Neopets Terminates Geekify's License, TTRPG in Jeopardy

A tabletop RPG that raised over $427,000 on Kickstarter is now in Jeopardy after Neopets ended its licensing partnership with Geekify. On March 10, Neopets announced that it had ended its license agreement with Geekify, effective immediately. Geekify had made various licensed products for Neopets over several years and was in the process of developing a tabletop RPG for Neopets. This RPG had been under severe scrutiny by both the fandom and the owners of Neopets after a playtest was released that indicated the RPG would be a combat-focused 5E derivative. Neopets ordered that the playtest be taken down and said that it was released without their oversight.

Neopets indicated that backers of the campaign should reach out to Geekify directly about questions regarding their outstanding pledges. Kickstarter frequently notes that pledges are not a promise of goods delivered, and it's unclear whether Geekify will reimburse backers either in part or in full. As of press time, Geekify had not posted an update about the state of the RPG to Kickstarter, although updates for the RPG appear to be temporarily down.

As for Neopets, they noted that interest in a TTRPG appears to be high and didn't rule out a future TTRPG featuring their property. "Regarding the TTRPG category as a whole, we recognise the immense support this project received and the demand for a quality roleplaying experience within the Neopets universe," a statement on the Neopets website read. "We are continuing to explore alternative options to bring a high quality TTRPG gaming experience to the fan base and are looking into solutions to help us accomplish this in the future."

 

[doctorhook]

it sounds more like Geekify were trying to take an IP that is fundamentally about feeding and training pets while you explore their world and turn it in to Pokemon battle arena. Neopets didnt like that approach, reacted to Neopet fan complaints and pulled back their licence, which is fine.

Geekify should have talked to Neopets first and found rules that emphasized exploration and pet raising first rather than DnD which has always been combat focussed

Don’t forget the fact that the playtest included killing bandits and a sexual assault… pretty different fare from the Neopets I remember.

 

[timbannock]

The playtest being released at all -- certainly in its then-current form, but really at all in any form -- is what strikes me as very strange in this story. It adds the third narrative about writers not being paid and really confuses the whole thing. If it was a revenge-release, then I guess whoever did that got their wishes because damage done!

 

[MichaelSomething]

Hopefully Neopets will find a better TTRPG partner... like ENPublidhing! I know Morrus would do a great job and treat it the care it deserves.

 

[Deset Gled]

Don’t forget the fact that the playtest included killing bandits and a sexual assault… pretty different fare from the Neopets I remember.

Based on what was posted in the last thread on this subject, I believe this is extremely incorrect and completely unfounded. If you have other information, please share it.

 

[Blue]

Given how most of the complaints about the playtest seemed like nothing more than generic mindless social media rage, I'm guessing either that releasing the playtest without corporate approval was against the contract terms, or Neopets saw how much money the Kickstarter made and decided they wanted a bigger piece of the action.

Here's the summation from an article here on ENWorld.

"Geekify's initial playtest document revealed a combat-focused 5E-derived game with a playtest adventure that involved torturing a group of drunk bandits. Fans also took umbrage towards sections involving player discussions about sexual content. Given that the Neopets IP is based more on family-friendly and whimsical activities, it seemed like a tonally discordant adventure compared to the original online game. Even more concerning than the content were references that Geekify had not paid writers for the content in the playtest, although Geekify disputed these comments and claimed it was an internal misunderstanding."

This contains the links to the material. If you have a problem with the reporting here, I'd let the author of the article know.

 

[Deset Gled]

This contains the links to the material. If you have a problem with the reporting here, I'd let the author of the article know.

I did?

To quote me from the thread you linked to:

"Having read just the info linked here, I'm having trouble finding good reasons for the outrage.

The "torture" is a "DC 4 intimidation check or persuasion check". That's not torture unless your players want it to be torture.

What's being called "homophobia" is a scripted line where a NPC says "He wouldn't be caught dead wearing a bracelet that was so ... feminine". Maybe not the most inclusive line ever, but also stretch to call homophobic.

The sexual content is "there's a section about discussing with your group how much in-game sex they're comfortable with". Yeah, that's how session 0 works.

Maybe this needs some editing to make this more on brand with Neopets, but that's what prerelease material is for. Maybe there's more offensive chunks I'm missing. But this feels like a nothingburger right now."

