Quote from: J Arcane;242821Yawn. Typical pretentious claptrap. Note the jumping to terms like "lighthearted" and the neat dualism. The underlying implication being "I'm better than you because I like 'serious games', instead of those childish 'lighthearted games'. You aren't capable of appreciating my game, woe is you."

I just used lighthearted as a simpler compliment to "mirth", that's all. I like everything from serious dark supernatural to zany 40's noir and even the occasional game of "Muppet Hero" at Gen Con when I can fit it in. I may not personally do a lot of "crunch" in my games these days for example, but I still wholly appreciate it. Same for serious vs. lighthearted, and I certainly don't brand all lighthearted games as "childish".  But I might have come across wrong and for that I'm sorry. I was just thinking that another term might be better to use than just fun, or at least go with one of the other definitions since about half of all RPG's are not light-hearted or mirth-inducing by their content.
 
As to "slumming", I did just find the site a few weeks ago. Yes I found it from rpg.net which I re-found several weeks ago:  I've been away from any kind of RPG forums for years now.  But I don't think of this place as some kind of "lower" forum; obnoxious, crude, and loud at times yeah, but not lower.  As to my seriousness and contempt of the lighthearted... I was a huge fan of Toon and Teens From Outer Space back in college when it came out. I also regularly played Paranoia until about 5 or 6 years ago, and knew what a "Ringworld" was long before a system capable of running Halo ever existed.
 
As to the Forge, I lost a few friends to Ron Edward's particular style of design theory.  So when Precedence closed their doors I just walked away from the whole industry until Immortal's original creator asked me to fix the game that Precedence had horribly mutilated (that's what happens when you don't edit the game and then try to redo it into a new version to try and sell the game as story to a TV producer).  The first place I found myself at when I was ready to put it out there was the Forge.  Got the same kind of reaction I got here, but with fancier words and a lot of venom.  I walked away again for the last few years, my mistake, shouldn't have let it get to me.  So I may be "independent" but that doesn't mean I'm part of that particular crowd.
 
... but, to Machine Gun Blue...  In response to the 2nd whole post of your illustrious career here that you made using the "follow-the-leader-so-I-can-look-cool" shtick. I got a gorgeous wife and the three great kids, why would I want to get laid by a dork like you?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;242851If I had to play a slave I would be most interested in starting a slave rebellion.

I believe you can in SAJ.

Quote from: himsati;242852... but, to Machine Gun Blue...  In response to the 2nd whole post of your illustrious career here that you made using the "follow-the-leader-so-I-can-look-cool" shtick. I got a gorgeous wife and the three great kids, why would I want to get laid by a dork like you?

Dude, I was referring to J Arcane. Did I say I wanted to lay you? The guy has been like a rabid pitt bull the whole thread. Looked like he needed to get laid or lost his meds.

Quote from: Jackalope;242833It's not so much an issue of content, as where that content takes you.

Point taken.
 

Quote from: Jackalope;242833There's a very huge difference between gritty and realistic as an aesthetic gloss over what is still heroic adventure fiction, and making a game out of Toni Morrison's work.

Agreed, and no argument against that. The thread just seemed to be starting to lean towards all "serious" games falling in line as "swine" games. And being someone who likes both (serious and light-hearted), I thought a different term might be better in terms of how folks were representing the viewpoints.
 
Toni Morrison .. Beloved? Figuring that you might be bringing her up in connection to the slavery thing? Otherwise I'm going to play stupid and have zero idea who you are talking about.

Because it can't be posted too much.

Quote from: Machinegun Blue;242860Dude, I was referring to J Arcane. Did I say I wanted to lay you? The guy has been like a rabid pitt bull the whole thread. Looked like he needed to get laid or lost his meds.

My bad.. :rotfl:
 
Just tell me you saw the tongue-smiley at the end of it.  I am one of those nut-cases that uses them, because I got taken waaaay too seriously before those things existed:  back in ancient times when we communicating using intricate things called BBS's and the Internet was a mystical thing that only worked between a couple of universities and government institutions.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;242851Age of Fable's online gamebook is fun. I would enjoy roleplaying in that world, the multiple choice bit just whet my appetite

I'm not really interested in exploring the pathos of suffering of this or that group or anything like that. If I had to play a slave I would be most interested in starting a slave rebellion. If I had to play a Jew in Nazi Europe I would be most interested in starting a rising. And so on.

