Unpopular opinions go here

[J.Quondam]

The biggest problem with "steampunk" is that it is, generally speaking, not at all "punk." it isn't about how technology oppresses people or how those people fight back. It is about elves with steam powered jetpacks, or whatever.

And very fancy monocles.
Don't forget the monocles!

 

[Autumnal]

The biggest problem with "steampunk" is that it is, generally speaking, not at all "punk." it isn't about how technology oppresses people or how those people fight back. It is about elves with steam powered jetpacks, or whatever.

Note that it was intended to be the opposite. The Wikipedia page on steampunk correctly quotes K.W Jeter’s letter to Locus about the 19th century fantasies he and friends Tim Powers and James Blaylock were writing. He suggests “steampunk” as a genre label entirely in jest - sh*tposting, basically. K.W. loathes punk and punks, and always thought “cyberpunk” as a label was almost pure posturing. (And to the extent not, as with John Shirley, who had been playing in punk bands for a while, he didn’t care for it any more.) The author of books like Noir has never been complacent about how societies grind people down morally and physically, he just has no use for punk solutions. To the extent that 19th century confabulations actually do bring punk sensibilities, in the spirit of Moorcock’s The Warlord of the Air and Baxter’s Anti-Ice, they’re hijacking “”steampunk” to mean the opposite of its original intent.

 

[MGibster]

Movies are as good as they’ve ever been, it’s film criticism that’s garbage these days.
Listing things you didn’t understand about a film isn’t criticism.

I would also add that you don't need to spend 40 minutes reviewing a 90 minute movie. That's ridiculous.

 

[mamba]

The 20 pages of house rules are when you don't match the rules to the adventure and have to try and force a round peg into a square hole.

yes, but I conflated that to you had 20 pages for 5e to make such stories work, but now use Shadowdark for them instead

 

[Faolyn]

I just didn't like Buffy as a person in season six. Then I ended up not liking Xander either. Other than that one episode, I would have preferred it if the series ended with 5.

Tabula Rasa was also good, and quite fun.

Well, except for the very beginning bit that helped to more firmly establish Willow as a manipulative idiot.

 

[Jack Daniel]

The biggest problem with "steampunk" is that it is, generally speaking, not at all "punk." it isn't about how technology oppresses people or how those people fight back. It is about elves with steam powered jetpacks, or whatever.

…My point exactly. Elves in steam-powered jetpacks? Boo, that's not punk! Elves in magical plate-mail, throwing fireballs and swinging enchanted swords? Yep, totally medieval and definitely dealing with weighty matters of historical feudalism and theocracy — also very Tolkienesque, definitely elegiac and environmentalist and not just scraping the surface of the Legendarium for its aesthetic! Checks out!

Irrational consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.

One hedge-betting adjective doing so much heavy lifting in that sentence that it has percentile Strength…

 

[MichaelSomething]

To my chagrin, using autotune during your TTRPG sessions...

 

[CleverNickName]

X1: The Isle of Dread is the best D&D adventure ever written, for any edition...it's the standard by which all other published adventures are measured.

For example, "The Sunless Citadel" boasts an impressive 0.85 Dreads, while "Storm King's Thunder" is barely 0.1 Dreads overall.

 

[Parmandur]

Hawaiian pizza is delightful.

 

[Thomas Shey]

My take is that the player with 8 pages of backstory with 'my character is so awesome' Mary Sue-ness is something of which everyone has seen an example, but in general is overblown in prevalence in games actually played and something of a bugaboo told in tales of worst gamers everyone has had to deal with.

Players with excessive backstory in general is certainly a thing. Some people want game-token characters; some people want characters mostly defined by the emergent events that happen during gameplay; and some people want characters with fleshed out histories, personalities, and motivations right from the start. This is not a new, modern generation thing and many not-new systems like GURPS hinge on characters starting play with connections, personalities, places in society, physical qualities which may require/facilitate backstory explanations, and so on. I think the main issue is people who would like to mess around with these things showing up to game tables (and game systems) not suited to them, and this is in part an artifact of whatever majority percent of gamers it is that are playing D&D or D&D-alikes, despite it not necessarily being the system most suited to their goals.

That was more or less what I meant; I might have been thinking of Fantasy Hero or a couple others, but GURPS applies too. These are not games that assume PCs are the equivalent of first level D&D characters, and the reason they exist that way is starting at zero is not natural for a fair number of people. But it is, while not hard-coded in the D&D-sphere, at least set in a lot of people's expectations, so you get the sort of mismatch you reference.