Heres some!

http://www.i-would-knife-fight-a-man.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=1350&page=1#Item_0

QuoteI think that a big chunk of geeks are people whose formative thematic exposures came from socially unacceptable sources (transformers, anime, final fantasy, what have you). The trouble is that they have no means to look critically at these texts, because most of the tools to do so are tied to a purposefully obscured "canon" and denied for any pop-culture stuff except in a needlessly condescending and dismissive manner.

QuoteI do agree that critical analysis is something that doesn't come naturally to just anyone, and that most people need to have it modeled for them before they can apply it. If we don't see it being modeled on stories we care about, it's mostly not going to be something we do. But I think that's just as true of, say, romance novel readers as it is of geeks, so I'm not sure your argument is really geek-specific. It's just that geeks are the people whose culturally unacceptable references we're most familiar with.

Wow! A whole new forum to trawl for things to be irritated by!

QuoteI wish there were more Forge-y games that did the Sim thing, because some things are great and worthy of celebration, y'know? I think most of my problem with the Sim games I'm aware of (and I'm not even sure I'm aware of them, because my definition of Sim is so iffy) is that the stuff they're enthusiastic about is generally lame NerdCruft, both in terms of fictional content and in terms of rules-implementation.

QuoteI played a lot of 2AD&D in the 80's and had lots of fun. I certainly don't hate it and I love me some tolkienesque high-fantasy. But by the 90's I have to say that whenever we got together to play "D&D" we basically played a home brew with AD&D monsters and settings. We still called it D&D, but it really wasn't.

That said, D&D is fine. I really don't have much of a problem with D&D but the games tend to be about things that don't interest me:

GM: "the captain of the guard is standing point blank with an drawn bow pointed at your unarmored chest." (Here the game is supposed to be about being in jeopardy but...)
Player: "Well, I have 162 hp and that arrow does d6 damage so I walk up and cut his head off, then pull the arrow out of my chest and laugh maniacly." (its about addition and subtraction)

GM: "You push aside the body of the dead orc and in the chest you find a glowing sword and as you pull it from the chest you see the torchlight reflect off of it in an iridescent sheen which takes the shape of a serpent traveling up the razor sharp blade." (here the game is trying to be about mystery and magic, but...)
Player: "Oh, just a +2 sword of holy flame. I've got a +3 sword of holy flame already and that one has a triple crit range. Anyone want a magic sword?" (It's about loot).

GM: "You stand before the doors of the Temple of Badassery, the doors are 50 feet high and the corridor extends beyond them into the inky darkness." (So, here the game is about adventuring into unknown dangers, but)
Player: "We can't go in there. We don't have a cleric. We head back to town and see if we can find a cleric, or maybe a bard at least. Also, anyone have any rogue abilities. There may be traps in there. (now its about, what would you call this? Complete lameness. In what other narrative form do we see this shit?)

GM: "You are at the end of a 60' corridor. Its 10x10 and ..." (the game is about going down a corridor)
Player: "I check for traps every ten feet as we walk"
Other player: "I'm casting detect traps, detect evil, detect magic. Anything?" (I want to stab myself in the eye with my pencil now)

The first post isn't swinery, it's high-falutin' language sure, but if anything it's anti-swinery.

I don't often see eye-to-eye with Ben Lehman, BTW, but here he pretty accurately skewered a great deal of the pretense in Forge-influenced discussion.

Well,

QuoteI think that a big chunk of geeks are people whose formative thematic exposures came from socially unacceptable sources (transformers, anime, final fantasy, what have you). The trouble is that they have no means to look critically at these texts, because most of the tools to do so are tied to a purposefully obscured "canon" and denied for any pop-culture stuff except in a needlessly condescending and dismissive manner. So the geeks don't have access to ideas like the author fallacy. They prize things like the correct reading of a text above a meaningful reading of a text. Thus, there's a lot of fighting about details and correctness at the expense of meaning.

Just bear in mind what these chaps think of trad games, right. Is there any way to parse all this as something other than anyone who likes roleplaying games is a geek with no critical faculties?

