Quote from: J ArcaneIt takes a lot of stones to cast aspersions on others' honesty when you apparently want to deny actual facts, and twist the truth as much as possible.  Even your supposedly neutral recountings of the game's mechanics contradict themselves.

What facts was I denying, or truth twisting?

Mind pointing out where I contradicted myself?

Quote from: fifth_childWhat facts was I denying, or truth twisting?

Mind pointing out where I contradicted myself?

Where is the ambiguity in:

 "My game design created, or at least contributed to, a play environment in which someone had their character commit a horrible murder-rape. I don't see why anyone would argue otherwise."

'Cause you seem to be determined to imply that there is such ambiguity in this and other statements by Baker regarding his design.  

Then there's this gem of yours, from up thread:  

"There's no concrete mechanical bonus to raising your Devil score, per se. "

"Your Devil score gets rolled against Ambition when you want your pirate to treat personal danger casually and without fear."

So which is it?  Huh?  You don't see an inherent or misleading contradiction in the way you've described that?

Quote from: Lee ShortYou're right.  

It would have been more honest if they had done that.  

Instead, they take their insults and intellectualize them and pretend they are not insults.  They don't fool many people for very long, though.

You seriously sound like a fifth grader when you say that. I'm just not convinced that that's the extent of the argument, because it just sounds so... shallow. Just make your argument, don't resort to that crap. (Just my opinion, you can obv. post whatever you want.)

Does Ron sound like an asshole in many of his posts? Yeah. Just say that, jeez. The sad story that people ganged up and ostracized some poor forum poster because he didnt' agree with them doesn't convince me, because it's pretty damn easy to just stop posting at a place that you don't like posting at, right? Does that make sense to anybody?

I mean, it's pretty easy to just say "I don't like those guys" and move on. When people invent persecution complexes about Ron, it says more about them than it does about Ron. The guy's considered the height of obnoxious by lots of folks, it's not like you're convincing somebody who was fooled by his charm.

Quote from: fifth_childI already said why I'm here: to answer any actual questions anyone has about Poison'd.

My goodness! Really?

Why? Did someone ask you to come here and answer questions?

I assume the answer is "no." -- if I'm wrong, I'll be surprised... but I would love to hear the rationale behind why you felt you ought to do this.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: SweeneyYou seriously sound like a fifth grader when you say that. I'm just not convinced that that's the extent of the argument, because it just sounds so... shallow. Just make your argument, don't resort to that crap. (Just my opinion, you can obv. post whatever you want.)

Does Ron sound like an asshole in many of his posts? Yeah. Just say that, jeez. The sad story that people ganged up and ostracized some poor forum poster because he didnt' agree with them doesn't convince me, because it's pretty damn easy to just stop posting at a place that you don't like posting at, right? Does that make sense to anybody?

I mean, it's pretty easy to just say "I don't like those guys" and move on. When people invent persecution complexes about Ron, it says more about them than it does about Ron. The guy's considered the height of obnoxious by lots of folks, it's not like you're convincing somebody who was fooled by his charm.

So... you've... come here... to this forum... and signed up... and posted into a  thread you know is full of fire to...

to...

(get ready)...

To Tell People To Move On?

That's *beautiful* -- I'm writhing on the ground in ecstasy!

Seriously: self-reflection time... what are you doing here, dude?

Heh.
-E.

Quote from: J ArcaneWhere is the ambiguity in:

 "My game design created, or at least contributed to, a play environment in which someone had their character commit a horrible murder-rape. I don't see why anyone would argue otherwise."

'Cause you seem to be determined to imply that there is such ambiguity in this and other statements by Baker regarding his design.

You're right, the statement itself is pretty unambiguous.  And although there have been some posters arguing that the game had nothing to do with the contents of the actual play snippets, I think if you'll go back and look at my posts on RPGnet you'll find that I'm not one of them.  I merely think that I have drawn a somewhat different conclusion from this statement than many posters here have, which basically boil down to: "Vincent Baker is a moral reprobate."  Or if you prefer the more flattering version: "Vincent Baker is a juvenile hack."  Surely my moral judgments are my own to make?

Quote from: J ArcaneThen there's this gem of yours, from up thread:  

"There's no concrete mechanical bonus to raising your Devil score, per se. "

"Your Devil score gets rolled against Ambition when you want your pirate to treat personal danger casually and without fear."

So which is it?  Huh?  You don't see an inherent or misleading contradiction in the way you've described that?

