The "Rebecca Borgstrom Is a Moron Law"

The Yann Waters · November 15, 2006, 04:48:57 PM

Quote from: YamoAhem.

What, you mean that a chapter which begins with "Tara's master had always said, 'Don't become a pirate and sail around trying to force enlightenment on people. That's not the Buddha's way!'" is meant to be taken with nail-biting seriousness?

TonyLB · November 15, 2006, 04:49:27 PM

Quote from: Levi Kornelsen"PR work" implies a distinction of organisation between the group and the public.

Don't it, now?

Couldn't it be all indie and self-motivated, like the other stuff folks in that community do, but still be PR?

Levi Kornelsen · November 15, 2006, 04:51:10 PM

Quote from: TonyLBCouldn't it be all indie and self-motivated, like the other stuff folks in that community do, but still be PR?

...Ur?

I think we have a semantics issue, because that fails to register with me.

Yamo · November 15, 2006, 04:51:54 PM

Quote from: GrimGentWhat, you mean that a chapter which begins with "Tara's master had always said, 'Don't become a pirate and sail around trying to force enlightenment on people. That's not the Buddha's way!'" is meant to be taken with nail-biting seriousness?

It's not that it seems overly-serious, but that it's clearly straining to be oh-so-clever and twee. Straining HARD. Way too hard.

Unless you're the bona-fide reincarnation of Lewis Caroll, that's a style better left alone.

TonyLB · November 15, 2006, 04:57:10 PM

Quote from: Levi KornelsenI think we have a semantics issue, because that fails to register with me.

See, "PR" is a hard phrase here. It's dead easy to describe in terms of whuffie.

If I go to fora (as I tend to do) and say witty, reasonable things (as I also tend to do) then I generate whuffie for myself and, to an extent, everyone associated with me in the public perception. I do this whether it's organized or not, deliberate or not. I do this whether I am actually associated with the people I'm perceived to be associated with or not.

Is that "PR"? I dunno. It's not hard for me to stretch my understanding of the term to encompass that sort of effect. What the "real" definition of the term is ... that I couldn't tell ya.

The Yann Waters · November 15, 2006, 04:57:11 PM

Quote from: YamoIt's not that it seems overly-serious, but that it's clearly straining to be oh-so-clever and twee. Straining HARD. Way too hard.

Hmm. I can't say that fits in with what I've seen, and I've been reading the site for years.

"Airily, Tara says, 'I decided it'd be faster to bring enlightenment to all living beings if I skipped the last few million years of the process and just became a pirate. These are my monks. If you won't willingly abandon your attachment to material existence, I'm afraid I'll have to use the cannon.'"

fonkaygarry · November 15, 2006, 05:06:39 PM

Given the choice between 30+ pages of posts about this bullshit or utter nothing such is as unknown even at the heart of the void, cold oblivion is looking pretty fucking good right now.

That is all.

Levi Kornelsen · November 15, 2006, 05:48:17 PM

Quote from: fonkaygarryGiven the choice between 30+ pages of posts about this bullshit or utter nothing such is as unknown even at the heart of the void, cold oblivion is looking pretty fucking good right now.

That is all.

It has driven me to attempt to define "What is a Roleplaying game"

Because, see, that would be a step up, as debates go.

J Arcane · November 15, 2006, 06:11:35 PM

Quote from: fonkaygarryGiven the choice between 30+ pages of posts about this bullshit or utter nothing such is as unknown even at the heart of the void, cold oblivion is looking pretty fucking good right now.

That is all.

Some people in this thread really need to go read my hypothesis in the off-topic forum.

Maybe some perspective would get them to chill the fuck out.

and for the sake of those that don't care to, I'll summarize: We are all completely fucking irrelevent.

Ian Absentia · November 15, 2006, 06:42:41 PM

Quote from: RPGPunditDude, you really don't know what you're talking about.

Well, that makes two of us.

