Once More, Defining "Swine"

[RPGPundit]

The Swine are any people for whom RPGs have, as their primary purpose, the conveyance of some kind of sense of personal self-worth. This need for gaining self-esteem out of RPGs manifests itself in creating and aggresively promoting the concept that RPGs are either "art" or "intellectual pursuit" rather than a mere game, and usually implying that someone who participates (to them it would not just be "playing") in an RPG is doing something of inherent value with their lives.  In order to create this illusion, the value of "art" or "intellectual" has to totally superimpose itself over "fun" and "play".

Likewise, and here's the insidious part, in order for the Swine to be able to gain this sense of self-worth from what any sane person would consider a meaningless game (meaningless good fun, but still utterly meaningless and certainly not self-validating) the Swine must attempt to utterly destroy the concept that RPGs should be played for fun as a mere game, and must promote the concept that they (the Swine) are the special elite who truly understand RPGs, and actively work against the popularity of RPGs.
So the Swine have it as part of their make-up, conscious of the fact or not, the destruction of the RPG industry, and indeed of the hobby as a hobby or as play. All this for their own selfish, low, contemptible ends.

Now, only a few of the Swine are the truly incorrigible willfully evil kind that have no real interest in RPGs as a game, as play, or as fun, and want only to fulfill some kind of sick psychosis.  Sadly, the vast majority of the Swine were hapless rubes, the willing or unwilling fools that bought into the foul creeds of the real Swine in the 1990s when the Swine took over the entire ideological basis of the Gaming industry; hence that era being what I've called gaming's "generation of Swine". Most of these gamers had come into RPGs playing D&D and having a great old time, but let themselves be hoodwinked into thinking that how they were playing RPGs was "wrong" or "stupid", and in their desperate desire to appear as sophisticated as the Swine appeared (and only the very young and impressionable, or the terminally stupid, could fail to see through the Swine's cheap two-bit artistic posturing and pathetic pseudo-intellectualism), they let themselves be brainwashed into thinking that playing story-based games where nothing happens and the players are cheerleaders for the DM's (or the game designer's) brilliance were somehow more fun than blowing up buildings or cutting orcs in half.
Fortunately, with each year in the last six or so, there have been less and less people fooled by the Swine, some of the lost generation have even reformed themselves, and the damage is slowly being repaired. Slowly, the hardcore Swine are being pushed more and more to the margin, leaving only the most extreme cases to continue arguing meaninglessly in places like rpg.net and the Forge, still pretending that they are the ones who matter.

There is obviously some kind of deep psychological explanation for why the Swine are like this, which I won't pretend to be able to analyze, except to look at the most basic probable cause which is that people who become Gamer Swine are the ones who don't have enough going for them in the real world or in their real lives to give them some kind of a sense of validation. I mean, I sure as fuck don't need to play RPGs as a way to make myself feel smart, or to pretend I'm doing meaningful work. I play RPGs as a way to get away from that shit; that shit being what I do in the real world, in my real life. I have a strong suspicion that the majority of the Swine don't have much of a real life.

Let's hope that (mixed with my original essays on the Swine in the first entries to this blog) this definition ends up clarifying the issue somewhat, and providing a better breakdown of what the Swine are all about.

RPGPundit (february 18th 2006)

[Gabriel]

Sadly, the vast majority of the Swine were hapless rubes, the willing or unwilling fools that bought into the foul creeds of the real Swine in the 1990s when the Swine took over the entire ideological basis of the Gaming industry; hence that era being what I've called gaming's "generation of Swine". Most of these gamers had come into RPGs playing D&D and having a great old time, but let themselves be hoodwinked into thinking that how they were playing RPGs was "wrong" or "stupid", and in their desperate desire to appear as sophisticated as the Swine appeared (and only the very young and impressionable, or the terminally stupid, could fail to see through the Swine's cheap two-bit artistic posturing and pathetic pseudo-intellectualism), they let themselves be brainwashed into thinking that playing story-based games where nothing happens and the players are cheerleaders for the DM's (or the game designer's) brilliance were somehow more fun than blowing up buildings or cutting orcs in half.

This little bit is where you lose me.

