"You shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but a book is no good if the cover says 'don't read me'"
Ever feel like certain games aren't getting the love/attention they deserve for purely aesthetic reasons? Art too terrible, writing too meandering, the author being too much of an infamous cunt, or the subject matter sounding so off putting on paper people never bother actually finishing the book?
1. What examples stand out the most in your mind? 2. Do you think it's justified to think of them as such? Do you really think there's something "unfair" about it, or that "people should give them a chance", or do you think that making an RPG presentable is part of the creator's duty and if they fucked that up they shouldn't be blaming this on a stupid audience?
No, Raggi, people are dissing your games because they’re poorly designed, not because they’re misogynists who can’t handle pictures of naked women/feminists who can’t handle pictures of naked women being raped and mutilated.
Your being a prick certainly makes things worse, but you don’t get to cry that people aren’t giving your games a fair chance.
Alexander Rodriguez
Sirlins' games. They are all excellent, but they aren't themed in a widely appealing way, and the creator himself has like negative infinity CHA.
Juan Cooper
Maybe a few, but most of the shit cover RPGs made by raging assholes who blame people for being too stupid to understand their genius are just shitty RPGs
To pick a couple of examples from other media:
Uwe Boll >Renowned maker of shitty movies >terrible person >blames audiences for being too stupid to get his awesome genius
Terry Goodkind >Writes shitty 'speculative fiction' >fanatical Randian >Says anyone who doesn't love his work is an idiot and a parasite
If people are not buying your shit, then maybe it's the marketing, maybe it's the dumb public, or maybe what you're selling is just shit.
James Martinez
I dunno, some people just cheap out on the artwork. Dread has a cover you could design in Microsoft Word and no internal art, IIRC, and it’s a brilliant little game. It’d be a shame if people never gave it a chance just because it’s ugly.
Liam Martin
How do these two see anything if they have their helmets on?
Cameron Hernandez
>Terry Goodkind But F.A.T.A.L. is regurarly discussed here
Connor Flores
I don't know about "aesthetics", but first impressions are a very serious business and far too many developers don't seem to realize it. There are a ton of games out there that are actually really okay (sometimes even good), but make such an awful first impression that nobody will ever bother to seriously check them out (i.e. if they do, it'll be "ironically" or "to see how bad it really is", etc.). Some have gotten to the point where the bad reputation is independently self sustaining, so nobody's actually played the game in years but "everyone knows it's shitty" and keep saying so, ensuring nobody will ever find out otherwise.
Jordan Wood
IMHO this happens most often when games have a strong political/social element, in which case it's to be expected. If you market your game as "feminist" or "libertarian" or "capitalist" or whatever, you know full well people will love it or hate it based on their politics and not any merit of the game.
James Anderson
That's true to a point. I can't help but feel a bit disappointed when a game's bad press itself, sometimes without having anything to do with the game it belongs to, becomes so prevalent nobody will even bother checking it how much of it is factual. Case in point: Blue Rose. It might not be a great game, but how much criticism of it do you see that's of what it is, and how much is based on flat out lies perpetuated by RPGPundit which even a cursory reading of the book could dismiss?
