Vigilance said:
But that's not what you said.
You didnt say "I don't like Rush. I never have, so I see no reason to get the new album."
What you said was, effectively "Rush sucks."
One is objective opinion, the other is you placing yourself as the Arbiter of Quality.
Well, i didn't mean it to come across that way. It really was meant to be "hey, i've checked out everything WotC has done, and i haven't liked anything since they acquired TSR, so i don't see any reason to expect that to change". And, yes, i did say "because X is better"--because i think it is. See, there are things i like that i'm fully aware are matters of taste, and have nothing to do with the quality of the art [techno music]; there are things i like that i'm fully aware are, to the degree these things can be judged, crap [Aqua]; and there are things i like that i'm confident are, to the degree these things can be judged, superior [Beethoven]. I actually am capable of recognizing the difference between my taste and artistic merit--the latter can be supported by reasoned argument. I can't stand V:tR, but don't think that has anything to do with its quality.
On top of that, you made several statements that you called "objective fact" that I know are not true.
I'm pretty sure the only one i claimed as "fact" was that the monster illustrations, on the criteria of illustrating what they claim to illustrate, are poor. There are other bits i think i can back up--and by back up, i mean: you tell me what
you like about Product X, and i'll show you that Product Y does exactly what you want, better. But i deliberately left those out, because it takes too much text as a sidetrack on a different thread [my Spycraft/D20M comparison post was, what, 5 screen-fulls?]. I'm not claiming to be an arbiter of taste--anybody is allowed to like anything they want, whether it be crap or gold--i certainly like my share of crap. I'm claiming that, much as literature and movies can be meaningfully critiqued, so, too, can RPGs. And, i'm not claiming that my "proof" is universal, incontrovertible fact; rather, merely that there
is evidence and reasoning behind my claims, rather than pure taste/opinion. I'm sorry if it came across hollow, because i didn't want to provide the entire supporting argument.
I think part of the problem in discussions of this sort is people take umbrage at the idea that they might like crap. Much like calling someone a powergamer is often taken as an insult (even when it's meant as a simple descriptive), telling someone that there is a better game out there is often taken as an insult, regardless of the intent. It's a natural human response, but one i think we need to get over--it gets in the way of discussions, because generally those who care enough to discuss the merits of things also have preferences among those things. We all need to recognize that (1) our tastes aren't objective fact if we can't back them up with reasoning that others will accept and (2) it's ok if objective fact actively contradicts our tastes--it doesn't make our tastes any less valid. I don't like McDonald's cheeseburgers any less because they are utter crap in pretty much every way you can measure them. Nor do i worry about it when someone points this out, or try and come up with some criteria in which they
are better than the restaurant burger. Nonetheless, i probably overreached on point (1), and should've just left out any claims of supportable differences, if i wasn't going to take the time to actually support them.
Like "d20 Modern is only good for running D&D in the modern world" (paraphrasing).
Even as a paraphrase, that misses an important point: i said "D20M is only
better than Spycraft for running 'modern D&D'"--in all of my comparisons, i never intended to say that any of the WotC stuff is crap. With rare exception, i don't think that--I think most of it is good. I just don't think any of it is awesome. By way of analogy, I didn't say "Rush sucks", i said "in every way in which Rush is good, there is another band that is better,"--and i'll let you pick the measuring stick.
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And, again, to get back to the topic, and ignore all this mess i've stirred up:
if you have a
consistent poor opinion of WotC's products, then it seems to me perfectly reasonable to presume, sight unseen, that future WotC products will be poor [WRT your tastes], and, specifically, that they will be not as good as a product that you have a very high opinion of. Really, that was all i was trying to say: that the people dismissing D20 Superheroes ahead of its release might be reasonable, rather than unreasonable. That's it. Regardless of what you think of my particular opinions that i cluttered up the post with.
