QuoteYeah, then there are those folks who claim their way of gaming is morally superior.

Everybody implicitly says that. That was my point...
Like you just uttered your moral superiority you old over me.

Quote from: SettembriniEverybody implicitly says that. That was my point...
Like you just uttered your moral superiority you old over me.

No, Sett the only folks who claim their games are morally superior used to be (according to some) the Forge guys. And off course now there is you. Most folks don't really care how other folks are having fun much less worry about whether their games are superior. As for your second sentence: Don't be ridiculous.

Regards,
David R

QuoteLike you just uttered your moral superiority you hold over me.

That´s the exact point. When you understand that, you´ll be of my opinion.

Not that my gaming is better, but that every judgement on playstyles (or posting behaviour...look at JimBob: he´s judging all the time!) is inherently a judgement of the underlying values.

That´s life!
But let´s drop that.
Until you understand that, you might as well just think of me as an asshole. But please don´t tell me everytime.

Quote from: Settembrinievery judgement on playstyles (or posting behaviour...look at JimBob: he´s judging all the time!) is inherently a judgement of the underlying values.

...And?

If you're trying to convince me that your judgement is correct, I might give a shit.  If you're just holding an opinion, who gives a damn?  Understanding anything at all requires forming and changing judgements regularly.

So, congrats, you've stated a truism.  I'll be sure to file it under "Valid, but utterly fucking useless."

Quote from: SettembriniThat´s the exact point. When you understand that, you´ll be of my opinion.

Not that my gaming is better, but that every judgement on playstyles (or posting behaviour...look at JimBob: he´s judging all the time!) is inherently a judgement of the underlying values.

Oh, I understand Sett, all too well. I realize, that all comments on playstyles are value based( I said this in your moral thread). But this "values" statement is a long way from sayin' that "my" playstyle is inherently superior than "yours". And please, let's not equate JimBob's posting style with your detour to Swinedom.

Got a question. Did you just realize after all these years when the so-called Swine were going on about the superiority of their playstyle, that they may have had a point?

QuoteThat´s life!
But let´s drop that.
Until you understand that, you might as well just think of me as an asshole. But please don´t tell me everytime.

I don't think you are an asshole. If I did, I would not even bother responding to you. But, you are right. I don't want the only conversation we have with each other to be only about this. I'll refrain from doing so, in future threads...unless really necessary.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: John MorrowThere is a more basic level where I think some of these theories go wrong.  The same exact process that can produce a functional and happy experience for one group can produce a dysfunctional and unhappy experience for another group.

Just wanted to say that I don't think you're in disagreement with the main body of theory here.

Quote from: BalbinusQuite honestly, I think we are giving this more attention than it merits.  Let someone come up with some evidence for what is frankly a bizarre claim and then let's discuss it, until then as best I can tell Melinglor is simply extrapolating from his own experiences to the wider population in the absence of any evidence that such an extrapolation is meaningful or justified./QUOTE]

Jeez, how many times do I have to say it? I'm not extrapolating from my experiences to the wider population; I'm just holding up my experiences as, y'know, my experiences, and inferring from other counts that I'm not alone. I'm not supporting the claim that "95%" or even "the majority" of gamers aren't having fun. This is seriously exhausting. Why have I had to restate my position on this like five times now?

And I'm apparently using a "classic debating trick." Goddammit. The fact is, it's absolutely impossible to prove my sincerity and honest motives on the internet, even more than in real live conversation. So I guess, think what you will of me. At least a few folks have some feeling that I'm on the level.

Quote from: SpikeMelingor: If your games were not fun until you discovered the Forge, why the fuck were you still playing them?  Unless someone at the forge said 'don't play with assholes in your group' then they didn't save your gaming.

Man,there's a lot of polarizing around here. "fun" isn't an on/off" switch. There's such nuances as "more fun" and "less fun" and "fun more/less often" and such.

Anyway, it's a good question: why was I? Partly 'cause of the shades of grey that I just mentioned--it wasn't that there was no fun being had, just that there was some fun of varying degrees interspersed with mild boredom or just plain Not Fun, and the whole thing was starting to add up to a loss in the fun to time and effort equation.

All this talk of "saving' my game is just more unneccessary polarization. That's not what I said; I said, "stuff like Chris' writing [and yes, the Forge itself] has helped me identify what's happening with me and my friends and work at positive solutions." The "save your gaming" stuff is just a word trick, intentional or not, to paint me as a "One True Way-ist" against my will. in any case, the Forge did help by among other things saying (essentially) "Don't play with assholes," or more specifically describe aspects of the social dynamics of roleplaying groups that helped me examine my own group's behavior (including my own) to see ways to improve it.

