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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AFGNCAAP" data-source="post: 1897463" data-attributes="member: 871">IMHO, I think that one of the problems with GNS/GDS is that, though the intent of the author may be to provide a useful insight, view, or theory on a particular element (whether it's games, gaming, gamers, etc.), the effect that the work has on some readers may be more negative/detrimental.  Though the author may intend that his work provides a better understanding of different methods of gaming, the effect the work may have on some readers is to convince or support a notion that a particular method of gaming is superior to other forms of games (or, to a greater/more far-fetched extent, that certain types of gamers are superior to others).That's the trick with communication.  Though the author may intend to provide 1 meaning in a work, the audience can derive many meanings from that work & not just the 1 that the author was going for.As for some gamers thinking that 1 form of gaming is superior to others; well, that's personal opinion reflecting bias.  And it's not uncommon--pretty much every aspect of human life has this at some point.  It's just another incarnation of the "us & them" mentality that people show time & again.  It shows up when Americans make distinctions about being a Northerner or a Southerner, a New Yorker or a Bostonian, from Uptown or from Downtown, from a particular street or neighborhood, etc.  It shows up when people make distinctions about being Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or etc., and then continues to make distinctions about their own group/set (like a Christian focusing on whether someone's Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, etc.; or a Muslim focusing on if someone's Shi'ite or Sunni; etc.).  It shows up with categorizing someone as male or female, & then going into other details such as sexual preference, degree of sexual activity, whether the person fits into the mold of a "typical" person of that kind (like a "typical man" or "typical woman", much less a typical person as defined by their culture), etc.And it shows up in our hobbies, too.  Sports fans who favor a particular sport (baseball, football, soccer, hockey, rugby, golf, etc.), & then a particular team/player in that sport (like Tiger Woods, Boston Red Sox, Tim Duncan on the San Antonio Spurs, etc.).  Comic book collectors who favor a particular company, like Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image, Devil's Due Press, or some indyh/underground line, & then focus on particular titles, & even then particular characters from those titles, or particular artists or writers who worked on those titles.And, it definitely shows up in gaming.  For some, gamers aren't just gamers: they're either D&D players, White Wolf players, GURPS players, LARPers, etc.  And it keeps going from there: D&D players can & are categorized by the edition they play/use, the campaign setting they use, even what supplements, house rules, or other details that could be applied to them.Hey, it's okay to have preferences--but it's not okay to view or treat others as inferior because they just don't happen to share your views or opinions.  There's enough of that going on in the world, already.  We don't need to add to the headache.If the GDS/GNS view (or at least how it's currently presented/expressed) is proving to cause more division and elitism amongst its readers (& its adherents), rather than understanding and a expansion into a different viewpoint, then it's safe to say that it may need to be expressed differently, in order to improve the chances that its intended message comes through clearly.</blockquote>

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