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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9679444" data-attributes="member: 6790260">No.But I expect that this will be a meaningful argument from within their own space that over-occupation with realism is not as productive a goal as some hold it up to be. There are a lot of people who uphold realism as being unequivocally the highest goal, that is, always higher than any other goal no matter what. I have, already, discussed this with you and you were quite gracious about agreeing that that doesn't accurately describe your true beliefs, though this absolutely should not be interpreted as meaning that realism isn't still your highest goal. It's just not higher to the extent that it always overwhelms any other goal; there may be circumstances, albeit unusual ones, where the small benefit of a tiny bit more realism isn't worth potential steep costs to other valuable things.The point is not to say &quot;hah, you're wrong to like realism because Gygax said so&quot;, mostly because that would be pretty pointlessly stupid.Instead, the point is to note that a respected figure, whose work is specifically respected for creating and fostering an attention to realism that even many current-day sandbox-y &quot;traditional GM&quot; types wouldn't necessarily support, did in fact hold that realism wasn't the only good worth seeking. Coming from Gygax, we can't accuse it of being &quot;modern&quot;, of coming from a &quot;storytelling&quot; source. No one can accuse it of using newfangled jargon nobody recognizes, &quot;word salad&quot; or other tedious characterizations. This whole ridiculous tangent about whether it's reasonable to reference Crane would never happen with Gygax, since I don't think anyone in this thread would deny Gygax's importance to developing what &quot;a sandbox campaign&quot; means. We have, in relatively plain and straightfoward prose, an argument free of those issues, yet still hitting essentially all the same notes.That is, very much, useful to me. It's not an argument that will make people play the games I want to play (I would not want such an argument even if I believed such a thing existed!) It's an argument which soundly refutes a number of distracting and unproductive tangents and thus calls for serious engagement with the points themselves, which I find much, much more interesting than &quot;well your position about X is irrelevant because &lt;it came from story games/it was written by a person whose prose I dislike/it defines terms in a way I dislike/etc.&gt;, so I'm not even going to talk about X&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9679444, member: 6790260"] No. But I expect that this will be a meaningful argument [I]from within their own space[/I] that over-occupation with realism is not as productive a goal as some hold it up to be. There are a lot of people who uphold realism as being unequivocally the highest goal, that is, always higher than any other goal no matter what. I have, already, discussed this with you and you were quite gracious about agreeing that that doesn't accurately describe your true beliefs, though this absolutely should not be interpreted as meaning that realism isn't still your highest goal. It's just not higher [I]to the extent that[/I] it always overwhelms any other goal; there may be circumstances, albeit unusual ones, where the small benefit of a tiny bit more realism isn't worth potential steep costs to other valuable things. The point is not to say "hah, you're wrong to like realism because Gygax said so", mostly because that would be pretty pointlessly stupid. Instead, the point is to note that a respected figure, whose work is [I]specifically[/I] respected for creating and fostering an attention to realism that even many current-day sandbox-y "traditional GM" types wouldn't necessarily support, did in fact hold that realism wasn't the only good worth seeking. Coming from Gygax, we can't accuse it of being "modern", of coming from a "storytelling" source. No one can accuse it of using newfangled jargon nobody recognizes, "word salad" or other tedious characterizations. This whole ridiculous tangent about whether it's reasonable to reference Crane would never happen with Gygax, since I don't think anyone in this thread would deny Gygax's importance to developing what "a sandbox campaign" [I]means[/I]. We have, in relatively plain and straightfoward prose, an argument free of those issues, yet still hitting essentially all the same notes. That is, very much, useful to me. It's not an argument that will make people play the games I want to play (I would not want such an argument even if I believed such a thing existed!) It's an argument which soundly refutes a number of distracting and unproductive tangents and thus calls for serious engagement with the points themselves, which I find much, much more interesting than "well your position about X is irrelevant because <it came from story games/it was written by a person whose prose I dislike/it defines terms in a way I dislike/etc.>, so I'm not even going to talk about X". [/QUOTE]

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