Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;302570The only major thing I would change about this place is the redirection of all the Forge stuff into the "Other Games" section, or wherever it goes. Pundit, I understand your hatred of it, but it might be best to put it back in the main rpg section, at least as an experiment.

There were three strategic considerations for not including Forge games in the main rpg forum:
1. Forge games (many by their own admittance) are not RPGs. If they want to claim that they are something different (an improvement, according to them), then they shouldn't also have the right to benefit from "RPG" status they so decry.
2. Having Storygame or Forge-Theory talk in the main forum is an invitation to have the place get swamped by Forger propagators trying to push their ideology on people, derailing threads and trying to force people to use and accept their Theory terminology.
3. I didn't want this site to just be an anti-Forger site either. Particularly in the early period of this site's existence, having Forgers showing up to try to push their agenda would also have meant that you'd have anti-forgers responding with vitriol and the whole focus of the site would have been that negative. It is my position that making a site about a "negative" is a recipe for a failed site (witness the countless blogs, forums, etc. that have come up over time to be the anti-pundit place or the anti-rpgsite place, all of which have now disappeared, except this latest one).

QuoteAnyway, I don't think that would happen here. There are certain games that people want to talk about here, but don't, because it's considered inappropriate by "ye Pundit Himself".

If this is the case, I'm quite sorry. I have never actually stopped anyone from starting a thread about any kind of game, as long as its in the right forum.

QuoteI say let people discuss whatever roleplaying games they want. That shit doesn't interest me personally, but if that gives someone else a thrill, why not? We can handle it now. We've grown enough.

I believe "they" can do that here.

RPGPundit

Quote from: HinterWelt;302605The people I initially invited I did so with purpose. I knew they were open to many games and game styles. That is not an exclusive statement, merely to say, I knew certain people and invited them. This forms the base of the culture.

So you do have an agenda that is being demonstrated by those who have been invited to join the Haven.

Quote from: shalvayez;302571I don't actually see you bitching like a lot of these cocksmokers do.
 Second, I'm generally against slurs myself, and hell, I'm for gay marriage, but I'm going to call RPG Haven like it is, and that's basically a backpatting site, basically a daisy chain.
 
 Third, the shill was the bloke who started this thread.. RPG Haven wanted some attention, needed somebody to whore their name around a bit. And now they have their attention. Even negative attention brings people, as I came here based on shit said over on RPGnet.

I don't really believe that they intentionally sent Hairfoot to be a shill. It wouldn't have been good strategy, and I really think he just kind of haplessly stumbled on this. If you have some evidence to the contrary, of course, I'd be interested in seeing it.

I think the real shills here are Hinterwelt and James Skach.  We'll see how that works out for them in the long term.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;3026062. Having Storygame or Forge-Theory talk in the main forum is an invitation to have the place get swamped by Forger propagators trying to push their ideology on people, derailing threads and trying to force people to use and accept their Theory terminology.

RPGPundit

One of the main reasons I liked this site initially was that the Forge viarl marketting machine was ground to a halt here. I am not interested in Forge games or theory, but having both shoved down my throat on almost every other game forum was pretty offensive.

Quote from: jeff37923;302607So you do have an agenda that is being demonstrated by those who have been invited to join the Haven.

I think seeing conspiracies where there are none or perhaps I am not taking your meaning of "agenda" correctly. I have a plan if that is what you mean. I have a goal. I am not an ideologue if that is what you are driving at. The closest I could come to on that point would be to say I am an RPG Agnostic...hmm, that would be a good name for a site.

See, part of a plan is the beginning. I needed to get some folks who shared the goals I had on the site. Some came from here, some from Story Games, some from RPG.Net and EnWorld. Those folks I invited were invited because they were folks that I thought would really add to the site. Folks like Balbinus, and Ian. Seeding a culture.

So, I don't know how you are using the term Agenda. If you mean agenda as in plan then yes. If you mean agenda as it is often colloquially used on the internet as some sort of nefarious plot, then no.