Here it definitely seems like what you're saying is that anyone who moves away from D&D and plays D6 (used merely because you seem to have categorized it as a crappy game with a swinish bent in the past), and then finds they enjoy that system more, is a swine.  You're saying they are brainwashed (or brain damaged) and they aren't really having fun.  They're deluding themselves if they think they're having as much fun as when they played "mainstream" (or is that "indie"?) games.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

You know, it might be better to describe the "hapless rubes" as merely hapless rubes.  They have embraced the dogma of "swinedom" that playing a "sophisticated" game is inherently better than playing a "childish" one, and they judge games based on those criteria rather than anything else.

I'm not saying the malicious swine don't exist.  The Cyberpunk supplement Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads has a passage where one of the writers belittles gamers who like kicking in the door and shooting stuff, who play for simple fun and escapism, and he comments on how these types of gamers are a pox upon the hobby and "real gamers" must be ever vigilant or lose the hobby to them.

[RPGPundit]

This little bit is where you lose me.

Here it definitely seems like what you're saying is that anyone who moves away from D&D and plays D6 (used merely because you seem to have categorized it as a crappy game with a swinish bent in the past), and then finds they enjoy that system more, is a swine.  You're saying they are brainwashed (or brain damaged) and they aren't really having fun.  They're deluding themselves if they think they're having as much fun as when they played "mainstream" (or is that "indie"?) games.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

You know, it might be better to describe the "hapless rubes" as merely hapless rubes.  They have embraced the dogma of "swinedom" that playing a "sophisticated" game is inherently better than playing a "childish" one, and they judge games based on those criteria rather than anything else.

I'm not saying the malicious swine don't exist.  The Cyberpunk supplement Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads has a passage where one of the writers belittles gamers who like kicking in the door and shooting stuff, who play for simple fun and escapism, and he comments on how these types of gamers are a pox upon the hobby and "real gamers" must be ever vigilant or lose the hobby to them.

I wasn't suggesting that everyone who plays Swine games is brainwashed or braindamaged. I am saying that many people were momentarily swindled into thinking it was a "cooler" way to play; some of them did have a sort of fun that derived from the "fun" of feeling sophisticated rather than the fun of playing a game. But most of the rest of the gaming world quickly wizened up to the fact that these games weren't fun, and that explained the mass abandonment of the hobby in the late 90s.  Tellingly, many people got BACK into gaming with the advent of D20.

RPGPundit

[lev_lafayette]

If Swinedom is include the concept of promoting "intellectual" RPGs (Forge games of the 2000s) or "art" RPGs (White Wolf products of the 1990s), should this not also be extended to those who promote "realistic-simulationist" RPGs (RQ, C&S etc)? Is RQ a swine game because it states, quite explicitly, that the game is improvised radio theatre, which is surely a dramatic art?

What is your response to the "intellectual" and "artful" studies of fun and play? I am thinking here of  Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens, Gregory Bateson's Steps Towards an Ecology of Mind, John Raser's Simulation and Society, and Herbert Marcuse's Eros and Civilisation. What about such studies about gaming? Do they have any relevance?

Is it not possible that a game can be played "for fun as a mere game" and more for those who want more? Are such multi-layered texts possible in the Pundit's view?

[Nazgul]

Is it not possible that a game can be played "for fun as a mere game" and more for those who want more? Are such multi-layered texts possible in the Pundit's view?

I don't think it's whether or not that the game is "fun as a mere game" that bothers Pundit, it's the whole "If your not playing OUR GAME and playing it OUR WAY, you are an inferior, brain damaged fool, plus the pretentiousness in how the games are presented that bother him.

Had they come out and said "We have a new type of game, different than what you've played before, but still lots of fun." I don't think you'd see him ranting.

[David R]

The Pundit is right. Folks who think that their gaming is morally superior are Swine.

Regards,
David R

[Pierce Inverarity]

I don't understand how fun is meaningless. The experience of real meaninglessness is boring at best, terrifying at worst. Put the baby back in the bathwater.

[Nazgul]

I don't understand how fun is meaningless. The experience of real meaninglessness is boring at best, terrifying at worst. Put the baby back in the bathwater.

I think you misunderstand Pundit.

Likewise, and here's the insidious part, in order for the Swine to be able to gain this sense of self-worth from what any sane person would consider a meaningless game (meaningless good fun, but still utterly meaningless and certainly not self-validating) the Swine must attempt to utterly destroy the concept that RPGs should be played for fun as a mere game, and must promote the concept that they (the Swine) are the special elite who truly understand RPGs, and actively work against the popularity of RPGs.

