Quote from: blakkieHe grew up around a funeral home. That does have an effect on people's attitude towards death of others.

I've heard that being a member of a strange subculture like that can really mess with your perspective.

Quote from: Kyle AaronSure. But he had the same indifference and/or scorn towards Gygax and "trad" games before the old fellah dropped off. The death's just another excuse to express it.

So the same thing as RPGPundit's thread here then. Well no problem.... *cough*

Quote"Like, totally, I don't care, dude. Who was he? No-one."

I didn't see "Who was he?" I saw "He hasn't been directly relavent to me since 1989." (that's a paraphrase)

Quote from: Kyle AaronSure. But he had the same indifference and/or scorn towards Gygax and "trad" games before the old fellah dropped off. The death's just another excuse to express it.

"Like, totally, I don't care, dude. Who was he? No-one."

I'm not sure I agree 100% with your take on what he was saying.  My take was the purpose wasn't to say that Gygax didn't do anything so much as to say that ultimately Gygax wasn't responsible for your life - you were.  

There actually is a good point buried in there, despite any slants and prejudices of the author, about not getting too wrapped up in a subculture and/or about owning up to the control of your own destiny.

That said, I do empathize for people who feel bad about his passing.  Grief is different for everyone and should be respected (I, personally, don't feel too much about it as I tend not to get too upset when celebrities I like die because I don't really know them).

Quote from: Kyle AaronThe guy writes rpgs and has a blog discussing their design. That's geeky as all fuck.

But he doesn't, you know, hang out and play with other geeks. He's just a normal, cool guy who writes about RPGs all by his lonesome at his computer at night. Nothing geeky about that at all.

Quotehttp://www.chimera.info/2008/03/06/a-guy-who-made-a-game-the-end/

What a miserable little dick spittle.

This is what I'm talking about when I talk about the gamer self-hatred, people.  Yanno that thing everyone on the internet swears up and down doesn't exist every time I bring it up?

Yeah, but who the fuck ever said Gygax was responsible for their life?

It's just been, this person created a game which helped bring out these good things in me. That's like being sad that some old schoolteacher or rabbi you had died. Someone saw something in you and helped you bring it out. Now they're gone, so you miss them.

Snyder's preaching to losers who just don't exist outside his fertile imagination dreaming back to high school days when some jock stole his lunch. He's just envious of Gygax's effect on people. Just look at an earlier entry on his blog.
   Currently, I've got a number of fun and compelling ideas, but I can't square them with my goal — getting people to enjoy actual play. It's not that I can't design a game at this moment. It's not even that I can't create something fun to play. I can do those things.


The question is which one should I do? Which one do I think will make the most important kind of play happen at people's tables? Important to me, that is. Whom do I design for? Whom do I identify with? Whom do I want to entertain and engage the most? What stories do I want you to play?
He wants his own written words to affect the lives of others, to make them play in the "most important way". Which is what Gygax did, with all those years of Dragon columns where he told people what was and wasn't "real" D&D. And people listened. Do they listen to Steve Jackson? Or Mike Mearls? If not, then they certainly won't listen to Snyder.

But he wishes they would.

This is just plain old everyday grumpy envy we're talking about here. I've seen this shit many times before, even in something as mundane as a commercial kitchen. Some famous chef dies, and you can spot the overly ambitious and anxious chefs - they're the ones who say, "yeah? who cares, man, who was he anyway?"

Quote from: Kyle AaronSettembrini, this "nerd-shame" stuff is just an extension of that American cultural thing of, "what happened in high school defines my entire life."

[aside]
The amount of knowledge and insight you have about American culture is inversely proportional to the amount of knowledge and insight you have about gaming culture. Why don't you stop embarrassing yourself on this score and stick to your strengths.
[/aside]

Quote from: jeff37923[aside]
The amount of knowledge and insight you have about American culture is inversely proportional to the amount of knowledge and insight you have about gaming culture. Why don't you stop embarrassing yourself on this score and stick to your strengths.
[/aside]

Who says he has that much insight into gaming culture either?

Quote from: J ArcaneWho says he has that much insight into gaming culture either?

I give him props for cheetoism and a few of his articles on his Gaming Circle site aren't half bad.

Quote from: J ArcaneThis is what I'm talking about when I talk about the gamer self-hatred, people.  Yanno that thing everyone on the internet swears up and down doesn't exist every time I bring it up?

You can put me on your list of people who don't deny.

I actually played Dust Devils. The playing card resolution mechanic was cute but clunky.

Why, exactly, is this guy trying to appear cooler by dissing everyone else? Is it because he's a Forge rat?

Poor guy. He made a few splashes in the indie pond and is now wondering why people like a dead guy's stuff more than his. :rolleyes:

Edit: I have left a comment on his blog, a well-reasoned, calm, and composed refutation of his entire post. Alas, my comment is under moderation.

Quote from: J ArcaneWhat a miserable little dick spittle.

This is what I'm talking about when I talk about the gamer self-hatred, people.  Yanno that thing everyone on the internet swears up and down doesn't exist every time I bring it up?

It's just classic geeky self-loathing, all grown up.  He just doesn't realize that most of the rest of the hobby are normal people and quite happy with their activity/lifestyle.  Sure there are some weirdos who identify their whole world with their activity, but they exist in every sub-culture and an outpouring of gratitude and sorrow for the passing of the person who brought it to us is not an example of that.

Quote from: walkerpIt's just classic geeky self-loathing, all grown up.  He just doesn't realize that most of the rest of the hobby are normal people and quite happy with their activity/lifestyle.  Sure there are some weirdos who identify their whole world with their activity, but they exist in every sub-culture and an outpouring of gratitude and sorrow for the passing of the person who brought it to us is not an example of that.

Indeed. It's kind of sad when a person feels the need to write an inverted obituary of this kind.

The loss of Gary Gygax obviously was important to him, if only as the metric of his personal shame and denial.

Still, life goes on. For some of us at least.

Quote from: walkerpIt's just classic geeky self-loathing, all grown up.  He just doesn't realize that most of the rest of the hobby are normal people and quite happy with their activity/lifestyle.  Sure there are some weirdos who identify their whole world with their activity, but they exist in every sub-culture and an outpouring of gratitude and sorrow for the passing of the person who brought it to us is not an example of that.

Very unfortunate.  I don't see how its at all different for gaming fans to mourn Gary, or how it perpetuates any stereotypes to the public at-large.  Nor would I care.

I certainly don't think we should demand everyone mourn Gary, but you also don't expect people to start saying who they don't care someone's dead during a memorial.  People can feel how they want, but it'd be nice to have the common goddamn courtesy to observe some basic measures of respect for departed.  That's a grade-A self-identified Asperger's move.

Someone's so obsessed with his obsession with certain RPGs as his lifestyle that he must dismiss other people's interest in other RPGs as an obsession with RPGs as lifestyle.

And people still think Freud has nothing to teach us. See Laplanche/Pontalis, The Language of Psychoanalysis, s.v. "Projection."