I went back a read the second one again.  I will soften some of my criticism.  I still think that the first one is overly harsh of White Wolf and their players in general.

As the the "Generation of Swine", I started playing in 1982 with OD&D.  I didn't have many people to play with, heck sometimes I went months doing nothing but world building.  Around '86 or '87 I started having a wider range of people to play with and I actually started playing some AD&D 1E.  Didn't get really heavily into it until 2E came out and then the gloves were off.  I had multiple groups and gamed mutiple times each week, it was heaven.  We tried every game and game system we could get out hands on.  There was one point where I had a 95%+ of everthing that TSR had put out for 2E.

I still remember having a marathon gaming session where we did 8 hours of D&D, 8 hours of TMNT, and 8 hours of Vampire.  I remember sitting in my basement and playing Vampire by candlelight when there was only like 3 or 4 books from White Wolf even out.

The early and mid 90's for me were like a gaming paradise.  I have very fond memories of 2E.  Do I think d20 is better than 2E, fuck yeah.  It was a time of myriads of systems, growing off of D&D popularity during the 80's.  I played TMNT, Nija's & Superspies, Rifts, Champions, HERO, Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars, Amber, Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Wraith, Changeling, Tales From The Floating Vagabond, ICE Middle Earth, Gamma World, and at least 10 others that I can't think of right now.

Quote from: Sojourner JudasReally the best thing that could happen to White Wolf was WoD2.0, because it trimmed out a lot of the bullshit, purple prose, and elitism. Since the switchover the writing has been a lot more solid and doesn't take itself so seriously.

Oh I agree iwth that, they really streamlined everything.  I did enjoy a lot of the purple prose as you put it though.  White Wolf rulebooks were the only gaming books that I could actually sit down and read huge chunks of at once and actually keep my interest.

Quote from: FickleGMMy question is this - How long until the Pundit is banned from here, too?

What?  I only ask because it's funny (it is too).

Care to start a pool?  

Seriously though, while I rarely agree with Pundit on anything from gaming to the Pope, he is an interesting read.

I suspect that the Pundit wouuld find me to be at least semi-Swinish (if for nothing else my unholy love of Unisystem), but I enjoy his blog very much.  Don't always agree with it, but enjoy it nonetheless.

Y'know, the Pundit needs to invent some sort of test, so we can grade ourselves and see just how much we rank indivually on the Swine scale, perhaps as a percentage score ("I'm 37% Swine!")

Quote from: KnightcrawlerOh I agree iwth that, they really streamlined everything.  I did enjoy a lot of the purple prose as you put it though.  White Wolf rulebooks were the only gaming books that I could actually sit down and read huge chunks of at once and actually keep my interest.

I'm still loving reading them, really. Mage especially has been rather good for pleasure reading. Then again I'm an occult nerd and actually like reading about some of the more obscure stuff as a hobby. Thus Mage's re-focusing on that stuff has been pleasant.

Quote from: Sojourner JudasReally the best thing that could happen to White Wolf was WoD2.0, because it trimmed out a lot of the bullshit, purple prose, and elitism. Since the switchover the writing has been a lot more solid and doesn't take itself so seriously.

Really? And yet the new WoD book talks about how you (the reader) should feel sorry for and try to enlighten the ignorants who still play RPGs for fun instead of art, and even brings out he old "roll-playing vs. Role-playing" canard, years and years after everyone else has abandoned it as moronic.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditReally? And yet the new WoD book talks about how you (the reader) should feel sorry for and try to enlighten the ignorants who still play RPGs for fun instead of art, and even brings out he old "roll-playing vs. Role-playing" canard, years and years after everyone else has abandoned it as moronic.

RPGPundit

This is one of the reasons I don't buy WW games; I hate their pretentious writing (and the dice mechanic, but that's a different story).  Fortunately, the vast majority of gamers don't buy into fatbeard thinking.

You're all ignoring the single greatest benefit of playing WW games:

Hot goth chicks. As long as hot goth chicks keep playing these games, they'll never go away.

I had an idea for a Vampire campaign once. It was going to be a tale of plotting and manipulation set in 17th century Italy. But, after actually reading the Vampire rulebooks, I realized how poorly the system is really put together. I like the background and flavor, but hate - utterly hate - the implementation. The game is designed from the ground up to appeal to teens or young college students, particularly the weirder portion of the party crowd. The mechanics were largely tossed into the book as an afterthought, just in case you felt the need to occasionally role dice. The whole system is designed so that dominant personalities get all the showtime, and submissive personalities... well... submit. And the whole concept of "Soryteller" implies that the story already exists, and the players are just going through it. I like player-led campaigns, where the GM isn't a storyteller - he's a referee.

So if I were to run my Vampire campaign I'd have to rewrite the whole system from the ground up to be what I want. Screw that.

damn those hot goth chicks!!

Well it's Mr Pundit's blog that brought me here to have a butchers at the site.  Good to have a look at as many different fora as possible and RPGnet gets increasingly painful to use as time goes on.

