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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Malmuria" data-source="post: 8445509" data-attributes="member: 7030755">Skimming the discussion, but in terms of avant garde vs popular games...why not both?  I have loved exploring and introducing people to different kinds of games over the past couple of years.  In my group, I'm actually the one pushing us to stop playing 5e and CoC and try new things, whether OSR games or Blades or Ten Candles or whatever.  I play with a lot of new-to-rpg players, so I get to see how they experience these different systems and styles of gaming (and the things they emphasize are very interesting and very different than the way those various games would be classified in this forum).As I see it, the issue of accessibility is less about playing a variety of games, and more about the context of discussion about them.  There should absolutely be a place where people who share the same vocabulary can talk about games, but when we are in mixed company, it's good to be mindful that not everyone has access to that vocabulary nor the same range of play experiences.  I'm as guilty of this as anyone else: I remember years ago reading rpg forums and getting annoyed by people listing off what to me were obscure games, mistaking their enthusiasm for hipsterism.  Now I do that sometimes.With regards to the forge specifically, I find some of the ideas provocative and useful, but, as I expressed at length in the other thread, I ultimately find it to be a closed and self-referential system.  More open and approachable for me is the play advice in games like dungeon world and blades in the dark (perhaps because game books are written by people who actually want people to play their games).  I am skeptical of the way the theory operates, rather than of the fact that it is theory.The discussions on OSR and FKR discords feel more like a vanguard to me at this point: there is a spirit of free form experimentation and engagement with speculation that I find very appealing.  It's less concerned with transcendental categories and more with taking things apart in a playful way.  The discussion of FKR here struck me as in fact somewhat reactionary in its skepticism of the new hotness, but that's just my perception.Finally, the more general cultural context should be noted.  While there might be avant gardes and populisms within the ttrpg scene, our little hobby of playing games is probably generally considered to be camp pop culture by most people.  "Nerd culture" in various forms has gained more legitimacy in recent years, but I think that's be cause there has been a reevaluation of the importance of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockism_and_poptimism" target="_blank">popular culture </a>more generally.  In fact, if academic criticism takes up the subject of ttrpgs more seriously, it won't be from a formalist analysis of gameplay, but rather what games offer as a social practice.</blockquote>

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