Medium-Weview Wednesday: Acquisitions Inc. for 5e

stolen right from their website. Acquired. I mean 'acquired'

I got this thing the other day. I mentioned before that our group has turned (as groups must, I guess) to 5th edition, and now I've played it AND run it a couple of times, it's not so bad. Why, just the other day the people on Google Plus we're telling me HAHA OLD MAN WHY YOU SO BENT ABOUT DND5E and I was like "Well, truth be told, I got all the game I want from DCC and so GET OFF MY LAWN" and like, hey man, it's got some good stuff in there and a lot of cruft. Like, throw that cruft out and just get to playing.

I'll probably yell into a can about cruft in 5e some time, maybe an Anchor podcast or something. I don't want to do homework: we're here to write/play/make a tense/funny/heroic/tragic story together. if you or I do a bunch of writing - together - there's no problem. You do it before hand or (worse!) afterward? A "No wiggle room" problem. So: I don't like having backstories for PCs, and I don't like to prep too much. I like to hit the RANDOMIZE IT button on the machine, show up with a bunch of print-outs, and wing it. I'm a lower-middle class white guy with a shit ton of privilege (I recognize this, bear with me) and some skill at improvisation (thanks DnD!) and so it's better if we wing it. I'm not saying it's better if EVERYBODY wings it, but YES AND and some other stuff can make it go a long way.

Anyways, Acquisitions Inc. It's got some fun stuff. Not 50 bucks worth of fun stuff : that's right 50 bucks. Im a cheapass cheapskate murder-hobo, but I had heard this thing was fun. Well, I heard there was a podcast about a franchise group of adventurers, and I looked into it, and my stomach dropped. Because I have been writing and playing a thing, here and there, about the evils of capitalism, a corporation bent on usurping all the resources of a dungeon, and the terrors of the gig economy as applied to dungeon-delving PCs. I call it DUNJONCORP vs THE ROBOLICH (alternately THE CYBERLICH in some markets where robots are not welcome). My jazz-age post-pockyclipse Thundarr-meets-Wizard of Oz thing. I like it. Your mileage may vary, I guess. Anyways, these Acquisitions Incorporated cats hit me on the noze pretty hard, but like 10 years ago!

I was sort of inspired, I guess, by my memories of the Ghostbusters RPG from like the late 80's early 90's, which I owned for a couple of years and gave away (so sad). And the current dystopic state of the U.S., with PhDs running around in Lyfts and Ubers trying to make enough coin for rent and to pay off student loans.

Anyways, this book is nice. The framing concepts are great, and funny. I like a book that takes the piss out of the source material. A sly wink and nod, like Bert from Mary Poppins. I love the hilarious notion that AcqInc doesn't give a fig about you, will offer unpaid internships, has full rights to the things you find, bodies you kill, secrets you reveal. Whatever you choose to reveal to them, that is. I like the PC options, with (possibly over-powered but terrific) roles in the corporate system for each PC, and then per-class options for bending characters to the corporate mindset as represented by their place as franchise owners/operators. There's a non-inspired halfing/half-elf/goblin replacer race whose name I can't even be bothered to recall (means "green skin", I guess? Verdguy? Verdgin? I don't fucking care). Some cool bits about the upkeep of a franchise and giving the party a headquarters of operation and making them invest money into it. I even like the downtime activities a party can engage in, to grow the franchise, get on the good side of corporate, etc. Adds to the options that I understand are in the DM guide and a couple of other supplements. I especially like the concept of "Royalty Components" of spells, that being money that comes right out of your pocket when you cast a spell and that makes its creator a little wealthier. In contrast to other spells, why on earth would you ever keep a spell like that secret? I think one of the main NPCs gladly gives it to you in the intro of the boxed adventure - like, uh, yeah!? Of course! A magical pyramid scheme. Maybe your PC can figure out the "Royalty Component" hook of a minor spell and then BOOM you're a bajillionaire.

What don't I like? I don't' know, exactly. I can't read these 5e (or 4e, or 3e) adventures without my eyes glazing over. Not really my cup of tea. There's about the middle third of the thing devoted to some complicated, world-altering plot, of course. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. I would/will probably chuck that out, except a couple of minor encounters. There's a magical item-destroying mecha-anvil which is sort of the impetus for the first dungeon because it opens up, via an earthquake, some part of uh, Waterdeep? Neverwinter? King's Landing? I don't care: basically, it can't break the McGuffin and causes the town to crack open. The lazy, corrupt city watch isn't much help and a case of mistaken identity sort of propels the party into the campaign. BLAH BLAH BLAH. I try to read the thing late at night but I get crossed eyed. I figure I'm about a fifth of the way through the campaign and there's some funny bits ahead (I can see it when I riffle the pages) but the plot is standard fare, except maybe that the party, as franchise operators, are literally ALWAYS on the lookout for contacts, employees, money making opportunities and are driven by greed to undertake heroics, not necessarily and sense of goodwill. Fine! Perfect for our jaded age. And a perfect thing for DUNJONCORP, but I already retroactively stole it. Every NPC or monster you kill is a missed opportunity IN THE LONG RUN, to make money. One of the thug NPCs at the initial encounter list has been, inscrutably and inexplicably, turned into a sentient skeleton? I love THAT more than I love most of the rest of it.

At the back, some magical items. A description of the big campaign McGuffin as an artifact. A cool airship and a mechanized beholder as a vehicle for PCs to use. That's fun.