It's not the Fun that is meaningless, it's that it (the game) has no inherent value beyond being fun. In other words, the point of the game is to 'have fun'.

What I think (and this is my take on his rant) flipped Pundit's switch is people who say that RPGs should be played with 'A Deeper Meaningtm', the deeper meaning superseding and even excluding said 'Fun'. You don't play to enjoy the game, you play to "Understand the Deep Moral/Issue"

I suspect the 'rant' is just something to get your attention. Ignore the 'hate' and focus on what he's actually saying. (Though I find the rants more humorous than anything else.)

Grain of salt. That's all I'm saying.

[Pierce Inverarity]

It's not the Fun that is meaningless, it's that it (the game) has no inherent value beyond being fun. In other words, the point of the game is to 'have fun'.

The internal/external (core/beyond) divide is a nonsensical diversion. His detractors are claiming depth of meaning for playing the game itself, right there at the table. Some of them are then claiming that, giving this depth, the very activity of gaming, and not just game design, is a kind of intellectual pursuit or art form.

In ordeer to fend off that claim, in his definition, which is hysterically trying to evacuate "deep" meaning from "fun," "fun" itself has been drained of meaning altogether. Except that it hasn't.

Because whom are we kidding? As David R may be suggesting, it's not about "fun" vs. "pseudo-intellectualism": it's about one claim to moral superiority vs. another. We've been there. At least Settembrini is putting his cards on the table.

Meanwhile, it's pathetic. Responding to canned rants, I mean. I'm done with that.

[Dominus Nox]

A "swine" is anyone who holds an opinion pundit disagrees with and is far enough away from him physically for him to safely attack on the internet.

[Stumpydave]

deleted. There's only so many times I can be a git in one day.

[mythusmage]

I'm a swine!

[/FONT]

Even worse, I'm an apostate swine.

[RPGPundit]

In ordeer to fend off that claim, in his definition, which is hysterically trying to evacuate "deep" meaning from "fun," "fun" itself has been drained of meaning altogether. Except that it hasn't.

Fun can have a meaning in and of itself. Hell, I think having fun is one of the major, if not THE major reason we're all here (as in, alive on this earth).

Its just not the kind of "Meanings" the Swine want it to have. They want that playing Dogs In The Vinyard should be seen in the same light of seriousness as Herman Hesse writing Siddhartha or Dr. Salk developing the polio vaccine. That kind of meaning. And fun certainly doesn't have that kind of meaning.

In any case, I'm not really saying that the Fun itself is pointless; the part to focus on is the fact that the Swine DONT HAVE FUN with the game.  Their "Fun" is derived from prancing about pretending to be intellectuals.

I'm saying THEIR fun has no meaning, because of the pretense of meaning that they're trying to apply to it, which ruins the real point of playing RPGs.

RPGPundit

[Gabriel]

I don't think gaming has any great meaning, but I think the Forge started off with a good premise and it just got corrupted to it's present state.  When asked, "what do you like about a game?"  I don't really feel the answer "because it's fun." is entirely valid.   It's a non-answer which avoids the question.  True, some people can't articulate what elements they find fun, but others can, and it's not an invalid question to try to find out what those elements which contribute to fun are.

That's how Forge theory started.  What elements of games contribute to fun?  But along the way it got corrupted into stating "these are the only elements of games which are fun."  It went from identifying the elements of fun to eliminating undesirable elements of fun which didn't fit other parts of the dogma.

[bartmoss]

This is an odd location for my first post on the board, but the definition of Swine was always something I needed to look at before I de-lurked on this board.

Interestingly enough I think I was one of those gamers in the 90s that was brought into the vortex of "art" gaming. That is the group of people I played with thought their games where of a higher value than the other games that were going on.

And you know what? It did become very boring after a while. The description of becoming cheerleaders for the DM (though they never called themselves that) is spot on. It just took a long time for me to realise it.

Oddly I can even pinpoint the time when I came to realise that I was missing out on something that could have been better...it was when I picked up a little game called Dungeouns & Dragons 3.0.

Since then things have changed.

D&D is not the only game I play, but my play has changed.

Its fun again.