Source
okeefeOPBurning Wheel, Dungeon World•

The three arguments that deny all criticism, why to avoid them, and on talking critically about games:

  • If you don’t like it, it’s not for you.
  • It doesn’t matter how bad a game is, so long as you’ve got a good GM.
  • You don’t have to use rules that you don’t like.
10
tzimonAssassin Games•

"No gaming is better than bad gaming."

5
RocknRolla101•

The author is correct. In movies, video games or other areas of art/entertainment that have professional critics few people bat an eye when a critic gives a bad review (in the case of movies more so anyway). However, in table top rpgs and modern board games people tend to not want to say a game is bad or have criticism leveled toward what they like.

I think part of the reason is is two-fold of being a niche hobby. One, both table top rpgs and board games don't have very large bases of people compared to other past times. Most people don't like or are not going to try them and dismiss them out of hand. So when it comes to other games, this small group is more hesitant to criticize it as to seem to be dismissing it out of hand as well. The second niche hobby issue it players often times have direct access to the creators of these games. Many of them read the forums and blogs dedicated to gaming. It is my opinion that the majority of gamers like most folk are decent (or at least the forums I bother to read are). They don't want to hurt the feelings of a designer or the fans of a game. Most know that designing and publishing games is not an easy task and often done for the love of the hobby. Spend enough time playing these games everyone probably tries to create own setting, system, etc. I have, one was a 1950's LA detective game with magic ala the movies Cast a Deadly Spell and Witch Hunt; the other was a Byzantine class bases supers game using d20. Both games were badly written and implemented among other problems. So when someone does put something out there most gamers don't want to give them harsh criticism.

Constructive criticism is vitally important to increasing the quality. I for one would like rating systems be better used. I have found that when fans use a numerical rating system for inflated numbers. In a scale from 1-10 you won't find many reviews in the 3-5 range which I think is mostly the kind of games the author is speaking about. These games are completely unplayable, they just don't have wide appeal even in a niche market, have noticeable rules issues that need to be addressed or house ruled, or some other major issue. For players that like the concept of the game it will be fine, but for players on the fence or not particularly interested they should probably avoid it.

3
Dez384•

This article needs to be read in conjunction with the author's previous article in order to understand what kind of game the author was talking about. Without context, this article raises valid points. However, in context of his previous work, this article doesn't redeem his bashing of Shadowrun.

When I first saw "Ten things I hate about Shadowrun", I was excited for some good discourse on a game that I like, but I was sorely disappointed. The Ten Things was really the same reason repeated several times. The author made abundantly clear the he disliked rules heavy games. He failed to provide ten reasons why Shadowrun in particular of all the rules heavy games was a failure.

This response article addresses all of the insubstantial remarks against his previous work, but none of the substantial criticism.

4
MadLetterGermany•

After the utter failure of the Shadowrun """"""REVIEW"""""", I am not sure if I should ever read anything on that blog ever again...

2
gshowitt Paranoia 2k14 Designer•

Is that how inverted commas work? I hope it is. I can just imagine you doing four furious air quotes around the word as you say it out loud.

5
MadLetterGermany•

That was kind of the intention. The airquotes thing. Cause honestly, that review more than destroyed any potential reputation the OP might have had. Reading that nearly gave me an aneurism due to the sheer stupidity of it.

-1
wired-one•

I wanted to say that this was a good article, but the farther I read, the more he contradicted himself.

His Shadowrun "review" was awful. It was so bad that it should invalidate the opinions of his children, his grandchildren, and anyone that he will ever associate with.

The problem here, is that he wants a game with rules, just not any rules that he deems to not be "dry as a cracker". You can't out house rule a chronically flawed game, and he is right, there are some terible games, but there are games that need a little work, and games that are straight up unplayable.

He needs to learn the difference, and learn how math systems apply to RPGs.

1
iltopop•

Okay, I concede that this is way better than what you posted before. I replied to the previous thread where you pasted a few parts of it as a self post and it seemed really circlejerky without context.

I still say that "If you don't like it, it's not for you" is a valid argument in the right context, but I made a point about broken game mechanics that I think you were leaning more towards.

1
okeefeOPBurning Wheel, Dungeon World•

Yeah, I screwed up that submit. I post URLs like once a year, and didn't realize a text post and an url post were mutually exclusive.

1
popscythePear Tree•

haha this guy is the guy who's mad that shadowrun is complicated

must be a rough life

1