Would you have liked me to attach more qualifiers than "concrete" and "per se?"  I think it's clear from reading the entirety of my description that my point is that the bonus you get from raising your Devil stat is a) quite often insignificant, b) heavily outweighed by the drawbacks except under very specific circumstances, c) doesn't apply to further acts of brutality or even necessarily to fighting, and d) what bonus you can get from raising Devil can also be gotten via an alternative method, which doesn't involve committing a new sin.

Hence, no concrete bonus, per se.

Any other contradictions?

Quote from: SweeneyYou seriously sound like a fifth grader when you say that. I'm just not convinced that that's the extent of the argument, because it just sounds so... shallow. Just make your argument, don't resort to that crap. (Just my opinion, you can obv. post whatever you want.)

Does Ron sound like an asshole in many of his posts? Yeah. Just say that, jeez. The sad story that people ganged up and ostracized some poor forum poster because he didnt' agree with them doesn't convince me, because it's pretty damn easy to just stop posting at a place that you don't like posting at, right? Does that make sense to anybody?

I mean, it's pretty easy to just say "I don't like those guys" and move on. When people invent persecution complexes about Ron, it says more about them than it does about Ron. The guy's considered the height of obnoxious by lots of folks, it's not like you're convincing somebody who was fooled by his charm.

Whatever, dude.  

I was just pointing out to fifth child that both (some of) the Forge posters and (some of) the posters here engage in liberal insults of those who don't share their play style.  Now maybe fifth child would prefer that those that insult him do it in an intellectualized and sublimated fashion, but not everyone would.  I prefer the blunt honesty; not everyone dones.  So when fifth child pointed out that nobody gets called a fuckwad at the Forge, I'm providing the counterpoint that there are those who would prefer to to be called a fuckwad to the kind of underhanded treatment that happens at the Forge.  

Just because you suffer no delusions about how insulting the Forge is, doesn't mean that no one is taken in by their intellectual face.

Quote from: walkerpAt least you have a consistently theoretical position, Kyle Aaron, even if your moralizing is based on what you've decided is right and wrong and you can't separate representation from reality.

Of course I can separate representation from reality. The question is, how is the thing represented?

There can be evil in games. But the PCs don't do pure evil, they avenge it.

In my Roman game, there was a slave rebellion. The slaves took several noble families hostage. When a PC rode up to their camp to demand their surrender, they asked him who he was, and he told them. They then went and found the woman he loved but could not have, took her nine year-old son, cut off his head and tossed it at the PC. The PCs didn't se this, they just heard screams, then saw the head land on the grass.

He took it up tenderly, wrapped it in cloth so it could be cremated with the rest of him, then led an assault on the camp, killed or captured the rebelling slaves, rescued the woman and her surviving daughter, knocked down the rebel leader in battle, and later that leader was punished with the other rebels with crucifixion.

Were his actions entirely pure? Well, no. He was ensuring slaves would stay enslaved. But that boy was an innocent, and so had to be avenged. That's what heroes do.

Sometimes the PCs aren't heroes, sure. But they should never be villains. Or at least, their villainy should not be like true sociopathic villainy.

There's a difference between representation and reality. But what you choose to represent says something about you. If a roleplaying game session is "art", then like all art it's an expression of the artist. When you have your character murder a child and molest his corpse and you laugh about it, what are you trying to express? What are you telling us about yourself?

George Orwell's 1984 told us that he was disappointed with socialist movements which became tyrannical. Shakespeare's Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? told us that he was in love with a person. Verhoeven's Starship Troopers told us that he thought militarism and patriotism could go too far. When one of my players seeks to have his character become rich but idle, he's telling us that he thinks a live of idleness and irresponsibility would be fun.

What does your character murdering a child and molesting his corpse while you laugh about it tell us? What's the message the artist is sending?

You can't have it both ways. If you want to say that roleplaying is art, and a form of self-expression, then you have to answer what the artist is expressing about themselves with their artistic works, what the roleplayer is saying with their character's actions.  

Because really this is what it's about. Not representation or reality, but where those two overlap - in a human being, in the player at the game table with you, playing their character. They take their inner reality and represent it in the form of their character and their character's actions.

If a person has a child-murdering and corpse-molesting inner reality, then I don't want to game with them.

Quote from: -E.My goodness! Really?

Why? Did someone ask you to come here and answer questions?

I assume the answer is "no." -- if I'm wrong, I'll be surprised... but I would love to hear the rationale behind why you felt you ought to do this.

Cheers,
-E.

You don't find it irritating when people are making erroneous assertions based on incomplete or false information?  I do.  That's why I specifically started in here to answer a question and correct some factual errors.

I really, honestly don't mind informed criticism that doesn't stray into aspersions of character or pseudo-diagnosis.  You're of course not under any obligation to buy and read a book that you don't think you'll be interested in, but at the very least you should refrain from casting definitive judgment without knowing the subject.

