https://meatcastle.substack.com/p/talking-about-adventures-systems An interesting grab-bag of a piece that touches on the state of #ttrpg reviewing.
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My nephew who has nothing intrinsically wrong with him and is now a grown man, used to think every game was the best game ever, and every day was the best day ever. A complete delight in novelty.
I don't actually have a fault with that, and I'd be mildly jealous of the joy if I weren't made of poisonous bats and Guy de Maupassant references.
@Printdevil If I started behaving like that people would just assume that I had hit my head. @RogerBW
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@RogerBW Quite so. RPG people often drone on about how people need to play stuff before they review it but Questing Beast and Playful Void are respected despite *never* playing what they review. Why? Because they rarely put out negative reviews and sellers appreciate sales while buyers want validation for their purchases. @Printdevil
I'd quite like a job reviewing television programs on this basis. Is that available?
I almost never watch television, but I could imagine reviews of liking it, providing you could guarantee I wasn't exposed to the material.
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@Printdevil If I started behaving like that people would just assume that I had hit my head. @RogerBW
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@Taskerland @Printdevil Oh yeah, I first met that with high-end digital cameras: big expensive thing, and some people want to be reassured they've bought the right one.
@RogerBW @Printdevil Cameras pose a similar challenge as they're tools and people can use tools in any number of different ways. Impossible for a reviewer to know if a given camera will fit in a particular workflow. Even 'sharpness' of lenses is not a neutral characteristics as some lenses are pleasingly imperfect for some people.
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@Taskerland @Printdevil Oh yeah, I first met that with high-end digital cameras: big expensive thing, and some people want to be reassured they've bought the right one.
Like Stereophiles, Camera Owners are a special form of lunatic.
I've seen it at the extreme end of Studios going almost bankrupt because of sudden urgent need of "the £20,000 lens they will use once"
This is why I recommend fixating on a single appearance monster from the early seventies. You can feel like a compleatist in a matter of hours, without having to teach yourself Japanese like @vortiwife
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Like Stereophiles, Camera Owners are a special form of lunatic.
I've seen it at the extreme end of Studios going almost bankrupt because of sudden urgent need of "the £20,000 lens they will use once"
This is why I recommend fixating on a single appearance monster from the early seventies. You can feel like a compleatist in a matter of hours, without having to teach yourself Japanese like @vortiwife
@Printdevil @RogerBW @Taskerland i know that saying the words "Leica M8" can activate a kind of manchurian candidate response in a certain kind of camera nerd
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@RogerBW @Printdevil Cameras pose a similar challenge as they're tools and people can use tools in any number of different ways. Impossible for a reviewer to know if a given camera will fit in a particular workflow. Even 'sharpness' of lenses is not a neutral characteristics as some lenses are pleasingly imperfect for some people.
People have made careers out of weird old imperfect lenses indeed.
Anything with tools always tends to border between jealous modernity, frothingly specific obsession and wondering if you are collecting Victorian ones because they have a dragon on the handle.
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@Printdevil @RogerBW @Taskerland i know that saying the words "Leica M8" can activate a kind of manchurian candidate response in a certain kind of camera nerd
Anything you couldn't tell a story about both technically and narratively was described as "a snap" by my employers.
Which still annoys me because they retroactively made everything up to imply they were artistic.
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@Printdevil If I started behaving like that people would just assume that I had hit my head. @RogerBW
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People have made careers out of weird old imperfect lenses indeed.
Anything with tools always tends to border between jealous modernity, frothingly specific obsession and wondering if you are collecting Victorian ones because they have a dragon on the handle.
@Printdevil Also, there are people who are camera nerds and guitar nerds who drone on about specs and, by and large, they are never good musicians or photographers. @RogerBW
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@Printdevil Also, there are people who are camera nerds and guitar nerds who drone on about specs and, by and large, they are never good musicians or photographers. @RogerBW
I think that's what leads to their/peoples fascination with old cameras or low spec cameras, or process methods like wet development and pin holes. Or pre-decent digital. They've grown up in a time when digital cameras are fantastic, guitar tech isn't soldering and hope, and car batteries don't need topped up in the morning. There's no creative tension. No forced necessity. So you get people with a £10-15k rig getting more fun out of a disposable.
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@Printdevil @RogerBW @Taskerland i know that saying the words "Leica M8" can activate a kind of manchurian candidate response in a certain kind of camera nerd
At his point I should note I'm very disappointed in the lack of gargoyles in the Bokeh effect now available in camera on most digitals.
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I think that's what leads to their/peoples fascination with old cameras or low spec cameras, or process methods like wet development and pin holes. Or pre-decent digital. They've grown up in a time when digital cameras are fantastic, guitar tech isn't soldering and hope, and car batteries don't need topped up in the morning. There's no creative tension. No forced necessity. So you get people with a £10-15k rig getting more fun out of a disposable.
@RogerBW @Printdevil Indeed. Discovering that material constraints are often aesthetic constraints and aesthetic constraints can be very productive.
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At his point I should note I'm very disappointed in the lack of gargoyles in the Bokeh effect now available in camera on most digitals.
@Printdevil @vortiwife @Taskerland You can't see the gargoyles?
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@RogerBW @Printdevil Indeed. Discovering that material constraints are often aesthetic constraints and aesthetic constraints can be very productive.
That's what has lead to so many "500 Ideas to Improve..." type books in photography I think. You don't learn via old methods of desperation and waiting for development time (or Boots), people have all the editing, manipulation, and creative tools on tap. Confronted with everything all at once, people seek creative guardrails.
Or just ask an ai and don't worry about it.
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D) These issues are tough to navigate and are partly why I stopped reviewing ttrpg products:
I can only ever speak to my experience running a game and given how far outside all of the major silos my preferred playstyle falls, I suspect it was not useful.
Also, ttrpg people don't really know what to do with reviewers... What they want is what they have: Influencers who can make them feel enthusiastic about products they most likely won't read let alone play.
@Taskerland I recall your reviews saying 'you'll need to run this from a record cover or print the awkward shape', and another noting 'GMing advice is absent, this game assumes a level of cultural knowledge'.
The reviews didn't seem all that subjective, because every other group would have to deal with the same things you described.
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@Taskerland I recall your reviews saying 'you'll need to run this from a record cover or print the awkward shape', and another noting 'GMing advice is absent, this game assumes a level of cultural knowledge'.
The reviews didn't seem all that subjective, because every other group would have to deal with the same things you described.
@malin Some characteristics are objective, this is true.
I did also make an effort to meet games where they are, even while it dragged both me and my game out of our comfort zones (which is another reason why I stopped reviewing).