Quote from: SpikeIn other words, you are welcome to YOUR opinions even if they disagree with some of us, but if all you do is say that this other guy's opinions are yours, you'll get the flamestick over and over again...

Well, what happened from my perspective is this:

JimBob "Hey, this guy's ideas are ridiculous!"

Me: "Well, here's how I've found them valuable."

[Big shitstorm]

Lee: "Hey, this guy seems like he's honest and wants to have an enlightening discussion."

Some others: "But we're not done lambasting him by linking him to an idea he's already renounced!"

Really, are you criticizing me for discussing someone else's ideas in a thread about someone else's ideas?

Quote from: SpikeWay too many people have no sense of perspective.  There is no such thing as 'disfunctional gaming'. I've never had it, and really I say no one else has.

Look, you game and this guy in the group, maybe he's the GM, maybe he's just a dominant player... he's an asshole and he's fucking up your game.

That's not a dysfunctional game, not a dysfunctional group. Its an asshole, don't game with him. If  you keep not having fun playing with that asshole, then YOU are exhibiting dysfunctional behavior (not gaming, just in general) by willingly subjecting yourself to an asshole over and over again.

I'm confused here, 'cause you're spot-on in your analysis of (one type of) gaming dysfunction, but for some reason you refuse to label it dysfunction. Are youscared of linking yourself to some wierd Forgey definition? 'Cause I'm approaching Dysfunction in a pretty straightforward way, like "disturbance, impairment or abnormality of functioning." You're describing a situation with an asshole, and someone willingly subjecting themselve sto the asshole. That's dysfunction. It's just a fancy word for "not working right." And you're exactly right that the person who keeps putting up with this shite is just as "dysfunctional." This topic, in Forgey circles or no, isn't a simple "poor me, the mean asshole picked on me, give me a hug." About every discussion of dysfunction that I can think of was focussed on "what can we do to make things better?" to even the brutal, tough-love extreme of "if this problem is unreconcilable, don't put up with it--leave."

Also, we're getting away from the fact that dysfunction doesn't have to be about assholes. There's also (f'rinstance) a well-intentioned clash of interests, or poorly-executed pursuit of shared interests. Chris' diagram seems to be getting at that--a lot of the elements are just matters of crappy play input, though his model is obviously attempting to demonstrate a state where this in-game crappiness is building group tension to a breaking point.

Quote from: Abyssal MawNot buying this traumatized-by-continuity-expectations thing.

My experience is that even in situations where there is continuity-- long term campaigns-- people miss sessions all the time, without a problem. I know I've done it before when I was a player in someone else's campaign, and I know I've had players have to miss sessions of my campaign. It's no big deal. How is this long term campaign thing so traumatizing? If it is, why wouldn't you just drop out? I would. I dropped out of a not-so-great campaign last year..

I don't think it's so much whether, say, missing a session, is a big deal, as much as whether continuing to participate in general is a big deal. Like, if things are going badly, it's easier to cut out if your presence won't "kill the campaign," man. Which is not the same thing as saying long-term play leads dysfunction. Just that it exacerbates it.

Peace,
-Joel

So, Lee said that he wanted to discuss the actual merits of Chris' writing. Not sure what the interest level is, but I'll give it a shot. I think I'll confine myself to this one entry, for now at least. So, the chart and its accompanying text:

First, lemme say yes, the chart is a mess. Like Spike says, the information all makes some sense as individual statements, but as a visual or conceptual whole it just sort of loses you.

One thing that may help for undersanding the chart, though, is seeing that it comes on the heels of two other entries in a series, models of Coherent and Incoherent play:





I only post the diagrams to give context. So in that context, the third diagram is a representation of the roleplaying process out-and-out breaking down, as opposed to more difficult or whatever. Remember that "incoherent" here is not meant to equate to "bad" or unfun play; it only refers to the fact that a lot of the group understanding (from goals to techniques to whobuys pizza) are unspoken or poorly defined. Susceptible to dysfunction, but possibly quite healthy and fun.

So I guess the Dysfunction diagram is meant to go all wierd and crazy by contrast. Not that this makes it anyless of a trainwreck. But my best guess is that it's meant to represent something teetering on the brink of collapse; hence the pentagon balancing on its tip. The "GM Fiat" labeling the tip doesn't signify to me "GM fiat is bad and dysfunctional," but rather that GM fiat is the only thing keeping this puppy upright in a precarious balancing act. In other words, nothing else, not rules support, or group understanding, is keeping the game afloat, just the decisions and personal magnetism of this one guy. And when the group stops responding even to this tenuous authority, the thing falls apart.

