The Blaaahhhg

The original, playing the actual RPG was definitely worth it. You guys are some of my best friends. But, seeing it ridiculed and made fun of like this is discouraging. I suppose it depends on what we focus on: the actual RPG, or the ridicule of the RPG.

Geeze, it's been a while since I logged in here. Strange, that.

 

Writing quality aside, size and scope of the story, the DIno Attack RPG was always still an RPG. A role-playing game. A game. A game where we had fun playing out a story of LEGO characters fighting dinosaurs. We had good times writing out these adventures, some of us for years on end, and even in the early days, the group was enjoying themselves coming up with twists and turns that may've not withstood the test of time, but still remained an enjoyable adventure for those who played.

 

And with all said and done, looking back, we find our adventure a good story, and with several of us liking TV Tropes and knowing the Wiki was open to pages for ametuer works like ours, we took the opportunity and ran with it to create a nice little page with all the tropes one could think of. Maybe we pumped more than advisable into it, but that's what happens when internet geeks gather in such group efforts, I guess. Though I've only just started editing the articles of the page myself.

 

What you've uncovered is two measly posts by TV Trope critics frustrated with issues that haunt the site as a whole. They have not judged the RPG itself in any actual detail other than generalizations and sterotypes. It's not a full picture of any reception tropers are giving it. That's hard to see without a comments system or any sort of general page to talk about it. Maybe the site's forum could provide it, but I doubt it's that interesting enough to warrent anyone to make a page dedicated to an ended RPG, quality or not.

 

But in the end, the reception from the rest of the internet's not really what matters. What matters is that we had fun with it, and felt we could do one more thing with it in regards to the TV Tropes page. It's still very much just a little thing we did, and any comments on it is a mere bonus. And any comments on what others think will be far and few between, but just remember that it's the negative remarks that always feel the most vocal.

 

...Blarg, it's still frustrating with the forum archive loss. Was the data really not all that salvagable? Is there really no online backup in some NSA or Internet Archive somewhere? Can I start using this when people tell me "Ah, ah, ah, what you type on the internet never disappears!" And what about fixing the format break that's making reading At War's End a slog? "Gathering resources" for a fix sure is taking a while.

I'm not going to lie, I have never really cared for RPGs. I just don't really have the level of emotional dedication or attention span to keep up with them, let alone to participate. So I know next to nothing about the Dino Attack RPG.

 

With that said, you shouldn't take anything seriously that's said in the context of insulting things for sheer amusement. It's just not worth your time and effort.

 

Was putting a page for the RPG on TV Tropes worth it? I honestly can't say. I don't know how much people who weren't involved in it would actually care about what went on in that RPG. You always have to think about your audience when you're creating something on a database like TV Tropes. After all, sites like that exist partly for fun, but largely for the purpose of informing others. So while there's no rules about what is or isn't relevant to the site, there is the reality of what is or isn't relevant to other people.

 

But was the RPG itself worth it? Almost certainly. As I understand it, the point of RPGs, like any kind of game, is to provide a sense of amusement in the present, and to create memories that players can look back on and appreciate in the future. It doesn't matter what people think years later if they were not part of the game to begin with. The game never existed to please them.

I did my own search and found the first forum that you were referring to. Then, just for fun, I popped it into a web traffic statistic site. Buahahah, this forum is so niche and inconsequential that it ranks about half a million behind BZP, even after BZP has already hemorrhaged at least 75 percent of it's former user base. I wouldn't pay much attention to what they say: it's clear that their little community is just amusing themselves at the expense of others, and shouldn't be taken as emblematic of how the wider web views your RPG or TV Tropes. And hey, even if this forum was the least bit influential, remember that the Internet can be a savage, cold-hearted place, and the things said under the guise of anonymity often don't have any bearing on real life.

Now, don't get me wrong - this isn't asking if Dino Attack RPG itself was worth it. Despite it all, I still consider it my pride and joy here on BZPower, and I wouldn't trade anything for the great memories and loads of fun we had with it.

 

This is more about our efforts to get Dino Attack RPG known through TV Tropes as a way of leaving behind a lasting legacy. What started off as a fun side project to see just how overdosed on tropes the RPG really is has since evolved into an ongoing effort to try to get our writing more publicized outside those few who visit BZP's LEGO RPG forum.

 

And instead, we've become a mockery.

 

Sure, these are only two posts in two topics on two forums. But when these two posts are all we've heard about Dino Attack RPG's reception among those who discovered it via TV Tropes, it's all too easy to assume the worst and feel discouraged. This was supposed to be something we did for fun, and instead it's appearing to be our downfall.

 

Was it better to languish in obscurity or to go down in infamy?

Some people just have an irrational hatred of people showing their enthusiasm for anything, and they act like they'll die without their daily dose of snark.

 

It's an incredibly toxic mindset, just ignore them and you'll be a lot happier.

I've done a lot of thinking in the time I've been away, and I am asking the same questions. The thing about games is that the experience is very different depending on whether you are a spectator or a player. Now, obviously some games are interesting to spectators, but I don't think RPGs really fall into that category. So I think it's safe to say that nobody is ever going to care about the Dino Attack RPG as much as we, its players, did and do. I must echo the sentiments of those advising us not to take this backlash seriously (especially when the trolls are using ableist insults. Ew).

 

At the same time, I've realized the matter of 'leaving a legacy' may have actually caused some problems. I think one of the reasons that the LEGO RPG forum has been struggling to keep its head above the water for its entire existence is that the DARPG has set an essentially unacheivable precendent for what a 'successful RPG' looks like. Back on the old forum, RPGs came and went like mayflies. The fact that the DARPG lasted seven and a half years is, frankly, a fluke.

 

This is not to deprecate all the effort we put into it. The DARPG was a labor of love on the part of all of us. But I think a lot of its success was chance. You struck gold, basically. And now, the thought in the back of the mind of everyone designing a new TBRPG is: Will this be as successful as Dino Attack?

 

Okay, I really can't speak for everyone. But I know it was certainly the case for me, and given how much the DARPG inspired the format of most of the RPGs that came after it, I would not be surprised if this is indeed the case. It is for this reason that I believe you were right to step back a little bit from the community after the DARPG concluded. If I had been wiser, I would have done the same, rather than perpetuate this unattainable ideal even further.

 

Obviously I don't regret a single minute spent or a single word typed in that game, and like avmatoran said, all of you who played in the DARPG are basically my closest online friends. But perhaps the LEGO RPG forum would be better off without our legacy hanging above them. Perhaps our memories of the experience should be legacy enough.