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The vocabulary of RPGs

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  • idiots be idiots, that's surprise to no one.
  • Note that I am an advocate against taking the "word of god" from authors into consideration in literary analysis. The finished work as it is is all that matters.
    I don't disagree, but I don't think that's a compelling argument. You're just stating it. It's not obvious to me a priori that's true.
  • It's not even obvious to me that it's true. ;^)
  • I just broke down why I think you're wrong in two long paragraphs. It was a solid argument until I realized that the last two panels I attended were on substance abuse. I still feel like you're wrong and I may soon become visibly agitated. I'll get you next time, fucker.
  • edited March 2013
    Yeah, word of god is a difficult one. Clearly we can optionally take some kind of context into account. I know why one would want to not take it into account, to get at the core of the message, but shit gets intertwined pretty deep sometimes. It's not like it's easy to divorce oneself from ones own circumstances when interpretting a lot of things. I sure fucking try, but I'm defs imperfect.
    Post edited by Anthony Heman on
  • RymRym
    edited March 2013
    Here's another example.

    At that same MAGFest, a woman in the audience basically tried to say that it was offensive to define the word "game" at all, as any definition will hurt someone's feelings if it excludes anything. So, a panel on "games" must include knitting, children's games, puzzles, and even watching television solo. (That last example was used).

    She thought it was mean to use ANY definition of the word at all, in any context. Panels about games have to be inclusive of all, because that is the only aspect of gaming that's important: that anyone can do it, because it can be anything. Anything anyone says is a game is a game, and thus everyone is a gamer.
    Post edited by Rym on
  • RymRym
    edited March 2013
    The specific problem I see time and time again is that "gamer nerds" tend to be extremely deeply devoted to their gaming niche, but often will lack perspective or even understanding of what they're doing.

    The problem isn't as manifest in, say, anime fandom, because they at least identify primarily and solely as fans. Not understanding the technical or mechanical aspects of animation doesn't influence or affect that fan identity in any significant way.

    But to a gamer, he's active. He's playing the game, enacting the rules. He's animating his own show. He's deeply invested and, being active, has opinions about how and why things are the way they are. He's playing the game with other people and affecting their outcomes along with is own.

    He comes out of his shell and tries to share his ideas, but those ideas stem from his own personal, anecdotal experiences. He has no lexicon, hasn't studied other games, has never considered what he's trying to accomplish on any deep level. And, he's sharing them with other gamers who came from their own tiny worlds with their own anecdotes and ideas.

    Each of these peoples' identities as "gamers" is so personal, and so tied to their own experiences, that any idea or discussion which challenges any of the foundations is seen as a personal attack.

    The "I'VE BEEN PLAYING D&D FOR TEN YEARS" guy sees every gaming discussion in terms of his own D&D experiences. He has heuristics and aphorisms he's developed on his own. His whole identity as a gamer is wrapped up within, entangled with, his personal biases. If any of his home-grown ideas are challenged, they threaten his self-identification.

    Tell him D&D isn't the best system to use for a modern political game, and he hears "D&D is a BAD SYSTEM AND YOU ARE A BAD GAMER: I PERSONALLY ATTACK YOUR GAMER CREDENTIALS AND DO NOT VALUE YOU AS A PERSON!"
    Post edited by Rym on
  • Been playing D&D for ten years? You are very likely to be THAT GUY.
  • Been playing D&D for ten years? You are very likely to be THAT GUY.
    I had been playing D&D for more than ten years... In fact, the only reason that number isn't much higher still is that we switched to BW and other games years ago.
  • Been playing D&D for ten years? You are very likely to be THAT GUY.
    I had been playing D&D for more than ten years... In fact, the only reason that number isn't much higher still is that we switched to BW and other games years ago.
    Case in point.
  • Rym, I still don't think that's a gamer thing, but a human thing. I'm pretty sure that if you go to anime fans and tell them that their favorite show sucks and why, some of them will get defensive maybe even aggressive. Many people tend to be defensive for their opinions and take it personally if their opinions are begin disrespected. You just see it coming from gamers mainly because that's the crowd you hold panels where you express ideas that disagree with people's personal believes.

  • Yes, but I don't see it nearly as often, or with such furious anger, as at gamer cons. Anime fans on average are less interrupty in lectures and panels, and fewer of them take it so deeply personally.

    For the number of people I've seen get visibly angry in the audience of a panel or lecture, gamers react this way much more frequently than anime fans do. And before you say we don't lecture at enough anime conventions, we've done more of those than all PAXes and MAGFests combined to this day. ;^)

    A smaller percentage of the audience flips out or displays visible agitation at anime cons than at gaming cons given the same basic stimuli (in my experience).
  • Scott made a great post last year about haters gonna hate. Don't tie your personality the things you like.
  • There is a stubborn, but out-of-fashion idea that you only need one RPG for everything. Most hammer fans (if such a thing exists) are aware that their favorite tool is best suited to nails.
  • Rym, I still don't think that's a gamer thing, but a human thing. I'm pretty sure that if you go to anime fans and tell them that their favorite show sucks and why, some of them will get defensive maybe even aggressive. Many people tend to be defensive for their opinions and take it personally if their opinions are begin disrespected. You just see it coming from gamers mainly because that's the crowd you hold panels where you express ideas that disagree with people's personal believes.
    It's not a human thing. It's an anti-intellectual human thing.

    If someone comes around and tells me something that contradicts what I previously thought, but is right, I will be happy to learn a new thing. If someone tells me something wrong, who cares? They are a crazy wrong person! Maybe we can intelligently debate them and show them they are wrong if they are smart.

