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Post by ericfromnj on Feb 26, 2013 7:57:18 GMT -8
um...so my Degenerate friends are the bad guys? that doesn't seem like what rickno7 was talking about...
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Feb 26, 2013 8:38:16 GMT -8
No, he did not reference your Degenerates.
From my recall rickno7's GM and the GM’s bad game was due to the player not the system. I am suggesting that had that GM known some basic etiquette rules specific to this hobby game not only might he have profited and enjoyed playing with rickno7 and the 50% of the players who walked (or maybe RPGs are not for this GM player) but, also, rickno7 might not have had a bad trip. Something was broken there and it was not the system.
Unless you agree GM = System, in which case we can talk about it in terms of system in play at the table.
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Post by ericfromnj on Feb 26, 2013 8:51:01 GMT -8
Alas, CC, I am more in tune with Aaron's whole group with DM = system, though I still say the system is the mechanics and try not to be confused (though honestly I have no clue WTF I would try to call what you call system).
I wasn't suggesting the system itself was the problem, or different systems being the issue. It's more - let me try to get this right - it's not so much a gaming issue to me as a HUMAN issue. People need to treat each other right and whether they were playing an RPG or anything else involving social interaction. I don't understand the need to make this a gaming thing when it is much broader then that.
Jib explained everything else pretty well, though you and Aaron have confused me because I thought you were saying the guys from rickno7's tale should not be gaming at all, where I say they should game, and if they are having fun bless their gamer souls, but I pray they never try to introduce anyone else to the industry until they learn some social skills.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Feb 26, 2013 9:31:06 GMT -8
It's more more - let me try to get this right - it's not so much a gaming issue to me as a HUMAN issue. People need to treat each other right and whether they were playing an RPG or anything else involving social interaction. Not surprisingly, we agree here. The nature of RPGs, its overwhelming emphasis on player gestalt, is unlike any other adult game, in my opinion. There is a higher stress on this etiquette issue – especially in terms of attracting new-to-the-hobby players. If someone bathes or not is not the micromanagement issue of this etiquette thing: how people treat one another is. We cannot mother the world. There are players in this hobby who, as one eMail to the show recently suggested, embarrass people with a genuine diagnosis of Autism. That shit needs to be addressed and met head on. These assholes (not the sufferers of Autism) are the ones who say there is “no wrong way to play the game” while they serially violate the very underlying concept of RPGs. Most sadly, this elephant in the room is not a new issue. Depressingly, no one beyond Gary Gygax to my knowledge has even addressed it (AD&D 1e DMG pg 110) in the guides/rules. So it is long overdue to be bravely acknowledged and (dare I say it) judged because the mainstream already acknowledge what they see as emotional cripples in the hobby whether the hobby admits it or denies it and, on from the surface noise outsiders hear there is no way to play wrong, this hobby appears a gigantic petri dish for that kind of asbergers. True or not, there is perception. This MADD argument about the hobby actually creating these people goes all the way back to the defense Gary Gygax made of the hobby on national television admitting such people were in the hobby but no more representative than the simple average of the entire population. He had already codified rules about such people, their place and how to deal with them, in AD&D 1e at that time. That is a pair that just won't grow from the industry today, for reasons JiB and I state.
