Post by rosecmallow on Jun 29, 2018 21:49:43 GMT -6
I had different problems with the setting, that I was having a lot of trouble articulating properly until we talked it over a bit on the Discord, and I think I have a better handle on it now. Admittedly, I feel like a lot of the time when I have a problem with a thing, I come up with post hoc reasons for why I disliked it, which aren't necessarily the actual reasons, if there even is one. That might still be the case.
The setting feels wrong to me, in some fundamental ways. It feels like a caricature of the real world, everything simplified and exaggerated in weird ways. That a fictional setting is simpler and different from the real world is pretty inevitable, but the changes between Valentine and the real world feel like they're there to comment on the real world, and not to make a new and fascinating setting. It doesn't feel futuristic because every futuristic thing is a reflection of some crappy thing happening in the real world, which isn't a bad thing, but it isn't terribly fun either.
The way the setting exists as an analoge to the real world also makes the place of the player characters within it very odd. All of them other than Ed start in positions with very little power, in a way that would fit very neatly in the real world. People like them exist, they're easy to relate to. On the other hand, Lenora can effectively kill a military base, Frank can oneshot squads of paramilitary goons. They're high level DnD characters in a setting close enough to the real world to make high level DnD characters look really weird. The conduit stuffs sorta justifies it, but most of their power just comes from the level. Reese is the clearest case of that, where she goes directly from artist with a desk job to powerful and versatile caster. The PCs need to be powerful and able to create change, otherwise the setting would be even more terribly bleak, but it is a very weird thing to be happening
And after having written all that, my thoughts about it feel terribly muddled and unsure again. I still really enjoy the show in general, and the cast and NPCs are wonderful as ever, even if some bits of the setting don't work too well for me
The setting feels wrong to me, in some fundamental ways. It feels like a caricature of the real world, everything simplified and exaggerated in weird ways. That a fictional setting is simpler and different from the real world is pretty inevitable, but the changes between Valentine and the real world feel like they're there to comment on the real world, and not to make a new and fascinating setting. It doesn't feel futuristic because every futuristic thing is a reflection of some crappy thing happening in the real world, which isn't a bad thing, but it isn't terribly fun either.
The way the setting exists as an analoge to the real world also makes the place of the player characters within it very odd. All of them other than Ed start in positions with very little power, in a way that would fit very neatly in the real world. People like them exist, they're easy to relate to. On the other hand, Lenora can effectively kill a military base, Frank can oneshot squads of paramilitary goons. They're high level DnD characters in a setting close enough to the real world to make high level DnD characters look really weird. The conduit stuffs sorta justifies it, but most of their power just comes from the level. Reese is the clearest case of that, where she goes directly from artist with a desk job to powerful and versatile caster. The PCs need to be powerful and able to create change, otherwise the setting would be even more terribly bleak, but it is a very weird thing to be happening
And after having written all that, my thoughts about it feel terribly muddled and unsure again. I still really enjoy the show in general, and the cast and NPCs are wonderful as ever, even if some bits of the setting don't work too well for me