Unpopular opinions go here

[Autumnal]

That feels like a way to excuse both bad writing and bad design.

If an idea is worth presenting, it's worth the effort of presenting it well.

Hear, hear!

This does remind me of another possibly unpopular opinion: one of the biggest problem for any game that does something unusual and new is experienced gamers who can’t be bothered to read important parts of it because they’re sure they know all that stuff. I’ve seen it again and again from Works of Darkness games to Fate to Apocalyse World and its lovely brood of mutant children to Burning Wheel to 4e D&D to whatever. Every innovating game does better with an audience of folks who are still new enough to see what it actually says.

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It’s people food.

Trying/hoping not to single either of you out here but rather just springboard from it (because every time someone suggests that people should read Peterson, it's in threads where 90% of the participants have) -- unpopular opinion: Folks on gaming forums should assume they are not unique in a discussion as to their nerd-cred expertise.

Oh hell yes, and it’s definitely a kind of vanity that gets me into trouble every so often. I would benefit from a wider streak of Buddhist/monastic/etc ego reduction; the thing gets in the way of legitimate points I’d like to make but undermining the ease with which someone can sensibly decide “oh, Bruce understands this subject and also isn’t a jerk”.

It's a really weird phenomenon. A corollary is assuming that all experts agree on a given topic. They don't. Or that simply because it's in a book it's right. It's not.

Somewhere I once read a line about throwing an index card with POSTSTRUCTURALISM on it into a gathering of the American Historical Association and having it go off like a hand grenade. Same deal.

 

[Autumnal]

Hmmm. We could probably come up with a list of five or so westerns that definitively do not suck but they are probably all meta-commentaries on westerns, like Unforgiven, Lonesome Dove and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. High Noon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and even Tombstone are all commenting on the genre as well.

Immediate reaction: Yes, and…? I’m one of those nerds who grew up on the idea of sf as this ongoing conversation and on post-Lovecraftian horror, so for me this is a Tuesday. Commenting on one’s predecessors seems like as good an occasion to say something worthwhile as any.

 

[Gradine]

Counterpoint, Eyes of Nine Edition:
1) Sadly, I think you're right. I'll make an exception for the "Weird West" genre, but only in other (non-D&D) products.

Hmmm. We could probably come up with a list of five or so westerns that definitively do not suck but they are probably all meta-commentaries on westerns, like Unforgiven, Lonesome Dove and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. High Noon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and even Tombstone are all commenting on the genre as well.

It all begs the point that a straight Western just isn't that compelling anymore (certainly as a TTRPG genre, if not fully as a genre of fiction). Unless you add some form of irony or deconstruction. Or, to be a bit more crude but certainly more popular, mashing it together with another genre altogether. Weird West, Space Western (Firefly), Weird Space Western (The Mandalorian), etc.

Other more specific examples include:
*Basically Weird West but with Dad Rock and Muscle Cars (Supernatural)
*Western but with Sci-Fi (Back to the Future III)
*Sci-Fi Western (Cowboys and Aliens)
*Sci-Fi Western where the Sci-Fi Is Sufficiently Advanced As To Be Indistinguishable From Magic (Brisco County Jr.)
*Western sort-of Deconstruction where the Swears aren't Period Accurate but Effect of the Swears Are (Deadwood)
*Western but with Samurai (Seven Samurai)
*Western but with Samurai but without the Samurai (Magnificent Seven)
*Western but with Samurai but also in Space and also the Samurai are Wizards (Star Wars)

 

[Divine2021]

I think some folks didn’t get the memo that this is “unpopular takes”, not “bad takes”, nor an excuse to be plain old nasty.

 

[CleverNickName]

I think some folks didn’t get the memo that this is “unpopular takes”, not “bad takes”, nor an excuse to be plain old nasty.

There are a few folks who are taking a strange "FIGHT ME!" stance, too.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There are a few folks who are taking a strange "FIGHT ME!" stance, too.

Some of us just have Resting Highly Punchable Face.

 

[Autumnal]

There are a few folks who are taking a strange "FIGHT ME!" stance, too.

Oh hell no, and you can fight me if you keep this up!

 

[heks]

Not really: you could remove the mythos and keep the rules pretty much as is for running generic Horror, and CoC would stand up.

it's been my go to rules system for horror games of all sorts for decades, now, and i haven't used anything from the 'mythos' in most of that time (and we just switch 'sanity' for whatever is most setting appropriate.)

 

[MGibster]

Hmmm. We could probably come up with a list of five or so westerns that definitively do not suck but they are probably all meta-commentaries on westerns, like Unforgiven, Lonesome Dove and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. High Noon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and even Tombstone are all commenting on the genre as well.

Like most good deconstructions, they're also good examples of the genre. Watchman is a desconstruction of the superhero genre, but it's still a good superhero story.

 

[Divine2021]

In the spirit of the OP,

and in the spirit of my usual thing when coming to a thread and ignoring all but the first page of posts - so apologies if this is a repeat

Original Unpopular Opinion
Westerns pretty much suck out of the box, and even modern attempts can't redeem the genre

Basic Unpopular Opinion
Forgotten Realms was the right choice to focus the first 10 years of setting on for this version of D&D

Advanced Unpopular Opinion
Conan and swords & sandals as a genre is boring

Advanced Unpopular Opinion 2e
WotC is doing a pretty ok job of keeping D&D alive and thriving, actually

Unpopular Opinion Third Edition
Steampunk is hard to make a fun game around

Unpopular Opinion D20 (3.5)
Victorian settings without steam-tech nor magic are even harder to make fun

Unpopular Opinion 4th Ed
D&D 4e was a great system

Unpopular Opinion 5e
OSR games continue to grow in popularity not in spite of 5e, but because of 5e

One-Unpopular Opinion (ie, Onepopular Opinion)
What makes D&D great isn't the rules, but the settings and the player community (ok, this one's probalby not actually unpopular...)

Your first Advanced Unpopular Opinion hit me right in the gut, well done you’re wrong, of course, but well done, regardless.