QuoteYou know what's really morally repugnant?

Asserting that your way of playing a fucking game makes you morally superior to other people.

Well, of course you are right about that.. and it would be great if that were to catch on, but this is a long standing thing.

You can practically graph this out:

All it took is the (incorrect) assertion that "THAt kind of gaming is all about killing people and taking their stuff"

This is foolishness itself, but once that gained traction with the swine masses, it eventually lead to the insidious

"..and that doesn't match my self-professed college-drop-out liberalism in these politically-charged times"

and ends up with

".. so we now play a game about exploring the harsh economic realities of living in a trailer park. ITS MORALITY!"

(Or)

"..so we now play a game about how bad organized religion is, by acting out scenes where we go from town to town shooting people l in the face for mormonism. ITS MORALITY!".

Dude, it's been there all along. All Settembrini did was notice it and put it into words.

QuoteDude, it's been there all along. All Settembrini did was notice it and put it into words.

That's fucking horseshit.  And fucking cowardly to boot.  

Don't go blaming other people for your goddamn issues.

But hey, congratulations on becoming the thing which you profess to hate.

QuoteAsserting that your way of playing a fucking game makes you morally superior to other people.

No. It only makes my gaming morally superiour. I can still be an asshole as a complete human.

That´s the fine difference (so fine it´s often overlooked and that is what Luhmann is adressing). The most important one.

You are a swine, if you define your hole person via Gaming.

Read my "clarification" post, it´s all in there.

Apart from that, sure the Forgers really often do it: Equate gaming values with private values of the same person. That´s the fallacy. A big one.

See, in germany there are a lot of people who dig  deep immersive romantic fantasy RPG with hardcore railroading, illusionism and script immunity. That´s wankery in my moral compass, but it would be laughable to attribute that to the whole person. They are wanking when playing nothing more nothing less.
See I´m a wanker when I wank. And I´m a gamer when I game.

Quote from: J ArcaneThat's fucking horseshit.  And fucking cowardly to boot.  

Don't go blaming other people for your goddamn issues.

But hey, congratulations on becoming the thing which you profess to hate.

Well, Im not really blaming anyone. Maybe you are taking this too seriously. You don't see it? I totally see it.

An explanation....anyone?

Addition:

The thing that really is at stake, is that in all playstyle discussions, you are inherently attacking the other persons choice and habit of organizing his free time.

There is no way around that.

If you don´t want that, you can´t make any judgements.

So, that´s why I will not enter those discussions anymore, except when I think it´s extremely important to tell somebody that his choice for enjoyment is bad in my eyes.

Again: Look at Droog. He said he played a long time without challenge/risk. That´s akin to saying (in my eyes): "I drank once a week heavily with friends, and we had a blast."
Does this make him in any way a better/worse human?
No.

Only his choice of activity can be scrutinized. Still, if people identify too much with their activiy, the part becomes the whole. And this is unhealthy, either way.

So basically there is no way in discussing playstyles without stepping on some feet in the process.

That´s why I´m done with it.
Better be open about it, if at all.

I agree wholeheartedly with E.  Style discussions are often little more than dick-waving contests, yet they need not be.

Would this be a good moment to reveal that I can't help but think sometimes that the real continuity between White Wolf and Forge games is not their focus on "story" but an Ayn-Randianist relation between PCs and gameworld of which that story focus is merely a natural outcome?

Maybe not.

Quote from: StumpydaveAn explanation....anyone?

I don't have a clue. I think this talk of morality is a different kind of morality then I'm familiar with.

Gaming, like almost every other activity of humans, is a practice in which judgements, norms, arguments and ends are involved, and is therefore a moral activity. Discussion about it is a moral activity for the same reason.

Akrasia's distinction between aesthetic and moral judgements is dubious at best. Both are within the big tent of value theory, and the distinction between them seems a historical artifact of Enlightenment liberalism that is once again falling out of favour (and has been for most of the 20th and 21st centuries - Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Foucault, the Frankfurt school, Gadamer, and the analytic virtue ethicists are all examples of thinkers or groups of thinkers who have attacked the distinction recently).