Quote from: J Arcane;302593You and I both know how well that would fucking go, and how he'd be taken there.  It's bullshit.

Probably about as well as Cessna was accepted when he came around here -- embraced by some, hounded by many.  You reap what you sow, right?  That's the message people were sending at the time.

You know, with each expanding page of this thread, I'm reminded of all the derisive comments the members of RPG.net had for this site in its early days.  The parallels are so consistent.  Not that this site was founded to be the anti-RPG.net -- oh, no, not that.

!i!

Quote from: HinterWelt;302605Allow me to clarify.

Fair enough.

QuoteNow, that is about me and my revelations. I fear, again, SB, you like others take it as some sort of empirical argument against this site. It is not. Too many people have been assigning me my motivations and I have been trying to clear them up. You motivations for posting at the Haven, I am absolutely positive, are radically different from mine. And I am cool with that.

Nah, I don't have any real emotional investment either way.  I get to rolling my eyes when Sett goes off on his 'all free speech all the time' nonsense, as though that is the panacea for any problem.  Just pointing out a couple of things to make sure you don't get a mugful of that garbage in your head.

So, in and of itself, I am pretty sure that the degree of content won't get the job done.  Hopefully, you can foster a culture to get you where you want to be; I would like to see that.

Quote from: HinterWelt;302579The point that has been shved frantically ouside the frame is that the pundit could well go register. There is no restriction. There is no rule prohibiting him.

Why should I want to? Considering the following points:
1. The site was explicitly created as a negative response to this site, with the intention of doing "good  moderation" (with my moderation described as the bad kind), where the owner complained of being "Met with derision" by me, and that I am the "base problem" of the RPG site. The creators of the site expressed their need to create the site because they were "tired of certain people", in reference to me.  All this on the FOUNDATIONAL THREAD of that other site.
2. As seen on the "Recruitment" and "cool message boards" threads, the majority of the members of that site are directly interested in trying to poach members on this site, with the natural expectation being that this will empty this site of its "better" membership and thus theRPGsite will be destroyed. Why would I join a site who's expressed interest (of its membership, and overtly of its founders) is the destruction of the site I have built up over the course of years?
3. Apart from the anti-Pundit anti-RPGsite mentality there is NOTHING there that is different from here, nothing that site offers that theRPGsite does not except "the absence of Pundit".  I suppose my joining there would help screw up that raison d'etre of yours, but I would think that'd be somewhat fruitless, since it would just be an invitation for people to dogpile on me with moderator approval, and for them to eventually ban me as some kind of "proof" that I'm the bad guy.
4. All your better discussion threads are here. I don't need to go there to discuss them. There's nothing said there that can't be said here, and will continue to be said here.

QuoteSecond, inside the frame is that somehow the Haven is dedicated to "Destroying theRPGSite". This is false. Shoved outside the frame is that I nor Jim have ever said we would "destroy" this site. In fact, pundit has said he is actively scooping threads from the Haven to "And then they have the gall to get all upset because I'm doing what needs to be done to make sure their site can never be about anything BUT "theRPGsite without the Pundit"?". For the record, I could care less about such things however it bothered some posters OF BOTH SITES. Now, how does the admin of this site respond? Threats, ad hominem and hatred. Not surprising.

You haven't denied poaching members. You haven't been able to make a coherent response besides "no we didn't" to the accusations of your anti-pundit origins. Shit, you have barely been able to contain your hate enough to make a single post in this thread that didn't include some kind of cheap shot or tacit insult about me or this site.
And worst of all, in my eyes, you still try to shamelessly deny it. You try to pretend that you don't hate me, that its not about that.
We both know what its about, Bill. You still feel all hurt that I made fun of your game, with its historically-stupid premise and its bad latin.

QuoteFinally, part of the framing is on content. In reference to his admitted copying of threads, we obviously are generating contnet and thread ideas beyond what RPGSite is...else there would be no need for copying the threads.

