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Author Topic: Goodbye Levi  (Read 5196 times)

Abyssal Maw

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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #15 on: June 26, 2007, 03:19:04 PM »
Quote from: TonyLB
I get that.  The sites really do have different attitudes toward negative comments about the styles of game that many people there prefer.

I'd like to point out, however, that they also have different attitudes toward positive comments about styles of game that few people at the site prefer.

If Pundit went over to the Forge and talked about how much he loves D20 (or whatever), I suspect he'd get nothing but a warm welcome and some enthusiastic agreement.

I don't think even the forgies would believe that lie. You'd have to go on sort of bowing and scraping at the pedestal of narrativism, and then somehow come up with a way to frame it as "I know D&D sucks but these guys I hang out with keep insisting we play..."

..and then maybe, MAYBE you could talk about D&D (or anything else). Sprinkled with maybe some musings about how you changed out the experience system or something.

...But more likely you run into some jackanape who has never played D&D except once telling you how it all "really works."

And in any case- it doesn't matter.

Levi didn't leave because of the way Pundit runs this board. He left because he was offended by something Pundit said. You (as usual) are advocating a whole new way for this place to be run. I think I know why.

Here's the deal. At the end of the day: if you can't say whatever stupid crap you want to say here, then you by default are acknowledging that what you want to say will not hold up to argument, examination or the light of reality.

Thats the bottom line. No other place has this policy, so what you see is people create these little "safe places" and they have their starry-eyed little fantasies about how things work. And people who want to believe just smooch-smooch and group-hug right along, and nobody ever examines anything. And pretty soon you have actual cult leaders and an ideological battle that you, Tony, and people like you-- have made  worth fighting, because any lesser response allows you and people like you to abuse and denigrate our hobby, our friends, and our lifestyles.
We're abusing right back, I admit. I suggest if this is unpalatable to you, then you cease and desist and give us nothing to complain about. Eventually we go back to gaming. It's all we really care about.

So the RPGsite might be brutal and awful sometimes, I admit-- but it's honest and you either sink or swim based on your own ability. In any case, sometimes people's dumb fucking fantasies about 'how it oughta' be' or whatever really do deserve to get shot to pieces. Witness Tony's "Aren't Indie RPGs actually the majority?" thread from last year.

If anything, that is why they hate us.  They hate us because we own the only arena where you can make an argument without fear of being suddenly "disappeared".

Thusly, We own the debate. We took over the discourse. And we did it right under their pointy little noses, too. And that's why Tony wants desperately for us to become less controversial. Then we'd just fade right into the background as just another gaming site.

We are who we are because of the controversy. This is the most exciting place to discuss gaming.. on the entire internet.

Well, we're not going down that road, I hope. The brilliance of theRpgsite is: they can't tear their piggy little eyes away. Of all of the people commiserating with Levi over on his LJ and talking about how much they hate us? Most of them don't even have accounts here! I guarantee you that the worst of them are reading this now. We have a one-way hotline of communication with those fuckers, and we're using it.

That rules.

So in closing, I like Levi, and I regret him leaving, but that's certainly his right.    

If you don't like the intrinsic philosophy to how this place works, there's plenty of fluffy smooch-smooch hangouts you can go to. We're more of a spiky smash-smash place.
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Seanchai
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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #16 on: June 26, 2007, 03:26:55 PM »
Quote from: Mcrow
I'm just tired of the "Swine Wars".


They exist because of posters response to them. If you don't like them, don't respond to them.

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TonyLB

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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #17 on: June 26, 2007, 03:37:28 PM »
Quote from: Abyssal Maw
I don't think even the forgies would believe that lie. You'd have to go on sort of bowing and scraping at the pedestal of narrativism, and then somehow come up with a way to frame it as "I know D&D sucks but these guys I hang out with keep insisting we play..."

