Quote from: Erik BoielleThe shear bloody hypocrisy about talking about creator owned and using freelance artists and sundry support staff and writing partners gets to me.

Oh you are in a righteous outrage about the exploitation of support staff by so-called indie designers?  Come on, dude.  What about the engineers who built the machines and software that those supposed "creators" use as tools?  Not a mention in their "creator-owned" "games".  Lies, lies, lies!

Have you never bought a low-budget game or setting through the internet that was made by someone who is basically working as an individual and for whom game design is not their fulltime job?

Just to be clear on my position as it evolves, I am moving into an argumentative mode because while I do believe that there seems to have been a self-defined "movement" that tried to set itself apart from the rest of the hobby, and that may have been just cause for a negative reaction, I see little evidence of that movement in any coherent form being around any more.  What I see here is a particular concentration of bile and anger based on past resentment and I think it is just as bad for gaming as the pretentious snobs who tried to pretend they weren't geeks.

What will change my position is actual evidence of this swinish behaviour.  Erik has posted one current link that is a good example.  The poster in question, while sounding pretty smug, was in a minority in the referenced thread, thus not giving much credence to a swinish movement.

I am not going to go through and parse all 40 of Lev Lafayette's reviews to find the hidden "anti-true-point-of-D&D" agenda.  If someone wants to grab some specific sentences to point out what I am missing, it would be much appreciated.

The point you and Lev and the likes ar uttering against D&D are totally invalid, as has been pointed out by gaming discourse since the second issue of The Dragon.
I´m not inclined to repeat that another time.

The problem is, you have to see it for yourself, it´s sort of hard to communicate, it has to click in your brain. Playing the Game helps a lot with this, especially if you take the game for what it is, and not what you want from it, or you think you want from RPGs. All your statements show, that your preconceptions are way more narrow than you´d like them to be. You are the narrow minded one in this regard.

Take a look here:
http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3760&page=23

Quote from: SettembriniThe problem is, you have to see it for yourself, it´s sort of hard to communicate, it has to click in your brain.

Given this, isn't there some fear that the opposition has been invented rather than discovered?

Quote from: SettembriniThe problem is, you have to see it for yourself, it´s sort of hard to communicate, it has to click in your brain.

Sounding like a missionary never helped.

Every time I read a description of Swineism, I get slightly more confused about what it actually is.
 
Is someone a swine if they treat a simple tabletop roleplaying game as something akin to artwork?

So Swine is someone who criticizes D&D?

I respect D&D.  I started with the basic set way back and had a blast.  I came back to the hobby through 3.5 and played for several years.  While 3.5 is not to my playstyle at all, I do recognize it as a solid piece of work (at least until the splat books started getting way out of control).  But there is much to criticize about the system.  To say that it is some foundation of perfect game design is as ridiculous as arguing that the GM-Player relationship is inherently abusive.  The shiny-eyed worshipping of it as a system that is presented in the thread you linked to is as embarrassing as some of that Forge rhetoric.

Everything is open to criticism.  There is no one system that is the answer.  If you love D&D and it is the perfect game for you, that's great.  But you can't leap from there and try to tell me that because I don't like it, I therefore don't "get it" that I am somehow swine.

Honestly, it sounds to me like you are trying to impose the D&D model as being "real" roleplaying and anything else as some kind of affront to the hobby.  That's just as bad as what you criticize the swine as doing.

I´m not in the mood for playing Kindergarten all over again.

You have a problem understanding games and talk about games, and you have a problem understanding me. Which can be totally my fault. EDIT: I say that because your reply has things in it, that I totally did not say or alluded to. You misread everything I said, and I don´t have the nerves with your likes to clear that up.

I like to talk with knowledgable people about games I like. You are not one of them, you are a waste of my time.
And I´m probably for you.

