Be honest. That's the only requirement here in this thread. If you can't be honest, don't bother posting.

Why are you here?




I am here because I like talking about games, I love RPG's and the like and find out cool things about games I'd never have thought about if not for other peoples discussion and enthusiasm.

I know people here, Clash, J Arcane, Stormbringer, Grubman,  JohnnyWatanabe, and others who's opinion I may not agree with all the time, but I respect all the same.

Heck I disagree with a lot of people but still respect their opinions on a great deal of other things.


Sure, if people want to buy my stuff, that's cool and all, but it ISN'T why I came here in the first place, or why I stay posting. (Sure I want and need feedback on NEW products, but I post a lot of places for that and so just follow suit here.)

So, that's why I'm here--to talk about games. It's the reason I also run #rpgchat on Magicstar, because I want to talk about games--not always with people I agree with. (Half my friends who show up there love Forgie designs. So )

I wanted a place to discuss games with people who seemed to be on the same wavelength as me, who actually seem to play once in a while. I followed a trail of breadcrumbs from Dr Rotwang!s most excellent blog, and here I am. Games, and other cool stuff I can mine for ideas. That's why I'm here.

Why So Serious?...

The Evolution of an internet poster…

Four years ago, give or take, I was pretty new to online forums, posting and so forth. For the most part I kept my mouth shut and lurked and learned the etiquette, but of course there are some things you have to learn the hard way. Four years ago some jackass called me a Nazi, and treating it like the fighting words it was, I wanted to beat the shit out of him. Fine and dandy, but I also told him the same.

Four years later I can sit back and laugh at the foolishness of this. There was no threat to him, of course. In a real sense he won that fight just by getting me to make an ass of myself.  I fumed, for days really. A few months later someone else called me a fundy… something or other.  I was still pretty pissed off, but I managed not to make an ass of myself. I still fumed for days. I even proved something to myself: Its far easier to find people’s meatspace selves than they often realize.  But I contented myself with knowing I COULD find and beat down someone, rather than wasting energy doing so.

There is some introspection that is forced upon one in times like that, however. Taking a break, by force or by choice, taking the time to track someone down and realizing that others can do the same to you makes one think.  I have been thinking now for four years about the internet, about posting.

It is common for me and mine to discuss at length wide ranging topics from politics to disease to sciences… anything and everything. A phrase that is occasionally used to end those conversations is ‘now that we’re done solving the world’s problems…’

Think on that for a moment. It is a strange creature, that comment, not entirely serious but pointing out the very futility of the activity.

Is it futile? Conversation helps illustrate problems, enlighten us to other’s points of view, to see things in different, even unexpected lights… and all of these are meaningful activities. But Conversation solves nothing, does nothing.  If one never takes the results of those Conversations away and actually applies them to the real world, what, exactly, was done? Nothing at all.

The Internet, by its very nature, is only useful for two basic things. The transmission of information…communication if you like, and amusement.   It is theoretically possible that some person will take the results of any given Conversation, even one they did not participate in, and apply it to the Real World, but given the sheer volume and vitriol it becomes vanishingly small.  Thus all that remains is amusement. We are not communicating with our fellow posters, we are amusing ourselves.

I do not exist.  There is no person behind Spike, only Persona. There is no Idea I wish you to understand, only Ideals. I am a creature of electrons and whimsy. Anything I tell you about ‘myself’ is suspect, anything anyone tells me about themselves is utter fact.

I have become the Joker, a beast uninterested in anything but gratification of myself at the expense of others. I wish to tear it all down and watch it burn. There is no other purpose to the Internet, it has no other value.  I do not care for your feelings, your beliefs, your love.  You are not real, I am not real, this is not real.  I have no points to win, nothing to lose. Entertain me, Motherfuckers is all that exists.

So I ask you all…

Why So Serious?

Many posters I like and appreciate post here and not on rpg.net.

Also rpg.net's moderation policies really killed the community I was a part of there at one time.

I'll phrase my non-answers like so:

I'm here in spite of the swinewar, not because of it.

And because RPG.net sucks assballs.

There are some good posters here who have a lot of interesting things to say about gaming.  Also some very witty people on all subjects.  It's an interesting community and it keeps me here, though I get driven away by the anger and ressentiment that sweeps through every now and then.

Edit:  Oh yes and the free speech moderation policy.  That's very important and I appreciate it.

I come here 'cause you'll never see a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

And I'm down with that.

Why am I here?  I think its a great question to ask us "newbies", and provides for a bit of introduction...
 