Look, it was fun playing your little game for a while, and I know that you're going for being all provocative and shit in order to stir up some action on the site, but there's a point at which being "provocative" becomes simply "horseshit". If you'd really like some honest responses to your GM style, cut out the horseshit and state your case plainly. Leave Borgstrom's name out of it, and anyone else's, too -- it's plainly yourself you want to discuss. Have the balls to say so without trying to make yourself look good in comparison with an unflattering and inaccurate description of someone else.

!i!

Blackleaf · November 15, 2006, 06:59:18 PM

You've lost me Levi...

You said

Quote from: Levi KornelsenElevating this shit to the standard of pretending it's a culture war is melodrama; it's an attempt at trying to draw lines in the sand that do not, in reality, exist.

Which I quoted and said

Quote from: StuartI certainly never said THAT

Which you then quoted and said

Quote from: Levi Kornelsen"PR work" implies a distinction of organisation between the group and the public. Don't it, now?

um. wha???

Anyway, I work in PR, and have done PR for the indie comic groups I've worked with, so I hope you don't think I'm using "PR" as a bad word.

And I agree... this topic is *not* a high point of our discussion here.

Warthur · November 15, 2006, 07:26:32 PM

Quote from: YamoRPG.Net and the Forge are the lunatic fringe, make no mistake. If they can convince you that normal, functional, TRADITIONAL mainstream gamers like Pundit and Settembrini are the freaks, they've already subverted your perceptions.

Personally, I don't find that RPGPundit's gaming tastes are what makes him a freak. I find it's his shrieking paranoia that makes him a freak.

Hint: powerful majorities tend not to get oppressed. Marginalised minorities do. Ranting about how you are being oppressed by fucking Forge games with print runs in the low thousands at best is shrieking paranoid lunacy.

Levi Kornelsen · November 15, 2006, 07:56:37 PM

Quote from: Stuartum. wha???

Anyway, I work in PR, and have done PR for the indie comic groups I've worked with, so I hope you don't think I'm using "PR" as a bad word.

And I agree... this topic is *not* a high point of our discussion here.

To me, "Public Relations" means that the person doing the relating is, plainly, speaking for people that are not part of the public.

Given that what we're talking about here are forums which are, in point of fact, open to the general public, the term sounds like an attempt to create a distinction that says "that forum over there is a closed group".

And they aren't.

RPGPundit · November 15, 2006, 08:40:58 PM

Quote from: Levi KornelsenThat's terrifically interesting.

Show me an example of someone hauling me out.

Oh come on, didn't you just say you hated this kind of evasionist shit? You KNOW that there have been many-a-time on RPG.net (and elsewhere) when people have pointed to you as the "reasonable theory guy".

RPGPundit

James McMurray · November 15, 2006, 09:30:05 PM

Quote from: WarthurIf that's the case, D&D would not be the biggest game out there at the moment, would it?

At the end of the day, the "Swine" simply have access to the same tools as you do: the internet, word of mouth, and their wallets. The largest game companies will always be the ones which publish the biggest-selling games, and the gaming public's wallets are firmly behind D&D. D&D, for better or worse, is the RPG that the non-gaming public associated with the hobby, and as such the word of mouth victory is D&D's.

That leaves the internet, your major sphere of operations. Where, erm, the largest and most active forums tend to talk about D&D an awful lot.

Given that you're in Uruguay and, as I understand it, don't have a handy local gameshop, you might be forgiven for thinking that the indie RPGs are crowding out the D&D books. They really, truly aren't. Most game shops I've been to haven't had any. Their major marketplace is the internet. (That's why they promote themselves so much there - if they didn't have a vocal internet presence, they'd die.)

Nobody is being converted in droves to Forge games. The large contingent of White Wolf fans were never satisfied with D&D anyhow. D&D is still the major player in the market.

When you shout about being oppressed like this, you end up sounding like a Fundamentalist Christian complaining about being "oppressed" in the freaking USA. Think about that for a moment.

I think I might have a new hero. Unfortunately it's wasted breath. Pundit doesn't care about being sane. If he's sane then the tiny speck of fame, that miniscule drop of "they like me" goes away. If he loses the crazy he loses "the war". However, that war is actually between him and obscurity.