Now this is clearly a worst-case scenario. Does it happen often? Who knows! I can definitely identify problems described here creeping into my gaming group at varying times over the years. So I think the best purpose for this model, for all its flaws, is to help identify those things before they get to the crisis-point, and correct course to avoid all-out dysfunction. It's like driving: if you're madly spinning the wheel as you rush straight toward the tree, it's already too late. If you're making tiny course corrections as you head down the road, you'll do fine and won't even get into the situation of having to dodge the tree.

Does this make sense to anyone? Any constructive criticism?

Let me clarify that this is far from Chris Chinn's finest hour, but it is the topic at hand, and if we're going to discuss other writings with more merit that should perhaps be another thread.

Peace,
-Joel

Quote from: kregmosierthis is the same dumbass who apparently feels offended seeing nerds dressed up as "Drow" cause "it's black-face".

To be fair, the average LARPer in Drow facepaint looks more or less exactly like... a guy in blackface. Possibly with medieval costume, LARP-safe weapon, white wig and pointy ears, but it still looks to the casual observer like a guy in blackface.

Now, ye and me and everyone else at the LARP knows that it isn't mean to be blackface. Passers-by and random observers? Slightly less likely to know what Drow are.

I'm not offended by the "racism", but I can get offended by roleplayers who have absolutely no clue how what they're doing might be viewed by other people. Confidence and geek pride is all very well, but you don't want to give people the wrong idea.

I'd be far happier with even the bad diagram if it wasn't--if Chris wasn't--so down on "normal gamers." A diagram that shows "how things can go wrong" is very different when cast in the light of "how you are doing it wrong and don't know it."

Assertions that would be reasonable in one light ("this is how it happened to me") are un-reasonable in another: This is how it happened to you--and if you don't agree? Denial!

The latter just isn't honest communication. It doesn't have any integrity.

If you remove the prescriptiveness and the judgment from this part of the dialog, I get this from the diagrams:

1. All play must have a driving point. If you don't articulate that point you are incoherent.

2. Broad goals--or non-systematized approaches to what is essentially a creative endeavor--are bad.

3. Those games (meaning those I don't like--but happen to play--because he does) are inherently run on GM-as-little-tin-god. No matter what is said about the GM being a referee or being fair--or whatever--in those games it's all about peer pressure, denial, and cult-of-personality.

I don't think that *any* of this is defacto true or even reasonable. I can approach a game for the experience and then change my goals as they go along (I do this regularly with new games--when I played DitV I didn't know if I'd be battling with my fellow players, myself, the system ... I didn't come in with a goal that could be easily stated other than to see what the game/group was about).

And I do think playing with the "Right people" is very important. And I don't think that what gets called GM-Fiat (the GM being a dick) is part of traditional games: that's a handy bait-and-switch that theory-speak uses.

And so on ...

These diagrams are essentially a manifesto and the foundation for it--however well meant--is unnecessarily toxic.

-Marco

Melingor:

The disconnet we are having is this: I view gaming as I do almost any sort of activity, rather than something special.  It's a group activity, certainly.  I've got people that I'd rather not game with. Hey, imagine that, I also have people I'd rather not work with. Sometimes they are one in the same, sometimes they are different.

I don't see inherent value in getting together with other people and trying to develope an entire body of amature studies on why I do or do not want to game with Joe. Joe may be an asshole. Joe may think I"m the asshole. It doesn't matter.  Joe could be an awesome guy to go get drunk with and stare at strippers and still be the worlds biggest asshole at the table.  The answer isn't to talk about different creative agendas, the answer is 'don't game with Joe'.

You presented your pre-Forge gaming as something akin to RPG hell, and your post Forge gaming as 'enjoyable'. I won't try to exaggerate and say you claimed it was perfect, but it was most certainly 'not-hell'. But you haven't said anyone told you 'don't game with Joe'.  Of course, all this talk of Creative Agendas and shit is really just window dressing for 'don't game with Joe'.  Oh, he's got a different CA... whatever.


