Tell me about Blue Rose

[GSHamster]

It's called Romantic Fantasy and it has more controvery that is accepted like homosexuality, orgies, and people that are tolerant towards each other. THose have been the biggest complaints I've seen.

It's really hard to critize this without sounding intolerant. In my opinion, it's not so much about tolerance, but more that the world of Aldis doesn't really reflect our culture. Our culture is dominantly heterosexual (even with homosexuality being accepted), so there is kind of an expectation of the same thing. It's kind of like the proportions are off in Aldis. Bah, even writing this doesn't sound right.

An analogy would be a setting where humans are NOT the most adaptable and versatile species. It would just feel weird. Not wrong, but weird.

 

[Crothian]

You probably aren't meaning to, but this implies that those who don't like Blue Rose's setting don't like it because it's tolerant and such. This is, IMO, not entirely accurate; those things merely highlight the views of the setting, including the intolerance of those whose views depart from those of Aldis. No worse than almost every other setting out there, but more visible.

I should mention that I don't have BR. My info is gleaned from the boards and the previews on the GR site.

ACtually a person on these boards said he didn't like it becasue the country was so tolerant of everything. Not all people who dislike the setting will dislike it for the same reasons, I'm just pointing out some of the reasons I have heard on and off the boards.

 

[takyris]

Given that a few responses made it clear that I'd been overly cute, I'd like to clarify my post. Wanting to take the rules part of BR and use it in a different game/setting is fine. Not liking Romantic Fantasy is fine. What I find confusing is the group that gets angry about the fact that Blue Rose is exactly what the people on the websites were saying from Day One that it was going to be -- and who then judge it by a standard by which it fails, which would be fine except that the standard isn't a standard that it's fair to apply to the Romantic Fantasy genre.

To repeat: rules-taking is fine. Not liking Romantic Fantasy is fine. But if you don't like Romantic Fantasy, why the frell did you buy a roleplaying game dedicated to recreating the experience of the Romantic Fantasy genre, and why the frell do you think you have a leg to stand on in terms of your complaints? I, for example, dislike brooding trenchcoat antihero power-fantasy oft-anime-informed movies (and please pardon the inherent judgment in that phrase, but that's the best way I can describe them). Now, knowing that I have this opinion of movies like that, I don't start complaining when RPGs that faithfully repllicate that form of entertainment come along. To do so would be stupid on my part.

Maybe I'm unique in this, but I've got more interesting things to do then troll around the boards telling people that I don't like the RPG that recreates a form of entertainment I didn't like to begin with.

They said from day one, "This will be apple pie, not quiche." They showed fiction clips on their website that demonstrated that it would be apple pie, not quiche. They answered questions on their forums to confirm that it would be apple pie, not quiche. And yet still people who have neither experience nor interest with apple pie post snarky comments about how it's the worst quiche they've ever tasted.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to review Sidewinder: Recoiled. I loathe Westerns with every fiber of my being, but apparently that's not a valid reason not to go review an RPG based on Westerns. If I'm feeling particularly generous, I'll suggest that maybe their rules on gunfights could be used in a d20 Modern campaign instead...

 

[Teflon Billy]

...If you'll excuse me, I'm going to review Sidewinder: Recoiled. I loathe Westerns with every fiber of my being, but apparently that's not a valid reason not to go review an RPG based on Westerns. If I'm feeling particularly generous, I'll suggest that maybe their rules on gunfights could be used in a d20 Modern campaign instead...

And, if those are your true feelings, you'd be right and it would be a good review.

I mean, I'll assume you are adressing me here (though it might be Crothian) but Psion is basically the "Here's what it is/Here's how it works" Reviewer (and he is far and away the most popular). I find his reviews immensely useful.

My reviews are intentionally the other side of that coin, more along the "Here's what I think of it/Here's how it made me feel". I think my review style is valid.

If I didn't like Sidewinder: Recoiled's take on a western setting (or western settings in general, I'd have said what I said in my review of Blue Rose: That it was a well-done example of somehting I don't care for.

If you aren't talking about my review, then ignore all this.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

Takyris:

I bought Blue Rose as a present to my girlfriend. I simply read it. I'm not against romantic fantasy, nor do I suppose anyone is against it as a general thing.

I say that it's treatment of romantic fantasy is chipper. Most of the modern fantasy I read may have some of the elements it covers, but still. Wheel of Time is modern, might even be described as romantic fantasy - but it's not so chipper or anything as Aldis is.

And if I remember back when I read Mercedes Lackey and her cohorts, rarely was anything so clean cut and wonderful as Aldis. You could put a decent romantic coverage in there, if as the GF says "I'd probably make it a whole lot darker. There's little heroism unless you're striving against all the odds - not with the backing of a whole country."

 

[Skywalker]

I say that it's treatment of romantic fantasy is chipper. Most of the modern fantasy I read may have some of the elements it covers, but still. Wheel of Time is modern, might even be described as romantic fantasy - but it's not so chipper or anything as Aldis is.