Like, for example, I think the Serenity rpg is probably not very good - from what I've heard people say about it, it sounds like it's not just not my cup of tea (I quite like the show, actually), but is actually a bit of a half-assed job at design.  But I don't really know, because I never bought it, because I don't think I'll like it.  So I've never once posted in a single thread about the Serenity rpg.

Quote from: Lee ShortWhatever, dude.  

I was just pointing out to fifth child that both (some of) the Forge posters and (some of) the posters here engage in liberal insults of those who don't share their play style.  Now maybe fifth child would prefer that those that insult him do it in an intellectualized and sublimated fashion, but not everyone would.  I prefer the blunt honesty; not everyone dones.  So when fifth child pointed out that nobody gets called a fuckwad at the Forge, I'm providing the counterpoint that there are those who would prefer to to be called a fuckwad to the kind of underhanded treatment that happens at the Forge.  

Just because you suffer no delusions about how insulting the Forge is, doesn't mean that no one is taken in by their intellectual face.

Like I said, I'm not here to argue anyone's experience.  I'll just say that I've never felt in the time that I've spent at the Forge (or at Story-Games, which I spend more time at than the Forge) that I was being insulted.  So for me, the choice isn't "be insulted openly or be insulted cunningly."  It's "be insulted openly or don't be insulted."  That makes it a pretty clear choice, for me.

Quote from: James J SkachAs for CSI, can you detail "featured?"  Because I'm pretty sure I've seen every episode, I don't recall one where they "feature" a 16 year old getting raped.  They may reference it, but I don't recall them showing it. And there's a huge difference.  

I think the more importance difference is not whether the rape is shown, but whether the audience is expected to be on the side of the rapist or the victim and the cops.

That's really what we're talking about, here. Presenting horrible things happening, people will vary a lot in how detail they're happy to see or hear about. The thing which really is freaking us out is that the people playing this game Poison'd, and those defending it, are saying how it's cool to be on the side of the murderer-rapist.

CSI, however gross it may or may not be, is always on the side of the victims and cops. There's the graphicness of the thing, and then there's the moral position of the thing. I think the second is more important. The first just needs a rating advice.

Ya know, for me it's not even about having heroic PCs or not. If my players wanna play "bad guys" then by all means. What I dislike about this AP description and what I've learned so far about the game that spawned it is that they felt the need to provide mechanics for "brutality", "blasphemy", a "devil stat", and that they felt the need to not just graphically describe their "brutality", but to seemingly revel in it. Just like I don't feel the need to graphically describe the effects of characters being hurt/killed by maces, swords, gunfire, explosions, etc.. It's gratuitous, and disturbing, and if that makes me "unhip", "uncool", "less than", or "puritan" (which if you actually knew me you would find completely silly) then so be it. Just know that finding this stuff entertaining would most likely make you incompatible with my or anyone I know's game style.

Quote from: GrimGentI'm yet to see more than a few measly questions about the actual workings of Poison'd rather than assertions about how it supposedly works.

It's because it's irrelevant.

A game can't make you play a certain way. It can encourage or discourage certain types of play, but in the end it's up to you. You, the player, get the credit and blame for everything you do at the game table.

That's part of being an adult. You're responsible for what you. The rules may inspire the session, but they don't determine it.

I'm not condemning the game book, I'm condemning its players.

Quote from: fifth_child..........
Like, for example, I think the Serenity rpg is probably not very good - from what I've heard people say about it, it sounds like it's not just not my cup of tea (I quite like the show, actually), but is actually a bit of a half-assed job at design.  But I don't really know, because I never bought it, because I don't think I'll like it.  So I've never once posted in a single thread about the Serenity rpg.

 Well I DO own the SERENITY RPG  and we have it on the shelves at the game store.
You know what ??
 IT IS kind of a half-assed job at game mechanics - thing is - its a damn gorgeous book, even tho its half assed - and I love the show and movie that its based on.

 But now that you bring up SERENITY /"Firefly"...

Did we , the viewers ever actually see the Reavers kill the rest of the ship's crew in the third episode ?
 NO  - we saw , in shadow, the results of what they had done...and heard the hero character's reactions to what might happen next and saw the hooror in their facial expressions.

 In a later episode we saw a bad guy torture two of our hero characters - again it was a bad guy/evil character. It was also mostly shown offscreen.

 Thats the way that extreme stuff should be handled.

Heroes are Heroes.

Vile stuff is done by the NPCs  that are outright evil characters.

- Ed C.

Koltar, why do you present your personal preferences as absolute truth for everyone? Doesn't that strike you as rather presumptive?