Quote from: David RKatherine Bigelow
 Jane Campion
 Mira Nair
 Using your definition of auteur, women can be wankers to. But of course      your definition of auteur is wrong...

You are right, and I was wrong. Not all auteurs are men. Plenty of women are wankers.

Quote from: StuartIt might help if you consider the other way that films were made up to the point that French term was coined. The Hollywood studio system (pre 1950s) in which films were put together in an assembly line type fashion. They just cranked 'em out, and the Director really had very little input on how things were put together. So an "Auteur" was a director who actually had some control over the overall film.

That may have been the original meaning, but nowadays "auteur" carries other meaning, including the idea of Director As Special Artist With Unique Vision.

It's interesting to consider the original meanings of words, but there's no sense insisting on them. When I date a woman and she says, "I would like only a Platonic relationship with you," it does not really help me to say, "originally, a "Platonic relationship" was Plato's ideal relationship: where an older man takes on a younger man, teaches him about philosophy and has homosexual sex with him."

Words change in their meaning over time. "Auteur" no longer means, "one poor bugger who has to do all the work by themselves."

Quote from: Abyssal MawBut more and more often I seem to come across many of these indie people yearning to actually see all other gaming fail or simply stop so that they can be more . I dunno.. prevalent?

That's what they say, but I always wonder how they'd feel if they got what they wanted. They seem to enjoy feeling Special, and Alone Against The Tide of Ignorant Masses. It's like, lots of people would like to be a Duke or a Baron. But if the Queen suddenly issued 1,000 million Duchy and Baron titles, so that everyone had a title, it wouldn't feel too special anymore, would it?

Quote from: James J SkachThe amount of designer influence on the actual play is proportional to the focus and inversely proportional to the flexibility...

Makes sense to me. The more attached the rules are to the setting, the more ideas about play style the game designer slips into the rules, the less flexibility there is at the game table.

Quote from: JimBobOzWords change in their meaning over time. "Auteur" no longer means, "one poor bugger who has to do all the work by themselves."

It never did.

Let's not make up new meanings for existing words here on this fourm.  We've got the Forge forums if we want that sort of thing.

I think it happens sometimes.  I think there are games that are significant works of art with a singular focus drawing from one author's creative vision.

They're generally called flops, or heart breakers in the industry.  There's nothing quite like a rigid vision to narrow a game's potential audience.

Still, there's a few, Runequest 1&2, Pendragon, Adventure/ Abberent/ Trinity, Spacemaster: Privateers all seem to have the auteur's singular vision.  And none of them could really be called huge successes in the sense that Call of Cthullu, Traveller, D&D, Twilight 2000 were.  I should probably remove D&D from that list as nothing has its level of success in that particular sense.

I'm also uncertain whether one can assess whether something like Hybrid is in the real of what we're trying to quantify.

A big company CAN produce auteur games.  It's not an auteur = Forge-Indie sort of thing.

White Wolf Announces Monte Cook's A World of Darkness -- his name is even bigger than WOD in the little LOGO they've made!

Troll Lord games "Gygax" page -- how many times can you count Gygax on this page?

This new games have a singular focus drawing from one author's creative vision.

Yeah, I hate to do it, but this really gets into the definition, both actual and perceived, of Auteur.  Since I don't know either to any great degree, I'm  at a loss.

It seems as if the intent of the OP equates Auteur with Prima Donna.  Stuart seems to be asserting that it does not include that connotation. This argument appears to be heading in the direction of a disagreement over this.

So I'm bowing out with my current Law of Designer Influence...cause it goes to 11!

Quote from: JimBobOzIt's interesting to consider the original meanings of words, but there's no sense insisting on them. When I date a woman and she says, "I would like only a Platonic relationship with you," it does not really help me to say, "originally, a "Platonic relationship" was Plato's ideal relationship: where an older man takes on a younger man, teaches him about philosophy and has homosexual sex with him."

Actually, that sounds like the ideal thing to say to a woman who says she wants a Platonic relationship.  I'll have to remember that.  

Quote from: James J SkachBut, let's say you purchase D&D and I buy DitV. Then what?

Then you're a Swine?







I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist it, it was too tempting...

Quote from: TonyLBSo ... are you saying that nobody would ever choose to play indie games unless they are one of those wierdos who likes indie games?