Evidently  the guys and gals of Penny Arcade did a podcast/vlogcast of live play games for this, and I tried it and You know what? I can't handle actual play recordings because I'm not playing in it. I don't dig on the likes of Matt mercer and his crew of voice actors is because I wanna play and participate, not observe DnD. A difference in my last 5e product is that this is a real campaign and not a one-off like the Rick n Morty thing. Fun sense of humor in both. this one has more, uh, respect for the origins. I don't know why they would put it in the forgotten realms, though. I sort of like the idea of a barbarian in a fur suit with a tie, I guess. I don't know. It makes trad-DnD sort of feel like Terry Pratchett (to my mind this is a good thing but it might offend genre-/lore- purists)

50 bucks? you get some great art, some wry humor, a modest campaign, and some maybe fun options for PCs and headquarters - pretty useful, I guess. The rest I might toss entirely. It occurred to me that with amazing artwork and design and glossy pages, you can't really fuck up the margins and write in a 5e book like this, especially for the price you pay. Not because you CANT morally, but because the parchment-style backgrounds and art-density and material-object-ness prevents it. I sort of like DYSON's practice of churning through your old 1e books and artifying them up to your own liking, even though I don't do that. Heaven forfend! Write in a 1e book? Gods above and below, who would do such a thing? Dyson, you heretic

the splash screen for my dungeon craft playable intro to DJCvRL. needs more copyright symbols, dollah signs, and trademarks

Anyways, 7 out of 10 for potential. 8 out of 10 for art - these 5e books are beautiful things. 4 out of 10 for failure to keep my attention, and maybe an green/grey/brown utterly unfascinating an compelling race choice, like practically human but O yeah it is telepathic and friendly. They coulda done better, I guess. 1 extra bonus point for pilotable mechanical beholder. there's about 4 fun new low-level spells but any one of you or me coulda done better

Chasing the Dragon

(I think I wrote this when I learned that Google Plus was going to be decommissioned) 

My heart is sore; not the normal heartsore-ness that comes with Spring and the gentle whirring emptiness of my professional life at the moment (maybe just enough to get by on, but not thriving, if you get my drift).  When I was very heartsore from this toxic work environment I had a couple of years ago, I took solace in my new-found hobby of Geeplus plus Role Playing Games, the former entirely new to me and the latter something I'd let founder for almost 15 years at that point.  I had split from my game group during the days of 2e because - get a load of this - I had actually lost my first job in college owing to my missing a shift and playing on a Wednesday night, in a game that was only nominally (for me) fun at the time. It wasn't a great job, but my priorities shifted and suddenly I did not view D&D or any other games as "worth it". I do now, but that's another thing entirely. My orientation has been more to raising my kid, and work is much less harrowing these days, so the need for stress reduction is pretty low and I am seeing things with less rose-colored glasses.  That said, I believe my perceptions about the quality of interaction on the community of G+ are accurate.  Feel free to disabuse me, or not, or whatever.

I have detected, maybe through a fault in my own perceptions I admit, that the atmosphere on G+ has subtly changed.  It no longer brings me the joy it used to.  Partly it's because since I have joined my tastes in games has changed, and partly that I am growing disgruntled with the endless onslaught of prompts to buy things.  I won't go too much into it here, but it started with a couple of years ago as all these creative and talented people I love started and brought pet projects to fruition (which is great) and made them for sale (which is fine) but then turned to making things for sale (my perception) and became less focused on just sharing cool ideas (my possibly erroneous conclusion). There are a couple of celebrity types for whom the creation of boutique gaming objects and especially books as physical objects are sort of their niche, and I think that this is admirable.  But as these people rise to prominence it seems to me that interest of the community has turned away from creation for the sake of creation and sharing as a bonding mode, toward creation-for-profit and sharing as a modus for earning legitimacy itself.  When I wrote my thing a couple of years ago, my kid was a slobbering sack of meat, and I was up anyway, and I just wanted to see if I could do it.  Now that I've done it, I fully recognize that any of us in the community has the processing power and freely available software that we can each, should we so desire, make a thing that is better in many ways than the stuff that captured our imaginations as children and adolescents and that attracted us to this community in the first place.  I mean, sure, you're not recreating D&D, here.  That's a thing that's wizard-locked and gated, if you get my drift.  A couple of clever people have actually managed to put interesting spins on the old rules of yore, which I find enjoyable. But the latest stuff seems endless tiresome iterations of the same old thing in packaging slightly better than the last. Mastery of ideas has given way to mastery of management of creative artists and suites of software. Probably a

The weight of the things I am not creating while I am polishing up a pig's ear for sale is growing on me. My creative and nurturing urge is oriented to this little person, and trying to get my fiscal life in order, and spend what little time remains in happy harmony with my wife and family.  So, rather than fester these wounds and ferment these back-burner projects any longer, I am going to drop them back into the soup for consumption.  "Idea Debt" weighs heavy on me.  I do not believe, despite my good experiences with the only publisher I have worked with, that I will make any more things for sale or publication in the way that drives our community lately. I find Kickstarters to be antithetical to this thing I mean, and maybe the source of the problem.  Patreon? Yes, artists need to eat.  I will very likely create and discard things, but I do not have the wherewithal or interest or force of will to drive a thing to publication at this stage in my life, and I am becoming leery of the urge to do so as a false one and a trick, one that is instilled and perpetrated by dint of being in a giant electrical strip-mall that used to be a cheery club-house. Maybe too metaphorical, I know.  Melodramatic, for sure.

The amazement and excitement I felt when I first found G+ is vanishing, replaced by a stream of infomercials. Factionalism and tribalism and snobbery seems to me to prevail. Hey, effendi, your mileage may vary as always.

Maybe I am depressed but I don't think that's exactly it.  That would imply an unhealthy spin on it.  Dis-illusioned? Dysglamored?

The King is The Land.  The Land is The King.