What the hell is THIS?!

[Kid Charlemagne]

I take it it's a The Le production...?

 

[Wik]

I thought the title was pretty clever, for a small-press release: you give it a name that sticks out, and gets people to click the link and read what it's about. Pretty fun stuff.

While I don't have much interest in the genre, the game's story-telling mechanics (ie, Players vote for "most popular" and "least popular", and have their character's actions described by other players at the table) look very interesting. For those reasons alone, I'd consider picking the product up.

Seriously, there are so many worse things out there (*cough*F.A.T.A.L.*cough*) that I'm actually a little surprised that so many people are getting riled up by this.

 

[Ranger REG]

Do you doubt the existence of the Commies? The Computer is your friend. You must be on the lookout for traitorous Commies everywhere!

*Gandalf* No. The Computer is always seeking its Master Hacker. Its data wants to be found.

 

[Ranger REG]

Worse, imagine that one is arrested for some indiscretion of that sort, the police search one's computer and find "Panty Explosion" on it! You'd be dead.

Or sent to stand in the corner for political comments.

Though I have to admit, wearing a semtex speedo is mighty uncomfortable.

 

[Asmor]

Dude, that's totally going on my wishlist.

I could totally see it... Just when the action scene starts up, you crank up the speakers and start playing that song from the South Park anime episode...

LET'S FIGHTING LOVE

 

[Nomad4life]

I think that shooting for “shock value” in a small-press product is a perfectly valid approach to finding potential buyers. Having said that, I would never buy anything called “Panty Explosion” myself, no matter how good the system was. (At least, not this close to my 30th rotation around the sun.) Not that I have anything against the genre- I just can’t imagine finding players:

“Hey guys! Who’s up for a game of Panty Explosion!?” is just the kind of interrogative that might result in a life-long awkward silence around the people I game with, anyway.

I wouldn’t worry about how such products will affect the overall industry. As others have mentioned, if F.A.T.A.L. didn’t already end the entire hobby (or for that matter civilization itself) I think we’re all pretty safe. Incidentally, F.A.T.A.L. still has my #1 vote for “The Most Accurately Entitled RPG Product Of All Time.”

I refuse to play D20 Shakespeare on the grounds that there is no “tragedy point” mechanic, which I assume would work much like the CoC sanity loss mechanic. Of course, I just now made up this ruling, as I just now learned that the existence of D20 Shakespeare was not some kind of joke.

 

[Crothian]

Well, I have the book and have read it. And it is not anything like I was expecting. It is a a really solid and interesting game. I don't quite get the genre but the game itself is well done.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Funny, but that title makes me giggle like a school boy.

teeheehee panty explosion..heeheeheehee

"teeheehee" sounds more like a Japanese schoolgirl, to me...

 

[Psion]

I'll put 5 gp on post 55.

 

[jaerdaph]

I blame Gilbert and Sullivan and The Mikado (aka The Town of Titipu).

Three little MAIDS from school!