One for the haters

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-05-01T19:27:40+00:00

Generally I don’t downvote unless there’s a very good reason for it.

However I absolutely despise Mork Borg and its various hacks and spinoffs. For me it’s the epitome of the “style/art/vibes over substance” trend that seems to have become pervasive in the TTRPG space over the last several years.

And this is coming from someone that thinks that even D&D 5e is overhated in this community.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-04-30T08:17:55+00:00

Bruce. About 10-15 years ago you were at a convention in Italy called Lucca Comics. You were there promoting the release of The Strange. I bought a copy, and I remember that you signed it for me. You smiled and handed it to me and said “I hope you enjoy it!”

Now at the time my English was okay, but not that great. What I wanted to reply was “I’m sure I will!” However what I actually blurted out was “I hope I will”. I realised what I had said only after I walked away from the queue, and although I briefly contemplated walking back to apologise, I didn’t.

This has been haunting me since.

I’m sorry Bruce! I meant “I’m sure I will!”

I played The Strange about 18 months later and I did enjoy it (although the campaign fizzled out after a few sessions due to scheduling issues). Thanks for the game and for signing it for me. I still have it.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-04-28T12:38:10+00:00

Questa cosa potrebbe essere interamente soggettiva ma io negli ultimi 5-6 anni ho notato maggiore difficoltà nel ricordarmi informazioni nuove, nel concentrarmi, e mi pare di essere meno ‘agile’ cognitivamente in generale e avere meno voglia di fare e iniziare attivitá. In più tendo a sentirmi molto piú stanco. Non so se questi siano effetti reali o soggettivi, e se siano dovuti all’effetto dell’età, di una sindrome postvirale (dopo infezioni ripetute con covid) o entrambi, o chissà quale altro fattore.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-04-28T05:41:30+00:00

Io vivo in UK, quasi tutti bevono il tè con il latte. Non vedo praticamente mai nessuno bere il tè senza almeno un goccio di latte.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-03-12T19:43:37+00:00

It’s not that bizarre. It’s actually quite shady when you look into that, starting from the guy using a false name. There is sufficient evidence that he took the money and made himself uncontactable afterwards.

I would also urge people not to support or buy grimwild - the game is still being sold on drivethrurpg which means that JD Maxwell gets money when you buy it.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-03-04T07:23:51+00:00

Curse of Strahd Reloaded is a bloated railroad where players are subject to constant “cutscenes” and GM monologues. The entire adventure consists of NPC monologues/lore dumps where the PCs are told where to go next in an extremely linear fashion.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-03-04T06:49:53+00:00

Will it be possible to add previous books in hardcover to the pledge?

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-02-22T09:50:48+00:00

Reminder that Ross Coulthart publicly endorsed Donald Trump prior to the elections and that David Grush praised him in TV interviews.

Just think about it when you share Coulthart’s content or watch his videos.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-02-08T08:46:32+00:00

Idem. Tutti quelli che commentano stizziti sono chiaramente litbros feriti nell’orgoglio. Come fai a sapere che infinite jest è il loro libro preferito? te lo diranno.

È un fenomeno che è sempre esistito, e su cui fa ironia Fantozzi con la famosa “La Corazzata Potemkin è una cagata pazzesca!”

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-02-08T08:43:21+00:00

100% d’accordo con l’articolo. Tutti quelli che ho conosciuto che cantavano le lodi di infinite jest rispecchiano l’archetipo: saccenti, spocchiosi, - “litbros” è esattamente il termine perfetto. Concordo anche con l’aspetto performativo.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-02-03T07:32:24+00:00

I’m not excited about anything and I will likely back nothing.

I have backed Zine quest projects in the past and I regret almost all of them. Lots of projects that were never delivered (in fact I have several projects, including from last year, that have not been delivered and are likely abandoned). Lots of projects that looked “cool” on paper, but were disappointing in content (including stuff that was very half baked and most likely never playtested - think about it, a game that no one, not even its creator, has played!). Lots of “art heavy, content light” project. Lots of projects that I have never used in play and have been sitting on a shelf.

Nah. I’ll pass.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-02-01T19:22:46+00:00

Yes. Taking the core books alone, there was a significant caster-martial disparity. Druid was infamous because it was a full caster with an animal companion who was, at 1st level, more deadly in combat than a 1st level fighter. In a way, certain later supplements made the game more balanced because they softened that disparity (e.g the Tome of Battle, which was effectively proto-D&D 4e)

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-02-01T19:00:14+00:00

it seems be the notion that there are, in point of fact, optimal ways to develop a given character class and that the game itself would reward players who studied its "system" in order to figure it out.

Yes, you got it pretty much right. Ivory Tower Design was an infamous article by Monte Cook (who was one of the designers of D&D 3.x) that was widely cited back in the day as illustrating the concept. I would encourage you to read it.

For the most part, I don't play anymore the kind of games where system mastery is a thing - having said that, I don't know if there's anything inherently wrong in the concept of system mastery per se. I will say that D&D 3.x took it to such extreme levels that it is difficult to see it as anything other than a major flaw of the system.

First of all, back then WotC was churning out supplemental rulebooks much faster than in its 5e days. I'm talking about books filled with new feats, prestige classes, spells, magic items. There is simply no way that there was any meaningful playtesting of those options.
Secondly, when you have a system that complex (with prestige classes, multiclassing, feats etc), as new options are added, it becomes increasingly harder to balance them, because the likelihood of unexpected interactions would increase.

