TG As An Industry - Past, Present, Future - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG As An Industry - Past, Present, Future

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Countblanc posted:

To switch topics and steal from another derail (also from the board game thread; we're just really noisy in there), I'm wondering what the future of traditional gaming journalism is going to morph into. TGs are a much more niche hobby than video games - Even with their growing acceptance, board games just aren't really a media in the way video games, movies, or television. You aren't going to read scholarly papers on how the violent themes in Ameritrash games are leading to school shootings.

Much like video games, the people who are most involved in the journalism aspects are fans, and basically none of them make a living off of it like you might scrape by working for Kotaku. What's more, the biggest board game site (Boardgamegeek) is filled to the brim with fan reviews of games, but very little in the way of actual commentary. There's also no established language for discussing them critically like you would have with everything from books to tea; In the BG thread people were just saying that "fun" gets thrown around a ton, and can mean anything from being synonymous with lightweight fast games (which some people took issue with, since it implicitly states that longer, meatier games aren't fun) to just meaning "I enjoyed my time playing this" (without really discussing how much of it was facilitated by the game vs how much was the people it was played with, or what other games they might enjoy). And the problems don't stop at "fun," there's arguments about if games are even things that can or should be discussed critically, since the objective of 99.9% of games is to end with the players having enjoyed the last 10 minutes/hours and who are we to say that Fakey McHypothetical's group of totally-real people just adore Space Pirate Ninja Catgirls so since three people like it you can't technically say it's objectively bad.

I'm really excited to see where the new SU&SD site/project goes, since their stated goal is to basically be THE place for board game related media and critique.

e: I admit that I don't know a ton regarding RPGs and mostly stick to board games, so if someone wants to discuss that feel free!

It's me, I'm the guy that says 'fun' shouldn't be used in order to review games. It actually lead me to create my own reviews in order to avoid using the word altogether. I actually think that subjective criticism of something is unavoidable when discussing games/films/etc since biases do appear even when trying to be objective, but subjectivity isn't a bad thing as long as the reviewer recognises that he has inherent biases and that they are going to colour his review of a particular game. I think there are way too many people that do not realise this and mix up 'stuff that I don't personally like' with 'stuff that is objectively bad'. That is not to say that there aren't objective criteria that we can use to review a game and decide if the game is badly designed: for board games it mostly relies on rules interactions, production values etc. I think someone in the board game thread made a good point of how in isolation, lengthy games don't make bad games, but if you add to that things like highly random results or 'screw-the-leader' situations that artificially lengthen the game, the length of a game can be a problem. I think that although currently board game reviews don't really go into enough analysis of how rules interact with each other, it's an important step in making the review of board game more objective.

I haven't really played an RPG in quite some time, but I think the above would be more difficult to do with RPGs than for board games. Although it is still possible to analyse rule interactions in an RPG, due to the fact that RPGs are more open-ended (and that a part of the community actively campaigns against attempts to make RPGs more tightly regimented), it would be difficult to analyse rulesets without descending into subjectivity, since things that are considered bad design by some can be actively liked by others (f.ex. caster supremacy). Within board game, it's hard to find someone that likes getting elimated early in a highly random 2 hour long game.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2013 12:33

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 2, 2024 17:32

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

P500 is a pretty awesome system and as well as testing the waters for new designs, it allows GMT to see how much interest there is in doing a reprint of older games (although some like Twilight Struggle pretty much get printed out anyway). I think this is one of the reasons why GMT is so successful: they are able to provide copies of even their older games but they don't end up having much if any surplus stock. This also allows them to have build quality which pretty much surpasses most other wargaming companies, since they are able to provide nice, fitted boxes, good quality chits/rules, top quality mounted mapboard and cards with good cardstock, something that many other companies are usually not able to provide.

Touching on another company that I've had dealings with, Deep Thought Games are a company that is pretty much a one man outfit that exclusively creates copies of many 18XX games. There are many options, including asking him to mount the map/laminate the components, or you can just get the print-outs and do it yourself. The company, due to being a one man outfit, takes a long time to do stuff and there is a huge queue because it's one of the few places that will make brand-new 18XX games and ship them all over the world. More than a year ago, I joined the queue at around 640: now I'm currently 487 in the queue. I think outfits like these can work, but you really need a niche product (and 18XX is a niche as it gets).

# ¿ Apr 23, 2013 10:48

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

As a personal anecdote, I used to be really into videogames when I was younger but now I'm almost entirely playing boardgames on my free time. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that I find it a more sociable experience, but mostly, as has been stated, the physical quality of a board game is very important: being able to move pieces and interact with the board directly is a big draw for me. The only time I have ever used an app during a game was for two reasons: as an aid to scoring in Agricola (there are several iOS apps which truly make it easier to find the final scores and be able to double-check them) as well as a mission randomizer for Space Alert (a game which uses a soundtrack: using the randomizer allows you to get new soundtracks which can be adjusted for difficulty/number of players).

