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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8660872" data-attributes="member: 82106">Right, I am not really trying to assert an authority that is beyond what is reasonable. In fact, not much at all. I'm simply observing that I, and thus by extension MANY other people who post here, probably possess quite extensive real-world experience with RPGs, including their design, aspects of RPG culture and related culture, etc. My guess is that if the cited experts the OP references were here, we could give them a pretty thorough examination in our own terms. I think they are probably going to prove to be quite knowledgeable, but not unassailable, and probably not even particularly insightful on some points. There's a sense, particularly, in which I think that discussions of the analysis of RPGs in terms of their fine structure and how they actually work in specific instances of play, how the processes, system, participants, etc. interact in that detailed act of playing out the game, is only really addressed by a very few. I don't think this is really the thrust of, for instance, Peterson, at all, nor of Torner. I don't even think it is the primary thrust of some attempts at analysis like GDS. But when I read Baker talking about clouds and arrows and the actual unvarnished going down to brass tacks of &quot;what is happening here&quot; I see a level where none of these others I mentioned here have gone. There's a fundamentally different character to it, and only a limited number of other people seem to have thoroughly thought things out at that level, in which list I include Edwards. I take MY experience through the lens of what these people are saying, and I see that detailed level of what is happening and how and why laid bare.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8660872, member: 82106"] Right, I am not really trying to assert an authority that is beyond what is reasonable. In fact, not much at all. I'm simply observing that I, and thus by extension MANY other people who post here, probably possess quite extensive real-world experience with RPGs, including their design, aspects of RPG culture and related culture, etc. My guess is that if the cited experts the OP references were here, we could give them a pretty thorough examination in our own terms. I think they are probably going to prove to be quite knowledgeable, but not unassailable, and probably not even particularly insightful on some points. There's a sense, particularly, in which I think that discussions of the analysis of RPGs in terms of their fine structure and how they actually work in specific instances of play, how the processes, system, participants, etc. interact in that detailed act of playing out the game, is only really addressed by a very few. I don't think this is really the thrust of, for instance, Peterson, at all, nor of Torner. I don't even think it is the primary thrust of some attempts at analysis like GDS. But when I read Baker talking about clouds and arrows and the actual unvarnished going down to brass tacks of "what is happening here" I see a level where none of these others I mentioned here have gone. There's a fundamentally different character to it, and only a limited number of other people seem to have thoroughly thought things out at that level, in which list I include Edwards. I take MY experience through the lens of what these people are saying, and I see that detailed level of what is happening and how and why laid bare. [/QUOTE]

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