Arcane Runes Press
First Post
Teflon Billy said:
Okay... but I'll be picturing you dressed like this
or this
if you do.
Academic Plague in gaming
- Thread starter Nisarg
- Start date
Okay... but I'll be picturing you dressed like this
or this
if you do.
Teflon Billy
Explorer
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Well. That's sure an interesting turn to this thread...
Arcane Runes Press
First Post
Teflon Billy said:
Whew!
5 dots in appearance, baby!
Torm
Explorer
I, too, am someone generally regarded by those around him as fairly clever. But please allow me to equivocate.fusangite said:
I've been roleplaying for nearly 20 years. I've DM'ed. I've helped other people develop their DMing technique. I've played what I believe to be a pretty wide variety of games - AD&D, 3(.0 and .5)E, Alternity, GURPS, Top Secret, Call of Cthulu (old school and D20), D20 Modern, Continuum, Feng Shui, V:TM, and tons of single sessions of other game systems. And I've developed my own bits and pieces of systems (and maybe someday I'll finish one.)
But, as much as I like some of the other systems, you know as well as I do that the ONLY system that matters for the growth or decline of the RPG market is Dungeons and Dragons. Wizards is the only company putting their names out there where people who aren't already "game-aware" see them - movies, top quality video games, etc. - in an effective and consistant way. White Wolf has taken a couple of weak shots at it, but for the most part, they advertise where the rest do - gaming shops and magazines, preaching to the choir, so to speak.
And the consistent trend for TSR/Wizards, from 1st Edition up to present, has been to make the CORE of the game easier and more intuitive each time. Admittedly, there are more add-ons than you can shake a stick at, but it's easier to pick up the Core Books and start playing than ever before. And I feel certain that will grow more true with 4th Edition, when it comes out. (Now, the price of admission, OTOH - well, that's a whole 'nother story.)
As regards Amber and Nobilis (who?) and the like, it seems to me that there's no point laying the blame on fringe games, because they aren't the ones making or breaking the industry, anyway.
Torm
Explorer
Ah!Nisarg said:
Here's the thing - EVERYONE likes to believe that their hobbies and preferences make them a little smarter, a little stronger, a little BETTER. The determination of whether or not they are jerks for it is whether they seem to think it makes them better than someone else, or just better than they would be without them.
I see what you're on about - really I do. But by attacking other players, you aren't helping. Very few people appreciate being told they're wrong in such a negative way, with namecalling and such. You stated what you see as the problem well enough. What's the solution? (P.S. Don't say "those gamers need to act right" or some such - that's like saying "people need to stop not wanting to pay taxes." It doesn't work. Policy fixes, in this case to the next generation of games, do.)
All that said, I don't see you guys rating the kind of mate I'M contemplating. I'd let you watch - I would invite you, but the queens WE use would not excite you.
Zelda Themelin
First Post
Mmh, academic plague. I don't know if such a thing exist in any greater number among gamers.
Unless they are old-timer Glorantha fans, who haven't really played rpg for 20+ years. Amazing number of actual teachers and professors there, but alas.
There are "holier than thou"-people around everywhere, then there are people who like to use "big" and complicated words because they just plain like them. Sometimes these particular traits are joined in people we get to know. Sometimes these people get following, which maybe can be called friends, fans, imitators or cult, depending on case.
Nothing specially academic in that.
I visited forge forums out of curiosity and found out, that there seems to be awfully lot avarage gamers there. That is, if you avoid those funky game design forums there.
I really got to wonder about word "gamist", it sounds so bad english it makes me feel sick. Maybe it's because I am not native english-speaker.
Nobilis as a game doesn't seem that bad. I generally think diceless is trouble.
I used to play a lot of Amber, uh, maybe with good dm and less favourism it could have been more fun experience.
oh, boy, what can make person come up with word like "Hollyhock God".
I noticed most of the reviews at RPGnet carefully avoided saying that, while explaining other terms. Wonder why's that...
Games like that however remain me awfully lot about Immortal (game by predence or something like that) and what was wrong with it (other than art and character sheet design).
Make-up words, lot of them. Let's not call them humans, let's call them Twilights. It's cooler (yeah, riiight, and harder to remember, especially if you play awfully many games that do that).
At least White Wolf had sense of making glossary of terms, with Immortal they where spintered around the book.
White wolf made mistake of re-inventing their termininology for each critter-type. It was cool with Vampire. It started to suck when they did it with Werewolf, Mage, Wraith, Changeling etc.
TSR did this with Planescape. One major reason I never liked it, that and the fact I hated Sigil. But enough of my issues there.
At those times I felt that everyone, including tsr with Planescape was copying some element of Vampire's success.
Funny how many games (many of which I own, but have forgotten) did do that.
Gary Gagax too came up with system where stats were named outright weird, but there might have been copy-right thing involted into that choice.
Though strange if someone has managed copyright of some words like "wisdom" or "intelligence".
I think new-age stuff, and "I am obligated to say it so nobody understands" became popular with games I call "modern dark occult". It's bit like Ars Magica (uh don't remember if that was the name for it) future.
Kult, Mage the Ascension, Sorcerer, Witchcraft, Admageddon, In Nomine (to some degree) etc. represent this. Also do games like uh, what was that game by chaosium called, well nevermind.
And IMO, most of those games are more fun to read than play, and it's really hard to teach them to people who haven't read the book themselves. And sometimes even that doesn't help. Anyone ever played Mage? I did with 1st edition and 2nd. How magic rules work is so dm-dependant.
