Unpopular opinions go here

[Emberashh]

There will never be a Star Trek that is not directly focused on Starfleet, and that is to its detriment as a property.

I imagine because a lot of the time when people want to push Trek away from Starfleet they inadvertently make it feel like Star Wars.

 

[MGibster]

There will never be a Star Trek that is not directly focused on Starfleet, and that is to its detriment as a property.

Without Starfleet, Star Trek isn't worth examining.

 

[Gradine]

And thats without getting into the fact that games need gameplay, and these games do not have a lot of it all that often, and those that do aren't much to chew on, impacting the longevity they can reasonably confer.

Every minute of every TTRPG, regardless of system and what mechanics are or are not being invoked in any given moment, is gameplay.

Roleplaying is gameplay.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I agree.



They have though.



Mostly because good GMing practices are still an oral tradition that are typically disconnected from the game in question. And because half the people you see with these views have never actually played and only engage with the games secondhand. Moreso a DND problem than the hobby as a whole, but it affects other games too.



I think it depends on the game. I for instance voraciously despise what PBTA/FITD games try to do and what they end up vomiting out.

Firstly because writing is already fun to me on its own merits, and I don't have any desire to gamify it. So the writers room aesthetic is just abrasive and really speaks to how those games hook their appeal into sounding really cool when they're kinda not.

And secondly because how they foster their gameplay loop does in fact make for pretty ridiculous stories if allowed to play out without intervention. Its a case of genre emulation taken so extreme it breaks the underlying logic for why those genres are constructed in the way they are.

In other words, constant injections of bad things if you don't roll high enough, even if theres still a success attached, is not actually emulating the genres these games try to touch. They essentially hand over the idea of stakes over to randomized rolls and it takes people stepping away from the game to reign it in, at which point the system evokes the dreaded question of "why do I need the game?"

And thats without getting into the fact that games need gameplay, and these games do not have a lot of it all that often, and those that do aren't much to chew on, impacting the longevity they can reasonably confer.

That's because, in my opinion, these games care more about generating drama (as per the PBtA engine) than about genre emulation (any particular implementation of said engine).

 

[Tony Vargas]

There will never be a Star Trek that is not directly focused on Starfleet, and that is to its detriment as a property.

So, there should be, like, a slice of life drama set on earth or some established colony, about ordinary people without the extraordinary talents or ambition to get into/through the Academy?

I suspect there'd be a lot of Holodiction episodes....

 

[Tony Vargas]

Every minute of every TTRPG, regardless of system and what mechanics are or are not being invoked in any given moment, is gameplay. Roleplaying is gameplay.

Gameplay in an RPG is Roleplaying, that's the point, of an RPG, really.
The idea that there's a sharp line between playing the game, and roleplaying (restricted to speaking in character and resolving actions notwithstanding the system), is a bizarre category error(?) misconception born of early D&D's incompleteness and general failings, and perpetuated by the ROLL v ROLE debate of the 90s, and it's grandchild, GNS.

 

[Gradine]

Without Starfleet, Star Trek isn't worth examining.

So, there should be, like, a slice of life drama set on earth or some established colony, about ordinary people without the extraordinary talents or ambition to get into/through the Academy?

I suspect there'd be a lot of Holodiction episodes....

Is the idea here that, throughout the Human Federation, the only institution worthy of people with extraordinary talents or ambition is Starfleet? A largely military institution? Because that has such horrific implications to the setting as a whole and the Federation in specific.

 

[overgeeked]

The answer to the question "How are you doing." should be some variation of "Fine thanks." 95% of the time, and the 5% its not correct, is when its your wife asking and the reason you are not fine has absolutely nothing to do with her.

Counterpoint. Unless you want an actual answer to the question, don't ask.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Is the idea here that, throughout the Human Federation, the only institution worthy of people with extraordinary talents or ambition is Starfleet? A largely military institution? Because that has such horrific implications to the setting as a whole and the Federation in specific.

I mean, it really does seem that way. And, yes, it does.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Is the idea here that, throughout the Human Federation, the only institution worthy of people with extraordinary talents or ambition is Starfleet? A largely military institution? Because that has such horrific implications to the setting as a whole and the Federation in specific.

Starfleet is the military and exploratory arm of the Federation, founded in large part by humanity. It is obviously going to front and center in most of the more exciting things that happen in the Trek-Verse, in part because it represents all the Fed, not just any particular civilization within it.