Quote from: The Butcher;383887Though I confess I derive a certain perverse amusement from your angry reaction to being called "mirror Ron". Dissected any good bat penises lately? Or is it bat vaginas, since you're mirror Ron?

Its not the insult that angers me, its the poverty of the quality of my opposition.  It frustrates me that this is what they consider their "best shot".

RPGPundit

Quote from: Koltar;383868An argument in favor of the Wench's point of view:

I could see some parents thinking its better their kids play a game with 4 or 5 other people at a table rathen than play video games staring at a screen all day.
A minor argument can be made in favor of interaction with other people is better than solitary videogame play. (and there ARE starting to be way too many kinds of that have a remote game controller addiction in some form)


- Ed C.

I guess, but video-games are fairly social activities among normal kids (mostly males), and not playing any at all sometimes indicates that a child isn't developing normally in terms of their social skills.

By video-games, though, I mean specifically console games that can be played from a common/living-room and supports multiple players on one screen.  Though spent some evenings playing single-player games and switching off with friends every once in a while, having a few drinks and talking about the week.  PC games/MMOs are more solitary in nature (or filter out the face-to-face interaction), though, so I wouldn't really count those.

Quote from: RPGPundit;383915Its not the insult that angers me, its the poverty of the quality of my opposition.  It frustrates me that this is what they consider their "best shot".

RPGPundit

Come on, dude. Not even fucking close.

Quote from: RPGPundit;383775That's part of the appeal of the game to a 12 or 13 year old boy, that its the opportunity to play out hero-fantasies, and sometimes revenge-fantasies, and its got books with kickass illustrations of guns and the chance to be ultraviolent, and pictures of women almost showing their boobies. None of those are things you can typically talk about with your Mom.

Again, seriously, is the majority of this fucking thread trying to HONEST TO GOD tell me to my fucking face that the hobby would be the fucking same to them, if their early RPG experience had consisted of structured play from 3-5 pm supervised by your Mom as the GM, with G-rated adventures and no swearing or big guns or even occasional boobies?

Hold on - there's a huge difference between the hobby being different and the hobby being unhealthy.  

Personally, when I started in RPGs, I fell into the stereotype of being a nerdy pre-teen who was a social misfit and played D&D (and some Traveller & Champions) with other outcast boys including lots of violence and occasional perverse acts with big-breasted women.  I certainly never played with my mother or father, and if I had they'd be very different from what I did.  

I don't feel that this should be a necessary core of RPGs, though.  I don't want my son to replicate all my childhood experiences.  While there's nothing wrong with nerdy pre-teen or teenage boys slavering over women's breasts, I don't think that its a side of the hobby we have to encourage.  It's fine if it happens, but it is also fine if kids' early RPGs include girls, say.  Further, my playing occasional RPGs with my 10-year-old boy in no way prevents him from running his own games with his friends - either now or some years down the road.

Quote from: two_fishes;383906I wonder, Pundit, when you post something retarded on a thread, and everyone unanimously lines up to point out that you're being ridiculous, does it cross your mind at all that you might be wrong? Or does it simply reinforce some internal self-image of being a lone voice crying out in the wilderness?

I think that there's a mix of people posting on this thread: some of them are parents who have gamed with their kids, and thus have a vested interest in not feeling that anything I've said is true. Others are pundit-haters, who are jumping onto the bandwagon of arguing against me like they always do. Then there are a few people who sincerely disagree with me (including some of the parents) and are trying to reasonably argue.

RPGPundit

Quote from: jhkim;383919Hold on - there's a huge difference between the hobby being different and the hobby being unhealthy.

Indeed, and this is why Pundit's being compared to the swine, though he doesn't like to see the connection.

A swine tells you if you do it a certain way, you get brain damage; ie, it's an unhealthy thing to do. That's what Pundit is saying in this thread. If there's no sex and swearing in your RPG, not only is it wrong, but it's unhealthy.

If that's not what he's saying, he should clarify. Because that's what I'm getting from it.

Quote from: jhkim;383919I don't feel that this should be a necessary core of RPGs, though.  I don't want my son to replicate all my childhood experiences.  While there's nothing wrong with nerdy pre-teen or teenage boys slavering over women's breasts, I don't think that its a side of the hobby we have to encourage.  It's fine if it happens, but it is also fine if kids' early RPGs include girls, say.  Further, my playing occasional RPGs with my 10-year-old boy in no way prevents him from running his own games with his friends - either now or some years down the road.

There were girls in my gaming groups from when I was 15 onward; I think most of what I'm arguing here can just as easily be translated to apply similarly to girls, or to people who start gaming at an older age, etc.

Yes, I wrote the description from the perspective of a young teenage boy because the REALITY is that most gamers started as young teenage boys.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Fifth Element;383923Indeed, and this is why Pundit's being compared to the swine, though he doesn't like to see the connection.

A swine tells you if you do it a certain way, you get brain damage; ie, it's an unhealthy thing to do. That's what Pundit is saying in this thread. If there's no sex and swearing in your RPG, not only is it wrong, but it's unhealthy.

A Swine will say that the way you roleplay makes you unhealthy (ie. brain damage).

This view is wrong, but this view also in no way invalidates the perfectly sensible statement that unhealthy people will roleplay wrongly; that if you are fucked up, your roleplaying will be too.  That's a crucial difference.

