Back in day, Runequest and Chaosium players came across, on average, as elitists. Particularly Stormbringer and the other Moorcock games came appealed to what i called the angst players that Vampire appealed too later. Cthulu was a little different in that is was THE horror game. So you had a mix of several types of players.

Also the differences were there but not as defined as today. This is because, by far the vast majority were wargamers with the attitude that we play games with rules that challenge us. It wasn't until the late 80s that this started to disappear.

Wow. You just triggered something I had never thought of in the Swine debate . . .

The key thing I always remembered about late seventies/early eighties RuneQuest was that it was just about the only game our high school D&D club could interest girls in playing. If we had three tables going, one with D&D, one with Traveller, and one with Runequest, all the girls would be at the Runequest table. That's what stuck in my mind, more than the interlaced combat rounds or the percentile skills. Girls played it.

As time went on, I could always get a girl or two to play Call of Cthulhu--not due to any rules relationship with Runequest, but just because there are more girls interested in that kind of genre than sword & sorcery or science fiction. Just a generalization--clearly I'm being sexist, but I'm not trying to be obnoxious about it . . .

And then Vampire. Oh boy. Suddenly, with Vampire, I could have groups that were half men and half women--sometimes even more women than men--unheard of!

The only people that have ever asked me to run Nobilis or Deleria were women.

This is simply an observation. I'm not saying that girls are such and such a way because of the games they like. And I'm way, way away from demeaning this game or that because girls play them. And since I know plenty of girls that play D&D these days, I'm not suggesting that these stereotypes are generalized or permanent. But it's something to consider.

It has nothing to do with how annoying the Swine are when you meet them at cons . . .  Unless their hyper tendencies come from being sexually overstimulated and frustrated. I don't know. Just something to consider.

Most of the female gamers I've known have been pretty hard core hack and slash players with a strong steak of "dick the party around at every opportunity".

Anyhow, Ron Edwards discussion of fantasy heart breakers troubles me some what.  I thought all those games failed because they were poorly designed in general, and frequently poorly illustrated, edited, and typeset.  If it's because they didn't involve the GM giving the players a hand job under the table as a resolution mechanic (thats two minutes Bob, looks like I got a crit on the evil overlord), then I'm afraid my own vain ambitions are doomed to failure.

DOoooommmed I say DOOOoooooommmed!

Quote from: David RDoesn't this nonsense belong in the Pundit's forum? (I mean that's why Sett made his "swine" post there, right?)

Regards,
David R

Frankly, I don't think Sett's post belongs in my forum. This one certainly doesn't.

My Forum is not the "dump anything about the Swine here" forum.

My forum is the forum for talking specifically about theRPGPundit.   You will not be allowed to ghettoize criticisms of the Swine just because you don't like it.

RPGPundit

Quote from: BalbinusFor fuck's sake.

The point of swine is that they espouse a game not from enjoyment or love of it but because they feel that proclaiming their love of that game marks them out as in some way superior.

In Pundit's view as I understand it, someone who genuinely loves Sorceror or Vampire and really enjoys playing it and so talks about it a lot is not swine (though I think he'd probably think they had lousy taste in games).  Somebody who loudly talks about Sorcerer, Vampire, CoC or whatever because they in some way feel that proclaiming their attachment to that game indicates they are a better person is swine in his view.

Swine is about motivation, not what you play.

So, for many of us Runequest et al were better games, and frankly if they hadn't happened I wouldn't be in the hobby today.  That's not swinedom, it's gaming preference.  

You're right about what the Swine really are, your understanding of the term is correct. Its not about gaming preference, its about your motives and your condemnation of "lesser" styles of play.

However, you should realize that the OP is right too. At the very earliest stages of the gaming hobby, there were proto-swine, and Runequest was their chosen "masterpiece" to fight against the "unwashed masses" of D&D.
However, back then, the RPG hobby was strong enough to essentially absorb these guys, "de-swining" them. That's why TODAY, most of the games that came out of that early proto-Swine movement are not really Swine games, nor are most of the gamers who like those games Swine by any definition of the word. The one exception would be Runequest itself, which still has a great deal of elitism associated with it, and far more pretentiousness than either the game or its setting really warrant.

