Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

[Grendel_Khan]

So it was fun, but it played alot like D&D 5e for us because the players really pushed their play from that perspective. In some ways it was very hard to run it as what I would imagine as the idealized blades game for them (and likely other groups of d&d players would face similar issues if they went to it straight from d&d).

Really sorry to hear that. In my experience it can take a lot of sessions, and sometimes a lot of different games, to get some players to kick trad habits and really give a Blades-like storygame approach a chance. But some folks just won't ever be into it, no matter what you do as a GM.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not really. I’m flabergasted by the idea that all criticism is positive and even you aren’t saying that (although you seem to be avoiding agreement). For you it appears it’s more criticism that you view positively is good. Thus why i tried asking about all the criticism you don’t view in a positive light. I expect that there is criticism you don’t view positively (maybe you even call such non-positive criticism something else).

*side note - I understand the miscommunication that led to your accusation - you applied an ‘and’ to my list and believed I meant for it to be exhaustive, whereas I intended an ‘or’ and took no position on its exhaustiveness. I could have written more clearly.

I mean, I dunno what "positive" and "non-positive" mean here, if I'm honest.

Like, if you mean "nice and friendly" by positive, I personally definitely don't require that - it's a bonus but not required. I've seen brilliant criticisms where someone metaphorically took a film or book or game I liked and just basically kicked the hell out of it, turned it upside down and shook it until the change fell out of its pockets. I didn't always feel this way - when I was say, 20, I just mostly got upset by that kind of thing. But at 44? I dunno, I'm like, go for it, show me what you got.

But what I like is when I can see those criticisms are valid (whether I like it or not!) or if I can't say valid for sure, at least well-argued - which means logic and substance and a real POV behind them. Like @Thomas Shey is quite capable of this (sorry to drag you in!) - I often, maybe usually, disagree with his POV, but like, he'll usually present a proper argument for it, which will make me think.

I've never been a person of utterly fixed opinions (weirdly enough), and sometimes I'm just plain wrong, and very often I've missed something important or interesting, and I like to know about that. Like if I'm pushing a system (or product or whatever in my work) which has a notable flaw, or a weird oddity or peculiarity, and I'm not aware, please make me aware!

One issue that comes up a lot is that a flaw or multiple flaws doesn't necessarily mean that a product isn't good - pretty much everything has tons of flaws, but you have to consider which matter to you. This is particularly true with TTRPGs! And I like to know about those flaws. Part of this is because I've played TTRPGs so long that I've played a lot of deeply flawed games, it was often only after months or years of play we really saw how a particular issue (often mechanical/statistical, sometimes conceptual) was causing problems down the line.

What I don't find helpful or interesting is "criticism" that:

1) Shows that the person isn't familiar with the object of criticism and/or doesn't understand the discussion others are having.

I feel like as per your comment, this almost should have a different name to criticism. With TTRPGs that doesn't necessarily mean having played it, let alone extensively, but it does mean understanding basic concepts about it. One thing we do sometimes see here, as I think a couple of people have alluded to, is "criticism" which is basically just repeating some misunderstood claim about a game. That can be disregarded, and I think it's best if it is. For it to really be criticism, there needs to be critical thinking, not just repetition of memes or regurgitation of uninformed cliches or the like. I'm sure I've been guilty of this in the past but I do try to avoid it if there's an actual critical discussion.

To put it another way, some people, god bless 'em, feel the need to stick their oar in even they've got zero relevant stuff to say, and that's fine, but, if they try and act like it's vitally important criticism, not just random opinion-from-ignorance (and I don't mean that lightly or generically pejoratively, I mean when they literally are ignorant about something, like they don't even understand the mechanic). Sometimes this is just cross-talk/misunderstanding, too, which I judge more gently and certainly have been guilty of.

2) Doesn't actually make any kind of critical argument.

I.e. just saying "X rocks"/"X sucks". Now, to be clear - that has its place. Opinions can be interesting or valid, even if not explained. Sometimes it's a good opener. But it's really not very interesting and not really "criticism" unless you can back it up with some kind of argument/critical thinking.

3) Has been well-acknowledged in the discussion already.

We've all been guilty of this - there's some critical discussion and someone arrives with their "vital point" that's already been made and discussed to death and moved on from.

TLDR - Your post has it slightly reversed - I like any criticism which sticks the landing, even if it's of stuff I like. I can accept flaws/issues in things I like (otherwise how the hell did I play D&D for the last 34 years?!), and I'd rather know about them than not.

 

[Campbell]

One of the biggest tripping points about Blades is that it is fundamentally not a heist game. It has a single mechanic that can enable heists, but it is fundamentally a game about being criminal doing criminal things. Scores are often messy. They do not need to be complex or depend on everything going off without a hitch. A score can be as simple as negotiating a deal or pulling a hit off. It's more Sons of Anarchy / Peaky Blinders than Italian Job. Unfortunately, the perception of Blades as a heist game still runs fairly rampant and that has caused a fair number of mismatched expectations.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Personally I would love to read someone's cogent criticism of Blades In The Dark, discussing how they came to it and why it didn't work for them/why they didn't enjoy it. Reading an analysis of why it did not spark joy would be valuable to me as a BitD/FitD fan and general ruminator on the RPG hobby.

