Commentary: Q&A Thread, TonyLB

[Pseudoephedrine]

I put it to you again, Pundit, that if you really want to win this "war", the best way to do so is to convert the swine - by taking their concerns seriously and showing how they are either pseudo-concerns or how traditional gaming can answer the concerns they have. I honestly do think in the long term that you're going to be more successful that way than just telling them that they're shit.

For example, we don't have a thread about how to teach people to play a pick-up game of D&D in a single evening rather than launching a full multi-session campaign. That's a concern that I've heard from several people you'd call "swine" that we haven't done anything to address. If traditional games and traditional styles of gaming really aren't able to answer that concern, then they really do have a point. I don't have an answer as to how one should do that, but I do think it's a valid concern.

[James J Skach]

I put it to you again, Pundit, that if you really want to win this "war", the best way to do so is to convert the swine - by taking their concerns seriously and showing how they are either pseudo-concerns or how traditional gaming can answer the concerns they have. I honestly do think in the long term that you're going to be more successful that way than just telling them that they're shit.

For example, we don't have a thread about how to teach people to play a pick-up game of D&D in a single evening rather than launching a full multi-session campaign. That's a concern that I've heard from several people you'd call "swine" that we haven't done anything to address. If traditional games and traditional styles of gaming really aren't able to answer that concern, then they really do have a point. I don't have an answer as to how one should do that, but I do think it's a valid concern.

Pseudoephedrine,

First, I think you and I agree that the threads should be allowed in the open without moderation.

And on specific issues, I think you're right - that is, to the point of your example, perhaps someone with a lot of experience in doing so could start a thread about a single night pickup game of D&D (simple adventure with pregens, I'd guess).

But, again, to build on your example, not answering that specific concern does not somehow mean that traditional gaming in general or D&D in specific is broken and requires a revolution in gaming design.  It's that leap, that extrapolation based on anecdotal, gut instinct applied across all of traditional gaming that causes a problem.

And my guess is, and it's honestly just a guess, you're not going to get the kinds of questions your example represents.  IOW, Story Gamer Joe is not going to say, "Well, one of the problems I have with D&D is that it's very difficult to set up for a single night game with new players. Can anyone help with that?" I wish it were the case.  Instead, you get much broader theory stuff related to their games (to Pundit's point) - which is fine if the questions are aimed at their game to start with, but very rude and possibly dishonest if not the case.

[TonyLB]

For example, we don't have a thread about how to teach people to play a pick-up game of D&D in a single evening rather than launching a full multi-session campaign. That's a concern that I've heard from several people you'd call "swine" that we haven't done anything to address. If traditional games and traditional styles of gaming really aren't able to answer that concern, then they really do have a point. I don't have an answer as to how one should do that, but I do think it's a valid concern.

Oh, damn yes!  Excellent idea.  Posted.  I've even got some ideas of how it can be done ... but I could really use some help.

[happy humming]Mmmm, mmm, I'm gonna play some D&D, mmmm, mmmm.[/happy humming]

[TonyLB]

I wish I knew how to coax Pundit into the actual question and answer format of the thread.  It seems to me like he doesn't want to hear anything about anyone other than himself.  He just stops up his ears, opens his mouth, and starts shouting.  He's not even bothering with question marks any more.

[James J Skach]

I wish I knew how to coax Pundit into the actual question and answer format of the thread.  It seems to me like he doesn't want to hear anything about anyone other than himself.  He just stops up his ears, opens his mouth, and starts shouting.  He's not even bothering with question marks any more.

No, Tony, it's something more.

You've made a great argument why you can't pinpoint a single reason for democracy in America.  I don't think the argument holds as well for this "conflict."  Why?

Because I think you can make a pretty specific starting point.  It's simple, really.  It's the establishment of GNS as a theory that attempts to explain all RPGs.  Without that, none of this mess begins.

does that mean that people should not have been finding way so timprove the kinds of games they like to play in ways they like to play?  Not at all.  I can disagree with Luke Cranes gut instinct that GM Fiat is inherently weak design - it's just an opinion with no real evidence. But when the idea is that there is this Grand Unified Theory of gaming that explains things in a way that is insulting to a large portion of gamers - who, by the way, were pretty much minding their own business arguing about OD&D versus 3.x or Forgotten Realms Canon or something - that changes the playing field.

