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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1557381" data-attributes="member: 10201">Bit of a tangent up ahead.I just wanted to contest this. The shared history we have as RPers has much more to do with the parts of RPing that transcend any particular system, than the parts that are unique to a particular system. In part, this is because almost all the commercial RPGs out there are basically the same, mechanically, just with minor differences in widget labels, number range, etc. But in part, this is because the mechanical elements, while very important to some in actual play, are really fairly insignificant in the overall experience, in the sense that the overall experience is still recognizably "the same activity", regardless of the system you use. In short, a D&D player and a V:tM player have much more common experience to talk about than an Axis & Allies player and a Monopoly player, or a chess player and a mankala player (frex). Our shared culture would probably more-readily recognize this commonality if we'd grown up with lots of poorly-distributed small-press games and more homebrews, rather than one massively-dominating game and a bunch of second-stringers.And, certainly, at this state in the game, if D&D/WotC were to go away, i'm not sure it'd be that bad for the hobby as a whole. It'd massively change the culture, but i don't think it'd kill it, or prevent new recruits.Agreed. The problem isn't people illegally downloading, or even sharing, and the problem isn't them not paying. It's them not paying what they feel the product is worth. If people were honest about the degree to which they valued their downloads, and actually thought about the long-term consequences of widespread behavior, we'd probably be fine. Even if everyone paid what they thought something was worth, rather than the asking price, i suspect things would reach a healthy equilibrium. 10k people paying $0.25 for a song is better than them paying nothing, and better even than 200 of them buying the full album at $12 and the rest not getting anything--especially if the 200 who bought it are disappointed because, after listening to the whole album, they only liked that one song, and are now disinclined to buy any further albums from the group.Maybe i'm mis-remembering the study (about inflicting harm), but i understood the conclusions to be not that anonymity was the significant factor, but that orders and thus societal structure were--the herd mentality, in short.</blockquote>

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