Hatmatter
Laws of Mordenkainen, Elminster, & Fistandantilus
So, I watched/listened to it. Interesting. Actually, their collective point that role-playing games are games, so do what is fun for you and your friends at your table is welcome. I might editorialize that it is a bit obvious and I do not hear anyone from Wizards of the Coast not making anything but that argument. Jeremy Crawford's mantra is, after all "follow your bliss" (I just realized Crawford has the same initials as Joseph Campbell from whom he has adapted that statement: JC). So, it seems to me to be a little bit of making an obvious point, but maybe there is something that they are arguing against of which I am unaware.
I might say the same for the point between the difference between a player and a character. I do not understand what they are speaking against. Around the 1:17 remark, one of the speakers (the one on the left with the goatee) goes into detail about how the character might knife somebody between the ribs, but the player is not doing that. That distinction seems like role-playing 101 to me. I think I might be out-of-touch from the demographic with whom they are attempting to have a conversation. Interesting that at around 1:18:30, Justin LaNasa (if that is the person in the middle) then seems to contradict this point by (if I am following correctly) saying that he was ruing that he was not able to kill another player's character at GaryCon because of his feelings about the player. I may have not followed that conversation strand correctly.
Anyway, as to the fundamental point that Justin LaNasa is making when he mentions EN World (isn't it pronounced N World and not "E-N World"?), it is hard to disagree with it. It is always good to contact the original maker of a statement if there is any question about what might be meant or what might be the purpose of the statement. Hard to argue with that.
Finally, I do not understand the objection to using the term "session" to refer to gaming sessions. I have been playing D&D since 1980 (granted, I was very young then), and I seem to recall us using "session" in the late 1980s and 1990s. I didn't realize there was some kind of objection to the term, which seems perfectly adequate to describe, well, a D&D or role-playing game session.
Justin LaNasa's description of Lake Geneva awakened within me a desire to go there and visit. I went to GenCon three times when it was in Milwaukie in the early 1990s, but I never visited Lake Geneva. That might be fun to take my daughter there some time next time I am in the Midwest.
Cheers everyone!
