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[NightmareX]

This is too big to fit in my sig, so I have to give it its own home.

[rant]Admittedly I haven't frequented other RPG forums much, but this is the only forum, the only game, I've seen where people come out of the woodwork of piss and moan about EVERY SINGLE BOOK that comes out to the people that did the work to write, develop, and produce said books. I'd said this before, it ain't new. And it's directed to everyone that sits here on DS and complains about minute flaws, or whines because they think something should be different, or tells a writer that a concept - a piece of fiction - they wrote is wrong. Take a moment to consider the simple fact that they did the work to bring this game to the market, not you. If you have issues with their work, I suggest that instead of trying to tear them down for not reading your mind as to how "it" should be done go out and write something yourself. It's easy to be a damned critic, but that doesn't mean that all the noise of all the critics in the world amounts to more than a single pile of crap. Ask questions, get clarification, give feedback, hell that's all good. But don't sit there and tell the writers and developers they did it "wrong" - for EVERY SINGLE BOOK that comes out - when you haven't done even a fraction of that work yourself.[/rant]

(Please do not respond to this thread. I don't want a huge debate. It's only here so I can link to it in my sig.)

[shuya]

i don't care that you said not to reply, but the creators DO get it wrong sometime. that's why we have errata

[Jhaiisiin]

Seems he covered your point already, shuya. That's part of the "ask questions, get clarification" that he mentioned, I think.

[HappyDaze]

Admittedly I haven't frequented other RPG forums much, but this is the only forum

Every RPG has this - if you look, you'll find them.

As for the 'official' writers doing more work than the critics, that's not necessarily true. I've seen critics that spend a great deal of time crunching numbers after a playtest shows that something is off, and I've know gamemasters - myself included - that put a great deal of time into their games. No, I'll avoid putting the 'official' writers on any kind of pedestal. If they do something I like, I'll praise them, if not they'll hear about that too - they get paid for what they do and that means they get hear it when their product is craptasticly bad.

[psychophipps]

And I feel that when the developers pick the use of a point-based system with the various checks and balances that such a system requires (and they did a good job with on the whole, IMO) then they should keep those basic designer notes handy so they don't print new stuff like "half the bonus for over twice the price" costing the same as "Aiming is a free action".

Let's see here...kinda lame for the points but semi-Ok if you really want that +1 die in dodge vs a specific attack type and your base skill is over 5 already in one hand...possibly the mostest broken 5 pts EVAR in SR 4th in the other...

I just can't decide! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[It trolls!]

I think it's a variation of Penny Arcade's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theorem

[hobgoblin]

I think it's a variation of Penny Arcade's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theorem

well color me surprised, penny arcade can be useful...

so, whats next. someone going to tell me that south park can teach kids to behave?

[HappyDaze]

I think it's a variation of Penny Arcade's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theorem

I guess that could be used to explain the actions of the writers, but it's pretty harsh.

[psychophipps]

I think it's a variation of Penny Arcade's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theorem

Well, that sociological theory doesn't apply to me. I'm a fuckwad in person, too. :winkies:

[hyzmarca]

Criticism is necessary for the artist to improve. It is the natural manure of the artistic process.

When you don't have people who are willing to tell you about the flaws inn your work, eventually you'll come to the silly conclusion that it is a good idea to invade Russia while still fighting Britain and that your troops don't need winter gear because the fighting will be over before it gets cold. Or worse, you'll think that its a good idea to write and direct the Prequel trilogy yourself. And if people had pointed out the flaws of Batman Forever more vigorously then Batman and Robin might not have been such a disaster.

[hobgoblin]

there is also the question about how the criticism is worded.

i think we have more then one example here on the forum alone where it basically ends up as drek throwing primates on both sides, as the opening posts are way to aggressive for the message one attempts at delivering.

[kzt]

i don't care that you said not to reply, but the creators DO get it wrong sometime. that's why we have errata

And they get paid to do this, particularly the line developer. It's not like they are giving the books away.

[Glyph]

I'm generally satisfied with most of the SR rules, myself, but critics have a right to complain all they want to. Especially when, as kzt pointed out, they are customers who have paid for the works in question. And they don't have to "write something themselves", any more than I need to become a chef to be able to complain that my steak is underdone. That's a fairly common logical fallacy, and an annoying one.

Some of the critics do need to be more civil, I agree, but they're not always the only ones being rude in these debates.

