Blue Rose returns

[Yora]

The past couple of weeks there has been quite some lively discussion (forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?750950) about the True 20 campaign setting at RPG.net with a surprising number of people voicing their great interest in it and even pondering if it might ever get another version (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?752078). Someone at Green Ronin seems to have taken notice and now they announced to run a kickstarter (http://greenronin.com/blog/2015/03/23/ronin-round-table-blue-rose-returns/) to see if there is sufficient interest in such a project and enough people to put their money where their mouth is.

The original Blue Rose setting from ten years ago has a rather ambigous reputation, some elements having recieved a lot of praise while others recieved highly negative reactions. There was a quite high degree of consensus in the RPG.net threads that lots of people really loved the idea behind the setting, but that there also were some real problems with how the presentation had been handled in the original books. At some points things were presented rather heavy handedly while others were considered to be glossed over, which made the setting appear much more black and white and naively idealistic than intended. Basing the setting on a d20 game also seems to have been a much less then ideal descision now.
With 10 years of additional experience and distance to look back, and input from fans, I think the attempt to give the setting another run has some real potential.

[Rowan Wolf]

Not going to lie I kind of winced a bit reading the kickstarter page when I got to the "people of color" part. I am of mixed racial heritage and for the life I me I can't really explain how or why that presentation caused that reaction.

[Yora]

Yeah, I am not getting my hopes too high up. The big issue of naive heavy handedness might turn out just as bad as the last time. However, Pramas was not actually one of the writers of the original setting and I don't think he's going to be for this one either. He's a manager doing a press announcement for one of his companies products he may not actually be very familiar with.

Even being non-straight, I found the "diversity" of the original version off-putting and in-your-face. It's something that needs to be toned down. And you never get good fiction if it's a vehicle for a political statement, regardless of how much you agree with the position. I am hoping that the people who are actually make the setting have a better hand in this.

[Sith_Happens]

Basing the setting on a d20 game also seems to have been a much less then ideal descision now.

Considering that True 20 is the system that eventually became Mutants & Masterminds, I disagree.

[Maglubiyet]

Not going to lie I kind of winced a bit reading the kickstarter page when I got to the "people of color" part. I am of mixed racial heritage and for the life I me I can't really explain how or why that presentation caused that reaction.

It's irritating to me too.

[Actana]

I like the setting as a breath of fresh air among the cynicism and seas of grey morality of many campaign settings, so I'll definitely be looking into this reboot. I'm not entirely convinced it needs a setting revamp, though expanding the ideas presented in it wouldn't be unwelcome.

As long as the end product doesn't become too heavy handed and preachy with its politics, I could see myself enjoying the reboot. I'd be all over a Fate Core conversion for the setting (especially since I have a long-term Fate game for the setting planned, albeit with many massive changes to it), but it seems that the idea was to go with the AGE system. A shame.

[Yora]

Makes sense, though. I believe Green Ronin wants to make it their new generic fantasy system and when they have an anticipated setting come out shortly after it, it can really help a lot to cement the systems foothold in the business. AGE is also quite influenced by True 20, so there's some degree of continuity as well.
But the way Fate works, does it even need splatbooks to adapt settings to the rules?

I don't think the setting needs to be rebuild either. But its presentation needs to be rewritten in a way that much better communicates the ideas to the reader. In the rpg.net discussions there were lots of people mentioning things they didn't like, but then agreed they were not so terrible ideas when someone explained how it was meant to tie in with the rest of the setting. I remember my own reaction to it being confused about what I was supposed to do with it.

Trollsmyth wrote some interesting thoughts ( http://trollsmyth.blogspot.de/2015/03/feast-of-unicorn.html) about how he sees the genre working in an RPG context, which I found very enlightening. Something like that needs to be in the books, but from what I remember from the last time flipping through it two weeks ago, there wasn't really much in that regard.
It also had me wonder if the Dragon Age series might actually be Romantic Fantasy with a brown color palette. :smallamused:

[ComaVision]

Maybe I'm missing the point but a political statement doesn't make a good sales pitch for me.

