Thread "Drivethruroll20, the possible purge." in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 1:09PM, Sep. 18, 2022

A bit of background; I gotten into tabletop rpg business in 2012 because I felt like I could never achieve my true dream of making video games, at the time I found it a lot of easier to just lift and heavily modify dozens of rules and try to put together a setting and head it to people with a "here, I want to hear what you guys come up with".

The first game I produced was a furry focused game I dubbed Yiffpunk, it was bad because I had no way to playtest it as I was trapped in rural Texas in 2012, I had a chip on my shoulder, and just didn't understand game development yet. At the time I thought I was being extra adult and risque due to having a huge influence from RPG.net, only to find out later it barely scratched above PG in terms of sex.

Anyway I attempted to refine what I done, kept trying new systems and ideas with newer games over the years only to kind of just, stop. I spent a long, long time trying to make a game since 2017, I have dozens upon hundreds of systems, settings and ideas yet nothing ever came to be beyond a loose alpha. I lost a ton of steam and interest in the community, plus constantly butting heads with said community's love of "army" politics (left-right-left-right) just was draining.

This brings me to the focus of the topic, drivethrurpg. The host of my work.

So I had recently posted a comic I want to make some pocket change on their sister site, drivethrucomics, when I saw a story about how they are partnering up with Roll20.

Welp, here comes the purge! Was my honest thought the moment I noticed it, kind of cynical of me but I just figured that the company that owns R20 is start asking Drivethru to take down anything that isn't squeaky clean that would make some investors nervous. And after losing a few games I made on Gamejolt I figured, "eh, had a good run, time to change."

I figured it was time for a new start, and get back into trying to make video games and work on small comics to sell on Itch.io to make a name for myself. I honestly stopped caring about the old titles on the old site, I am happy people enjoyed them but they are just made in a bad time of my life and want to move on.

To bring things to a conclusion I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of indie creators suddenly get de-platformed overnight.

Posted at 7:09PM, Sep. 18, 2022

Tell them to come here :)

I had a few friends that I met through Facebook who were very high up in the RPG industry, working on major titles. One was a really good friend. It was an interesting business rife with all sorts of culture politics!

But then I deactivated my account and haven't looked back XD

Posted at 8:09PM, Sep. 18, 2022

Ozoneocean wrote:
Tell them to come here :)

I had a few friends that I met through Facebook who were very high up in the RPG industry, working on major titles. One was a really good friend. It was an interesting business rife with all sorts of culture politics!

But then I deactivated my account and haven't looked back XD

I have no idea on how it became this way as it seemed the market was open to a whole host of ideas, from wild sex to dark body horror, from stupid pun filled treasure hunts to dungeon stomping, it seemed like there was nothing off limits.

Then all anyone is allowing is dwarves of indeterminate height and afraid of doors to open a baking stall.

I wonder if a lot of the culture stuff stems from suburbian parents who look down upon the hobby, saying how disgusted by it, how it's too nerdy or satanic which in turn a lot of players were like "wait, wait, I will fix it just for you!"

And in doing so told the weirdo that took everything seriously to put a robe on the battle bikini girl. who in turn got offended and made that girl walk around with double Es and pastees and a g string. That causes the first party to take it a step further, which is counter assaulted. Until you got the two extremes of the hobby.

To be truthful I am just hurt nobody wants to try out After the Bomb or Critter Tek due to the Matt Mercer effect of rpghorror stories and automatically locked out furries, anime fans, baseball fans, used car salesmen, Elvis impersonators, etc., etc.. from even talking to them.

On a funny note I noticed a rise of solo RPGs being sold on itch.io.

Posted at 9:09AM, Sep. 19, 2022

Making me feel very thankful I never got into that side of gaming. I started doing some play testing for Steve Jackson and had connections to the folks at GDW. Then I got married and decided to drop gaming all together except for miniatures commissions and eventually dropped that to do webcomics.

Though I still have the tabletop war game I designed to play out the battles in what became my fantasy comic. Also developed a card game simulation of Medieval feudalism as a teaching aid for Medieval studies. Damn, if it didn't put you right into the cut throat 12th century.

Posted at 7:09AM, Sep. 21, 2022

I've never been much into Tabletop anything really. But I recently discover Print & Play games. Games like paper and dice, card games or full fledged board games you order, download and print and often need few extra components for, and most of them are for solo play, or includes solo play, and are either for free or very, very cheap. I tried out Utopia Engine which I ordered for free from PNP Arcade a few weeks ago and I had a lot of fun with that.

This might become a new, economical hobby of mine, especially now that food and electricity prices are goin' up here in my country because of the war in Ukraine (And probably also because of climate change I suspect). Here's a link if you guys wanna check these games out.
https://www.pnparcade.com/

Posted at 2:09PM, Sep. 21, 2022

In the late 70s/ early 80s, I did some illustrations for the Arduin Grimoire series of table-top RPG books. They were a sort of free-form supplement or challenge to the then-brand-new Dungeons and Dragons game. The ideas contained in those books were considered radically subversive and scary by the mainstream gaming community of that time. But today, most gaming journalists who review those books now consider the Arduin Grimoires to be completely unremarkable compared to the kind of concepts that exist in current mainstream table top fantasy RPGs. Those formerly "radical" ideas have become absorbed into the mainstream, and now they are the mainstream. I have to wonder if the game concepts considered noxious today will eventually be absorbed into a new mainstream in some unknowable way as well.