Quote from: Kyle Aaron;351890It's not unusual at all. Remember that those involved in the sciences do not need to do any kind of essay-writing in university, they only have to have the expression and comprehension skills given them by high school.

Excuse me while I clean up the coffee I just spit all over my keyboard, but I think you'll find that universities have increased their general requirements for writing subsantially.  

I have no idea what it's like in Aussie-land, but I can tell you I wrote more in my first semester of engineering than I ever did in high-school -- and that's not including the writing courses you have to take for your major.

If you want to bust on people for poor writing skills, you can take a look at general liberal arts majors or business majors.  Trust me, the "writing intensive" courses that are offered outside of the sciences or more focused liberal arts majors are cakewalks.

I don't disagree with your comment about writing for specialists.  That, at least, is true.

Quote from: J Arcane;351861I just meant in the sense that he seems to see the Forge everywhere, but short of a few sympathizers who rear up and throw fits occasionally, or pop up to shill hard now and then, there really aren't a lot of Forge folks at all here, and pretty much none of them are in this thread at this point.

I don't know where I fit into the above, J, but I do think the Pundit and crew have brought more attention to the Forge than anything the shills and sympathizers could have ever hoped for.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;351897I don't know where I fit into the above, J, but I do think the Pundit and crew have brought more attention to the Forge than anything the shills and sympathizers could have ever hoped for.

Regards,
David R

That's true.  I didn't even know or care who the hell Ron Edwards was before reading some of the Pundit's blog. I had heard of the Burning Wheel, but technically that game's development precedes the Forge, so I don't know exactly where it stands on the imaginary "'Real' RPG" or "Swine Game" spectrum.

Other than that, the whole indie RPG movement was this tiny little thing I didn't have any motivation to explore.  I still wouldn't play something like Dogs, but I own more "indie" games now than before I knew who Pundit was.

Quote from: David R;351897I don't know where I fit into the above, J, but I do think the Pundit and crew have brought more attention to the Forge than anything the shills and sympathizers could have ever hoped for.

Regards,
David R

I did consider the possibility that he may have confused all the talk that goes on here about the Forge for positive, rather than negative chatter.

Still makes him an idiot though.

Quote from: Peregrin;351896Excuse me while I clean up the coffee I just spit all over my keyboard, but I think you'll find that universities have increased their general requirements for writing subsantially.

Maybe so. But we're talking about people like Ron Edwards, who already have their PhDs and are teaching, and who thus did their bachelor's a decade or more ago.

Perhaps the next generation of scientists are oratical geniuses who could express an entire first year course in a hundred lines of iambic pentameter. But this generation mumble their way through with jargon and generally muddled organisation of ideas.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;351909Maybe so. But we're talking about people like Ron Edwards, who already have their PhDs and are teaching, and who thus did their bachelor's a decade or more ago.

Perhaps the next generation of scientists are oratical geniuses who could express an entire first year course in a hundred lines of iambic pentameter. But this generation mumble their way through with jargon and generally muddled organisation of ideas.

He's no Shakespeare, nor is he even a Stephen King (the self-proclaimed McDonald's of literature), but I can get through his stuff just fine.  He could cut down on the jargon and invented concepts and cut to the chase, but it's not really all that dense to begin with.  Like many people, it seems like he just likes the sound of his own voice (or his own words, in this case).

If Edwards is guilty of anything, it's that lovely Rein*Hagen holier-than-thou bullshit and the narrow-minded type of thinking that comes out of it.  I don't think all of his ideas are bad, but lets just say his attitude and the way he chooses to word himself are part of the reason I almost didn't give some indie games a chance.  But even assholes can have a few good ideas, even if other ideas suck.  At the very least, a few sane people can pick the good things out of the crap ones.

Many of the very worst writers I've ever seen are academics.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;351930Many of the very worst writers I've ever seen are academics.

RPGPundit

And most of them work in the humanities and social sciences.

Kyle, try picking up an academic journal in a field like human geography or anthropology or even English Lit sometime - I think it will be an eye opener. Clarity of expression was consigned to the dustbin of history long ago. Those people make the average science PhD look like Marcel Proust.

