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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6242211" data-attributes="member: 42582">OK - I didn't re-read all the "awful thread of awfulness", I just linked to it. For "permanent", then, read "enduring and not trivially reversed".I think that Edwards's point, including his reference to games from the 70s peaking in the 90s, is this: that although not originally designed as such, people adopted the RPG form for story-oriented purposes, but it was not well-designed for this in its original form (in particular, its distribution of responsibilities across players and GM) and developments to compensate for this (especially, stronger and stronger GM force to ensure the creation of "story") just compounded the problem rather than solving it. And he likens the design of "indie"-style games (Sorcerer, DitV, etc) to compensating prostheses - whereas he refers to his own recent designs (with which I'm not familiar) as dealing with the issue from the ground up - implying that in a certain respect that they are not really RPGs at all because they have in a certain sense transcended or at least radically moved beyond the player/GM dichotomy.In what way am I missing that fact? All I've said is that I don't like that sort of play, and that I've welcomed refugees from it into my games. If others love it that's no skin of my nose, as long as they don't try and tell me that I'm not really roleplaying.As for this implication that I'm some sort of terminology-pushing elitist - [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] was the one who (i) introduced GNS terminology into this thread, (ii) for the purpose of arguing that gamists have no place in RPGing. It is only the three posters you mentioned, plus [MENTION=49017]Bluenose[/MENTION] and [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION], who have made the point that gamism is where the RPG hobby began, and is - from the Forge point of view, among others - a completely viable, vibrant and unobjectionable form of RPGing.I don't see himself distingusihing himself from "members of the Forge" - which furthermore would be dishonest, wouldn't it, if the forum for his game was based at The Forge. (Unless you are working with some other definition of "message board member" that I'm not familiar with.)Frankly it seems to me that he is trying to avoid being tarred with the Forge's brush,  despite selling a game which strikes me as pretty "indie" by any typical measure (eg player protagonism via metagame mechanics that hook onto fictional positioning of PCs), because there is a degree of Forge hostility in many RPGers that I personally don't really understand.I don't know who founded the Forge, but I have always assumed (from the wording of the administration descriptions, perhaps?) that it was Clinton R Nixon.I don't know all the ways that "storygame" is used, but I mostly see it used - on these boards, at least - as a way to imply that the sort of RPGing I tend to enjoy and be interested in is not really RPGing. I don't really understand the desire of some RPGers to exclude playstyles they personally don't enjoy from the category of RPGing.I don't visit the RPGsite very much - it doesn't appeal to me much, in part because the general tone seems very full of hate towards RPGers for reasons that I don't really get. The link you posted, for instance, took me (via google) to a thread attacking RPGnet for the way it moderated a thread about sexism in RPGs. It strikes me that there are obviously huge issues around sexism (and also racism) in RPGs, and given that these things matter to me and to my participation in RPGing as a hobby, I don't find the RPGPundit's casual dismissal very plausible or appealing.In fact, one thing I was reminded of in posting the two passages from the AD&D PHBs upthread was that Gygax - whatever his personal views, about which I know nothing - in his AD&D rulebooks took steps to use gender-inclusive language, whereas by 1989 AD&D had reverted to masculine-only pronouns. Why did TSR's RPG text become less inclusive in the language they used?</blockquote>

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