Quote from: Nexus;807755This is a good point that tends to be forgotten. Many games and settings that didn't catch Hell before would be pilloried in today gaming atmosphere. Gaming as a whole seemed less driven and obsessed with political correctness and social justice crusading via Let's Pretend. Whether that's good or bad is a matter of taste (and degree) but it is something to keep in mind. Look at some of the "fixes" in the remakes of Vampire, for example.

Personally, I think role play gaming needs to pull the stick out of its collective ass and lighten up but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

And articles like this are why.

There is such a thing as taking yourself too seriously or worrying about fun too much. Sure, you can keep these sorts of things in mind, make a statement about them in your games if you like but the ceaseless finger wagging and preaching has grown incredibly tedious, to me at least.

The whole time I was reading it I heard it in this voice:

Ha!

Yeah, that article is getting kind of hammered on rpg.net so that definitely tells you something (and restores a bit of my faith in humanity...)

The current atmosphere of the RPG community online is a madhouse of totally insane lunatics with the sane people generally staying out of it all. The Current atmosphere of the public RPG community is about the same as its been from the get go. Average folk with no idea of how fruitcake things have gotten online. With a a gradual creep in of madness around the fringes as the lunatics from online exert occasional influence over conventions.

Easy solution: Don't read it!

Sounds like the guy who wrote it came from Mars or something. A very alien mindset. It's a game. I run over people in GTA, but I don't do that (yet) in real life.

Quote from: Omega;807781The current atmosphere of the RPG community online is a madhouse of totally insane lunatics with the sane people generally staying out of it all. The Current atmosphere of the public RPG community is about the same as its been from the get go. Average folk with no idea of how fruitcake things have gotten online. With a a gradual creep in of madness around the fringes as the lunatics from online exert occasional influence over conventions.

This describes most fandoms really.

Quote from: Nexus;807769
And articles like this are why.

There is such a thing as taking yourself too seriously or worrying about fun too much. Sure, you can keep these sorts of things in mind, make a statement about them in your games if you like but the ceaseless finger wagging and preaching has grown incredibly tedious, to me at least.

What a dumbass article. Whatever happened to live and let live.

In the past I'd say ignore this crap, but I'm becoming more convinced that you can't afford that luxury anymore, because these people are actively trying to run people who don't agree with them out of the hobby. They do that by trying to control the narrative, and silence just concedes the battleground to them.

And it is a battleground because they don't want inclusiveness. They want supremacy of their views, which are themselves exclusionary. If something like the things in the article or cheesecake art make you feel unwelcome in the hobby then you have some hang ups you need to deal with, and it's not my responsibility to walk on egg shells lest I displease you.

My issue with the article is that it frames everything in moral terms. If it had just been talking about how to make your campaign more fun and interesting, I think some of the points it raises are fair enough (some overstated or misleading). My concern with number 1 is that I think it isn't how most people approach settings in the first place. I think most gamers understand there are a multitude of causes in history (which is one reason you have so many blog entries on things like geography, food production and trade). Historians don't subscribe to 10th century Great Man theory anymore, but that doesn't mean they have written off the importance of individuals at crucial moments or that people who wield a lot of political power are seen having no effect. What is true is many settings tend to focus on the political history in their history sections, but that is because you are trying to provide a broad overview of a big setting in a short space and an involved Social History of the Forgotten Realms is probably too dense for the needs of most gamers (and the social stuff is usually handled in the setting and culture section).

One concern I have any time a list like this emerges is I think us gamers are not all that great at managing nuance, and people take suggestions from these things to the extreme. I can imagine a well intentioned GM trying to avoid Great Man theory and instead creating a campaign that is railroad of larger impersonal forces like economics, mass movements and social structures. That seems even less fun than being overshadowed by important NPCs.

Want to know something strange?

I've seen people promoting this article and challenged it twice. I said:

"Is there any research indicating that people who play RPGs believe these things more or more often than people who don't play them? Or that they became more popular after RPGs became popular?
Or is the author just guessing that if they see a theme, then the game must automatically be perpetuating  their interpretation of that theme?"