As for my comments about bringing your own ruckus to the table rather than just defending other peoples ruckus: I'm not talking about just in this thread. It seems like every time I see you post you are busy claiming someone else is misunderstood, and that their ideas saved your gaming.   Peachy, I'm glad you are having fun. Really.  But if Ron or Chris or whomever needs to defend themselves, let them come in and defend themselves.  Bring YOUR ideas and YOUR opinions, not theirs and I'll be happy to talk to you.  I can go read their ideas all over the Forge and elsewhere.  More, I can't debate their ideas with you. You didn't come up with them, and all you are doing is 'spreading the good word'... that same shit is annoying when the Jehovah's Witlesses do it on Saturday mornings in the real world.

Spike pretty much speaks for me here.  It's not that I deny Melinglor's experiences, I'm happy to discuss those.  I just don't see why we should do so in the context of a shitty table from Chris.

If we must discuss Chris, let's discuss the cool stuff he posted about, not this old crap.

Or, if Melinglor want's to talk about his experiences, let's do that but in a thread about that, rather than in a thread justifying some prejudiced crap from somebody who doesn't even post here.

I don't get why this is being kept alive.  People were happy to move on and had accepted that this was old news, why keep it going?  It just creates ill will.

Quote from: MelinglorLet me clarify that this is far from Chris Chinn's finest hour, but it is the topic at hand, and if we're going to discuss other writings with more merit that should perhaps be another thread.

Peace,
-Joel

I think Chris was competent to make his own points, and did so.

I think if you need to make a longer post explaining his comments than his original post, then that suggests to me you're trying too hard to make the unacceptable acceptable.

I think you're working really hard to find useful content where there ain't any, but I also think if you walked away from that and advanced your own ideas there might be more to usefully discuss.

Seriously, let's let this thread die.  If you have spinoff ideas that it has sparked in you let's discuss those, but not in the context of putting words in Chris's mouth to make his posts seem other than how he wrote them.

Quote from: BalbinusSeriously, let's let this thread die.

If you want a thread to die, Balbinus, then you should stop posting to it, even if those posts are saying (as yours have the last several times) that the thread should die.

Melingor, if you think Bankuei has some good ideas worth discussing, then I recommend that you start a new thread. Once a thread hits 100 posts, it's rare that anyone will read all the way through it. Either the mass of discussion puts them off and they don't respond to it at all, or they find something in the first 20 posts to respond to. So they won't see your post trying to set a different tone around #120.

Just start a new thread, if you want to discuss some different aspect of Bankuei's ideas.

Quote from: JimBobOzOnce a thread hits 100 posts, it's rare that anyone will read all the way through it. Either the mass of discussion puts them off and they don't respond to it at all, or they find something in the first 20 posts to respond to. So they won't see your post trying to set a different tone around #120.

I have been catching up on some of this over the last few days (yes, I have too much free time) and thought I should plunge in here...

One thing that makes it hard to want to dig through these charts and theories is the implications of the terminology used, namely stuff like "incoherent" vs "coherent" play. Despite the folks claim that incoherent isnt necessarily a bad thing; that its a valid and fun play style, etc; that word has clearly negative connotations. Like comparing the high art of "coherent" games to naive art, if you will. Would you rather read a coherent book or an incoherent one? If both play styles are valid, more neutral terminology is needed. Otherwise it seems to say more about the prejudices of the authors of said theories than it does about gaming styles.

Secondly, there's no need to reinvent the wheel here. I'm sure there are books and studies about group dynamics and personality politics that could give gamers insight into their groups issues. The approach that seems to be taken by these would-be "theorists" is to lift anecdotal evidence from their games and make presumptions about the way everyone else plays from that. Then they reverse engineer a kind of pop-psychology approach to fixing the "problems". Are the folks doing this social workers? I dont think the people who are doing this have the expertise, frankly. There seems to be a need to sound academic, but without applying academic standards.

No doubt, there are some lessons one can learn from some of these attempts at gaming theory, (I still learn something every now and then, but I have been DMing for over 20 years now so I have it figured out for the most part... ) but it's obfuscated by the high-falutin theory-speak. Either theorists need to apply the rigorous standards that a University would to back up all that jargon, or they need to acknowledge that what they bring to the table is just good old "DM advice" like Gary used to give, some of it more useful than others. Quit trying to sledgehammer everyones playing styles into some big paradigm when you don't really know how the other half plays, as it were.

OH AND I used to LARP with a guy who played a Drow. He wore blackface the first time, but quit doing it after that. His explanation was something along the lines of "WTF, I'm black..."  :haw:

Pretty classic forge speak here -

http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=2430&page=1#Item_0

obviously it is creatives vs. consumers, instead of people Who Do vs. people who theorise, or grumpy old men vs. The Kids.

Humility people, humility...

Seriously though, if anyone doesn't see the distain dripping from that thread:- you are retarded.