First off: thanks. This review rocks on toast, and makes me feel like I did okay.
I'd like to post this at www.20by20room.com and also point to it at The Forge, but I wanted to make sure it was cool with Chad first, since I do needle him a bit (gently, I hope!) in the review.
Go for it! We all deserve a little needling now and then.
Just let me know the preferred URL and attribution you want, so I can get my WebMaestron to update the ASMP site.
Okay, to some specific points:
WKRP You are a scholar and a gennlemun.
Now I'll torment Chad, who is a little needy when it comes to feedback, by talking about something else for a while.
Bastard's got my number. Heh.
fantasy heartbreakers
Thank you for this description; it really helped clear up the point. While I lurk sporadically at the Forge, sometimes I get glassy-eyed at the terminology. I already have one full of litcrit jargon, game mechanics, and telecom abbreviations & acronyms, so sometimes it's hard to fit another lexicon on the mental shelf. (And I had an interesting experience at EveCon re: just this thing.)
And what I thought on first hearing about it, uncharitably I admit, was: Chad's made a Wraith heartbreaker. Or maybe a generic World of Darkness heartbreaker.
Full disclosure: I played 1 session of Vampire 1/e back in college. The only other Storyteller/White Wolf games I've played for more than one session (and less than six) were the Lion Rampant version of Ars Magica and Adventure! (and I was only the GM in the latter).
The setting is emphatically not bleak or angst-ridden or cliched in the least. It is messed up, but that's no criticism. A lot of the work of the game and the body of the text (you get your money's worth: it's a big-ass PDF) goes into describing this demented technicolor dreamland where you buy cotton candy powerups with memories of old girlfriends from guys with duck feet, and watery tarts send you on quests to deliver goblins in envelopes, and monkeys want you to collect round loaves of bread. Yes, kids, this is the Pilgrim's Progress meets the Tibetan Book of the Dead meets Carl Jung meets Monkeybone RPG you've been waiting for.
I need to boil this one down as a blurb, mang. Still haven't seen Monkeybone yet, though. It's on the Netflix Queue.
I think it's probably the first game I've ever played where the whole point of play is being nice. Is it really possible that this is the first game built around that premise? [...] And I have to tell you, sitting around with a couple of gamer buddy dudes talking about how to be a better person felt weird and intimate and transgressive.
Cool. That was, in many regards, the point, and a design goal.
Now, the key to getting the most out of DI would be to set up situations where it is genuinely hard to do good.
Agreed. I think that's gonna be my design consideration for the scenarios in the first for-sale supplement, aka Sekrit Projekt C, aka Cold, Hard World.
[...]Chad got lots of fangirl nookie [...]
Man, I would have loved that nookie back in '91. Today, I think the Wife (boadiccea) would first kick the ass of any nookie-offerers, then proceed to kick my ass if it had appeared that I was even mildly considering nookie-acceptance. :)
Now then, speaking of Atomic Sock Monkey production values: Chad, what is the deal with the artwork in Monkey Ninja Pirate Robot? If you don't want to hire somebody to help you draw curved lines, don't you know there's software that can do it for you?
Sure, but I kind of wanted it to look that way. Just a gut instinct, following a whim. "I dood it myself."
If I ever want to put out a classy print version into the distribution channel, I'll most certainly get someone with better art skills than myself to make everything purty.
Thanks again, man. I'm blown away, and deeply appreciative of this post.
Re:
Whoa.
First off: thanks. This review rocks on toast, and makes me feel like I did okay.
I'd like to post this at www.20by20room.com and also point to it at The Forge, but I wanted to make sure it was cool with Chad first, since I do needle him a bit (gently, I hope!) in the review.
Go for it! We all deserve a little needling now and then.
Just let me know the preferred URL and attribution you want, so I can get my WebMaestron to update the ASMP site.
Okay, to some specific points:
WKRP
You are a scholar and a gennlemun.
Now I'll torment Chad, who is a little needy when it comes to feedback, by talking about something else for a while.
Bastard's got my number. Heh.
fantasy heartbreakers
Thank you for this description; it really helped clear up the point. While I lurk sporadically at the Forge, sometimes I get glassy-eyed at the terminology. I already have one full of litcrit jargon, game mechanics, and telecom abbreviations & acronyms, so sometimes it's hard to fit another lexicon on the mental shelf. (And I had an interesting experience at EveCon re: just this thing.)
And what I thought on first hearing about it, uncharitably I admit, was: Chad's made a Wraith heartbreaker. Or maybe a generic World of Darkness heartbreaker.
Full disclosure: I played 1 session of Vampire 1/e back in college. The only other Storyteller/White Wolf games I've played for more than one session (and less than six) were the Lion Rampant version of Ars Magica and Adventure! (and I was only the GM in the latter).
The setting is emphatically not bleak or angst-ridden or cliched in the least. It is messed up, but that's no criticism. A lot of the work of the game and the body of the text (you get your money's worth: it's a big-ass PDF) goes into describing this demented technicolor dreamland where you buy cotton candy powerups with memories of old girlfriends from guys with duck feet, and watery tarts send you on quests to deliver goblins in envelopes, and monkeys want you to collect round loaves of bread. Yes, kids, this is the Pilgrim's Progress meets the Tibetan Book of the Dead meets Carl Jung meets Monkeybone RPG you've been waiting for.
I need to boil this one down as a blurb, mang. Still haven't seen Monkeybone yet, though. It's on the Netflix Queue.
I think it's probably the first game I've ever played where the whole point of play is being nice. Is it really possible that this is the first game built around that premise? [...] And I have to tell you, sitting around with a couple of gamer buddy dudes talking about how to be a better person felt weird and intimate and transgressive.
Cool. That was, in many regards, the point, and a design goal.
Now, the key to getting the most out of DI would be to set up situations where it is genuinely hard to do good.
Agreed. I think that's gonna be my design consideration for the scenarios in the first for-sale supplement, aka Sekrit Projekt C, aka Cold, Hard World.
[...]Chad got lots of fangirl nookie [...]
Man, I would have loved that nookie back in '91. Today, I think the Wife (
Now then, speaking of Atomic Sock Monkey production values: Chad, what is the deal with the artwork in Monkey Ninja Pirate Robot? If you don't want to hire somebody to help you draw curved lines, don't you know there's software that can do it for you?
Sure, but I kind of wanted it to look that way. Just a gut instinct, following a whim. "I dood it myself."
If I ever want to put out a classy print version into the distribution channel, I'll most certainly get someone with better art skills than myself to make everything purty.
Thanks again, man. I'm blown away, and deeply appreciative of this post.
CU