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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5784887" data-attributes="member: 42582">Umbran, thanks for the thoughtful responses.Compromise in politics is a complex issue. I'm in print arguing that contemporary political philosophy suffers from a lack of a good theory of compromise (and a part of my doctoral work was an attempt to correct that deficiency). But the very same paper argues that, absent a situation of proper compromise, we are in a Hobbesian war of all and against all.I don't have as well-developed views on the nature of aesthetic distinction and disagreement, but I do have some views. For example, both someone who loves Graham Greene, and someone who loves Stephen King, might describe themselves as "readers of novels". And to someone who is not at all bookishly inclined, the two readers might look pretty similar. And there's no doubt that the two readers have some interests in common (they have an interest in liberal censorship laws, a low price for paper and ink, etc). But put the two of them together in a book club, and  it's likely that hilarity (or conflict) will ensue.And it needn't be two people with diffreing tastes. It can be one person with a range of tastes. Over the holidays my kids went away for a week and a half with grandparents, so my partner and I got to see three movies: Melancholia, This Skin I Live In (? anyway, the latest Almodovar film) and the new Sherlock Holmes film. Needless to say, if I'm in the mood for Melancholia, and I accidentally find myself watching Sherlock Holmes, or Almodovar for that matter, I'm going to get a shock. To the extent that these films have artistic merit, they are on very different dimensions.I see GNS as bringing this sort of analysis of differene in aesthetic experience, and the techniques and structures that produce it, to RPGs.I don't believe that this is what Edwards, The Forge, or GNS analysis does.Yes, but Edwards (and The Forge generally) advocates playing a wide variety of games, to see different techniques in play and enjoy what the different agendas have to offer. The focus is not monistic or homogenising.As above, I can only speak for myself. I like his work because he tries to bring the analytical and interpretive methods with which I am familiar, and which I regard as powerful techniques for making sense of cultural and social phenomena, to bear on one of my favourite passtimes. It's the closest thing to serious criticism that I'm aware of in the domain of RPGs.</blockquote>

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