A lot of people say that Aldea seems 'chipper' especially on a first impression. However, there is a lot of darkness in BR that people miss at first, probably because of the idealised view of good and evil found in the setting. However, there is corruption, war, death, demons and plenty of evil. How much of this stuff is added into a game of BR will be over to each GM.

My guess is as more specific detail of the world is released, we will see more examples of darkness, after all the default stance of BR is about defeating it.

For example, I have personally been thinking about running a campaign based on the Elfstones of Shannara and BR and Aldea seem to support the kind of story very well. There are naiive and ignorant nobles in BR, demon hordes, evil magics etc

 

[Skywalker]

Oh? I am surprised how many people are, like me, none to impressed by the setting (or worse).

My experience is quite the reverse and my larger group doesn't even have many "romantic fantasy" or even "d20" fans. That is one thing that has impressed me with BR. It seems to appeal to an audience outside of its specific audience.

 

[takyris]

I bought Blue Rose as a present to my girlfriend. I simply read it. I'm not against romantic fantasy, nor do I suppose anyone is against it as a general thing.

I would debate the notion that nobody is against it as a general thing. I know plenty of people who are against certain subgenres of fantasy or sci-fi. That doesn't make them bad people, and in fact some of them are wonderful DMs, but it does mean that they shouldn't be reviewing RPGs designed to emulate sub-genres they hate.

I say that it's treatment of romantic fantasy is chipper. Most of the modern fantasy I read may have some of the elements it covers, but still. Wheel of Time is modern, might even be described as romantic fantasy - but it's not so chipper or anything as Aldis is.

1) No argument that it's chipper. I believe that a core design element was "a world that can be lighter and friendlier than, say, a standard D&D world, which people have decided ought to be grim and gritty and spike-armored". That's not a slam on D&D -- I play D&D. I love D&D. But the one time I tried to get my wife to play it, I ran into big major hassles along the lines of her not being naturally inclined to kill things and take their stuff as soon as they showed unfriendly tendencies. If I'd gotten her started on Blue Rose instead, things might have gone better.

2) I have no idea what kind of modern fantasy you're referring to. Are you saying that you read romantic fantasy?

3) If you're including Jordan's Wheel of Time as romantic fantasy, then you have stretched the definition past any point where this discussion is going to be useful. I'm not saying there aren't shades of gray. I'm not saying that Jordan's characters don't have feelings that could be described as romantic. But in the same way that Martin's Song of Ice and Fire just plain isn't a whimsical swashbuckling adventure, Jordan's Wheel of Time isn't romantic fantasy. If this is the standard by which you judged Blue Rose, then it's no wonder you were disappointed. Perhaps the Wheel of Time rpg might be a better version of what you consider romantic fantasy.

And if I remember back when I read Mercedes Lackey and her cohorts, rarely was anything so clean cut and wonderful as Aldis. You could put a decent romantic coverage in there, if as the GF says "I'd probably make it a whole lot darker. There's little heroism unless you're striving against all the odds - not with the backing of a whole country."

Interesting. I remember Mercedes Lacky as being pretty fluffy -- or at least, the good guys were, for the most part, pretty fluffy. The bad guys could be evil and nasty and all that, and I believe that the bad guys in Blue Rose are evil and nasty and all that, but the good guys were usually pretty noble and virtuous and anachronistically progressive and good (unless they get drugged and hypnotized by curtains into being evil for plot-purposes briefly). So it's not like nothing bad ever happens -- it's just that, if I understand it, the Blue Rose people are trying to set up at least one country as straightforwardly good and reliably trustworthy. That doesn't mean that you get to stay there the whole time. Things might not be so wonderful as you try desperately to reach the border of Aldis with necromancers trying to get hooks into your soul to drag you back.

 

[Teflon Billy]

...If you'll excuse me, I'm going to review Sidewinder: Recoiled. I loathe Westerns with every fiber of my being, but apparently that's not a valid reason not to go review an RPG based on Westerns. If I'm feeling particularly generous, I'll suggest that maybe their rules on gunfights could be used in a d20 Modern campaign instead...

And, if those are your true feelings, you'd be right and it would be a good review.

I mean, I'll assume you are adressing me here (though it might be Crothian) but Psion is basically the "Here's what it is/Here's how it works" Reviewer (and he is far and away the most popular). I find his reviews immensely useful.

My reviews are intentionally the other side of that coin, more along the "Here's what I think of it/Here's how it made me feel". I think my review style is valid.

If I didn't like Sidewinder: Recoiled's take on a western setting (or western settings in general, I'd have said what I said in my review of Blue Rose: That it was a well-done example of somehting I don't care for.

If you aren't talking about my review, then ignore all this.

 

[Crothian]

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to review Sidewinder: Recoiled. I loathe Westerns with every fiber of my being, but apparently that's not a valid reason not to go review an RPG based on Westerns. If I'm feeling particularly generous, I'll suggest that maybe their rules on gunfights could be used in a d20 Modern campaign instead...

I already did this. I don't hate westerns but they aren't my favorite setting by far. A good reviewer can look beyond their personal feelings about a topic to judge the book in front of them. But if you do critize a book becasue of a bunch of personal bias trhe reader will see it and not give your reivew much wieght.