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Root Review
- Michael Barnes
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- Mountebank
- HYPOCRITE
Theme is one of the most misunderstood and misjudged elements in just about all games writing and analaysis. When I see a review that goes on and in about “theme” and then proceeds to support that by citing illustrations, nomenclature, and novelty mechanics, I am not inclined to feel that the writer had any credibility.
You go to a kid’s birthday party. There are pictures of Spider-Man on all the paper ware, the tablecloths, and decorations. The cake had Spider-Man in it. An out-of-work actor even shows up dressed like Spider-Man.
Most game reviewers would review this party as “dripping with theme” or that it “captures the feeling of being Spider-Man”, because their understanding of the term extends to decoration and setting but not to the deeper literary and critical meaning of the term. So this kid’s birthday would actually be about Spider-Man to them, not an annual celebration of aging.
Root is a great example of a game with real themes and meanings couched in a great setting that allows for metaphor and signification. Other examples would be Modern Art, Tigris & Euphrates, and Lord of the Rings. (See what I did there)
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Michael Barnes wrote: You go to a kid’s birthday party. There are pictures of Spider-Man on all the paper ware, the tablecloths, and decorations. The cake had Spider-Man in it. An out-of-work actor even shows up dressed like Spider-Man.
That party sounds lit tho
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It's too late to change what 'theme' means when you talk about boardgames, unless you want to redefine terms before talking to most boardgamers. I'd rather save my terminology argument energy for 'hard or soft-G GIF' (hard G is WRONG).
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- GorillaGrody
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RobertB wrote: 'Theme' vs 'setting' in boardgame terminology - never gets old around here. Any developers here? Then we can drag out hard vs soft tabs (hard, btw), or K&R indentation - Threat or Menace?.
It's too late to change what 'theme' means when you talk about boardgames, unless you want to redefine terms before talking to most boardgamers. I'd rather save my terminology argument energy for 'hard or soft-G GIF' (hard G is WRONG).
This is like saying it's too late to change what a right angle means now that everyone says it's 85 degrees.
Hawaiian Themed party by person who is bad at aesthetics: puts on Don Ho record, everyone eats cheese cubes and talks about work.
Hawaiian Themed party by person who is good at aesthetics: puts on Don Ho record; hula skirts are worn and there's a hula competition; pork, poi and mai tais are ingested; colonialist history is discussed and then the whole party deposes the king.
I mean, some people would rather not be bothered because they just want the cheese cubes. Those people shouldn't throw parties, because they're BAD AT THEME. Not "different." Bad. Art and games are sometimes good or bad, not IMHO, but objectively, because there's a criteria.
I will go hide under a table now.
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I'm reminded somewhat of my old (old) game group, where we played Here I Stand (tournament scenario) and Sword or Rome regularly for months. If anything those got better the more we played them, although you do start to see the flaws of the game (such as England being a bit boring to play in Here I Stand first edition).
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- Colorcrayons
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RobertB wrote: 'Theme' vs 'setting' in boardgame terminology - never gets old around here. Any developers here? Then we can drag out hard vs soft tabs (hard, btw), or K&R indentation - Threat or Menace?.
It's too late to change what 'theme' means when you talk about boardgames, unless you want to redefine terms before talking to most boardgamers. I'd rather save my terminology argument energy for 'hard or soft-G GIF' (hard G is WRONG).
As much as I agree with Barnes on the terminology, I'm not going to sit down and restablish the terminology before every discussion I have in that regard.
It's the same argument with the terms 'mechanism' and 'mechanic'. One is correct grammar, the other is Appalachian cousin kissing talk.
I just simply don't care enough to correct these since all I'd accomplish is sounding like Lovecraft or ComicStoreGuy from the Simpsons.
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Count Orlok wrote: Shut Up and Sit Down posted their review (Link) that seemed positive with reservations. I seemed to confirm some of my fears about the game, but aren't necessarily negatives to the right crowd. It seems like maybe the game is the most fun as you're figuring it out and how the factions work together, but doesn't necessarily have staying power beyond that initial novelty. I know most groups won't play it enough to run into that problem, but I would be very curious to see how much fun it would remain once everyone has a strong sense of the game and competitive play.
Yeah, that part of the SUSD review was *very* interesting. He felt that he went through phases: discovery, then lawyering/administration/advising as new players absorbed it, then the “competitive” stage where everyone finally sees the game... and it just becomes a bit colder, calculated, leaders rubber banding to each other in a VP clump until someone breaks through in the last few moments of the game.
“But NONE of this makes the game any less cool.” But he can’t be sure when he’ll play it again. It succumbs to the “maybe next time!” factor. But he’ll hang onto out of pure appreciation, the potential for expansions, and the idealism of “next time”. It’s that internal pendulum of shelf toad deliberation laid painfully (but comically) bare.
