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2 years ago ::
Dec 23, 2010 - 5:32PM
#131
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Date Joined:
Apr 21, 2001
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Good move from Wizards.
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2 years ago ::
Dec 23, 2010 - 6:55PM
#132
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Date Joined:
May 12, 2009
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Bad move from Wizards. A deception. They previewed it in the November and Beyond and didn't carry it. They failed to deliver. Sorry Peter
Yan
Montréal, Canada
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2 years ago ::
Dec 23, 2010 - 7:40PM
#133
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I dunno. I liked the article but it really did need some polishing up (for lack of a better word). I'd rather a rough article be dropped than let it bring down the quality of the rest. The right choice was made I believe.
/\ Art
/\ Art
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2 years ago ::
Dec 23, 2010 - 8:19PM
#134
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Date Joined:
Apr 21, 2001
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Bad move from Wizards.
A deception. They previewed it in the November and Beyond and didn't carry it. They failed to deliver.
Sorry Peter
Yeah, you should see the hilarious gaffe in there as well:
Taking Names Without Taking Lives"—offering novel ways to defeat enemies without killing them (several of which might work in games for younger players, such as our Heroes of Hesiod).
I wouldn't show that to younger players unless I heavily edited and ripped out half the article as it was.
It frankly should never have been published and it being ejected from the magazine as the weakest link was a good decision. Lessons have hopefully been firmly learned by Wizards.
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2 years ago ::
Dec 23, 2010 - 10:10PM
#135
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Date Joined:
Mar 14, 2009
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Is there anything inherently wrong with those kinds of games? I guess every single brooding warrior out for revenge is an evil PC right? Or most of the murdering adventurers out there. Does every single campaign either have to end with the slaughter of the BBEG, imprisonment or a speech about how only killing him would bring you down to their level or its an evil game?
Its seems quite surprising that the assassin, a class who's "job" it is to kill people and sometimes in not the most nice ways is well received but an article that dares say that you shouldn't kill people is somehow wrong?
"Evil content", as "mature content", comes easily to the mind of players. It is not the kind of idea you have to give them. They'll find it on their own in a few minutes. Remember the "traditional" party thief, stealing and backstabbing other PCs ? You don't need an article to suggest players they can be this kind of thieves... you need articles to suggest them how to be something else.
You don't have to explain players how to torture their ennemies, as you don't have to explain them how to play an evil assassin or necromancer. You need articles explaining the less experienced players - and DMs - how to not torture and how to punish well, in a heroic way, because it doesn't come naturally. Sad, I know.
Even my wife has her characters resort to torture, at least on "evil humanoids" and is surprised when her PCs morality is questioned... The fact is that she has a harder time imagining another solution.
The same way, for necromancers/assassins, etc, what is needed is articles explaining or giving ideas on how these characters can be heroes rather than anti heroes.
You know, like the fact that a good aligned character should rather try to find a peaceful solution to problems with local goblin tribes than resort to genocide...
It took me years to learn how to do it, and I suppose many WotC authors learned it the hard way too, so it is sad that they don't try to teach these hard acquired skills to others, and rather fall back in the same old gutters. A side effect of the "nostalgia" politic, maybe...
Nobody needs a guide to fall in the sewers. Nearly everybody needs one to get out.
Or in other words, it is easy to imagine how to play an anti-hero. Imagining heroism is harder.
Remember Tunnel Seventeen !
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2 years ago ::
Dec 24, 2010 - 3:06AM
#136
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Date Joined:
May 12, 2009
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Bad move from Wizards.
A deception. They previewed it in the November and Beyond and didn't carry it. They failed to deliver.
Sorry Peter
Yeah, you should see the hilarious gaffe in there as well:
Taking Names Without Taking Lives"—offering novel ways to defeat enemies without killing them (several of which might work in games for younger players, such as our Heroes of Hesiod).
I wouldn't show that to younger players unless I heavily edited and ripped out half the article as it was.
It frankly should never have been published and it being ejected from the magazine as the weakest link was a good decision. Lessons have hopefully been firmly learned by Wizards.
But the magazine is not for kids. Its published for mature DDi subscriber. Now if i was to DM with younger players and was interested in introducing novel ways to defeat enemies without killing them....then i could use idea in this article, several of which might work in games for younger players, such as our Heroes of Hesiod.
I wouldn't have to show a not so explicit article talking about disfiguring cuties (Hooo) to a kid master in raming into people and mass shooting in GTA4. ben non, it would be way too violent.
What people did get wrong about the article is to who it is penned for and where, this is the target audience. Some of its content could be suitable for younger. Several, but not all. But Dragon is released through DDi. So the subscriber has the responsability to control the informations. How many children subscrib to DDi with their AMEX ?
When i showed LoTR to my grils i fastforwarded the more violent passage of the movie. The movie was RPG 13 i think and they were not the target audience, but i as a parent had the discretion to let them watch it with my supersivion (just like a DM would for such content).
Bottom line, i expect censure to happen at the gaming table, not in Dragon.
PS May be i am wrong, what age rating are Dungeon or Dragon Magazines in their current form ? The mags aren't saying any. Rated C, E, E10+, T, A, M or RP ?
