and now as Bitterness he has gained strength from being broken, so now he lords it over the monkeys, the master of this little empire of creatures he absolutely hates and despises.
Tyde is hardly the most pleasant of folk even at the best of times, but this goes beyond all of it. It's just so... petty.
 
Tyde is hardly the most pleasant of folk even at the best of times, but this goes beyond all of it. It's just so... petty.
In the bit of fiction in which this plan is discussed with Tyde it's presented as a means of containing Brent - the idea being that if he's hiding from the monkeys all the time he'll be too busy to move against Tyde/Mr. Slayer. Naturally, it didn't quite work out that way.
 
So I take it the bit about the old Truth having been thrown out was not true then?

Nevermind. Found the answer to my question in a post above.
 
In the bit of fiction in which this plan is discussed with Tyde it's presented as a means of containing Brent - the idea being that if he's hiding from the monkeys all the time he'll be too busy to move against Tyde/Mr. Slayer. Naturally, it didn't quite work out that way.
Yeah. It also shows something about Tyde's character - he's cruel for the sake of being cruel, and doesn't really understand how people work. Brent's a teenage boy, and how hard is it to distract a teenage boy, really? Drop some girls and motorbikes on White Earth (Rad Earth?) and Brent would be contained forever.

If the meta-intention was as a satire on one attitude regarding prisons, okay, I can kinda see it, but I still don't feel it hits at quite the right spot.
 
And with that, Tristram was never able to take SLA Industries seriously again...
Counterpoint: I think it's great and will now buy the 2nd ed. I mean, SLA was always a gonzo collision of what a group of disenchanted goths in late 80s Scotland found cool, in-scene pop cultural references, satirising RPG weapons fetishism, and so on and so forth. A planetful of monkeys seems to me to be one of the least mad things about the World of Progress. TBH, now that I think about it, kudos to Dave and co for sticking with their vision. Shine on, you crazy diamonds!
 
The monkeys (Homonids) reinvigorated the game for my group after many years. The .pdf that presented them for 1st Edition made them a terrifyingly dangerous and different foe.

I fully endorse the inclusion of otherworldly rage monkeys!
 
And with that, Tristram was never able to take SLA Industries seriously again...

Actually, it makes "The Truth" and whatever they mean it to be mean less to me than ever. And I'm glad I never paid attention to it or cared.
 
And with that, Tristram was never able to take SLA Industries seriously again...

A planet full of cock-blocking monkeys...

That is brilliant :hehe: . I love that :shock: !

Which goes to illustrate : de gustibus et coloribus non disputandum .
TBH, now that I think about it, kudos to Dave and co for sticking with their vision. Shine on, you crazy diamonds!

Indeed. If there's a medium in which you're entitled to show your vision, it's RPGs.
 
I honestly don't mind a desert planet full of crazy ape beasts but I need to know more about the other residents before I would run Platinum (White Eartth) BPNs. If I ran another campaign of SLA, White Earth is where I want to wrap up the story.
 
I honestly don't mind a desert planet full of crazy ape beasts but I need to know more about the other residents before I would run Platinum (White Eartth) BPNs. If I ran another campaign of SLA, White Earth is where I want to wrap up the story.
They've been wanting to do a White Earth book since at least the start of the Cubicle 7 era so it's a strong possibility. And they do seem to have a more developed idea of what is actually there in this edition. You may be in luck.
 
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