In recent memory he’s stated some of this shelf toadism about War of the Ring, though he’s a bit more gushing about the payoff with that game.
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- ChristopherMD
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This is like saying it's too late to change what a right angle means now that everyone says it's 85 degrees.
If for some ungodly reason the world decides that 'Right Angle' = '85 degrees', then it equals 85 degrees. If I walk around saying, "It's 90 degrees and you're wrong to think it's 85", then I'm wasting effort and minorly annoying people. "Oh shit, not your Right Angle = 90 degrees thing again."
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- Space Ghost
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GorillaGrody wrote:
Hawaiian Themed party by person who is bad at aesthetics: puts on Don Ho record, everyone eats cheese cubes and talks about work.
Hawaiian Themed party by person who is good at aesthetics: puts on Don Ho record; hula skirts are worn and there's a hula competition; pork, poi and mai tais are ingested; colonialist history is discussed and then the whole party deposes the king.
Wait a second...aesthetics are just setting. The only theme is the bolded part -- so a better contrast would be between two parties that have hula skirts, pork, poi, and mai tais and then the one that just has the colonialist history and deposes the king. I would much rather attend the first because the latter reminds me too much of a faculty meeting.
The biggest problem with pushing for the distinction between setting and theme is that while separate, there are definitely settings that help convey some themes better than others. Theoretically, we should be able to overlay any theme with any setting; however, the cultural milieu (sorry, I hate myself for typing that -- just can't think of a better word and I'm in a hurry) has embedded some themes consistently within particular settings that it is easier, and likely the default, to just keep them wedded. It's this tethering that results in the confusion...so I can't fault people for not understanding the distinction.
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- GorillaGrody
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Space Ghost wrote:
GorillaGrody wrote:
Hawaiian Themed party by person who is bad at aesthetics: puts on Don Ho record, everyone eats cheese cubes and talks about work.
Hawaiian Themed party by person who is good at aesthetics: puts on Don Ho record; hula skirts are worn and there's a hula competition; pork, poi and mai tais are ingested; colonialist history is discussed and then the whole party deposes the king.
Wait a second...aesthetics are just setting. The only theme is the bolded part -- so a better contrast would be between two parties that have hula skirts, pork, poi, and mai tais and then the one that just has the colonialist history and deposes the king. I would much rather attend the first because the latter reminds me too much of a faculty meeting.
Well, one makes an argument that Hawaii is delicious and fun, and the other makes the argument that it's the victim of colonization. Together they form an argument, probably, that colonization is fun and delicious. While totally not cool, it's an argument made by an interlocking set of thematic elements that pose an argument. Just because one thematic topic is more involved than another doesn't change the rules about how theme is developed.
As for this idea that we're bending ass-backwards to "redefine" theme, we're not. Sure, when I sit down to dinner, I don't argue whether or not the table I'm sitting at is held together by dovetail joints. There are times when it doesn't matter what the definition of something is or not. However, when I go to the website There Will Be Tables and enter the discussion thread "Dovetail Joints," I don't argue that dovetail joints may or may not exist, and "oh, look at Mr. fancy carpenter, telling us all about dovetail joints."
You must accept that when your grandma puts up "thematic" wallpaper she's using the word "theme" in a way that would not be appropriate when talking about Moby Dick or Here I Stand. There's no redefinition here. Just context.
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- Space Ghost
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GorillaGrody wrote:
Well, one makes an argument that Hawaii is delicious and fun
Wait a second, have you had poi
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Space Ghost wrote:
GorillaGrody wrote:
Well, one makes an argument that Hawaii is delicious and fun
Wait a second, have you had poi
No! This whole thread has been an exercise in me talking shit about stuff I know almost nothing about in order to illustrate something I know a little bit about.
Poi looks disgusting. I know that much.
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- Erik Twice
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I think that, in general, games are taken at face value. As in "this is a fantasy game because it has eleves drawn". Which I think is not really the truth. Often games are about things that don't show up in the graphics or aren't about a given topic despite the drawings.
I think it's rather likely, though the game left me cold out of the gate. I think it depends on how card management pans out, but I didn't think it was that interesting. It is a good game but like John Company, it seemed more interesting for the kind of game it is (Bigger, heavier game euroized) than for the experience to me.Count Orlok wrote: It seems like maybe the game is the most fun as you're figuring it out and how the factions work together, but doesn't necessarily have staying power beyond that initial novelty. I know most groups won't play it enough to run into that problem, but I would be very curious to see how much fun it would remain once everyone has a strong sense of the game and competitive play.
Of course, I've only played it twice. But there hasn't been anything that wowed me in a "man, this mechanic is a challenge" kind of way.
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- Colorcrayons
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Erik Twice wrote: But there hasn't been anything that wowed me in a "man, this mechanic is a challenge" kind of way.
Do you kiss your cousin with that mouth? ;D
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