Fantasy flight has released a new game and labeled it a Descent game.
They made a very expensive game, with horrible art. The hero selection has no male human/ dwarf fighter characters, no white human male characters at all. The only character that is manly is a black wizard dude that I admit is kind of cool. The male elf ranger character is the most pathetic looking character that they could have designed.
In previous games Fantasy Flight made it a thing to have both male and female represented in their games. The Descent Second Edition game had 1 male and 1 female of every class. You had male fighters and female fighters, male mages and female mages etc. Now in a game that is a freaking 175$ they decided to not include the most popular characters, male human fighters and male dwarf fighters. Their Descent player base is as you expect white and male but they decided to not include it at all in their game.
Sorry for the rant.
Had to make a small edit: One of the characters Vaerix, the Dragon-Hybrid Outcast has neutral pronouns. Cause of course they does.
Fuck it, hold them to their same bullshit standards about "representation".
If I, as a straight white male, don't see myself represented within the game world then I will take my money elsewhere.
This is an unbelievably petty attitude, but it'd be interesting to see their sales figures if white men were as sexist, racist and bigoted as the woke brigade.
This is the inevitable outcome. If they want racial identitarianism, they're going to get it.
Sadly I'm getting there. I see a game with black Vikings or black knights and I usually just pass. I never used to have that before.
Also have you noticed that black characters are the only ones that do not respect their historical settings. I'm following several boardgames on Kickstarter and I noticed that you get asian characters that tend to be asian themed like shaolin monks or samurais, you get aztec inspired characters, latino with a focus on religion inspired by Spanish culture etc but black characters are suddenly Vikings from the fjords and Greek warrior priestess.
It just dawned on me that the creators are just racist and ignorant that they do not know enough about Africans to make proper interesting characters.
That's because nothing about actual "black culture" is acceptable. Hardly anybody knows about real ancient African culture outside your usual aboriginal imagery, which is considered an offensive stereotype, and modern day gangbanger/rap culture isn't any better (and it's not suitable for children either). So they pretty much have to force blacks into other races' mythologies and claim "diversity!"
I do not understand why a powerful warrior from an african themed tribe is not acceptable but a barbarian is. There is no huge difference between them except maybe the weapon. The same can be said about an native shaman vs a tribal witch .
Also, blast them for appropriation of other cultures. Demand that they stay in their lane.
Rant away. Need to talk about SJW stuff in games even if they are board games.
It's always jarring when any game gets rid of some characters for having traits SJWs hate. Borderlands 3 killed off almost all the male characters to make them look pathetic. They even had that retarded "girl power" ending.
I played about halfway(2/3?) through a pirate copy of borderlands 3 and just couldn't motivate myself to learn the patterns on the penn and teller boss.
The gameplay and loot really is a lot of fun I think they brought back decapitations from sniper hits? not sure if that was real or just my misremembering.
But the story and characters were so GODAWFUL and so cringy agenda pushing that it turned me off on the game entirely. Maybe I'll pirate it again if they release an "endless" mode that is just random scaling levels and loot but a company that releases something with that kind of narrative isn't getting a dime from me (and I happily paid for launch day B2, Season pass, and psycho char).
Couldn't bring myself to finish it. Rented a copy from Rebox to play with my partner and got a little less than halfway through. I don't think i actively look for themes in games but the anti-male sentiment was pretty palpable in that one.
What was the ending like?
The ending was that Lilith was the only one who could save the planet using girl power and she flew and used it but probably died in the process. Then all the womyn get together for a "this girl is on fire" MV. For real.
Just a small note. I know this does not make it a SJW game but is a huge Red Flag that this is the direction they are going for.
It's like that Feminazi kindergarden teacher the deprived boys of lego blocks, only letting girls play with those.
Because biological sex determining most ofm young kids' toy preferences drives leftists up the fucking wall, and they will abuse children trying to socially engeneer those away.
Last time I checked Descent was a space rail shooter that evolved into the last space fighter sim.
Coop games are girly anyway. If you want to play a man, play a man's board game! (Obvious troll is Obvious)
I actually kind of agree with that. Previous descent games are one vs many and both sides tried to win no matter what, is not like in DnD where the dungeon master tries to make the players have fun. You have 2-4 playing as heroes and 1 overlord that controls the monsters and a secret card deck full of tricks like buffing monsters or traps for the heroes.. The game becomes intense, people getting mad and every dice seems to count.
Coop games are kind of boring and predictable and the story will never be as good as an old RPG game, but it sadly looks to be what everyone wants.
Specific game system aside, a DM has the responsibility of keeping everyone engaged and having fun, yes. Don't misunderstand "fun", though. Fun is different for everyone. If fun for you is high tension and high stakes with no guarantees from your allies, you can make that happen with a cooperative DM and player group. Finding such a group is the trick, though, and you'd have to find a system that supports those traits in order to have a better kickstart to your search.
From my point of view, it makes sense that people go to pnp for the casual type of escapist fun. They probably have stressful daily lives with regular misery, so of course their game time is going to be in pursuit of the opposite.
Tell your DM to step his game up, then. If he can't keep you engaged, tell him to let you run a session.
In addition to the SJW part, I am also alarmed by the price of the board game.
$175 for a board game?! Even a decent Magic the gathering deck isn't that expensive. That's about 9 times the price of a higher end $20 classic board game that seems to be the standard nowadays. Heck, if you're creative, inventive, and clever, you could make a real good board game with salvaged pieces from what you could find at the Goodwill's used board games section plus a few something's from Dollar Tree.
What about this board game that is driving up the price so much? I almost think that this is a front for something much more sinister.
You are paying for paintable action figures for a lot of these games. There is a level where it's nice to have premium components and tokens to help you get immersed in a game but a lot of these Kickstarter are over-the-top. Someone found the formula of 2 - 4 player dungeon crawler with 250 miniatures that range up to two ft tall and people will pay a couple hundred bucks for it.
Gloomhaven came out and it sold well so it proved that there is a market for expensive games that play without a DM. Board game companies decided it sold well because it was expensive rather then despite of it. So now a ton of companies are making overpriced games that go in to the hundreds of dollars. I honestly have no idea why but I am never going to pay this ridiculous amount of money on a game.
So you get average games but with better miniatures, if you look at kickstarters they focus on the quality of the miniatures more then gameplay. Look at this angel hero and how cool it looks or this female pirate (all pirates are female now in all games). I for one do not care much about the miniature, if it somewhat resembling the monster we are fighting I'm ok.
Descent: Journeys into the Dark got blown out of the water by Gloomhaven. I don't see anything in this new version, even ignoring the drop of art quality since the last version, telling me this'll be a Gloomhaven competitor.
Journeys into the Dark was not a perfect game, there are a few things that needed to change that got implemented in Imperial Assault. However it offered something that Gloomhaven did not, playing against a human Overlord that does all he can to win. The second edition is not even a dungeon crawl but more of a strategy game designed around objectives.
Rather then build on what made Descent interesting they decided to make a Gloomhaven competitor. Their main sale is going to be the miniatures, but honestly is 175$ for a game that is not as good as Gloomhaven.
This for me is not even a problem is the fact that they I'm assuming are going to go towards a SJW direction, so when the third edition will be out I expect very few male fighters, males to look pathetic like that elf ranger and represent all the minorities. I even expect some trans looking characters.
Why are leftists all crazy if someone has the wrong haircut in Animal Crossing but having black knights or black vickings not cultural appropriation?