A game without swearing or boobs will not necessarily be bad gaming; but that in no way invalidates my assertion that a kid who is forced to roleplay Disneyfied games with his mom as his formative RPG experiences will end up missing out on things.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;383915Its not the insult that angers me, its the poverty of the quality of my opposition.  It frustrates me that this is what they consider their "best shot".

That's because some people are identifying your statements about "the way it should be" as the same sort of one-true-wayism adopted by Ron Edwards et alii; radically different content, but same hard-headed Manichean delivery.

I understand what you're talking about. Male adolescent wish fulfillment was a significant part of our early gaming, and I too would have been embarassed to have my mom at the gaming table (not my dad, though; the old man was awesome). It's never been the sole focus of our gaming, though, and certainly not an obligatory and indissociable part.

I think it's entirely feasible to tone down the so-called "adult" content, e.g. skipping the wenching and the Stygian black lotus, so you can have your old gaming buddy's 8-year-old join us for an afternoon of subterranean treasure-hunting. The kidgets a kick out of hanging out with the grown-ups for a day, while we get a kick out of grooming a potential future gamer.

In the past I've railed against the bowdlerisation of D&D, molst evident in AD&D 2e, but I can get behind the idea of making special allowances for special occasions (like having one of the kids join us). Hell, The Hobbit was written and marketed as a childrens' book, and I consider it one of the archetypal "dungeon crawls" in fantasy literature.

Quote from: RPGPundit;383924There were girls in my gaming groups from when I was 15 onward; I think most of what I'm arguing here can just as easily be translated to apply similarly to girls, or to people who start gaming at an older age, etc.

Yes, I wrote the description from the perspective of a young teenage boy because the REALITY is that most gamers started as young teenage boys.

But you're not just arguing about what the reality happens to have been.  You're arguing that is the way that RPGs are supposed to be.  Yes, my son is being introduced to RPGs in a way very different from how I got into RPGs.  I don't see a problem with that.  

I also find it rather screwy how you're trying to make parents playing fun games with their young children as an inherently suspect activity.  i.e. If parents are spending time with their children, it probably means that their own lives are empty and are selfishly using their children as a substitute.  

In modern times, people are having fewer children later in life than a few decades ago, and they're more involved with their kids lives - sometimes unhealthily so.  I don't think that justifies calling out any activity with kids as being suspect, though.

Quote from: Fifth Element;383725Which one has the goatee?

Uncle Ronny's got a goatee, Pundit's got a full beard, it goes with his "alpha male bump."

Good to hear from the oddly-named It Was All A Mistake, and of course Clash. Actual experiences trump theory every time.

Quote from: two_fishesI wonder, Pundit, when you post something retarded on a thread, and everyone unanimously lines up to point out that you're being ridiculous, does it cross your mind at all that you might be wrong? Or does it simply reinforce some internal self-image of being a lone voice crying out in the wilderness?

Do you even have to ask that question?

Interesting to hear Pundit's thoughts that most rpg sessions are basically Quentin Tarantino movies with more tits. It explains a lot.

Quote from: RPGPundit;383928This view is wrong, but this view also in no way invalidates the perfectly sensible statement that unhealthy people will roleplay wrongly; that if you are fucked up, your roleplaying will be too.  That's a crucial difference.

But you're not restricting it to that. You've argued that parents should not game with their kids. Not that unhealthy parents shouldn't do it; but that no one should do it.

Quote from: jhkim;383938I also find it rather screwy how you're trying to make parents playing fun games with their young children as an inherently suspect activity.  i.e. If parents are spending time with their children, it probably means that their own lives are empty and are selfishly using their children as a substitute.

Precisely. This is why the parents in this thread are calling Pundit's arguments out as being ridiculous. He seems to think that someone gaming with their kids is probably fucked in the head. It does rather betray his lack of experience as a parent, I think.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;383960Interesting to hear Pundit's thoughts that most rpg sessions are basically Quentin Tarantino movies with more tits. It explains a lot.

Hmm.. disparaging remarks about the anti-intellectualness of violence and licentiousness in RPGs.. now who was it who sounds like Ron Edwards again?

RPGPundit

Who said violence and licentiousness were anti-intellectual? Or that these things were bad to have in an rpg session?

I just don't think they're necessary in a game session, still less are they are defining element of or inherent to rpgs. If you want to have a game session with them, you can; if you want one without, you can.

Between the mindlessness of the Disney happy world and a Quentin Tarantino movie there's a middle ground - a middle ground in which children can participate without harm. Read some kids' books sometime, you might be surprised just how dark they are.

You're really speaking outside your experience here, Pundit. And it's showing big-time. You don't want to game with kids. That's okay, I don't, either. Doesn't mean it's morally wrong to do so, that it'll harm the child or put them off rpgs.

Well, there's no doubt that the phenomenon Pundit is talking about exists, I've seen it.  Parents turning their social lives inward and forming creepy social circles with their children is nothing new.  Participating in RPGs can be one of the activities that social circle is created around.

Is it common among gamers?  That I kind of doubt.  I think if the meme of "introducing kids to RPGs at 4 is cool" spreads to most gamers, the chance of something Pundit is talking about increases.  Maybe that's what he's on about.  Not sure I disagree.

Some hobbies or activities kids are introduced to by their parents, some the kids find for themselves.  My parents didn't RP, so for me it was self-discovery.   I don't think it HAS to be self-discovery necessarily.

If RPGs are a normal part of household life and the kids want to be included, I think that will have a pretty good chance of turning out well.  If the parents go out of their way to bring the kids into gaming, I think that chance goes down.

@Benoist - You must bring back paper-mache Yoda.