Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;791556I don't like seeing a writer's agenda bleed through into some aspect of their game.

I would have said it depends on the agenda (humanism, gender & racial equity, against jingoism, etc) but most of the time the agenda injected into game is too caricatural and the introduction of the said agenda is done in an unsubtle and unclever way that do not make it any good.

Some RPG forums have an agenda also. Your posts have to match their ideology. This forum is almost a one-of-a-kind, or last-of-its-kind.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;791642Some RPG forums have an agenda also. Your posts have to match their ideology. This forum is almost a one-of-a-kind, or last-of-its-kind.

If you are speaking about the Rpgnet Forum, we all know their agenda : promoting/making you buy the stuff that Shannon Appelcline, the other owner, and the administration/moderation staff have for sell. It is all about the bottom line and the political agenda is just a charade (the fact that Ettin, one of the most annoying trolls in RPG internet discussions, is a moderator is for me a glaring piece of evidence of this state of being).

But I do agree that the Rpgsite forum administration/moderation staff is vastly more interested in discussion about RPGs and other gaming stuff that selling their stuff, even if they will not object if you do buy someting from them.

And you will not get ban because you do not share The Pundit's views on RPG or gaming (which is something I rather like about him).

The author being an asshole and the author trying to convince you that Cambodian death camps are a good thing are quite different things.

I sure as hell wouldn't buy RPGS that push a nazi or stalinist agenda, but I've bought stuff from people whose religious and political views are quite different from mine without a second thought.

I've worked with some of those people too, although never on a project that pushed some ideology I don't like. That I could not do.

As Sinenomine said I don't think insulating oneself from the world is a good thing.

Quote from: yabaziou;791644If you are speaking about the Rpgnet Forum, we all know their agenda : promoting/make you buy the stuff that Shannon Appelcline, the other owner, and the administration/moderation staff have for sell. It is all about the bottom line and the political agenda is just a charade (the fact that Ettin, one of the most annoying troll on RPG internet discussions, is a moderation is for me a glaring piece of evidence of this state of being).

This is true, and I have heard Appelcline likes it the way it is and will keep it so as long as it makes them money.

The art is not the artist.  The art can be good or bad completely independent of the artist who can be good or bad.  I generally ignore the author.  If I like the product, I like the product, and that has no relationship to what I think of the author.

Quote from: dragoner;791675This is true, and I have heard Appelcline likes it the way it is and will keep it so as long as it makes them money.

I'm glad that you share my assessment of the RPGnet situation. I'm think Zak S. shared with us some e-mails where Shannon stated in no uncertained terms that he was quite happy with the way his mod staff handled its charge (And I had reread the Nibovian Wife and found that the Rpgnet mod staff behaved like a bunch of witless fools in this threas, especially Stephen Lea who wrote stuff which made him sound like a pretentious and petty man, jealous of Monte Cook accomplishments. Man, Exalted is jsut an anime expy of D&D and probably would better work with the D20 system ...).

But this will not prevent me from posting there and reading it, even if I definitly prefer the mood of the forum here.

Quote from: yabaziou;791704I'm glad that you share my assessment of the RPGnet situation. I'm think Zak S. shared with us some e-mails where Shannon stated in no uncertained terms that he was quite happy with the way his mod staff handled its charge (And I had reread the Nibovian Wife and found that the Rpgnet mod staff behaved like a bunch of witless fools in this threas, especially Stephen Lea who wrote stuff which made him sound like a pretentious and petty man, jealous of Monte Cook accomplishments.

I've seen that from Zak, and heard similar from other sources more knowledgeable than me on the subject. Ultimately, it is what it is.

Of course it is in their interests to tear down other game companies, even if surreptitiously - clandestinely. The insurgent swims in the general population like a fish, of course business knows this; I have an hardback red and gold edition of the Art of War in my office.

IMHO, they should reread the Art of War (maybe they should buy an american language translation ans stop pretending that they could read ancient chinese ^_^) and also read the Myamoto Musashi book by the way, because theirs "tactics" are at beast childish and at worst ineffective. Hell, I have bought a copy of Lords of Olympus and plans to buy an copy of an Red an Pleasant Land as soon as James Raggi has sorted out the situation.

Quote from: yabaziou;791711IMHO, they should reread the Art of War (maybe they should buy an american language translation ans stop pretending that they could read ancient chinese ^_^) and also read the Myamoto Musashi book by the way, because theirs "tactics" are at beast childish and at worst ineffective. Hell, I have bought a copy of Lords of Olympus and plans to buy an copy of an Red an Pleasant Land as soon as James Raggi has sorted out the situation.

I prefer Musashi - "In the void is virtue, and no evil. Wisdom has existance, principle has existance, the Way has existance, spirit is nothingness."

Not that Sun Tzu is bad, there is also the Way of the General.

People rise to their highest level of incompetence, the rpgnet staff show that in an exemplary manner.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;791642Some RPG forums have an agenda also. Your posts have to match their ideology. This forum is almost a one-of-a-kind, or last-of-its-kind.

Yup. It also has one feature G+ doesn't have either; while there, theoretically you can say what you want about RPGs, there is a strong tendency there to form little reality-bubbles of only people you agree with, either actively (by blocking anyone who says stuff you don't like) or passively (by tending only to add people who say stuff you do like).

Here you are at least to some extent required to put up with people who say thngs you disagree with, and I think that's a feature, not a bug.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;791453I'm actually surprised by how many people pay attention to who writes something before they check it out.

I used to be that way very much. The names of the designers and such were just names and disconnected from the game.

Then in the mid 90s I got fully into the gaming and partially into the comic biz and actually attending conventions regularly and whooo... thrown into the deep end of the shark pool was I! All of a suden these names had faces and personalities. Pretty fun overall. But some of those personalities it later became apparent were not all that nice. After that I started paying more attention to actually who a particular designer was.

Eventually I had some problems with various companies and started scrutinizing who the hell was on the payroll and was this an isolated incident or part of something larger. Games Workshop, WOTC, White Wolf/S&S and GOO were some that proved to be problematic on a larger scale than ever expected.

I think the internet has at least done some good in that it has shown some designers true personalities to the public where before it was just the unsubstantiated word of this or that nobody. Its also made it alot harder for companies and designers to cover up their dirty little secrets.

Quote from: Mistwell;791687The art is not the artist.  The art can be good or bad completely independent of the artist who can be good or bad.  I generally ignore the author.  If I like the product, I like the product, and that has no relationship to what I think of the author.

Problem is. I know some rather good artists. Who happen to also rip off customers, or be running some pretty dirty routines on the sly. I've had to cut off a few now who have gone bad. Their art may be top notch but I am sure as hell not putting any more money into their pockets.

I also know a few who are just raging jerks on one subject or another. Those I tend to avoid too simply because they treat people like dirt and I am not backing that sort of behavior. I dont care if you are the next Caldwell. Dont treat the customer like dirt.