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Brucato's entire idea of The Power Of Music is going to be a junior-grade version of Jim Morrison, isn't it? It's about people thinking you're a triumphant sex god and making panties drop, and that's it? Public Enemy, Sinead O'Connor, U2, The Beatles, Paul Simon, Boogie Down Productions, The Coup, Run The Jewels - all pretty much the same thing as KISS and Motley Crue, right? Christ, what a crippled and blinkered approach to music, especially coming from someone who is notionally so ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC that he spent seven years writing a zillion word RPG on the subject. This thing is going to have less to say about music than the beloved 2003 Jack Black family comedy movie School of Rock, isn't it?
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Feb 6, 2018 15:48
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LatwPIAT posted:His music history is ridiculously eurocentric! (And he speaks about world music/world beat as if it's some great thing about diversity and embracing other cultures, but world music has always been tainted by the fact it's commercialized cultural appropriation.) I caught onto this as well. "World-beat" describes all non-white forms of music as something that was created just so that the white man could sample and improve on it. So just like non-white Cultures, it's something white people can dress themselves up in so that they can say that they're ethnic and earthy when they're still white as bread. That's not even getting into the fact that japanese/korean musical genres might as well be their own things. Japanese-Pop is completely orthoganal to American/European Pop, just as a moderate example.
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Feb 6, 2018 15:56
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I'm also noting a complete absence of religious music - be it traditional choral style or modern Gospel. Especially in America, that's a rather significant oversight, and music has been intimately associated with religion throughout the world for a long, long time.
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Feb 6, 2018 15:57
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Kurieg posted:I caught onto this as well. "World-beat" describes all non-white forms of music as something that was created just so that the white man could sample and improve on it. So just like non-white Cultures, it's something white people can dress themselves up in so that they can say that they're ethnic and earthy when they're still white as bread.
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Feb 6, 2018 15:59
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Well, it's not like including reference material in an RPG isn't still valuable, it just has to be in the context of what's specifically relevant to immediate play. There's also just a lot of information that still isn't out there, so deep research can still be valuable - I had some recent frustration, for example, in looking up information from a wikipedia page and realizing that the wikipedia author had only pulled the information that was available from public preview versions of a book, and just had left the rest of a set of relevant information unsaid because, well, they'd need the actual book in question to finish that part of the article, and 
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Feb 6, 2018 16:01
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If you want to see a groovy psychedelic imagining of the impact of American popular music, watch Bakshi's American Pop. Might still be on Netflix. As a son of the 90s I still have a soft spot for cheesy world music. Like not all of it, but I own Adiemus' debut album. Inescapable Duck posted:I'm reminded of when video games actually had manuals, which in some cases would include everything from massive amounts of backstory that provides context to the game (and often get retconned to hell later) to historical info. I learned more history from the Age of Empires II manual than I learned in school, I swear. Even Pendragon, an old game that's been rereleased in the internet age with updates, has lots of info that's actually interesting. I think it's a good idea when you want to give your players a sense of what they should know coming into the game from the perspective that the game was written with, though best not to bury the crunch deep inside the fluff, like some games do too often. RPG sourcebooks with historical information can still be good, because they (ideally) tell you about daily life in a way that's hard to get from a history book. Call of Cthulhu has traditionally been very good about this. Gygax once did a "World Builder" sourcebook that was okay. And Godlike really stood out as a game that devotes much of its text to a historical timeline and does it very well. FMguru posted:Yeah, that was my (or rather Laws'/Hite's) point above: that the kind of stuff that used to fill up RPG sourcebooks - history, maps, technical definitions - is all online and available for free. There's no need any more to include a potted history of the Wars of the Roses, or a page and a half writeups of Otto von Bismarck and Billy the Kid, or detailing the difference between an onager and a trebuchet (or the different models of MP5 submachine gun), or a map of London pointing out where Buckingham Palace and Whitechapel and the Tower are. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Feb 6, 2018 |
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Feb 6, 2018 16:12
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I'm not really going to look askance at including well-researched setting information in an RPG book per se, because if I'm running a game about the Korean War, I'd appreciate if most of the (game-able parts of) the Korean War was already there in the book with me, rather than me having to look it up on wikipedia myself. But it's the organization and the usefulness of the information that's key.