Now, people in this thread have raised the stakes to claiming in-game murder and sexual assault. I have yet to see anything of the sort. IMNSHO, the sensationalism is getting out of hand. Unless someone has some new evidence, of course.

 

[jdrakeh]

Don’t forget the fact that the playtest included killing bandits and a sexual assault… pretty different fare from the Neopets I remember.

 

[SableWyvern]

The sexual content is "there's a section about discussing with your group how much in-game sex they're comfortable with". Yeah, that's how session 0 works.

There is no reason to include a section in the rules about how to deal with sexual content if the game is meant to be about raising pets and exploring the world with them and is not, by design, intended to include sexual themes. Certainly, if the IP holder considers their material G-rated and family friendly, I can see how they'd be unhappy with their IP being treated as some kind of sex game (which, from an outsider's perspective, is exactly what a discussion of sex in the game is doing).

Now, this isn't to say that someone who wants to include sexual themes in their game shouldn't do so. At your table, you can do what you want. But, if you decide that's what you want in your game, you are responsible for that decision. There is no reason to expect any and every game to walk you through the process of including such themes if the default expectation is that those themes aren't present.

That said, the impression I get is not that the publisher wanted to turn it into a sex game; it feels more likely to me that they simply have no real clue what they're doing, and they (or their AI assistant) saw safety tool discussions in one or more reference works and added something similar in to this product, without any actual understanding of the context.

For reference, a very quick search confirmed that the neopets site rules include a blanket ban on sexual content, so explicitly offering options for including it the RPG seems pretty self-evidently inappropriate to me. As does fighting bandits as the sample adventure, for that matter, since violence is also forbidden (and, from what I've seen, the original sales pitches indicated that playing the game with no violence at all was meant to be an option, which also makes fighting bandits a completely inappropriate demo adventure).

For the record, I have no interest in a neopets game and know very little about neopets, but it seems pretty clear to me that what this RPG included was not at all in the spirit of the original site, is not what was pitched to backers, and is not what the neopets community or the IP holder wanted in a game.

 

[Tonguez]

There is no reason to include a section in the rules about how to deal with sexual content if the game is meant to be about raising pets and exploring the world with them and is not, by design, intended to include sexual themes. Certainly, if the IP holder considers their material G-rated and family friendly, I can see how they'd be unhappy with their IP being treated as some kind of sex game (which, from an outsider's perspective, is exactly what a discussion of sex in the game is doing).

Now, this isn't to say that someone who wants to include sexual themes in their game shouldn't do so. At your table, you can do what you want. But, if you decide that's what you want in your game, you are responsible for that decision. There is no reason to expect any and every game to walk you through the process of including such themes if the default expectation is that those themes aren't present.

That said, the impression I get is not that the publisher wanted to turn it into a sex game; it feels more likely to me that they simply have no real clue what they're doing, and they (or their AI assistant) saw safety tool discussions in one or more reference works and added something similar in to this product, without any actual understanding of the context.

For reference, a very quick search confirmed that the neopets site rules include a blanket ban on sexual content, so explicitly offering options for including it the RPG seems pretty self-evidently inappropriate to me. As does fighting bandits as the sample adventure, for that matter, since violence is also forbidden (and, from what I've seen, the original sales pitches indicated that playing the game with no violence at all was meant to be an option, which also makes fighting bandits a completely inappropriate demo adventure).

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For the record, I have no interest in a neopets game and know very little about neopets, but it seems pretty clear to me that what this RPG included was not at all in the spirit of the original site, is not what was pitched to backers, and is not what the neopets community or the IP holder wanted in a game.

Pretty much this. Neopets is a 'family friendly' game primarily aimed at children/tweens but still enjoyed by older players (many of the initial fans now being in their 30s or older)

While safety tools are useful, it should have just been done as a blanket 'avoid sexual content' warning rather than 'discuss appropriate level'

The text "Depending on who is still alive at the end of the encounter" is more problematic. Even though there is a battle mode Neopets encounters do not involving killing things and Neopets dont die. Implying someone is unalived is too far for the genre of cute happy pets playing games.

But yeah Geekify come across as a bit clueless and tone deaf and probably should not have tried to create an RPG