Unpopular opinions go here

[deganawida]

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Is that Justice League Antarctica?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Counter point (and also unpopular opinion):

When people say they do not like something, they are responding to the design of the game. That doesn't mean that the game is poorly designed in general, but it does mean that the game was poorly designed for what they want.

Shorter version- there is no such thing as an abstract "great design" in games. There are just games that are well-designed for particular uses. If you have something that is "incredibly well designed", but nobody wants to play it, then it really isn't great design after all.

And people are also sometimes prone to deciding that assessing it by its apparent intended purpose rather than what they think that is doesn't count. Trying for a work to represent one specific fictional fantasy setting should be assessed differently than one that is designed for general fantasy use. Same for specific tones.

 

[MGibster]

Unpopular Opinion: the vast majority of time that gamers call something "bad design" what they mean is "I did not like it" and the fact is that most don't actually understand game design well enough to identify something as good or bad design.

I really do my best to judge a game based on what I think it was trying to accomplish. Thirsty Sword Lesbians was created because Kit Walsh wanted to "tell stories about dashing queers having adventures and connecting emotionally." I'm not really interested in telling stories about dashing queers and my strict Calvanist upbringing means I cannot emotionally connect with anyone, so this is not a game designed for me. And while I haven't played it, when I look at the rules, the art, the settings, etc., etc., it all supports the mission. i.e. It's a good game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I really do my best to judge a game based on what I think it was trying to accomplish. Thirsty Sword Lesbians was created because Kit Walsh wanted to "tell stories about dashing queers having adventures and connecting emotionally." I'm not really interested in telling stories about dashing queers and my strict Calvanist upbringing means I cannot emotionally connect with anyone, so this is not a game designed for me. And while I haven't played it, when I look at the rules, the art, the settings, etc., etc., it all supports the mission. i.e. It's a good game.

I agree in principle, but I have a really hard time doing that with D&D, given how many times it has changed what it was trying to accomplish and how outsized an influence it has in the community.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I agree in principle, but I have a really hard time doing that with D&D, given how many times it has changed what it was trying to accomplish and how outsized an influence it has in the community.

Well, it helps to be able to ask the question "what was it trying to accomplish?" and be able to get an answer that doesn't seem so far reaching as to be virtually meaningless.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, it helps to be able to ask the question "what was it trying to accomplish?" and be able to get an answer that doesn't seem so far reaching as to be virtually meaningless.

For WotC, the answer appears to be just, "make as much money as possible". It's the only coherent answer I can see.

 

[Faolyn]

I really do my best to judge a game based on what I think it was trying to accomplish. Thirsty Sword Lesbians was created because Kit Walsh wanted to "tell stories about dashing queers having adventures and connecting emotionally." I'm not really interested in telling stories about dashing queers and my strict Calvanist upbringing means I cannot emotionally connect with anyone, so this is not a game designed for me. And while I haven't played it, when I look at the rules, the art, the settings, etc., etc., it all supports the mission. i.e. It's a good game.

FYI, I put the frowny face reaction there because of the "cannot emotionally connect" bit, not the "I don't want to tell stories about dashing queers" bit. As an autistic person, I know how much it sucks to have trouble connecting.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Saying that a roleplaying game can run any genre or setting is about like saying that the pig can wear any color of lipstick.

All RPGs aren't D&D.
There are (or at least were) RPGs that really could be used to run any genre or setting well, or at least faithfully, if you had the time/mastery to build up campaign material yourself (Hero) or they'd put out a supplement for exactly that genre or setting (GURPS).

(But seriously, D&D is not a pig.)

(You can't make bacon out of it.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

All RPGs aren't D&D.
There are (or at least were) RPGs that really could be used to run any genre or setting well, or at least faithfully, if you had the time/mastery to build up campaign material yourself (Hero) or they'd put out a supplement for exactly that genre or setting (GURPS).

While that's true, even generic systems almost always have some assumptions baked into them. As an example, you really have to fight with and add on a lot of add-ons with GURPS to handle anything much superhuman; its not a coincidence it apparently took them three editions to get Supers to really work right outside of their more gritty forms.

(I'm aware you can bolt on all kinds of extra rules modules for GURPS--I ran two full campaigns of it--but you can seriously start asking if the system is the same system once you do enough of those.

 

[MGibster]

FYI, I put the frowny face reaction there because of the "cannot emotionally connect" bit, not the "I don't want to tell stories about dashing queers" bit. As an autistic person, I know how much it sucks to have trouble connecting.

At the risk of being a jerk, I have to admit that was just a joke on my part. I typically don't have a difficult time connecting with other people.