..and then maybe, MAYBE you could talk about D&D (or anything else). Sprinkled with maybe some musings about how you changed out the experience system or something.
:idunno:  Here's what's been active there this week:  1, 2, 3 D&D games in Actual Play.  I see some respondents pushing their favorite systems as an alternative, and some people complaining about D&Ds prep time vs. their schedule and energy, but I don't see either the bowing and scraping or the D&D-bashing that you predict.
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Gunslinger

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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #18 on: June 26, 2007, 03:49:20 PM »
Quote from: AM
have made worth fighting, because any lesser response allows you and people like you to abuse and denigrate our hobby, our friends, and our lifestyles.

Your friends, your lifestyle, and your hobby maybe but not mine.  Nobodys ranting on the internet has ever affected any of those.  I find the notion laughable and therefore the war laughable.  Protecting roleplayers from internet persecution?  Go on with your bad self internet paladin.
 

One Horse Town

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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #19 on: June 26, 2007, 04:11:04 PM »
I take back what i said earlier about going with a whimper. The real drama is going on elsewhere (with a handy link here so you can view the show!) To be honest that's sorta hypocritical innit? Leaving 'cos of pundits ego and then setting up a link to a blog to tell you why...:melodramatic:

RPGPundit

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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #20 on: June 26, 2007, 04:22:15 PM »
Quote from: TonyLB
I get that.  The sites really do have different attitudes toward negative comments about the styles of game that many people there prefer.

I'd like to point out, however, that they also have different attitudes toward positive comments about styles of game that few people at the site prefer.

If Pundit went over to the Forge and talked about how much he loves D20 (or whatever), I suspect he'd get nothing but a warm welcome and some enthusiastic agreement.  Some people might respond in a way that he found odd, or even condescending, but nobody would respond as if his love for D&D was an attack upon them.

Whereas, by contrast, I know what happens when I come over here and talk about how much I enjoy games that Pundy doesn't love ... and it ain't a warm welcome ;)


Well, kind of. If you were to post a thread about Dogs in the Vinyard (lets say) where you were just talking about the game itself, and not making any greater statements (ie. "its raised the bar of roleplaying for us all" or something like that); where you were talking about your cool campaign, or asking questions about the system, I for one wouldn't do anything about that. There have been threads here about Nobilis, for example, where the game has been talked about and the thread did NOT erupt into a flamewar, because it was just talking about the game itself, not making some kind of grander statement.

I really have no problem with that sort of thing, and wouldn't piss on other's parade if what they were doing in the thread didn't involve pissing on mine.

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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #21 on: June 26, 2007, 04:24:26 PM »
Quote from: KrakaJak

This is not a safe forum. Neither Pundit nor anyone else has to pussyfoot about their opinions. If Levi wants to leave because he couldn't hang then he can leave. I like the guy, but this is a messageboard. You can ignore Pundit if he bothers you (by putting him on your ignore list).


Err, well, actually people can't. Because I'm the admin, I can't actually be put on Ignore.

But they could just choose to ignore me, though.

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Serious Paul

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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #22 on: June 26, 2007, 05:37:47 PM »
Ignore Lists are for sissy's anyways!

Anemone

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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #23 on: June 26, 2007, 06:03:17 PM »
Quote from: Serious Paul
Ignore Lists are for sissy's anyways!

Word.  Thanks to handy avatars, I can recognize assholes' posts at a glance and scroll right past, even those I can't put on my Ignore list.  :rolleyes:
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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #24 on: June 26, 2007, 06:22:55 PM »
Quote from: Ian Absentia
It's my personal belief that Pundy's occasional screeds are his not-so-subtle attempt to raise the traffic-tracking indicators.  Every so often, the statistics begin to flag, and he'll drag some of his shit out of his own forum to post it to the main forum in hopes of stirring up the post count.  He then crows about the vigor of his site.I imagine it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

!i!

For someone who claims that Pundy is full of conspiracy theories for his "War" - I call Pot/Kettle!

EDIT: And after having read Levi's LJ, why don't you claim he needed/wanted readers so he pulled the melodramatic "I'm leaving" post to up his readership?  Oh no, only the Pundit could have those kind of motives.

You whiners and bitchers have do two things:
1) ignore the fucking Pundit if you don't like his screed.
2) see #1.

