Grim & Perilous now ... Cannon Otter Studio?

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NinjaWeasel said:
The best news (potentially at least) out of all of this is that there may be a Colonial Gothic 4th edition just around the corner!
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I think this is the only way forward, the setting is pretty different from most out there, it doesnt compete with WFRP 4E.

I have Zweihander, but have never run it because I started collecting WFRP 4E instead. It was almost immediately obsolete for me.

Some parts of Zweihander work better for me than WFRP 4E, mainly in the fact it uses just one set of Fate Pts like earlier WFRP editions - what was Cubicle 7 thinking by turning them into four different resource pools?

However Cubicle 7 has the WFRP licence and lots of resources, so it wins out for me. Plus the WFRP 4E tone is grim yet quirky at times, which is something I can run. Zweihander just feels oppressively grim and too melodramatic for my tastes.

If I did not have Mythras, then I could see uses for it as a gritty generic medieval/blackpowder system. But as it is, I'm gonna have to archive my Zweihander core rule book (and the Companion), just to make place for my other books.

To give it credit, Zweihander Reforged may be a decent set of game mechanics if some things have been streamlined.

I don't have the Colonial Gothic book, but if they release a new version with Colonial Gothic being a separate self-contained core rulebook (not a Zweihander setting add-on), then I would consider giving it shelf space.

But I'm not in the market for another Zweihander core book, which is what the kickstarter is about.
 
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Gringnr said:
Knock Off is pretty well loved among fans of Hong Kong movies. Tsui Hark is a legend. But, to each their own.
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I never walk out of movies but I almost did with that one, and Mission to Mars. The only good thing about that movie was a Van Halen song that played during one of the scenes, no joke. Tim Robbins and Don Cheadle couldn’t save it.
 
Endless Flight said:
I never walk out of movies but I almost did with that one, and Mission to Mars. The only good thing about that movie was a Van Halen song that played during one of the scenes, no joke. Tim Robbins and Don Cheadle couldn’t save it.
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I think the only two movies I've ever walked out of were Absolute Power and The Truth About Charlie.
 
Tulpa Girl said:
Strictly as a guess, perhaps as a play on 'cannon fodder'.
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That makes sense. I was wondering if it had something to do with Gene Wolfe's book Castle of the Otter, which got its title from a fannish mistake about his (then forthcoming) book Citadel of the Autarch.

Or maybe Cannon Beach and Otter Rock on the Oregon coast...

Or am I overthinking this?:smile:
 
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Voros said:
The 5e Neverland book is quite good btw, although for personal reasons I'm unlikely to support anything coming from them in the future, unless they come up with a cool game I can't resist.
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I don’t think they had anything to do with that book. That book was developed by Andrew Kolb, and (originally) published by Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Kolb has also put out a Oz setting book, and looks to be working on a Wonderland one.
 
Endless Flight said:
I never walk out of movies but I almost did with that one, and Mission to Mars. The only good thing about that movie was a Van Halen song that played during one of the scenes, no joke. Tim Robbins and Don Cheadle couldn’t save it.
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I've never walked out of a movie. I was tempted once when watching the Canadian indie film Kissed which managed to waste the great Molly Parker in a ridiculous, New Agey, sentimental (!) and strangely self-righteous story of a 'good' necrophiliac vs. a 'bad' necrophiliac. Dead serious with no sense of irony or subversive humour.

Other than that, the first Transformers visually incoherent and endless final CGI battle exhausted me so much I was tempted to walk.
 
Daniel Fox has appeared on Nerdcognito, talking all kind of stuff.

 
I got about 7 minutes in watching at double speed and with autogenerated captions - nothing to report up to then.

Except that I couldn't last any longer (3 1/2 minutes of my life I won't be getting back).

It's probably taken me longer than that to write this, but at least I feel I'm performing a public service!
 
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chuckdee said:
That's a lot of time to spend on something I don't care about. Anybody care more and might have looked at it?
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I watched it, ofc. Those who have already made up their minds about DFox don't need to bother watching, I guess. But I'm thinking it's now about the ones he can reach. Pretty smart, actually. He'll win some converts, and he won't lose any. So there's really no reason not to do it.

