T w e n t y S i d e d
From The Archives:
Game at the Bottom
Why spend millions on visuals that are just a distraction from the REAL game of hotbar-watching?
The Loot Lottery
What makes the gameplay of Borderlands so addictive for some, and what does that have to do with slot machines?
Crysis 2
Crysis 2 has basically the same plot as Half-Life 2. So why is one a classic and the other simply obnoxious and tiresome?
Programming Language for Games
Game developer Jon Blow is making a programming language just for games. Why is he doing this, and what will it mean for game development?
Crash Dot Com
Back in 1999, I rode the dot-com bubble. Got rich. Worked hard. Went crazy. Turned poor. It was fun.
Something that strikes me as we reread these comics is how badly the players want to get invested in the story and take it seriously, and how determined the DM is to sidemine them so he can play out his grandiose epic.
Like, come on, they keep giving him easy wins and he keeps throwing them away!
It’s the fault of an inflexible DM. Some railroading is necessary to keep a campaign on track or to have the players go on planned “sidequests” or personal quests but a good DM has to accept there are going to be times when that written page or two of dialogue and events has to be essentially binned because the players made a reasonable decision or solution that bypasses or skips it. It was long established the players realized they were going to play a campaign of the DM’s fanfic. Part of what makes this comic so great is it makes fun of the players and the DM and yet anyone that has ever been in a tabletop rpg campaign almost certainly can relate in one way or the other to everyone involved.
This is part of why I never clicked with Chainmail Bikini’s “railroading” GM. At no point did any of the players seem interested in anything other than ignoring Casey’s story. He went along with all of their stupid decisions, he was just bad at adapting to them. Unlike DMotR, at no point did Casey have an annoying GMPC, or do things that invalidated their choices.
I can’t say for certain that it was intentional, but it took me quite a while to get the reference of “Have it your way, King”, which was the long time slogan of Burger King …