D&D 5E [+] Explain RPG theory without using jargon

[Ovinomancer]

Look. There is sentimentality, and then there is having some basic decency and avoiding being a toxic troll. At the point your saying that the people who like to play differently than you have literal brain damage, you are solidly in the latter camp. Edwards may have some decent points, but but trying to hide one's toxicity and biases under the cloak of analysis and criticism not cool. Not that the hiding was done particularly effectively in this instance.

This and @Malmuria's posts are effectively tone policing. They are dismissing arguments because they are insufficiently polite or submissive to the mainstream, and not on the merits of the argument. That the toxicity is largely (but not entirely) assumed doesn't help.

 

[soviet]

I think it's important that we all share exactly how much we don't like the writings of this one guy who once wrote some thoughtful things about RPGing (after playing, and seriously engaging with, just about every RPG published up to the time at which he was writing). And who, if Vincent Baker is to be taken at face value, played a crucial role in helping to inspire one of the most influential RPGs designs of all time.

I actually find his writing style clear and engaging.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Look. There is sentimentality, and then there is having some basic decency and avoiding being a toxic troll. At the point your saying that the people who like to play differently than you have literal brain damage, you are solidly in the latter camp. Edwards may have some decent points, but but trying to hide one's toxicity and biases under the cloak of analysis and criticism not cool. Not that the hiding was done particularly effectively in this instance.

And now that I've dealt with the tone policing, you should read that article with an intent to look past the poor choice of words. Because the point of that article is not what you're saying it is. It has nothing to do with insulting people with different likes. It's about cognitive bias and how some seem to have been trained to think that they get narrativism from their systems because that's all they know and their system tells them that's what their getting. It's entirely about Vampire, the system, and Vampire fans that defend the system as able to provide everything for any playstyle. It about the cognitive bias that accrues over time and makes it so hard to see outside of the confines of experience.

It also has a very, very poor choice of term. If you can find/replace brain damage with cognitive bias, that article gets vastly more engaging.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This and @Malmuria's posts are effectively tone policing. They are dismissing arguments because they are insufficiently polite or submissive to the mainstream, and not on the merits of the argument. That the toxicity is largely (but not entirely) assumed doesn't help.

I said that he may have valid points even if he is a toxic troll. But his text dripping with disdain and venom certainly calls his impartiality in question.

Edwards talking about brain damage:

More specific to your question, Vincent, I'll say this: that protagonism was so badly injured during the history of role-playing (1970-ish through the present, with the height of the effect being the early 1990s), that participants in that hobby are perhaps the very last people on earth who could be expected to produce all the components of a functional story. No, the most functional among them can only be counted on to seize protagonism in their stump-fingered hands and scream protectively. You can tag Sorcerer with this diagnosis, instantly.

[The most damaged participants are too horrible even to look upon, much less to describe. This has nothing to do with geekery. When I say "brain damage," I mean it literally. Their minds have been harmed.]

Edwards "clarifies" by likening certain RPG styles as being sexually molested as a child:

Now for the discussion of brain damage. I'll begin with a closer analogy. Consider that there's a reason I and most other people call an adult having sex with a, say, twelve-year-old, to be abusive. Never mind if it's, technically speaking, consensual. It's still abuse. Why? Because the younger person's mind is currently developing - these experiences are going to be formative in ways that experiences ten years later will not be. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the characteristic behaviors of someone with this history, but I am very familiar with them - and they are not constructive or happiness-oriented behaviors at all. The person's mind has been damaged while it was forming, and it takes a hell of a lot of re-orientation even for functional repairs (which is not the same as undoing the damage).

And here is a bit more "tone policing": I don't appreciate people trying to gaslight others by implying that the toxicity is imagined. Though of course anyone reading the above quotes can plainly see how absurd such an idea is. In some other Edwards' writings the venom is mostly in the subtext, but people are not imagining it. Here it is in the plain text. And no, I wouldn't trust a person with this sort of attitude being able to do impartial analysis.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I said that he may have valid points even if he is a toxic troll. But his text dripping with disdain and venom certainly calls his impartiality in question.

Edwards talking about brain damage:


Edwards "clarifies" by likening certain RPG styles as being sexually molested as a child:


And here is a bit more "tone policing": I don't appreciate people trying to gaslight others by implying that the toxicity is imagined. Though of course anyone reading the above quotes can plainly see how absurd such an idea is. In some other Edwards' writings the venom is mostly in the subtext, but people are not imagining it. Here it is in the plain text. And no, I wouldn't trust a person with this sort of attitude being able to do impartial analysis.

Hmm, yes, taking those two statements entirely out of the context clearly shows that he said "brain damage" and that you should hate everything about it because he did so. This is classic tone policing. It's also a form of ad hominin, because you cannot actually articulate the point of the article, but instead have erected a strawman of tremendous proportions.

Here's some of the context:

Now for the discussion of brain damage. I'll begin with a closer analogy. Consider that there's a reason I and most other people call an adult having sex with a, say, twelve-year-old, to be abusive. Never mind if it's, technically speaking, consensual. It's still abuse. Why? Because the younger person's mind is currently developing - these experiences are going to be formative in ways that experiences ten years later will not be. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the characteristic behaviors of someone with this history, but I am very familiar with them - and they are not constructive or happiness-oriented behaviors at all. The person's mind has been damaged while it was forming, and it takes a hell of a lot of re-orientation even for functional repairs (which is not the same as undoing the damage).

