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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Korgoth" data-source="post: 5431948" data-attributes="member: 49613">Well, it may also be that I didn't put forward my point with any kind of rigor or precision. I think we're pretty much on the same page, minor pun intended.See, the semantic content of the D&D game might not be made of reality (at least, not wholly material reality, depending on your analysis of the nature of thought), but the gaming is made of reality. Here's what I mean:In this life at least, I will never have a direct experience of another person's inner life. I know I have an inner life, but I'll never have any direct evidence than anyone else does... the proposition that other people have inner lives just like I do is something that I have to take on faith, which is something rational (I have to take it on faith, but like all good uses of faith I have a good reason for doing so). Nonetheless, there is some quality about interacting with other people: their alterity, if you will. See, if I were a solipsist and thought that the whole world was merely my dream, I'd still have to acknowledge that those things I call "other people" are able to surprise me. And even when their actions don't surprise me (because I know them well enough), they still intrude on my conscious horizon with seeming independence. And I like that fact.There's actually no one with whom I regularly game of whom I totally approve... I have a strict religious code and none of my gamer friends adhere to it. And I disagree with most of them about politics, too. But when I'm talking about "alterity", my agreement or disagreement with them is neither here nor there... I'm talking about something much more elemental. They're other people. And unlike Sartre, I like other people. And I like to be at table with them. And I like to hold physical books and physical dice. And to write on physical paper with graphite... man, I love that gray, slick cylinder of carbon.The joy of marking on paper with graphite. The joy of taking one or more plastic polyhedrals and chucking them across the table. The engaging quality of seeing another human being's face. These are simple, elemental pleasures and they are part of what makes the role playing experience fun.Staring at a monitor. Listening to disembodied voices. Watching computer graphics. All that sounds too much like work!I think that now more than ever the analog role playing experience is relevant. It's something special in that it's something that's not tied to the computer.And I love computers and what they do for my life. But for human interaction, nothing beats having actual humans in the same room. Sure, there are humans (one in particular) that I'd rather Skype with than have some other human besides that person actually in the room, but that's pretty much a limit case. And I'd much rather always be in person with that person than on Skype if I could be. All other things being equal, for human contact analog is far superior to digital and always will be.Oh, and Barbaria... it's in Texas, son!</blockquote>

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