Your failure to admit that, or try to spread the blame, or to try to explain it away with some sort of historical relativism - that's Pundit's problem.  And, quite honestly, it's one of my main issues with you - it's your blind spot.  And, to address concerns you've rasied before, it's not about Ron Edwards.  I don't care about him, as a person, one way or another.  It's the idea - stated and implied in the GNS theory, that has caused all of this....

[RPGPundit]

I wish I knew how to coax Pundit into the actual question and answer format of the thread.  It seems to me like he doesn't want to hear anything about anyone other than himself.  He just stops up his ears, opens his mouth, and starts shouting.  He's not even bothering with question marks any more.

I had given this concept a chance, but now I realize that this is all just an attempt to allow the Storygames crowd to be able to push their fiction without having to take responsibility for it.

The Q&A format could work if you guys had a real commitment to have to answer every question, and do so honestly. YOU DO NOT.

So you get a situation where you get asked questions you may or may not choose to answer, you may or may not choose to do so in an honest and/or productive way, and the person asking the question has no right to respond.

That's just a set-up for your own fucking glorification. Having been informed about the thread in Storygames plotting this whole thing was just the icing on the cake; and from that point on I decided there was nothing for my side to gain in respecting this "Q&A" format. Fuck it,  why should I fight you with my hands tied and a knife already in my leg?

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

No, Tony, it's something more.

You've made a great argument why you can't pinpoint a single reason for democracy in America.  I don't think the argument holds as well for this "conflict."  Why?

Because I think you can make a pretty specific starting point.  It's simple, really.  It's the establishment of GNS as a theory that attempts to explain all RPGs.  Without that, none of this mess begins.

does that mean that people should not have been finding way so timprove the kinds of games they like to play in ways they like to play?  Not at all.  I can disagree with Luke Cranes gut instinct that GM Fiat is inherently weak design - it's just an opinion with no real evidence. But when the idea is that there is this Grand Unified Theory of gaming that explains things in a way that is insulting to a large portion of gamers - who, by the way, were pretty much minding their own business arguing about OD&D versus 3.x or Forgotten Realms Canon or something - that changes the playing field.

Your failure to admit that, or try to spread the blame, or to try to explain it away with some sort of historical relativism - that's Pundit's problem.  And, quite honestly, it's one of my main issues with you - it's your blind spot.  And, to address concerns you've rasied before, it's not about Ron Edwards.  I don't care about him, as a person, one way or another.  It's the idea - stated and implied in the GNS theory, that has caused all of this....

Damn right James.  

The Storygamers don't realize the QUANTUM LEAP of progress that it would make in relations between them and Regular Roleplayers if they only fessed up to this reality, and recognized that THEY started it, with GNS, and that there is a very real reason why we hate them for it.  If they recognized this and discarded GNS, we could almost start fresh.

Then again, maybe they do realize that; nothing I've ever seen has ever implied to me that they have any REAL wish to make peace with us; in fact, what the Storygames thread has shown is that most of them believe they have a vested interest in continuing with the War, a direct monetary interest in many cases, even as they run around on here trying to claim that the war doesn't exist or that if it did they'd like to end it.  Over there in their secret clubhouse, they're talking about how to fan the flames of it instead.

RPGPundit

[droog]

[happy humming]Mmmm, mmm, I'm gonna play some D&D, mmmm, mmmm.[/happy humming]

See, how could I possibly be linked with this guy? I'm far too cool.

[JimLotFP]

From the Q&A thread...

The GNS essay is the single objective source, fuckwit. Ron Edwards. He started it. It started when all of YOU decided to support a deranged twisted bitter asswipe and make him your Dear Leader, and let his philosophy of elitism and utter disdain for Regular Roleplaying and declarations that Regular Roleplayers are all secretly miserable and brain damaged and need to be pitied and guided into playing the "right" kind of games that are "coherent" and tell "real story" become the foundation stone of your philosophical temple.

...

You want to "move beyond" all the criticisms thrown at your side because of Ron Edwards? DISAVOW yourselves of Ron Edwards.

I found something (one of the last things I remember back when I was a regular Forge board reader), not sure if it's exactly applicable to the situation (I don't think I took it out of any context that would nullify it) but Pundit's rant made me think of it:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17651.msg186686#msg186686
Yes, I left GNS behind, two years ago. The Big Model is the topic. GNS is over, exisiting only as three empirically-derived independent kinds of Creative Agenda. Get with it, people.

