Why do we put each other in boxes?

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I put people in boxes so I can ship the evidence far, far away from me.

 

[Savage Wombat]

There isn't room - the ambiguity has put on weight.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

How many more or less regular posters are we around here? Several dozens at least.

How many of those posters do you know personally, i.e., from more than their ENWorld presence?

So, how are you going to organise all those people you don't know? Putting them in boxes is the easiest way to do so.

This is exaggerated by the simple box system we have with our editions, each of which has its own, special one, with the big guys without any (perceived) ovlerap being Pathfinder and 4e.

 

[Hussar]

Just to try to answer the OP. Part of it for me is that I have seen very similar arguments put forward time and again so it gets pretty easy to predict where someone is going to fall on an issue.

Just to pick on Ahn here for a second but out of hundreds of posts I don't think I've seen him make a single positive comment about 4e and many negative ones.

So if people are putting you in a box perhaps reviewing your posting record might be in order. IOW it really might be you and not the other guy.

 

[Yora]

SO to the title... WHY? Why if I want more balance then 3e fighter vs 3e druid I must only want 4e. why If I dislike the sameness of 4e I must only like 3e. Why can't anyone get the idea that somepeople want more then any edition has yet given.

Because you're trying to argue with stupid people.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Just to pick on Ahn here for a second but out of hundreds of posts I don't think I've seen him make a single positive comment about 4e and many negative ones.

But if you read enough of them, you'll find some examples of me agreeing on ideas with people who play it.

You'll also find an abundance of examples of me being equally critical about any other game I care to talk about.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Just to try to answer the OP. Part of it for me is that I have seen very similar arguments put forward time and again so it gets pretty easy to predict where someone is going to fall on an issue.

Just to pick on Ahn here for a second but out of hundreds of posts I don't think I've seen him make a single positive comment about 4e and many negative ones.

So if people are putting you in a box perhaps reviewing your posting record might be in order. IOW it really might be you and not the other guy.

the funny part is though, when in three conversations in the same week I get put in two oppasit boxes and dismissed...

 

[Raith5]

I think most heavy posters here are coming from a pretty clear position. That said, civil disagreement is the key function of these forums. There are only about 6 or 7 people I known in real life who known enough about RPGs to have a serous discussion about them, here there are heaps of positions different than my own and I have learnt a lot from them.

 

[Manbearcat]

Transportability. You can stack multiple boxes on top of each other and fit considerably more units per square foot in a cargo container than if you just tried to stack humans. Wouldn't work.

 

[Umbran]

Because Tribalism.

Pretty much. Humans are strongly wired to divide the world into Them and Us. And if you don't agree on a given point, you are one of Them, obviously!

From there, it is again cognitively easier to deal with Them when we attribute all kinds of things wrong with Them. We are invested in our own points, and we are gratified when it looks like disagreement is due to a fundamental flaw in Them, rather than in our point not being nearly so universally true as we'd like to believe.

I despair somewhat at the idea of how many bans we'll probably have to hand out when 5e finally gets published, and the edition warring runs up again...