Quote from: Tetsubo;722665If it wasn't for people talking *about* the Forge I would have no idea that it existed. I still have no idea what they were suppose to have 'accomplished'.

Welcome to the club. (no pun intended...)

Its like what was going on in the LARP community with weird terms like Jeepform and Thuku (SP?) Manifesto, etc. Only exponentially less long winded than the Forgeists...

Quote from: Omega;722750Welcome to the club. (no pun intended...)

Its like what was going on in the LARP community with weird terms like Jeepform and Thuku (SP?) Manifesto, etc. Only exponentially less long winded than the Forgeists...

Whenever I get a new subscriber on my YT channel I send them a greeting, "Thank you for subscribing. Welcome to the club." Only one person is 3220+ people has gotten the joke.

Quote from: Tetsubo;722766Whenever I get a new subscriber on my YT channel I send them a greeting, "Thank you for subscribing. Welcome to the club." Only one person is 3220+ people has gotten the joke.

Nice, I didn't know you did knife reviews. I'll be checking them out!

Quote from: The Traveller;722775Nice, I didn't know you did knife reviews. I'll be checking them out!

They are pretty good. He covers some interesting topics on the channel.

Quote from: Old One Eye;722626Like there is some game out there called Poison D (or something like that).  I like pirates.  I have no idea if I would like the game's mechanics.  Were there a generally acknowledged categorization system for rpg mechanics, it would be significantly more handy than searching around for reviews, quick plays, or whatnot.

That's a defensible wish.  It's still never going to happen.  There will never be a system in which a broad number of people trust, in which people agree on the definitions, which won't degenerate into partisan squabbling, and where people have faith in the impartiality of the selectors.

And Dirk's dead on right: there is no easy, five-second shortcut that's an improvement on taking a few minutes to read over reviews.

Why wouldn't I want to, after all?  If I'm contemplating plunking my money down for a new RPG, investing the time necessary to learn the rules, convincing my group to play it, and (perhaps) doing so for a long-term campaign, I am sure as hell not going to make that decision based on bulletpoint catchphrases.  I want to make an informed decision, and that means I need to inform myself.

Quote from: The Traveller;722775Nice, I didn't know you did knife reviews. I'll be checking them out!

I still have a stack of them to do... so many video ideas, so little time... an embarrassment of riches I suppose.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;722778They are pretty good. He covers some interesting topics on the channel.

Thank you kindly.

Quote from: Ravenswing;722780And Dirk's dead on right: there is no easy, five-second shortcut that's an improvement on taking a few minutes to read over reviews.

Why wouldn't I want to, after all?  If I'm contemplating plunking my money down for a new RPG, investing the time necessary to learn the rules, convincing my group to play it, and (perhaps) doing so for a long-term campaign, I am sure as hell not going to make that decision based on bulletpoint catchphrases.  I want to make an informed decision, and that means I need to inform myself.

You're implying that any shortcut has to either reduce several minutes of reading to five seconds, or it is completely worthless.

That seems like an unreasonable standard to me.

The main utility of genre catch-phrases like "Old School", "sandbox", and "story game" is in helping people filter down what games to look at. So if there are 60 RPGs released last year, someone might only want to look at detailed reviews for 5 or 6 out of those 60.

Quote from: S'mon;722654Yeah, I agree, I said this on the ENW thread that Mistwell linked to in the OP, trying to rally supporters from here to fight pemerton over there - I hadn't been on ENW in months until then.

To be clear, I did not intend to rally support to fight Pemerton over there, I was merely looking for advice from people here.  I didn't want to create inter-board fighting.

I believe I knew Pemerton about twenty years ago. A good Rolemaster GM. I was a dickhead then (or even more so) so the friendship ended on a sour note, but he's a good guy.

I wouldn't bother arguing with him, he's a law professor and a socialist, even if he's wrong he'll still outclass you.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;722984I believe I knew Pemerton about twenty years ago. A good Rolemaster GM. I was a dickhead then (or even more so) so the friendship ended on a sour note, but he's a good guy.

I wouldn't bother arguing with him, he's a law professor and a socialist, even if he's wrong he'll still outclass you.

I'm a law-professor but I'm anti-socialist, maybe that's why no one ever says such nice things about me...
Or more likely it's that like most people I can be a dick sometimes, whereas Pemerton is a real gentleman and a genuine nice guy, so acting like a dick when arguing with him just makes you look bad.

Quote from: jhkim;722910You're implying that any shortcut has to either reduce several minutes of reading to five seconds, or it is completely worthless.

That seems like an unreasonable standard to me.

The main utility of genre catch-phrases like "Old School", "sandbox", and "story game" is in helping people filter down what games to look at. So if there are 60 RPGs released last year, someone might only want to look at detailed reviews for 5 or 6 out of those 60.

Except those terms are rather meaningless for telling me what a game is. There are plenty of "old school" games that are far more complex than modern games. Sandbox means what really? Just about any RPG can be played sandbox.

Story Game at least says something. But like sandbox, most any game can be played as a storygame and the term gets applied to board games like Arkham Horror even which are not story games or RPGs.

Tell me what the game is, not some useless catchword no one can agree what it means.

d20 system in a low fantasy setting. no skills or race powers. Several classes.
d100 system in a hard SF setting. No classes. PC defined by study areas and skills selected. Some alien PCs but no psi powers.
d6 system for GM-less game emulation using a yes/no system. Plug into other games for solo play.

etc. Which is more informative in one sentence.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;722984I believe I knew Pemerton about twenty years ago. A good Rolemaster GM. I was a dickhead then (or even more so) so the friendship ended on a sour note, but he's a good guy.

I wouldn't bother arguing with him, he's a law professor and a socialist, even if he's wrong he'll still outclass you.

I have had my share of disagreements with pemerton and he is a very skilled debater. I wouldn't say don't argue with him, but at least go in knowing you will probably lose (even if you end up being right). I have had to concede to him more than once. It can be beneficial to expose your ideas to strong argument. The one thing i have learned, is if he asks a question, be very careful about your answer.

I'm going to reiterate, but when you are confronting someone who gets to define and frame the argument with his own made up terms and assumptions (for instance, Forge theory, as does Pemerton on a thread like this by framing "gamist" and "narrativist" play, making equivalences between what people are telling him and these made up categories), then you've already lost, assuming that person has a grasp of rhetoric to begin with (as Pemerton seems to have).

The very foundations of Forge theory are wrong. If you concede the Forge's premise, you have no choice but to get down the rabbit hole. You are essentially arguing with an idiot, and thereby becoming an idiot yourself.

Solution: don't be an idiot.

Quote from: Benoist;723091I'm going to reiterate, but when you are confronting someone who gets to define and frame the argument with his own made up terms and assumptions (for instance, Forge theory, as does Pemerton on a thread like this by framing "gamist" and "narrativist" play, making equivalences between what people are telling him and these made up categories), then you've already lost, assuming that person has a grasp of rhetoric to begin with (as Pemerton seems to have).

The very foundations of Forge theory are wrong. If you concede the Forge's premise, you have no choice but to get down the rabbit hole. You are essentially arguing with an idiot, and thereby becoming an idiot yourself.

Solution: don't be an idiot.

I have debated with pemerton a lot there, and it is true if you let him gain control of the language useing forge terminology, you've lost, my experience is he does just as well without it though. He is simply very good at it. Doesn't make him right, but but it does mean you have to bring your A game if you want to avoid butthurt (and I will admit to plenty of that myself).