hrmm, it seems that after really being on an immersive XXth century listening schedule, Mozart seems really, really boring. It's so rhythmically simple.
I genuinely dislike the vast majority of fantasy fiction and find it unbelievable I read so much of it as a youth.
It's so bad.
I look at fantasy fiction the way a guy might look back at a high school picture of him with a mullet and think "Jesus, what was I thinking? Why on Earth did I think that was good?"
I tend to hate it more in execution than in principle.
There's this quote the old movie critic Robert Warshow had that I've always liked: "A man goes to the movies. The critic must be willing to admit that he is that man." Sometimes I really want to read about a guy in armor punching the shit out of a dragon. I'm cool with admitting that. It's just the terrible end product that usually disappoints me.
One of the worst things I sometimes run into playing Dungeons & Dragons with random people are DMs who have their own lovingly crafted homebrew settings.
Holy christ, is that ever a recipe for disaster.
I mostly DM in homebrew settings, but generally, I have my concept and then I just let the players go nuts on filling out the various bits and pieces as they see fit.
Pretty much this. My brother will usually have a vague idea - You are in a city that spans the entire continent - and a few important locations, and then he fleshes it out as we go along. It feels better that way.
One of the worst things I sometimes run into playing Dungeons & Dragons with random people are DMs who have their own lovingly crafted homebrew settings.
Holy christ, is that ever a recipe for disaster.
I mostly DM in homebrew settings, but generally, I have my concept and then I just let the players go nuts on filling out the various bits and pieces as they see fit.
Hooray! You're doing it right.
I showed up to a game a while back, with some dudes I met from a hobby store, and the DM hands me this like ten page leaflet thing with a bunch of notes on his setting, the way the classes are completely different, the various cultures and languages, and a guide to giving my character a name appropriate to his setting.
I genuinely dislike the vast majority of fantasy fiction and find it unbelievable I read so much of it as a youth.
It's so bad.
I look at fantasy fiction the way a guy might look back at a high school picture of him with a mullet and think "Jesus, what was I thinking? Why on Earth did I think that was good?"
fantasy and sci-fi aren't about quality so much as hitting all the right cliches
One of the worst things I sometimes run into playing Dungeons & Dragons with random people are DMs who have their own lovingly crafted homebrew settings.
Holy christ, is that ever a recipe for disaster.
Not every homebrewer is Greenwood.
--
I deeply enjoy the incredibly rare piece of good fantasy.
It is incredibly rare. But when I find it oh man so good.
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
One of the worst things I sometimes run into playing Dungeons & Dragons with random people are DMs who have their own lovingly crafted homebrew settings.
Holy christ, is that ever a recipe for disaster.
I use homebrew settings. Most of the official settings are terrible. And with homebrew, you can leave everything that's not currently in focus kind of in superposition and only commit to a decision when you know what will best fit the adventure.
One of the worst things I sometimes run into playing Dungeons & Dragons with random people are DMs who have their own lovingly crafted homebrew settings.
Holy christ, is that ever a recipe for disaster.
Not every homebrewer is Greenwood.
Dude, I've only seen a little bit of your homebrew setting and what I have seen thus far, if presented to me as a player, would make me run for the hills.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
edited April 2010
"Volander's hammer hit the dire spider moose like a ton of bricks, causing the monster to crumble to the ground like a wall of legos kicked by a malicious child."
Kagera on
My neck, my back, my FUPA and my crack.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
edited April 2010
Hrm, reading the 4e optimization forums, it seems like I'm going to need to get the Martial Powers book.
One of the worst things I sometimes run into playing Dungeons & Dragons with random people are DMs who have their own lovingly crafted homebrew settings.
Holy christ, is that ever a recipe for disaster.
Eh, I've played in quite a few I really liked. Though I do know what you mean. I think a good rule of thumb is the more houserules they've added, the more likely it is to be creepy and weird. Especially if they've added houseruled races and classes. And especially especially if you're required to use those houseruled races and classes.
i went up in one big plot-analysis supernova and i've finally run out of ways to say it is awful
now to hope that once square has gotten their hilariously GRIMDARK rendition and their next stupid MMO out of the way things will be moderately less awful
One of the worst things I sometimes run into playing Dungeons & Dragons with random people are DMs who have their own lovingly crafted homebrew settings.