However I'd join in the criticism of his 'swine' outlook.  His last commentary on it made it sound far more like his criticism was actually of railroading, just dressed up in other terms and attacking a different kind of railroading than that found in the traditional module.

GMs who are out to 'tell a story' are just as bad as those running on tracks, both take away options from the players and prevent them having a fulfilling game but that isn't by and large what 'storytelling' style of gaming is actually about. Rather it is more about focussing on other aspects of the game rather than combat and placing more emphasis on dramatics and narrative elements - produced by either player or GM - over the 'luck of the dice'.

While there are certainly 'swine' such as Mr Pundit describes I think they've existed as long as the hobby has existed and aren't a particular plague associated with White Wolf games or any other development house.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with trying for a more mature game - note, mature, not better - just as there's nothing wrong with going for a more immature game.

When talking about popularising RPGs I think it is 'naughty' not to give White Wolf the kudos they deserve for countering much of the geek image and lending gaming a veneer of cool that DID bring new blood into the hobby and even though that has tailed off somewhat the continued popularity in the teen zeitgeist of Nu-Metal and Emo would indicate that there's still a market to be tapped there.  Something I think they've pretty much missed with the nWoD which seems somewhat limp and directionless to me.

I think, as with a lot of things, it bears comparison with the comic book market.  We've had our boom period (CCGs and D20) where the market was glutted with shiny foil covers and tricks and now we have to deal with the crash.  Some of what recovers will be nostalgia led and some will be the 'graphic novel' equivalent.  There's room for the Stan Lee/Jim Lee's of this world AND the Alan Moore's/Warren Ellis' (Elli? Elloi?) as well.

Quote from: RPGPunditReally? And yet the new WoD book talks about how you (the reader) should feel sorry for and try to enlighten the ignorants who still play RPGs for fun instead of art, and even brings out he old "roll-playing vs. Role-playing" canard, years and years after everyone else has abandoned it as moronic.

RPGPundit

Bah.  That whole idiotic roll vs role-playing debate has never died.  Just look around at ENWorld and RPG.Net for a few minutes and you'll see that "debate" is still going strong.

Quote from: kanegrundarBah.  That whole idiotic roll vs role-playing debate has never died.  Just look around at ENWorld and RPG.Net for a few minutes and you'll see that "debate" is still going strong.

Eh, I don't think it's entirely useless as a way of differentiating.

One way is playing with your character as a playing piece more or less, the other is trying to play as the character.

It's just overused.

Quote from: GRIMEh, I don't think it's entirely useless as a way of differentiating.

One way is playing with your character as a playing piece more or less, the other is trying to play as the character.

It's just overused.

But no one that I know plays like that, like a playing piece.

And likewise, its completely disingenuous to suggest that certain games (ie. D&D) are only for roll-playing, or even particularly focused on that.  Gary Gygax has noted that the brilliance that keeps D&D on top is that its centrally focused on the "heroic model" while it does NOT exclude any other kind of play.

Meanwhile, White Wolf games are actually far more "roll-playing" than D&D; in D&D when you perform social interactions the amount of die rolls is considerably less than in the supposed "storytelling" WW game, where in fact everything social based is determined by how many "dots" you have in your charisma skills, not how well you actually ROLEPLAY your character.

See? I can do the same thing to them that they claim to do to the rest of the hobby.

You see, the most annoying part to me is that the Swine's claims about the superiority of "their" games are not just pretentious, they're utterly and completely unfounded (of course, that is part of the definition of the word "pretentious", but a lot of people don't get that).

RPGPundit

The funny thing is that, really, role- and roll-playing both have a part in a good campaign. You get sick of "role playing," and relish the thought of having a nice, tactical combat. And when that "roll playing" is done, you shift back. The problem isn't that one is a better way to play than the other, the problem is that there are people in all systems who focus so strongly, it's pretty much to the exclusion of the other.

I do find arguments like this (in this case role- vs. roll-, which has no moral or ethical basis) to be very interesting.  Many people crave righteousness and this is just one way to get that.    Many people crave validation and this is just one way to get that.  I'll admit that there are many times that I crave these (and more times than I'd like to admit I act upon those cravings).

By making someone else's opinion "wrong", it makes your opinion "right".  Once you've convinced yourself that your way is right, it makes you a better person.  Unfortunately, in the case of roll- vs. role-, the roll- side rarely takes the path of righteousness (I wonder if it is because, roll-play is seen as the default = novice = childish way of playing).  I've seen people defend their right to roll-play (heck, my wife prefers that style way more than role-play...and last I checked, she has fun doing it that way).

By either jumping onto the side of others who are throwing around their "role-play is superior" argument or by recruiting others to join your argument, people gain validation.  This helps them to feel accepted and to feel right.  This form of "esteem building" appears to affect both sides of the roll- vs. role- argument, as the battlelines form.

I'm sure that people can scan the history books for many atrocities that were committed in the name of "righteousness" and "validation", so this is very minor (even if annoying).

Anyway, just an observation (right or wrong)...