D&D 5E (2014) Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

[Charlaquin]

I know what MST3K is, but what do you mean be the "MST3K mantra?"

"If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
And other science facts
Then repeat to yourself 'It's just a show,
I should really just relax.'"

 

[Staffan]

I know what MST3K is, but what do you mean be the "MST3K mantra?"

"It's just a show, I should really just relax."

 

[FallenRX]

“Large Paragraphs”

Your paragraph above might have more words.

there is over 1400 words in that section before you understand the layout of the map they give you.

My paragraph had less than 300

 

[Micah Sweet]

I know what MST3K is, but what do you mean be the "MST3K mantra?"

From the theme song:

"If you're wondering how he eats and breathes,

And other science facts,

Then repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show,

I should really just relax'."

Used as an excuse far too often IMO in all kinds of gaming and fiction in general whenever anyone brings up inconsistencies.

 

[Parmandur]

Again it was 3 rooms, and the information about those 3 rooms which are important details about where the hostages your supposed to save, and the place where the details of where the next adventure is are there, without a key, its just buried in 2 paragraphs of detail, it isnt even clear which is which at first, and they didnt even bother to label them on the map, when those seem like pretty important information to kinda present in the adventure that youd want to quickly reference, even if they didnt normally key them, why not label the map, why make a big paragraph that is worse to reference and understand then doing otherwise, and why is that okay?

And it also keeps happening, meaning their are areas about 3 or 4 of them in the game, that are just harder to reference for no good reason, to the benefit of no one. again i feel the only one misrepresetning anything or the issue is you, by trying to downplay the fact that, WoTC just decided to do worse for no reason to the benefit of no one. I think that is a notable issue, do i think its "the death of keying the dungeon" no, but it does show a lack of geniune care or effort for dms, where you bury infomration in paragraphs, instead of making clean and obvious references using maps and or keys, and i dont think its good if we accept that so easily, espeically when DM tools are just kinda lacking in general, and making adventures even small parts harder to reference for no good reason isnt a good sign of promise or quality on any level.

Honestly, they could have juat dropped the maps amd kept the paragraphs as is and it would work fine. All the examples in this book that the clickbaiter references are small areas that do not require any actual exploration and are handled in brief in clear writing. That is perfectly cromulant.

 

[Parmandur]

“Large Paragraphs”

Your paragraph above might have more words.

We are not talking about turgid prose here. I was able to remember what was in it a month after skimming the paragraphs. It is not unclear.

 

[billd91]

Every specific little thing is quite unreasonable, but a general discussion about design philosophy would be great. AD&D 2e changed its philosophy but left in place many rules designed for a different style and, IMO, it suffered for it. 4e was not (again, IMHO), very clear about several of its assumptions and I initially struggled with several of its choices, until I figured out what the deal was.

That sounds about right to me as well. And obviously it wouldn't be necessary for every game to expound much on it, but a page that served as a kind of "release notes" document that indicated major changes from the prior edition wouldn't be bad for most games going through an edition change. With respect to substantial changes in philosophy, D&D is a particular offender and warrants some kind of treatment of the issue.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I will say that he expressed his point unnecessarily abrasively, which seems to be a consistent issue with his communication style.

Boy howdy, you can say that again.

 

[dave2008]

We used to live in a culture where expert opinions were respected, where scientists were listened to, where critics told us the best movies to go see.
Now, every voice is equal - regardless of how informed they are (or are not).

I agree with this, and it can be quite distressing However,...

For me, when a critic has a very successful blog,...

...I don't put as much merit in this. Some very successful blogs are incredibly vapid or ill informed or just trash. Being a successful blog means almost nothing to me in terms of an appeal to authority.

is asked to write articles for major publications, and basically created the treatise on modern dungeon design, I listen to the guy about issues in gaming. I read his articles about how to improve other adventures (such as Rime of the Frost Maiden). When he goes through an adventure and rates it an F - and suggests there is essentially nothing worth saving - I listen to the guy.

Sure, but that doesn't mean someone else should listen to him. His conclusions and opinions can be very different from others on the same product or game design ideas and most importantly they need to align with your opinions to make it worth listening to him. Game design is not a science with verifiable authority after all.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

From the theme song:

"If you're wondering how he eats and breathes,

And other science facts,

Then repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show,

I should really just relax'."

Used as an excuse far too often IMO in all kinds of gaming and fiction in general whenever anyone brings up inconsistencies.

I feel like I've gone through a real arc on that excuse. When I was a kid, I was uptight about stuff that made no sense or wasn't "realistic" (sigh, I was a kid), then I let it go for years and years as I got a bit older, but honestly, all the evidence I saw was that, aside from really wacky fantasy stuff, stories which were lackdaisical or half-arsed about that tended to be worse stories in various ways (often also not taking care with the characters), and often it was just totally unnecessary, so since my late 20s, I'm not mad like I was as a kid, but I do frown at it, because most of it is so trivial to avoid.

I totally appreciate that it's something where perfect is the enemy of good, and where you could spend hundreds of hours trying to identify every little inconsistency and failure at verisimilitude (which is more important than strict realism or "science fact" - internal consistency), but it takes very little time to ensure stuff basically makes sense.

I know there are some people who don't and never will care whether stuff makes sense. That's fine, I'm not one of them, and most of the people I play with aren't either. Just a basic effort to ensure things make basic sense, even if they don't stand up to in-depth analysis, that's all I really want at this point.

As an example, I might offer up the various Stargate series. These were generally very trope-y, not very well-written shows, and I might have just ignored them - but they really had two aces which rendered them watchable - a surprisingly charismatic cast, and a science advisor attached to the productions by the USAF (I think he eventually came to work for them directly). This one dude caused so much stuff in Stargate to make more sense that it palpably increased the quality of the show for me - and yeah you have to accept some fantastic science, like the Stargates themselves - but he helped them keep even the fantastic stuff internally consistent, and the same from week to week (not perfectly but better than 95% of SF). Stargate Universe I'll never forget a couple of the episodes because they actually played with this in the way some murder-mysteries do, by giving all the clues about a situation to the viewer, and allowing the viewer's grasp on actual science to allow them to guess what was really going on before the characters did. That's very rare and very fun as a viewer.

And if you keep things internally consistent and making basic sense in your game, you can give that ability to your players too, and if they're the kind of people who enjoy it (and a lot of players I know are), that's really cool - that's another way you actively the make the game fun and rewarding which layers on top of all the other ways.

(All this said, in SF it can backfire if the writers don't actually know enough science - in that case I say ELIDE THE HELL OUT OF IT - just obfuscate it! Don't try to explain it! We'll work out explanations in our head! That can work too - but it can be overused. I'd put the beloved Becky Chambers in this category, sadly - she could use more elision and less explaining because sometimes she really isn't nailing the science to the point where it's severely distracting - where Mary Robinette Kowal is the opposite, because she consistently nails the science. This last is just an observation re: SF and not generally relevant to D&D.)