If you watch Rent with most people today, the reaction you get is pretty uniform- Why don't they just pay the damn rent?
Different times and all that.
RPG Theory- The Limits of My Language are the Limits of My World
- Thread starter Snarf Zagyg
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If you watch Rent with most people today, the reaction you get is pretty uniform- Why don't they just pay the damn rent?
Different times and all that.
Campbell
Relaxed Intensity
What's so damn wrong with being Brad if that's your bliss? If you bring joy to 5 people or 500,000 you are still engaging in meaningful creativity. I find the idea that the Brad's of this world are devoid of value to be utterly pretentious. A lot of time those no name bands who don't make an impact influence the next Velvet Underground.
Not to mention this analogy makes our hobby look pretty much completely hopeless. We are pretty much engaging in a creative act meant for an audience of 4-7 people. I think that's a worthwhile endeavor.
Not to mention this analogy makes our hobby look pretty much completely hopeless. We are pretty much engaging in a creative act meant for an audience of 4-7 people. I think that's a worthwhile endeavor.
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Brads listen to Coldplay and play Bards. You can't trust Brads, Campbell.
Well, sure, but Coldplay and Bards is still a step up from Nickleback and Gnome Paladins. So there's that.
Brad never made it as a wise man
Brad couldn't cut it as a cleric healing
Brad's tired of playing as a good man
Now he wants to play as a class that's unappealing
And this is how Brad reminds me
This is how Brad remind me
Of what Bards really are
This is how Brad reminds me
Of what Bards really are
Brad never will say that he's "Sorry"
Plays a different Bard but the same old story
He plays a class that's godforsaken
Another bad joke and my mind is achin'
And I've been wrong, I've been down
Bards drive me to the bottom of every bottle
These five words in my head
Scream "Are we having fun yet?"
@Snarf Zagyg
I read your posts. I "apprehended" them. I just don't agree with them. I don't think you've shown that Wittgenstein helps us understand either patterns of influence in RPG design, or techniques and practices for engaging in RPGing. Nor do I think you've show that Wittgenstein helps explain why RPG theory is contentious. All analysis and explanation of cultural artefacts and practices is contentious - both in its details, and that anyone should do it at all. Why would RPG theory be any different?
I read your posts. I "apprehended" them. I just don't agree with them. I don't think you've shown that Wittgenstein helps us understand either patterns of influence in RPG design, or techniques and practices for engaging in RPGing. Nor do I think you've show that Wittgenstein helps explain why RPG theory is contentious. All analysis and explanation of cultural artefacts and practices is contentious - both in its details, and that anyone should do it at all. Why would RPG theory be any different?
I have a good friend who insists that he enjoys airplane food - that he can't tell that it's terrible, although everyone assures him that it is.
He doesn't hold himself up as a gourmand.
The same friend has an excellent ear for music - both classical and popular - and is a reasonably skilled amateur pianist. He does hold himself up as a credible commentator on things musical.
I don't know what Vincent Baker is like as a restaurant or music critic, but he's thought pretty hard about the "metaphysics" and social construction of shared fictions. What he has to say about that sort of thing, and how it can be operationalised via various sorts of processes - including game mechanical processes - for allocating authority, is pretty interesting. And the particular set of processes he puts forward in AW is brilliant.
He doesn't hold himself up as a gourmand.
The same friend has an excellent ear for music - both classical and popular - and is a reasonably skilled amateur pianist. He does hold himself up as a credible commentator on things musical.
I don't know what Vincent Baker is like as a restaurant or music critic, but he's thought pretty hard about the "metaphysics" and social construction of shared fictions. What he has to say about that sort of thing, and how it can be operationalised via various sorts of processes - including game mechanical processes - for allocating authority, is pretty interesting. And the particular set of processes he puts forward in AW is brilliant.
1. No, you don't apprehend the majority of my posts. Your dismissive tone shows that. You assumed I didn't know what I was talking about- and when I finally responded (not after your first post, but after a dismissive and snarky aside) you incorrectly claim to understand.
You don't. I don't even think you tried. But let me simplify this- someone asked about the quote in a certain context that I felt compelled to explain it, and I explained it. Period. I normally don't explain the quotes and jokes I use, because they tend to be Easter Eggs- either you get it, or you don't. If you still don't get it, that's okay. I don't need you to "get" me.*
2. I understand that you disagree with me. I'm cool with that. But, for whatever reason, you seem unable to understand that it is possible that there are smart and good-faith people that disagree with you. As noted in the very first response in this thread, It is okay to have a favored framework, but for goodness sake realize that it is only a framework, not TEH TRVTH! I would note that among the resources I listed in the first post was a thorough recounting of The Forge- not because I agree with it, or think it is gospel, but because I think it is important to have a diversity of thought and opinion represented. Not just the same opinion, over and over and over again.
If you have something interesting to say about The Elusive Shift, for example, that would be cool. And unexpected. Literally anything except the same debate that takes place in every single thread, regardless of what the thread was about.
*Not to mention they tend to be like frogs- dissect them and they die.
No, I am not. More importantly, I wonder how one could possibly get that from what I wrote.
I am saying that the label (be it "avant garde" or "bohemian" or whatever) doesn't indicate value, any more than "blue" indicates value. Sturgeon's Law applies - 90% of everything is crap. That means that 90% of all avant garde work is crap, such that the label itself can't be a direct line to quality or value.
Indeed, none of the things you mention - impressionism, Dada, cubism, etc - are even avant garde any more! Wagner died in 1883! We are well over a century past his work - there is no viable claim that it is on the forefront of art at this point. Avant garde is a temporary status. Eventually that which was avant garde becomes either de rigueur or is consigned to the oubliette of history (because, really, why leave the French descriptors - they are so fancy!).
But Wagner is still Wagner. Monet is still Monet.
Value does not come directly from being a member of a genre. It comes from the detailed merits of an individual work.
Not all of them, no. There were a lot of really crappy Monet wannabees, so to speak.
From where I sit, you seem to be conflating, "there is value to be found looking in new territory," for, "being new is valuable." They are not equivalent. This becomes clear in the survivor bias in your statement - you mention a cherry-picked list of games that had influence, but you don't survey the games of that school as a whole for all the failed attempts that didn't take hold, and didn't have influence.
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We should really avoid making this personal. Try to keep the high ground, because you make good points. Use the blocking features if you need to.
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