The OP makes another interesting point too; the absorption of this proto-swine movement changed gaming forever, and made sure that gaming would never again be a popular mass-hobby.  It is from this synthesis that we get things like the idea of a single static "locked" campaign, whereas before (like Calithena said) you could take your 10th level barbarian from your game in Michigan, move to California, and keep playing the same dude in someone else's campaign there.

Its from this synthesis that we got the whole idea that you need to have complex skills involved with characters, that stats will somehow be what defines your character, that it should take more than four minutes to roll up a character, that the game or the game world should be "realistic", that sci-fi and fantasy shouldn't mix (except under very specific circumstances; something like Shadowrun is ok; something like Blackmoor is not), it is where we got all of these ideas.  

For my part, I have to admit I (like 99% of the gamers who play today) like many of these ideas, hell many of these ideas define RPGs for me; I like the idea of campaigns that have structure to them, and of characters that have a personality other than your own that isn't just a charicature. Other than Runequest (who's system I dislike compared to any other BRP and who's setting bores the fuck out of me), I like pretty well every other game listed. I think Jonathan Tweet is a fucking genius, and Over the Edge is one of the most brilliant games ever made.

There are some other ideas that I don't like (like the shunning of Gonzo, or the increased length of character creation), but I must admit that most gamers today support them.

But fundamentally, we've also lost something.  We've lost the ability to appeal to people who aren't going to be hardcore gamers.   You can't, with any game out there right now (including D&D) get a group of people together, whip up characters in 5 minutes, and just go Forward to Adventure (pardon the shameless plug). You can't have stuff that makes no sense and not have to justify it.

And that's a shame. I think gaming really could accommodate both the structured campaign type games, and the Gonzo pick-up games, and that we have become poorer for the lack of the latter. I think especially that where this should happen is with a basic version of D&D, a REAL basic version, one that could really be seen as a "party game" for anyone the way Pictionary or Charades are a party game. Until we have a version of D&D that can do that again (the way the old basic D&D could), we're stuck in a rut as a hobby.

RPGPundit

Quote from: jrientsHas the entirety of Edwards' body of work simply been an attempt to go back in time and hang out with the cool Runequest kids?  

Yes!

QuoteThat's probably reading too much into this line, but the idea is no less ridiculous than the fact that much of my gaming career consists of attempts to recapture the magic of my original Keep on the Borderlands runs.

We are all forged (pardon the pun) by our early experiences in gaming; for most of us, our early experiences consisted being the twelve year old kid wielding Stormbringer in the 20th level of a very poorly-designed dungeon your buddy made up, having insane adventures in your friend's parent's basement.  Nothing, nothing, will ever quite manage to capture that sense of utter joy and excitement in RPGs again.

For Ron Edwards, his defining early experience consisted of seeing some of the "older kids" playing a "sophisticated" game that he wasn't allowed to join in on, and it warped him for life.  He swore from that moment on that he'd always be one of those "cool kids" who would put down other people's play, prove himself "smart" enough to be one of the "cool kids", and never be one of the excluded "unwashed masses" again.

RPGPundit

Quote from: David RDoesn't this nonsense belong in the Pundit's forum? (I mean that's why Sett made his "swine" post there, right?)

Regards,
David R

Well. . . maybe. . . this is less of an outright attack than it is a discussion of the philosophy, though. Ideally though, yes, this should be in Pundit's forum.

Quote from: jdrakehWell. . . maybe. . . this is less of an outright attack than it is a discussion of the philosophy, though. Ideally though, yes, this should be in Pundit's forum.

No, again, sorry but it shouldn't be.  Unless its a thread that is specifically addressed to me or talking about me, it doesn't really belong there.

If you want to make a thread "addressing me" about my claims on the Swine, then you can put that in my subforum.  If you want to write a general thread about the Swine or something that mentions the Swine, it goes here.

This is a relevant and valid subject for the Role-Playing Games forum.

RPGPundit

Pundit, whatever other differences we do or don't have, we're in agreement on the 'isolated hobby' issue.

Quote from: BalbinusFor fuck's sake.

The point of swine is that they espouse a game not from enjoyment or love of it but because they feel that proclaiming their love of that game marks them out as in some way superior.