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Post by Kainguru on Feb 26, 2013 9:38:53 GMT -8
Alas, CC, I am more in tune with Aaron's whole group with DM = system, though I still say the system is the mechanics and try not to be confused (though honestly I have no clue WTF I would try to call what you call system). I wasn't suggesting the system itself was the problem, or different systems being the issue. It's more - let me try to get this right - it's not so much a gaming issue to me as a HUMAN issue. People need to treat each other right and whether they were playing an RPG or anything else involving social interaction. I don't understand the need to make this a gaming thing when it is much broader then that. Jib explained everything else pretty well, though you and Aaron have confused me because I thought you were saying the guys from rickno7's tale should not be gaming at all, where I say they should game, and if they are having fun bless their gamer souls, but I pray they never try to introduce anyone else to the industry until they learn some social skills. No quite the opposite Eric - I said exactly what you've just said: Live and let live - I was trying to echo JiB's point and the fact that I've tried to say this numerous times. It is precisely a human issue. The stuff about system was related to a later bit in the podcast - tangential to video games etc and the discussion about WoTC fucking up and the story/problem solving approaches to a game. Perhaps I should have broken up that post into it's relevant separate issues? Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Feb 26, 2013 13:40:24 GMT -8
As to mouth breathers . . . separate post separate issue . . . yeah it's about 'power'. Again I've addressed this in detail elsewhere on the forum - basically the generous hosts have it a nutshell "control, exclusivity and wanting to be 'a big fish in a small pond'". The problem with using the term 'power' (which is the 'right' term to use) is that it's misunderstood: we're not talking about 'I have the power of GreySkull' He-man power . . . power is control. The ability to control definitions, social mores, who is 'in' and who is 'out' through the consensus of the group you are talking about. It's social power . . . nearly all social issues are about power and it's unfortunate that the actual word tends to put many people off. ie: "I'm not into power, I'm not like that, I'm not competitive I just want things to be done properly" . . . yeah the 'power' to determine 'proper' is power. Gender and ethnic conflict is about 'power' . . . the struggle for the right to determine the 'norm'. It doesn't have to be about the right to tell someone what to do it's about the ability to determine and define 'right' and 'wrong' - once one has that 'power' the social group, as a collective, them sets about applying it's conformative pressures. The easiest way to conform? make yourself the norm and all the pressure is on everyone else to change. For basement dwellers that means 'keeping it in the basement' rather than exposing their pasty white flesh to searing light of an overcast day . . . I'm reminded of that scene from Salem's Lot as the vamp's scratch at the window outside, beckoning . . . Thinking of the 'one of us' creepy mantra: godammit what has happened to Tappy??? I know several people have asked but the answer tends to be more of an evasion? Last we heard he was taking a year off from The Boggards . . . did that include RPG's/Podcasting as well? or is it true that in some mad mid-winter blood ritual he his flesh was consumed by the other hosts? Aaron
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Post by Stu Venable on Feb 26, 2013 13:55:05 GMT -8
He decided to step away from the show for a while. The show was becoming a source of stress/consternation/whatever you want to call it.
I talked to him a couple weeks ago, and he was thinking about signing up for another episode.
He is still shared on the scheduling doc and can sign up when he wishes.
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Post by Kainguru on Feb 26, 2013 14:04:21 GMT -8
Phew . . . for a bit I thought the off hand comment "we ate him" might have actually been an on air cathartic admission of guilt (bacon is pork and human apparently tastes like pork . . . and everyone loves bacon - religious restrictions excepted and non-carnivores) Aaron
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Post by rickno7 on Feb 26, 2013 14:44:44 GMT -8
This morning I typed a reply to CC's post about defining a "right" way to play, but decided it best not to comment. I did not see anything constructive coming out of it. JIB ended up pretty much saying what I was thinking, but in a better way. Now though, I have to voice myself.
Be careful about assuming you play the "right" way in the first place. Also be weary of anyone trying to set up a Congress of people to decide what is right and what is not. What happens when they declare your way is the wrong way? Do you go along with this consensus or do you continue doing it the wrong way? What happened to the support you once had for this trusted group? Was it all along just a way for you to tell yourself that YOU were doing it right and that YOU were correct? The definition of right and wrong change over time, you can find yourself on the other side rather quickly.
A group of people telling other people how to game correctly sounds suspiciously like a group of Gatekeepers giving out pats on backs or lashing with rulers. Which was the opposite of what my email meant.
Do I care that those people are probably still in that same shanty playing their power games together and having fun? No I do not. If all of them are having fun, its none of my damn business what the hell they do. There was ZERO way this could have been any kind of misunderstanding, this game they presented to my co-workers and I. They were sending a message, and it was "you are not welcome, fuck off". I obviously can not get into the feelings, the attitudes and details of this game in a clear and concise way, beyond that.
