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. (http://mythcreants.com/blog/five-destructive-myths-perpetuated-by-roleplaying-games/)
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:
(http://i.imgur.com/cq370Gj.jpg?1)
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. (http://mythcreants.com/blog/five-destructive-myths-perpetuated-by-roleplaying-games/)
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.
I've heard variations of some parts of that article coming out of my own mouth at times... mostly as a reaction to other forms of entertainment. Most of what he's on about seems way more common in video games and action movies than it does any RPGs I've played in.
Quote from: Zak S;807798"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?"
Good questions.
QuoteWhich 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.
Articles like that are just click bait. Various "news" outlets (print and online) have published similarly unsourced, vague, generalized, crap articles on all sorts of scare topics and have done so for years. And for as long as that has been done, people have been really happy to pass those articles along.
Quote from: jeff37923;807806I 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?"
Exactly! Its fun, its a story. No one (or God I hope not) is modeling their lives and attitudes off of rpg. If you want to address those "myths" in your games because it makes them more fun, go for it. But its not some kind of moral duty to make your Let's Pretend time is proper.
The article would have been much more palatable if its tone had been more "Here's some ideas to make your rpg sessions more interesting and detailed" than "You're doing it wrong", IMO.
Quote from: Bren;807810Articles like that are just click bait. Various "news" outlets (print and online) have published similarly unsourced, vague, generalized, crap articles on all sorts of scare topics and have done so for years. And for as long as that has been done, people have been really happy to pass those articles along.
Quote from: Nexus;807811Exactly! Its fun, its a story. No one (or God I hope not) is modeling their lives and attitudes off of rpg. If you want to address those "myths" in your games because it makes them more fun, go for it. But its not some kind of moral duty to make your Let's Pretend time is proper.
Yeah, everything stated by the author should be prefaced by the statement, "Within the context of most RPGs, the author believes....". As is, the article reminds me of some of the published screeds of Pat Pulling from the 80's in their implied belief that how we play our games is how we live our lives in the real world.
Quote from: jeff37923;807813Yeah, everything stated by the author should be prefaced by the statement, "Within the context of most RPGs, the author believes....". As is, the article reminds me of some of the published screeds of Pat Pulling from the 80's in their implied belief that how we play our games is how we live our lives in the real world.
Meh. I just mentally prefix that in front of any post on the internet I ever read... but that said, I've rarely seen a "well, that's just your opinion" reply when the commenter agreed with an article.
So.
The stuff in the article looks like it would fit fine in any text about worldbuilding; the world runs regardless of what PC's do, PC's didn't spring into being at the start of the campaign, you could try talking to the monsters. It's not saying that players believe in these concepts, or that they encourage players to believe in these concepts, but that the concepts are dull and perpetuated for the sake of it than for any value they have.
Ironically though, the replies have drawn out something about online RPG culture; the thin-skinned, "any discussion of my hobby that isn't framed how I like it is an attack!", petulant nature of it. It's just an article saying that some tropes in some games are a bit crap.
Quote from: Ladybird;807818Ironically though, the replies have drawn out something about online RPG culture; the thin-skinned, "any discussion of my hobby that isn't framed how I like it is an attack!", petulant nature of it. It's just an article saying that some tropes in some games are a bit crap.
Yes, the Pearl - Clutch factor has grown over the years.
I blame banning of the more prolific trolls. Back in the BT days, nothing short of Killing Orcs is Holocaust provoked such flames.
Quote from: Ladybird;807818Ironically though, the replies have drawn out something about online RPG culture; the thin-skinned, "any discussion of my hobby that isn't framed how I like it is an attack!", petulant nature of it. It's just an article saying that some tropes in some games are a bit crap.
If its framed from the opening salvo with loaded words like "destructive" and "dark side", I don't blame people for interpreting the rant as an attack. Not to mention the unsubtle message of the Cowboy & Indians image. It's very obvious that if you're playing with those tropes you're engaging in destructive badwrongfun.
I'm very far from being convinced an article written by some random blogger too big for his own soapbox typifies anything about the "current atmosphere in RPG culture." It's part of the noise, not the signal.
Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;807828I'm very far from being convinced an article written by some random blogger too big for his own soapbox typifies anything about the "current atmosphere in RPG culture." It's part of the noise, not the signal.
