NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JAMUMU" data-source="post: 8932582" data-attributes="member: 7035709">Thanks, that site and the journal make for some interesting reading. A few thoughts in general and in specific:1) The link didn't work until I removed the /thoughts part of the address, just in case anyone else is struggling with that!2) The continuing legacy of the Forge are the games that formed its praxis and that have inflected/still inflect large parts of the hobby, not necessarily the detail or drama of the positions taken up on its forums.3) Related to 3), the site you linked is peppered with references to and discussion of the Forge and what happened there, so it's harder to escape than you seem to imply!4) I'm not sure the discussions that would arise out of many of the articles on this site and in the Journal would pass the no-politics test here, at the other no-politics forum where I like to discuss games, or at a third place, where I doubt full and open academic discussion would be allowed for long.5) I am chary of the seeming conflation of ttrpgs and Larp. Of course there is some structural overlap (we could call it bleed!), but I remain to be convinced that they can be examined together as if they were merely different modes of the same activity.6) My immediate take-away is that some of what I'm reading here is academic hot-air being used to elevate hobby discussion to professional levels. Is it a coincidence that the site's owner has a CV listed there? From a journal article on the ways D&D reinforces violence as problem-solving tool: "In sum, I argue that paladins effectively show D&D’s facilitation of violence through the good/evil dichotomy." Well, strike me down with a smite! Really? But more seriously, if that is the standard of 'serious academic study' I can see why people avoid it and stick to re-hashing old Forge fights.7) Where the journal articles seem most interesting (and most interested in discussing) is where they interrogate RPG structures as a vehicle for education. Fine work, and as a former educator I can say it does work, but I imagine as a topic it's not something non-educator gamers would be invested in discussing or exploring.</blockquote>

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