Is Spirit of the Century a 'swine' game? If so, why?

Quote from: obryn;242337It's a ridiculous classification used primarily (possibly exclusively) by posters on this site to feel like they're better than folks who play games they don't like.

I'm just going with the Pundit's definition here and I wouldn't say it's totally unfair or unnecessary. My gaming history is CRPG -> cargo-cult D&D/CRPG homebrew -> White Wolf -> Forge -> D&D -> vaguely forgey/D&D knockoff homebrew, and I can assure you it's a very different feeling whether you're playing for fun or if you're trying to achieve something "above" that.

That said, Gleichman's crapping on anything story-oriented is unfair, if he's ragging on any game where trying to weave the game events into a good story is an important part of play. For some of us, that's just as much a part of the ordinary everyday fun as the tactics or the narrow-sense-of-the-word roleplaying.

EDIT: Though I see he's not, and implicitly limiting his discussion to a subset of the category I'm talking about. But I still disagree with any implication that such rules should be taken as a sign that a game might be swinish.

I would say, although I don't use the term much, that swine game is game designed without considering the players. Game which doesn't expect to provide fun and excitement to its consumers but rather offers some garbage instead pretending that this garbage is important and that it educates you about something and usually, that it is really innovative stuff.

Say, would anyone consider it swinish to be snobbish about how "realistic" a game's mechanics are?

EDIT since no one else has posted after this yet:

Quote from: gleichman;242266especially if the subject drifts into what used to be morally questionable areas.

Like killing?

Who cares, Vaecrius? It's like asking whether people consider a game "rules light" or "rules medium" or whatever. It's entirely subjective.

I don't think any single-word description of a game is enough to tell us much about it. There's a reason we have reviews.

Quote from: gleichmanmorally questionable areas.

So Dungeons and Dragons is "swine game" because you can kill people and killing, even in self defense is still considered moraly questionable, or play (and I think in some editions roll) evil character, who do moraly questionable deeds by definition of being evil...

Basicaly you just wrote taht all games in existence are swine games, cos they allow you and have rules for doing moraly questionable deeds.

"Swine" is an attitude nothing more.

Regards,
David R

A "Swine Game" is...is...

...I think it's a lot like "horse feathers".

Between obsession and passion, there is...swine.

new from Calvin Kline.

Quote from: David R;242352"Swine" is an attitude nothing more.

Regards,
David R

This.

Remember how the GNS crowd say no game is narrativist, only players' agendas can be narrativist?

A game cannot be swinish, it's people who can have a swinish attitude. It's no game's fault, it's people's fault.

Liking a Forgie game doesn't make you a swine, just as liking D&D doesn't make you a swine. What makes you a swine is thinking you're somehow better than fans of game y if you play game x.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;242340Is Spirit of the Century a 'swine' game? If so, why?

One of the interesting things that happened during the Brain Damage period, is that Fred from Spirit of the Century denounced Ron as a bigot. Although I think they made up later that year at the following GenCon, what we know now is that "brain damage" was the actual beginning of the end for Ron- the moment that the masked slipped in public, (and his 3 or 4 loyal followers who stood with him have lost credibility right alongside him).

But I agree with Claudius up above.

Quote from: Fritzs;242350So Dungeons and Dragons is "swine game" because you can kill people and killing, even in self defense is still considered moraly questionable,

Note the quote I used was rather specific- "used to be questionable". Killing by itself used to considered a neutral act as it could be either good or bad, while Rape can never be good- only bad.

That is traditional morality. Thus Swine game = abandoning traditional morality as *part* of the defintion.

But being something of a Swine yourself, I know your goal is to claim that they don't exist. Myself, I don't care that much about debating your goal or Pundit's. So I'll leave further debate to you and him.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;242364Between obsession and passion, there is...swine.

new from Calvin Kline.

Win.

gleichman: So, there are wery few swine games, I think i can name all of them:

FATAL, but you could argue, that you don't have to rape and kill in this game...
RaHoWa, there I cannot find any excuse...
Poison'd probably also count but one could argue that you don't need to play insane murderer/rapist...
Kill Puppies for Satan, but killing animals isn't considered bad, cos they are animals, satan worship, as long as it doesn't include murder, rape public obscenity isn't considered bad as well... so I guess this one isn't swine game

So it looks like we ended up just with RaHoWa, for which really no excuse can be found... and I am perfectly OK with calling RaHoWa swine game

The usage of 'swine' when this board first formed was much of why I took one look and didn't come back until recently.

Game fora have enough problems without the gibbering and chest pounding.