Most of my reply was referring to the general tone of the thread you linked to. I should have been clearer.  But yes, I am having trouble understanding you, mostly because you throw out wild assertion after wild assertion with neither evidence nor reasoning behind it.  It does seem like we will gain nothing further from arguing back and forth about this.  I will keep an eye out for your posts on other subjects to see if I can see where you are coming from.  

Currently, it seems that you are against criticisms of D&D and believe that behind any criticism of D&D is some loaded anti-something agenda.  

I support maximum quantity and diversity of gaming.  Your position seems to deny the okayness of people to be dissatisfied with D&D and look for other games.  

I do not support the idea that D&D is not roleplaying or does not play an important role in the hobby.

Quote from: walkerpCurrently, it seems that you are against criticisms of D&D and believe that behind any criticism of D&D is some loaded anti-something agenda.

No, it's not criticism of D&D, it's the tone *of* that criticism. It's not saying "D&D sucks" it's saying "D&D sucks, and so do people who play it, the ignorant fuckheads". It's saying that D&D players only play D&D because they are sucking at the teat of WotC and cannot move on to "bigger and better things".

Quote from: walkerpI do not support the idea that D&D is not roleplaying or does not play an important role in the hobby.

Good!


Now that I've said that, I'm going to give you the perfect example of a Pundit swine. It's not D&D. It's not even online.

Go and rent (or re-watch if you happen to own it) High Fidelity, staring John Cusack. Pay close attention to Rob and Barry (especially Barry) and the way they treat their customers.

Here's an example quote:
Barry's Customer: Hi, do you have the song "I Just Called To Say I Love You?" It's for my daughter's birthday.
Barry: Yea we have it.
Barry's Customer: Great, Great, can I have it?
Barry: No, no, you can't.
Barry's Customer: Why not?
Barry: Well, it's sentimental tacky crap. Do we look like the kind of store that sells I Just Called to Say I Love You? Go to the mall.

Now you know what an RPGPundit swine is.

Quote from: Malcolm CraigInteresting [strokes chin, sips coffee, munches on Digestive biscuit]...

I see the terms "intellectual dishonesty", "pretentious" and so forth used with great frequency in many discussions here on the RPGsite. However, how do you know if someone is being intellectually dishonest?

Simple. If they're lying or making false foundations to back up their faulty theories.

QuoteAs for being pretentious, is that not sometimes and easy out?

Occasionally, but more often its the truth.

RPGPundit

Quote from: HalfjackGiven this, isn't there some fear that the opposition has been invented rather than discovered?

Yeah, see, I don't know about Settembrini; but I for one don't see it in my brain. I see it on the internet, all the time, in the posts these fuckers make.

Its pretty self-evident. And I think I get Sett's original point, which was that the Swine will always try to use semantic tricks like TonyLB does to try to claim that there's "no definition" for Swine (and that playing that argument game with them is a pointless action; stuff I agree with, only in the case of the Pistols challenge I had little choice). But the fact is that you need only look at the evidence of what these guys posted.

Walker: if you want more proof, check out the "exhibits" I posted over in the Pistols thread.

RPGPundit

Quote from: O'BorgEvery time I read a description of Swineism, I get slightly more confused about what it actually is.
 
Is someone a swine if they treat a simple tabletop roleplaying game as something akin to artwork?

Probably.
If they do that AND use it as an excuse to look down on/attack others, then definitely.

RPGPundit

Pretty successful troll I'd say... congratulations.

Quote from: ElectroKittyHere's an example quote:
Barry's Customer: Hi, do you have the song "I Just Called To Say I Love You?" It's for my daughter's birthday.
Barry: Yea we have it.
Barry's Customer: Great, Great, can I have it?
Barry: No, no, you can't.
Barry's Customer: Why not?
Barry: Well, it's sentimental tacky crap. Do we look like the kind of store that sells I Just Called to Say I Love You? Go to the mall.

Now you know what an RPGPundit swine is.

Very good example. And "Your game system is incoherent" or "You could do it better with Exalted!" is only the RPG equivalent of Barry.

RPGPundit