No, you are generating threads that belong on theRPGsite, so I'm including them here. If a thread was really BEYOND theRPGsite, in the sense that it somehow offered something that theRPGsite does not and could not, or would not because any meaningful difference between this site's focus and yours, then I would obviously not be able to take inspiration from those threads to put them on here.
The fact that I have been able to with pretty well any thread of yours that didn't directly involve a Forge game (and I could have put those in the Other Games section too, were I so inclined) only PROVES that your site is nothing but a Clone, with no meaningful difference in style or substance other than being anti-Pundit (and like I said, even that isn't particularly novel compared to here, where many people have had long careers of being anti-Pundit without any real penalty, yourself and 90% of your site's members included).

QuoteI trust most of you will see what he is doing here, defining the field so he can "win". Hopefully you will be able to move past that and decide for yourselves.

Bill, Bill, Bill... I'm not some cartoon supervillain here. I'm not revealing my dastardly plan so you can defeat me. I've already won. I won the moment you and James started posting on this thread. And I didn't have to do very much work for it either, you and James and Ian and Droog and pretty much your whole gang are doing all the heavy lifting for me, proving my point, because my point is true.

So you are left with nothing but bitching about how much you dislike me while trying to carry placards claiming "its not about Pundit".

QuoteNow, I would like to expand the explanation of the Haven. In otherwords, take the discussion to beyond theRPGSite as folks seem to be buying into strongly worded opinion as fact. Let's look at RPG.Net as one of the motivations for me.

I have posted there as HinterWelt for 7 years (before that for a year or so under a different handle). I have seen the days when moderators could not ban users, the board did not support it at the time, and had to ask the admins. I have seen when tech advancement allowed the mods to ban folks and they were like kids with new toy. I have seen how the moderation has come to a "kinder, gentler" level (although I would argue that i would say
"different kind of"). I learned a lot about what I wanted on that board. The biggest four things I took away from that was:
1. I like low moderation but not no moderation. 4 Chan is not for me.
2. I like general discussion where all games can be in play, whether it is a reference to monopoly or 4e.
3. I like a search function.
4. Rate of turn over, especially without a search function, is not fun at RPG.Net.

To that end I have gone to great pains to have functioning search, low moderation (despite claims elsewhere in this thread, no bannings and no topic bans have occurred) and how important culture is to my enjoyment of a board.

One could say that my coming here was a reaction to RPG.Net and this ultimately, the Haven is my reaction to RPG.net and not this place. They would be just as wrong as those that say that the Haven is nothing more than a reaction to this place.

You say all that, and yet there is 20 times more discussion about me on your site than about RPG.net. And you invited Cessna, seen by many as the Face of RPG.net, to come to your site and share his wisdom as a "successful RPG forum moderator" along with the mods from Storygames and ENWorld, explicitly exempting only this site's moderator, ie. me. Even though my site has been vastly more successful than Storygames.

So please, to try this late in the game to change track and try to pretend that you're an anti-RPG.net site is pretty fucking stupid.  Not to mention that this wouldn't make you any better if you were.

The fact is that the vast majority of your membership, and pretty much all those you recruited, apart from those "Learned Elders" like Cessna and AndyK who's good examples of authoritarianism you wish to learn from and imitate, have been poached from THIS site and not others.  So even if we were to ignore the overwhelming evidence from your own origins-thread and pretend that it wasn't something personal for you, of wanting to take me down a notch because I made fun of your Roman Druids, your site would still de facto be an anti-RPGsite forum. Whether you like it or not (and we both know the only thing you don't like about it is that its been exposed as such), that's what it has become.

QuoteNow, I am not preferring an either or condition to people here or at the Haven. Join whatever forums you wish, post as you like. I do not define a "polis" of people who count.

Oh yes you do. They're the ones you recruited.

QuoteIf you post over at the Haven (or even you don't) I will listen to criticisms and try to make it better. I will not try to evoke some sort of patriotism to "Our Board!!". I merely welcome you to take a look. We do not have any hidden forums, no secret adminning forum.

