Quote from: RPGPundit;416803It has nothing to do with the topic. Its just standard Forge Swine Shilling.

I thought the topic was the GM's role in an RPG. The Roach is an example of a game with a very non-traditional GM's role. How is it off-topic?

I'm not urging you to play it. It's just a good example of exactly what we're discussing.

NO ..."The Roach" is an example of a pretentious parlor game that has obviously been mis-labeled to suck people in.

Want a tongue-in-cheek, crazy RPG set in a University Campus ?
 There is a book called GURPS: I.O.U. - that would be much more fun than pretending to be College Professors that want tenure and who may or may not eat a strange roach.


- Ed C.

Quote from: BWA;416819Okay. Why? Where is that written?

If you can make a case for that, then that's one thing. Otherwise, you have to admit it is merely your personal preference.

The "case" for it is the fact that this is what the vast majority of gamers have always enjoyed about gaming, and that it is the essence of the very concept of the "role playing" game.  You immerse yourself in a character in an emulated world.
If you want to change gaming into something else, you have to make the case for why that should be the new definition of Gaming.  Ron Edward's rationale was that the vast majority of gamers were Secretly Miserable, because they were playing "incoherent" games and were trying to pursue something that he claimed did not exist. In other words, he started out by trying to invalidate both the central structure of the vast majority of games (including and especially the game that was by far the most popular of all time, D&D), and the central motive for play of the vast majority of players. Weak.

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Quote from: RPGPundit;416929If you want to change gaming into something else, you have to make the case for why that should be the new definition of Gaming.

That sounds like a lot of effort. Luckily I don't want to make gaming into something else. Off the hook!

It's a pointless argument anyway, the whole "Those RPGs aren't really RPGs!" thing. In every gaming store, every gamer's bookshelf, every gaming message board and the eyes of every gamer's wife/girlfriend*, they're all just RPGs. It's self-evident to everyone involved.

Back to the more interesting "GM role / authority" stuff.

* Or husband/boyfriend, as the case may be. Are there women gamers with romantic partners who are NOT gamers? A question for another thread.

Quote from: BWA;416941* Or husband/boyfriend, as the case may be. Are there women gamers with romantic partners who are NOT gamers? A question for another thread.

To answer your footnote: YES.

 One of my consistent players has a husband who has never gamed.

 Fifteen years ago had a player, who got into gaming because her boyfriend in college got her interested in it. They got married, he lost interest in gaming - she stuck with it and still loves it.

There is also a local RIFTS group that is all young women, ages 22 to 34.

- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;416948There is also a local RIFTS group that is all young women, ages 22 to 34.

Now THAT is a truly strange thing.

I admit that would be a little weird, since RIFTS is one of the most unashamedly "Adolescent Male"-oriented games in the entire hobby, but the fact of it is that RIFTS is just fucking FUN, and I can see absolutely anyone having fun with it if they can get over the mental barrier of realizing that its really meant to be enjoyed in that totally non-intellectual "action-adventure movie" kind of way.

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