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Feb 6, 2018 16:14
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FMguru posted:Brucato's entire idea of The Power Of Music is going to be a junior-grade version of Jim Morrison, isn't it? It's about people thinking you're a triumphant sex god and making panties drop, and that's it? Public Enemy, Sinead O'Connor, U2, The Beatles, Paul Simon, Boogie Down Productions, The Coup, Run The Jewels - all pretty much the same thing as KISS and Motley Crue, right? Christ, what a crippled and blinkered approach to music, especially coming from someone who is notionally so ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC that he spent seven years writing a zillion word RPG on the subject. Good news! U2 isn't mentioned in the book once. Nor are Bono or The Edge individually.
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Feb 6, 2018 16:15
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As another aside I want to say that I really enjoyed Ken & Robin's podcast until Uncle Ken's Right Wing History Hut drove me insane "Ken, how would you prevent Pinochet coming to power?" "Well you see, the CIA had to install Pinochet because Allende was such a bad administrator. So I would install a different right-wing dictator."
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Feb 6, 2018 16:24
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Halloween Jack posted:As another aside I want to say that I really enjoyed Ken & Robin's podcast until Uncle Ken's Right Wing History Hut drove me insane no loving way which episode was this
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Feb 6, 2018 16:27
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Halloween Jack posted:As another aside I want to say that I really enjoyed Ken & Robin's podcast until Uncle Ken's Right Wing History Hut drove me insane Noooooooo! 
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Feb 6, 2018 16:39
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gradenko_2000 posted:I'm not really going to look askance at including well-researched setting information in an RPG book per se, because if I'm running a game about the Korean War, I'd appreciate if most of the (game-able parts of) the Korean War was already there in the book with me, rather than me having to look it up on wikipedia myself. Same, I'm not buying a barebones rulebook to research poo poo myself.
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Feb 6, 2018 16:39
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gradenko_2000 posted:no loving way which episode was this Also he wants to go back in time and kill Lenin but not, like, J. Edgar Hoover.
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Feb 6, 2018 16:41
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Halloween Jack posted:Yeah, the totally outmoded stuff is e.g. when an old game tried to get a lot of mileage out of giving you descriptions and rules for a bunch of obscure guns. There's a certain demographic who is going to loving love that kinda thing, though. Alien Rope Burn posted:Well, it's not like including reference material in an RPG isn't still valuable, it just has to be in the context of what's specifically relevant to immediate play. That too. Kind of the thing with Wikipedia is that while it's often accurate, it's far less often comprehensive, to say the least. In general it's a bad idea to rely on people to do their own half-assed research, because you never know what the gently caress they're going to find, and there's massive amounts of misinformation, propaganda and outdated crap that pops up on Google.
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Feb 6, 2018 16:59
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Halloween Jack posted:17 I'm glad that I'm not the only one who's noticed this.
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Feb 6, 2018 17:00
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Inescapable Duck posted:There's a certain demographic who is going to loving love that kinda thing, though.
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Feb 6, 2018 17:09
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I don't think that people who don't know about them will be enthusiastic about not having that info.
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Feb 6, 2018 17:17
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FMguru posted:That might be the most authentically 1990s White Wolf aspect of this whole thing so far. It's also Authentically Brucato. Mage was all about dressing yourself in another culture while staying as white European as possible.
