[Poll]Will you buy and use AV's BoEF?

[Desdichado]

I dont see how its poorly constructed. Everything, yes and nos are neutrally stated. The options here were very immature in their exectuion.

That's not true. The options here are very similar to what you see in professionally handled polls with a kind of 5-step spectrum of approval and disapproval. In fact, our employee satisfcation polls here at work are constructed the same way. The "immature" wording of the polls responses is only your perception -- as was pointed out earlier, the poll choices are presented in a neutral manner. This poll is simple and to the point, while the other poll is a bit rambling and has options that are "fuzzy." In it's attempt to be too precise, it presents too much data to be conclusive.

Its not about getting answers I want to see. I cant change what people say or think. But I do want to see something represented in a mature fasion, not as a joke or villifaction just to satisfy someones sick humor.

This is where the rabid part starts to come in. You are hypersensitive about this book for some reason. You're jumping at shadows and creating a persecution complex where none exists. There is no joke or villification in this poll.

And No, I wont give it a rest. I'll never stop supporting something I belive in, regardless of how many other people dont see a need for it or dont like it.

I'm talking about giving it a rest in reference to your attacks on anyone who isn't interested in this book, or says anything at all negative about it. Support it all you want, be my guest, but you seem to lack any respect for the choice of someone who won't support it, or who thinks the whole thing is a bad idea.

 

[Voadam]

I voted that I am unlikely to buy the book, because like most RPG books out there, including ones I think might be interesting, I probably won't buy it. I would not throw it out if I got a review copythough. It just would not be anywhere near the top of my list of gaming purchases.

 

[Aeolius]

Perhaps AurthurQ is working on a mature d20 supplement, is under an NDA, and wants to do market research. Perhaps he is simply curious, a trait to which he is entitled. Then again, curiosity killed the cat....URRRGGGHHH!! (Oh wait....I'm a fish...never mind)

I myself have mature elements within my campaign. After all, a night hag with dozens of children, no two by the same father (let alone same race), is hardly the stuff of fairy tales...excluding Baba Yaga and the Brothers Grimm, of course. Some of my hags steal babies, eat babies, and sometimes dress up in their skins. Others are benevolent or neutral. The protagonist hag in my game was quite fond of pomegranate ale, when she was alive. Now she inhabits a construct she calls the iron hag and is still making babies (mechanatrix gotta come from somewhere, ya know).

Her current paramour, a shade, is on his way to lichdom. In my campaigns, a lich can still draw sustenance from the essence of larvae (alright... alright... Hades Petitioners, darn you). Timon and Pumba eat bugs, so a lich can slurp larvae...fair enough.

As a coffee table book (I'm thinking "Throw Mamma From the Train", here), I'm sure BoEF will do well. Heck, I'm as fickle as the next guy...throw some mermaids, nerieds, and sirenes in there...maybe a kelpie and a sea elf or three...and I'm in.

 

[jgbrowning]

At what point does it occur to you that the fact that so many people are mocking it means it is a joke, whether you or AV wanted it to be or not?

What, opinions other than yours don't count?

You can't force folks to take it seriously. A good number of truly mature gamers, known and respected posters from ENworld, find this product the silliest thing since the emperor's new clothes.

Wulf

I'm one of them. This product is a joke because of the softcore porn aspect. The writing, the material, may be good, or it may not be- i don't know, i haven't looked closely and I'm not planning too. But mixing porn with dungeons and dragons is a "most silly thing" (TM).

Just because some people have use for it their game doesn't mean, from my perspective, it isn't silly. My own book is silly if you don't have interest in the medieval period. It's waaaaay to much information if you're not into that sort of thing.

The same thing holds true with the BoEF. But it has boobies, women in BSDM positions, and women with photoshopped elf-ears... Treating a subject maturely doesn't mean not mocking or making a joke of it. I am very mature, and I'm treating this very maturely when I say it is a joke to a lot of people.

And my bet is that Mr. Valterra doesn't care what other people think about what he likes to do, read, write or publish. That's because he's mature as well.


joe b.

 

[Gez]

"We need more SEX in gaming! How else will I be able to get laid?"

 

[Sirius_Black]

A good number of truly mature gamers, known and respected posters from ENworld, find this product the silliest thing since the emperor's new clothes.

What exactly constitutes a mature gamer? Is it the way he/she conducts himself in a game? The type of products he/she likes? The way he/she acts at any given time whether roleplaying or not? The way the person acts on a messageboard?

Just curious as to what you used to determine the maturity of certain gamers.

 

[Teflon Billy]

I injected said rant cause i'm sick and tired of people turning this into a joke instead of taking it as a serious product. Then again there is always the overlooking of Wotc's hipocracy...

Any thoughts on my point-by-point dissection of said Rant?

 

[Belen]

Ugh....Art needs to take rest. There is no reason to get worked up over Elf Porn.

Rabid defense of the book usually pushes people away from buying it. When one of the playtesters goes nuts on a messageboard, it sends a bad sign about the book.

I will not be purchasing the book because there is simplely no reason to have rules for sex in a campaign world. The only reason you'd need a BoEF is if your campaign revolves around sex. ie. Why else would eny PC need to take a sex PrC?