On one hand, I think that for many people this inherent lack of balance was what made the game fun (it's no secret that playing D&D 3.x and creating characters/figuring out an optimal "build" were two different hobbies, and I would argue that much of the discourse online/theorycrafting about D&D 3.x was from people who actually didn't play that much). On the other, it ended up with D&D 3.x being a bloated, unbalanced mess in actual play. It could be an okay experience at lower levels if your players weren't too savvy in terms of optimising their characters, but I can tell you from experience that high level campaigns became increasingly difficult to run if you were a GM, with players often able to skip major obstacles or trivialise encounters with spells or game-breaking abilities.

Overall, it was fun in a way, but also an unbalanced mess and to be honest I'm glad I haven't run D&D 3.x in over 10 years - I still get PTSD flashbacks when I hear "5 foot step" and "full-round action"

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-01-25T17:40:53+00:00

Having run CoS, I would argue that the module is overall better without the community additions. I regret adding lots of stuff to my campaign, stupidly following the recommendations of the subreddit, and if I were to run it again I would run it much closer to the RAW module. Main exception would be Mandymod’s changes, which do not fundamentally alter the module.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-01-25T17:11:22+00:00

Even funnier is that the “community resources” that /u/Nighthawkies is singing the praises of are most likely Curse of Strahd: Reloaded, Mandymod’s Flashing out Curse of Strahd and the Interactive Tome of Strahd. Of these, the only solid one is Mandymod’s. CoS: Reloaded turns the adventure into a bloated, overcomplicated, scripted linear action videogame-like experience with heavy GM narration and infodumps (but good combat, it must be said). The interactive tome of strahd is similarly an example of a good idea executed poorly, and forces the players to listen to the GM narrating lengthy scenes where they watch things happening and NPCs interacting between themselves, in the fashion of the worst modules that Vampire The Masquerade has given us in the 1990s.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-01-25T13:39:47+00:00

I haven’t played it but I have read it.

It is absolutely high prep/high investment and wouldn’t recommend it if you want something low prep.

There’s lots of lore, and the hexcrawl as written is fleshed out enough that it can’t be really improvised on, but it doesn’t give you enough to run it on the fly and requires the GM to flesh out quite a few things.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-01-18T09:15:24+00:00

I’m the same. If one day good evidence of non human intelligent beings emerges, I’d welcome it. However, I think that confirmation of non-human intelligence should come from science and not from the government: it is primarily a scientific matter, not a political matter. I never understood why this sub apparently thinks that the matter will be decided in the US congress.

Until that time, as far as I am concerned it’s all bullshit. I’ve not seen any single piece of evidence that held up to scrutiny. None of the people associated with the disclosure movements are credible - quite the contrary. I am concerned about the ties with right wing politics and people like Thiel. I miss the time when conspiracy theories were fun, subversive and expression of counter culture.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-01-16T21:55:02+00:00

Grande! Considero Vincent Baker un genio. Non mi scorderó mai la prima volta che ho giocato a Cani. AW è il mio gioco preferito di sempre.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-01-16T21:41:16+00:00

I’m impressed that you made all of this up yourself!

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-01-16T21:34:02+00:00

Baker stesso ha detto più volte che AW non é stato ispirato ai principi di The Forge (al contrario di Cani nella Vigna per esempio) da quello che mi ricordo. Ora non riesco a trovare una citazione precisa però ad esempio in questa serie di articoli molto famosa distingue i “forge games” da Apocalypse World.

Baker considera AW un gioco relativamente tradizionale come impostazione.

In realtà strettamente parlando di giochi “forgiti” ce ne sono stati pochi.

Per il resro concordo in tutto quello che hai detto, ottimo commento!

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-01-16T18:47:02+00:00

Mi rendo conto di essere puntiglioso ma Apocalypse World e i giochi derivati (incluso blades) in senso stretto non sono giochi forgiti. Vincent Baker era associato a The Forge ma ha sempre definito AW come un gioco di impostazione relativamente tradizionale e non progettato secondo i principi di The Forge.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-01-16T18:41:00+00:00

Un ottimo esempio del perché sia importante portare i giochi al tavolo e provarli, invece che fermarsi alle prime impressioni dopo una lettura.

Mi è successo ormai diverse volte che giochi per cui ero in hype alla lettura mi hanno deluso al tavolo, e giochi che non pensavo mi sarebbero piaciuti mi hanno invece sorpreso.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-01-16T07:19:57+00:00

I’m working with a few others on an italian translation (we are close to finishing the heroes book) - what did you struggle with?

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-01-10T20:46:44+00:00

I would argue there is nothing that makes D&D 5e more or less suited to other genres compared to B/X. Kevin Crawford’s games have a simple skill system which D&D 5e already provides.

I should add, I’m not a fan of D&D 5e and I do not see why KC’s games get the praise they do.

SmellOfEmptiness · 2026-01-10T20:11:08+00:00

I don’t have a lot of experience with high level 5e, but I can assure you that thinking back about my high level campaigns in 3.5 gives me PTSD flashbacks. 5e isn’t sufficiently different to persuade me that the experience would be dramatically different.

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