There are GM's on this forum, hell even a few that speak on the podcast that I personally would probably not game with. I do not think I would get along with them as a player, I do not subscribe to their GM'ing philosophy. I hope I do not hurt any of their feelings, I'm not insulting them(I am also not naming who they are). They do not play or GM wrong, they have many many groups that play with them, have fun, and continue to gather. I will not condemn them for not making a game I'd like to play in. Disagreeing with their play style does not give me the right to write down everything they do that pisses me off and declare them death penalty offenses. It does not give me the right to gather a group of like minded people to try and force them to do as I do, to turn them into something I would enjoy being a part of.
But there is a basic decency you have to conduct yourself with when it comes to doing anything social with the point of having fun. Maybe I was wrong in my earlier post. Maybe the point is not that they were gaming wrong, but they were making friends wrong. They were having a social gathering for the point of being dicks to a bunch of noobs. Maybe that's what our "right" and "wrong" discussion is.
I contend that my nightmare session was a message and not really a game. And spreading an ignorant message of "you should be excluded" is not what our hobby needs.
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Post by Stu Venable on Feb 26, 2013 15:44:42 GMT -8
Your's is not the first story I've read/heard about new players coming to a game as newbies only to be treated like shit and shown the door.
There is a fundamental meanness in those people. It is not a mature, healthy mind that says, "hey, here's someone who's interested in my hobby. Think I'll fuck with him for a few hours to set him straight."
Maybe they think they're putting you through some sort of rite-of-passage? I don't know.
It's a damn shame that people like that are out there driving people away from the hobby. I wish they wouldn't. And I can understand CC's drive to want to do something about it.
I counsel vigilantism...
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Post by Kainguru on Feb 26, 2013 15:49:04 GMT -8
Alas, CC, I am more in tune with Aaron's whole group with DM = system, though I still say the system is the mechanics and try not to be confused (though honestly I have no clue WTF I would try to call what you call system). I wasn't suggesting the system itself was the problem, or different systems being the issue. It's more - let me try to get this right - it's not so much a gaming issue to me as a HUMAN issue. People need to treat each other right and whether they were playing an RPG or anything else involving social interaction. I don't understand the need to make this a gaming thing when it is much broader then that. Jib explained everything else pretty well, though you and Aaron have confused me because I thought you were saying the guys from rickno7's tale should not be gaming at all, where I say they should game, and if they are having fun bless their gamer souls, but I pray they never try to introduce anyone else to the industry until they learn some social skills. I think I know why you're confused about my earlier post . . . stupid iphone autocorrect (fuck Steve Jobs putting his words in my mouth even from beyond the grave). I've edited the post as it should have read . . . ie ". . . that doesn't mean that they *shouldn't* be allowed to game period" Aaron
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Post by Stu Venable on Feb 26, 2013 15:55:49 GMT -8
There was an epic blog post years ago by a girl and her friend who went to some guy's house to play DnD. And from the description she gives, it seems like it was an early version of FATAL.
I'll see if I can find it ... I can't. My Google-fu is weak today.
The guy even tried to defend himself publicly and was shamed into hiding.
There are all kinds of creeps out there. Some carry a game cube and a bag of black dildos -- some carry a DMG.