It's okay if we're very likely to ultimately fail, so long as we get to have a go If I want a predetermined outcome where all I get to do is explore the sad daily details then I can read a book.

I just have no sympathy whatsoever for this stupid middle-class-boredom induced "I cut myself to feel alive" type endless misery porn.  It's pathetic whether it's Battlestar Galactica, Passion of the Christ, this week's latest "Holocaust game", or whatever.  

It's shallow, and lame, and exploitative.  Disliking it doesn't have anything to do with wanting my gaming "more lighthearted" or an inability to play a "more serious" game, it comes from finding that sort of emo-wallowing exercise to be sad and masturbatory rather than entertaining.  

And as has been pointed out time and time and time again every time the latest emo-tourism game comes to fore, the idea that you can gain any kind of insight from such an exercise is utterly contemptible.  It's just you and your pretentious buddies sitting around playing out your own internal stereotypes, and nothing more.  

And do you notice how often it's always something patently offensive?  There's how many Holocaust/Nazi Germany "games" like this now?  I can think of at least three examples off hand, and one of those is actually lumping together what's really a whole LARP genre into a single example.  Now we've got a bunch of white liberal college students sitting around pretending they're black slaves?  Seriously?  

It's beyond abominable in my book.

Quote from: J Arcane;242865Now we've got a bunch of white liberal college students sitting around pretending they're black slaves?  Seriously?  

Written by a black woman whose mother studies the history of slavery and helped her with the game. Hmmm.

Funnily enough, all these same concerns got aired on Story Games when SAJ came out. You white liberal kids!

Quote from: J Arcane;242865And do you notice how often it's always something patently offensive?  There's how many Holocaust/Nazi Germany "games" like this now?  I can think of at least three examples off hand, and one of those is actually lumping together what's really a whole LARP genre into a single example.  Now we've got a bunch of white liberal college students sitting around pretending they're black slaves?

I don't think it's only those really extreme examples. We also have games of being low-class teenaged girls, LARPS where they're locked up in an old fallout shelter for the weekend and told the bombs have dropped, and so on.

They really run the whole range of human misery. Sure, some bits get a bit more focus, but you can't say they don't try to encompass all of human misery.

Though there's a lot missing, a lot of possibilities. We could have Chemo, the game of undergoing treatment for being riddled with cancer. Or Lonely, the game of having just been dumped. Or perhaps Baghdad, the game of being a civilian in modern-day Baghdad, dodging death squads, US Marines coming to drag you away as an "insurgent", and suicide bombs in marketplaces.

Though perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned those possibilities, someone might be inspired by them. You know that internet law that if you think of some crazy sex kink and then mention it publicly, that public mention of it summons a web page about it into existence? I fear the same might happen for fucked-up rpg ideas.

Maybe you'd like The Fluffy Bunny Game.

Quote from: Kyle AaronThough perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned those possibilities, someone might be inspired by them. You know that internet law that if you think of some crazy sex kink and then mention it publicly, that public mention of it summons a web page about it into existence? I fear the same might happen for fucked-up rpg ideas.

Increasingly, I think you may be right.  Sort of a Rule 34 for RPGs.

I guess you guys are right and I should play games that compensate for the lack of excitement in ordinary life today and the fact that I feel helpless and small in the face of the world. Luckily there are plenty....

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;242872Or perhaps Baghdad, the game of being a civilian in modern-day Baghdad, dodging death squads, US Marines coming to drag you away as an "insurgent", and suicide bombs in marketplaces.
Though perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned those possibilities, someone might be inspired by them.

Sorry Kyle....but I think you just gave me an idea for the sequel to my Day of Living Dangerously - http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=46788&postcount=1  - campaign.

Regards,
David R

You're a fucking swine, pal.

Quote from: J Arcane;242865It's shallow, and lame, and exploitative. Disliking it doesn't have anything to do with wanting my gaming "more lighthearted" or an inability to play a "more serious" game, it comes from finding that sort of emo-wallowing exercise to be sad and masturbatory rather than entertaining.

Okay, put that way I definitely get your point; misery porn and emo-wallowing pretty much cleared it up... It's not serious vs. lighthearted, it's a beef with "Hi, let's roleplay through lots of suffering for the serious sake of just roleplaying through suffering, and see how that makes you feel. You are screwed, you know how this is going to end and no matter what you do... it isn't going to change anything. Okay, ready to have fun?"
 
Hence why in any game I like that has something along those lines as part of its setting, I generally ignore that part.