This thread has the potential to be one of the RPGSite-i-est threads.

We've got Black Vulmea already on the noble counter-defensive, and Omnifray talking about...whatever it is Omnifray talks about.

BV, I think your general point in the OP about "designers who are primarily math-masturbators" is fair, but introducing it with the quote from Ian has perhaps made some folks think your intent with the conversation is more specific than intended.

Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;689869Welcome to the Grand Temple of the OneTrueWay.

Right. Because nowhere else on the Internet is there OneTrueWay, and no other clique of gamers has OneTrueWay it propounds.

In particular, Cheneybeast/Ian Johnson, in the interview I quoted from 3 posts up, where he says in effect that the only acceptable way to play games is to let players talk as their unconscious characters / characters in different rooms, he's not indulging in any kind of OneTrueWay elitism at all. Sure.

Quote from: Omnifray;689873Right. Because nowhere else on the Internet is there OneTrueWay, and no other clique of gamers has OneTrueWay it propounds.

In particular, Cheneybeast/Ian Johnson, in the interview I quoted from 3 posts up, where he says in effect that the only acceptable way to play games is to let players talk as their unconscious characters / characters in different rooms, he's not indulging in any kind of OneTrueWay elitism at all. Sure.

"MY One True Way is the CORRECT One True Way.  YOUR One True Way is a FALSE One True way and must be destroyed!"



Now ALL of you git offa my lawn!

Well I've GMed a fuck ton of games for Ian and he's a fantastic roleplayer. So don't worry your pretty little heads too much.

Quote from: Cheneybeast;689851The fact is, it's a lot easier for me to set up probability worksheets and write design theories on my laptop at home every day than it is for me to get my friends over to test things every time I have an idea. .

I can relate to this.  Just about every day at work on a conference call that I don't have to pay attention to, I'm working on game design

Can't exactly do actual gaming then though.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;689855I just want you to know that that's where I stopped reading your post.

If you want to climb down from that cross you built, we'll talk.

In all fairness, you put him there yourself with the first post.

Quote from: Cheneybeast;689851Hey VM, I'm Ian, that guy destroying RPGs. I'm pretty new in the industry, so I'm small enough that I like to apply that "personal touch" and reply to comments.

Imma chime and join the voices strongly suggesting you not post here.

'cause TheRPGSite is a reactionary forum. The dominate clique are convinced that everything anyone talks about is a dismissive attempt to belittle people who  share their neckbeardy ways. 'cause they're projecting and almost everything they talk about is a dismissive attempt to belittle people who don't share their neckbeardy ways.

Quote from: gamerGoyf;689878Imma chime and join the voices strongly suggesting you not post here.

'cause TheRPGSite is a reactionary forum. The dominate clique are convinced that everything anyone talks about is a dismissive attempt to belittle people who  share their neckbeardy ways. 'cause they're projecting and almost everything they talk about is a dismissive attempt to belittle people who don't share their neckbeardy ways.

Wow.  This post is full of irony.  Complaining about people being dismissive of others in the same sentence as dismissing them yourself with comments like "neckbeard."  Good job on that.

Quote from: gamerGoyf;689878Imma chime and join the voices strongly suggesting you not post here.

'cause TheRPGSite is a reactionary forum. The dominate clique are convinced that everything anyone talks about is a dismissive attempt to belittle people who  share their neckbeardy ways. 'cause they're projecting and almost everything they talk about is a dismissive attempt to belittle people who don't share their neckbeardy ways.

Fuck off then, you little shit.

You add A - Little or B - Nothing to this place other than annoyance.

You're almost certainly A - A sock-puppet of a previously banned Denner or B - A new Denner with your head up your arse.

Oh, and the first sentence again.

Quote from: gamerGoyf;689878Imma chime and join the voices strongly suggesting you not post here.

'cause TheRPGSite is a reactionary forum. The dominate clique are convinced that everything anyone talks about is a dismissive attempt to belittle people who  share their neckbeardy ways. 'cause they're projecting and almost everything they talk about is a dismissive attempt to belittle people who don't share their neckbeardy ways.

* pisses on gamerGoyf's head *

Quote from: One Horse Town;689880Fuck off then, you little shit.

You add A - Little or B - Nothing to this place other than annoyance.

You're almost certainly A - A sock-puppet of a previously banned Denner or B - A new Denner with your head up your arse.

Oh, and the first sentence again.

You are, after all, referring to the creature that started a thread on "How do I not get banned at RPGnet," and then ignored all the advice and went there and started a thread that pretty much began with "You're a bunch of fuckwits" and wondered why he got banned.

Whether or not you like the place, that's a stupid way to start a thread.

It would help if game designers would bother to think in terms of playable space.

Rifts, for example, is a product line that can be (and has been, by me) explained as "many games sharing a brand identity" when talking to business-minded sorts.  This is because there are multiple playable spaces within that product line, each of which could be spun off into its own game (as we see, in reverse, with supplements such as The Mechanoids, where Siembieda took a stand-alone product line and integrated it into the Rifts brand).

With just the Coalition States alone you have a Post-Apocalyptic Vietnam game (a campaign focused upon Coalition Army infantry personnel--Grunts and Specialists--and their experiences directly fighting the enemies of the States), two distinct forms of Espionage games (the 24 model, using a lot of Dog Boys and Psi Stalkers vs. external threats; the Homeland/CSI/Criminal Minds/NCIS model, using Intelligence agents and (more or less) sanctioned telepaths vs. internal threats), and you have the Police (Gendarme, really) Procedural model in a less-than-civil environment as an alternative if you're not into the full-bore spy game.

