Unpopular opinions go here

[Thomas Shey]

I have a friend who has 13000 hours in Civ something or other. That's bonkers.

I would be hesitant to calculate how many hours I've spent playing XCOM1 and 2.

Edit: And, oh lord, I don't even want to think about MOO2. That tends to be my "I want to play something but don't have the spoons for anything I don't know like the back of my hand" game.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Games aren't languages, they're media. I don't want to be locked in to watching season 57 of The Office or season 12 of The Walking Dead: Another Location. I want to have new things to enjoy.

Okay, but game systems aren't media, they're media platforms. I still like playing on my trusty old SNES, even if I'm not playing the exact same cartridge every time. And my DVD player still works as well as it ever did for watching movies I've never seen before.

The same principle applies to every universal system out there, from GURPS to WEG D6 to BRP d% to Savage Worlds, and also OSR and PbtA games.

 

[soviet]

Okay, but game systems aren't media, they're media platforms. I still like playing on my trusty old SNES, even if I'm not playing the exact same cartridge every time. And my DVD player still works as well as it ever did for watching movies I've never seen before.

I don't understand what this has to do with my point

 

[Celebrim]

You already said it: "it's a fairly relaxing and charming game."

My hardcore gamer friends make fun of me for playing chill games like Stardew Valley and Spiritfarer.

Oddlly enough, Spiritfarer is one of my regret purchases. But sure, I enjoyed Stardew Valley far more than I thought I would. It's just at some point after beating the game, and fancying up my farm, and 10 hearts on every character, and delving down deep into the caves, it just stopped being relaxing because there was nothing more to do. I thought I was over 200 hours on the game, but turns out I was a bit shy of that.

Games that aren't competitive or rouge-like have a hard time making me want to go back to them.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I just checked my time /played in World of Warcraft and took 5d20 psychic damage.

 

[Pedantic]

I would be hesitant to calculate how many hours I've spent playing XCOM1 and 2.

Edit: And, oh lord, I don't even want to think about MOO2. That tends to be my "I want to play something but don't have the spoons for anything I don't know like the back of my hand" game.

StS is very much that game for me. I don't think I've actually read a card in years, and while it's actually a quite thinky game, I'm basically running off heuristics now. Somewhere around hour 3000 it became a podcast game.

 

[Lanefan]

Fantasy RPG designers: I do not care how cool you feel your planes are, unless the setting is primarily about the planes, the energy that you spend developing a super-detailed cosmology would be better spent elsewhere. This goes double for alignment-based planes, which are super boring.

(Likely yet another unpopular opinion which I have.)

I usually agree with you, but not this time I'm afraid.

I'll start with two assumptions: 1) that the game system being designed for includes divine powers/beings/etc. that characters can or are expected to interact with (without these, cosmology becomes largely "fluff" for characterization purposes and doesn't need much design behind it), and 2) that the PC-accessible parts of the setting in question are bigger than a single small area (e.g. designing other worlds or planes is irrelevant to something like a Blades in the Dark setting where the PCs don't really travel outside a single city, but knowing what deities are worshipped in that city might become important in play).

Given those, I posit the opposite is true: you have to spend time and energy on the cosmology. More precisely, you have to either start with the cosmology and work down or work the cosmology in as part of every other phase of design, because everything - everything! - in the setting ultimately flows from its cosmology and-or its deities and not working them in at every phase risks an end result where things appear bolted on rather than seamless.

The overarching conflicts in a setting - in D&D these would often be Law-v-Chaos and Good-V-Evil - either stem from its cosmology or are mirrored by it; and these conflicts drive everything from character design to (sometimes) species design to elements in the physical setting. Middle Earth is another example: the overarching conflict in that setting, mostly reflected at a mortal level in the LotR books, stems from a dispute between deities told of in the Silmarillion. If Tolkein doesn't design that cosmology side-along with the rest of the setting, the story wouldn't make any sense.

Also, entire species may - or may not - exist in the setting based on the desires or whims of some deity or other.

 

[Velderan]

But for someone who lives with anxiety and ADHD, games like Stardew Valley are a great way to calm down, compartmentalize, and organize my thoughts. It lets me set my own tasks and accomplish them at my own pace, and rewards me in very small ways (optimized farm yields, friendship with NPCs, etc.) There is no pressure, no need to perform to an arbitrary standard. I don't have to worry about disappointing the group, or failing a mission, or "looking like a n00b" or whatever. I just water my crops, flirt with Abigail, and go fight some slimes.

Oddlly enough, Spiritfarer is one of my regret purchases. But sure, I enjoyed Stardew Valley far more than I thought I would. It's just at some point after beating the game, and fancying up my farm, and 10 hearts on every character, and delving down deep into the caves, it just stopped being relaxing because there was nothing more to do. I thought I was over 200 hours on the game, but turns out I was a bit shy of that.

Games that aren't competitive or rouge-like have a hard time making me want to go back to them.

The modding community for Stardew Valley is pretty incredible too. Once you're done with the vanilla game, try a playthrough using the Stardew Valley Expanded mod if you haven't.

 

[Thomas Shey]

StS is very much that game for me. I don't think I've actually read a card in years, and while it's actually a quite thinky game, I'm basically running off heuristics now. Somewhere around hour 3000 it became a podcast game.

Yeah, I played that a bit at one time, but never really felt enough wanting to engage with the tactical end to get the most out of it.

 

[deganawida]

I usually agree with you, but not this time I'm afraid.

I'll start with two assumptions: 1) that the game system being designed for includes divine powers/beings/etc. that characters can or are expected to interact with (without these, cosmology becomes largely "fluff" for characterization purposes and doesn't need much design behind it), and 2) that the PC-accessible parts of the setting in question are bigger than a single small area (e.g. designing other worlds or planes is irrelevant to something like a Blades in the Dark setting where the PCs don't really travel outside a single city, but knowing what deities are worshipped in that city might become important in play).

Given those, I posit the opposite is true: you have to spend time and energy on the cosmology. More precisely, you have to either start with the cosmology and work down or work the cosmology in as part of every other phase of design, because everything - everything! - in the setting ultimately flows from its cosmology and-or its deities and not working them in at every phase risks an end result where things appear bolted on rather than seamless.

The overarching conflicts in a setting - in D&D these would often be Law-v-Chaos and Good-V-Evil - either stem from its cosmology or are mirrored by it; and these conflicts drive everything from character design to (sometimes) species design to elements in the physical setting. Middle Earth is another example: the overarching conflict in that setting, mostly reflected at a mortal level in the LotR books, stems from a dispute between deities told of in the Silmarillion. If Tolkein doesn't design that cosmology side-along with the rest of the setting, the story wouldn't make any sense.

Also, entire species may - or may not - exist in the setting based on the desires or whims of some deity or other.

Well, I did say I it would be unpopular

Mostly, I am coming at this from the perspective that people don't know for sure, do not have concrete, empirical evidence, of the overarching spiritual, moral, ethical, and metaphysical underpinnings of the universe are like. I like that degree of ambiguity (and yet I am a man of faith, so please understand that I am not, by any means, denigrating faith). I also don't like when the precious cosmology has to be hammered into every setting, regardless if it fits the rest of the setting, or if it removes elements that make said setting unique.

For me, in D&D setting terms, Spelljammer is far more interesting and fantastical than Planescape (except for the art, because DiTerlizzi is amazing).