Now, the problem with most RPG debate is not that it is moral, but that it is conducted as irreconcilable subjectivities colliding with one another. That is, it is badly done moral debate. Probably because it is done on the internet, there is no appeal to the other person as possessing dignity and being open to rational persuasion. They're just an enemy, to be excluded however possible from the world. Similarly, one does not open one's self up to the "force of reason" but merely asserts one's sovereignty over the world.

Most arguing, and specifically most argument over RPG theory, is pretty crappy as a result, on both sides. The problem (of the poor quality of moral debate) is larger than gaming, of course, but it's certainly present here.

Quote from: StumpydaveAn explanation....anyone?

What, exactly, is confusing you?

Cheers,
-E.

Sett - would you say your thematic/adventure game distinction was part of your playstyle discussions?

Quote from: PseudoephedrineGaming, like almost every other activity of humans, is a practice in which judgements, norms, arguments and ends are involved, and is therefore a moral activity. Discussion about it is a moral activity for the same reason.

Akrasia's distinction between aesthetic and moral judgements is dubious at best. Both are within the big tent of value theory, and the distinction between them seems a historical artifact of Enlightenment liberalism that is once again falling out of favour (and has been for most of the 20th and 21st centuries - Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Foucault, the Frankfurt school, Gadamer, and the analytic virtue ethicists are all examples of thinkers or groups of thinkers who have attacked the distinction recently).

Now, the problem with most RPG debate is not that it is moral, but that it is conducted as irreconcilable subjectivities colliding with one another. That is, it is badly done moral debate. Probably because it is done on the internet, there is no appeal to the other person as possessing dignity and being open to rational persuasion. They're just an enemy, to be excluded however possible from the world. Similarly, one does not open one's self up to the "force of reason" but merely asserts one's sovereignty over the world.

Most arguing, and specifically most argument over RPG theory, is pretty crappy as a result, on both sides. The problem (of the poor quality of moral debate) is larger than gaming, of course, but it's certainly present here.

Pseudo, you know I respect you man, but I think you're way overanalyzing this, and giving way too much credit.  

This has nothing to do with morality, just unjustified feelings of superiority over a trivial matter, and using pointlessly inflammatory language to express said sense of superiority.

Either that, or he really does believe he's morally better than other people based on how he plays a damn game, at which point I owuld suggest it's not an issue of philosophy, but one of hopeless delusion and a serious lack of perspective.  Though, the fact that he also apparently identifies his masculinity based on his playstyle suggest that this sort of crippling lack of perspective and reason is a fundamental portion of his character.

Either way, it's exactly the sort of idiotic shit I expect on the Forge, not here, and I'm frankly disgusted to see this sort of attitude trotted out.  It's arrogant, and hypocritical in the extreme when coming from people who claim to loathe this kind of thing.

Quote from: SettembriniHey folks, I´m done with it.
Internet discourse still is fucked [...]

You say you're "done with it," then give us another half-dozen or more posts about it.

If you're done with it, then shut up.

You're like those people who flame out and say they're leaving a forum, but we still see them there a few days later, a few weeks, months, years...

If you're done with it, then shut up.

JArcane,

Well, I don't know Settembrini that well, so I won't claim to be speaking for him. However, I really do genuinely think the problem here is not morality itself (or that moral debate occurs within gaming), but the fact that we don't have a good way of turning the sort of private, self-righteous moralising you're (we're) deploring into rational discussions that might actually go somewhere.

We're united in thinking that most of Forge-style debate is really annoying because of its moral tone. The whole "Incoherency isn't a criticism! I've just been using it as one," hypocrisy really is annoying and petty.

But what I want to do is propose that rather than leave the moral angle to those folks at the Forge so that they can turn it into a rhetorical weapon against the rest of us, we should reclaim it on behalf of ordinary folks (or at least folks who know a bit about moral theory).

Heck, I'd argue that's what you and the other folks arguing against Settembrini's statement are trying to do, and I'm just attempting to put it explicitly on the table to see if that helps us think about how to do it.