Agreed... but his tone does coincide with positions I've seen a lot of my non-gamer friends taking over the past few years. A knee-jerk SJW stance aimed at making the person feel more enlightened and therefore suited to pointing out all the ills of the world from on high. Like the Church Lady sketch without the church... where you replace 'Satan!' with 'Old White Men!'.
Quote from: Ladybird;807818It's not saying that players believe in these concepts, or that they encourage players to believe in these concepts, but that the concepts are dull and perpetuated for the sake of it than for any value they have...It's just an article saying that some tropes in some games are a bit crap.
Not at all--it is not making that modest claim.
It is
literally saying they encourage players to believe these concepts. Or at least believe them longer.
It says "5 Destructive Myths
Perpetuated By RPGs" not "5 Ideas I Am Bored Of That Are
Perpetuated In RPGS"--which would be a regular old blog post.
That's what the word "perpetuate" means. It means that the Myths would go away faster if not for the RPGs they are in. There is
no other literal interpretation of the title.
Your interpretation requires that the author meant something different than what they wrote--which is fine. But then they're still spreading misinformation and should go back and change the title in case anyone believes it.
Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;807828I'm very far from being convinced an article written by some random blogger too big for his own soapbox typifies anything about the "current atmosphere in RPG culture." It's part of the noise, not the signal.
I more meant the whole overly obsessed with being political correct, typifying different opinion is not just different or not for you but actively bad and destructive or assuming that someone way of playing D and D or Champions describes their entire moral and ethical outlook and even day to day behavior.
And if they don't agree with you, of course, they are the enemy, probably corrupt bigots that kick babies. The article isn't sole damning proof but its seems pretty typical of that sort ofo thing which, IME, is popping up more and more.
Its not that the author has opinions. Everyone has them. It how they're framed and presented. As righteous moral guidelines from Mt Superiority.
My thoughts on the "five great myths" in the OP link:
1) It's a game, not a theory of history. Most player-characters in games such as old D&D or Boot Hill end up dead without becoming "great men." On the other hand, they undertake adventures more exciting than being shop clerks and housewives because having fun doing that is what play (as opposed to pedantry) is about.
2) Again there's the common-sense consideration that maybe people who can't tell the difference between games and real life should pay more attention to the latter. And again it depends on which game you choose to play - a matter more of the group of participants than of any handbook.
3) This is getting old, but once again It's a game! You want to play Follow the Freeway Signs to the Shopping Mall, suit yourself. Take a look at the subjects favored for stories, and the structures of things called games, among people throughout history all over the world.
4) No, it's not a surprise to most people. Hmmm....
5) Didn't you get the memo? The whole hobby is a plot by Satan! Get out of it now, and say no more of it.
It's not "RPG culture," I've noticed this influx of hyper politically correct finger-wagging internet social justice phenomena in all forms the last few years. Games, anime, movies, comics, social etiquette, sex, you name it.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;807849It's not "RPG culture," I've noticed this influx of hyper politically correct finger-wagging internet social justice phenomena in all forms the last few years. Games, anime, movies, comics, social etiquette, sex, you name it.
Very true, its not just role playing but that subject of site and one of the things I care the most about. But yeah this is an era of shame, divisiveness and outrage which are ironically mostly hammered home by cries for inclusiveness, understanding and acceptance.
Quote from: Zak S;807833Your interpretation requires that the author meant something different than what they wrote--which is fine. But then they're still spreading misinformation and should go back and change the title in case anyone believes it.
Yeah, I'd agree with that - it's got a clickbait title. I don't feel that detracts from the actual content of the article, though.
Sadly, accurate titling on the internet is a lost art.
Quote from: Nexus;807850this is an era of shame and outrage which is ironically mostly hammered home by cries for inclusiveness, understanding and acceptance.
Ain't that the truth.
Quote from: Ladybird;807855Yeah, I'd agree with that - it's got a clickbait title. I don't feel that detracts from the actual content of the article, though.
Sadly, accurate titling on the internet is a lost art.
I don't think you can say that accurate titling is a lost art. The author/publisher used exactly the titling they intended for their purpose - which was a cynical ploy to gain clicks via scare titles and manufactured controversy.
(http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/150105_a18715-600.jpg)
"Use your White Privilege, Luke."
(thanks to The New Yorker)
I think the big problem is that the internet has validaed the hobby of talking and theorizing about RPGs over and separate from the hobby of playing RPGs, leading to an influx in the RPG online communities of people who don't actually play RPGs and understand them only as a social exercise.