If someone wants to take issue with my use of the term "brain" when I'm talking about the "mind," I just shrug. As I see it, the mind is the physiological outcome of a working brain. Mess around with the input as the brain/mind forms, and you short-circuit it, messing up steps which themselves would have been the foundation of further steps. You could be talking about an experience such as I mention above, or you could be talking about sticking a needle into someone's head and wiggling it around. Brain, mind, damage. I don't distinguish.

All that is the foundation for my point: that the routine human capacity for understanding, enjoying, and creating stories is damaged in this fashion by repeated "storytelling role-playing" as promulgated through many role-playing games of a specific type. This type is only one game in terms of procedures, but it's represented across several dozens of titles and about fifteen to twenty years, peaking about ten years ago. Think of it as a "way" to role-play rather than any single title.

Edwards is profoundly sure of himself, and, indeed, at times dismissive. But this article has some very important things to say that are terribly served by a shallow reading that only focuses on one term ("brain damage") and complains that this is so unfair and insulting that there's no good that can possibly come from such an article. It's tone policing at it's highest notch. And you can tell it's just this because the people complaining about cannot summarize the main points of the article -- not even to disagree with them.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:
If Edwards came on this site, and called people brain damaged, he'd likely get red text and removed from the discussion.

The question of tone policing became popularly recognized in questions of social justice - when victims of abuse and mistreatment spoke up, they were told, "You have to be nice if you want to see action." The effect was to tell people who were victims to shut up.

Needless to say, Edwards was not a victim speaking about the harm done to him. Criticizing him for his choice of words is not telling a victim to shut up. His criticism should itself be open to criticism.

To use accusations of tone policing to defend him is a mis-appropriation of a real issue, weakening the case of folks who have suffered actual harm. In the name of supporting folks who have suffered actual harm, please don't do this going forward.

Thanks, everyone, for your time.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@Ovinomancer

I understand the point he is trying to make just fine. I also quoted the same text 'for the context' than you did. It just happens to contain even more offensive stuff.

People's foundational experiences will shape their understanding and preferences, yes. Characterising that in the context of creativity and entertainment as some sort of 'damage' is absurd.

 

[Ovinomancer]

To get it in, the Edwards Brain Damage article describes my journey in thinking very clearly. It clearly points out where I was having difficulty with the concepts, to how I started to accept, and now, when I read that article, I see it explaining something I very much experienced, and have friends who have experienced it as well. Personally, not talking about others.

Expanding it, though, I see my same issues in others all the time -- the same arguments made, the same stated difficulties and disbeliefs. It's absolutely a thing, this cognitive bias that permeates the hobby, mostly with long term players. I don't think less of them at all, because I was one, and remember being there, and remember the difficulty. It's similar to being an ex-smoker, which I also am. I remember both what I enjoyed about smoking and the difficulty in quitting, but I don't think poorly of people that haven't made the same choice. Some ex-smokers do, though, and I regret that Edwards seems to be in the latter category and how it bleeds into his writing. However, that doesn't mean that what he's saying is incorrect, but it's easy as a smoker to dismiss the words of an ex-smoker who uses salty language like "nasty smelling." I recall that, as well.

The concept discussed in that article is a real thing. I'm personal proof. The difference in how I would approach that article and how Edwards did is that I don't think I'm a better person for addressing my cognitive biases. I've made my choices, and I like them. You're welcome to yours. I'll gladly extend a hand and help if you're interested in looking at different ideas, though. I find Edwards to be too dismissive in general. That he wrote those pieces in a particular zeitgeist and they're being examined outside of that zeitgeist amplifies that, but it doesn't create it. I'll argue against the amplification, but I'll agree that Edwards could be a nicer person. That's not sufficient to dismiss his writings, though. I'd prefer if people could look at the ideas, but I also recall being an ex-smoker, and you don't want to talk about quitting until you want to talk about quitting, so I get it. What I don't get is showing up in threads where quitting is being discussed (to continue the analogy) only to derail or attack the concept. Or even to claim that vaping is the same thing as quitting.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, that additional context does not make the brain damage comment any better. If anything it just makes it more clear that he meant it exactly the way it looks like he did, that playing Vampire in one’s formative years is a traumatic experience comparable to sexual assault, which is an atrocious claim to make.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

People's foundational experiences will shape their understanding and preferences, yes. Characterising that in the context of creativity and entertainment as some sort of 'damage' is absurd.

I was going to make a longer statement, but I would just put it this way. There is something profoundly disturbing with people that will be repeatedly told that something is offensive, and always pivot to saying that the real problem is the people who took offense to the statement.

As you correctly point out- tarring a large number of people in our hobby as having brain damage, or that playing certain games is comparable to sexual assault, is never, ever appropriate. And regardless of anything else related to TTPRG theory, the only correct response regarding that is an unequivocal, "Yeah, that happened, that was wrong, and that was inappropriate."

That it doesn't happen remains a point of contention.