Worst RPG Writing I Have Read All Year

[bryant]

It goes like this:

San Francisco is a name to conjure with, being "The City" that people talk about when they are in the fifth largest metropolitan area in North America. Which being North America is kind of a big deal, since that puts the place as slightly more populous than Austria. It’s richer too. Than the entire country of Austria. San Francisco has a reputation for being liberal, technically advanced, and gay. By the standards that apply, all of these are true. San Francisco is one of the most liberal areas in the United States, and one of the hottest places on Earth for scientific research and man on man sex. Of course, it’s important to note that the place is also big, so it’s still entirely possible to hang out there for a whole day and never see a new computer chip or lip locked mustaches. Indeed, being the gayest city on Earth still only means that about 1 in 6 people are gay.

Emphasis not mine. Man, it starts out as just bad writing and then it takes this amazing left turn into bad writing plus homophobia. Also the guy's from Santa Cruz, but he has Santa Cruz as being half an hour from downtown San Francisco, so it's not entirely clear that he's spent a lot of time exploring the Bay Area.

... it's important to note that you can hang out in San Francisco for a whole day and not see two guys kissing. Yep.

Comments

[bluegargantua]

What the heck are you reading so I don't have to?

Later
Tom

[bryant]

"The most frequently told story of the origins of the plague of the Nezumi is that originally someone turned their back on the teachings of the Buddha and was cursed with reincarnating in a lower form during their own life. If even partially true, this would mean that the plague started no earlier than about 500 BCE. Once afflicted, a Nezumi Lycanthrope begins to twitch their nose like Elizabeth Montgomery and click their tongues nervously."

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Ugh, what are you reading that's so horrible?

[bryant]

Frank Trollman's new WoD pastiche.

[bluegargantua]

No, see, I asked you to tell me what it was so I wouldn't have to read it. Then you didn't tell me what it was and read more of its terrible prose to me.

This is payback for that Wyrd is Bond thing isn't it?
Tom

[bryant]

I've moved past that. Now I'm getting payback for your psyker.

[heart-of-stars.livejournal.com]

... I really want to kick him in the balls.

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

It's also bizarre that they think it's more likely people have a sense of the population and wealth of Austria than San Francisco. It would make much more sense if this were a European RPG.

Blergh.

[bryant]

The author also goes to med school in Prague.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Huh. I know his family, vaguely.

[bryant]

Ha, that's funny. Small world.

[wemble.livejournal.com]

Wtf?

[tamago.livejournal.com]

Santa Cruz half an hour from downtown SF? Oh! I see his problem. He's mistaking Castroville for "the Castro"! He misread San Francisco's passion for monumental architecture as a passion for "monumental artichokes".

[bryant]

'Zat an artichoke in your manpurse or are you just happy to see me?

[dcltdw]

Hey, now. That sounds like the kind of prose I write.

Not that I am foolish enough to try and publish it, livejournal and facebook notwithstanding. Oh wait, dammit, I used a period when I could've written a run-on sentence.

Of course, being from Boston, which is tiny, I suppose it's not surprising. That I sometimes write dangling sentences.

[bryant]

That, sir, is a self-effacing untruth!

[flit.livejournal.com]

The thing that confuses me is that San Francisco is also rather small. San Jose, which is in between Santa Cruz and San Francisco is... bigger. The only thing he got right was calling it the City. And maybe its population, I don't know.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

To be fair, being "one of the hottest places on Earth for scientific research and man on man sex" is one of the things I like about this city.

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

San Francisco-Oakland Metropolitan area is, per the latest census, 12th largest area.

On the city-only list, it's 13th, just ahead of Austin, at just under a million people.

The Metro area population, per the census bureau, is 3.2 million.

The population of Austria is 8.3 million.

In addition to the text being poorly written and having weird focus, it's factually wrong.

Also, I have spent more than a day in 13 of the top 15 MSA, including attending computer trade shows and I have never seen a new computer chip while being a tourist. I gotta say I don't recall many public kisses of any combination of genders, but I may not have been in the right places to see that...

[artbroken.livejournal.com]

Fuck a bunch of Jesus.

That ain't the good stuff.

A quick Googling suggests that this is from - and I feel sad to realise this - San Francisco by Night. T/F?

[bryant]

It is not! It is from Frank Trollman's WoD pastiche/ripoff/reimagining, which he has just repackaged into something called After Sundown. The city sections are called Blah by Night because lack of imagination.

[artbroken.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank fuck for that.

Trollman and co... yeah, much more believable.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Wow. Yeah, that's something right there. Between that and the stuff about Roger Ailes' gay-proof office, it's been a morning of surreal gay panic on the net for me this morning.

[crs.livejournal.com]

This excerpt makes me think that RPGs need their own Bulwer-Lytton.

[bryant]

I'm considering organizing an Eye of Argon style reading of this sucker at the next gaming con I attend.

[kodi]

This reminds me of my high school days, when everyone I knew (myself included) was trying to write like Douglas Adams.

The most appalling thing, though, is that only one phrase in the whole blandly descriptive paragraph manages to evoke an image of any sort, and it's "lip locked mustaches."

The second-most appalling thing is definitely the bold italics.

[heart-of-stars.livejournal.com]

Trollman by name, Trollman by gorram nature.