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Feb 6, 2018 17:24
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It depends on where you're putting it too. If you're making an expansion book for extra gear, especially around a particular theme, go hog wild with the flavour text, probably beats the paragraphs of context-less in-universe fiction for space filler, and it beats having something obscure come up in the middle of the game and having to stop to research just what the gently caress they're on about. But in the core book, restrain yourself. And of course, if you're doing something as well-known as musical genres, then I don't see the point unless you want to embarrass yourself.
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Feb 6, 2018 17:24
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LatwPIAT posted:His music history is ridiculously eurocentric! (And he speaks about world music/world beat as if it's some great thing about diversity and embracing other cultures, but world music has always been tainted by the fact it's commercialized cultural appropriation.) No surprise given his coverage of non-white culture is about as deep as Dances With Wolves. Inescapable Duck posted:That too. Kind of the thing with Wikipedia is that while it's often accurate, it's far less often comprehensive, to say the least. In general it's a bad idea to rely on people to do their own half-assed research, because you never know what the gently caress they're going to find, and there's massive amounts of misinformation, propaganda and outdated crap that pops up on Google. And I also found in a lot of the wikipedia pages about the subjects of medicine, biology, law, or chemistry - it's not written in layman language, so unless you're already familiar with the jargon, the average reader is not going to gleam any new information.
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Feb 6, 2018 17:27
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Robindaybird posted:No surprise given his coverage of non-white culture is about as deep as Dances With Wolves.
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Feb 6, 2018 17:51
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I find it kind of ironic that the best word I can use to describe Powerchord (secondhand, I am certainly not expending the effort to read this myself) would be hubris. A game about music as magic that purports to take an expansive view? That kind of thing would be a designer's magnum opus, not just from the point of view of game design but just for trying to find a Grand Unifying Theory of music at even the most crude level. You could probably fill a book the size of Powerchord just about the exploration of genre alone, at a purely layman's tier, without even getting to the gaming stuff. It would have to be the result of years of study, criticism, design and refinement. When you're trying to draw from this deep a wellspring of real human experience, you can't half rear end a single thing let along everything. The thing is, he could have written the exact kind of incredibly-niche-appeal project this actually is, just by being humble and limiting his reach. "This is about the magic that is unlocked through the electric guitar" or somesuch scope. Keep it narrow such that it is blatantly only about the things you want to write about or care about. Don't give a poo poo about hip-hop? Make a game where hip-hop isn't relevant or set it in a time where hip-hop doesn't exist yet! It would probably be 90% the same game but by being honest about its boundaries it wouldn't seem so drat offensive.
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Feb 6, 2018 17:52
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kaynorr posted:The thing is, he could have written the exact kind of incredibly-niche-appeal project this actually is, just by being humble and limiting his reach. "This is about the magic that is unlocked through the electric guitar" or somesuch scope. Keep it narrow such that it is blatantly only about the things you want to write about or care about. Don't give a poo poo about hip-hop? Make a game where hip-hop isn't relevant or set it in a time where hip-hop doesn't exist yet! It would probably be 90% the same game but by being honest about its boundaries it wouldn't seem so drat offensive. Having not read anything about Powechords, I have a sneaking suspicion that your Genre is going to be one of your Splats.
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Feb 6, 2018 18:11
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Halloween Jack posted:As another aside I want to say that I really enjoyed Ken & Robin's podcast until Uncle Ken's Right Wing History Hut drove me insane So like, is this a deliberate joke or is Ken Hite just super right wing?
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Feb 6, 2018 18:16
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Mors Rattus posted:So like, is this a deliberate joke or is Ken Hite just super right wing?
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Feb 6, 2018 18:17
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Mors Rattus posted:So like, is this a deliberate joke or is Ken Hite just super right wing? Best not to pick at that unless you are prepared to enjoy KARTAS a lot less.
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Feb 6, 2018 18:19
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kaynorr posted:I find it kind of ironic that the best word I can use to describe Powerchord (secondhand, I am certainly not expending the effort to read this myself) would be hubris. I think this may be a fractal problem. Make it just about metal and here come people complaining about how he forgot Norwegian black metal, or grindcore, or something.
