There's this D&D con that's being advertised as a fan event with a performance by some AP losers I've never heard of.
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@Taskerland Maybe that's what I find odd about current gaming. The lack of horizontalism. There's lots of "BeardMinge says he does this in his youtube" vs "Our group gets its snacks in a rota"
@Printdevil @Taskerland the comfort in obeying instructions from a voice of authority is a big thing these days, I wonder if it's due to the influx of new people to the hobby or a generational change or what.
It's like authorial permission for ficton being a selling point for so many games, where they go, say, "this playbook has an off-hand remark that you can be a mushroom orc" and people will go "yooo, all shroomheads must get it, easy recommendation for your fungalpunk needs" despite /1
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@Printdevil @Taskerland the comfort in obeying instructions from a voice of authority is a big thing these days, I wonder if it's due to the influx of new people to the hobby or a generational change or what.
It's like authorial permission for ficton being a selling point for so many games, where they go, say, "this playbook has an off-hand remark that you can be a mushroom orc" and people will go "yooo, all shroomheads must get it, easy recommendation for your fungalpunk needs" despite /1
@Printdevil @Taskerland it really having no special frameworks or mechanics on sporing and other mushroom shit, it doesn't have some elaborate mushroom lore because it's anti-canon play-to-find-out setup, it merely told you that you can play as a mushroom and apparently you can't just pretend you're a fungus in any other game for some reason. /2
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@Taskerland I'm glad. But also, I'm not going to upsell you on Premium Whartson or whatever.
I think my history helps here - largely playing in one extended group, White Dwarf, saw occasional issues of Dragon some years later, but that was all "here's what other people are doing, I'll take this and leave that". Gary was already a bit of a joke by the time I became aware of him as having a distinct style of gaming; I went along to Reading Games Fairs, and there were Official! tournaments, but they seemed to be a completely separate group of people from the ones I was playing with in the open gaming. -
@Printdevil @RogerBW Wharton: The Pig-Slop You Can Trust!
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@Printdevil Yes... Rather 25 very precisely tailored games than a suite of techniques that get deployed as appropriate
@Taskerland I think there's a lot (and I say this incredibly rarely) to be learned from the Eddie "Babes" De Bono here, in his tool kit approach to thinking strategies, you could swap out his intro to six-hat-thinking or whatever and replace it with gaming tools and the advice of "use what works abandon what doesn't" is sage.
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@Printdevil @Taskerland it really having no special frameworks or mechanics on sporing and other mushroom shit, it doesn't have some elaborate mushroom lore because it's anti-canon play-to-find-out setup, it merely told you that you can play as a mushroom and apparently you can't just pretend you're a fungus in any other game for some reason. /2
I don't know I had a lot of arguments about roleplaying back in the 80s with D&D stalwarts who felt altering what you got experience for was imposing "Authorial Proxy" on the game. My suspicion is you've a two-fold issue, new people who (as Vazh will often say) have no access to historical memory of gaming because the hobby is weird, and old old sea dogs who've merely lasted the time out and now present as gods of the hobby.
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The idea of travelling and paying to *watch* and applaud someone I have never heard of play D&D is wild.
@Taskerland Recently it occurred to me that, when observing rpg discussions, we could draw paralels with sex. In normal groups people talk about their weird fetishes by starting with "I like when..." but if you're in some patriarchal bullshit group, everyone starts with "your group is doing sex wrong" because apparently adding jenga to an RPG is the same as non-consensually abusing your players
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@Printdevil @Taskerland the comfort in obeying instructions from a voice of authority is a big thing these days, I wonder if it's due to the influx of new people to the hobby or a generational change or what.
It's like authorial permission for ficton being a selling point for so many games, where they go, say, "this playbook has an off-hand remark that you can be a mushroom orc" and people will go "yooo, all shroomheads must get it, easy recommendation for your fungalpunk needs" despite /1
I think as well there's a lot of going on line and getting matched/picking up a game. So you have no social contract and are essentially playing with random people. The only commonality there are the rules I guess. I can't speak to that at all, because I'm moldering introverted scum, but...
yink.
