Academic Plague in gaming

[Acid_crash]

While you guys are debating the more esoteric points of RPG design, academic masturbation masquerading as game theory, dumbing down the game to attract teen-agers, hack jockeys vs. amateur thespians, and the egos of game designers and online forum denizens alike, I'm going to get out my battlemat, DM screen, and grab my dice.

T-minus 4 hours, 19 minutes until gamenight, baby.

May I please, please, please join you at your game. All this mumbo-jumbo talk of GNS-whatever-and-academic-viruses-in-gaming-books is just way over my little, simple mind.

You have the best idea I have heard in a long, loooooooooooooonnnnngggg time.

 

[hong]

No, but if you have to use the terms "ursine golden-hued avatar of bee-byproduct-hunting" and "ye man-childe of the wood of a hundred acres", then that probably would be.

Nisarg, would it be possible for you cut those down to 25 characters or less? I'm running out of ideas for custom titles, and these could fit the bill perfectly. ThaADVANCEnks!

 

[Teflon Billy]

Can I join in?
I was thinking I was the only quiet Exalted fan out here.

Well, I don't see why not

I haven't had a chance to play it, but DM'ing it is pretty fun once you get past the idea that the PC's are not ever going to fail anyhing they attempt

My players really seem to love the constant chatter of the combats...

Ten Obsidian Bears: "So, Blazing Sparrow, your idiocy betrays you as your Master's betrayed him. You should have stayed in the safety of your school rather than march out here to your death"

Blazing Sparrow: "And I see that the legendary foolhardiness of Ten Bears will be his downfall as well, for you see Ten Bears, the school has finally perfected the Fog Sabre style...a fighting system for which your inferior Storm Song Inferno style has no counter!

*Blazing Sparrow strikes a dramamtic fighting pose*

Ten Obsidian Bears: "The mythical Fog Sabre style will not bear fruit Blazing Sparrow, for my allies are powerful, and you stand alone...SIX-MAN ARMY! TO MY SIDE!"

*Six Mishappen and Hunched shapes of a variety of Badger Lunars lurch from beneath the ground and scamper to the side of Ten Bears. They--as one--strike a varity of fighting stances.*

Ten Obsidian Bears: "And now, fool, as was prophecied, seven stand against one...no fighting style can hope to revial agains such odds. Make peace with your Gods Blazing Sparrow..."

Blazing Sparrow: "Your trust in prophecy serves you poorly Ten Bears, for in my wisdom--and that of my spectral teacher--I have not come alone...FOG SABRE DANCERS, YOUR TIME IS NOW!!!

*From a low hanging cloudbank, a group men dressed as Blazing sparrow drop. where they land, the earth cracks*.

Etc...

It takes forever for the fights to actually begin

 

[Psion]

Well, it would make it "good"; if the Exalted fans would just acknowledge that, and not try to push it as a deeply philosophical game vastly superior to the "mere hack n' slash" of D20..

Waitaminnit...

Weren't you the one that came in here with much pomp and circumstance proclaiming the evils of certain games or styles of games? Isn't this a bit of a pot/kettle thing...

 

[Desdichado]

It's not about identified tastes, it's about attitude and factionalization and their considerably more sinister implications than merely having a particular taste in RPG products. Nisarg seems to have a hate for WoD and their other pretentious ilk that knows no limits considering his various rants against them on these messageboards. He could just go off and buy the products he likes and not buy the ones he doesn't and leave it at that. But his attitude, and the attitudes of other people who don't respect other people's rights to play what they wish, how they wish, leads to turning off people who might otherwise be willing to try new games or, perhaps even worse, polarizes people into opposing camps where there is no middle ground and little cross pollination of ideas or room for game companies to bridge the gaps between groups with their products.

Ah, OK. 'Coz, I mean, I have very definite tastes, and I'm not going to go pick up material I'm not interested in. I'll naturally gravitate to certain products and have little or no use for others. That's certainly divisive, but at least not offensive.

