RPPR After Hours: The Schlock Singularity
Added 2015-06-06 03:48:03 +0000 UTCIn this episode, we review three RPG source books: Tarlkin's Landing from Judge's Guild, Earthshaker from TSR, and The Nightlife RPG by Stellar Games. We also discuss the gradual merging of bad movies like Samurai Cop and the Room into a schlock singularity and the future of bad-good movies.
Comments
So I thought Dave "Zeb" Cook sounded really familiar! He created Planescape, probably the best DnD setting ever.
KamenOtaku
2015-07-17 11:06:16 +0000 UTCOh, dear gawd, Judge's Guild. I'm surprised nobody commented on the quality of the paper used for their products. I never bought any of their stuff for AD&D, but they along with Paranoia Press and FASA (yes, the FASA that later did Shadowrun, Battletech, and Mechwarrior), were early licensees for Traveller back in the three Little Black Book days (Traveller was the first RPG I ever bought or ran). I bought a few of their things, mostly their sector maps for Traveller, but even then I turned up my nose at most of their stuff. The paper quality was barely above newsprint, the art and writing were universally awful, and to this day, they are the only game company I'm aware of that actually had published errata for maps. No, I'm not kidding. Truly, an awful company. I believe Tarlkin's Landing was published shortly after they lost their license for Traveller.
Stuart Dollar
2015-06-19 02:34:37 +0000 UTCI second Dylan's comment. These After Hours episodes are great!
uwtartarus
2015-06-10 23:39:24 +0000 UTCManuscript Illumination needs to make an appearance in more RPGs.
Jeb Dale
2015-06-10 11:28:33 +0000 UTCThis episode... This episode is what I pay for. Great discussion on even better subject matter, and just great reactions.
Dylan Fuller
2015-06-09 16:03:57 +0000 UTCI vaguely remember seeing this game in my local game shop way back in the early 90s. I remember it because I thought, even then, that the cover art was strange and pretty lame. I guess I was one of the few 15 year old snobs who turned his nose up at crappy art. Glad I passed on this one... Great episode though!
Patrick French
2015-06-09 04:55:44 +0000 UTCThe worst part about these old RPG reviews is that I want to see them so bad.
KamenOtaku
2015-06-06 23:59:42 +0000 UTCMan, I love crazy complex maps. Obviously I need to hack some time and go back and game in the 80's.
Ethan Cordray
2015-06-06 23:51:40 +0000 UTCIt is another mid-90's post-apocalypse game. For some reason I just can't throw it out. Here it is: <a href="http://ssdc.com/store/blood_dawn_pdf" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://ssdc.com/store/blood_dawn_pdf</a> There is a link to their wiki as well. I've never read the whole thing, but I'm sure there is some good/rediculous stuff. It can't possibly be as bad as DeadEarth though.
Dan Williamson
2015-06-06 22:13:06 +0000 UTCI don't see Blood Dawn on that site. What is it?
Ross Payton
2015-06-06 21:33:16 +0000 UTCOkay to defend Night Life, it has the single best skill ever in RPG history.
Ross Payton
2015-06-06 18:28:40 +0000 UTCSo let me get this straight, in the cover we have a mullet wearing 80s power-ballad vampire cradling the corpse of a recently drained Jem in a reverse Pieta pose while a middle-schooler's artistic interpretation of werewolves close in?
Adam Thornsburg
2015-06-06 17:03:40 +0000 UTClevel zero PCs leading around senile and/or racist high-level characters oh no, make it a Cthulhu Dark port and have the environment and the escorts murder players left and right, this is a party game waiting to happen I've had long conversations about how humans prefer "big" things (in the context of gay men obsessing over big dicks in spite of their being objectively worse for anybody but pain queens). the conclusion we came to was that humans have a strong preference for anything that's "big" or else that's small in a way that's "cute." my theory is that as hunter/gatherers we were always on the verge of starvation, so we have an ingrained notion that that which is "big" we'll be able to eat longer to survive the winter, and that gets overapplied to all situations. we like "cute" things because otherwise we'd murder our own horrible children and die out, and that, too, gets extended to nonhuman cute things, or we'd murder our own horrible cats.
sevrl bats
2015-06-06 16:36:03 +0000 UTCI'm pretty sure I've seen this book on the shelf, the cover is ... memorable. I was never moved to spend any money on it though. I should send you my copy of Blood Dawn (that came free with a purchase) (see www.ssdc.com for a preview) for a future episode. Interested?
Dan Williamson
2015-06-06 15:52:46 +0000 UTCI think that's a lost cause.
Ross Payton
2015-06-06 03:58:26 +0000 UTCThanks, Ross!
Jonnygadfly
2015-06-06 03:55:07 +0000 UTCThat cover. Is this a conspiracy to get Caleb to appreciate World of Darkness by comparison?
Ethan Cordray
2015-06-06 03:54:56 +0000 UTC