Mate, while my first year was Science - Maths, Physics, Chemistry, with one History subject to keep them company ("European Hegemony") - in the end I did a BA in English Lit and History, so I know all about shithouse academic writing

"The praxis of contemporaneous feminist dialectic -"
"You mean, the way feminists talked in those days?"
"Um... yes."
"Oh. I think they spoke in English."

Nonetheless, it remains true that the liberal arts teach people to express themselves clearly, while the sciences do not. The liberal arts may choose to ignore what they've learned, but they do at least have the choice...

I'm not surprised you find Edwards simple to understand, after all his basic message is simple: "Tradtional gamers are miserable, especially the ones who say they're happy, the cure for this is for them to play my games."

Looking at the texts as something more than advertisements, however, if you think Edwards is clear and understandable, you've not read his writing thoroughly (for which I cannot blame you, it is atrociously dull). Not only does he make up his own definitions, he doesn't even stick to them. The result is a hopeless muddle, as I showed in GNS Suxxorz: a Socratic Dialogue (link above).

Of all the faults, the most vile is simple fraud: "when data agrees with my conclusion, it is correct; when it disagrees, it is incorrect." Time and again in his essay he refers to gamers' reported experiences; but then at many other times, he asserts that gamers cannot report their experiences properly because they are "literally brain-damaged."

Data agrees with your conclusion, keep it; disagrees, bin it. This would certainly make the peer review process easier.

There are numerous other faults in his writing which I have already addressed elsewhere (link above), and which it would be tedious to recount.

I love how this thread has become about Uncle Ron.

Never mind the academics, I have trouble understanding some of my fellow posters ! Nobody uses EnglishMotherfuckerDoYouSpeakIt, anymore .....

Regards,
David R

Oh come on, I'm still speaking plainly. And I certainly ripped into Reckall to try to make him cut the bullshit.

And every thread about Pretentious* games becomes about Uncle Ronny, you know that.

* See Jeff's threefold theory, much better than GNS.

You always speak plainly, kyle. I was just making a general comment about online RPG discourse.

QuoteAnd every thread about Pretentious* games becomes about Uncle Ronny, you know that.

True.

Regards,
David R

I try to set an example. But then people start talkin' fancy...

Quote from: Reckall;351829Talking about My Life With Master there is a reason why I'm considering to buy it. If I understood correctly, the game uses a basic structure: A Master (the GM) the Minions (the players) and the Townfolks (the victims).

Close. Aside from the Master, all the NPCs are divided into two groups, the Townspeople and the Outsiders. The Master needs something from the Townspeople that puts them at risk, but he also wants approval, respect or support from the Outsiders (who might be, for example, the scientific community, the family of a woman that he wishes to marry, or simply his own father): that's supposed to be the primary motivation behind his actions. None of these characters are statted out with distinct traits of their own, by the way, and instead interactions with them depend on the "environmental" values of Fear and Reason.

(I've read the Finnish translation.)

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;351937I'm not surprised you find Edwards simple to understand, after all his basic message is simple: "Tradtional gamers are miserable, especially the ones who say they're happy, the cure for this is for them to play my games."

Looking at the texts as something more than advertisements, however, if you think Edwards is clear and understandable, you've not read his writing thoroughly (for which I cannot blame you, it is atrociously dull). Not only does he make up his own definitions, he doesn't even stick to them. The result is a hopeless muddle, as I showed in GNS Suxxorz: a Socratic Dialogue (link above).

Of all the faults, the most vile is simple fraud: "when data agrees with my conclusion, it is correct; when it disagrees, it is incorrect." Time and again in his essay he refers to gamers' reported experiences; but then at many other times, he asserts that gamers cannot report their experiences properly because they are "literally brain-damaged."

Data agrees with your conclusion, keep it; disagrees, bin it. This would certainly make the peer review process easier.

There are numerous other faults in his writing which I have already addressed elsewhere (link above), and which it would be tedious to recount.

I read one of his essays once (the one about Fantasy Heartbreakers) and although it was atrociously dull, I actually thought the sentiment and analysis was spot on. He was also very kind about some games that he could legitimately have torn to shreds.

I couldn't be arsed fighting through his other scribblings though. Life is too short for leaders of personality cults, unless they do something really interesting.