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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TiQuinn" data-source="post: 9781539" data-attributes="member: 4871">I have found that the conflict and tension is largely overblown judging by what actually occurs at the table, whether in person or virtually, versus the debate that occurs in social media and message boards. I think individuals gravitate to different games and different playstyles, and sometimes there are games that people can find enough commonality to continue playing, while there are others that someone will say they don’t enjoy that particular game.I’ve found games with a clear focus don’t really reduce the chance of someone disliking it because typically they still have to try the game to make that determination, and then afterwards they may hear about similar games and be more proactive in saying they don’t want to play. Vampire the Masquerade to my college friends in the 90s was a more narrative game (we didn’t call it that) but looked more like our AD&D games than it would LARPing. We were turning Call of Cthulhu into Pulp Cthulhu long before that was a thing…I appreciate games that state what they are and how they should be played but it’s not a silver bullet to ensure everyone plays the game the same way.And to this day, I play with folks who range the gamut of power gamers to role players in the true “this is what my character would do” sense of the phrase, and we get along with virtually zero tension on that score.I also agree with Umbran’s point about sports. I was reading the essay and thinking “well, apply that to video games - they come in all varieties too.” I don’t know that there’s anything particularly wrong, or even noteworthy about the term “roleplaying games” not being strictly defined. I just don’t think it’s a big deal in a practical sense.</blockquote>

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