[sunnyside]

I'd think the praise/criticism would be highly relevant to the writers. After all they aren't doing it for a warm fuzzy feeling. They're doing it to sell books, and we're the ones buying them.

When the community isn't happy with a book it's better to know that, and to know why, than to have people buy a copy of Cyberpunk v3 or whatever instead of the next Shadowrun book.

Plus it isn't all doom and gloom. I don't think I've seen much crap spoken about Arsenal, but there are a number of threads where people are having fun with it. I think Augmentation was very well received as well except maybe for the cover art.

[Ancient History]

Ook ook.

I'd think the praise/criticism would be highly relevant to the writers. After all they aren't doing it for a warm fuzzy feeling. They're doing it to sell books, and we're the ones buying them.

This is actually a general misconception. Freelancer writers do their thing because they want to write the books. That's not to mean that selling the books is purely a happy coincidence, but speaking just for myself and the people I've talked to about it - we don't do it for the money (okay, not just for the money - the money is the happy coincidence), we do it because we want to write. You can tell the people that absolutely don't care a whit about the game and are just writing for a cheque in a few months' time. It shows, no matter how technically proficient their prose may be. Shadowrun freelancers and developers try to write what we think people want, but we also write what we want to write too! I couldn't begin to tell you the kind of blast I've had writing a particular restaurant or collaborating with a couple of the other freelancers to lay a plot thread between three books.

Further, I'd like to reference Scott Kurtz' article on criticism for a moment, Why We Insulate. Of course, I'll add sometimes the critics are right and sometimes we engage in elaborate, desperate face-saving measures (heh). Less often than you think. It's actually very rare for the entire monkey pool to play "Point the sticky finger," though you'll still hear the writers bitch about the devs and the playtesters and the editors and the poor overworked layout artists, as if it's their fault.

[Ryu]

Edit: Post length may not suggest it, but AniH answered while I was (occasionally) typing.

Oh, quite to the contrary I think the writers do it for the warm fuzzy feeling. I don´t believe that RPG writing pays that well.

Praise is only worth something if it comes with criticism. I´d rather discuss something I´ve produced with the person who, like me, knows the limitations of my work, and prefer to speak of those (no, I have contributed nothing to SR. Just the principle). The book-club threads suggest that at least a few authors care very much about qualified opinions.

[Wounded Ronin]

This is too big to fit in my sig, so I have to give it its own home.

[rant]Admittedly I haven't frequented other RPG forums much, but this is the only forum, the only game, I've seen where people come out of the woodwork of piss and moan about EVERY SINGLE BOOK that comes out to the people that did the work to write, develop, and produce said books. I'd said this before, it ain't new. And it's directed to everyone that sits here on DS and complains about minute flaws, or whines because they think something should be different, or tells a writer that a concept - a piece of fiction - they wrote is wrong. Take a moment to consider the simple fact that they did the work to bring this game to the market, not you. If you have issues with their work, I suggest that instead of trying to tear them down for not reading your mind as to how "it" should be done go out and write something yourself. It's easy to be a damned critic, but that doesn't mean that all the noise of all the critics in the world amounts to more than a single pile of crap. Ask questions, get clarification, give feedback, hell that's all good. But don't sit there and tell the writers and developers they did it "wrong" - for EVERY SINGLE BOOK that comes out - when you haven't done even a fraction of that work yourself.[/rant]

(Please do not respond to this thread. I don't want a huge debate. It's only here so I can link to it in my sig.)

Waa waa waa waa, you can criticize the whole forum but then ask people not to respond in kind. And at the same time you criticize critics in general, even though you're being a critic now.

Also, I'd argue that some people have written enough free and excellent SR material on this forum, or on the internet, that your logic that their opinions don't count on the basis of non-production is completely defeated. For example, have you seen Raygun's amazing Shadowrun gun house rules? He basically explains why the generic SR gun rules are flawed, explains about the history of various firearms, silencer technology, and so forth, and gives a whole bunch of rules to make the weapons more analgous to reality. So you're factually wrong if you are trying to establish that critics never produce work superior or at least comparable to what is in the "default" SR sourcebooks. And this example is not even speaking of the heaps and heaps of SR fiction that has been posted on this forum by various posters.

Criticism, whether it is specifically incorporated into future works or not, matures self-expression. Any viewpoint which must be shielded from rational debate and criticism is not a viewpoint worth holding. But the idea that anything can be above criticism amounts to death of the active vibrant mind and opens the doorway to meaningless fanaticism.