Holy christ, is that ever a recipe for disaster.
I use homebrew settings. Most of the official settings are terrible. And with homebrew, you can leave everything that's not currently in focus kind of in superposition and only commit to a decision when you know what will best fit the adventure.
You might find yourself surprised at how incredibly rare this mindset towards homebrew settings is.
The idea of a superpositional setting that only comes into focus as necessary for the story is great!
Having fictional languages and detailed geographic maps with clear borders and four pages of fantasy history with a timeline and discarding all the normal fantasy races for a bunch of weird aliens of your design is decidedly not great.
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ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
edited April 2010
dire spider moose are in the next version of Dwarf Fortress
I read barely any fantasy these days. I'm reading Samuel R Delaney's Neveryona series right now, but he's had admiring notices from Umberto Eco and is proper clever, so that's ok.
One of the worst things I sometimes run into playing Dungeons & Dragons with random people are DMs who have their own lovingly crafted homebrew settings.
Holy christ, is that ever a recipe for disaster.
I mostly DM in homebrew settings, but generally, I have my concept and then I just let the players go nuts on filling out the various bits and pieces as they see fit.
Hooray! You're doing it right.
I showed up to a game a while back, with some dudes I met from a hobby store, and the DM hands me this like ten page leaflet thing with a bunch of notes on his setting, the way the classes are completely different, the various cultures and languages, and a guide to giving my character a name appropriate to his setting.
Dude, I've only seen a little bit of your homebrew setting and what I have seen thus far, if presented to me as a player, would make me run for the hills.
The four-eyed bug people cover up their mouths now.
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ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
One of the worst things I sometimes run into playing Dungeons & Dragons with random people are DMs who have their own lovingly crafted homebrew settings.
Holy christ, is that ever a recipe for disaster.
Eh, I've played in quite a few I really liked. Though I do know what you mean. I think a good rule of thumb is the more houserules they've added, the more likely it is to be creepy and weird. Especially if they've added houseruled races and classes. And especially especially if you're required to use those houseruled races and classes.
yeah, when I was sitting there reading the way this guy had "modified" the classes (read: made them completely different) and how you couldn't just play an elf or a dwarf, you had to play one of his made-up sci-fi aliens, I was thinking "what the fuck is this?"
I tried to be really polite and diplomatic about it but the guy took it really personally.
Having fictional languages and detailed geographic maps with clear borders and four pages of fantasy history with a timeline and discarding all the normal fantasy races for a bunch of weird aliens of your design is decidedly not great.
the one homebrew campaign I ever ran boiled down to a hastily scrawled map with some vague national borders and maybe the capitals for the nations.
I like to treat campaigns as a Schrödinger box - stuff doesn't exist until it's mentioned. It's great for spontaneously plopping down a village with a werewolf problem or whatever somewhere in Here-Be-Dragons-Land while the players are travelling through it.
hrmm, it seems that after really being on an immersive XXth century listening schedule, Mozart seems really, really boring. It's so rhythmically simple.
there are not enough beats in a minute for you or something?
I expect to be able to play a Dwarf Fighter or a Human Wizard.
If, when I show up, you tell me there are no dwarves in your setting, only Kuthrokas which are sorta like dwarves only they are stout reptiles with glowing eyes, and that a "Wizard" in your setting is actually an "Arcanomaster" and don't cast spells but rather "invoke the Will of Zokor"
hrmm, it seems that after really being on an immersive XXth century listening schedule, Mozart seems really, really boring. It's so rhythmically simple.
there are not enough beats in a minute for you or something?
Nah, it has nothing to do with my love for nonsensical dance music. In the 20th century, many musicians abandoned tonality to emphasize other musical elements, especially rhythm and timbre. However, they still kept the music in a dialogue, so there's still a lot of harmonic content. When you go back and listen to pre-Romantic music, it's all just euphony and melody, so, to my ears, it paradoxically sounds more robotic than some of the music made by robots.
Posts
it had, it was just africaanermusiche
I tend to hate it more in execution than in principle.
There's this quote the old movie critic Robert Warshow had that I've always liked: "A man goes to the movies. The critic must be willing to admit that he is that man." Sometimes I really want to read about a guy in armor punching the shit out of a dragon. I'm cool with admitting that. It's just the terrible end product that usually disappoints me.
