Quote from: Spinachcat;1029445From the Twitterstorm...



People who watch a show are an audience.

The word "community" has been bastardized into the current nonsense term of "everybody who likes a certain thing".

By the retardo definition, they are right.

But we should not use retardo definitions.

This is because for anyone born after 1990, your identity is formed by shit you get from a Loot Crate, not your family or neighborhood. You know, a community.

Quote from: Manic Modron;1029446Gamer fans should be honest and call themselves gamer fans.

However, energy spent making sure people know they aren't real gamers could be better spent encouraging them to become real gamers, which would help the hobby much more than getting pissy about titles.

As much fun as it is watching insecure fellow Boomers and X-ers (on a site that pretty much defines itself as a matter of pride as being a back room where the old holdouts sit and smoke their cigars far away from the latest trends) lament that the 'cool kids table' is being taken over by people of a new generation they don't understand (even though that's, y'know, how growing old works), I think you are right.

Obviously, on a technical level, being a gamer ought to be defined by the act of gaming. Whether that should be expanded to also be a requirement to be part of the 'gaming community' is really an open question, but not really an interesting one. Regardless, we don't get a vote in the matter. Names and terms and community identification are matters of social consensus. This is no different than the historical wargamers that didn't want those damn fantasy wargamers to consider themselves part of the same group, or the wargamers who considered those RPG-players to be an unwanted subclan. Don't like being identified as part of the same tribe? Add your own flag, tag, or qualifier and convince enough people to use it until it sticks. It worked for OSR. Gatekeeping, OTOH, requires others to recognize an authority over others that no one here (or anywhere else in the greater TTRPG gravity well*) has ever been able to muster.
*A term I am now using to distinguish itself from 'the gaming community'

What might actually be fruitful is what you suggest--make the argument to these sideline fans that it would be far more rewarding for them, to be actually involved in game playing, thereby steering the future of gaming towards how we would prefer it to turn out.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1029448This is because for anyone born after 1990, your identity is formed by shit you get from a Loot Crate, not your family or neighborhood. You know, a community.

It's so awesome that these people are so willing to wrap their self worth up with billion dollar corporations. And for the low low price if $19.95 you too can get a pre faded t shirt to show that you're a "geek".

Quote from: Spinachcat;1029445From the Twitterstorm...



People who watch a show are an audience.

The word "community" has been bastardized into the current nonsense term of "everybody who likes a certain thing".

By the retardo definition, they are right.

But we should not use retardo definitions.

Fuck this dude. Now I want to watch his streams and point out how shitty he is as a DM.

Huh, so watching HarmonQuest made me a Pathfinder gamer.  Who knew?

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1029448This is because for anyone born after 1990, your identity is formed by shit you get from a Loot Crate, not your family or neighborhood. You know, a community.

That goes back to blaming the Baby Boomers for destroying said families and neighborhoods, making Millennials find something else to latch onto out of necessity.  But that's another discussion.

I think a big reason why that douche Sly Flourish doesn't want to piss off the streamers is purely financial and he's too much of a gutless wonder to admit it. He wants to sell product. Which is a great reason not to piss off people that hold a lot of cultural power and have a track record of using said power to try to ruin lives.

I'm a world class poker player because I watched an episode of the world poker championships while eating at a family restaurant because there were no real sports to broadcast on the sports channel.  How dare you question my poker playing skills!

Ah so this is a Badwrongfun problem with Millennials not doing things the way the geezers think it should be done. Oh well, once the geezers are gone, the cycle will continue.

Quote from: Krimson;1029466Ah so this is a Badwrongfun problem with Millennials not doing things the way the geezers think it should be done. Oh well, once the geezers are gone, the cycle will continue.

Are your meds off?  Because you're smarter than that.

Somebody who's never played games is not a gamer.  Somebody who's never fucked is a virgin.

Quote from: Pyromancer;1029414The wife of a gamer who volunteers to work the kitchen at an local RPG convention is a more vital part of the community than a shitty gamer who simply sits at a table and rolls some dice when told to.

Agreed.  Whey Pundy-poo crossed the line from "not a gamer" to "not part of the RPG community," he screwed the pooch.

The Gygax sisters don't game, but son of a bitch do they put in a lot of work at GaryCon.

It seems like 99% of the YouTube videos on any topic are schlock. I'd be shocked if there wasn't a lot of D&D reality show table garbage out there.

Quote from: S'mon;1029407I don't believe there is such a thing as "the RPG community" - there are various online and other communities, but the vast majority of gamers are not part of them.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1029445The word "community" has been bastardized into the current nonsense term of "everybody who likes a certain thing".

Pretty much this. There is no RPG community. Just as there's no hot-dog-eaters community or enjoys-curling-up-with-a-good-book community.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1029448This is because for anyone born after 1990, your identity is formed by shit you get from a Loot Crate, not your family or neighborhood. You know, a community.

What a sad and unhealthy state of affairs. That sense of belonging people used to get from family, friends, co-workers, and neighbours has been replaced by the superficial faux-community of entertainment fandom. I genuinely pity people who have 'Harry Potter fandom' in that part of their psyche where 'sense of belonging in a community' naturally rests. It's hard to imagine a more damning indictment of our society.

But there's also something less pitiable and more sinister about the mania for 'community' among so many younger nerds; it's a way to police social norms and bring dissenters from your value system into line. Whenever someone says "we need to talk about the problem our community has with[my pet political cause]", it's time to loosen the rhetorical holster and get ready for a throwdown. Soothing your own bereft alienation with an ersatz-community is one thing. Using appeals to that ersatz-community as an avenue to impose your values on strangers is another thing altogether. And sadly, wherever you see the former, the latter is sure to follow.

As a wayward Millennial myself, I am inclined to agree with Pundit and Gronan on this one.

If you don't play games, you're not a gamer. Period.

Now, you can be involved with the community (like the Gygax sisters who help out with GaryCon) but you're not a gamer if you don't play the game. That's just simple logic and reason.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1029479Agreed.  Whey Pundy-poo crossed the line from "not a gamer" to "not part of the RPG community," he screwed the pooch.

The Gygax sisters don't game, but son of a bitch do they put in a lot of work at GaryCon.

Yup.

But, I agree watching a YouTube video does not make one part of the RPG community. Volunteering to help at a convention, taking your kids to the local game store to play games, getting your kids books, dice, mats, whatever, does.

What makes these people sad isn't what they watch, or why.

It's that they would care what someone says about them.  Pundit says they're not a gamer - so what?  Flip the bird and go back to what you want to do.  Whether he's right or not doesn't matter, and it's only their reaction that gives an opinion any power.