The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[Cadence]

There are two types of people. Those who have read Ulysses and did not understand it and those who lie about it.

I'm not going to say that some people didn't truly understand Ulysses.
I'm just going to say they kind of scare me...

 

[Velderan]

Bolded for emphasis.

It is truly staggering how much 5e has grown the total RPG "pie." It's like the prior golden age (early 80s), but on steroids ... and, seemingly, sustainable.

Yep. Whatever audience WotC may have lost at the beginning of the year hasn't stopped them from finding new people through generating publicity from the movie (which may or may not have been a flop, we'll figure it out someday) and wisely licensing their IP out to a studio that set out to make a masterpiece game that only has spread more interest in their TTRPG products. Plenty of other publishers have indicated their sales are still doing better, so really the hobby has probably never been in a better place ever which is good for everyone that enjoys it.

I can't understand being so overly negative about anything in the hobby right now. I guess I've chosen my group to play games with wisely? Next month I'm running an OSE game for some friends who have never played a TTRPG and the only reason they were up for it was how much talk is out there about D&D.

 

[Cadence]

I was going to say "But the other groups are having fun in the (legally and not hurting anyone) wrong way!!!"

And then I remembered the quote. :-/

 

[prabe]

True. But I also think that there are useful things to learn about what people actually want. This is easier to see in discussions of consumer products; the most popular products often make design decisions to increase accessibility for more people at the expense of being "better." Or they may be appealing to a zeitgeist even if that zeitgeist is not realized by most consumers (see, e.g., the massive popularity of pick-up trucks in the US, despite the limited use-case for most of them).

But it even applies to music. We think of the early 90s as being dominated by Nirvana and grunge- and that was revolutionary for the time. But Smells Like Teen Spirit, while huge, was only #32 on the Billboard charts for 1992. Do you know who was in the top 10?
Boy II Men (#1!)
Si Mix-a-Lot
Kris Kross
Vanessa Williams
TLC
Eric Clapton
En Vogue
RHCP
Color Me Badd
Jon Secada


....so it goes.

I think paying attention to why a thing is popular--learning what people want--is a worthwhile thing, of course. One might argue that pickup trucks, for instance, are popular in part because CAFE allows manufacturers to sell them at a better value-point for lots of individual consumers--externalities notwithstanding.

 

[overgeeked]

I'm not going to say that some people didn't truly understand Ulyesses.
I'm just going to say they kind of scare me...

I will. It’s like a modern Voynich manuscript or that Blue Dot painting. It shows how vacuous modern “art” is. It’s mostly a pretentious scam so people can look down their noses at the out group. Ulysses is only still in print because college professors assign it.

 

[Scribe]

1. I've already had too much caffeine.
2. I've already had too many meetings.
3. I've already deleted multiple things that I could post, start a fire, and run away.

 

[prabe]

I will. It’s like a modern Voynich manuscript or that Blue Dot painting. It shows how vacuous modern “art” is. It’s mostly a pretentious scam so people can look down their noses at the out group. Ulysses is only still in print because college professors assign it.

I think there is a stream of "literature" that was dedicated to hiding the text, and I think Joyce is part of that stream. I'd be reluctant to label all of Modernism (and later movements) "vacuous"--while I personally (for instance) see Mark Rothko as "pretty colors" and nothing more, I'd never deny the realty of someone's experience of being moved to tears by him.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's really annoying.

Ask any question that could be remotely taken as a criticism of WotC and you'll almost certainly get someone jumping to their defense arguing against something you didn't even say. I get it; tons of folks have an axe to grind against WotC so some D&D fans feel the need to defend against that behavior out of habit, but it would really be nice if people actually read what I wrote and respond to that instead of arguing against the point I wasn't making?

What usually drives me nuts and I'll make a statement with a carefully added qualification so its not read as my saying more than I intend--and someone will respond like the qualification wasn't there.

 

[niklinna]

I mean, have you tried reading Ulysses?

Do I have to?

 

[niklinna]

I mean, I get that some people like IPAs, straight gin, and masochism... I really like the Silmarillion a lot.

I remember quite enjoying it, that one time I read it. It was full of mythic/epic stories about people doing things.