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+CamBanks/posts/bKBDf6NPSWW

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+RonBlessing/posts/MV7gHYxKMhr

And in both cases the people immediately backed down from the stand the article takes, one saying:

"Good questions, all. Honestly I just take this article as an interesting GMing challenge—to think about what I'm including or not in my games, or what I even have control over as the GM."

...which makes WAY more sense than the bold claims the article makes. The other person I challenged on it basically said the exact same thing.

Which is really bizarre to me--it's like they don't mind spreading a really dumb article with a really dumb premise. Like whether it's true or not didn't seem to be an issue at all for them.

I can't understand people like that.

The author of the blog straight up refused to answer when I asked them the same question.

Is this just some sort of new strain of hyper anti-intellectualism?

Quote from: Zak S;807798Want to know something strange?

I've seen people promoting this article and challenged it twice. I said:

"Is there any research indicating that people who play RPGs believe these things more or more often than people who don't play them? Or that they became more popular after RPGs became popular?
Or is the author just guessing that if they see a theme, then the game must automatically be perpetuating  their interpretation of that theme?"

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+CamBanks/posts/bKBDf6NPSWW

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+RonBlessing/posts/MV7gHYxKMhr

And in both cases the people immediately backed down from the stand the article takes, one saying:

"Good questions, all. Honestly I just take this article as an interesting GMing challenge—to think about what I'm including or not in my games, or what I even have control over as the GM."

...which makes WAY more sense than the bold claims the article makes. The other person I challenged on it basically said the exact same thing.

Which is really bizarre to me--it's like they don't mind spreading a really dumb article with a really dumb premise. Like whether it's true or not didn't seem to be an issue at all for them.

I can't understand people like that.

The author of the blog straight up refused to answer when I asked them the same question.

Is this just some sort of new strain of hyper anti-intellectualism?

I do think it assumes a lot about how games are played. Some of the reactions I have seen to it online have been people going point by point, and showing that they already do much of what the writer suggests.

Kudos to anyone who managed to make it through the whole article...I've read some long, bad, pieces online, and I'm not opposed to seriously considering crazy theories, but yowzers.

Actually, having read this, it's not that bad.

No, seriously. Yes, there is a certain (thick) layer of preachines and smugness about it, but ultimately, if you'd strip such, you'd be left with good ideas how to challenge your role - playing games. Old ideas for most, yes (create more cohesive worlds, forego the alignment system in relation to orcs, don't always create "Man From Nowhere" characters etc. etc.) but decent ones none the less, if someone was only playing D&D and curious to discover more. I've seen true ideological drivel, and this is not it.

It could be presented better, but it at least actually goes into ways of suggesting how to make your gaming more deep (if you are into that sort of thing), rather than just accuse you of being -ist if you don't.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;807791One concern I have any time a list like this emerges is I think us gamers are not all that great at managing nuance, and people take suggestions from these things to the extreme. I can imagine a well intentioned GM trying to avoid Great Man theory and instead creating a campaign that is railroad of larger impersonal forces like economics, mass movements and social structures. That seems even less fun than being overshadowed by important NPCs.

Which of course, would be just as silly in reverse. Did the first 30 years of unsuccesful socialist economical policies stop anyone in the USSR? Would War of the Roses occur if Edward the Black Prince hadn't shat himself to death in Spain? Would American and French Revolution succeed, or even occur, if Louis the XVI hadn't a horrible bone to grind with the English, enough that he was willing to bankrupt his realm in order to spit in their eye? Or on that note, if he was not trafficking important titles to husbands of his lovers.

And of course, behind all of them are other people, driving their ambitions and decisions. Ultimately, history is made by a very convoluted mess, but to disregard the role of individuals as a whole is just another extremity.

O look, another Internet talking head generalizing his dumb junior high D&D gaming group's problems to all of RPGdom.

I read that blog and the only thing I wanted to ask the author was, "I thought that RPGs were supposed to be played for entertainment? You know, to have fun?"

Quote from: The Butcher;807803O look, another Internet talking head generalizing his dumb junior high D&D gaming group's problems to all of RPGdom.

Actually, while why you say has some validity, I think it's a disturbing oversimplification to characte...


No, wait, I don't. You're totally spot-on Butcher.