I'll start by admitting I am one, just to be safe.

I came up with this term while teasing :pundit: about F:tA!
---
We've all heard of BNG's. Bitter non-gamers. Scourge of the hobby and the websites people blather about the hobby on. We accuse people we don't like of being them sometimes. We join their fetid, wangsty ranks sometimes too when moving to a new place or are consumed by life outside of gaming.

But this is to warn y'all of a greater threat: bitter non-designers. Aka every bastard who said "game x sucks" and fails to explain why in a manner that doesn't invoke an episode of the Star Trek animated series. The shmucks who spam endlessly about D&D, WoD, Exalted, Wushu, DitV, MLwM, KPfS etc etc etc on and on, saying this is broken or that is swinish.

How many of these people actually are game designers? Moreover, how many of these people are published? Even better, how many actually are happy with their jobs as game designers? Very few I'm sure.

I can think of one guy who has made the majority of his way in life through designing RPGs, and that's Monte Cook, who's (apparently) about to quit and try something else after making a WoD book. Bravo for him; he's got a great resume from designing some good stuff in the 90's, 3rd edition for this decade which was an adrenaline shot for RPGs in this age of YuGiOh and other CCG crack...and THEN he makes some d20 pretty much on a whim with some buddies through Malhavoc and most of it's pretty damn good too! (And don't get me started on Arcana Evolved and the madness that is Ptolus.) So now he gets to try something on the other side of the gamer divide with the World  of Darkness and can escape this madhouse a happy man.

Who else can say they've done that; to contribute like that and have the option and grace to bow out without flamewars? Certainly not the whiny sorts that populate some of places like RPGnet. The impression I get from reading design diaries and similar pieces is that designing RPGs, like any creative occupation, has high risks and very few material rewards for even fewer people than Hollywood. We're a niche, and the writers can't satisfy everyone...and certainly can't satisfy the legions of anal-retentive nitpickers that zerg-rush whatever doesn't fit their fantasy of what gaming or storytelling "should" be about.

So try not to complain too much about shoddy products. You have options. You can:

1. House-rule and/or homebrew, though you probably do it already.
2. Submit something through one of an increasing number of easy lisences - and not just d20.
3. :fuckoff: and :chillpill:. Maybe you need a break from the hobby or something.

After reading this rant over, I think I do. Thank goodness summer's coming up!

Non-designers...isn't it easier to say, gamers or fans or you know, everyone else ? As for the bitter part...

Regards,
David R

Yawn.  I've heard this one a million times before.  It was stupid then, and it's stupid now.  

I've even heard it regarding every concieveable type of entertainment.  I've heard it about RPGs, video games, books, movies, TV series, cross-stitching, and on and on and on.

"You can't criticize because you didn't/don't write/perform/sing/etc. yourself!"  This version's just as laced with amatuer psychology and idiotic implications of jealousy as the rest of them.

Fuck you.  I like what I like, and don't like what I don't like.  That's all the "credentials" I need, thank you very much, now take your silly fallacies elsewhere.

Yeah, moreover I could do without another disparaging label.  Those never add any substance to conversation.

As with designing, critiquing can have differing levels of quality.

As with the games, the critique´s quality can be found out by everybody himself.

What´s your point?
That there´s not a general culture of quality in critiqe?

Or that all critique has to stop because there is so much lowly-motivated and shoddily done critique?

:raise:
So now we not only need to be involved actively in a regularly scheduled campaign, as JimBob likes to remind us, but also to have published a roleplaying game as part of our much-loved career as a game designer in order to participate in online discussion of games without being negatively labeled in one way or another?
:forge:

As a label, "game designer" means about as much to me as "writer of fiction". Voyager slash is technically "fiction". The guys behind FATAL are game designers. I'm pretty comfortable with 'gamer', meaning 'one who plays and discusses roleplaying games'.

Here's an analogy:

I'm not very good at cooking. I don't cook for myself very often. I could probably learn how to, but my lifestyle is a little too busy at the moment, although I am picking things up bit by bit (and I'm already far, far better than the useless fool I was when I went to university). Suffice to say, I'm not a master chef and would never claim to be.

That said, when someone serves me a turd with a parsley garnish on it in a restaurant, I know that I've been served a plate of shit. I don't have to know how to cook to know that. I don't even have to know what the chef ate in order to produce the turd in question. I can tell.

"If you don't Create you can't Criticise!" is the mantra of idiots who can't handle criticism everywhere.

Quote from: WarthurHere's an analogy:

I'm not very good at cooking. I don't cook for myself very often. I could probably learn how to, but my lifestyle is a little too busy at the moment, although I am picking things up bit by bit (and I'm already far, far better than the useless fool I was when I went to university). Suffice to say, I'm not a master chef and would never claim to be.

That said, when someone serves me a turd with a parsley garnish on it in a restaurant, I know that I've been served a plate of shit. I don't have to know how to cook to know that. I don't even have to know what the chef ate in order to produce the turd in question. I can tell.

"If you don't Create you can't Criticise!" is the mantra of idiots who can't handle criticism everywhere.

Well put in every way sir.

Quote from: Warthur"If you don't Create you can't Criticise!" is the mantra of idiots who can't handle criticism everywhere.

Very True.

...and yet, I still would like to see an explanation of the phenomena we see in geek cultures all the time, where people who are often a cross between this:



(the snooty Finding Forrester professor who goes on and on criticising literature, without having ever written anything of value)

and this:



(no explanation needed)

...go on and on at length about the failings of games they are pre-disposed not to like.

Or is it as simple as, "They're a bunch of wining, bitter nerds?"

The only things worse than people who waste their lives playing games are the people who waste their lives designing games.

Quote from: Jared A. SorensenThe only things worse than people who waste their lives playing games are the people who waste their lives designing games.

Quote from: Jared A. SorensenThe only things worse than people who waste their lives playing games are the people who waste their lives designing games.

Sounds a little bitter to me.

Quote from: James McMurraySounds a little bitter to me.

Well, it is Jared. You expected maybe rainbows and ponies?

-clash

Oh SNAP I absolutely have to make rainbows and ponies more awesomer!

Quote from: David JohansenOh SNAP I absolutely have to make rainbows and ponies more awesomer!

Make them totally more awesomest - then watch the world beat a path to your door! Rainbows with sizzling acid attacks! Spiked ponies with cracked, bony carapaces! The world is waiting, David!



-clash