Just reading this Pundy's blog made me wonder if our (or your, because Pundy apparently count me as RPG hating swine) is really so fragile it can't snand any change in it's norms. Do you think, that RPGs are endangered and they need our protection? And why?

Sort of.

Having a hobby attract creepy weirdos never helps the hobby. It may or may not harm the hobby, but it never helps it.

The Maid rpg reminds me of that guy at the con who wished aloud he could grope random women's breasts, and some stupid woman said, "you can grope mine", and then the thing spread to the whole fucking con, with women ending up having to wear badges saying "yes, you can ask to touch" or "no, you can't." (Just search around LiveJournal for talks about this.)

This is not good for the hobby. It's roleplaying, not Lonely Horny Geeks Club.

I think the Forge produces plenty of things that aren't really RPGs, but I also think Pundit is a little nuts.

If nothing else, he's never boring.

Thing I don't think the Forge realizes is that most people want mainstream, because most people just want fun with their RPGs - Not to be revolutionary or think deep thoughts.

Thing that does annoy a lot of people are pretentious people who think 'killing monsters' is all there is to D&D - And think that there's something wrong with that kind of play.

I had more, but I'm tired and not feeling well. In any case, the norms are doing well.

Oh, yeah - Something else. The Maid RPG is in no way revolutionary or anything. Far as I can tell, it's a creepy wierdo game for creepy wierdos.

And anything is fragile, if you hit it the right way.

The hobby will be that fragile if the preponderance of fringe interests being made into RPGs by certain types gain ground, yes.

I'm being exceedingly nice in my use of language there.

Imagine the scene - GenCon 2011. Demos across the floor, some press presence. Oh, what's this? 12 demos where folk are doing some rather strange stuff? In public? I'll have to write about this wierdness.

Now, you might think that's an exaggeration, and frankly, it is. But it is for this reason that i've constantly 'canvassed' against that other game we all know about. Games that force you into fucked-up territory via the text, actual plays, rules and tone are vastly different to games where that sort of stuff could happen. Add to this the tight focus of storygames and if you decide to focus on a controversial subject, then you have no-where else to go with the material. So why have you chosen that controversial subject?  A) Wanting to gain infamy, B) To cover a lack of talent, C) Amorality, D) Cynical marketeering.

Now imagine a con visited by press where we have a game on rape, sodomy & necrophilia, a game on incest (yes, i've seen this discussed) a game on cannibalism (ditto), a game on the holocaust, a game where you play doomed boy scouts, white power fantasies, the game where you roll for penis size and the other far worse stuff. All these games are tightly focussed on their subject matter and leave (despite the defense to the contrary) you little wriggle room when compared to tradional games, to leave that focus aside. You have to make an effort.

I don't want to walk into a mainstream con and find that. I don't want folk who are curious about RPGs to walk into a con and find that. You want that shit? Do it at home away from the rest of the hobby. You don't want 'faux morality' and 'prudish' behaviour in reply to your 'game'- don't post sick details on public message boards.

Quote from: One Horse Town;255794A) Wanting to gain infamy, B) To cover a lack of talent, C) Amorality, D) Cynical marketeering.

I would add E) Being a bit naive, coupled with confusion about what actually constitutes a good game.

Was anyone else unfortunate enough to listen to the live recording of the "game design roundtable", from I think Origins, when it was posted on Fear The Boot a few months ago? It was a classic example of what happens when you have a rather close-knit and similar-minded group of people who somehow convince themselves that something is true. (In this case, narrow focus is good, being controversial is good.) It then becomes dogma.

Quote from: noisms;255798I would add E) Being a bit naive, coupled with confusion about what actually constitutes a good game.

I'd include that in B)

With an eye at 4chan's transgressiveness, I'm waiting for the forgie version of RaHoWa... I can see the blurb now: "Finally, a game that really forces us to identify with 'so-called' racists, allowing gamers to question such concepts as race, power, biology, and identity."

There is no hobby. There are only players.

QuoteIs the hobby really THAT fragile

Is that question of any importance whatsoever? I care about fine games and fine players, but I fight the constant urge to strangle people who say "the hobby".

So die, oh hobby. I will dance on your grave.

One Horse Town: Interesting and maybe true, but look at other media... for example movies. We have a lot of movies about hollocaust, sodomy, cannibalism, doomed teenagers, unwanted pregnancy, drugs and quite a lot of porn and borderline porn. Still, some of these, for example movies about holocaust are praised by critics and won a lot of prizes and mojority of what you would call normal people think, that these are grat movies, not misery porn for pretentious sickfuck.