EDITED The ESRB Game Ratings & Descriptor guide:
The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings are designed to provide concise and impartial information about the content in computer and video games so consumers, especially parents, can make an informed purchase decision. ESRB ratings have two equal parts: rating symbols suggest age appropriateness for the game and content descriptors indicate elements in a game that may have triggered a particular rating and/or may be of interest or concern.
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EARLY CHILDHOOD
Titles rated EC (Early Childhood) have content that may be suitable for ages 3 and older. Contains no material that parents would find inappropriate. |
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EVERYONE
Titles rated E (Everyone) have content that may be suitable for ages 6 and older. Titles in this category may contain minimal cartoon, fantasy or mild violence and/or infrequent use of mild language. |
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EVERYONE 10+
Titles rated E10+ (Everyone 10 and older) have content that may be suitable for ages 10 and older. Titles in this category may contain more cartoon, fantasy or mild violence, mild language and/or minimal suggestive themes. |
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TEEN
Titles rated T (Teen) have content that may be suitable for ages 13 and older. Titles in this category may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling, and/or infrequent use of strong language. |
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MATURE
Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language. |
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ADULTS ONLY
Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity. |
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RATING PENDING
Titles listed as RP (Rating Pending) have been submitted to the ESRB and are awaiting final rating. (This symbol appears only in advertising prior to a game's release.) |
Yan
Montréal, Canada
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2 years ago ::
Dec 24, 2010 - 10:56AM
#137
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Plaguescarred, print articles are not subject to ratings. Frankly, I disagree with your assessment that DDI is for mature adult subscribers. I don't have a hard time believing that a young fan could receive a subscription as a gift from his parents. I have to wonder how many parents would pay for thier kids to read articles like this though.
"Man is made God's plaything, and that is the best part of him. Therefore every man and woman should live life accordingly, and play the noblest games... Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing..." Plato, The Laws.
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2 years ago ::
Dec 24, 2010 - 11:00AM
#138
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Date Joined:
Apr 23, 2009
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So, just because some people are terrible parents and purchase a game for their children without caring that it has a sexually explicit minigame in which they gain unlawful carnal knowledge (hah! Take that, censorship!) of a helpless woman, this justifies offering questionable content without a warning in a magazine that can be accessed by anyone who knows an account's password or who happens to come by a computer that's still logged in?
Look, Plague, I'm usually one of the most cynical people out there, and I know that children today are exposed to more violence and sexual content than ever before on account of utterly terrible parenting, but that's no reason not to give fair warning. I mean, at least you know what you're getting into when you click on an article detailing the Fields of Blood or the Domain of Eternal Torture, but with this article you're told that it offers alternate methods of defeating a foe, and then goes into detail about how you can horribly cripple them or weld them to a volcano where their flesh boils and melts into tallow, trapping them in screaming horror for all eternity. That sounds more like the impetus for heroic adventurers to go and stop such a cruel villain than it does a tale of heroism, don't you think?
Your own argument is flawed anyway, though, because you acknowledge that censorship already doesn't happen, with things like GTA4 winding up in the hands of happy children whose parents are barely more than drooling morons. I'm not saying the article should be pulled, even though I think it's moronic and has appeal only to those who are still in the peripubescent mindset, but it should certainly be rewritten to remove some of the more disconcerting trends (really, what is the likelihood of it being a mistake that every time mutilation is brought up, the female pronoun is used, when it's barely ever used anywhere else in the article?), and have a label slapped onto it reading, "Hey, moron! Don't just give this to your kids without reading it first! I know it's from Dragon and should be player material, but this stuff might be disturbing!"
The original core books said that this was our game too. It doesn't feel like that anymore.
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2 years ago ::
Dec 24, 2010 - 11:52AM
#139
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Date Joined:
May 12, 2009
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I cannot imagine that E-magazine aren't rated. Adult-X magazine are no ? The fact that Dragon is not motion picture really put it into a seperate thing may be. I hardly think WoTC sends their compilation to some federation like the MPAA or the ESRB to verify their content and label them. So i think they will be rated RP. Or Adult since any content can makes it's way in uncontrolled. Even if its a Digital Magazine, WoTC couldn't suddenly put extreme violent graphic without making any violation, unless it's already under an Adult only content. The point is, the mature subscriber is responsible to control the information. I can buy Rated R movies. I cannot let children watch it. Same for magazines. So the responsibility is not on the reader. It's on the owner of the magazine by way of subscription. Anyway, if we were really to put the article content to an extensive review, i wonder what rating it would end up with seriously. Surly not Adult only. Everyone 10+ fits in pretty well with
Fantasy Violence - Violent actions of a fantasy nature, involving human or non-human characters in situations easily distinguishable from real life
Suggestive Themes - Mild provocative references or materials
Violent References - References to violent acts
It would be a debate just to categorize it's contents. 
Anyway, the article was axed in and i doubt we will see it again. So we'll move on i guess.
Yan
Montréal, Canada
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2 years ago ::
Dec 24, 2010 - 9:02PM
#140
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Date Joined:
Nov 17, 2009
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If it was rated, they'd show it. It definitely doesn't fall in with the ESRB. Notice how the S stands for Software. And MPAA is "Motion Pictures".
Plus; I'd rather it not be rated. There's enough of that crap in software. I don't have to deal with it anymore, sure. But it still bugs me when I buy a rated M game and the game is appropriate for 12 year olds.
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