Good points.
I’ll admit that I was curious why my blog was suddenly getting all kinds of traffic and anonymous comments. It occurred to me to check here and see if there had been some sort of link to my post.
Imagine my surprise when I found my simple “it’s not for me” comment in my blog had been labeled “a bad review” by Luke, followed with a series of posts insulting me for daring to have had a bad experience running the game.
So I thought I’d pop in (I’d already registered long ago - MG was the game I hoped would be an improvement over BW and BE, both of which I own) and answer some questions politely to clarify some misconceptions.
I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind about the game - and I don’t see much point in opening up a big Q&A about how my experience could have been so much better if I’d only done X and Y, and how I definitely shouldn’t have done Z.
Like I said on my blog… I was quite excited about the game prior to the release. It was my “If I can only buy one game at Gen Con, this’ll be it.” I was one of the first few to preorder it on IPR. While waiting for the game’s release, I talked up running a campaign of it with coworkers.
I certainly hoped from Luke’s posts on rpg.net that the game would address all of the crunchiness I found present from reading BW and BE. If he’d delivered a 30-page game based on the system he described jokingly on rpg.net (the one with the Mouse Master and the finger counts), I’d have happily bought ten copies and stored eight of them for when my daughter is old enough to game.
As it happened, I was really disappointed in the play experience. Two of the players hated, it. One of them will never play it again. Not much point of trying to do a postmortem and put together a new gameplan. End of story.
I didn’t write a big “this game sucks” review, or even post on rpg.net about it. Didn’t see the point. The only reason I even posted any details at all here is to clear the air.
I’ve now written far more about a game I didn’t enjoy than I’ve written about many games I love without reservations, so I’ll stop now.