People love when I review stuff.

Standard

Except when they don’t.

Yesterday I posted about my disappointment with the Pathfinder Beginner Box and it prompted quite a bit of conversation online.

First was over on my LiveJournal account. (Because of their spam filters, I’m happy to leave comments open there.)

Second was on Twitter. Game designer Rob Donoghue kicked off a discussion about bringing new people into gaming. I tried to use Storify (for the first time) to preserve that conversation here, but that looked like a pain in the ass so here’s a couple of screen caps. Of course they’re behind the cut.

Since this is a Twitter discussion, you start reading at the bottom of the second jpg and read up:

Pathfinder one
Pathfinder Two

I was a little unhappy to have missed that one.

Finally, there’s also a message board discussion, which has folks making some interesting points.

However, it’s a message board on the internet, so let me ask: How many responses to the initial post do you think it took for someone to admit that they have not ever played the game or read the product I was writing about, but still want to voice their opinion anyway?

Never mind. You already know.

Update on Pathfinder: We still might be on to play it. Today was Pokemon League, and while the boy was battling, trading, and generally hanging out, I got the resident Pathfinder expert to point me at their modules. I really, really like the way they do things, and I may be able to sell the kid on giving the full game a second chance. Thanks very much, Chris at Card Kingdom.

He’s a smart kid. I might have erred in giving him something that was too easy. If I get him interested in another chance, I’ll have to find a way to break it to my wife that we’d be giving it another go. Probably I’ll wash the windows, wait until she notices, then spring the unhappy news. Or maybe it won’t be so unhappy, since she’d get another nap.

One more thing, re: that message board discussion: I’m not a great GM, and I’m not an awful one. Mostly, I’m mediocre. I’m just not organized enough to do the job really well. I’m much better as a PC, preferably a fighter-type.