It's fine. Given the number of times people refer to it here, I've ran it. I would make the following observations-

Good
The atmosphere is really good. Really! Honestly, they could probably develop Doskvol as a stand-alone setting for other games, and even if you aren't enamored with the mechanics, you'll probably find some fluff ideas to steal for your other games.

If you're familiar with PbTA and its offshoots like DW, you're going to have a decent grasp of the game going in.

It only uses d6, so, you probably have those lying around.

Everyone talks about the clock mechanic and flashbacks. Those, combined with the "just in time" inventory system are good, and justify reading it (if nothing else).


Neutral
If you're someone, like me, who really plays "rules lite" games ... this is actually crunchier than advertised.

If you're someone, like me, who goes in thinking this is a no-prep game and have run a ton of no-prep games ... well, I never got to that point in my limited number of times running it. Maybe familiarity would end up getting to that point, but it never got better than "light-medium" prep.

If the group you're with isn't used to PbTA and similar games, it's going to be rough sledding and a steep learning curve, especially at first.


Bad
First, it's not great for a mixed group. By "mixed group," I mean a table that has players that are not all equally invested in playing the game. This is a game for players that want to be engaged and want to tell stories .... but that's not all players.

The negative outcomes (and examples of play) were not great. I understood the heuristics, but didn't agree with them in all cases. I think that a lot of the work that goes into the mechanics (roll, position, effect) are assumed away by people with experience playing it- it's not that it's impossible to understand or apply, but simply that this type of collaborative resolution mechanic is a lot more foreign to many people than is often assumed. That said, to discuss this further would end up in an interminable debate.


Overall, I think that the product itself is amazing in terms of what it provides some groups, but of limited mass appeal. Personally, I prefer systems that are either crunchier and more decisive (when I want crunch) or systems that are rules-lite to the extent that the rules fit on two pages or less when I want simpler and faster gaming. But this game did an excellent job, especially for introducing the wider world to certain mechanics that were mostly unknown or unused at the time.

 

[FrogReaver]

Really sorry to hear that. In my experience it can take a lot of sessions, and sometimes a lot of different games, to get some players to kick trad habits and really give a Blades-like storygame approach a chance. But some folks just won't ever be into it, no matter what you do as a GM.

Alternatively if they are having fun playing blades that way, who is to say they are wrong. I will say it made my GMing them in blades harder than it might otherwise have been - but it wasn’t unfun for me either.

 

[JAMUMU]

What's really interesting to me is that despite players not wanting to engage with what's generally accepted as one of the core parts of Blades (jumping into the score in media res and playing from there, flashing back if planning detail is needed to overcome an obstacle) the group still had an enjoyable time. Especially interesting is that they found an area of the game (the Downtime section) that they could make their own. In terms of "theory" I'm really interested in the blurry lines between consumption and creation in RPGs and this hits that spot.

My own experience of Blades was with players who no longer get the same thrill out of planning things in great detail, so they were fine with the way it worked. They found the flashback mechanic less interesting for RP purposes, so it just became a kind of Oopsie! button. Interestingly, they also came to love Downtime. This came to be a space where they weren't planning their scores but were planning their "long game" in terms of progressing up the city's heirarchies and became very RP heavy.

My experience running a long-ish campaign was that the more we played, the more the phases of the play loop became less distinct and sessions felt much like any other game. One difference was the dice mechanic, particularly in combat. It took some of my players a while to get out of the "one roll to hit, one roll to dodge, one roll to damage, repeat" paradigm.

 

[Bagpuss]

Just popped in to say I've stopped reading about 6 pages ago.

 

[Bagpuss]

edit- doublepost, sorry, see below.

You know what really bothers me about this thread is why you didn't delete the contents of the second post and say, see above.

What sort of a monster are you?

 

[Bagpuss]

Video games are a slightly older art form than RPGs and have a fairly well-established set of terms and theory. We could do worse than adapting those to suit our purposes. But most RPG people seem eager to reject those terms and theory.

Have you shared a list of them yet so we can see which best are to adapt to discussion of TTRPGs?

 

[FrogReaver]

One thing I’m noticing about these most recent criticisms is that they don’t say much about a normative blades experience.

Even the worst criticisms right here on blades don’t presume to answer the question of whether it’s the system or the players or the given situation that’s causing the problem.

IME most of the contentious discussions happen when criticism is applied more normatively and directly at the game in question instead of leaving open other possible avenues for the problem (players, specific situation, etc). The other is when a less well known game is brought up as an example of a point in a broader theory discussion.

I don’t have the answer there but that seems to be the root of the issue.