Failed promises

[Macbeth]

Some player simply can't afford the same stuff that other people can even though they like to play the same games. End of story. I think it would be far more socially disfunctional to expect everyone to have the same level of financial commitment regardless of financial ability.

Exactly. I play mostly with college students (like myself), so from person to person, heck, from week to week in some cases, economic resources vary. I tend to be a little more stable, especially with a decent summer job right now, so I buy a lot of books. On the other hand, one of my best friends is fresh out of High School and barely scraping by, so he rarely buys anything. He's a great guy, and one of my best friends, so I have no problem buying books I want to read that he then plays a game in.

 

[Psion]

And I think you're applying reductio ad absurdum ("Dude! How can anybody know anything, maaaan?") to avoid confronting the obvious: If one person is constantly supplying the money and effort for his or her friends, it's not a healthy dynamic.

Nice try, no. I'm quite simply saying that you do not have enough facts to make that assertion and I don't think you have demonstrated in the least bit that an "unhealthy" dynamic necessarily follows from this one simple fact.

Then again, there's a larger issue here in that lots of gamers are willing to game with people they otherwise barely tolerate, so perhaps you're missing why "friends" is important. Then again, I think that outside of a few specific exceptions, gaming with someone you wouldn't otherwise socialize with is pretty bad.

I am having a real hard time not seeing an implied class distinction in that statement, in the context of the fact that we were talking about economic situations a second ago. Are you trying to say that you should not socialize with someone significantly more or less wealthy than you? Because if you are not, I am not seeing how you made the jump.

Dude, I've been on either side of that situation more times than I care to count. It didn't determine who my friends were.

And, FYI, I do do "other things" with people I game with. If I couldn't, then I would feel hard pressed providing them with a few bennies otherwise.

No, I think the idea that buying all the books to lure players so that they don't have to do anything but show up is, according to any reasonable measure of common sense, obviously indicative of a group that is failing in some social aspects.

You are, I must put a fine point on it, wrong. It coulnd be that way, yes. But you do not have enough information to make such a determination.

You could be "buying your friends". Or you could be providing for your mutual enjoyment each according to their means, without feeling of obligation. Either is perfectly plausible. Most of us are big enough boys by now that we can tell when we are being sponged off of and to make our own determinations of who is worth socializing with.

One exception is, of course, when you're running a game for your kids. But if you have to use the same tactics to run a game for your friends than for your children, you'd probably better ask yourself why, eh?

Which goes precisely to my point: you do not have enough information to make that determination. I don't deal with my friends that way; you are interjecting your own assumptions about the social dynamic. Not that I am in precisely the situation you describe, but I do buy a vast majority of the gaming material, and I only see a shade of difference.

 

[Kanegrundar]

If it's a question of buying all the stuff to lure in a bunch of players like some kind of pedophile with candy, then you may be right. But nobody here has made any implication that we're buying the books to lure in players. That's your spin on this and your spin alone.

Some player simply can't afford the same stuff that other people can even though they like to play the same games. End of story. I think it would be far more socially disfunctional to expect everyone to have the same level of financial commitment regardless of financial ability.

Same here. My group is made up of two college kids I've known throughout grade and high school, my old HS science teacher and his wife. The college students have enough trouble paying to live, no less pay for game books. My old teacher and his wife (who are like the older siblings I never had) have had a lot of financial burdens lately. They've had to cut way back, even to the point of not buying any games at all anymore, but they still supply the food and the place to play. I'm in a better place financially, even with a wedding looming for me next summer. I don't mind buying the books. It keeps us all together to have a few laughs, some good food, and some great gaming memories. I wouldn't have it any other way. Too bad, eyebeams sees this as dysfunctional and unhealthy...

Kane

 

[Gnarlo]

Failed promise? A poor thread that started off interesting and devolved into Whack-a-Troll.

 

[eyebeams]

Prove it. Give examples. Give us some proof to back up your blanket statements. I ponied up with some examples of why I disliked GWD20, so you do the same.

I gave examples earlier.Want another? AD&D2nd. AD&D2nd was basically build according to the tastes of conservative playtesters. The PO series fulfilled long term fan requests. They stank.

3e was a great game in the parts where Tweet and Cook largely ignored fans, really.

