I came for the swamp and stayed for the monkeys.

I came here because I am all about supporting fellow pariahs. Though, I never had been thrown off RPGnet, I never go there anymore.
 
 The amount of support I received when my life looked the bleakest was also heartwarming. My response to that is with loyalty. RPGsite seems to be moderated in a... Libertarian manner, and I appreciate that.
 
 With that being said, not a whole lot of people I dislike...wait, there's only one jizzsucker I dislike. I won't mention names, because I don't want to summon his stupid ass.

Originally, I was content with RPG.net. Over time the administration, moderators and and then community made sure that certain RPGs, trends and gamers were not welcome over there.

So I came here.

In hindsight, this is incongruity turned to fucking 11.

I came over from rpg.net myself.  Actually, it was Pundit's enemies that made me aware of this site, and Pundit's war with them.  There was a thread over on rpg.net that spoke strange terms like 'Swine' and 'Forgites.'  That's really when I became aware that there was this division of gaming philosophies, and that there gaming theories like those of Ron Edwards.  I was curious and followed links, or looked up this site and the Forge.  

I'm here for the open and honest talk.  I'm here because this forum is like my private forum with my friends.  We can call bullshit when we see it without swift and unfounded retribution.  We can call someone a jerk, walk away, come back and have a vibrant discussion about role-playing games.

I'm not actively involved in this war between here and the Forge, and between Pundit and Edwardites.  I have no stake in it.  

Now, if in order to participate in this community I have to become an active soldier in Pundit's war, then I may have to rethink my involvement in this community.

I found this site by way of Pundit's blog, where he shouted and got very very angry about a bunch of things I had never heard of. I originally came here to see if I could figure out what the hell he was talking about.

I stayed because I like the discussions here. All the intense vitriol was fun when I first came, but I think things have settled down a lot (not that that's a bad thing)). Also there's a whole lot of people into a whole lot of games and a great deal of knowledge about how to GM fairly well. My AP thread here helped me through GMing one of my first long term campaigns and for that I'm hugely grateful.

I like the low moderation, the crowd that comes here, the games that get discussed, and just plain being able to get useful info.

I didn't even get an honorable mention as a Pundit hater in his "I quit" thread. I don't know why I'm even here, anymore.

Regards,
David R

I feel your pain man; Kyle called me inoffensive.

The poll is now closed. Thanks to the people who took part.

My 24 hours are over.

All that remains is to talk about the poll results, which i'll post in a bit.

Well, i promised a shit-storm and here it is. I want to stress again up-front that i'd like Pundit to respect my request in the post below. No witch-hunt, no idealogical baiting, but an opportunity to listen to the boards' ideas.

-----------------------------------------------------------

So, let's look at the results of the poll.

Considering the events of the last 24 hours or so, I'd like to think that anyone taking part was being honest. There were a couple of red herrings in there to deflect attention away from what I was looking for and they were all control questions for the one option I buried half way down. Who's going to say they are here to poke pundit when there was upheaval on the board and maybe they thought that was the purpose of the thread – to weed out the trolls?

Anyhoo, lets' go 1 result at a time.

Option 1 – Are you here for useful information & discussion of rpgs

Well, as it's an RPG board I'd expect so. The fact that 23% of the sample said no may be that they don't find the discussions useful, rather than that's not what they are here for. In a free-speech board the free-wheeling nature is bound to upset some discussion and diminish the usefulness to some folk.

Option 2 – It's a good size for useful discussions

I happen to believe this to be true, as did 70% of you. It's the boon and curse of the forum. Threads don't move too quickly, but they do move, but because of the size, the occasional nut job is much more readily noticed and disruptive.

Option 3 – For the small press presence

48% of you said that this is one of the reasons you are here. A surprisingly high number to me, but I'm glad it's that high. Perhaps this is something that we can push more. Of course, by small press, I meant the non-forge and storygames contingent.

Option 4 – You like play by post

A pretty dead response here. Not that surprising.

Option 5 – You like being able to say what you want

70% said yes, a healthy majority of the sample. Whether it's a reason for being here is a moot point, but as freedom of speech was a discussion point over the last few days, I thought I'd include it. It's not that important to what I was after though.

Option 6 – You like the focus on traditional games

The big one buried half way down. With options about whether you hated pundit, wanted free-speech, liked flamewars etc sprinkled in for effect and the events of the last few days acting as a distraction, this is the only important one of the lot for me to make my point.

A minority of those sampled said that they are here because they like the focus of the board. 44.44% to be exact.

Now, the number sampled was small, probably for many reasons – the run up to it, the public nature of it and other things I don't know about, so this number could well be inaccurate for the board as a whole. But considering the other options available and the events recently, I think that folk posted honestly on this one at least.

Which is a problem.

This board is well publicised as being focussed on traditional games. Shit, the guy who runs it is Mr. Obnoxious McTraddyPants. So why are a majority of those sampled saying they're not here for that focus?

There might be many answers to that. Loads of negative shit that I won't talk about and so keep conspiracy theories and crap out of it. This is also not meant to alienate the folk who didn't tick this option. It's quite possible to be here for the people who post here, certain types of thread, lurking etc and not be a leper. I'd like to think that Pundit would also not take this opportunity to diss folks who didn't tick this box and that he'll take note of any ideas on how to improve the boards utility for trad gamers. Ideological purity is stifling and boring and leads to stagnation, but that number is a bit low.

I'll take the positive path and suggest that this result means that the board is not fulfilling its purpose as well as it could be and we can try to correct that. We are primarily about trad games and IMO our small press contingent.

I'm not even going to bother with the rest of the options. They're unimportant.

So, what changes do you think can be made to make this a more useful place for the discussion of traditional games and for our small press guys? New features or doo-dads?

