John Wick's Play Dirty Book

[Desertpuma]

Has anyone ever read this book? I'm thinking about picking it up and was curious as to thoughts on it.

[Gentry]

Given that Wick wrote it, I call it lame sight unseen. 

[Desertpuma]

Just because it is written by Wick? ... I admit to not agreeing with everything he has said but he has contributed fairly heavily to the industry so it may have some merit.

[Gentry]

Perez Hilton has contributed significantly to his industry, too, and it doesn't change that he's a douchebag with nothing meaningful to say.   Ditto Wick.

[Desertpuma]

So.... why is Wick a douchebag?

[MugMug]

Funny this thread was (when I checked the boards) adjacent to the "Are there any authors you just can't stand?" thread.

I'm with Gentry on this one; I find Wick to be unsufferably arrogant. I don't have a problem with most arrogance -- I suffer those people -- but for some reason Wick's particular arrogance grates on me.

Walter

[EDIT: I'll read his gaming material, but any book (like this one) likely to more thoroughly reflect his personality will likely be a turn-off.]

[Gentry]

Wick's a douchebag for several reasons, some of which I won't specifically address because they'd involve dropping other names that may wish to stay out of this conversation.

In the immediate, though, this Play Dirty thing is indicative of the guy's general douchebaggyness. Do you really need GM advice from a guy who's never met your players? Who hasn't run your game or your genre? More to the point, do you need to pay a complete stranger to fumigate his opinions on you? Do you need to pay someone to listen to their gaming stories?

This whole concept is all about Wick telling you how Wick runs games, which is so incredibly self-serving I roll my eyes just to think about it. Gary Gygax wrote a vaguely similar book many moons ago, and that was lame, too. And that was Gary freaking Gygax, who certainly "contributed substantially to the industry". 

Now that said, if you feel like you want to give it a read, I'm not going to call you stupid--different people find different things interesting. Just be aware of what you're cracking open--a tour through Wick's ego.

[Desertpuma]

A friend of mine just loaned the book this afternoon. ... There is a lot of ego in it but also some fine points. He is full of himself in many ways from what I can tell. Having met him before though, he never really came across to me as such but he was set in his opinion on how the game he was going to run would be played.

[Agent 333]

Funny this thread was (when I checked the boards) adjacent to the "Are there any authors you just can't stand?" thread.

I'm with Gentry on this one; I find Wick to be unsufferably arrogant. I don't have a problem with most arrogance -- I suffer those people -- but for some reason Wick's particular arrogance grates on me.

Walter

[EDIT: I'll read his gaming material, but any book (like this one) likely to more thoroughly reflect his personality will likely be a turn-off.]

Actually, Gentry's first post on this thread inspired me to start the other one, so it's not a big coincidence....