Couple this with the rise in popularity in the school systems of marxist pseudo-feminists and you have online geek communication as it stands.
I hate the term "geek culture" btw. I don't feel that because I happen to play the same game or enjoy the same film or TV as someone else that equals a "culture". Especially when an artform as a whole (like comicbooks) is being equated to single monogamous culture, which would be as absurd as claiming music, as a whole, engenders "music culture", or anyone who reads books is a part of "book culture". There is literally nothing binding together someone who reads Vertigo comics, Strangers in Paradise and Concrete to someone who reads JLA, Superman and Batman or someone who exclusively reads Manga.
In the same vein, every rpg group is a unique entity and a midwestern died-in-the-wool classic D&D group is not going to bear any resemblance to a group in Oregon playing Call of Cthulhu. And that's completely Americano-centric.
Ther eis also, on top of all of this, the WAY too common fallacy that online internet forums are representative of a hobby. My estimate based on experience is that 90% or more of roleplyers have never set foot in an online forum group, let alone become an active poster.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;807786This describes most fandoms really.
I wish that were not so very very true.
Quote from: ArrozConLeche;807788In 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.
Welcome to subculture fandom.
Seriously, this is not remotely anything new. No doubt partisans of gladiatorial combat in Rome believed the paradigms and tribulations of the Colosseum to permeate the entire Empire, if not the entire world.
I'm with Zak S: if the author had written a screed about common RPG tropes that bored him, yay, great, carry on. But inferring that our weird little hobby's responsible for perpetuating the Great Man myth? Seriously? There are only three possibilities: that he's drunk, stupid or trolling us all. The guy really, badly needs to get laid, stop working the night shift at Kinko's, and move out of his parents' basement.
One of my biggest issues with that article is with their mentioning of the Great Man school of thought. It's something for historians to debate (inasmuch as there's much debate left to be had), not for gamers to worry about; you can't bitch about Great Man theory leaking into your game session and bitch about deprotagonization at the same time.
So yeah. Your Jedi, your Gray Warden, your Spectre, your secret agent, your archmage, your superhero, your whatever? They're a big deal. It's not because, historically speaking and in the real world, individual people really alter the course of history all by themselves, it's because in a fucking game, especially one based on certain tropes from popular fiction, individual people do all the time, and, in fact, one could argue that's the whole damned point.
Quote from: Critias;807940One of my biggest issues with that article is with their mentioning of the Great Man school of thought. It's something for historians to debate (inasmuch as there's much debate left to be had), not for gamers to worry about; you can't bitch about Great Man theory leaking into your game session and bitch about deprotagonization at the same time.
.
This part of the article has been bugging me more and more. I think part of the issue is that point #1 is really about having a fully realized setting where your PCs actions have impact beyond themselves (so the GM is to encouraged to think about the consequences of their actions on the local villagers for example and eventually the PCs should know about that). This is all reasonable, but I am not sure what it has to do with Great Man Theory. Great Many Theory is about history, not the present, and what the writer is describing is more dealing with your setting's present not its past (in fact there is no real talk of setting history I can see there). I am also getting the contradiction to point to here. Also, it is worth pointing out that Great Man theory is really quite old and not something that has been taken seriously for a long, long time (individuals can still be important, historians just no longer reduce historical causes to the actions of a few great men).
I love it when people who express disdain for broad generalizations use terms like "RPG Culture". I am not part of any geek "culture". My hobby is not my culture. I actually find the term offensive.
Also, I don't understand #1. He wants us to be aware of the Great Man theory and how it is mostly false. Okay? Sure, and magic, lightsabers and Cthulhu aren't real either.
This guy must really hate the hero's journey too.
EDIT: he's coming off like the villain from the Baron Munchausen, who has a war hero (Sting) executed because his greater-than-life actions are impossible to follow by the regular troops and are thus poor for morale.
Quote from: Necrozius;807952EDIT: he's coming off like the villain from the Baron Munchausen, who has a war hero (Sting) executed because his greater-than-life actions are impossible to follow by the regular troops and are thus poor for morale.
That was Sting?!
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;807962That was Sting?!
(http://dialmformoviesblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/sting.jpg)
Quote from: Omega;807964(http://dialmformoviesblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/sting.jpg)
I never noticed.
TO be fair, it was a Gilliam film, so A LOT going on...visually. To this day I'm still noticing new things in Time Bandits.