He addresses the Trove thing. Which I never understood people bitching about. Even if you think you're entitled to stolen shit (you're not), the Trove was literally one of the worst places to get anything. There are other repositories that are better maintained, better stocked, more frequently updated, have better download speeds, and better scans. Get gud noob. Or just make friends (yeah right) and join a private torrent tracker. It was literally a running joke in other pirate communities about how shitty the Trove was. But pirates are the most entitled and inconsiderate fuckers this side of potheads and motorcyclists.

So yeah if you hate Dan/Zweihander, I don't see this moving the needle. But the Nerdrotic crew appear to have been receptive, and Fox appears to show some contrition as well (which some willl simply see as further duplicity, but this interview is about the people you can move, as I said earlier). I think the interviewers should have pressed him harder on some stuff. I like the guy, that's no secret, but if you're going to have a "hard-hitting" interview, go all out.
 
Gringnr said:
Flames of Freedom and Blackbirds are owned by other creators (Richard Iorio and Ryan Vermere, respectively), if I'm not mistaken. So, they licensed the Zweihander system, but I think whatever is going on beyond that is between those creators and AMU.
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I know this will get a lot of hate, but I kinda like Flames of Freedom. It's a solid game and a great era.
 
Gringnr said:
I watched it, ofc. Those who have already made up their minds about DFox don't need to bother watching, I guess. But I'm thinking it's now about the ones he can reach. Pretty smart, actually. He'll win some converts, and he won't lose any. So there's really no reason not to do it.

He addresses the Trove thing. Which I never understood people bitching about. Even if you think you're entitled to stolen shit (you're not), the Trove was literally one of the worst places to get anything. There are other repositories that are better maintained, better stocked, more frequently updated, have better download speeds, and better scans. Get gud noob. Or just make friends (yeah right) and join a private torrent tracker. It was literally a running joke in other pirate communities about how shitty the Trove was. But pirates are the most entitled and inconsiderate fuckers this side of potheads and motorcyclists.
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The Trove was a trivially easy place to get lots of long out of print abandoned RPG PDFs and PDFs of 5e books the WotC wouldn't make available. If you wanted to make an enemy of a large number of folks with no real benefit to anyone then go after the Trove.
Gringnr said:
So yeah if you hate Dan/Zweihander, I don't see this moving the needle. But the Nerdrotic crew appear to have been receptive, and Fox appears to show some contrition as well (which some willl simply see as further duplicity, but this interview is about the people you can move, as I said earlier). I think the interviewers should have pressed him harder on some stuff. I like the guy, that's no secret, but if you're going to have a "hard-hitting" interview, go all out.
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Bunch said:
The Trove was a trivially easy place to get lots of long out of print abandoned RPG PDFs and PDFs of 5e books the WotC wouldn't make available. If you wanted to make an enemy of a large number of folks with no real benefit to anyone then go after the Trove.
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Saying you will make people get angry because they can no longer access pirated illegal copies of games (you specifically said 5E) is like saying they will get angry because they can’t steal the pie from someone’s window sill. Both are straight up theft, full stop.
 
Yeah I mean if it were only out of print stuff (or even close) then that argument might hold water.

Also, none of that stuff is "lost" now that the Trove has shut down. I guarantee you I can find anything the Trove hosted still online in 5 minutes at the outside.

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chuckdee said:
That "most of the team" bit seems like there's more to the story
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I, too, am curious about that line.
A Fiery Flying Roll said:
...Zweihander 2e will likely try and be less like its original inspiration.
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Yeah. I'm getting serious Darksouls vibe from the KS campaign. Also, an indie game called When the Moon Hangs Low, particularly the mention of scars and the role they play.
Gringnr said:
If you really wanna generate controversy, call it "Austin"
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You could really go out there and name it, "New York City!?" and reach those who comprehend & know. The first supplement should be "Get the rope!," a plot hook campaign that asks, "Who hanged Cookie?"
 
The Trove was always living on borrowed time anyway. It was utterly cavalier about takedown requests and had stuff up there from companies big enough to stamp on it. (Let's be realistic, the amount of people using it to find out of print RPGs from 1985 is going to have been miniscule compared to the people using it to get 5e stuff for free).

