Hard core games?

[EvilPixi]

Does anyone know of any companies that publish games with a mature rating? I remember a beautiful little game put out by Black Dog (part of White Wolf) called HOL but it seem to have gone the way of the Dodo. Are there any companies that publish outside hard-core games?

[NPC Gore Obsessed]

Fatal Games publishes a free downloadable game called F.A.T.A.L. It is so hardcore that it has been nicknamed the Game That Must Not Be Named (GTMNBN), and is also commonly referred to as f***l, here at rpg.net. By the way, even though the system is excellent, the leftist crowd here hates and fears it. If you post anything in favor of it, be warned you will be flamed into submission by rpg.netters or simply censored. That's right, this game evokes the worst in conservatives who pretend to love living in a democracy and then censor anything they disagree with. You have been encouraged and warned. Enjoy.

[Gareth-Michael Skarka]

First of all: I could give a shit about FATAL or any of the rest of that.

However, a couple of questions:

1) What does this have to do with Business or Publishing?

Answer: Fuck-all. Post in the right forum, geniuses.

2) What the hell is it tonight? In the space of an hour, we've had EvilPixi saying that he'd like to publish a card game about terrorism where you get to attack targets like the WTC and the OKC Fed Building, NPC NON-RACIST and NPC Gore Obsessed posting crap about the site in general and moderators in specific..... Did we hit the crackpot jackpot or what?

GMS

[Patrick Chipman]

Look at what just appears on the reviews, Gareth. It's just the usual crew crawling out of the woodwork again to promote their completely and utterly invalid belief systems.

Would someone please either lock this thread, or move it some place appropriate?

[EvilPixi]

First of all GMS, I think that it is a valid question for this forum. It was an industry related question as I am looking for publishers who take on outside hard-core games. I am sorry that you were so offended by my question. In regard to the card game, I had posted another question in a thread that was very heated. I had wanted to see who, if anybody, would be interested in a game of that kind. Evidently you are not, I appreciate that. However, there is no need to become hostile. If you feel that my question would be better suited to another forum please let me know which one.

G

[Patrick Chipman]

...would be the main forum, but I'd expect even more napalm blasts there.

Personally, I don't consider HOL to be "hardcore;" it's a comedy by its own admission.

[EvilPixi]

You are right about HOL Patrick, but what I am refering to when I say "Hardcore" are games that are directed at older gamers that don't pull any punches. I was really hoping to see more out of Black Dog than what it produced. Do you know of any companies which produce these kinds of games?

[Chris Aylott]

Originally posted by EvilPixi
what I am refering to when I say "Hardcore" are games that are directed at older gamers that don't pull any punches.

Do you know of any companies which produce these kinds of games?

Two answers: many of them and none of them.

There are a bunch of publishers who are perfectly willing to do something unusual and thought-provoking for adults. SJG just did Vigilante, Hogshead has done Violence and Power/Kill, Atlas has done Unknown Armies, and White Wolf's done a bunch of notable stuff over the years, the best of which is "Charnel Houses of Europe." In the smaller press there's stuff like "Little Fears" and (though I haven't seen it) "The End". Most game companies are creator-driven, and they aren't afraid to be controversial if they believe in the product.

However, the game industry is a small market dominated by a young audience. From a business perspective, publishing exclusively or even primarily for an over-18 or over-21 or whatever audience is dumb. It's something you do occasionally for prestige (which is what Black Dog has mostly been for White Wolf) or when there's no better way to say something you want to say, not something you do to make money.

So there you have it. If you want to buy (or sell) a thought-provoking game for older gamers that doesn't pull any punches, the games and the companies are out there. If it's good enough, it'll get to the market -- but it had better be very good to make up for the large swath of the audience that's being ignored. If you just want tits, gore, and naughty words, then there's everything you could possibly want just a web search and a credit card away. There are many fine industries out there that exist for the purpose of titillating adults; this just doesn't happen to be one of them.

yours,

[UDog]

Well said.

[Jason Sartin]

Originally posted by NPC Gore Obsessed
By the way, even though the system is excellent, the leftist crowd here hates and fears it.That's right, this game evokes the worst in conservatives who pretend to love living in a democracy and then censor anything they disagree with.So, is RPGnet "leftist" or "conservative" (aka "right"). Can't be both, you know.

If you're going to denounce someone, it'll make you look *so* much smarter if YOU ACTUALLY REMEMBER WHICH POLITICAL LABEL YOU'RE SLAPPING ON THEM. Then again, you're a FATAL fan...can't necessarily expect you to remember right and left are separate directions.

Oh, and while you're whining about democracy and censorship, you might ask FATAL's creator the next time you give him a hand job about how he threatened to sue Darren MacLennan for talking shit about FATAL. Guess being in a free society only counts when it's your turn, eh?
<br>

[Charles Gray]

Originally posted by Chris Aylott


Two answers: many of them and none of them.


However, the game industry is a small market dominated by a young audience. From a business perspective, publishing exclusively or even primarily for an over-18 or over-21 or whatever audience is dumb. It's something you do occasionally for prestige (which is what Black Dog has mostly been for White Wolf) or when there's no better way to say something you want to say, not something you do to make money.

yours,

Also, you have to face the fact that the fact that much of the gaming crowd is under 18, puts some limiters on what a store can freely display. Quite honestly, no store owner wants to find out that the clerk he hired sold an Nc-17 game to a kid-- when the parents walk in the front door. A few stores had problems like that with xenophile.