I dunno. All the so called 'theory' bollocks is fighting about details and correctness. Sgot labels and everything. You gots your film geeks and your religion geeks and what have you.

Quote from: Erik BoielleJust bear in mind what these chaps think of trad games, right.

Yes, let's all get good and biased before we start!

:haw:

That'll be fun!

Erik,

Nope.

At most he's saying, if the only way you can respond to someone explaining why they don't like D&D is to attack them, then you're just as clueless as the person who says you're "in denial" or "emotionally stunted" because you get more thematic/emotional engagement out of Rolemaster than you do from The Mountain Witch.

Quote from: Elliot WilenAt most he's saying, if the only way you can respond to someone explaining why they don't like D&D is to attack them, then you're just as clueless as the person who says you're "in denial" or "emotionally stunted" because you get more thematic/emotional engagement out of Rolemaster than you do from The Mountain Witch.

Yes, well, I'd feel better about that if it was a convenient excuse to ignore all critisim as the plaintive bleating of a James Bond fan under threat from the artisitic elite.

I'm not being a asshole, this guy just doesn't understand what I'm saying and all that.

I reckon if you understand what they are saying then you have to call them assholes.

:-)

Ben is right on the first quote:

The Thematics of most Forgers are derived from socially and intellectually unacceptable sources. That´s why they are stuck in RPG surroundings, that´s why they are swine.

Quote from: SettembriniThe Thematics of most Forgers are derived from socially and intellectually unacceptable sources.

Unacceptable according to whom?

To society and intellectuals.
Re-creating TV-drama is all fine and well if it floats your boat, but nothing to feel smart about.

And that´s the Swinery part, were people are being pretentious about their trivialized understanding of mass-media-drama, based upon comics and TV shows.

Instead of having innocent fun in the lands of campyness and adventure, like the rest of us.

QuoteCould those of you who have experienced straight-out aggressive prosletyzing or profound attacks against your playstyle and the condescension that goes with it please post some actual links so I can see it.

Quote from: SettembriniTo society and intellectuals.
Re-creating TV-drama is all fine and well if it floats your boat, but nothing to feel smart about.

And that´s the Swinery part, were people are being pretentious about their trivialized understanding of mass-media-drama, based upon comics and TV shows.

Instead of having innocent fun in the lands of campyness and adventure, like the rest of us.

Condescension wrapped in assumptions passed of as insight.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: jrientsRoss isn't the only guy out there who does that, either.

There are also several designers currently associated with the Forge who are looking to distance themselves from its stigma in the larger market. At the present time, some of these folks seem bent on introducing arguments aimed at changing the Forge, though I personally see that as a waste of time (the Forge is pretty much set in its ways and not willing to look past their Big Theory, now that they've finalized it).

I suspect such individuals will eventually do as others before them have done and either break away to do their own thing (e.g., Story Games) or fold up their tent and go home (as folks like Fang Langford did). I'd like to see more of the former, as I think that some of these folks are the future of game design (I'll  not name names, so as to spare people embarassment). Or, at the very least, they have that potential.

Quote from: SettembriniTo society and intellectuals.

Neither society at large, nor "the intelligentsia", have noticed these people.

Which means that they have not been judged as unacceptable.

Which means you're trying to speak for them.

