When faced with a bad review.

[judd_sonofbert]

Graciously thank the reviewer for taking the time to read and review your work.

Thank you, Malcolm.

"Dictionary of Mu marked the final degeneration from “trend” to “affectation” and finally, “masturbation.” By and large, strangeness for strangeness’ sake (mixed with pulp pastiche as part of a male-nerd thing) is getting monotonous. “It has a

Comments

[gillan]

I think Geist (which I worked on) is the last decent implementation to be had before it’s time to say goodbye to this one.

Hahahaha. CREDIBILITY.

[xamses]

Yeah, seriously.

[jeffwik]

Dictionary of Mu would not be third on my list of overly inclusive kitchen-sink fantasy settings, especially not if the first two items on my list were Exalted and Eberron. Given the much larger distribution of every other game mentioned in the post, I have to wonder whether he wrote "Dictionary of Mu" accidentially, while meaning to write, I dunno, virtually anything else.

[eyebeams]

Poor credibility would be if I didn't say I worked on it. I do honestly believe that Geist spins the concept in a way that Mummy and Changeling: The Dreaming didn't, but you'll have to judge for yourself when it comes out.

[gillan]

"The last great implementation of an idea is this game I worked on" is not a credible statement unless you've established yourself as someone who can critique their own works in an as-objective-as-possible way.

If you'd criticized your own work as much as you'd complimented it in this essay, I would have found you more credible. As it was, you took shots at other people's games while reserving a tidy amount of praise for yourself.

[eyebeams]

I'm not really responsible for the concepts in Geist that I think merit another toss at the idea. That's Ethan Skemp. Plus, I have worked on Mage: The Ascension, which I specifically called out as doing Lovecraft cheesily.

[gillan]

See, I didn't know you worked on Mage, and you didn't really call attention to it like you did Geist. But then I'm not a regular reader of your stuff, so maybe that's some assumed context.

Also you were a pretty big jerk to me on this old internet one time, so that colors my perception of the essay too.

[eyebeams]

I didn't point out my relationship with Mage: The Ascension because it takes up such a huge part of my CV and the game's been done with for a few years. It's a good point though, given that as the new blog's readership expands I'll have to explain these things more.