    Only the anti-intellectual will resort to rage. They value their incorrect image of the world and themselves more than they value learning. They would reject truth if it made them unhappy. Since they have rejected the very intelligence that could be used to combat the upsetting truth, their only weapon against it is outrage.

    TL;DR: If you get mad you are automatically wrong.
  • Not quite. I can easily bait intelligent people into getting mad even when I'm (knowingly) wrong. Are they automatically wrong? Does trolling might make right?
  • Only the anti-intellectual will resort to rage. They value their incorrect image of the world and themselves more than they value learning. They would reject truth if it made them unhappy. Since they have rejected the very intelligence that could be used to combat the upsetting truth, their only weapon against it is outrage.
    Man, I am dealing with this in IRL issues with something completely not game related.
  • Heh.. It's not the sole purview of gaming, that's for sure.

    But between anime fans and gamers, the latter flip the fuck out in person with much more regularity.
  • It's not a human thing. It's an anti-intellectual human thing.
    Are you saying that stupid people are not human?

  • edited March 2013
    Rym, I still don't think that's a gamer thing, but a human thing. I'm pretty sure that if you go to anime fans and tell them that their favorite show sucks and why, some of them will get defensive maybe even aggressive. Many people tend to be defensive for their opinions and take it personally if their opinions are begin disrespected. You just see it coming from gamers mainly because that's the crowd you hold panels where you express ideas that disagree with people's personal believes.
    It's not a human thing. It's an anti-intellectual human thing.
    Unfortunately, it really is a human thing.

    This type of thing happens quite often because brains are flawed in all kinds of ways. It's a mistake to attribute it to a certain kind of person, when in fact every person is biased as a result of the underlying hardware and software.

    Yes, different people exhibit it in different ways, and some people are much better at overcoming their biases than others, but cognitive biases are always there.
    Only the anti-intellectual will resort to rage. They value their incorrect image of the world and themselves more than they value learning. They would reject truth if it made them unhappy. Since they have rejected the very intelligence that could be used to combat the upsetting truth, their only weapon against it is outrage.
    Bald-faced assertion and oversimplification.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • Rym, I still don't think that's a gamer thing, but a human thing. I'm pretty sure that if you go to anime fans and tell them that their favorite show sucks and why, some of them will get defensive maybe even aggressive. Many people tend to be defensive for their opinions and take it personally if their opinions are begin disrespected. You just see it coming from gamers mainly because that's the crowd you hold panels where you express ideas that disagree with people's personal believes.
    It's not a human thing. It's an anti-intellectual human thing.
    Unfortunately, it really is a human thing.

    This type of thing happens quite often because brains are flawed in all kinds of ways. It's a mistake to attribute it to a certain kind of person, when in fact every person is biased as a result of the underlying hardware and software.

    Yes, different people exhibit it in different ways, and some people are much better at overcoming their biases than others, but cognitive biases are always there.
    I didn't say it was inhuman. I said it was anti-intellectual human. Some people exhibit it more than others. Some all the time. Some never. But all the time when exhibiting it, it is an anti-intellectual aspect of that human which is being expressed. Or are you saying that anti-intellectualism is present in all humans? Personally I have had it in that past, but I'm pretty sure I've rid myself of it.

  • edited March 2013
    I didn't say it was inhuman. I said it was anti-intellectual human. Some people exhibit it more than others. Some all the time. Some never. But all the time when exhibiting it, it is an anti-intellectual aspect of that human which is being expressed. Or are you saying that anti-intellectualism is present in all humans? Personally I have had it in that past, but I'm pretty sure I've rid myself of it.
    My point was about biases more generally; anti-intellectualism is but one expression of various underlying biases. The most notable one that comes to mind is the Dunning-Kruger effect, but no doubt there are others that contribute (e.g. the Lake Wobegon effect).

    At the least, I would argue that the seeds of anti-intellectualism are naturally present in humans, and one must be vigilant to prevent them from sprouting.

    Also, even if you are not at all anti-intellectual, you are still susceptible to many other biases which manifest in different ways.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • edited March 2013
    So, by way of a test, I looked to see how far back I would have to go in your previous posts before I found something arguably anti-intellectual. Turns out I only had to look as far back as yesterday:
    If you actually played the game, you'd know that you only pick a handful of the large variety for any game. It's like Netrunner, you build a deck of possible units from a sub-set of all possible units. You can use any hyper-reductionist argument you want, the only problem is that you have no desire to actually learn any of the domain knowledge for this game. That's fine, but don't just dismiss games because you are too lazy to actually understand WTF is going on.
    Scott shits on a game he hasn't played and knows nothing about? Say it ain't so, Joe, Say it ain't so!
    Incidentally, I don't know that "anti-intellectual" is the most appropriate term to use, since it is generally used in a subtly different way. What you're talking about is probably best described as willful ignorance.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • Suppose I wanted to read Characteristics of Games, but was, ah, disinclined to "pay" $24 for it on amazon. My searches of the usual suspects (the... library) have been fruitless. Where might an enterprising individual acquire a copy?
  • Suppose I wanted to read Characteristics of Games, but was, ah, disinclined to "pay" $24 for it on amazon. My searches of the usual suspects (the... library) have been fruitless. Where might an enterprising individual acquire a copy?
    Skaff Elias and Richard Garfield host a podcast on game design, maybe you can just email them and ask for a copy? info@threedonkeys.com
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