Each of these subsets of the setting is a distinct--but not necessarily hard-bounded--game due to its possession of a clear space wherein one can discern a gameplay structure that is as easy to comprehend and execute as the dungeon crawl of D&D or the investigation of the unusual of CoC.  What, I think, contributes to the continued success of Rifts is that it contains so many playable spaces within its product line and brand identity and does not hard-wall them apart as some others do.

That said, not all playable spaces are equal. What works in passive media is not necessarily applicable to the tabletop RPG medium, which is a medium of active participation by the user and thus compels a completely different mode of thought from both user and maker.  Fiction centered around a unit whose primary playable activity vs. external challenges, such as a fighter squadron or a ship's crew, simply becomes boring as fuck in tabletop RPGs (which is why they are few, far between, and often best adapted as part of a ruined milieu as the Invid Invasion subset of Robotech shows) due to the significant--even severe--differences between those media; this makes such spaces not-so-playable, vs. the classic adventuring company (or mercenary company) of D&D and those games like them.

The best game designers, often in there own language, acknowledge that this is so and do their best to build their works around such playable spaces.

Quote from: One Horse Town;689880Fuck off then, you little shit.

You add A - Little or B - Nothing to this place other than annoyance.

You're almost certainly A - A sock-puppet of a previously banned Denner or B - A new Denner with your head up your arse.

Oh, and the first sentence again.

Personally my vote is for 'just discovered the dorm wifi is an alternative to having friends.'

This topic is shaping up to be a great example of too much theory and ego wank overtaking actual play.

Keep up the good work! :cheerleader:

Quote from: Black Vulmea;689853I said absolutely nothing about Stab City.

OK, so you said "Why so many games suck", then you cited Ian's comment.  Ian wrote Stab City!, that's the only game I am aware of that would connect to your "Why so many games suck" comment.  If you didn't mean that game, and you meant games in general, then it would make no sense as you'd have to know Ian's game sucks to be able to say that Ian's comment is what leads to games sucking.  If Stab City! is awesome, that it immediately disproves your claim.  Which is something you'd want to know before making the comment you made - particularly given your comment is judging someone based on whether they play games.

So, if you didn't mean Stab City!, then your comment sucks.  You should have played Stab City! first, given the nature of your critique of his comment.

QuoteI commented on an attitude toward game design that I think leads to crap games. Stab City may or may not be one of those games, but whether it is or not is, to me, irrelevant to the larger point, that, in my experience, so-called game designers who are more interested in "cute math tricks" tend to produce boring games.

Yeah, that's a load of bullshit, it's absolutely relevant because you MADE it personal to Ian by naming him and relating it to him.  If "Game Designers who Say X" = "Games Suck", and Ian = "Game Designer Who Says X", then you're saying Ian's game sucks.

But you have not read Ian's game, much less played it.  You have no clue if his game sucks.

Therefore we can conclude from this that critics like yourself who make a bash on a particular named designer for his attitude, who have never even fucking laid a single eye on that game, suck.  That is, through and through, the logic of your post.

Seriously dude, that was a shitty thing you did.  I usually agree with your posts, but this one is embarrassing.  WTF were you thinking calling him out by name for not playing games when you never played his games? Now you just look like a hypocrite telling game designers to do as you say and not as you do - as you can't be bothered to even play a game whose designer you will gleefully bash for not playing a game.

Quote from: Mistwell;689892OK, so you said "Why so many games suck", then you cited Ian's comment.  Ian wrote Stab City!, that's the only game I am aware of that would connect to your "Why so many games suck" comment.  If you didn't mean that game, and you meant games in general, then it would make no sense as you'd have to know Ian's game sucks to be able to say that Ian's comment is what leads to games sucking.  If Stab City! is awesome, that it immediately disproves your claim.  Which is something you'd want to know before making the comment you made - particularly given your comment is judging someone based on whether they play games.

So, if you didn't mean Stab City!, then your comment sucks.  You should have played Stab City! first, given the nature of your critique of his comment.



Yeah, that's a load of bullshit, it's absolutely relevant because you MADE it personal to Ian by naming him and relating it to him.  If "Game Designers who Say X" = "Games Suck", and Ian = "Game Designer Who Says X", then you're saying Ian's game sucks.

But you have not read Ian's game, much less played it.  You have no clue if his game sucks.

Therefore we can conclude from this that critics like yourself who make a bash on a particular named designer for his attitude, who have never even fucking laid a single eye on that game, suck.  That is, through and through, the logic of your post.

Seriously dude, that was a shitty thing you did.  I usually agree with your posts, but this one is embarrassing.  WTF were you thinking calling him out by name for not playing games when you never played his games? Now you just look like a hypocrite telling game designers to do as you say and not as you do - as you can't be bothered to even play a game whose designer you will gleefully bash for not playing a game.

I'm gonna stick my pecker in the sausage grinder here because I obviously haven't learned better.

"I like game design more than I like actually playing games" is not a quotation that inspires ME with a whole lot of confidence either, actually.

Most of the outstanding game authors of my youth were gamers first and foremost and wrote games to get the kind of games they wanted to play.

The quotation above is like a fiction writer saying "I like writing better than I like reading."  It makes me suspicious as hell.

Grind away.