A follow-up to the Managing Disappointment video, prompted by the comments it drew. Daniel (@dungeondive) draws a distinction he thinks got lost: declining to do negative reviews is not the same as declining to be critical. He is critical by temperament — of film, literature, music, games — and an iterative thinker who forms opinions by talking them out. This isn’t a review of Secrets of the Lost Station either; he hasn’t played enough, and he’s sceptical of anyone who posts one within weeks of release.
What follows is a precise accounting of why he bounced. Story, for him, should be experienced through mechanisms rather than read aloud — and Lost Station had him watching the scenario book instead of the board, tracking triggers held on a card he had to keep remembering. Lost Tomb put its triggers on tiles, so the game told him when to open the book.
Then there’s the long campaign with its content locked away. His first games of Lost Tomb were “a flood of pulpy awesome adventure” — rocket launchers, spectral felines, trip-mining companions, fedoras and whips. His first games of Lost Station yielded one sword and one health pack from a loot deck mostly made of doubles. He’d rather have short campaigns, or character arcs like Shadows of Brimstone and Warhammer Quest.
Do you want a long campaign to earn its best material slowly, or hand you the good stuff in the first hour?