Unpopular opinions go here

Whizbang Dustyboots · Jul 19, 2023

overgeeked said:
Again, giving one person way too much credit. Creative people will create regardless of the circumstances.

I know a friend in the creative arts teetering on the edge of homelessness now.

Having a framework and a marketplace for works is a very big deal. Pure will-it-into-existence creative work is really freaking hard. Even Leonardo and Michelangelo needed the Medicis. (And Shredder.)

Ulfgeir · Jul 19, 2023

overgeeked said:
The metric system is infinitely superior to the imperial system.

That's not unpoular. It's a fact.

innerdude · Jul 19, 2023

- Of tabletop roleplaying games on the market in 2023 that have sold at least $10,000 worth of product in the last 12 months*, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition is the absolute worst product in that market. (*have to caveat this so people don't throw things out like "But what about F.A.T.A.L.???")

- "Trad" GM-ing of any variety --- sandbox, "living world," railroad, adventure path, hybrid approaches --- are all basically illusionism no matter how you spin it.

- On the whole, PbtA / Story Now gaming delivers more overall fun per minute spent in play than "trad" play.

- With the right system, GM, focus, and group, tactical combat in "trad" play delivers a higher ceiling of fun for those short spurts than Story Now / PbtA play.

- Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars is the best system for running Star Wars.

- For 99.99% of gaming groups, Middle-earth is the absolute worst campaign setting. (And before you say anything in reply, ask me how many times I've read The Lord of the Rings, all 3 volumes, cover to cover).

overgeeked · Jul 19, 2023

Willie the Duck said:
Trying/hoping not to single either of you out here but rather just springboard from it (because every time someone suggests that people should read Peterson, it's in threads where 90% of the participants have) -- unpopular opinion: Folks on gaming forums should assume they are not unique in a discussion as to their nerd-cred expertise. Maybe not everyone here has read Jon Peterson, but most have. Maybe an individual in the thread hasn't had firsthand encounters with some/all of the founding historic individuals in TTRPG gaming's birth, but one is unlikely to be the only thread participant who has. In discussions about realistic premodern combat (honestly at the office and on another forum more than here), I can't count the number of time where it is something like person A with 8-12 years of traditional martial arts experience and 6-8 in HEMA is trying to tell person B with 10-12 in fencing and 6-10 in MMA and person C with 3 tours of duty and 20 years of SCA 'how combat really works.'

It's a really weird phenomenon. A corollary is assuming that all experts agree on a given topic. They don't. Or that simply because it's in a book it's right. It's not.

Take one relevant example. Compare Jon Peterson's work to the documentary Secrets of Blackmoor. They disagree on several points. Peterson is more interested in primary sources so if it's wasn't written down contemporaneously, then it might as well not exist. The Secrets of Blackmoor docu is a long series of interviews with the people who where actually there at the start of the hobby. Peterson's great, but he ignores and/or erases a lot of living history in favor of primary sources.

Ulfgeir · Jul 19, 2023

Correct way of writing dates is using the ISO8601-format. That means YYYY-MM-DD.

Whizbang Dustyboots · Jul 19, 2023

Ulfgeir said:
Correct way of writing dates is using the ISO8601-format. That means YYYY-MM-DD.

I welcome our new robot overlords.

Jd Smith1 · Jul 19, 2023

nevin said:
Palladium has some really good stuff. I liked the basic fantasy palladium.

overgeeked · Jul 19, 2023

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
I know a friend in the creative arts teetering on the edge of homelessness now.

I know the feeling quite well.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
Having a framework and a marketplace for works is a very big deal. Pure will-it-into-existence creative work is really freaking hard. Even Leonardo and Michelangelo needed the Medicis. (And Shredder.)

The market for RPGs existed before the OGL. The legal ability to create d20-based games…was on shaky ground before the OGL.

nevin · Jul 19, 2023

Divine1943 said:
You’ll never know

3 it takes 3 licks to get to the center of the tootsie roll pop..

Snarf Zagyg · Jul 19, 2023

overgeeked said:
Take one relevant example. Compare Jon Peterson's work to the documentary Secrets of Blackmoor. They disagree on several points. Peterson is more interested in primary sources so if it's wasn't written down contemporaneously, then it might as well not exist. The Secrets of Blackmoor docu is a long series of interviews with the people who where actually there at the start of the hobby. Peterson's great, but he ignores and/or erases a lot of living history in favor of primary sources.

That's because of a real and sincere difference in methodology.

When you are asking people to recall things (like oral histories), you often get great stories. But you don't always get, or often get, an accurate history. Because memories suck. People are really really really bad at accurately recalling things for a variety of reasons. It's not that people are lying (although a lot of people do lie ...) they just aren't relaying information correctly. Sometimes it's because they have an agenda. Sometimes it's because the story they are telling has become just that- a story- and isn't what actually happened. Sometimes it's because people's memories are terrible and fallible.

Peterson goes for contemporaneous evidence- the primary sources. He doesn't care what person X said about how a business was doing, he wants to see the actual records of the company. He doesn't care what person Y recalls about when a particular game happened, he wants to see a contemporaneous publication stating that the game happened.

I would say that his methodology has led to a number of important corrections in our understanding of the early part of the game, including such basic things as where the idea for Chainmail likely originated.

Unpopular opinions go here

Whizbang Dustyboots

Gnometown Hero

Ulfgeir

Hero

innerdude

Legend

overgeeked

B/X Known World

Ulfgeir

Hero

Whizbang Dustyboots

Gnometown Hero

Jd Smith1

Hero

overgeeked

B/X Known World

nevin

Hero

Snarf Zagyg

Notorious Liquefactionist

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