Quote from: One Horse Town;289675This board is well publicised as being focussed on traditional games. Shit, the guy who runs it is Mr. Obnoxious McTraddyPants. So why are a majority of those sampled saying they're not here for that focus?

There might be many answers to that. Loads of negative shit that I won't talk about and so keep conspiracy theories and crap out of it.

You could ask us, who didn't check that option.

On the top left corner, it says: theRPGsite: A forum for discussing roleplaying games.

That's why I came here. I didn't come here to draw artificial and counter-productive lines between roleplaying games. I'd say 90, 95% of my gaming is done with so-called traditional games. My shelves have about the same ratio of traditional games too.

Doesn't mean I don't greatly  benefit from discussion and exposure to so-called "non-traditional" games and ideas.

Quote from: One Horse Town;289675I'd like to think that Pundit would also not take this opportunity to diss folks who didn't tick this box and that he'll take note of any ideas on how to improve the boards utility for trad gamers. Ideological purity is stifling and boring and leads to stagnation, but that number is a bit low.

I'll take the positive path and suggest that this result means that the board is not fulfilling its purpose as well as it could be and we can try to correct that. We are primarily about trad games and IMO our small press contingent.

I'm not even going to bother with the rest of the options. They're unimportant.

So, what changes do you think can be made to make this a more useful place for the discussion of traditional games and for our small press guys? New features or doo-dads?

I think it's weird that you polled the community, the community tells you what it is here for and then you look for ways to alienate 56% of the users without even bothering to ask them why they voted. Maybe they don't care about your bullshit compartmentalization of RPGs?

I just had my most amazing roleplaying session of 2009. We're in our 3rd session and it's a fantasy horror campaign using D&D 3.0 and inspired by The Thing. You know, the kind where some people may not be who they appear to be. To emphasize the feeling, I adapted trust mechanics to d20. They were originally found in "The Mountain Witch" and later in other games such as "Cold City". It's such a success too. Ben, one of my best friend and a BRP/CoC evangelist since first edition was praising the mechanics, as did all the players, some of them hardcore old school gamers. In fact, the session was played in my friend's gaming room, plastered with Greyhawk and Traveller maps.

I know I'm probably going to "true gamer" hell for this heresy but it feels so right, that I can't help but enjoy it and give you the finger.

Quote from: Consonant Dude;289679I know I'm probably going to "true gamer" hell for this heresy but it feels so right, that I can't help but enjoy it and give you the finger.

You can take the negative path if you wish. We don't ban discussion of non-trad games here. But this was a traditional games board and there are other places to discuss some things. I, for example, sometimes post to storygames. You know, that place for storgames where you have to be approved before getting an account. Shock, i'm on both!

I didn't check "focus on traditional games" because it isn't what draws me. I really couldn't care less. Honestly, some of the semantic arguments about borderline games and whether they're traditional bug the hell outa me.

My post literally broke the forum!

Now, let me be clear on what i mean here, before anyone else knee-jerks their way in here. Everyone always thinks the worst don't they?

The board is focussed on trad games, always has been. Focussed doesn't mean exclusive, doesn't mean totally. It means focussed. That's why i said primarily in my post above. Now if the majority aren't here for that focus, then the board isn't delivering content worth folk liking that focus for. Yes, any folk, even shock-horror, forgies or storygamers. They play trad games too sometimes, you know. It's not about exclusion, it's about inclusion. I want this place to be the place to go for discussions and features on trad RPGs and our small press guys and was asking for ideas on who we could do that.

Imagine that the RPGsite, the forge, storygames and RPGnet were all sub-forums of the same board. You'd go to certain forums for certain things (well, maybe RPGnet for a mix) and probably go to more than one of them. Would doing that bring cries of exclusion or one-true-wayism etc?

Yes, that's just me and that was just yesterday.

Sorry about this everyone but...

Quote from: Consonant Dude;289679I just had my most amazing roleplaying session of 2009. We're in our 3rd session and it's a fantasy horror campaign using D&D 3.0 and inspired by The Thing.

I don't suppose you have an AP or some games notes for the rules you're using, posted up some place ?

Edit: I don't know what to say OHT. I come here to talk about games. I play mostly trad stuff but I have no problem with the socalled Forge or Indie games. Now most of the talk here is about trad games and that's cool but it seems to me that shit kind of gets blown up because the Pundit starts it.

When we have had Forge/Indie people come here and talk about their games, most times the discussions have been pretty informative. Not everyone may agree with the designers of these games....in fact wasn't the the designer of We All Had Names convinced that his  game was not really an RPG ? So its' not as though the Pundit is single handedly holding the barbarians at bay.

Right, so these games don't go unchallenged around here. I believe that the Swine talk that people like AM spew is tolerated, for traditional reasons of course .....but I digress. Look at the whole issue with that bloke Lev. Pundit starts up with him and when he defends himself there's a whole thread about banning him. C'mon, if Pundit was not spewing shit some much of the time this place would not stink so much.

If being a trad gamer on this site means hating specific gamers or games, then count me out. I literally did not sign up for this.

Regards,
David R

I'm not saying anything of the sort, David.

We can talk about any game we want here and have always been able to do so. I disagree fundamentally with Pundit about the whole swine thing. I do recognise that there are different types of games and that there are different types of forums out there for them - of which i visit most of them. What's wrong with having a board attract folk who want useful content for more traditional games? Doesn't mean you have to hate anything and is why i pointed out that many folk like multiple types of games. If we had gameable content features, it could keep current users coming back for that content and hopefully talk about it and attract new users from other boards who also find that the trad games they play benifit from the stuff found here. I don't care where they come from or what they believe.

I think i'm having difficutly expressing what i mean.