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Post by Kainguru on Feb 26, 2013 16:05:45 GMT -8
Your's is not the first story I've read/heard about new players coming to a game as newbies only to be treated like shit and shown the door. There is a fundamental meanness in those people. It is not a mature, healthy mind that says, "hey, here's someone who's interested in my hobby. Think I'll fuck with him for a few hours to set him straight." Maybe they think they're putting you through some sort of rite-of-passage? I don't know. It's a damn shame that people like that are out there driving people away from the hobby. I wish they wouldn't. And I can understand CC's drive to want to do something about it. I counsel vigilantism... It happens in nearly everything though . . . to solve that would be to either fundamentally change human nature or discover a solution to many of mankinds conflicts. They can be just as shitty to noobs in any given sport, going to the gym for the first time, learning to drive, even reading books . . . it seems to be the way we are with many things that require effort, patience, practice and skill to perform. Maybe the human race is just deeply insecure and people make it hard on those that follow them to a) justify their own prior efforts and b) keep the new generation in check by making sure they have to put in the same amount of effort, or more, as well. Bit like the old silverback maintaining his position as the alpha male thru reputation and prior intimidation of his younger rivals . . . delaying as long as possible the moment when they twig "I'm younger, faster and stronger than silverback . . . I should be alpha male" Aaron
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Feb 27, 2013 0:53:50 GMT -8
. power is control. The ability to control definitions, social mores, who is 'in' and who is 'out' through the consensus of the group you are talking about. It's social power . . . nearly all social issues are about power And here I recall this embarrassing male titty-slapping on The Internet circus that would be funny were it not painfully played out so many times in real life. To be clear, his message of inclusion is not embarrassing but his delivery embarrasses because this John Scalzi dude addressed the issue at the same level of this PissHen fellow. Rather than ignore the ignorance and stay on message with common sense argumentation, he pulls out a ruler and drops trou like some edition warrior. He actually invalidates his argument as the Geek in Chief. It is male-titty slapping. How things are presented is often more important than what is to be presented – especially for people new to the message who can access a television to watch shows like Big Bang Theory or Youtube to watch this. RPGs are inseparable from and interwoven with the social activity that fabricates them, ranking RPGs higher than even high school team sports can aspire on a Maslow- Lombardi scale.™ Definitions need shared defining in RPGs, particularly as it applies to the social aspects. (Again, I am not talking about edition wars!) This open defining is played out between the players at the table. These are pantomimes that cannot be masked by a role “in character.” This conversation we call a game communicates the true face of the player, so says I. New people come into the hobby with their head down. I spend allot of time with new people repeating my encouragements “no experience required,” and “you do not need to know the rules to enjoy.” The last thing our hobby needs is a rules lecture – something new people are accustomed to from their exposure to every other straight jacketed game. Think about that for one moment. Think about how unique an experience a role-playing game is. Have you ever seen the sandbox concept overlaid on any other game? And what is the question every other game conditions a new person to ask about it: how do I play it? (i.e. what are the rules?) Who do you think are the ready shepherds of these new people if not the douche bag? Here I am referencing system and edition wars rather than the encouragement and welcome from us, "normal", people. But are the normal people supposed to shut the fuck up? Are we such a bunch of shrinking violets that we cannot call down a Blue Bolt from heaven on douche bag ass? [There is a good reason I call what I play AD&D 1e and it has nothing to do with system - because I believe GM = system obviously.] But by stating that there is, in fact, a right way to play this game do we deduce the speaker to be a douche bag? Is that valid and sound reasoning here? (Again, I am referring to social etiquette that is game system agnostic.) conflict is about 'power' . . . the struggle for the right to determine the 'norm'. It doesn't have to be about the right to tell someone what to do it's about the ability to determine and define 'right' and 'wrong' - once one has that 'power' the social group, as a collective, them sets about applying it's conformative pressures. The easiest way to conform? make yourself the norm and all the pressure is on everyone else to change. And who will be front and centre there, like the scurvy little spider they are in real life, to fill the coach power slot left ( needlessly and shamefully) intentionally vacant…? I wish I could find that philosopher’s quote I mentioned a few posts back because it makes the answer agelessly obvious: douche bags. ( If I ever find it, whenever I find it, I intend to attach it to this post for the future reader.) I have a saying in the signature of my eMail that bears repeating – hence I put it into my eMail signature: "People with goals succeed because they know where they're going. It's that simple." Earl Nightingale. If you want to block the douche bags from stepping into the power vacuum, you need to fill the vacuum before they do because they will. A few rules enshrined into RPG etiquette – the first rules a new-to-the-hobby person should learn ahead of meeting douche bags – would suffice. Found it!
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Post by greatwyrm on Feb 27, 2013 1:25:28 GMT -8
There is a fundamental meanness in those people. It is not a mature, healthy mind that says, "hey, here's someone who's interested in my hobby. Think I'll fuck with him for a few hours to set him straight." Maybe they think they're putting you through some sort of rite-of-passage? I don't know. When the perennial complaint of gamers is that there aren't more of us, no, it doesn't seem like the product of a rational mind. I almost have to wonder if it's some version of the "cycle of abuse". They got picked on or treated poorly for getting into gaming (or whatever genus of geekdom) in junior high, so they have a subconscious need to haze the next generation.
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