I don't think it going was a net negative overall. I definitely know of complaints from tiny designers that The Trove was putting their stuff up before it was even on the market.

I'm not exactly known to be a Fox fan and there's plenty I will criticise him for. But I really have trouble caring about him taking down The Trove (if he was actually responsible rather than just claiming the credit).

I do believe in RPG preservation but any site doing it needs to be a lot more like the more respectable abandonware sites:

1. Instant takedown on request from IP owners.
2. Nothing currently available to buy.

That still wouldn't be *legal* but I suspect a site like that would largely be ignored.
 
Gringnr said:
like the guy, that's no secret, but if you're going to have a "hard-hitting" interview, go all out.
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Let's be realistic there, the only person in the RPG sphere actually capable of doing a journalistic hard interview is Codega and they're busy with Rascal.
 
Gringnr said:
Daniel Fox has appeared on Nerdcognito, talking all kind of stuff.

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I watched the intro and skimmed through bits and pieces.

My opinon of Fox remains unchanged. A talentless, sell aggrandizing asshole still peddling his snake oil.
 
Malckuss said:
Yeah. I'm getting serious Darksouls vibe from the KS campaign. Also, an indie game called When the Moon Hangs Low, particularly the mention of scars and the role they play.
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This sounds interesting. If its gonna be grimdark, then no need to hug too closely to WFRP this time.
 
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Cannon Otter is a nice name for a roleplaying game studio. Dunno whether he was responsible for taking done Trove or not - good for him if so - but he's been plenty annoying enough outside of that to make it onto my "I don't like this guy" list but not enough to make it onto my "I will try to avoid things this person creates or profits from" list. The new game from Cannon Otter doesn't look interesting to me anyway, so that's all a bit by-the-by.

Mankcam said:
Some parts of Zweihander work better for me than WFRP 4E, mainly in the fact it uses just one set of Fate Pts like earlier WFRP editions - what was Cubicle 7 thinking by turning them into four different resource pools?
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Zweihander, like original WFRP, have two different resource pools; they just call them both fate points. You can just either burn from the maximum number that pool will reach, or burn a temporary point. WFRP 4E sensibly renamed these to clarify the difference between them (that's literally all Fate/Fortune is) and then inexplicably created a second set with distinct refresh rules because adding complexity is fun or something.
 
Baulderstone said:
Is this contrition for the really shitty things he has done, or is he still pretending people are only angry with him for promoting his game too much?
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Surprisingly, the game promotion thing didn't come up (a mistake on the part of the interviewers IMO, and one of the reasons I say they should have been more aggressive). It's mostly focused on other things, though one of the hosts correctly noted that there are allegations aimed at Fox that lack receipts. That's why, in the spirit of mod direction I've received here at the Pub, I've adopted a "proof, not accusations" policy where Dan is concerned.
 
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Dr Jack said:
Cannon Otter is a nice name for a roleplaying game studio. Dunno whether he was responsible for taking done Trove or not - good for him if so - but he's been plenty annoying enough outside of that to make it onto my "I don't like this guy" list but not enough to make it onto my "I will try to avoid things this person creates or profits from" list. The new game from Cannon Otter doesn't look interesting to me anyway, so that's all a bit by-the-by.



Zweihander, like original WFRP, have two different resource pools; they just call them both fate points. You can just either burn from the maximum number that pool will reach, or burn a temporary point. WFRP 4E sensibly renamed these to clarify the difference between them (that's literally all Fate/Fortune is) and then inexplicably created a second set with distinct refresh rules because adding complexity is fun or something.
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Zweihander actually has 3 resource pools (though Reputation is optional), and only one is called Fate Points. The other two are Fortune/Misfortune Points and Reputation. At least in the OG and Revised versions. I'm admittedly less familiar with the Starter Set, though I do own it.
 
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Gringnr said:
Surprisingly, the game promotion thing didn't come up (a mistake on the part of the interviewers IMO, and one of the reasons I say they should have been more aggressive). It's mostly focused on other things, though one of the hosts correctly noted that there are allegations aimed at Fox that lack receipts. That's why, in the spirit of mod direction I've received here at the Pub, I've adopted a "proof, not accusations" policy where Dan is concerned.
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So what was he being contrite about then?
 
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