THE ROACH GOD, REVIEWED
"This is a real game-changer. There's just so much here. I already thought that with the approach to worldbuilding- but now we're seeing it in the way they approach the framework of adventure and play."
There's that pull quote!
The @vintagerpg podcast ( https://www.vintagerpg.com/2023/06/reach-of-the-roach-god/ ) reviews REACH OF THE ROACH GOD.
1/
Other choice bits:
ON THE ART
Stu: "Munkao's art. The pages with centipedes I have difficulty engage with because they are there. That's how good his art is. Because he is so on his game he pushes the yuck factor so far I'm actually a little uncomfortable and don't know how to run it, because it skeeves me so!"
Hambone: "The barometer of what separates good art from great art is that it evokes a visceral response ... I feel a similar way when I see Russ Nicholson's art."
2/
ON GAME DESIGN
Hambone: " 'System agnostic' and 'usability' are mutually exclusive in a lot of cases, but here it does sound like a perfect pairing of the two. Also, it feels like an energy that encourages stepping outside the comfort zone of the box."
Stu: "How they encode character information ... I'm translating this stuff on the fly pretty rapidly. Which is different from a lot of agnostic stuff."
3/
ABOUT THE WRITING
Stu: "You should just read Zedeck's writing. And it becomes obvious why I enjoy it. Evocative with very few words, which means he's choosing words to be very specific. He often uses modern turns-of-phrase to explain what you're seeing in the game---it breaks the illusion, but it is such an effective way of conveying what you're seeing, that it's worth it."
4/
ABOUT THE ACTION-FIGURE CAVERN GENERATOR
Stu: "I didn't expect to flip through the book and find Spiderman and TMNT in it."
Hambone: "That's amazing."
Stu: "A little bit of the philosophy that underlies that cavern-building method is an example of Zedeck's prose:
'The gods fucked and fought, danced and died. Imagine them rotting, leaving cavities where their bodies once were. So are the earth and its passages laid.'
Hambone: Jesus Christ.
5/5