I think I am reaching a point where I struggle to co-exist with the broader hobby.
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I think I am reaching a point where I struggle to co-exist with the broader hobby.
It seems like everywhere I look, it's people who have been relentlessly pandered to by the gaming industry getting incredibly annoyed that other people even exist.
Like, the other say some lunatic was screaming that there is no fiction in RPGs, there is only what is explicitly covered by the rules. And like... Fine... The industry has explicitly chased and encouraged such views but why so angry?
You *have* the soul of the hobby - Every year sees at least a couple of 7-figure crowd-funding initiatives that produces a 500-page hardback book filled with incredibly detailed rules on monster-killing and you are still ranting and screaming about idiots who don't see the hobby the way you do.
I get that I am a tiny minority in a niche hobby but I am reaching the point where I am no longer attending to it at all.
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I think I am reaching a point where I struggle to co-exist with the broader hobby.
It seems like everywhere I look, it's people who have been relentlessly pandered to by the gaming industry getting incredibly annoyed that other people even exist.
Like, the other say some lunatic was screaming that there is no fiction in RPGs, there is only what is explicitly covered by the rules. And like... Fine... The industry has explicitly chased and encouraged such views but why so angry?
@Taskerland How is an imaginary field about pigpogoblins, flaming vision, and initiative as an incarnate force, not fiction. Are they arguing it's a religion? Or some sort of Scotsman? I'm confused.
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You *have* the soul of the hobby - Every year sees at least a couple of 7-figure crowd-funding initiatives that produces a 500-page hardback book filled with incredibly detailed rules on monster-killing and you are still ranting and screaming about idiots who don't see the hobby the way you do.
I get that I am a tiny minority in a niche hobby but I am reaching the point where I am no longer attending to it at all.
@Taskerland I attend more now than in the past thirty years and it's your fault so you play the violin and I'll rearrange the deck chairs.
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@Taskerland How is an imaginary field about pigpogoblins, flaming vision, and initiative as an incarnate force, not fiction. Are they arguing it's a religion? Or some sort of Scotsman? I'm confused.
@Printdevil Stat blocks, grids, and combat procedures matter. Everything else is immaterial.
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@Taskerland I attend more now than in the past thirty years and it's your fault so you play the violin and I'll rearrange the deck chairs.
@Printdevil I spent a while engaging in good faith only to realise that had been a mistake.
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You *have* the soul of the hobby - Every year sees at least a couple of 7-figure crowd-funding initiatives that produces a 500-page hardback book filled with incredibly detailed rules on monster-killing and you are still ranting and screaming about idiots who don't see the hobby the way you do.
I get that I am a tiny minority in a niche hobby but I am reaching the point where I am no longer attending to it at all.
@Taskerland It’s OK to not watch RPG YouTube, you know!
I follow RPG stuff closer than anyone in my two groups, read multiple forums, hang out on dice.camp, and read a bunch of subreddits, and nearly all of the dumbest discourse about RPGs comes from YouTube engagement-bait. Second place is probably Bluesky. Both are extremely peripheral.
Nobody in my groups ever hears about the latest controversy du jour unless I tell them, and none of it affects our games in the slightest.
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@Taskerland It’s OK to not watch RPG YouTube, you know!
I follow RPG stuff closer than anyone in my two groups, read multiple forums, hang out on dice.camp, and read a bunch of subreddits, and nearly all of the dumbest discourse about RPGs comes from YouTube engagement-bait. Second place is probably Bluesky. Both are extremely peripheral.
Nobody in my groups ever hears about the latest controversy du jour unless I tell them, and none of it affects our games in the slightest.
@Ashigaru I don't watch RPG YouTube, I am talking about places like reddit and bluesky.
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@Ashigaru I don't watch RPG YouTube, I am talking about places like reddit and bluesky.
@Taskerland My point stands, though. Arguing and theorizing about RPGs online is an adjacent but separate hobby from actually playing roleplaying games. It’s what people do to kill time when they’re not playing. Lots of these people don’t even have groups. They don’t represent the hobby.
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@Taskerland My point stands, though. Arguing and theorizing about RPGs online is an adjacent but separate hobby from actually playing roleplaying games. It’s what people do to kill time when they’re not playing. Lots of these people don’t even have groups. They don’t represent the hobby.
@Ashigaru As I said, I am struggling to find a way to co-exist with the broader hobby. At the moment I find it discouraging and upsetting rather than energising or inspirational.
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@Ashigaru As I said, I am struggling to find a way to co-exist with the broader hobby. At the moment I find it discouraging and upsetting rather than energising or inspirational.
@Taskerland I guess I don’t consider online chatter to be “the broader hobby.”
I don’t think the average roleplayer hangs out in the subreddits. None of mine do and they’re all multi-decade RPG veterans.
