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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7713437" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>When I watch the Superbowl, I am not participating in football. I gain no experience in football by watching the Superbowl, and at most will develop only a cursory knowledge of the game which will be difficult or impossible to capitalize on. No NFL team is going to hire you to play football, based on the fact you've watched the game play. Seriously, have you ever played football? I assure you that watching a game is not the same as participating in one. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Throwing up fences?? Look, this isn't about people's feelings on the subject. I don't care how excluded anyone feels when they are told that having watched a game of football by no means equates to having played a game of football. Your feelings of exclusion in that regard because you can't deal with obvious factual reality are your problem. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Not even remotely a similar situation, so let's just dispense with the analogies which are getting further and further from the point. We're quickly getting into a situation in comics where the comics themselves may in fact die, although Spider-Man as a piece of valuable intellectual property would not in fact die. The comics themselves are increasingly irrelevant, and the near complete collapse of the comic book market over the last few decades did not in fact effect Marvel's (as it turned out quite correct) evaluation that their intellectual property made the company worth at least a billion dollars. But, comic books and movies are completely different media, and it's quite possible now to have a fan of Spider-Man who has never read a Spidey comic and as such, as no idea about how different the character is in the comic book medium and how very difficult it is to translate the character into a live action medium while staying true to the character. It would be quite correct for a fan of comic books to say to someone who only knows the character from movies and has never read a comic book to say, "We are both fans of Spider-Man, but only I am a fan of comic books."</p><p></p><p>But this situation is not at all analogous to the situation with D&D, and more to the point has nothing to do with the short analogy I offered that touched off this firestorm. It's quite clear that people will still continue to watch movies even if comic books don't exist. It's not at all clear that people would be interested in fantasy football if football ceased to exist. As such, we can think of at least one form of entertainment - fantasy football - which is a subsidiary form of entertainment that depends on another completely different form of entertainment. Fantasy football is not football, and it attracts two subtly different fan bases. Some people enjoy participating in fantasy football that would never participate in football. But, unless some people participate in football, there cannot be wide interest in fantasy football.</p><p></p><p>This situation I would argue is far closer to the situation between D&D and its subsidiary non-tabletop RPG products. The playing of the tabletop RPG product is what drives interest in the non-tabletop RPG products. At present, there is no sign that there would be huge interest in Neverwinter Nights or Forgottten Realms novesl other Intellectual Property, if it wasn't for the fact that the table-top game at least exists and is played. Quite the contrary, it's pretty obvious that D&D is not culturally significant intellectual property at this time outside of its existence as a tabletop game, as it's impact is much less than World of Warcraft, Skyrim, Witcher III, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and so on and so forth. The fantasy world will happily carry on just fine in all other mediums like movies, video games, and novels without Dungeons and Dragons, but the Dungeons and Dragons branded products probably can't carry on without the fan base of real players and the mystique that surrounds them.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That's not what I said.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That's not true. Playing something derived from something else even if it might give you limited familiarity with some aspects of that thing, is simply not the same as playing the thing itself. A person who watches an X-Man movie can truthfully say, "I watch movies." or "I love the X-Men", but they cannot truthfully say, "I read comic books."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7713437, member: 4937"] When I watch the Superbowl, I am not participating in football. I gain no experience in football by watching the Superbowl, and at most will develop only a cursory knowledge of the game which will be difficult or impossible to capitalize on. No NFL team is going to hire you to play football, based on the fact you've watched the game play. Seriously, have you ever played football? I assure you that watching a game is not the same as participating in one. Throwing up fences?? Look, this isn't about people's feelings on the subject. I don't care how excluded anyone feels when they are told that having watched a game of football by no means equates to having played a game of football. Your feelings of exclusion in that regard because you can't deal with obvious factual reality are your problem. Not even remotely a similar situation, so let's just dispense with the analogies which are getting further and further from the point. We're quickly getting into a situation in comics where the comics themselves may in fact die, although Spider-Man as a piece of valuable intellectual property would not in fact die. The comics themselves are increasingly irrelevant, and the near complete collapse of the comic book market over the last few decades did not in fact effect Marvel's (as it turned out quite correct) evaluation that their intellectual property made the company worth at least a billion dollars. But, comic books and movies are completely different media, and it's quite possible now to have a fan of Spider-Man who has never read a Spidey comic and as such, as no idea about how different the character is in the comic book medium and how very difficult it is to translate the character into a live action medium while staying true to the character. It would be quite correct for a fan of comic books to say to someone who only knows the character from movies and has never read a comic book to say, "We are both fans of Spider-Man, but only I am a fan of comic books." But this situation is not at all analogous to the situation with D&D, and more to the point has nothing to do with the short analogy I offered that touched off this firestorm. It's quite clear that people will still continue to watch movies even if comic books don't exist. It's not at all clear that people would be interested in fantasy football if football ceased to exist. As such, we can think of at least one form of entertainment - fantasy football - which is a subsidiary form of entertainment that depends on another completely different form of entertainment. Fantasy football is not football, and it attracts two subtly different fan bases. Some people enjoy participating in fantasy football that would never participate in football. But, unless some people participate in football, there cannot be wide interest in fantasy football. This situation I would argue is far closer to the situation between D&D and its subsidiary non-tabletop RPG products. The playing of the tabletop RPG product is what drives interest in the non-tabletop RPG products. At present, there is no sign that there would be huge interest in Neverwinter Nights or Forgottten Realms novesl other Intellectual Property, if it wasn't for the fact that the table-top game at least exists and is played. Quite the contrary, it's pretty obvious that D&D is not culturally significant intellectual property at this time outside of its existence as a tabletop game, as it's impact is much less than World of Warcraft, Skyrim, Witcher III, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and so on and so forth. The fantasy world will happily carry on just fine in all other mediums like movies, video games, and novels without Dungeons and Dragons, but the Dungeons and Dragons branded products probably can't carry on without the fan base of real players and the mystique that surrounds them. That's not what I said. That's not true. Playing something derived from something else even if it might give you limited familiarity with some aspects of that thing, is simply not the same as playing the thing itself. A person who watches an X-Man movie can truthfully say, "I watch movies." or "I love the X-Men", but they cannot truthfully say, "I read comic books." [/QUOTE]
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