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[Mephisto]

I'm seeing all kinds of weird flex surrounding the game and braindead "silence brand" memes.

[scriver]

Would you mind explaining that for me?

[SOLDIER First]

The "silence, brand" meme specifically is a version of the "silence, x" meme (possibly originally "silence, liberal"?) targeted at corporate brands. The meme itself is a giant crab shooting lasers from its eyes at another, smaller crab, purportedly the x that the meme's text refers to. Its purpose is as a reply, to dismiss something that's been said on the basis that it's being said by x, and therefore not important enough to be worth responding to or debunking in a more formal manner.

Pictured below, sans x.



In this case, "silence, brand" is a completely appropriate response to this thinly-veiled attempt for Wendy's to get itself Pop Culture Coolness Points with the public, because there is literally no other reason for Wendy's to design an apparently competent tabletop game system and release it for free than to make younger people think it's cool and not a soulless corporate brand bent on getting as much of their money as humanly possible.

[scriver]

Ah, I understand.

Also, that's a spicey meat-a ball very big crab

[Cthulhu]

Would you mind explaining that for me?

Don't ask questions, just consume product and get excited for next product.

It might be good.  It seems to be cribbing some from 5e but using its own stuff for other elements, the stats are 4d4 down the line which is unusual but I appreciate, down the line is always the best stat array.  The adventure looks pretty big, dunno how well-made it is or if it's just a sequence of scripted encounters.

[Persus13]

They also sponsored Critical Role to run a one shot of it last night.

I'm not opposed to the idea of a Wendy's RPG, and it looks like they invested at least some time into making it look professional, but I've mainly heard that its an off brand 5e, which doesn't appeal all that much to me.

[Mephisto]

See, there's a difference between "silence brand" late stage capitalism wankery and "Wendy's is bad because they exploit slave labor in ways that even McDonald's doesn't". The former is fucking worthless. The latter may actually provoke research and change.

Anyway. Enough fast food and politics in the elfgame thread, I suppose.

[Cruxador]

In this case, "silence, brand" is a completely appropriate response to this thinly-veiled attempt for Wendy's to get itself Pop Culture Coolness Points with the public, because there is literally no other reason for Wendy's to design an apparently competent tabletop game system and release it for free than to make younger people think it's cool and not a soulless corporate brand bent on getting as much of their money as humanly possible.

Eh, the fact that they're letting their PR dudes do silly fun stuff like this is definitely preferable to the alternative, and they did it properly without being patronizing or stupid, which would be the original application of that.

It might be good.  It seems to be cribbing some from 5e but using its own stuff for other elements, the stats are 4d4 down the line which is unusual but I appreciate, down the line is always the best stat array.  The adventure looks pretty big, dunno how well-made it is or if it's just a sequence of scripted encounters.

I also approve of the fact that it's not just using the classic six D&D stats without thinking about it, but does its own thing instead.

I've mainly heard that its an off brand 5e.

It's not. It's d20, but it takes from OSR and mid-decade fantasy heartbreakers as much as it takes from 5e or any other source, and some of it seems original or at least the source is obscure enough that I don't know it.  In some regards it reminds me more of PF2e than anything, but it's definitely a worthy system within the d20 world in its own right.

[SOLDIER First]

Don't ask questions, just consume product and get excited for next product.

[Trekkin]

Anyway. Enough fast food and politics in the elfgame thread, I suppose.

How about weirdly meta game design criticism, then? I don't mind Wendy's making a reasonably competently executed pnpRPG if that's how they want to spend their ad budget, although I would like the writers to be properly credited, but I do worry that it's accelerating the trend of pnpRPGs being art first and art generators later. The constant Wendy's puns just make it a little more blatant that the game was designed to be talked about rather than played. If normal RPGs are a sandbox with a list of rules to keep from kicking everyone else's castles over, this new form of game is a lot more like a theme park ride: you sit down, strap in, and an experience is generated while you watch. Invisible Sun has a similar problem of presentation, as does Blades in the Dark, in that both project this idea --and in the latter case at least, the fans amplify it obnoxiously -- that these are Well Designed Games with Elegant Mechanics and if they don't do what you want then what you want is bad and you should feel bad. (Jenna's Morans tend to exude this kind of smugness too, but they're after something different entirely.)

I just worry that, as RPGs become more about the books and less about the fun the books let you craft, we're moving toward this idea that a game can be good in this rarified objective sense that has nothing to do with how fun it is to play. That feels like a loss to me, and RPGs that exist primarily to be remarkable, like this one, feel like they're accelerating that.

[Cruxador]

Anyway. Enough fast food and politics in the elfgame thread, I suppose.