[sunnyside]

Hurm. So the current SR writers aren't so much focused on making a competitve product and more on enjoying putting out the work.

That would actually explain a whole heck of a lot. Specifically how SR4 can have some much stuff that is awsome but has issues in the details.

Though, actually, do people really critque the devs much around here? I think I've only seen Frank do it. Otherwise it seems that we're just chattering away as a one would expect in a SR forum. If someone complains about something it's not that they're making up some kind of critique for the devs to read. They want some help and are hoping to get it here, they went to the effort to houserule something in their game and can't resist sharing, or they're the first kid on the block to get a new book and the rest of us want to hear about it.

[Ancient History]

Hurm. So the current SR writers aren't so much focused on making a competitve product and more on enjoying putting out the work.

Ye gods and hairy fishes, who pissed in your cheerios? Who said we're not looking to make a competitive product? I'm just saying that our three-to-four-cents-per-word isn't the only reason we type until we go all tingly in the extremities.

[Oenone]

People almost always tend to produce better quality work if they're enjoying themselves. So if they enjoy making it then chances are the work itself will be better. Which is always going to be a good thing for people who buy the books.

[sunnyside]

Ye gods and hairy fishes, who pissed in your cheerios?

Easy there. Hurm. Maybe I'm unintentionally falling into Kurtz's "mean without meaning to be and really loves the comic" catagory from the earlier link.

Though now you've got me curious.

What are you generally thinking/focusing on when you're hammering away at your keyboard? I mean among things like "will they be able to pick this up right away and run with this", "will they think this is cool", "do I think this is cool". "how will this affect the speed of gameplay at the table", "is this easily exploitable", "will this make them more likely to buy the book" etc etc.

[MJBurrage]

I'm not going to point any specific fingers, but I have noticed a significant amount of virulent mudslinging directed towards the writers from multiple posters. As a long-time player I appreciate those posts that explore gaps, and errors in the rules, but said posts do not need to shit all over the work we are here to enjoy.

[Ancient History]

Depends on the product and the person, but for m'self...ah, how to put it in words. There are books you open up that start out perfect, and from then on there's a kind of a zen quality to them - everything that comes after just seems like the natural thing to follow. I'd be lying if I said I hit that except for maybe a couple of bits here and there, but if you want to know what I aim for, that's it: perfection.

Of course, there's different views on what's perfect. I try to be inclusive rather than exclusive on rules and material, but SR has a couple of absolutes that I really feel need to stay that way - and you wouldn't believe the arguments the freelancers have on mechanics and fluff. On top of that, there are requirements that come down from the devs, and anybody that I'm partnering up with on a section has their own input on the matter. Personally, I'm fond of metaplot for metaplot's sake as long as there's room for it and it fits - I don't care for retcons at all. We can't exactly poll the community for what they want to see when we're making the books, so a lot of the incidental fluff and details is just us making clever, but we also keep in mind what the players and gamemasters would want and need, or at least I think I do. We were all players, once.

[hyzmarca]

There is also the simple fact that a fandom is rarely united a fandom is never united a united fandom is a sign that hell has frozen over the its demons have escaped into the world to begin the apocalypse. There will always be people who are ruffled the wrong way be a particular plot decision or development, even if it is a perfectly valid one. Having fans run things in some way exacerbates this, due to the mere appearance of them favoring their own prefered interpretations above hundreds of other fan interpretations if nothing else.

Personally, I'm more concerned with actual technical decisions rather than plot direction. If I don't like the metaplot, I can ignore it or dump it altogether. It's about as much trouble to keep up with metaplot details as it is to make up new ones, often more. If I don't like the mechanics, particularly if they're inconsistent, that requires a great deal effort to create balanced houserules. Even if I understand the reasoning behind some rule design decisions, I don't have to agree with them, particularly when their results are contradict other rules.

[Sir_Psycho]

I don't think the criticism is the problem per se, it's the vitriolic "serious business" rage that it is conveyed with by many posters.

And those who clearly go beyond reasonable language use and rational intent don't initiate anything constructive. Imagine you had a child who dropped a hammer on your favourite toe. If you say "Fuck you you little shit! You're a moron! That fucking hurt and I hate you", it certainly gets the message across not to drop any hammers on daddy's toes. However, you also teach it resentment and fear.

To finish this hyperbole, if you're going to criticize, make it constructive, because you're not doing yourself, the devs, the writers or the game any form of service by telling the devs that their rules make you want to vomit all over yourself.