[Egil]

Originally posted by Jason Sartin
Oh, and while you're whining about democracy and censorship, you might ask FATAL's creator the next time you give him a hand job about how he threatened to sue Darren MacLennan for talking shit about FATAL. Guess being in a free society only counts when it's your turn, eh?
<br>

Now, THAT''s interesting trivia.

And FATAL isn't abhorred because it has "adult content." It's abhorred because it sucks. It is a prurient masturbatory fantasy with convoluted rules. It is thrice the length of Talislanta and has got five times as many tables as Rolemaster. It sucks worse than your mother does. It sucks more than a shanghai whore. It sucks like a B-52 engine. It sucks blue whale cock.

Flaming is not censoring, and to be flamed into submission is rather hard.

Yo mama so fat and so old, when God said "Let there be light," it was the cue for her to get outta the way.

[Jack]

Originally posted by Egil

And FATAL isn't abhorred because it has "adult content." It's abhorred because it sucks. It is a prurient masturbatory fantasy with convoluted rules. It is thrice the length of Talislanta and has got five times as many tables as Rolemaster. It sucks worse than your mother does. It sucks more than a shanghai whore. It sucks like a B-52 engine. It sucks blue whale cock.


And interestingly I think there are tables in FATAL for determing the suction in foot lbs. created by both someone's mother and a shanghai whore. And while I think they plan to publish the table for determining the length of a blue whale phallus, you'll have to wait til they finish their creature book.
And I believe sex with a B-52 has some sort of penalty....

Yep. Sucks is the word I'd use too.

[Egil]

I once drove with some folks to another city to watch a show. There, we bought some 5 liters of a cheap cachaça that tasted like alcohol mixed with dirty water. (Which it probably was.) I take a long time to get drunk. I only became noticeably ill when we were already 100 Km into the road (380 away from Rio). I eventually began to retch. Badly. We had to pull over in a Bus/Truck stop, so I could vomit into a toilet. Now, this was a big stop. The bathroom was very clean, and immense. It had some 30 urinals, and 12 toilets, in a rough, irregular polygon. (The urinals looked like an avenue of Egyptian sphinxes.) A bunch of truck drivers and us mohawked sixteen to eighteen year olds were the only human beings in a five mile radius.
I stood there, with bits of my stomach and bile coming out of my mouth, hugging a toilet while my friends tried to figure out wether there was a hospital near to which they could take me. I was also pretty sure the truck drivers would gang-rape us. (Actually, my friends later told me they were quite nice.) This went on for about 45 minutes before I got better, drank some potato soup, took a "bath" in the outdoors faucet, and went away.

That was better than reading FATAL. At least I had a story to tell afterwards. At least it was an experience, an intense experience, even if it was a disagreeable one.

[EvilPixi]

Ok so I just had to see why everyone hated FATAL so much. I downloaded the game and took a peek. While it is very base aw well as being a little too silly for my tastes I did get a few chuckles out of it. I have to admit that the system sucks. The creativity behind it is apparent. The designers went to great pains to make the charts as offensive as possible and you've gatta' respect that. As they say "even bad press is good press" if it had not been for all of the snarling, agressive insults againt the game I would have never taken the time to check it out. I feel that while I would never really play the game I would want to buy a copy just to show my friends. It is entertaining to say the least and mildly stupid to say the most.

What about more realistic games? Games with mor violence or maybe a socio-political aspect to them, any one know of any?

[EvilPixi]

I would like to point out, for all of you who feel that there is mo market for adult gamers, that in the thread below this one GMS provides a link to a demographic study of gamers. There is a definate market for mature rated games in the RPG industry. I for one would like to see more titles on the shelves that pave new ground in this field.

[Egil]

What is it that you mean when you employ the word "adult"? Your use of "hard-core" as a sinonym and inclusion of FATAL makes it seem as if you are using the word "adult" for "prurient."

If that is not the case, then, yes, there are a lot of RPGs catering to mature people. Most of them (by titles if not by sales), in fact.

[EvilPixi]

When I say adult or hard-core games, I mean only games that are not designed to be played by minors. I did not include FATAL but yes I guess I would have to say that that game too would fall under the designation. I am simply looking for the companies that produce such games. I did not mean to start such a heated discussion. I am looking at a lot of options for my own creations as I have been told by a few companies that my games are too violent or politically oriented for them because they create games for children (ie minors) My own creations are not pornographic like FATAL nor are they tongue in cheek like HOL but they are a bit raw and do touch on issues that most parents would not like their kids to play. I was curious as to wether or not there are companies that publish outside hard-core games.

[Jack]

Hey, I'm real hard to offend, and I love games like Kult and the like....

But with that said. FATAL is a different sort of beast (Now can't you just see that getting soundbited out and turned into something positive?)...Any game that includes Rape Rolls, Magic Anal Beads, and and contains the phrase "Worse, that child will be a girl," isn't "adult", its the worst kind of mastabatory pre-teen dark fantasy crap.
Add to this little statistical gems like small breasted strong women are more likely to be lesbians (and weaker men homosexuals BTW) and a chart for modifiers to your unrination skill and it ranges from the grossly discriminatory to the downright silly.

And here's a wake up for the FATAL writers and people who actually think this thing had any real spark of anything decent:

1) Sex and violence don't make it adult.
2) Just because most people hate it doesn't mean its cool.
3) If you listen to anything in this game no one will ever want to date you unless they have no self-esteem.