The Culture: Dunder Moose Does DropShip

Last night Dunder had on the Horde Wars crew talking about their new product DropShip.

I am not surprised to hear that this product preceded Horde Wars, and neither am I surprised to hear why HW went first: Pink Slime Fantasy Trumps All in this hobby.

(TLDR: Pink Slime Fantasy can be run Cold and Stupid; everything else cannot unless it has a Brand to do that cognitive shortcut for you, which is why only Brand works for getting into the Normiesphere if it's not Pink Slime Fantasy. The reason for this? There is no Pink Slime (Genre), though a few come close.)

Dropship's setting illustrates why HW was the smarter first product: it can't be run Cold & Stupid. You have to waste time explaining it--pitching it--instead of just rolling up mans and getting on with it. (This, by the way, is another reason for why Boardgames and Miniature Wargames such as BattleTech and 40K are more Normie-friendly than Tabletop; having a tactile, finite game scenario does a lot of the selling for you.)

This looks like it will be Very Okay, much like HW is Very Okay, and if this were 1980 it would become where Traveller and Gamma World are now- maybe BattleTech/Shadowrun. It would not be at all surprising that mixing HW and DS together gets you d12 (I Can't Believe It's Not) RIFTS or TORG. Both could be Cult Classic palette-cleanser games going forward, akin to other Indie Darlings like Shadowdark, but that's as good as it's going to get barring some further Black Swans hitting that knock out the dominant properties lording over those niches.

That's how I see it: Very Okay hobby games.