Ans GMs already have too many rules to keep track of. I think I can make DCs on the fly for encounters that involve sex rather than be confined by a bunch of rules.

IF AV had made a book about love, courtship, marriage and sex in a fantasy world, then it would have been great. Instead, we get erotica, fetish elf porn.

Also, Teflon Billy rocks.

 

[The Sigil]

Throwing responses against the wall to see what sticks...

ArthurQ: I understand that you feel that the BoEF is a quality product, and are rather annoyed that the term "Elf Porn" is being used derisively referencing it. As has been discussed in several other threads about the BoEF, "Pornography" is a subjective judgement call - one man's "pornography" may be another man's "art." Anywhere you find nudity, nipples, suggestive poses, or anything else, there will be a judgement call involved as to whether said thing is artistic or pornographic. In your judgement, the BoEF is "art." In the judgement of others it is "pornography." Just because you don't agree with the assessment of others does not make it wrong for them to call the BoEF such. There are some who would call Venus de Milo pornographic - and that is their right every bit as much as it is yours to call it art. The BoEF is said to depict (among other things) elves. Therefore, it is NOT inappropriate for someone who finds the content of the BoEF (as shown by the preview and/or Valar's website) to be pornographic to refer to the BoEF as a "Book of Elf Porn." It has Elves. It can be viewed as Pornographic. That makes it by default "Elf Porn." That you do not consider it "Pornographic" is not an issue... because "Porn" is subjective, which means your opinion is just as wrong and unenlightened as those who refer to the BoEF as "Elf Porn." It also means MY opinion is just as wrong and unenlightened as both yours and theirs.

As to why GUCK, Naughty & Dice, AE: Nymphology, etc. have not been ridiculed and villified as the BoEF has... I think it's really self-evident. All three of the above have a proper perspective of their place in the RPG environment. The place of sex in the current RPG environment, right or wrong, is on the sidelines, as a place for the occasional light-hearted foray, but in an area that most gamers don't take all that seriously. Provided that the "sex product" does not take itself too seriously, most gamers don't mind that much.

While I have not perused any of the three above, my understanding is that all three of them have enough sense of their place in the current RPG environment that they do not take themselves too seriously - a good example of a non-sexual product that does this is Hackmaster. Half of the enjoyment that comes from a Hackmaster product is its sense of "meta-understanding" of where it belongs (kind of like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode where Michaelangelo cracks, "Right... not only is he a mutant rabbit from feudal Japan, but he's also from an alternate dimension... so naturally, he speaks ENGLISH" - while it breaks the suspension of disbelief, it's actually funnier because you get to see a "metathinking" joke - kind of like when your friend tells you IRL, "man, I guess I rolled a natural one on my Diplomacy check" when trying to get out of doing something and failing). With a subject as marginal to the overall RPG experience as a book on "sex in RPGs," a certain level of "meta-thinking" that tells you, "yes, we're covering sex, but no, we're not taking it seriously" is in order. Think "Slayer's Guide to Female Gamers" type of meta-thinking.

Where the BOEF fails this is that it takes itself too seriously. The founder of Valar seems to take sex too seriously for most gamers. The presentation of the preview material, etc. from the BoEF seems to take sex too seriously for most gamers. While Nymphology, et al, understand that most gamers want sex as "ancillary" to their games (at best), the BoEF seems to work from the assumption that gamers want sex at the forefront, in the spotlight, and generally want their games to revolve around it. This assumption simply isn't true for the vast majority, which is why it receives ridicule (as Wulf Ratbane has said, "I think the violence in my life should be imaginary and the sex should be real, not the other way around" - or something like that). I would receive the same type of ridicule were I to design a game based around the assumption that since most people spend their lives working and toiling, it would be very interesting to play a real time game where you raise chickens, grow corn, and even a cat can easily kill you. Oh, wait, I think that has been done... in Ultima Online. Most people ridicule UO because it works from a bad assumption - that people want realism - to the point of tedium - in their RPGs.

I would expect to see the same amount of ridicule - and for similar reasons - if I decided to make "Fuzzy Bunnies and Fluffy Ponies - the Roleplaying game in Happy Land" - and took the undertaking as seriously as I might undertake "The Complete Atlas and History of Faerun."

I see most of the ridicule of the BoEF coming from one of three camps:

1.) From ticked off Publishers, annoyed at (as they perceive it) AV's apparent "tweaking" of WotC's nose and exploitation of the letter of the OGL to stray as far from the spirit of the OGL as possible.
2.) From those who thought the BoVD was a bad idea, and this is an even worse idea.
3.) From those who think the BoEF is taking itself WAY too seriously.

My guess is that the vast majority of responses on this thread have been from folks who fall under #3.

That's my several coppers, anyway.

--The Sigil

 

[mythago]

Rabid defense of the book usually pushes people away from buying it. When one of the playtesters goes nuts on a messageboard, it sends a bad sign about the book.

That's pretty much where I am right now, and I'm about the *last* person to turn a nose up at pornography...

FWIW, I thought the poll was quite reasonable.