But if someone else likes those products, that's absolutely fine. In fact, I think its great the the industry is divided enough to cater to both of our divergent tastes. I think Nisarg's big problem is that his entire existence (as perceived by the denizens of this forum, anyway) is centered around a bitter diatribe about the state of the gaming industry. He's made some rather wild and unreasonable leaps of causality and blame so that practically every word he types is a thinly veiled rant against White Wolf and the style of gamers that he imagines their games to promote. After essentially getting the boot at rpg.net (as near as I can tell) he's come here hoping that, "hey, those ENWorlders are d20 players; they must hate White Wolf" making the equally wild and unreasonable jump that we're not more diverse, mature and intelligent than that.

In other words, he's not happy because the gaming industry has people who aren't like him and who don't play the same games as him. He's probably best ignored, though. He's not dangerous, because so few people believe as he does, and he certainly isn't doing those who do any favors. It's not like his antics here are likely to recruit anyone to his cause.

 

[Nisarg]

So, really, you're explanation of Amber is unnecessarily long, and filled with things designed to make it seem like there's more going on in the game than there is. What Amber really is:

"You play an immortal wandering the universe. There are demons you have to fight, and you also compete with your immortal family, some of whom are really powerful. It's based on novels by Roger Zelazny. Fight!"

36 words.


Patrick Y.

That's a great short description, Pat. Well done.

My description was specifically intended to show how you could give a description just as "full" as the Nobilis long one, without having to resort to pseudo-intellectualism, latinate words, or jargon defined by jargon.

Nisarg

 

[Nisarg]

Okay, this description is pretty good. That said, it's about exactly as wordy as the one of Nobilis that you criticized so heavily (a mere difference of 4 words ), so your accusation in this point is moot . Additionally, the description of Nobilis explained every piece of jargon that was used. This has the advantage that the reader knows what to expect, i.e., that the game (Nobilis) uses lots of invented words.

Well, if you mean they know to expect pretentiousness, I suppose you're right that it would serve as a good forewarning.
However, my point is hardly moot. I'm saying a game not suffering from "academic plague", described by a fan not suffering from "academic plague" can give a description that is just as full and complete (and long) without having to resort to jargon to make it sound more impressive than it is, and that a good game will sound interesting without the need of jargon.

That was precisely my point, and according to you and Patrick I have proved it.

Nisarg

 

[Nisarg]

I'm doing thtat right now.

Well, its a start...

now we just need to get the couple of hundred drooling fanboys on RPGnet to stoop to admit that Exalted is in no way better than D20, and we're set.

Nisarg

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Well, its a start...

now we just need to get the couple of hundred drooling fanboys on RPGnet to stoop to admit that Exalted is in no way better than D20, and we're set.

Nisarg

Or...just ignore them. Its not that hard, and doesn't hurt anyone to ignore them.

 

[Nisarg]

Waitaminnit...

Weren't you the one that came in here with much pomp and circumstance proclaiming the evils of certain games or styles of games? Isn't this a bit of a pot/kettle thing...

Hardly. I'm saying they're all games. That no game is "art" or "culture" or "literature" or "deeply philosophical"; the only thing that might make a game inferior is if its designer or players actually fool themselves into thinking it is.
D&D is no better fundamentally than Exalted, because both are just games. Only D&D (and most of its players) knows that, while Exalted (and most of its players) live under the delusion that because Exalted is pretentious they're actually smart for playing it, and better than the rest of us.
Like I said, Exalted could actually be some fun if it wasn't for the nobs who play it.

Nobilis could have been a mildly interesting amberesque game if it wasn't for the fact that its been hijacked into being nothing more than a vehicle for people show off their intelligence on RPGnet because they play it.

I mean, its pretty pathetic that anyone actually believes that they're engaged in "art" by playing RPGs, yet I've had people argue with me that that RPGs are art, literature, drama, philosophy, and that they're saving the world by playing rpgs.

People need to get over themselves.

Nisarg