T w e n t y S i d e d
From The Archives:
Wolfenstein II
This is a massive step down in story, gameplay, and art design when compared to the 2014 soft reboot. Yet critics rated this one much higher. What's going on here?
The Best of 2017
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2017.
Grand Theft Auto Retrospective
This series began as a cheap little 2D overhead game and grew into the most profitable entertainment product ever made. I have a love / hate relationship with the series.
Skylines of the Future
Cities: Skylines is bound to have a sequel sooner or later. Where can this series go next, and what changes would I like to see?
Stop Asking Me to Play Dark Souls!
An unhinged rant where I maybe slightly over-reacted to the water torture of Souls evangelism.
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 …