I can't name D&D fansites right off the top of my head.

Then how did you get here, pray tell?

What does that prove anyway. Not one single thing. Do the majority of D&D players have a fansite devoted to D&D? Do all the RIFTS players? Do all the V:TM players?

The majority requirement is irrelevant. The fact is, however, that D&D and the World of Darkness have comprehensive independent fan communities. Gamma World didn't. There are no legions of offended fans.

This point is just silly. GW is a lot of different things to different people.

What is it with all the reductio ad absurdum lately?

Setting isn't nearly as important as the rules with GW.

Then why is this "Wahoo!" business being mentioned?

Search the boards, there has been a lot of talk of GW during my time here since ENWorld went live (even a few discussion back at Eric Noah's old boards). Granted the amount of GW chatter is as much as D&D or fantasy D20 talk, but that's more of this being primarily a D&D new site and D&D being exponentially more popular.

Not especially, no. It's because there's no indication that Gamma World was ever that big a deal to begin with.

The point still stands that GW has always had the absurd wahoo elements. No matter what a few fans or articles tried to make GW into otherwise. I have no idea where you're going with that whole genetic engineering point...

No, the point is that it had absurd elements because the game was haphazardly designed. Saying that it was because of a freewheeling artistic vision that was rediscovered by Tweet reminds me of the quip, "Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia." Saying "Wahoo!" over and over again does not project it backwards in time.

Prove it. Show us some official numbers. I don't recall hearing word one from S&SS that GW sold out their print run, but I believe that DW2 sold out it's initial print run, plus that doesn't take into account the sales of the pdfs, which I also believe are still pretty brisk.

Show me offical numbers contrariwise. Otherwise, we deal in the known scales and practices of SSS, which are:

1) SSS didn't need to sell its initial print run to sell several times what Darwin's World sells. SSS's print runs are larger than any D20 company except for WotC.

2) Since the late 90s, WW and related companies have had a policy of cancelling any line that sells under its standards. This is a known policy that has been mentioned by Joesph Carricker and others. The company does not coddle its lines and rarely loss-leads.

And as we *do* know, a failure for White Wolf/SSS would usually be a great success for any other compnay but WotC. In short: Even if it totally bombed for SSS, it's likely it still outsold any similar game.

And iven the scale of .pdf sales, they don't even touch print and hardly make a difference. PDFs make money in an entirely different fashion. There's a reason some vendors complained when RPGNow added numbers to their popularity codes -- they were embarrassingly low compared to fan expectations.

 

[eyebeams]

Failed promise? A poor thread that started off interesting and devolved into Whack-a-Troll.

People who are deeply offended that people disagree at all may not find the internet to their liking.

 

[eyebeams]

Personally, I'll let a player put in as much or as little to the game as they want. Gaming is about having fun, and if they have fun by showing up, sitting down, and playing, then so be it. For some of my players, I hang on to chaaracter sheets, so they can't loose them. I'm willing to take the burden from them, so they can just drive to the game, sit down, and have fun.

If nobody but you is making any meaningful contribution to the table, it's not a good situation. But you aren't in that situation. Your situation is not actually topical to my point.

I'm having fun buying books I like to read and games I like to run. They're having fun showing up and playing a good game.

One of the key points here is that I can buy books and never run them, but still get good use. Even if I buy a book and run it for others, I've still had the fun of reading it. Others got use from it (when I run a game), but I get to sit down and read, which justifies the price to me.

No disagreements here.

 

[Kanegrundar]

Failed promise? A poor thread that started off interesting and devolved into Whack-a-Troll.

You're right. None of us should have let eyebeams get under our skin like that. I am personally sorry for contributing to downward spiral of the thread just due to an insulting troll. My apologies. Back to the thread topic at hand.

Kane

 

[Macbeth]

Your situation is not actually topical to my point.

Then perhaps you can expand on what you mean by a situation topical to your point? From what you've said, I think my group would be unhealthy. I buy the vast majority of books, I GM nearly all the time, and the players often show up with nothing more then a will to play. This, from your original arguement, seems like the definition of 'unhealthy.'

 

[diaglo]

Failed promise? A poor thread that started off interesting and devolved into Whack-a-Troll.

how many tickets for the Cthulu plushie?

i can whack a troll with the best of them