Unpopular opinions go here

[Lanefan]

That is a very special case, however. I don't think the original version of the song was a particularly big Elton John hit, only the one dedicated to Diana.

Candle in the Wind certainly got decent airplay on its initial release in the 70s.

 

[MGibster]

The quintessential 90's song is absolutely, without question, "Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba.

Every time someone puts that song down or forgets it existed it gets up again.

 

[Lanefan]

A long time ago another forum I used to frequent ran too simultaneous threads: The Quintessential "90's" Song and The Quintessential "80's" Song. The 90's thread was, as you might imagine, all over the map (my answer, FWIW, was "Mr. Jones" by Counting Crows).

Heh - I was about to post the same thing re Mr. Jones being the quintessential 90s song!

90% of the the answers in the 80's thread was "Billie Jean"

That makes me sad.

 

[Emberashh]

I will fully admit that the Alexandrian has left me with a visceral distaste for the term "disassociated mechanics."

I think a more broadly applicable way to communicate what Justin was getting at was synchronicity.

The divide between associated/disassociated mechanics is to me a question of how a given roleplaying game maintains a sense of immersion, the sense of completely losing yourself in the game.

And while a murky buzzword unto itself, I think immersion is a real thing, and I think the root of what it is is synchronicity.

Synchronicity I define as being a state where there is no difference between how a game feels, is described, and is perceived.

When you go to cast a Fireball, to use Justins example, synchronicity is achieved when how it feels to make that action, what it looks like when it occurs, and what the player perceives the other two as being are all the same thing.

And when one wants to get into the nitty gritty of how synchronicity is achieved, that is where a whole bunch of buzzwordy words and phrases like dis/associated mechanics, clunkiness, fiddlyness, focused vs unfocused design, etc etc start cropping up.

And I think all of them to some degree or another are valuable, but the key thing is that synchronicity is only one part of the equation; it has to also be balanced with the intended experience of the game, its aesthetics if you will.

The right answers in a dungeon crawler like DND are not going to be the right ones for a game like Blades in the Dark, and neither games answers might actually apply to a wholly brand new game thats not quite like either one.

And important to note too that Immersion isn't a consequence of realism or any hullabaloo like that. Even the most gamey of games can be highly immersive.

 

[billd91]

Album wise, the 90s music in my head is Achtung Baby, Zooropa, Pop, and Jagged Little Pill.

Not nearly as much radio listening for me as in the 70s and 80s or as much MTV watching as late 88- to early 90 in the background in the dorm lounge. I guess Nothing Compares 2 U was on MTV a lot in the spring of 90.

I used to play the B-side to Sinéad's hit, "Jump in the River", on college radio. It was much better.

My 90s music was dominated by something a bit different... Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville, Lush's Spooky, Midnight Oil's Blue Sky Mining and Earth and Sun and Moon, Billy Bragg's Don't Try This at Home, the Breeders' Last Splash, The Heart Throbs's Cleopatra Grip, and My Bloody Valentine's Loveless.

 

[MGibster]

A long time ago another forum I used to frequent ran too simultaneous threads: The Quintessential "90's" Song and The Quintessential "80's" Song. The 90's thread was, as you might imagine, all over the map (my answer, FWIW, was "Mr. Jones" by Counting Crows).

I think Michael Jackson is certainly a valid choice. A lot of young people simply don't appreciate how he dominated the music scene during the 1980s with Thriller arguably the best album of all time let alone the decade. Even 1987's Bad sold more than two million albums the first week of its release. Jackson practically ruled the 80s.

For me, when I think quintessential song of a decade, I think of how it sounds. I know when "Billie Jean" was released, but it doesn't sound as dated to me as "Send Me an Angel" by Real Life, "Hungry Like a Wolf" by Duran Duran, or "West End Girls" by the Pet Shop Boys. And don't get me wrong, when I say dated I'm not casting stones at these songs because they're all still good. "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood is so 80s listening to it doubles as Aquanet. (And it's weird that such a manly macho song is encouraging the audience to sit back and take life at a leisurely pace. That's what the song is about, right?)

I can still place Jackson and other artists firmly in the 80s of course. But a lot of Jackson's songs have a more timeless quality to them. I hope that makes sense.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Oh Danny, you couldn't make a list even if we gave you a 100 songs to put on it.

Well, if you gave me 100 to work with, I MIGHT be able to pare down my list to that number!

For context:

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Just because you are a meat eater does not mean you cannot really enjoy vegetarian or vegan food. Source: am carnivore married to vegetarian/sometimes vegan.

This is aimed mostly at men. Some dudes act like enjoying a nice seitan taco will snip their manhood right off.

I can go vegetarian for any arbitrarily long period of time, because I genuinely like veggies.

Couldn’t be a vegan, though. I enjoy my dairy (especially cheese) & honey too much.

 

[DammitVictor]

Ice cream pizza > regular pizza.

Ice cream pizza > regular pizza.

Ice cream pizza > regular pizza.

Ice cream pizza > regular pizza.

Needs more pineapple.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The 90s also had Ska reach new heights, and revivals for jam bands (Phish, Dave Matthews Band, Widespread Panic, The Why Store), blues acts (Kid Johnny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, lots of Stevie Ray Vaughan remembrance), and New Orleans influenced bands (The Subdudes, Aaron Neville solo career). Grunge gets remembered because it came of age in the 90s, not because it was the only thing there.

I would push back on this a little. For the record, I hated grunge, because at the time I perceived it as affecting peoples' attitudes towards heavy metal. But I distinctly remember how big grunge was after stuff like Smells like Teen Spirit. It was unmistakably huge and completely altered youth culture. And it had lingering effects, which is what I think allowed for stuff like Ska to gain the traction they did. Before grunge people looked a lot more clean cut and preppy. After the youth culture felt like a 70s resurgence to me. It is just there were other things going on and other things that also were popular with people (and not everyone was into grunge).