@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.

@Printdevil

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"

@Taskerland @RogerBW

@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.

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.

@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 @RogerBW

Plato's Dystopian Cave Network.

@malin @Taskerland @RogerBW

@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.

@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"

@malin @RogerBW

@Taskerland I have had this argument over and over with people regarding any break from the proscribed D&D rotes as "forcing authorial proxies by the GM"

These people run terrible games, so I don't really care.

@Printdevil It's a similar mindset to the people who are most vocally against photography being an art-form: No no no... it's all about refractive indexes and hyperfocal distances.

@Taskerland Yes. Everything has rules, and you can find the rule, and reduce it a system you can replicate. Everyone is a behaviour engine. Aesthetics are programmable, and wine tasters make it up.

@Printdevil @Taskerland If I want to play a board game, I play a board game. (And sometimes I do.) I am not so committed to RPGs that I need to twist RPGs into a shape that will also scratch my board gaming itch.

@Taskerland @Printdevil @RogerBW
Pick your class!

Advanced Dungeons & Discourse - Dresden Codak

From the internet that brought you the Original Philosophy RPG. I don’t usually like the things I make but this one is pretty okay.

Dresden Codak (dresdencodak.com)

@Printdevil @Taskerland @RogerBW rollplaying vs roleplaying is the oldest divide I know of in the hobby.

Plenty of people who really want to be wargamers when they're meant to be playing an RPG and plenty of people who craft backstories for their disposable Tyrannid hordes when they are wargaming.

@Taskerland @Ashigaru Hooboy, YT’s a real freakshow. You’re missing out!

I’m barely on Bluesky, FWIW, and I’ve taught myself to downvote on Reddit and move on, instead of letting the idiots drag me down to their level. Also, I avoid the more theorycrafty subs, stick to those specific to particular games, and block bad-faith actors early and often.

That said, there’s a rhetorical adage that if you’ve nothing to say, say it LOUD! (1/2)

I doubt I’ve seen even one of these folks make a cogent, original point. As @Ashigaru says, it’s all bluster and ragebait. At best, it’s misguided; at worst, cynical.

I wouldn’t be too worried about the hobby. The good folk are having fun doing their own thing, as they always have.

And the commentariat has literally nothing better to do with its time. (2/2)

@Colman This is what frustrates me a lot of the time. We know that there are different tastes within the hobby, we know that people enjoy different things, and yet we can never escape the people screaming about how you're an idiot if you think that rules are nothing but scaffolding backed by the social dynamics that actually shape play. @Printdevil @RogerBW

@Taskerland @Printdevil So, wargames? They’re in the wrong hobby.

@davej Yes, but they could say the same of me 'Go and join a writing workshop!' - I am just depressed that live-and-let-live is not in the vocabulary of people who have been relentlessly indulged by the entire hobby for decades now. @Printdevil

People have been very snippy to me too, and I don't really go looking for it due to my innate loveliness. What was that criticism "guy with a die"?

@Taskerland @davej