Unpopular opinions go here

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Popular shows such as Rick and Morty and Vox Machina are unwatchable.

Their popularity makes them unwatchable? (Rick & Morty fans might make that show unwatchable, to be fair.)

 

[nevin]

Popular shows such as Rick and Morty and Vox Machina are unwatchable.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Depends on whether they have an audience.

So this is a Schroedinger situation? An actor who rents a tiny black box theater in North Hollywood (I used to live across from a whole row of these that existed for this exact purpose) to do a one-person show is not doing theater if no one is in the room, but the second someone steps back inside from going to the bathroom, it's theater again?

If someone does a one-player RPG with someone else in the living room getting updates on what's happening, is it an RPG at that point?

 

[nevin]

you're probably not wrong, but i wonder it it would've helped any if law and chaos had been named structure and liberty or something instead.

maybe but I've spent hours trying to explain to players that good isn't warm and fuzzy and that lawful isn't good and it seems to roll off of thier brains like a water over a duck. My best friend, great gamer, great DM can't accept that CG can be wild, destructive and completely against law and still be good. Explaining alignments to most human beings is completely pointless. If it makes them feel good they think it's good if it makes them feel bad they think it's evil. It makes my analytical brain hurt. I can't find a solution other than only play with analytical people and that's a boring min maxer game doomed to fail.

 

[nevin]

So this is a Schroedinger situation? An actor who rents a tiny black box theater in North Hollywood (I used to live across from a whole row of these that existed for this exact purpose) to do a one-person show is not doing theater if no one is in the room, but the second someone steps back inside from going to the bathroom, it's theater again?

If someone does a one-player RPG with someone else in the living room getting updates on what's happening, is it an RPG at that point?

well maybe that's what dark matter is. All the stupid possibilities geeks come up with weighing down the universe as they now exist but don't exist because we wasted brain power thinking them up... Could be what causes the big bang....That one thought too many.......

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Alignments are a cool idea that requires a philosophy class to explain, and a non emotional person to understand.

They're a terrible way to model personalities, though.

I still maintain that the oWoD's nature/demeanor system, which is inspired by real world models of personality, are far better and much more gamable than anything D&D has ever used.

 

[nevin]

They're a terrible way to model personalities, though.

I still maintain that the oWoD's nature/demeanor system, which is inspired by real world models of personality, are far better and much more gamable than anything D&D has ever used.

They were never meant to model personalities. They were supposed to be guidelines for the character's moral compass. Especially the ones with Divinely granted abilities. But people being people used it as a shortcut to personlity and we got Lawful Stupid, Lawful naughty word, Chaotic Cray Cray etc . you can always count on people driving the square peg through the round hole with far less effort than you thought it would take.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

well maybe that's what dark matter is.

Unpopular astronomy opinions:

1) Dark matter and dark energy are really simple to explain, and really interesting, but the names are so good, people just run with the ball and make up all sorts of stuff without taking 30 seconds to find out that the real theories are way more interesting than anything Marvel Comics can come up with.

2) Pluto is obviously in a different category than the true planets of the solar system. "That's not how things were when I was a kid" is a terrible thing to cling to and is the cause of many of the world's problems.

 

[Tutara]

So this is a Schroedinger situation? An actor who rents a tiny black box theater in North Hollywood (I used to live across from a whole row of these that existed for this exact purpose) to do a one-person show is not doing theater if no one is in the room, but the second someone steps back inside from going to the bathroom, it's theater again?

Peter Brook states that ‘I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all is for an act of theatre to be engaged.’

So yes, according to one of the most respected directors of the last 50 years, if something is observed it is theatre. Beckett did write a play with no actors, but he was being facetious.

I suspect further discussion of the nature of theatre is a bit out with the scope of the thread, but I will say Alan Cumming’s one-man Macbeth (c. 2012) was one of the best things I ever saw. Apologies for the tangent!

 

[Gradine]

Oh, and The Empire Strikes Back is the worst of the first three Star Wars movies.