Pretty much this. My brother will usually have a vague idea - You are in a city that spans the entire continent - and a few important locations, and then he fleshes it out as we go along. It feels better that way.
Hooray! You're doing it right.
I showed up to a game a while back, with some dudes I met from a hobby store, and the DM hands me this like ten page leaflet thing with a bunch of notes on his setting, the way the classes are completely different, the various cultures and languages, and a guide to giving my character a name appropriate to his setting.
I left without playing.
fantasy and sci-fi aren't about quality so much as hitting all the right cliches
those cliches can be pretty unbearable
Not every homebrewer is Greenwood.
--
I deeply enjoy the incredibly rare piece of good fantasy.
It is incredibly rare. But when I find it oh man so good.
Holy fuck, I hate this guy.
I use homebrew settings. Most of the official settings are terrible. And with homebrew, you can leave everything that's not currently in focus kind of in superposition and only commit to a decision when you know what will best fit the adventure.
Dude, I've only seen a little bit of your homebrew setting and what I have seen thus far, if presented to me as a player, would make me run for the hills.
we are all dragons
and we live together in a spaceship
you roll a d20 if you want to have sex with another dragon and then refer to this table for the sex acts you will be permitted to perform
Eh, I've played in quite a few I really liked. Though I do know what you mean. I think a good rule of thumb is the more houserules they've added, the more likely it is to be creepy and weird. Especially if they've added houseruled races and classes. And especially especially if you're required to use those houseruled races and classes.
i went up in one big plot-analysis supernova and i've finally run out of ways to say it is awful
now to hope that once square has gotten their hilariously GRIMDARK rendition and their next stupid MMO out of the way things will be moderately less awful
You might find yourself surprised at how incredibly rare this mindset towards homebrew settings is.
The idea of a superpositional setting that only comes into focus as necessary for the story is great!
Having fictional languages and detailed geographic maps with clear borders and four pages of fantasy history with a timeline and discarding all the normal fantasy races for a bunch of weird aliens of your design is decidedly not great.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
There's a decent amount of good fantasy. It's swords and sorcery specifically that's all crap.
I don't blame you.
that sounds horrible.
The four-eyed bug people cover up their mouths now.
You've already got powers from it, on your sheet even.
Well yeah. That's basically shonen.
Oh please if it were up to you it would be all philosophy and freezetrancepopdisco [chat].
Looks like I'm gonna have to give swimming a miss tomorrow though and study-hard in the library all day.
yeah, when I was sitting there reading the way this guy had "modified" the classes (read: made them completely different) and how you couldn't just play an elf or a dwarf, you had to play one of his made-up sci-fi aliens, I was thinking "what the fuck is this?"
I tried to be really polite and diplomatic about it but the guy took it really personally.
the one homebrew campaign I ever ran boiled down to a hastily scrawled map with some vague national borders and maybe the capitals for the nations.
I like to treat campaigns as a Schrödinger box - stuff doesn't exist until it's mentioned. It's great for spontaneously plopping down a village with a werewolf problem or whatever somewhere in Here-Be-Dragons-Land while the players are travelling through it.
there are not enough beats in a minute for you or something?
I don't know what that means
I looked it up. I still don't know what it means
I know, they were in the character builder. But it seems like I'll need to do some reading from it as well. I like being able to flip back and forth.
Neither does jucar
Oh hey I rolled a 20, let's see what I get to do
It's okay, we all have flaws.
I'd let you borrow my copy if I wasn't miles and miles away and also using it
I expect to be able to play a Dwarf Fighter or a Human Wizard.
If, when I show up, you tell me there are no dwarves in your setting, only Kuthrokas which are sorta like dwarves only they are stout reptiles with glowing eyes, and that a "Wizard" in your setting is actually an "Arcanomaster" and don't cast spells but rather "invoke the Will of Zokor"
I'm leaving.
Good day sir.
Because what you invited me to play? Isn't D&D.
Nah, it has nothing to do with my love for nonsensical dance music. In the 20th century, many musicians abandoned tonality to emphasize other musical elements, especially rhythm and timbre. However, they still kept the music in a dialogue, so there's still a lot of harmonic content. When you go back and listen to pre-Romantic music, it's all just euphony and melody, so, to my ears, it paradoxically sounds more robotic than some of the music made by robots.
Shonen manga is manga for school boys, like Naruto, Bleach, etc.