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@Printdevil @Taskerland the comfort in obeying instructions from a voice of authority is a big thing these days, I wonder if it's due to the influx of new people to the hobby or a generational change or what.
It's like authorial permission for ficton being a selling point for so many games, where they go, say, "this playbook has an off-hand remark that you can be a mushroom orc" and people will go "yooo, all shroomheads must get it, easy recommendation for your fungalpunk needs" despite /1
@lichtenstein I think that we went from a state of cultural and economic collapse to thousands of new people piling into the hobby.
So much had been forgotten and so many good people had moved on. The advice being offered was a range of tedious and blinkered nerds who have done very well out of it to the broader detriment of the hobby.
They present running games as something technical that needs to be done *right* rather than something creative where you find your voice.
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@Taskerland Recently it occurred to me that, when observing rpg discussions, we could draw paralels with sex. In normal groups people talk about their weird fetishes by starting with "I like when..." but if you're in some patriarchal bullshit group, everyone starts with "your group is doing sex wrong" because apparently adding jenga to an RPG is the same as non-consensually abusing your players
BDSM groups are very prone to explaining people do things wrong, and also cluster around gurus and style-leaders. I think there's a weird comfort in not having to think for yourself for a lot of people. You fit in, you don't need to innovate and you aren't exposed to failure.
Small religions of sex, gaming and balderdash.
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@Taskerland Recently it occurred to me that, when observing rpg discussions, we could draw paralels with sex. In normal groups people talk about their weird fetishes by starting with "I like when..." but if you're in some patriarchal bullshit group, everyone starts with "your group is doing sex wrong" because apparently adding jenga to an RPG is the same as non-consensually abusing your players
@viktorTheBoar These people present running games as though you are fixing a leaking toilet.
There are no right answers.
This is a creative and collaborative hobby.
Find your own voice.
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@lichtenstein I think that we went from a state of cultural and economic collapse to thousands of new people piling into the hobby.
So much had been forgotten and so many good people had moved on. The advice being offered was a range of tedious and blinkered nerds who have done very well out of it to the broader detriment of the hobby.
They present running games as something technical that needs to be done *right* rather than something creative where you find your voice.
Again I think this is the medium of social networks issue.
"Derek keeps taking his socks and shoes off while we're gaming" is still something they have no sensible 10 ways to.. answer
But you can ramp on endlessly about "does your dungeon need more ceilings, we go to the source..."
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@viktorTheBoar These people present running games as though you are fixing a leaking toilet.
There are no right answers.
This is a creative and collaborative hobby.
Find your own voice.
To be fair if I had a leaky toilet I'd phone Brendan, but I don't know if he does a youtube channel about gaming.
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To be fair if I had a leaky toilet I'd phone Brendan, but I don't know if he does a youtube channel about gaming.
@Printdevil @viktorTheBoar "Matt Colville, come fix my toilet!"
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@RogerBW I remember going to a gaming club in the mid-90s and someone announced that they had levelled up in the RPGA and everyone just laughed at them.
@Taskerland A friend of mine called the UK thing the "continuity RPGA" and got snarled at.
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@Printdevil @viktorTheBoar "Matt Colville, come fix my toilet!"
"And have a look at the water pressure in the shower. And for god's sake stop doing those accents, you make my teeth sweat"
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@Printdevil We have much to learn from venerable men who mutter into their beards while compulsively touching their faces.
I feel seen.
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I feel seen.
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@Taskerland I think there's a lot (and I say this incredibly rarely) to be learned from the Eddie "Babes" De Bono here, in his tool kit approach to thinking strategies, you could swap out his intro to six-hat-thinking or whatever and replace it with gaming tools and the advice of "use what works abandon what doesn't" is sage.
I always enjoyed the post-gaming sessions at my old club because it was just a weird lens into what other people enjoyed, or talked about. The D&D people all discussing "the perfect 20 they rolled" the CoC people complaining (always) about SAN rules, and my group pretending to be the house band for a 1930s radio comedy show.
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Oddly the number of additional search terms required to get a picture of "man with beard and books" was quite whacky, when what I really should have been able to use there was "not Ai"
but noooooooooooo
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