Unpopular opinions go here

[Nikosandros]

I really love spicy food: Calabrese, Mexican, Thai, Indian, just bring it on. Unfortunately, I've developed a mild allergy, so I have had to curtail my consumption...

 

[Nikosandros]

The best alignment system is Law-Neutral-Chaos

I used to dislike it, but I've come to appreciate it.

 

[Reynard]

"Spicy" as an adjective for food is near useless because of its breadth. Most people just mean "hot" and "spicey" goes well beyond that.

 

[Reynard]

Fans ruin everything.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

Fans ruin everything.

Everything ruins fans.

 

[overgeeked]

"Spicy" as an adjective for food is near useless because of its breadth. Most people just mean "hot" and "spicey" goes well beyond that.

Exactly.

 

[Thomas Shey]

A huge number of TTRPGs include significantly amounts of combat rules, sometimes with little regard to whether the game needs them, benefits from them, or exactly how those rules feed into their central play loops. White Wolf WoD being the iconic example where the dev's best intents about what kind of game they wanted to foster ran headlong into people trying to play the combat/superheroics-laded game their rules actually supported. Ryuutama is an alternate example -- I think most people play it as a light-hearted travelogue game, but it is still funny how much combat rules they still felt compelled to include.

I suspect in the former case it has as much to do with some developers having different feelings from others, and the media models very much not being purely (or in many cases, even primarily) the "personal horror" thing they claimed to want. I mean, what do you think most RPGers think of when they think of vampire protagonists: the ones from Only Lovers Left Alive, or the ones from Underworld? And once you got to the other lines (especially Werewolf, second out the gate) this was even more true.

IMO, the desperate search for 'fault' in all this is the bugaboo of these discussions. The game had plenty of rules that, when followed, created a tighter, more cohesive game*. Plenty of people did not end up playing with these rules. It could be that they didn't know they were there. It could be that they did not realize why they were important. It could well be that they knew they were there, that they served a purpose (and what it was), and still said, 'this isn't something I am interested in doing.' *which many people who ended up playing may or may not have enjoyed playing.

As an example, I absolutely knew a fair number of people who felt the morale and reaction rules were too much of a blunt object; they didn't factor in the situation well enough, and showed what they were--derivatives of a miniatures morale rules set, without the special casing often baked into those.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Or earlier or later. I sometimes think they the social situation of late antiquity - maybe 400-700 - would make for good gaming. The empire is still an active memory and even survives and thrives very far off. (Boxed set! Epic road trip!) Up close, it’s all scrounging for solutions and conflicting claims with the PCs in the midst of it. Do you want to get Merovingians? Because this is how you get Merovingians.

I ran a fantasy version of 4th Century Briton at one point. The campaign didn't work out perfectly, but it didn't have anything to do with the setting, and people quite enjoyed that part.

 

[Reynard]

I ran a fantasy version of 4th Century Briton at one point. The campaign didn't work out perfectly, but it didn't have anything to do with the setting, and people quite enjoyed that part.

I am a huge fan of psot-Roman Britain. Lots of fun and potential there, especially when you let dark faerie tale fantasy seep in.

But I was highlighting Europe in 1000 CE for a reason: there is A LOT more going on at that time than most media representations indicate. There is social, cultural, economic, religious and even military diversity across the continent that puts "elves, dwarves and humans" to shame.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I am a huge fan of psot-Roman Britain. Lots of fun and potential there, especially when you let dark faerie tale fantasy seep in.

Which is pretty much what I did.

But I was highlighting Europe in 1000 CE for a reason: there is A LOT more going on at that time than most media representations indicate. There is social, cultural, economic, religious and even military diversity across the continent that puts "elves, dwarves and humans" to shame.

Sure. I picked the post Roman era in Britain because it was in such upheaval that it was easy to understand how a bunch of PCs got have impact well above their weight (and this wasn't using a D&D derivative, so their personal power scope was more "impressive historical personage plus magic" than "legendary hero").