thecastlebuilder.bsky.social
He/they. perhaps just another software guy. I like video games and ttrpgs, and occasionally blog about them
blog: https://thoughtsabout.games/
games: https://thecastlebuilder.itch.io/
46 posts
29 followers
159 following
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I really appreciate your approach to criticism, it lands in a great balance between being smart/considered and being personal, honest, and true to your own experience. I do some games crit on a tiny personal blog and critics like you and Jackson are a big inspiration
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most games are only as good as the table you play them with but in this case I think both the game and my players rule, we had so much fun with it
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There’s a lot of freshman polisci realpolitik chicanery when it comes to the DNC’s rightward swing, talkin bout “we can’t look soft on immigration” or “trans issues don’t win voters.”
But the second there’s a left coalition with a hard demand, all that flexibility evaporates and the knives come out
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breathtakingly infuriating to scrap a game’s progress by insisting it pivot to live service, then realizing that isn’t working and having the team scramble to return to a more traditional single-player game, only to suggest after the fact that they shouldn’t have pivoted back
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frustrating also to see it framed as like "we didn't *want* to have to make room for other things besides our beloved d&d, but look how few books are coming! looks like we *have* to push them off the throne now!"
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oh no I seriously need to get back to my ZZ GUNDAM viewing D:
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also, more importantly: this was a really excellent post that gets at something that I've definitely seen from running a wide swath of games for my home group. very helpful to have an analytical apparatus with which to understand it
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oh god you completely sniped me with that first ellipsis
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you can even anthropomorphize your cat to be one of your example players!
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I briefly convinced myself this was a hypothetical example and that the bazaar is not real. can't believe that it's in fact real
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Thinking of big examples like Dream Askew's "queer strife amid the collapse" or Fiasco's "a game about powerful ambition and poor impulse control", which feel more precise than genre descriptors but similarly efficient. Less useful for categorizing or discovering though, of course
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I think of genre as only a *shorthand* for partially aligning expectations, one of many tools in the toolbox. Even more so, I tend to value pithy taglines on covers or digital store pages because (even if they also serve as marketing) they can lay a foundation for shared imagination
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and my favorite piece from this year:
writing about Fall of Magic was super daunting, and I needed a lot of time to collect my thoughts (despite our 4 sessions being spread across nearly a year). it's wordy, but it was *so* rewarding to really think through this game
pauldoyle.space/blog/posts/f...
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my 2nd favorite thing I wrote:
my review of Apocalypse Keys involved convincing myself I even *could* be a thoughtful critic of TTRPGs. it's caught up in my insecurities as both a critic and a GM, but it was worth pushing through (I'm still working on brevity...)
pauldoyle.space/blog/posts/t...
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my favorite 3 posts I made, starting with #3:
I had some real friction with System Shock but it was also an incredibly rewarding experience. I really pushed myself to bring more patience and thoughtfulness into my play, and I feel it reflects in my thoughts too
pauldoyle.space/blog/posts/b...