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Feb 6, 2018 18:23
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Mors Rattus posted:So like, is this a deliberate joke or is Ken Hite just super right wing? Ken Hite is conservative, a big believer in American exceptionalism and Soviet evil, and a hard predestination believing Calvinist.
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Feb 6, 2018 18:31
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LeSquide posted:Ken Hite is conservative, a big believer in American exceptionalism and Soviet evil, and a hard predestination believing Calvinist. ... Well, at least those are consistent viewpoints, even if I find all of them horrible and alien.
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Feb 6, 2018 18:34
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He's also friends with openly queer people and very much anti-Trump, so I still listen to his podcasts.
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Feb 6, 2018 18:38
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Calvinist? Really? I never heard about that. It's worth mentioning that a lot of Americans have an enormous blind spot when it comes to executive branch agencies and what they do. Most of us love movies about heroic soldiers and cops and spies. But if you know that much about a specific historical context and that's your take on it...yikes.
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Feb 6, 2018 18:39
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Halloween Jack posted:Calvinist? Really? I never heard about that. On the upside it's given us Night's Black Agents, which works less well if you consider Western intelligence & covert ops groups to be as bad or worse than actual vampires. Now I desperately want All The Devils Are Here, the game where you team up with vampire Marx to overthrow late capitalism.
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Feb 6, 2018 18:45
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Self-loathing vampire was more Engels's thing than Marx's, I would think. 
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Feb 6, 2018 18:46
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Halloween Jack posted:17 The funny thing is that saving Lenin, for a few more years anyway, would probably do the most good for history.
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Feb 6, 2018 18:46
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Indeed, his pitch for a Night's Black Agents movie starts with "Mossad sniper Natalie Portman is on a mission in Syria when" and that's where I stopped reading.
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Feb 6, 2018 18:48
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Halloween Jack posted:Indeed, his pitch for a Night's Black Agents movie starts with "Mossad sniper Natalie Portman is on a mission in Syria when" and that's where I stopped reading. There is no way that she does not kill vampire Assad in this movie lol
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Feb 6, 2018 18:52
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I keep thinking Powerchords is just going to miss every goal it sets out for the 'power of music' motif. I can think of several video games, and even a couple of novels (one series is even urban fantasy) that already nails it, so expectations are already high.
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Feb 6, 2018 18:58
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My pitch for a NBA movie would be a semi-satirical “Liam Neeson in Taken vs. the vampires from Twilight.” (The conspyramid also involves Hedy Lamar and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir)
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Feb 6, 2018 18:59
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Robindaybird posted:I keep thinking Powerchords is just going to miss every goal it sets out for the 'power of music' motif. I can think of several video games, and even a couple of novels (one series is even urban fantasy) that already nails it, so expectations are already high. Yeah, the Ar Tonelico series' main conceit is "Music is literally the magic programming language of reality itself." But it's rife with it's own problems, such that the most recent game ends with the twin themes of "Your Waifu Is Real And She Wants Your Dick." And "The Other People In The Game Are Also Real And If You loving Achievement Hunters Would Just Stop Playing We Could Stop Torturing These Prepubescent Schoolgirls."
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Feb 6, 2018 19:29
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Kurieg posted:Yeah, the Ar Tonelico series' main conceit is "Music is literally the magic programming language of reality itself." But it's rife with it's own problems, such that the most recent game ends with the twin themes of "Your Waifu Is Real And She Wants Your Dick." And "The Other People In The Game Are Also Real And If You loving Achievement Hunters Would Just Stop Playing We Could Stop Torturing These Prepubescent Schoolgirls." There's a real wrong turn between the first two and the second two games. It goes from "more or less fine" to "you can't show your friends this." But you could just go with Elite Beat Agents or something instead. That was the era of rhythm games. What's the novel series in question?
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Feb 6, 2018 19:52
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