I think there are several reasons why apps might not necessarily work in a board gaming environment except for the above reason: first of all, there is the issue of accessibility. If you have a game in which everyone has to have a version of the app running, people that don't have the platform will not be able to play. Even if you require only one person to have the app running, you still need to either provide the platform in-box (skyrocketing the cost of the game) or require the player to have the platform in order to play the game. One of the major draws of board games is that they provide all the required materials to play within the box, thus allowing anyone to play the game without requiring any sort of pre-preparation or tools outside those provided by the game itself.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2013 15:38

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

I find the cheesecake in Kingdom Death objectionable enough but then you get into poo poo like the Wet Nurse and it veers from 'okay, you did cheesecake to make money' territory to 'this is loving sick, wrong and misogynistic as hell' territory. I can't really respect the thought pattern behind creating a miniature like that.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2013 22:26

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

The Crotch posted:

She's apparently an important enough character in the Pathfinder universe that she's been drawn by other, more competent artists.

I'm the giant Zladizlaw Beksinski skull-tower looming in the background.

She looks like she's smiling, but you can see from her eyes that she is suffering inside.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2016 16:16

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Maxwell Lord posted:

Like I said, though, there's not a lot of introductory or easy stuff there, they're catering to the hardcore that's left.

(I also wish computer wargames weren't all exclusively 4x "build and expand" type stuff, but that's another issue.)

Actually this isn't really true anymore. There's a lot more beginner stuff out now than there used to be, and the quality of current wargames is much higher as a whole as well (mostly because there isn't a glut of poorly tested stuff out there like in ye olde times).

# ¿ Feb 28, 2016 22:13

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Age of Rebellion isn't great and I don't think that the FFG SW RPG does those kind of campaigns well. Also their campaign book for it is garbage.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2016 17:19

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

GW and FFG have ended their licensing agreement, for anyone interested. By the end of february next year no more GW licensed products will be available, which seems to include Talisman/Fury of Dracula etc.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2016 15:35

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Also probably Fury of Dracula 2e as well.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2016 15:43

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Peas and Rice posted:

I really wish this game was as good as its premise.

Also: all the talk about gear porn and no one mentioned Twilight: 2000, perhaps the greatest late 80s gear circlejerk in gaming? For shame!

FoD 2e is certainly better than FoD 1e, but even that is not saying much.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2016 17:39

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

The problem with the 1e game is that the combat is crap, and ends up being "Okay, in this combat nothing happens, next round, also nothing happens". The fact that you both have a card selection mechanism but still have to use dice to resolve the combat is crap. Just be brave and just design the game around the cards being the only thing you need to resolve combat.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2016 18:00

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Storygaming, much like anarchism, is a petty bourgeois movement based on a false optimism about the angelic nature of the human race.

Bakunin was right about Marx, friendo :anarchists:

# ¿ Apr 12, 2017 15:54

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

I think racism in fiction can be used to illustrate issues that happen in real life, but it really depends on how you use it. The use of 'spoonhead' in DS9 was used, as an example, to show that even a near-utopian civilization like the Federation can still be racist when push comes to shove. If the use of the derogatory term is used to highlight issues of racism with a particular character/culture within fiction, and how this relates to real life racism, I don't see an issue with it. If it's used simply as a means for the characters to have something that they consider 'funny' to say, there's an issue.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2017 17:59

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

I agree that they are a hard sell, but a genre completely excised of all sexuality, no matter how it is done, is not the way to go. I think there is a difference between something truly problematic, exclusive etc and games that use those aspects to meaningful impact the game and make people think about the implications of racism etc. For example, I ran a game of Night Witches which necessarily had to deal with themes of sexism, propaganda and death. i think it's more important to create well made games that are either fun or give interesting messages: that will get people into the hobby more than worrying about what people will think if they see that AW has "sex moves".

# ¿ Jul 5, 2017 22:20

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Plutonis posted:

Regarding Barbeque I'd say the international quality decreases in an alphabetic order. So it goes Argentinean > Australian > Brazilian >>>>>> USAean

Picanha and maminha are some of the best cuts I've ever eaten.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2017 20:41

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 2, 2024 17:32

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

admanb posted:

And the rules were reskinned to be crap.

Which is still an improvement on Dunes rules somehow.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2018 00:55

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG As An Industry - Past, Present, Future