I'm unaware of any fantasy setting that isn't compatible with different races or orientations. Is the only difference that Blue Rose intends to explicitly mention them? There are a lot of LGBTABCDEFGs on this board that enjoy D&D and other roleplay games, aren't there?

[Kalmageddon]

Maybe I'm missing the point but a political statement doesn't make a good sales pitch for me.

I'm unaware of any fantasy setting that isn't compatible with different races or orientations. Is the only difference that Blue Rose intends to explicitly mention them? There are a lot of LGBTABCDEFGs on this board that enjoy D&D and other roleplay games, aren't there?

Generally, fantasy settings don't go in too much detail on the condition of, for example, women or minorities but at least in D&D settings and similar works of fiction, it's often telling that both gender and ethnicity are entirely cosmetic options with no real impact on what your character can or can't accomplish.
I never had the impression that D&D or similar roleplaying games were not welcoming towards some groups in particular, real life politics and social issues are basically never touched upon, so the GM is free to either keep the setting fairly open and inclusive or (probably a bad idea) tackle these issue in their campaign in any way they want.

[Mr.Moron]

I read the first few posts in each of those thread and the kick-starter post and I'm still not sure what I have a grasp on what the setting was about, or why it'd be controversial?

The best impression I was able to get is it had a primary focus is on Women & Gay characters. Did it just have one-gender societies or the like? Nothing about the blurbs seem to indicate anything all that offensive or revolutionary to me, but I don't feel like I'm getting the clearest picture either.

EDIT: I just read through like 6 or 7 pages of the first thread and I still have no idea what it was all about. The only clue I've found is:


Aside from the setting having some difficulties to communicate to readers what it's about and intended to be used for, I think the overly complex rules system was the other main factor that kept the game from getting really popular. The setting has a lot of potential to appeal to people who don't have any real interest in dungeon crawling and monster slaying and therefore havn't been exposed much to RPGs at all yet.

So what I'm getting it doesn't have any combat. Is it primarily politics-focused, setting exploration, general socialization, trade?

[Sith_Happens]

But the way Fate works, does it even need splatbooks to adapt settings to the rules?

Strictly speaking, no, but if the setting in question is more than a few steps from reality then having a splatbook saves the GM a heck of a lot of work.


I read the first few posts in each of those thread and the kick-starter post and I'm still not sure what I have a grasp on what the setting was about, or why it'd be controversial?

The best impression I was able to get is it had a primary focus is on Women & Gay characters. Did it just have one-gender societies or the like? Nothing about the blurbs seem to indicate anything all that offensive or revolutionary to me, but I don't feel like I'm getting the clearest picture either.

One TV Tropes link, coming right up. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/BlueRose)

[Elderand]

I read the first few posts in each of those thread and the kick-starter post and I'm still not sure what I have a grasp on what the setting was about, or why it'd be controversial?

The best impression I was able to get is it had a primary focus is on Women & Gay characters. Did it just have one-gender societies or the like? Nothing about the blurbs seem to indicate anything all that offensive or revolutionary to me, but I don't feel like I'm getting the clearest picture either.

The book was rather heavy handed with it's approach. Often time it came accross as preachy.

[Mr.Moron]

One TV Tropes link, coming right up. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/BlueRose)

So what I'm getting out of this basically (Dungeons & Dragons - Murder-hobos) + Matriarchy?

[obryn]

It's based on the Romantic Fantasy genre, which is - as a rule - very socially progressive. I'm not sure why any of this should come as a surprise.

[Yora]

I read the first few posts in each of those thread and the kick-starter post and I'm still not sure what I have a grasp on what the setting was about, or why it'd be controversial?