... and a fun quote from the same post that I didn't remember:

I consider myself to have fostered more actual  respect, as opposed to contemptuous tolerance, among disparate forms of role-playing than anyone else, in the history of the hobby.

That's good stuff right there.

[TonyLB]

Fuck it,  why should I fight you with my hands tied and a knife already in my leg?

Indeed, I'd go further, and ask "Why should you fight at all?"  Seems to me like, a person sees a Q&A thread they either have a question they're interested in the answer to (in which case they post) or they don't (in which case they walk away).

It's just vaguely conceivable that there are types of threads that are not well served by you sweeping in to deliver one of your canned paranoid rants.  Other people seemed to be getting value out of the Q&A format, and I hope that they will manage to ignore your disruptions and continue to ask questions.

Frankly, I'd love to get some more questions about ... y'know ... how I roleplay.  Not that the whole "History of Ye Olde Warre" isn't a popular topic, but it's not one that I can speak to from personal passion the way I can about (say) playing victorian pulp.

[Abyssal Maw]

Indeed, I'd go further, and ask "Why should you fight at all?"  Seems to me like, a person sees a Q&A thread they either have a question they're interested in the answer to (in which case they post) or they don't (in which case they walk away).

It's just vaguely conceivable that there are types of threads that are not well served by you sweeping in to deliver one of your canned paranoid rants.  Other people seemed to be getting value out of the Q&A format, and I hope that they will manage to ignore your disruptions and continue to ask questions.

Frankly, I'd love to get some more questions about ... y'know ... how I roleplay.  Not that the whole "History of Ye Olde Warre" isn't a popular topic, but it's not one that I can speak to from personal passion the way I can about (say) playing victorian pulp.

The more we point out a consistent pattern of dishonesty and show you to be liars and stealth-marketers, the better the chances are you eventually stop doing that. The more you show up to try and promote your cult, the more we are simply forced to point out how lame and un-fun the actual game designs are.  

It's been a sham all along. And that's really too bad, because the next generation of game designers always comes from small press independent designers. Only this particular circle of your generation has basicly fucked itself and lost all credibility.

[luke]

You guys trying your damnedest to spin it that way will NEVER make it so. And for as long as you keep defending your dear leader I will keep using what he's ACTUALLY WRITTEN to grind you all into the dirt, over and over again.

Our issues with you people aren't based on "misunderstanding", they're based on actually READING what you have written and understanding it all too well: That is, on having read not what you say to us on our fora, but what you say to yourselves when you think no one else is going to be listening in.

So why don't you actually quote anything? Why don't you actually read the fucking essays you claim to care so much about? Because then there'd be nothing for you to do. Your beautiful internet façade would have no purpose.

[James J Skach]

Uhhh....you did see the quote from GNS and Other Matter of Role-Playing Theory, right? It wasn't in this thread, but I did quote the opening sentence in, I think it might have been the commentary on your Q&A...

Pundit might over react to things - that does not render illegitimate any negative reaction. As Kyle likes to point out all the time on this forum, that's a fallacy of the excluded middle - kinda.

I'll toss out Brain Damage, but it seems to gaudy.  I could quote the war analogy that seems to have been an attempt to discuss the publishing side of things, but sure was written so that it could easily be taken as a comment on Theory. Which, for all I know, was the real intent - because to question anything seems to alway be met with resentment for not being understood properly.

So, sure, what kind of quote would suffice for you? Do I need to go to the Narratvism: Story Now article and find instances of the views on Rule 0? Would that help?

And that's not snarky, I'm honestly curious what I could do to point out the things that are, to many (including people that are not Pundit, et. al.), the root cause of the "conflict." you might disagree as to its "rootness," or believe it was misinterpreted, or whatever; but at least it's a start at understanding what's really going on here.

[donbaloo]

Hey folks, new here obviously.  I heard about the Q&A with Luke and figured I'd check the thread and the site out.  I saw folks mentioning repeatedly the brain-damage issue and thought I'd give a link to a pretty cool interview with Ron Edwards in a podcast.  This is the direct link.  He talks about that bit and some other stuff concerning the Forge.  I personally had never heard of "The War" until it was mentioned in the Q&A with Luke and didn't know anything about the braindamage "scandal" either.  But I just listened to the podcast yesterday and thought it interesting to hear about it again there, so figured I'd share for folks who are interested.