I guess I can't argue with that logic.

Hm, I sometimes like them, does that make me a were-wierdo?

Quote from: WarthurFine, let's drop the power angle. What I'm arguing is that the game-designer-as-auteur attitude which certain parts of the Forge tend to take is going to naturally give rise to narrow games, not because of Forge theory but simply because it assumes that game designers are going to be making a lot of the decisions about a game.

Quite possibly, I think that may well be right.

Quote from: -E.Is anyone really claiming that games -- of any kind -- coherce people?

If I said, "In D&D, you're forced to choose a class for your character, unlike GURPS, which does not have that restriction," would people wonder if D&D was secretly packing heat, while GURPS was less aggessive?

I think it's overwhelmingly clear that in this case the use of the term "force" simply meant that the games being looked at had more restrictions of certain kinds than games other games.

The term "force" didn't imply a fascist boot of oppression of any kind (RPGing is a leisure activity -- in that context any force applied or restrictions observed must be voluntary).

Am I wrong?

Why did people get hung up on that?

Cheers,
-E.

I thought that was precisely what was being argued, though it looks like I was wrong.

Dude, it's the internet, I've seen it seriously argued that playing Vampire causes physical brain damage.  Nothing is so fuckwitted I can't believe someone would post it.  I didn't think the OP was fuckwitted, but I did think he was arguing that there was a cooercive element.

However, his argument was subtler than that, but misreadings happen, I don't think one need leap to the assumption as happens later in this thread that I was picking semantic battles for the sake of it.

Quote from: Abyssal MawI'm not sure anyone is actually arguing that this isn't so, except TonyLB who is doing so from a place of dishonesty and public relations, as usual. So I dunno...

Over the last few months, I've been trying to speak up when I see something posted about someone that I really disagree with.

TonyLB is not in my view remotely a dishonest poster (does anyone here not know the kind of games he likes after all?), rather I think he is a poster with a real love of the hobby who likes to discuss theory and learn from it, when we speak (and we come from different takes on the hobby) we don't always agree but I always feel he is listening and I have never thought him dishonest.

Doesn't add anything to this thread, but I thought this statement merited challenging anyway.  TonyLB is alright by me, I think if more theory posters were like him I wouldn't have such a distaste for theory.

Quote from: BalbinusOver the last few months, I've been trying to speak up when I see something posted about someone that I really disagree with.

TonyLB is not in my view remotely a dishonest poster (does anyone here not know the kind of games he likes after all?), rather I think he is a poster with a real love of the hobby who likes to discuss theory and learn from it, when we speak (and we come from different takes on the hobby) we don't always agree but I always feel he is listening and I have never thought him dishonest.

Doesn't add anything to this thread, but I thought this statement merited challenging anyway.  TonyLB is alright by me, I think if more theory posters were like him I wouldn't have such a distaste for theory.

Agreed with 100%! I already posted my challenge.

-clash

Quote from: BalbinusI thought that was precisely what was being argued, though it looks like I was wrong.

Dude, it's the internet, I've seen it seriously argued that playing Vampire causes physical brain damage.  Nothing is so fuckwitted I can't believe someone would post it.  I didn't think the OP was fuckwitted, but I did think he was arguing that there was a cooercive element.

However, his argument was subtler than that, but misreadings happen, I don't think one need leap to the assumption as happens later in this thread that I was picking semantic battles for the sake of it.

Point taken... and I've done the same thing (misread a reasonable position as being insane), come to think of it.

To be clear: I didn't think you were picking battles for the sake of it; I wasn't sure what was going on -- but I wouldn't have guessed that.

Cheers,
-E.

Balbinus & Clash although I understand the need for AM's statement to be challenged, you have to remember that AM in his own words has a dislike for Tony (an irrational one at that - again his own words). His statement was just further evidence of this. I find most of the stuff that AM post interesting, but I tune out this nonsense.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David RBalbinus & Clash although I understand the need for AM's statement to be challenged, you have to remember that AM in his own words has a dislike for Tony (an irrational one at that - again his own words). His statement was just further evidence of this. I find most of the stuff that AM post interesting, but I tune out this nonsense.

Regards,
David R

Actually didn't know that, David! Thanks! I thought it seemed a rather gratuitous swipe...

-clash