So, are RPGs inherently different from other media?

Also, I don't think, that protecting RPGs from anything serious (for example murder) or sexual (for example sex) in order to make it "light non-sexual hobby" will do much good, because a lot of people who think, that "light and non-sexual" means "stupid and castrated".

Quote from: Fritzs;255807One Horse Town: Interesting and maybe true, but look at other media... for example movies. We have a lot of movies about hollocaust, sodomy, cannibalism, doomed teenagers, unwanted pregnancy, drugs and quite a lot of porn and borderline porn. Still, some of these, for example movies about holocaust are praised by critics and won a lot of prizes and mojority of what you would call normal people think, that these are grat movies, not misery porn for pretentious sickfuck.

So, are RPGs inherently different from other media?

You see, this argument crops up a lot in these discussions. You picked the wrong example media. You aren't the protagonist when you are watching a film or reading a book.

Over in the Maid thread on RPGnet, someone used the other argument that crops up in these discussions - the subject of unleasant content in more mainstream game products. The example he used was a section in Delta Green about a doctor studying insanity. He did this by inflicting insanity on his subjects, including subjecting them to gang-rape. People always make stretches in logic when defending shit content or games. In Delta Green are you expected to play the doctor or the victim at the table? No. Is the central mechanic of the game plugged in to playing that doctor or that victim. No.

Unpleasant content, or that which might be considered uncomfortable to some people, can crop up in any game on the face of the planet.

My plainly stated objection (over many threads and a year or so now) is to games designed to force those situations on you. There is no merit to it, it makes me wonder what the hell the designer was thinking and what he wanted to achieve - which again leads to the 4 points above about publishing controversial games. It's weak, it's no substitute for making your product stand out for the proper reasons, it's cynical, and says a lot about the author.

I just find it depressing to find all this kneejerk moralism in a scene that was once such a targeted victim of kneejerk moralism.  It's like the christian right ended up infiltrating gaming instead of trying to shut it down.

Quote from: walkerp;255811I just find it depressing to find all this kneejerk moralism in a scene that was once such a targeted victim of kneejerk moralism.  It's like the christian right ended up infiltrating gaming instead of trying to shut it down.

This is the other weak thing that gets brought up in these discussions. Because there is an objection, it is 'knee-jerk moralism'.  

Have an opinion? Express it. Have no opinion but one on the opinion of others? Button it.

Quote from: One Horse TownYou see, this argument crops up a lot in these discussions. You picked the wrong example media. You aren't the protagonist when you are watching a film or reading a book.

Ahem... majority of games mention, that character=/=player. Let's say, there is scene, where my character is subject to gang-rape experiment of that doctor from delta green you mentioned. It's not like I am being raped, it's just happening to non-existent character. While it's not like reading it in a book, it's somewhat similar to writting a book with that particular scene. Is anyone who ever, for example, write a book with "moraly questionable" content (like: murder, holocaust, doomed people, sex, maid uniforms) doing it because A, B, C or D...? And if the answer is yes, doesn't it say something about people who read his/her book...?

Quote from: walkerpI just find it depressing to find all this kneejerk moralism in a scene that was once such a targeted victim of kneejerk moralism. It's like the christian right ended up infiltrating gaming instead of trying to shut it down.

It happen all the time... once the common enemy disappears people start searching for next one to fill the gap and usually ends up "finding" one in their own ranks.

Quote from: Fritzs;255813Is anyone who ever, for example, write a book with "moraly questionable" content (like: murder, holocaust, doomed people, sex, maid uniforms) doing it because A, B, C or D...? And if the answer is yes, doesn't it say something about people who read his/her book...?

Not necessarily, and this is very central to everything i'm saying, so listen carefully. The author of the book has a responsibility in creating his work. He can write those scenes (and actors play them) in many different ways. He might be trying to get a point across, he might be making a commentary, or he might be doing it for shock value or 'titilation' alone - those are called exploitation movies or 'crap' movies & books.What happens is guided by the author. It is a non-interactive medium.

In an interactive medium such as RPGs, the author has no such control as to how his creation will eventually be used - therefore, the buck stops with him as to how the tone of the game turns out. If you are trying to guide the players around the table, then you get the 'system matters' crowd - they try to influence your play by introducing controlling mechanisms to shape it at the table to the outcomes they are shooting for. If those outcomes are fucked up, it's the authors responsibility.