Capellan said:
I would rather spend an entire day playing SenZar than repeat the three hour torture that was my one Forge game.
Well, different strokes for different folks, I guess. I know plenty of sane, reasonable, people who played Forge several years ago. That said, its mechanics
were clunky -- three different ways to raise skills? That was dumb. Other than that, it seemed like a pretty straightforward D&D clone, to me.
And CotS doesn't just have clunky mechanics. It has a plethora of craptastic background, a complete inability to deliver on what the cover purports it to be, and multitudes of furry races. Let's not even mention the island that looks like a sexual organ. It's an RPG trainwreck
I
did forget about Genital Island. The rest of that stuff, though, rarely seemed to count as a strike against the game at the time of its release. I get that
you don't like it, but that still doesn't put it up on the same pedestal as SenZar or Synnibarr. Those games are
widely held to horrible because of their tasteless contents.
The wider consumer audience seemed only to be put off CotS by the clunky mechanics and the island thing (which actually didn't get noticed by a
lot of people until the Crace supplement was published, IIRC). Though the "diesel punk" criticism came up from time to time, since nobody could say for certain what "diesel punk" was, nobody could say for certain that the game failed to capture it.
I'm still unconvinced that CotS has earned "Trash" status. Most importantly, again, because
I am not talking about "Trash" in the sense of "unplayable games" or mere "disappointments" but in the sense of "deliberately, unapologetic, over-the-top, tastelessness". Some people seem to be understanding me just fine, but the rest of you. . . go rent Pink Flamingoes. Seriously. Watch that and then return to this thread