Those threads are almost completely people who already know what they are talking about, so it's obviously quite out of context for the "uninitiated". However, "what is it about" was one of the big problem the original release of the game suffers from. It really isn't very clear about that and doesn't have much guidance for people who are coming into it completely blind. There seems to be actually quite a bit of content for the setting, but its somewhat hidden and I think a lot of it is actually in the setting book but goes completely unexplained in the rulebook, which one would usually expect to be usable as a generic rulebook useable for homebrew settings. The hope that they might adress this in the new version is the main reason I am interested in it.

The controvery was mostly screaming boys in their No-Girls-Allowed treehouse. But as others mentioned there also were some problems with the presentation being rather blunt and in your face, and some of the people who it was supposed to appeal to didn't react too kindly to it. Just like the announcement post on the Green Ronin website.

[aspekt]

For whatever faults it might have I really adore the setting. I hope they at least consider restructuring the system to a more M&M type of setup. Perhaps a rich background character creation might be a way to balance out a more skill based system.

Anyways, I am delighted to hear this and will be supporting it on KS. Thanks for the heads up.

[LibraryOgre]

I read the first few posts in each of those thread and the kick-starter post and I'm still not sure what I have a grasp on what the setting was about, or why it'd be controversial?

The best impression I was able to get is it had a primary focus is on Women & Gay characters. Did it just have one-gender societies or the like? Nothing about the blurbs seem to indicate anything all that offensive or revolutionary to me, but I don't feel like I'm getting the clearest picture either.


As mentioned, Blue Rose emulates "Romantic Fantasy", as opposed to the "Heroic Fantasy" or "Epic Fantasy" (though, obviously, it can draw from those subgenres). Romantic fantasy tends to emphasize the character's relationships and internal personal growth as much as their honing of skills or increases in position. Some examples of authors in this field are Tamora Pierce and Mercedes Lackey, especially the latter's Valdemar series.

In fact, I think comparing the Valdemar books to Raymond Feist's Midkemia novels is somewhat instructive. When going for slightly sexist reductionism, I tend to call the Valdemar books the "girl" version of Feist's Midkemia's "boy's fantasy". If you read the different series within the worlds, they tend to follow a similar arc... you start with a nobody who learns to be somebody, usually saving the kingdom, if not the world, in the process. However, how they go about it is what differentiates Valdemar's generally "Romantic Fantasy" from Midkemia's emphasis on "Heroic Fantasy"*

In Valdemar, that person learns to be awesome because they have great friends and great teachers. They seldom become singularly awesome or formidable, though they might... the emphasis is far more on how their power shapes them as individuals and as a member of a web of relationships. In Midkemia, the characters develop great friendships and have long, sometimes fraught, relationships, but the narrative emphasis is far more on the impact of their actions on the world at large. Roo, one of the subprotagonists of the Serpentwar Saga, becomes the richest man in the Kingdom, while having an epic romance with a spy and rediscovering his love for his wife. But the emphasis in his story arc is far more in how he became great and what his eventual power allowed him to do to save the kingdom... his reconciliation with his wife takes place largely off-screen. In the Collegium Chronicles by Lackey, Mags raises from mine slave to the chief of intelligence for the kingdom of Valdemar... but the narrative emphasis is far more on his discovery of his heritage and his romance with Ami. Exciting things happen, but they're things that shape how the character grows, rather than character growth necessarily taking place in the areas of power and skill. Even very similar plots, written by the two authors in their respective styles, would read as very different stories.

