Ohh. Okay, great.
How about you objectively prove to me that you enjoy pipe smoking?
It's impossible? Great. There you go. No such proof can exist; I mean, you sound like you do, and you can probably tell me stories about it, but you can't, you know, actually prove it, can you?
Same deal.
Ah, but therein lies my point. I ENJOY pipe smoking.
I absolutely love it.
I'm not asking you to prove that you enjoy gaming theory, in fact I'm a hundred-percent absolutely certain that you do. That's the entire crux of my point.
What I can't prove is that pipe smoking makes people into more decent human beings.
I would like to think that, I almost believe it sometimes, when I look at the kind of guys who've smoked pipe; when I see my buddies in the pipe club, and notice how great they all are.
But in the end, that's just a feeling I get based on the fact that I really, REALLY like smoking a pipe.
Plus, there's always Josef Stalin. He smoked a pipe. Not a good guy.
What I'm saying, and what your very argument has unwittingly revealed, is that
gaming theorists like doing gaming theory in and of itself.
You're not doing gaming theory to be better gamers.
You're doing Gaming Theory because you really love sitting around theorizing about games!
And you might really, really, like it. But that doesn't mean it makes you a better Roleplayer for it, and it sure as hell doesn't mean that it'll make others better roleplayers for it. That's just an excuse you tell yourselves to justify spending your time doing Gaming theory, and for some gaming theorists to feel smug about what they're doing and lord it over gamers who aren't theorists.
Its like if I started telling others that they need to smoke a pipe to be more moral people, and claimed that this is why I smoke a pipe.
Why the subterfuge? Why not just admit it: you and all other gaming theorists don't do Gaming Theory for the sake of RPGs. You do it because you like Gaming Theory,
in and of itself!
Admit that, be happy, spend your time making up theories about games. Hell, in some cases if some of you admitted it then they might not be inclined to ever have to bother actually playing RPGs anymore, just like a total asshole thinking he has to be moral in order to smoke a pipe.
Others, might actually enjoy both gaming theory and RPGs, but will come to understand that they aren't doing one for the sake of the other, and at that point might be kind enough to stop trying to push it on the rest of us by claiming that you need gaming theory to do gaming well.
Look deep in your heart, and know that its true. That you like Gaming Theory for its own sake, otherwise you'd never be doing it.
And those of us who don't like it, don't appear to need it to be good Gamers. I'm willing to bet that I'm a better DM than many so-called gaming theorists, and I've never been "helped" by GNS.
So you aren't doing Theory because its something necessary to save or improve your gaming. You (and all other Gaming Theorists) are doing it because you like to make up smart-sounding theories about games. Case closed.
I'll remind you that your next post on this thread is the last one, then I have the last word and this thread comes to a close.
RPGPundit