How about weirdly meta game design criticism, then? I don't mind Wendy's making a reasonably competently executed pnpRPG if that's how they want to spend their ad budget, although I would like the writers to be properly credited, but I do worry that it's accelerating the trend of pnpRPGs being art first and art generators later. The constant Wendy's puns just make it a little more blatant that the game was designed to be talked about rather than played. If normal RPGs are a sandbox with a list of rules to keep from kicking everyone else's castles over, this new form of game is a lot more like a theme park ride: you sit down, strap in, and an experience is generated while you watch. Invisible Sun has a similar problem of presentation, as does Blades in the Dark, in that both project this idea --and in the latter case at least, the fans amplify it obnoxiously -- that these are Well Designed Games with Elegant Mechanics and if they don't do what you want then what you want is bad and you should feel bad. (Jenna's Morans tend to exude this kind of smugness too, but they're after something different entirely.)

I just worry that, as RPGs become more about the books and less about the fun the books let you craft, we're moving toward this idea that a game can be good in this rarified objective sense that has nothing to do with how fun it is to play. That feels like a loss to me, and RPGs that exist primarily to be remarkable, like this one, feel like they're accelerating that.

I feel like this game and the main thing you're concerned about are different.

First of all, the Wendy's game has puns and fast food theming, which is consistent with its purpose as a jokey fast-food oriented game. Being silly or having a specific theme, however, are both features that are in no way counter to playability. They might wear on you for long campaigns, but not all campaigns are designed to be long and someone in my group already expressed interest in having a game of the Wendy's game. I imagine it would be a one-shot using the included adventure content.

You can say it's a theme park ride in that it's designed to be specific, but being specific vs general is in no way related to the idea that a game has less interactivity or more railroading. Not every game has to be a big general thing; we've already got GURPS for simulationists and FATE for narrativists, and neither one does any particular type of game as well as a system written just for that. If a game is only played once, then that's still a game that's played once, and it's still a fun evening. If you had to pay for the game, I can see comparing it unfavorably to more versatile systems, but this game is free.

I do agree that there's an idea of a "good game" that doesn't relate to how fun it is to play, but that's hardly the issue here. The Wendy's game is designed like an OSR-type game, in that it focuses on D&D-style play without caring about the fact that d20 doesn't let you stick your nose quite so high in the air as other systems.

[Yoink]

Remember when Old Spice released that playable character class? Or was that some strange hallucination?
Anyway, stuff like this is awesome. More RPG-themed advertising, please! As long as the game is playable beyond a funny headline, more power to 'em, even if I'm not about to eat at Wendy's because of it. Ew.   

[Trekkin]

(-snip-)
I do agree that there's an idea of a "good game" that doesn't relate to how fun it is to play, but that's hardly the issue here. The Wendy's game is designed like an OSR-type game, in that it focuses on D&D-style play without caring about the fact that d20 doesn't let you stick your nose quite so high in the air as other systems.

I don't think that it is so designed, at least in the sense that the design decisions are more concordant with an ad than a game, like the buffs for eating Wendy's food and the obfuscatory names of character orders. Of course it is an ad and I'm fine with that; what concerns me is that they tried to make it a "real" game in some palpable sense that was nevertheless distinct from it being optimized for play. They could have put together the same puns and branding in a much simpler RPG and gotten the same amused response from people with less work, and it could still be something fun to play once. They could also have cut back on the puns and memes and stuck their logo on something that was unambiguously a remarkable game at its core for relatively little additional work, and that would have also turned heads. It appears that, instead, they designed something that ticks all the boxes of an RPG in some postironic we're-the-cool-brand package, in so doing furthering the already extant idea that there's a set of boxes to tick to make an RPG in the first place.

That's where I see the admittedly tenuous connection. This is not a Well Designed Game (tm), but it is a storytelling tool that's being talked about for reasons other than the stories that it can be used to tell, and I worry that its existence will normalize the more damaging former case.

[pikachu17]

Just realized something.
If your GM is one that realizes that NPCs know you're casting a spell when casting one with components, you can cast Disguise Self earlier, and then hide Somatic hand movements in the illusion.
If the spell doesn't also have Verbal, or have stuff obviously coming from you, no one will know you're the one casting.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

My party's steady descent into an evil campaign today included brutally murdering a salamander couple whom we could have easily bypassed as they cried out to each other in horror. We then stuffed their bodies in a bathtub full of boiling oil to cover it up, and possibly condemned some other salamanders to a slow death locked in a side room if they can't break the door down.

Also I found out that fighting salamanders as a monk is very hard even when you get the drop on them.