Quote from: flyingmiceOf course I didn't mean you, Bill! That would imply you are nice in person...

-clash

Whew! For minuite there I was worried my asshole persona was not properly coming through IRL. :brood:

Bill

Quote from: HinterWeltWhew! For minuite there I was worried my asshole persona was not properly coming through IRL. :brood:

Bill

Hehehe!

-clash

Personally, I think it's because people in real life are largely disinterested in such things. I'm happy discussing concrete things that could have a direct impact on my games. Once things start to go too far down the theory path, I quickly lose interest. Perhaps someday when I'm in a nursing home with nothing better to do than create Venn diagrams describing the power structure between GM and players, I'll pay attention to such things, but for now, I'll stick to good, solid advice such as "Pay attention to the players," "Try to say yes," and "Get and utilize player input."

Seanchai

Quote from: David RThere's a lot to learn, but you have to wade through a whole lot of nonsense to get to the useful stuff.

Here's a serious question: Do the slap fests really detract from other conversation, or would we be sitting in an empty forum without them? I'm betting on the latter.

No disrespect intended, but mild curiosity aside, I really don't give a damn what the folks here think about...well, pretty much everything. None of you are in my group. Your opinions, thoughts, etc., don't impact my gaming life.

I own quite a few games. Every once and a while, I'll run across one I don't have, but usually I've already purchased and read (or at least purchased) it and have already reached an informed conclusion about it.

I've been GMing for 25 years now and while I'll definitely read GM advice threads, I don't come across much that I haven't already seen before, already put into practice, or have already read and discarded.

I can't imagine many of the frequent posters are too dissimilar from myself.

So slap fests aside, what are we really going to talk about?

Seanchai

Quote from: EngineWhat bothers me is when someone comes along and says, "Hey, could we talk about the issue, and not insult each other?" and that douchebag says, "You should leave if you want rational conversation. If you haven't left, then you want fighting." And no one blinks. Seriously, that's not just bad logic, it's fucked up. Fight like me or leave? Fuck.

Sometimes boards have political undercurrents and people bring up certain topics not because they're genuinely concerned about them, but for political reasons. Perhaps no one blinked because the instance in question was one of those times...

Seanchai

I don't think it's confined to rpg forums, it's a style of discussion which pops up everywhere online.

I think we've got three things here: instant communication, text, and anonymity.

The instant communication means that like talking face-to-face, you can just mouth off, hit "send" or "submit" and that's it, words gone off to offend or annoy people. Also, the speed of the sending sometimes encourages you to have speed of writing, too - so you often don't really think about what you're saying, and end up saying something offensive or stupid, or which you don't really mean.

Text is different from speech in that with speech, nobody remembers every word you say, they just remember the general thrust of what you're saying, though a few words or sentences may stand out in their minds. So they respond to that general thing you're saying. But with text, they can pick and choose which sentences or even words to reply to. So if you disagree with what they're saying, it's pretty easy and tempting to nitpick it to death.

Anonymity works both ways, for speaker and listener. Because I am anonymous I can feel free to be a prick, and because you are anonymous I can feel free to be a prick to you. Put less nastily, because we don't see faces and hear voices, it's easy to respond to someone not as a person, but just a bunch of words and ideas. People get respect, words and ideas don't.

Put all these things together and it's pretty easy to see how we end up with pretty combative conversations, and debates on rather abstract stuff. We don't have conversations like this with gamers we meet in person because while we don't always have time to think properly of our response, at least we don't nitpick words and sentences, and we don't have the anonymity. So we respond to what the person's saying in general and we speak to the person, not only the words and ideas.

 It's not confined to rpg discussion. I think it was fonkaygarry who had a sig quoting someone flaming someone else on a knitting forum... :confused:

Quote from: SeanchaiHere's a serious question: Do the slap fests really detract from other conversation, or would we be sitting in an empty forum without them?

Well I meant the slap fest and wild detours that happen within a single thread. That's the nonsense I have to wade through. I really do think it's about agendas, egos etc. As for the other conversations, I just ignore them (or watch the drama with mild interest) which was my advice to Engine. I don't have a problem with spin off threads or anything like that. Honestly, like I said it's best not to take things too seriously.

Edit: As far as my experience as to the utility of forum participation, if it was only about the slap fest etc, I doubt this or any other forum would be of much interest to me.

Regards,
David R

Kyle I think has the right of it - I have more than once typed something, hit the button, then gotten the shit flamed out of me.

I have since learned to wait a few than look over what I said to either delete, refine, or post.

Something else I've learned about myself - face-to-face or voice communication I'm really quiet. When text is involved I'm a lot more chatty. I'm involved with a game online, and when I use skype, I'm a lot quieter - I don't try to be as funny, I suggest a lot less, and generally just go with simple things- I search, I hit the monster, etc. With text, I say a lot more. May not be all quality, but I do try