New Faces (Forked: Its the terminology that kills me...)

[ironvyper]

There's no such thing as bad taste, only different taste than yours. If we got a whole lot of new players who all have "bad tastes" in our minds, then it's really use who have the bad taste. Your situation would be pretty analagous to that of someone who only watches movies at film festivals about gay cowboys eating pudding or who only listens to unsigned garage bands and derides all mainstream entertainment as pure dreck.

Do you remember the painting of jesus in poop that was being sold in a big new york gallery? Or people who watched any adam sandler movie and thought it was good acting? There is absolutely such a thing as bad taste. There might be people with different taste then you and might just be different, but it might also be a couple stupid stoners who watch killer clowns from outer space and think Dogma is a relavent treatise on modern catholicism..... There is no doudt that there such a thing as bad taste, everyone on here could post a list of thier bottom 5 movies and CD's and a good chunk would probably be in the majority opinion.

On the other hand since i guess no one can have an opinion thats wrong, if they all tell you its real fun to jump off rock in the local swimming hole even though the water level has dropped for the last 5 years, well who are you to judge them or thier opinion of fun? Might as well take that plunge and see thier point of view,

 

[ironvyper]

Funny idea I just had, a scale to determine your RPG snob level. Choose the statement you most agree with.

Level 1: There are two kinds of people in this world: People who play games, and people with bad tastes.

Level 2: There are two kinds of game players in this world: People who play RPGs, and people with bad tastes.

Level 3: There are two kinds of RPG players in this world: People who play P&P RPGs, and people with bad tastes.

Level 4: There are two kind of P&P RPG players in this world: People who play story-focused RPGs, and people with bad tastes.

Level 5: There are two kinds of story-focused RPG players in this world: People who play indie-produced, story-focused RPGs with an interesting central mechanic and an on-the-whole poorly-fleshed out system, and people with bad tastes.

Level 6: There are two kinds of story-focused, poorly-fleshed out RPG players in this world: People who use a system, and people who just do it freeform.

I'm a level 2 RPG snob.

#4 for me and i like being called an elitist. Or insinuated that i'm elitist. Elite is the best, the most intelligent, the most competent, the best. If someone calls me an elitist it means that they know I'm better then them. Who am i to argue with that sort of compliment?

 

[Lurks-no-More]

Well said, as per usual.

Indeed. I'll take the newbies, with their annoying slang and non-traditional ideas, any day over the jaded, set-in-their ways oldsters with their own annoying slang.

 

[malladin]

Hey Asmor you missed People who play 4E and people with bad tastes, which is surprising given how popular a bit of rpg snobbery this is at the moment.

I'm afraid I don't care about the hobby, just my gaming group and the occasional opportunity rpg sites give to point out hypocrisy. As for the 'well if people hadn't cared 10 years ago argument' well it isn't ten years ago so no relevance there and as I don't care about ten years from now, I've got more than enough games and players, to last so irrelevant as well. Even if rpg gaming finished tomorrow well there's plenty of other things to do!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Nice Asmor. Strawmen arguments and insults. So people who like story driven RPGs are snobs and elitists, eh? Cool beans, I guess.

No. People that like story driven RPGs and say that other ways to play the game are wrong are snobs and elitist.

But there are only 10 types of people in the world anyway... Those that understand binary, and those who don't.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

#4 for me and i like being called an elitist. Or insinuated that i'm elitist. Elite is the best, the most intelligent, the most competent, the best. If someone calls me an elitist it means that they know I'm better then them. Who am i to argue with that sort of compliment?

Of course, being elitist does not mean you're part of an actual elite; in most cases, it's just that you have delusions of grandeur.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

#4 for me and i like being called an elitist. Or insinuated that i'm elitist. Elite is the best, the most intelligent, the most competent, the best. If someone calls me an elitist it means that they know I'm better then them. Who am i to argue with that sort of compliment?

Being an elitist is not being elite. It's someone who just believes he is superior in some way to others and thus a member of the elite. But usually, he would be wrong.

Hey Asmor you missed People who play 4E and people with bad tastes, which is surprising given how popular a bit of rpg snobbery this is at the moment.

It's a hierarchy, and the way it is organized (by play-style) this type doesn't fit into it.

 

[Asmor]

Nice Asmor. Strawmen arguments and insults. So people who like story driven RPGs are snobs and elitists, eh? Cool beans, I guess.

No. People that like story driven RPGs and say that other ways to play the game are wrong are snobs and elitist.

Precisely. It's not what you like, it's how you treat other people that don't agree with you. From Wikipedia: "A snob, guilty of snobbery, is someone who adopts the worldview that some people are inherently inferior to him/her for any one of a variety of reasons."

So, if using the word snob as it is defined is insulting, then I suppose I did post an insult.

Hey Asmor you missed People who play 4E and people with bad tastes, which is surprising given how popular a bit of rpg snobbery this is at the moment.

I wanted to work that in, but it didn't really fit the scale I was going for.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I wanted to work that in, but it didn't really fit the scale I was going for.

You'd need something like a pyramid or tree...

Gamer vs Non-Gamer

Playstye 1 vs Playstyle 2 vs Playstyle 3

And then go on with examples of play styles...

An alternative approach is this: http://www.brunching.com/geekhierarchy.html

 

[rounser]

There's no such thing as bad taste, only different taste than yours.

What if you acknowledge your own bad taste? I have bad taste in music. I like bad music, but have the courtesy not to play it on anything other than headphones, because I don't want to inflict it on others.

Or what if your taste is destructive or antisocial? If I have a taste for riding around in gas guzzling hum-vees whilst shooting at wildlife and blowing my nose on the flag as I flick the bird at passersby and eat deep fried mars bars with my other hand, you'll live and let live? Maybe I'll keel over from clogged coronary arteries sooner rather than later, and you won't have to deal with it. What if it's not just me, but the average person who likes to do this, numbering in their millions? Does that make it right?

I think we're getting into political territory with that example, but it really is, because whatever core D&D is cooked up to serve the taste of the multitudes might be antisocial and destructive to the game in the long term, kind of like giving kids candy for each meal when they should be having a balanced diet. It's not simply preference - it's actually kind of political. And that's far too serious a point to end on for a game where you pretend to be an elf.