Bully for you. It doesn't stop you from being slightly more "fascist" than many of your members have accused me of being in my moderation, except that since its not me doing the moderating I guess that doesn't bother them anymore, huh? So much for standing up for "free speech". Their true motives were revealed now more than ever as standing up to "get" me.

QuoteWhat you see is what you get and if you do not like it, I can appreciate that. After all, it is why I made the Haven;i.e. there were no sites I liked.

And yet you've made it almost IDENTICAL to theRPGsite, with that one tiny exception of me not running it. How curious...

And you still claim its not an anti-pundit forum? Curiouser and curiouser...

RPGPundit

Quote from: shalvayez;302582I'll chill. I'll lay off a bit. The avatar stays, your request is ridiculous.

To be honest, shalvayez, I'm not a big fan of your avatar either. I removed Droog's avatar forcibly because he had a flattering portrait of Hitler on his; yours is of a nazi zombie which is quite a different degree, so I would not force you to remove it, but I will express that I think its too easy to misinterpret, and you might want to consider that.

RPGPundit

Quote from: HinterWelt;302591And let me say, I think the same way. I do not play forge games, Any I have I have not really enjoyed. I used to be a the most trad of trad designers but now, apparently, I am swine...again. So, I am not championing Forge games, I am trying to create a culture, a board where you really can have AndyK talk about his Tensho game, or droog can use a reference to HeroQuest or whatever weird play experience he has without getting pounded. See this thread for an example. We had a pretty good discussion going but it got derailed pretty good.

Really? You're using THAT thread, the one that you intentionally started as a way to "instigate" because you were pissed off as me, as part of your overall argument that starting your forum was NOT a reaction to being pissed off at me? BWAH HAHAHAHA!!

Jesus Christ, its like I don't have to lift a finger!

RPGPundit

Quote from: Ian Absentia;302613Probably about as well as Cessna was accepted when he came around here -- embraced by some, hounded by many.  You reap what you sow, right?  That's the message people were sending at the time.

You know, with each expanding page of this thread, I'm reminded of all the derisive comments the members of RPG.net had for this site in its early days.  The parallels are so consistent.  Not that this site was founded to be the anti-RPG.net -- oh, no, not that.

!i!

Ian, I so am tempted to just quote you for the simple version of what I mean.

Thanks for being you.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;302613Probably about as well as Cessna was accepted when he came around here -- embraced by some, hounded by many.  You reap what you sow, right?  That's the message people were sending at the time.

You know, with each expanding page of this thread, I'm reminded of all the derisive comments the members of RPG.net had for this site in its early days.  The parallels are so consistent.  Not that this site was founded to be the anti-RPG.net -- oh, no, not that.

!i!

The difference is that this site, from day one of my being in charge, was actually different from RPG.net. It offered things that RPG.net did not. It wasn't just the same site but with different people in charge.

RPGPundit

Quote from: HinterWelt;302620Ian, I so am tempted to just quote you for the simple version of what I mean.

I think you just did.

!i!

Quote from: RPGPundit;302621It wasn't just the same site but with different people in charge.

You mean not like what you're doing now by copying topics from RPG.net, EN World, and The RPG Haven.  Yeah, you did have a different kind of agenda back then.

Of course, a lot of your agenda was to be the "anti-RPG.net" once you got punted.  Let's not mince words here -- much of your motivation for remodeling this website was, and remains, spite.

Hey, that ought to be your new handle: RPGnetPunted.*

!i!

[*Cheap shot.  That should have been your original handle here.]

His avatar is a Nazi Zombie?
(Was referring to Shalayez's old avatar.....)

 A-ha!

I knew it was something or someone in a Nazi uniform. (yes it is a tad creepy)

My computer's monitor is dying a slow death, as a result most images and pictures are gradually getting darker over the past year as I view them.
I only know this because I sometimes view the forums from a spare terminal work or at my parents place when I visit them.

Heck, most of the avatars don't read that well on a screen that is on darker display than it should be.

- Ed C.