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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6990918" data-attributes="member: 42582">Assertions don't matter either! (In the sense that asserting something doesn't make it true.)And so what if Vincent Baker has been involved in controversial discussions? So has Gygax. So has Mearls (eg his review of Keep on the Borderlands!). So has Robin Laws. Any influential figure in a field will have been involved in controversial discussions - that's almost a necessary condition of having influence!But if you don't accept that Baker is an extremely influential RPG designer, then I think you're pretty out-of-touch. You only need to look at his credits - the groundbreaking DitV; the hugely influential Apocalypse World with all its "PbtA" spin-offs; and his participation in the OSR (eg writing for LotFP).You might not agree with his account of RPGing. But you can't just dismiss it without engaging in some fashion; it's certainly not enough to point out that not everyone agrees with him! (I mean, not everyone agrees with you either.)But you haven't provided an example of anyone playing D&D exactly like Wrath of A, have you? For instance, in WoA no one can try and tunnel through a wall, or create cover by piling up rocks or cutting down branches (because it is a boardgame with defined moves). Have you found anyone posting in this thread who denies that those are permissible moves?The fact that they're not that interested in or excited by your improvised moves for an ogre doesn't tell us much more than that they don't share your taste.I'm not the only poster to have read you as putting forward a rather aggressive and dismissive account of what is or isn't RPGing. In particular, you seem to treat someone's desire for better ogre mechanics as a sign that they don't want to roleplay - at least, that seems implied by your response along the lines of "Here's some stuff you could improvise with an ogre; and if you don't want to do that, and instead want to talk about the ogre statblock, then you're not roleplaying."I dunno, is there much evidence for this? I mean, there are plenty of video games and board games out there.I suspect that the majority of D&D players want to play D&D. That can mean a wide range of things, but I think most of them will take at least bits of the fiction seriously. Which is what differentiates what they're doing from board gaming or video gaming.</blockquote>

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