In Pundit's view as I understand it, someone who genuinely loves Sorceror or Vampire and really enjoys playing it and so talks about it a lot is not swine (though I think he'd probably think they had lousy taste in games).  Somebody who loudly talks about Sorcerer, Vampire, CoC or whatever because they in some way feel that proclaiming their attachment to that game indicates they are a better person is swine in his view.

Swine is about motivation, not what you play.

No, no, we can't be having this. No nuance - this is war. That's like saying it's not games or players who are Gamist, it's emergent behavior over periods of a group's play, or whatever. All you Runequest fans deserve the exact same treatment as those guys who lorded it over us at the hobby store and in the fanzines, at least until you PUBLICLY DENOUNCE THEM and DISSASSOCIATE YOURSELF FROM THEM IN PUBLIC.

I mean, of course in theory we can acknowledge that there may be a few Jews who love the Fatherland, or people who post at the Forge and play those games just for enjoyment, without needing to proselytize, etc. But these are tiny fractions, and in a war to the death, where nothing less than the wholesale annihilation of a threat to our very way of life will suffice, it is sometimes necessary to kill healthy tissue that forms part of a degenerate mass, in order to ensure that the organism as a whole will survive and prosper.

In case the irony detector is busted again, the previous two paragraphs are not intended as literal statements of my own beliefs about the issues we are discussing.

Quote from: RPGPunditThis is a relevant and valid subject for the Role-Playing Games forum.

Well, I'll give you that it's more relevant that any of the pointless screeds we typically see on the "subject" (mainly because this actually started off as a look at the larger phenomena and it absurdity, rather than a finger-pointing "FUCK YOU!" thread).

QuoteIn case the irony detector is busted again, the previous two paragraphs are not intended as literal statements of my own beliefs about the issues we are discussing.

I think you either picked the wrong site, or the perfect site, to post this little satire, given the likelihood of a number of people here to take it deadly serious.  

Quote from: RPGPunditIts from this synthesis that we got the whole idea that you need to have complex skills involved with characters, that stats will somehow be what defines your character, that it should take more than four minutes to roll up a character, that the game or the game world should be "realistic", that sci-fi and fantasy shouldn't mix (except under very specific circumstances; something like Shadowrun is ok; something like Blackmoor is not), it is where we got all of these ideas.  

On this point I have to disagree. The appeal of more complex ruleset is from the wargamer in the initial hobby. The rules lawyers that analyzed the shit out of stuff and wanted more realism.

I am a bit derogatory in the term of rule lawyer to describe this behavior. For many of us after a few years the D&D rules failed to keep the suspension of disbelief going for the game. This is combined for the desire for more "stuff" not just possessions and MIs but options for the characters themselves.

As for the sci-fi and fantasy not mixing that was originally because the "hacks" used to bring in sci-fi elements into AD&D were usually a power gamer's dream. Once systems like GURPS, Hero Systems, Torg, and Rifts got going people happily mixed the two.

None of this I consider swine behavior.


Rob Conley


P.S.
I think D&D 3rd/D20 succeeds because it offer a good balance between game options and complexity. Hell if I had some of the D20 concepts for my AD&D games back in the 80s I would have never have switched.

Quote from: CalithenaIn case the irony detector is busted again, the previous two paragraphs are not intended as literal statements of my own beliefs about the issues we are discussing.

I suggest you work on your use of irony, and until then, avoid use of it in public.

Oh, I get what you're saying, and I agree that RQ fans were probably pretty swinish back in the day. I certainly was, I think I knew a person or two who was, and Lev Lafayette is probably a contemporary example.

But, you're being kinda dumb in the pursuit of whatever other point it is that you're pursuing, probably trying to rehabilitate certain Forge personalities I would guess.

Quote from: CalithenaThey were around in the seventies. The original 'swine' game was Runequest.

Horseshit.  The whole "swine" thing existed within the already various and sundry D&D camps that existed before RQ was even published.  And before that, it existed among the wargamer camps.

Is this another one of your posts where you would have been better off using smilies?

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaHorseshit.  The whole "swine" thing existed within the already various and sundry D&D camps that existed before RQ was even published.

It exsted before RPGs, according to the etymology of "grognard" from people who were there when the term was coined.