When it comes to Blue Rose, it is not so much that the focus on women and gay characters, but moreso that these characters are specifically addressed and normalized. It's perfectly normal within the society of Blue Rose to play a gay character, and explicitly so, whereas the consideration in many earlier editions tended to be implicit, if not outright hostile to such characters. Consider, for example, playing a female fighter in 1e AD&D, where you would be limited from the maximum possible strength for being female. Or playing a homosexual in Ars Magica, where the system may be agnostic towards sexual orientation, but the setting would usually be outright hostile to it. D&D 5e has done something similar, in specifically mentioning such characters, but consider when else you've seen discussions of homosexuality in D&D settings... I know that the Faiths and Avatars write-up of Sune, goddess of love, didn't mention it. Did Bastet? Consider that many settings tend towards having the vast majority of the available PC human ethnicities be some variety of white, or the settings where the vast majority of people in power seem to be men, despite a certain ambivalence on equality of power (i.e. "Sure, men and women are equal in this setting, but it seems like every single important personage in the game is a man, for some reason").

*When the sub-series of the different sagas are taken as a whole, it tends towards Epic Fantasy; the Valdemar novels set in the time of Selenay (starting with Arrows of the Queen, and following the Mage Winds, Mage Storms, Owl Knight, and so on) are pretty much the story of the restoration of the kingdom of Valdemar to the world stage, while the Midkemia novels as a whole are the epic story of the final ending of the damage caused by the Godswar and the Valheru. However, the individual series themselves tend to be Romantic and Heroic, respectively.

[Mr.Moron]

As mentioned, Blue Rose emulates "Romantic Fantasy", as opposed to the "Heroic Fantasy" or "Epic ....
caused by the Godswar and the Valheru. However, the individual series themselves tend to be Romantic and Heroic, respectively.

Thanks! This was a very thorough and clear explanation and I think I've got a pretty clear picture now. It's an interesting take and certainly some of those things have been touched on in my gaming group. More so women-in-authority and racial diversity than sexual orientation, though that may stem somewhat from general aversion to a lot of serious exploration of sexual material of any stripe.

I can see where a game addressing those things in a straightforward might wind up ruffling feathers on both side of the isle. On the more good old boys club side I can see them resenting anything that isn't the typical personal power fantasy they're looking to get.

I can also see it bothering some people affected by these issues either because it could feel like it rings hollow or is to "Saccharine" if real world issues are entirely averted. It could also feel like it's inserting uncomfortable reality into their escapism if things ever hit too close to home.

It's a tough balancing act around some sensitive issues with a lot of ways to get things wrong for all different parts of the audience. I'm not sure having a calculated agenda makes that balancing act any easier. It certainly seems like something worth a read at any rate.

[LibraryOgre]

I can also see it bothering some people affected by these issues either because it could feel like it rings hollow or is to "Saccharine" if real world issues are entirely averted. It could also feel like it's inserting uncomfortable reality into their escapism if things ever hit too close to home.

One of the tropes of Romantic Fantasy (or, at least, an element shared between Valdemar and Aldis (the kingdom at the center of Blue Rose) is an adjacent power that is openly patriarchal, and usually monotheist, or at least, religiously intolerant, as sort of an expy where all those real-world issues can get worked out... either through convenient foreigners, or by venturing into that kingdom.

[aspekt]

where all those real-world issues can get worked out... either through convenient foreigners, or by venturing into that kingdom.

Which of course raises questions all its own over colonialism and cultural imperialism.

[goto124]

If you took a setting, and simply gender-flipped everyone (male to female, female to male), how would it change that setting? What if you made every single person female?


So what I'm getting out of this basically (Dungeons & Dragons - Murder-hobos) + Matriarchy?

What's DnD - Murderhobos?

[Lord Raziere]

What's DnD - Murderhobos?

Heroes who don't fight evil for the money, perhaps under the employ of some benevolent institution, going on missions to fight evil because its their job?

like perhaps your apart of the Chaotic Good Inquisition of some god and your an elite team of investigators/eliminators who go to specific places on missions to eliminate certain threats or investigate if there are threats according to certain reports, and you always return to home base and get paid a daily wage and such, as well as have a network of co-workers whom you know well and are dedicated to making sure you loved ones are safe as a part of Inquisitorial security to make sure the followers of the evil gods can't use them against you, and you receive weapon and armor upgrades by default as you get promoted through the ranks?

