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Old 09-18-2020, 10:58 AM
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StainlessSteelCynic StainlessSteelCynic is offline
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Originally Posted by Fallenkezef View Post
The whole thing feels a bit off to me. Zero effort seems to be put into forward momentum post-launch such as sourcebooks and modules with shaky strecthgoals.

My gut says they are milking the fanbase to put out the bare minimum. I mean, ignoring all the resources they have available from such a vast fanbase?
Well, you are not the only who feels that way...
I own Free League's Tales From the Loop because I love the premise of the game and also the artwork that inspired the game but I find the rules system very average and it seems to be slanted toward episodic play rather than long-term campaigns (I'll relate why I think this is important down below).
I also backed this kickstarter for a few reasons even though I had some doubts about the rules system they wanted to use.

Looking at some of the other Free League products and their release schedules, it does not appear to me as though they have much (if any) interest in long term development or support of their games. They seem to be sticking pretty close to the current mentality (and this is not just Free League but most RPG producers lately) of Core +1
That is to say, the company produces the Core books and then only 1 other book to support it. If they produce another book in the future, it's meant to update or replace that +1 from before.

It also seems to me that quite a few players of Year Zero games, don't actually stick with any YZ game for a long campaign. They play a few sessions, or even a lot of sessions and then they stop and jump ship to another YZ game.
Then they play that for a while and when it's no longer fresh, they jump to another YZ game until they have done a complete circle back to the first game.
Now, I am NOT saying they all do that but I have encountered quite a few that do and I believe a number of modern rules systems encourage that sort of play - straight into the action for some quick satisfaction, no long term plans necessary or desired.
Given that design philosophy, I will not be at all surprised if the entire 4th edition product line consists of what was offered on the kickstarter and then just one or two more books and then they will be off designing some new game.
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