Quote from: SettembriniSo you want to emulate heroic myths?

Yes.

QuoteWhat is the enjoyment you get out of that?

There's quite a lot of enjoyment to be had in reclaiming kingdoms, journeying to the far corners of the globe, discovering lost places, magical races, and vast treasures.

QuoteYou dwell in a fantasy world without achievement. . .

Well, I wouldn't say that heroes of myth never achieved anything. Quite the opposite. Are you seriously asserting that something only qualifies as an achievement if threat of death looms over the would-be achiever at all times? Man. . . I'd hate to live your life.

QuoteYou don´t want to be bothered with a close scrutiny of your performance?

Where you get this, I have no idea. I neither said or inferred such a thing. You really seem to be stuck on "Death is the only consequence" mode to the point that you're pretending all of the other possible consequences of failure that people are mentioning either don't exist or aren't consequences.

Judging by that selective ignorance, your threads aren't going anywhere as you don't really want people to explain anything, you just want a chance to vent some of your vitriol toward people who don't do things your way.

No, you didn´t see the question marks.
I´m still not getting it, so I poke you with my Hot Needle of Inquiry until I understand it.

QuoteThere's quite a lot of enjoyment to be had in reclaiming kingdoms, journeying to the far corners of the globe, discovering lost places, magical races, and vast treasures.

For me, tio enjoy stuff like that, I need to have earned it. If the only effort I made was sitting several years at a table and being on time, then it would be dull.

This is the exact point I don´t get:

How can script immunity not turn into wankery?

Quote from: SettembriniSo you want to emulate heroic myths?

What is the enjoyment you get out of that?
You dwell in a fantasy world without achievement, total escapism?

You don´t want to be bothered with a close scrutiny of your performance?

Is it that?

It's really quite funny how you repeat some of the worst excesses of the Forge over the years, Set. Right here you're repeating in all essentials Ron and Clinton's thesis from several years ago that sim play is for cowards – those who can handle neither the challenge of gamism nor the drama of narrativism.

Just admit you're a young punk who doesn't understand points of view that are not your own. It's okay – as Somerset Maugham once put it, odious young men are quite likeable in their own way.

QuoteJust admit you're a young punk who doesn't understand points of view that are not your own.

Of course I am a young punk. I do understand other´s people points. But not everytime. That´s why I keep asking.

I´m not saying your gaming is wrong.

I´m saying: The way I understand it, it´s morally corrupt. I see only risk-less, effort less wish fulfillment.

But that can´t be all, can it?

So tell me more about it.

Quote from: SettembriniOf course I am a young punk. I do understand other´s people points. But not everytime. That´s why I keep asking.

I´m not saying your gaming is wrong.

I´m saying: The way I understand it, it´s morally corrupt. I see only risk-less, effort less wish fulfillment.

But that can´t be all, can it?

So tell me more about it.

Morally corrupt?

effortless?

that can't be all?

Cheeky, very cheeky.

Regards,
David R

Well, you've already had several answers:

1. Your interest may not be in facing challenges but in exploration of character or setting, or in the production of theme.

2. You may have characters that nobody wishes to see die.

3. You may wish to emulate literature in which the characters do not suffer random death, but die at appropriate times.

4. You may dislike having players sit around with nothing to do because their character has died.

5. You may wish to encourage gonzo, over-the-top action.

6. You may wish to emphasise consequences other than death.

7. You may wish for escapism, pure and simple.


Now, can you understand any of those? If you can't, fair enough. But they're all easy enough to understand with a little bit of sympathy.

I'm not keen on gamism in roleplaying, myself. I'm a sim/narr guy. I'd rather get my gamist action from chess or a computer game. I used to dismiss such roleplaying as 'hack-and-slash'. So I see where you're at.

One thread isn't going to do this for you. You are going to need to stretch your imagination a bit.

QuoteNow, can you understand any of those? If you can't, fair enough. But they're all easy enough to understand with a little bit of sympathy.

I think I just understand to well. I am not saying:

"That style of gaming isn´t fun, it doesn´t work."

Rather, I fear it does indeed work all to good.

But please tell me:

Sitting around with your buddies and granting all those experiences. It creates a comfortable cuddly zone, where everyone can have his dream fulfilled without doing something for it.

Isn´t that like drinking booze? I drink booze once in a while too, but I don´t think that´s actually an achievement.

What is the underlying moral value that you are transporting with such a setup?

I refer you to Tolkien:

QuoteI have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which "Escape" is now so often used: a tone for which the uses of the word outside literary criticism give no warrant at all. In what the misusers are fond of calling Real Life, Escape is evidently as a rule very practical, and may even be heroic. In real life it is difficult to blame it, unless it fails; in criticism it would seem to be the worse the better it succeeds. Evidently we are faced by a misuse of words, and also by a confusion of thought. Why should a man be scorned, if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using Escape in this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter. Just so a Party-spokesman might have labelled departure from the misery of the Führer's or any other Reich and even criticism of it as treachery. In the same way these critics, to make confusion worse, and so to bring into contempt their opponents, stick their label of scorn not only on to Desertion, but on to real Escape, and what are often its companions, Disgust, Anger, Condemnation, and Revolt. Not only do they confound the escape of the prisoner with the flight of the deserter; but they would seem to prefer the acquiescence of the 'quisling' to the resistance of the patriot. To such thinking you have only to say 'the land you loved is doomed' to excuse any treachery, indeed to glorify it.

JRR Tolkien On Fairy Stories

Sett, what is it you achieve in your games?

Regards,
David R

See, now we are talking.

Escapism, what a wide field for discussion!

Romanticism vs. Enlightment!

EDIT: What do I achieve? Depends on the game. Of course a game is never more than a game. I can win/reach my self set goals through my skill. Like I can in Hockey, or what have you. So speaking of moral values, a game is never more than a game.

droog is on it.

So you also value escapism more than facing a challenge?

Quote from: SettembriniSo you also value escapism more than facing a challenge?

Sett you are operating under a false set of assumptions. Escapism includes challenges, just sometimes not the kind (challenges) you obviously like. Now, replace the Kool Aid with vodka and get with the programme.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: SettembriniSo you also value escapism more than facing a challenge?

It's a game, man.  I'll take either or, and sometimes both.  To varying degrees.  Sometimes depending entirely upon mood and whim!

I already said:

Escapism is a wide, wide field. Of course all RPGing is Escapism, as even reading the newspaper is escapism. But tell me more about the challenges in your games, that I don´t know of.