[Mr.Moron]

What's DnD - Murderhobos?

I've never actually run a murder hobo game, and I've only played in one. Well that's what I'd like to think at least. Certainly there's a lot monster killing and players get treasure, but it's not like they're randomly dungeon-delving into homes of intelligent creatures that were simply minding their own business to steal their loots. They've got goals that align with the world around them and come out of need to help people they know.

Here's a very compressed version of what has happened in my most recent game so far that I don't think is murder-hobo:

(spoiler'd for being long and kind of off-topic. I guess I'm just kind of curious if this would qualify as murder-hobo in people's minds.)

The first adventure was going hunting some feathers for an important local ceremony. As a result they wind up landing a honorary position that would mean in the off chance the king's newborn daughter was kidnapped before being named they'd be the only ones that could rescue here. However since the kingdom has been at peach for over a 100 years and there are no longer any blood feuds or power struggles between the nobility it totally isn't going to happen :smallwink:.

The second adventure was going off to rescue the kingdom's newborn princess from a mysterious kidnapper. A demon summoner in scary armor. The events in the second adventure led them to learn the natural order in the kingdom was collapsing, and that answers might be found in a library far to east. (also they met an ancient talking miniature tiger that wound up traveling with them, which would take too much text to elaborate on here). Also the bad guy escapes.

The third adventure was travel the ocean to catch a ship so they could go to said library. On the way they find evidence the above demon-summoner was likely involved in meddling with the local politics in the neighboring kingdom but don't have time , authority or resources to do anything about it. Getting to the port they found the oceans had "Stopped" and no ships could travel.

The fourth adventure was tracking down and negotiating with pirates who were known to own a magic boat that might still be able to move despite the condition of the oceans. It turns out their boat's "engine" was stolen, so the PCs would be granted passage if they retrieve it. During the retrieval they found out the found out the fish monsters who stole it are likely working with the demon-summoner from the second adventure. Also they found a magic "egg" in the fishmen's lair (this was actually unplanned entirely and was made up off the cuff when I rolled a 44-out-of-10 for the importance of some randomly generated treasure).

The fifth adventure is currently happening. While crossing the ocean with pirates, they get in a fight with another pirate boat. Things happen and during the fight there's a fire and one of the PCs almost dies. The "Egg" he was carrying spontaneously hatches and the magic sea serpent spirit saves him. It turns out it's the ancient guardian of the ocean who has been sleeping. He says he can tell the oceans have stopped because his power nexus has been sealed. He brings the PCs to where it is but there is a temple there that wasn't before. The PCs explore it and find it's a temple to said sea serpent that's been aboanded for 100s of years. Also it's filled with Zombie Mer-Orcs and there's some kind of sinster presence at the bottom. After some moving/back forth between the temple and a nearby underwater city they find and kill the giant squid-demon sitting on top of the nexus. There was a huge explosion, and after things clear for a bit suddenly they can see large figures swimming towards them and they could feel the presence of the demon summoner from earlier.. and that's where last session ended.

I'm glossing over a ton of detail here and all of the in-town RP with random people. I'm also glossing over some setting-specific stuff that accounts for some weirder elements, like the oceans "Stopping". In terms of scale (if it matters) this has been a 5e game that started at 1st and is currently sitting in the middle of 5th level.

[aspekt]

Yora
Is there a mailing list I could get on to receive an announcement when the KS launches?

[Yora]

I don't have the slightest clue. I only know what the announcement said.

[warty goblin]

What if you made every single person female?

A setting that ceases to exist in about eighty years?


Heroes who don't fight evil for the money, perhaps under the employ of some benevolent institution, going on missions to fight evil because its their job?

like perhaps your apart of the Chaotic Good Inquisition of some god and your an elite team of investigators/eliminators who go to specific places on missions to eliminate certain threats or investigate if there are threats according to certain reports, and you always return to home base and get paid a daily wage and such, as well as have a network of co-workers whom you know well and are dedicated to making sure you loved ones are safe as a part of Inquisitorial security to make sure the followers of the evil gods can't use them against you, and you receive weapon and armor upgrades by default as you get promoted through the ranks?