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You *have* the soul of the hobby - Every year sees at least a couple of 7-figure crowd-funding initiatives that produces a 500-page hardback book filled with incredibly detailed rules on monster-killing and you are still ranting and screaming about idiots who don't see the hobby the way you do.
I get that I am a tiny minority in a niche hobby but I am reaching the point where I am no longer attending to it at all.
@Taskerland If I want more 500-page books on monstermincing, I suppose I may be vaguely aware that this is unsustainable and I need to bring in more suckers to make it keep happening… but it's a stretch.
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@Taskerland How is an imaginary field about pigpogoblins, flaming vision, and initiative as an incarnate force, not fiction. Are they arguing it's a religion? Or some sort of Scotsman? I'm confused.
@Printdevil @Taskerland My guess is that it's the opposite of my view, which is that there is _first_ an imaginary world, and the rules only give us a view of it through a clouded window. To the people of the world, there is no class or level or alignment or skill rating.
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@Printdevil @Taskerland My guess is that it's the opposite of my view, which is that there is _first_ an imaginary world, and the rules only give us a view of it through a clouded window. To the people of the world, there is no class or level or alignment or skill rating.
@RogerBW That is how I see it too... the game is about everyone inflating a bubble of fiction that floats above the table. The rules are there to manage disputes but they're abstractions from the fiction.
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@RogerBW That is how I see it too... the game is about everyone inflating a bubble of fiction that floats above the table. The rules are there to manage disputes but they're abstractions from the fiction.
I've always thought the GM (with the help of the rules) is the lens through which players interact and view a fiction. All the showmanship, all the props, the voices, the acting, the writing, the narratives, and notes, are all just a user interface to allow the players to become part of a fiction. Shared certainly, but assuredly a fiction. The Dice as well exist to pander a little to Eris, and I think to make the GM smile as their own NPCs plans "Gang aft agley"
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@Printdevil I spent a while engaging in good faith only to realise that had been a mistake.
@Taskerland I think that "statblocks" "the game is in the numbers crowd" have always existed. There's a very significant crowd of frothing "I've been playing with the white books" crowd who reject utterly the game as fiction played. They have a whole post hoc ergo propter hoc thing going on, where they mythologise the games they have been in afterwards and sit telling stories *about the games*
That's one of the reasons I think they seek to reinstate what it was like when they were 14 again.
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I've always thought the GM (with the help of the rules) is the lens through which players interact and view a fiction. All the showmanship, all the props, the voices, the acting, the writing, the narratives, and notes, are all just a user interface to allow the players to become part of a fiction. Shared certainly, but assuredly a fiction. The Dice as well exist to pander a little to Eris, and I think to make the GM smile as their own NPCs plans "Gang aft agley"
I think there's definitely a fierce crowd of gamers who want it to be about an abstracted table based game at which you can win reward loops through aggressive exploitation of the rules and tactical use of increasing character power. I don't perceive that as roleplaying. It's stat grooming onanism.
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I've always thought the GM (with the help of the rules) is the lens through which players interact and view a fiction. All the showmanship, all the props, the voices, the acting, the writing, the narratives, and notes, are all just a user interface to allow the players to become part of a fiction. Shared certainly, but assuredly a fiction. The Dice as well exist to pander a little to Eris, and I think to make the GM smile as their own NPCs plans "Gang aft agley"
@Printdevil Nah, that's just the reality. We should ignore the reality in favour of seeing the world as a reality, and everything else as a lense.
Basically, Knightmare, but with more people in helmets and one poor sod shouting at them that something's about to eat them.
@Taskerland @RogerBW -
@Printdevil Nah, that's just the reality. We should ignore the reality in favour of seeing the world as a reality, and everything else as a lense.
Basically, Knightmare, but with more people in helmets and one poor sod shouting at them that something's about to eat them.
@Taskerland @RogerBWPlato's Dystopian Cave Network.
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@Taskerland I think that "statblocks" "the game is in the numbers crowd" have always existed. There's a very significant crowd of frothing "I've been playing with the white books" crowd who reject utterly the game as fiction played. They have a whole post hoc ergo propter hoc thing going on, where they mythologise the games they have been in afterwards and sit telling stories *about the games*
That's one of the reasons I think they seek to reinstate what it was like when they were 14 again.
@Printdevil Back in the day, I used to associate that mindset with a kind of narrow blustering masculinity...
Forget feelings and telling stories, that's all a bit poofy: Give me piles of corpses and magical swords with spikes on them.
What's interesting is that while the incipient misogyny and homophobia have mostly dropped out of sight, there is still a profound resistance to the idea of RPGs being something creative and arty.
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Plato's Dystopian Cave Network.
@Printdevil Now that's just crying out to be an OSR megadungeon.
"the people carrying objects along the wall casting shadows fight as ogre-mages"
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