Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 8935006" data-attributes="member: 85870">Aside from anything else, this comment here elucidates my interest in RPG theory.I agree with pemerton that there's little use in starting down the path of laying bare the procedural workings of RPGs without being willing --- truly willing --- to revise a notion, understanding, or principle you thought worked one way but was actually something else.My own journey from die-hard D&D/PF only, would-never-look-at-another-system in 2009 to today (where my GM-ing and overall gaming experiences are exponentially better than in 2009) had to begin with being willing to honestly look at my own procedural leanings, conceptions, and assumptions.Example: There was a thread last year where I argued that the idea of a "living world" was really just an idealized, romanticized, deeply held conviction of "trad" RPG play that's largely a fallacy. It's a beautifully constructed, wonderfully comforting facade for something that, when analyzed at its root, is very much banal.And the reason I could make that argument is because at a point in the past I would have been one of the most vociferous arguers IN FAVOR of the idea of a "living world."It was only after having the idea challenged --- and being willing to really consider what a "living world" actually meant from a procedural standpoint --- that I started to recognize that my idealized, romanticized, deep conviction in a "living world" was merely aspirational.In reality, in a way that Pemerton hints above, when you strip away the idealization and the romanticism, a "living world" is really just another term for the procedure of, "The GM makes stuff up that goes into his notes about the fiction to later be (or possibly not be) revealed through player exploration."And truthfully, that's the danger in engaging in ANY kind of criticism/critique. One of the things studying literary criticism taught me was that there is a risk involved --- there is an inherent element of "de-mystification" of the thing you're critiquing. It possibly takes away some of the psychological "warm feelings" or fervor you have for something, the deeply felt part of your own psyche and persona that thing has placed in you.It's dangerous, because sometimes you have to rethink what that thing means in the context of your broader self . . . and in so rethinking what that thing means in context of your self, you also have to rethink your concept of self at the same time.Edit: And thinking about it a tiny bit more, you have to be comfortable with that change --- the demystification leading to understanding. You lose the idealization and fervor, but gain greater understanding in its place.</blockquote>

Verification