So they don't fight evil for money, they just do it for wages and stuff. Which seems a lot like doing it for money. So I guess if you're into fantasy with a vaguely corporate flavor, it's probably great.


On topic, I mostly liked the Blue Rose setting. I guess it may have been a bit lectury in places, but I tend to see the setting part of a rulebook as basically a lecture on fake history/sociology/ecology anyway, so I've got no beef per say with the lecturer being up front about the political biases inherent in their particular brand of fake. I may dislike those political biases or not, but stating them up front is really just polite. Really, my only issue with the setting was the super-abundance of psychic animals everywhere. Not that I object to psychic horses, but they were just a bit overdone for taste.

On the other hand I kind of don't like the system the original game uses. It's everything bland about the d20 system (so most of the system), stripped down to the ultra-beige chassis.

[Lord Raziere]

A setting that ceases to exist in about eighty years?



So they don't fight evil for money, they just do it for wages and stuff. Which seems a lot like doing it for money. So I guess if you're into fantasy with a vaguely corporate flavor, it's probably great.


you missed the entire "Inquisition" part. where payment is y'know....an afterthought. and the focus is on doing right.

[Grinner]

I can also see it bothering some people affected by these issues either because it could feel like it rings hollow or is to "Saccharine" if real world issues are entirely averted. It could also feel like it's inserting uncomfortable reality into their escapism if things ever hit too close to home.

I kinda liked the idea behind Blue Rose, but the way it was presented reminds me of that one Wizard of Oz theory which posits that Glinda was actually a sociopath who played Wendy for a fool. Or maybe it's more like the Stepford Wives.

In Aldis, it seems that nothing ever really goes wrong. In fact, one of the threats to Aldis listed in the corebook is "Unscrupulous Merchants"; they have so little to worry about that their authorities are actively worried about fraud. In any other setting, I think people actually expect merchants to be screwing them over in some fashion. What's more problematic is magic. Magic in Blue Rose explicitly corrupts the practitioner, yet magic is also stated to be widely practiced among the Nobles....You've got this seemingly idyllic country whose culture revolves around equality, yet there's an elite class among the supposedly equal people of this country who actively engage in a practice known to induce psychotic behavior. The setting just rockets from naive straight to suspicious.

[warty goblin]

I kinda liked the idea behind Blue Rose, but the way it was presented reminds me of that one Wizard of Oz theory which posits that Glinda was actually a sociopath who played Wendy for a fool. Or maybe it's more like the Stepford Wives.

In Aldis, it seems that nothing ever really goes wrong. In fact, one of the threats to Aldis listed in the corebook is "Unscrupulous Merchants"; they have so little to worry about that their authorities are actively worried about fraud. In any other setting, I think people actually expect merchants to be screwing them over in some fashion. What's more problematic is magic. Magic in Blue Rose explicitly corrupts the practitioner, yet magic is also stated to be widely practiced among the Nobles....You've got this seemingly idyllic country whose culture revolves around equality, yet there's an elite class among the supposedly equal people of this country who actively engage in a practice known to induce psychotic behavior. The setting just rockets from naive straight to suspicious.

As I recall, you had your more or less neutral magic, which the awesome people would use for awesome good things, and a less awesome person could abuse, and then you had sorcery, which was your genuine accept-no-substitutes soul sucking evil magic. Sorta like Dark Side force powers; although slightly less goofy in that the distinction between shooting lightning bolts at a dude and dropping a shipping container on him strikes me as mostly academic, but making pacts with the literal source of all evil is, well, making pacts with the literal source of all evil. Unlikely to have happy outcomes in other words.