"Yeah, but, but, Pundit's the owner!"  I get it. But if you ignore him, he will become irrelavent. Y'all think he's a moron - so what happens when you argue with a moron? So leave him in his room up in the attic and get on with it.

Unless, of course, your real goal is to subvert the success of this site.  Oh no! More conspiracies! It's like one of those russian dolls and we just can't get to the final one!
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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #25 on: June 26, 2007, 06:34:30 PM »
Quote from: James J Skach
For someone who claims that Pundy is full of conspiracy theories for his "War" - I call Pot/Kettle!


Yeah really. I'm no longer even bothering to track the stats of this site on a regular basis, because its clear that this site continues to have a regular thriving growth. There's been no point where there's been any "flagging" of stats. I post whenever and whatever I'm in the mood for posting, and that's it.

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jeff37923

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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #26 on: June 26, 2007, 06:35:21 PM »
I hate to slow down a perfectly good knee-jerk in progress, but Levi decided to leave a forum (which is something that people do from time to time as a personal choice). So why is this now a crusade to have Pundit change his posting style on the man's own fucking forum?

So you're tired of Swine commentary, don't read it or go somewhere else. If you don't like what is going on in this place, then why do you come here? I mean, really people, get a grip. I've noticed enough derision about this place from other forums, but Moderators and Admins of those other forums keep coming here to lurk. To me, that means that something is being done right on this forum.

Get off Pundit's back. The very fact that people can question his judgement in such a derogatory manner on the guy's own forum without getting banned should demonstrate that he's not the ogre detractors would like him to be.
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C.W.Richeson

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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #27 on: June 26, 2007, 06:35:50 PM »
There are at least a dozen posters, several of whom are posting to this thread, that continue to make this site a draw for me.  When they choose to leave I'll probably follow, but for now it's worth checking once a day or so.

I think that in most ways my tastes are in complete conflict with Pundit's, but I've never had any trouble with him and always felt free and welcome to post here.  The 'site wars' make me a little uncomfortable since I identify with several gaming websites and, the way things are headed, I'm not sure I want to be identified as a 'theRPGsite' member.  I know I'm less likely to advocate the site to others today than I was just 3 months ago.  There's just a lot more anger, or so it seems to me.

I feel like the site used to be a refuge for anyone who wanted it to come talk about RPGs and today it's more of a place for those who hate those other gaming sites.  Some of that was always here, it just seems more pronounced now.

Quote from: Anemone
Word.  Thanks to handy avatars, I can recognize assholes' posts at a glance and scroll right past, even those I can't put on my Ignore list.  :rolleyes:


Right, and there's something more to this.  I screen what I read and I suspect most other folk do too - otherwise they'd go nuts.  I do this on every message board - sometimes I'll notice someone going off the deep end or I'll see a clearly inflammatory post and I'll just move on to some other thread.

So, I put it to you that if you hate reading Pundit's stuff then just skip over pages where he's a major participant or move on to another thread.  Maybe you lose a good post or two, but it will probably increase your site enjoyment.
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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #28 on: June 26, 2007, 06:39:19 PM »
Quote from: jeff37923
but Moderators and Admins of those other forums keep coming here to lurk. To me, that means that something is being done right on this forum.


I think it means there's a lot of drama and if you took away the "RPG.net sucks balls" "I hate Darren/Curt/Cessna/Dan/ModX" and "StoryGames is pretentious" threads you'd end up with fewer lurkers.

But you may find that more gamers from those sites show up over time and post.
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jeff37923

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Goodbye Levi
« Reply #29 on: June 26, 2007, 06:46:45 PM »
Quote from: C.W.Richeson
I think it means there's a lot of drama and if you took away the "RPG.net sucks balls" "I hate Darren/Curt/Cessna/Dan/ModX" and "StoryGames is pretentious" threads you'd end up with fewer lurkers.


Maybe so, but I don't think the drama is any more here than the Grubman vs. Hellsreach/SWSE vs. d6 Star Wars drama on RPGNet.
"Meh."