Why The Niches?

[Hussar]

Heh, Diaglo. I haven't seen that in a while. It always makes me giggle. There's just something... right in the world after reading that.

/cynic mode on

The purpose of the vast majority of the labels is to act as lazy short hand for saying, "I don't like X, therefore X is crap" that happens far too often. Why bother actually trying to analyze your preferences when you can simply say, "This is not X, I like X, therefore this is crap"? Analysis is difficult. Spouting off elitist geek labels in vain attempts at geek dominance games is much easier and less taxing of brain power.

/end cynic mode.

Honestly, labels can be useful. Being able to categorize is the basis for almost all analysis of just about anything. You can't talk about beetles, for example (a topic in my house currently as my daughters have a pair of honking huge ones!) without breaking them down by type, where they live, what they eat, even male/female.

And if you think taxonomy is without contention, I've got a few journals for you to read.

So, yeah, it can foster discussion to have fairly well defined labels.

 

[Doug McCrae]

You know what would be really useful? Words to distinguish between a roleplaying game in the sense of the game text and a roleplaying game in the sense of actual play, a real live game - session, campaign, whatever.

I bet the Forge have one twelve.

 

[ppaladin123]

What's with the preponderance of niches lately?

Storytelling
Role Playing
Oldschool
Newschool
Gamist
Simmulationist
Narrativist
Sandbox
True D&D


Just to name a few.

Why the need to place everything into a narrower and narrower niche? What benefit does it serve really? In my opinion it only serves to hinder creativity, and promote arguments.

The vanity of small differences, perhaps.

 

[Ariosto]

The terminology is descriptive.

("Sandbox" arose because "D&D campaign" no longer reliably conveyed the same meaning. Likewise, it became necessary to add "mega-" to "dungeon".)

The 4e DMG is sometimes blatantly prescriptive, at other times strongly suggestive.

The designers themselves declare things fun or non-fun.

 

[Hussar]

The terminology is descriptive.

("Sandbox" arose because "D&D campaign" no longer reliably conveyed the same meaning. Likewise, it became necessary to add "mega-" to "dungeon".)

The 4e DMG is sometimes blatantly prescriptive, at other times strongly suggestive.

The designers themselves declare things fun or non-fun.

Yeah, because earlier designers would never do something like that.

Why does every thread have to be about edition wars?

 

[Vartan]

Why does every thread have to be about edition wars?

There are bots that find every thread containing the words "old school" and pepper it with jabs at random editions of D&D. I found out when I posted a review of the Will Ferrell movie.

 

[pawsplay]

Gaming without labels is like a spice rack without shelves.

 

[DaveyJones]

Gaming without labels is like a spice rack without shelves.

so like Sporty Spice... aka Melanie C

 

[Umbran]

Humans are built to use symbols and see patterns. We slice and dice and anything and everything into little bits, as an aid to understanding. There's nothing new about this, in general, or to gaming, in particular - the Gamist/Narrativist/Simulationist framework has been around in some form for well over a decade.

Humans are also very tribal beasts. It is very, very important for humans to identify Them, and differentiate Them from Us. We slot things into pigeonholes so we know what is safe, and what isn't. There's nothing new to that, either. Been happening for eons, and it became pretty darned obvious in gaming with the emergence of White Wolf as a notable player in RPGs back in the 1990s.

It seems to me that the past year or so of history on these boards have left many with an even stronger than usual desire to differentiate. The basic desire seems not to analyze, but to categorize.

 

[Wombat]

I think we are hitting a point in the history of gaming where the differences that have pretty much always been there, in one form or another, are being given labels and recognized ... often to the point of blows...

As Umbran says, we humans tend to make patterns (sometimes even when the pattern is false, but that is beside the point); we also wish to find like-minded people.

Each of us plays games and envisions them slightly differently. As such, we try to find other players whose vision of the game is close to our own -- how much combat vs. how much puzzle-solving, as one example. These labels provide a shorthand for these differences ... but the shorthand itself is rather vague and ill-defined, which actually adds to the arguments...

Ah well...