Kult's later editions btw, have some political correctness added to them. It's really not the exact same universe than with original Swedish game.
I think many d&d players have problem with "modern occult game" fans, because most (of those I personally know) tend to look down on people who "dare to like game like d&d". And from here they judge that someone must be stupid to play game like d&d. This is when d&d people I know start to hate "modern occult games". My idea of positive introduction is not "D&D sucks, why you don't play "X"!"
But there has been such system wars always. PC vr. Amiga, PS2 vr. XBox, Rifts vr. D&D, Gurps vr. every other system, "My homebrew is the best thing that ever happened" vr. every other system. And so on, and so on.
So, I dont' think there is direction that's endangering rpg:s. Or maybe there is. Dunno. I personally don't care. Doesn't mean I woudn't whine when something worth little whine happens. Like some metaplot I don't like, things like that.
I never bought Exalted. Maybe too bad, it has some cool elements. But, I was kinda burned out (and bored to waste my money) to every book white wolf put out every month. So I quitted to buy anything much around time Werewolf Wild West came out. And they have been putting out their books of Exalted "prestige-races" for so long time, that buying them would just cost too much.
Oh I like hack-and-slash d&d lot. I love to min-max. I currently prefer D&D.
Unless they are old-timer Glorantha fans, who haven't really played rpg for 20+ years. Amazing number of actual teachers and professors there, but alas.
There are "holier than thou"-people around everywhere, then there are people who like to use "big" and complicated words because they just plain like them. Sometimes these particular traits are joined in people we get to know. Sometimes these people get following, which maybe can be called friends, fans, imitators or cult, depending on case.
Nothing specially academic in that.
I visited forge forums out of curiosity and found out, that there seems to be awfully lot avarage gamers there. That is, if you avoid those funky game design forums there.
I really got to wonder about word "gamist", it sounds so bad english it makes me feel sick. Maybe it's because I am not native english-speaker.
Nobilis as a game doesn't seem that bad. I generally think diceless is trouble.
I used to play a lot of Amber, uh, maybe with good dm and less favourism it could have been more fun experience.
oh, boy, what can make person come up with word like "Hollyhock God".
I noticed most of the reviews at RPGnet carefully avoided saying that, while explaining other terms. Wonder why's that...
Games like that however remain me awfully lot about Immortal (game by predence or something like that) and what was wrong with it (other than art and character sheet design).
Make-up words, lot of them. Let's not call them humans, let's call them Twilights. It's cooler (yeah, riiight, and harder to remember, especially if you play awfully many games that do that).
At least White Wolf had sense of making glossary of terms, with Immortal they where spintered around the book.
White wolf made mistake of re-inventing their termininology for each critter-type. It was cool with Vampire. It started to suck when they did it with Werewolf, Mage, Wraith, Changeling etc.
TSR did this with Planescape. One major reason I never liked it, that and the fact I hated Sigil. But enough of my issues there.
At those times I felt that everyone, including tsr with Planescape was copying some element of Vampire's success.
Funny how many games (many of which I own, but have forgotten) did do that.
Gary Gagax too came up with system where stats were named outright weird, but there might have been copy-right thing involted into that choice.
Though strange if someone has managed copyright of some words like "wisdom" or "intelligence".
I think new-age stuff, and "I am obligated to say it so nobody understands" became popular with games I call "modern dark occult". It's bit like Ars Magica (uh don't remember if that was the name for it) future.
Kult, Mage the Ascension, Sorcerer, Witchcraft, Admageddon, In Nomine (to some degree) etc. represent this. Also do games like uh, what was that game by chaosium called, well nevermind.
And IMO, most of those games are more fun to read than play, and it's really hard to teach them to people who haven't read the book themselves. And sometimes even that doesn't help. Anyone ever played Mage? I did with 1st edition and 2nd. How magic rules work is so dm-dependant.
Kult's later editions btw, have some political correctness added to them. It's really not the exact same universe than with original Swedish game.
I think many d&d players have problem with "modern occult game" fans, because most (of those I personally know) tend to look down on people who "dare to like game like d&d". And from here they judge that someone must be stupid to play game like d&d. This is when d&d people I know start to hate "modern occult games". My idea of positive introduction is not "D&D sucks, why you don't play "X"!"
But there has been such system wars always. PC vr. Amiga, PS2 vr. XBox, Rifts vr. D&D, Gurps vr. every other system, "My homebrew is the best thing that ever happened" vr. every other system. And so on, and so on.
So, I dont' think there is direction that's endangering rpg:s. Or maybe there is. Dunno. I personally don't care. Doesn't mean I woudn't whine when something worth little whine happens. Like some metaplot I don't like, things like that.
I never bought Exalted. Maybe too bad, it has some cool elements. But, I was kinda burned out (and bored to waste my money) to every book white wolf put out every month. So I quitted to buy anything much around time Werewolf Wild West came out. And they have been putting out their books of Exalted "prestige-races" for so long time, that buying them would just cost too much.
Oh I like hack-and-slash d&d lot. I love to min-max. I currently prefer D&D.
Zelda Themelin
First Post
Qlippoth said:Nephilim!
Yes, that's it.
Thanks.
I think I am still missing couple of them. I have hidden them somewhere behind all the stuff I own. Sniff, no can do. It would have been nice to make full list.
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