To J.H. Reynolds on February 19, 1818
by JOHN KEATS

QuoteMy dear Reynolds,

I have an idea that a Man might pass a very pleasant life in this manner—let him on any certain day read a certain Page of full Poesy or distilled Prose and let him wander with it, and muse upon it, and reflect from it, and bring home to it, and prophesy upon it, and dream upon it—untill it becomes stale—but when will it do so? Never—When Man has arrived at a certain ripeness in intellect any one grand and spiritual passage serves him as a starting post towards all "the two-and thirty Pallaces" How happy is such a "voyage of conception,' what delicious diligent Indolence! A doze upon a Sofa does not hinder it, and a nap upon Clover engenders the ethereal fingerpointings—the prattle of a child gives it wings, and the converse of middle age a strength to beat them—a strain of musick conducts to 'an odd angler of the Isle' and when the leaves whisper it puts a 'girdle round the earth. Nor will this sparing touch of noble Books be any irreverence to their Writers—for perhaps the honors paid by Man to Man are trifles in comparison to the Benefit done by great Works to the 'Spirit and pulse of good' by their mere passive existence. Memory should not be called knowledge—Many have original Minds who do not think it—they are led away by Custom—Now it appears to me that almost any Man may like the Spider spin from his own inwards his own airy Citadel—the points of leaves and twigs on which the Spider begins her work are few and she fills the Air with a beautiful circuiting: man should be content with as few points to tip with the fine Webb of his Soul and weave a tapestry empyrean—full of Symbols for his spiritual eye, of softness for his spiritual touch, of space for his wandering of distinctness for his Luxury—But the Minds of Mortals are so different and bent on such diverse Journeys that it may at first appear impossible for any common taste and fellowship to exist between two or three under these suppositions—It is however quite the contrary—Minds would leave each other in contrary directions, traverse each other in Numberless points, and [at] last greet each other at the Journeys end—A old Man and a child would talk together and the old Man be led on his Path, and the child left thinking—Man should not dispute or assert but whisper results to his neighbour, and thus by every germ of Spirit sucking the Sap from mould ethereal every human might become great, and Humanity instead of being a wide heath of Furse and Briars with here and there a remote Oak or Pine, would become a grand democracy of Forest Trees. It has been an old Comparison for our urging on—the Bee hive—however it seems to me that we should rather be the flower than the Bee—for it is a false notion that more is gained by receiving than giving—no the receiver and the giver are equal in their benefits—The f[l]ower I doubt not receives a fair guerdon from the Bee—its leaves blush deeper in the next spring—and who shall say between Man and Woman which is the most delighted? Now it is more noble to sit like Jove [than] to fly like Mercury—let us not therefore go hurrying about and collecting honey-bee like, buzzing here and there impatiently from a knowledge of what is to be arrived at: but let us open our leaves like a flower and be passive and receptive—budding patiently under the eye of Apollo and taking hints from every noble insect that favors us with a visit—sap will be given us for Meat and dew for drink—I was led into these thoughts, my dear Reynolds, by the beauty of the morning operating on a sense of Idleness—I have no read any Books—the Morning said I was right—I had no Idea but of the Morning and the Thrush said I was right—seeming to say—

'O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind;
Whose eye has seen the Snow clouds hung in Mist
And the black-elm tops 'mong the freezing Stars
To thee the Spring will be a harvest-time—
O thou whose only book has been the light
Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on
Night after night, when Phoebus was away
To thee the Spring shall be a tripple morn—
O fret not after knowledge—I have none
And yet my song comes native with the warmth
O fret not after knowledge—I have none
And yet the Evening listens—He who saddens
At thought of Idleness cannot be idle,
And he's awake who thinks himself asleep.'

Now I am sensible all this is a mere sophistication, however it may neighbour to any truths, to excuse my indolence—so I will not deceive myself that Man should be equal with jove—but think himself very well off as a sort of scullion-Mercury or even a humble Bee—It is [no] matter whether I am right or wrong either one way or another, if there is sufficient to lift a little time from your Shoulders.

Your affectionate friend

John Keats—

QuoteNeither society at large, nor "the intelligentsia", have noticed these people.

We were talking about media. And they are noticed, and judged.

Levi,
instead of being bitchy at each other, we could just settle it.
I am of the opinion, that most Thematic Gamers draw their inspiration from the same sources as most other gamers. But instead of taking the mass-media fort their escapist and camp value, they try to make them "meaningful" and "intellectual".
Which is bullshit, swinery.

It´s trivialized mass-media stories they re-tell, and want to pass it off as art.
Whereas, it´s just the same "art" as any continued reception of mass-media.

The bolded part seperates the cool gamer dude from the swine.