Hi, I'm Rick ...
 
I worked in the industry back in the late 80's and early 90's doing bits of playtesting and assistance and officially got into the industry in the late 90's working for a company called Precedence Entertainment (known originally as Precedence Publishing); one of those companies you either say "Who were they?" or "Oh yeah, that was Paul Brown the wanna-be rockstar ... he still owes me money for artwork" (Paul was the CEO of our company and the one who drove it into closing -- if enough are interested I can tell you the story of Precedence from the inside otherwise, I digress and continue on topic)...
 
Six years ago when Precedence closed their doors after botching up Ran Ackel's Immortal Invisible War for the 2nd time, I walked away from the industry, and some of the fans and players I worked alongside and called friends walked away to other people, games and a lot of gaming theory...  I worked on my own, still communicated with the remaining fans of the game, and with some prodding from Ran I went on to cleanup the game and provide a Player's Guide to those fans who stuck around after getting bilked by Precedence.  When I decided to find the latest RPG forums and such out there to release the game through (I was releasing it free at Ran's request after all), I walked into the middle of the Forge and very quickly decided that the state of affairs was not conducive to me keeping sanity).  So I put the game up on my website and let everyone I knew know about it and never bothered to really push it out there.
 
Enough interest developed so I worked on the gamemaster (Narrator) book and finished that up a few months ago.  Figured I'd take a peek back again and see how things are.  Granted, I'm still seeing some of the same stuff I saw 3 years ago, 6 years ago, 10 years ago and nearly 20 years ago... but I'm too old and smart (or stupid depending on your point of view) and it just doesn't bother me anymore, so I wanted to get back into discussing games again.
 
RPGSite seems to be the more acerbic (my big word for the day, yay!) between it and RPG.Net, but I'm seeing lots of great stuff here so I figured I'd stick around.  I figure if anyone is interested in Immortal they'll ask and if I see someone asking for something along a modern myth game I'll do my plug.  Otherwise, I'm just interested in talking about gaming and subjects that pop up that interest me as I come across them.
 
So, to summarize in about one sentence what just took me paragraphs to write ... I left, I'm back, I'm hopeful to enjoy myself and have interesting conversations....

I started out at Bulldrek which, while not dead isn't nearly as active as it's been. So I moved from there to Animalball, where the politically correct hugs and kisses brigade made users who wanted to discuss anything in a serious fashion unwelcome, and frankly not enough people talked about RPG's for my taste. Jong had discussed this place a few times, as had Brasky so I came over and I've stayed.

I like to discuss RPG's, and see what kind of ideas you people may have that either I didn't, or that I couldn't because it was way too far outside my box. Plus most of you have a style that's different from my own, so I figure I can learn what people do differently from me.

Since becoming a user here I've adopted six solid rules changes to my game, all successfully and with my players are pretty happy with these changes. That makes the few deuschebags I have endure to get the nuggets of gold worth it.

The site has shown it has the capacity to engage in useful discussion based on keen observations of how the more hands-on aspects of the hobby work. Collectively the userbase has a thoroughly comprehensive knowledge and experience of "traditional" gaming, which intersects nicely with my own preferences. Some outstanding examples of  at-the-table creativity can be found in the design and development forum. Superfluous theorising is minimal. Some of the people are funny in a good, laugh out loud way.

Over all the good far outweighs the bad.

I'm here because I like to chit-chat about this goofy-ass hobby of ours; I'm here because there are good ideas bandied about by you, my peers; I'm here because of mutual respect; I'm here because this place is fun.

Why am I here? Why are you here? Why is anybody here? I think it was Jean-Paul Sartre who once said... how do you spell spell Sartre?

*ahem*

I am here to discuss role playing games, though I have found the hostility and the elitisim here hard to take so I find myself coming here less and less.

Quote from: Serious Paul;243897Since becoming a user here I've adopted six solid rules changes to my game, all successfully and with my players are pretty happy with these changes.

Hey, I'd like to hear more about this, here or in another thread. (Apologies if you've already posted it somewhere.) This is like hearing about successful field-testing.

Anyway, I'm here because I enjoy talking about RPGs and bouncing related ideas around, both critical exchange and how-to.

I could do that in some other places but I like the minimal moderation, the broad inter-system perspective, and the fact that the center of gravity in terms of interest is roughly located on the "normal RPG" part of the spectrum.

For the chicks.

I knew you were going to say that!

(Now I see why you are always baiting Koltar.  He keeps getting them all!)