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Asimo posted:Honestly I'm not sure you could really successfully market a traditional tabletop RPG these days. You can't, not "successfully" by, like, real-world metrics of success. There's no license, there's no magical combination of words, no system that's going to jumpstart the second elfgame golden age. Like, even if WotC spent beaucoup bucks aggressively marketing D&D, who are they going to pitch the "spend 6-8 hours around a table with 4-5 other people who've also cleared their schedule once a week indefinitely" thing to? The younger crowd? The younger crowd's got Skylanders and Disney: Infinity and poo poo, man, they've got other video games and, yes, they even have Magic: the Gathering. The older crowd? The older crowd has jobs (well, not all of'em these days I guess), they have families and kids and stuff, soccer practice to go to and doctor's appointments and I dunno man, I'm loving exhausted and my wife's got the flu, can we just grab some beers and play Cards Against Humanity or something? RPGs have a niche audience and can comfortably continue to exist there practically forever now that we've reached the critical mass of social media, easy and affordable self-publishing options, and online communities. If D&D and Pathfinder both died on their way back to their home planets tomorrow and all D&D books everywhere spontaneously disintegrated people would still continue to produce, sell, buy, and play TRPGs. But actually successfully marketing a TRPG outside of that niche market? Almost assuredly not gonna happen again, not unless someone does the lightning-in-a-bottle thing White Wolf managed to pull off with Vampire, and even then I don't think it's going to happen because Vampire: the Masquerade still predates Magic: the Gathering, World of Warcraft, XBox Live, and everything else that's cropped up since then to give nerds a plethora of entertainment options in the meantime. e; Halloween Jack posted:I wonder how Jeremy Crawford, D&D designer, feels about John Tarnowski, D&D 5e consultant, calling Blue Rose a fascist game. I don't believe Crawford is involved with the Kickstarted revival of the game, but it strikes me as very weird. Didn't want this to get lost in the last page because yeah, that's a pretty amazing article that the Pundit wrote rallying people against the SJW Thought Police fascists of Blue Rose, a game of fantasy heroes fighting fantasy bad guys except sometimes gay people exist too. This is a guy that Mike Mearls reached out to as a consultant for the latest edition of D&D. Legit question, can you imagine Mark Rosewater doing something like this? Do you think if WotC or Hasbro got wind that the Magic team was going to reach out to a guy who spends his days writing rambling essays about Cultural Marxists and Social Justice Warriors and give him a handjob that they'd just be like "yeah sure, that's cool, whatever?" I mean I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who stripped a gear over Alesha, Who Smiles at Death that Rosewater has an embarrassment of riches to choose from! And yet somehow Magic doesn't seem super interested in reaching out to the deranged pipe-smoking fuckhead portion of their fanbase, it's almost as if one of these games is something their parent company cares about the image of while the other is stuck in a closet somewhere and left to their own devices because nobody, even in the wider brand-penetrated world, gives half as much of a poo poo about it. Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Kai Tave posted:Legit question, can you imagine Mark Rosewater doing something like this? Do you think if WotC or Hasbro got wind that the Magic team was going to reach out to a guy who spends his days writing rambling essays about Cultural Marxists and Social Justice Warriors and give him a handjob that they'd just be like "yeah sure, that's cool, whatever?" I mean I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who stripped a gear over Alesha, Who Smiles at Death that Rosewater has an embarrassment of riches to choose from! And yet somehow Magic doesn't seem super interested in reaching out to the deranged pipe-smoking fuckhead portion of their fanbase, it's almost as if one of these games is something their parent company cares about the image of while the other is stuck in a closet somewhere and left to their own devices because nobody, even in the wider brand-penetrated world, gives half as much of a poo poo about it. What's crazy is that WotC has been terrified since day one of making the same mistakes with Magic that TSR did with D&D, that's why they are so conservative with Magic licensing deals, and there have been no movies, or cartoons. Despite that they're more than happy to make the same mistakes with D&D over and over again.
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Jun 23, 2015 08:45
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Asimo posted:Honestly I'm not sure you could really successfully market a traditional tabletop RPG these days. The time for that has kind of passed, for better or worse. If you really wanted to break out into roleplaying business now you'd want to try and take advantage of the ways most people these days actually RP, in chat rooms and in tumblr blogs and group fanfiction and other almost entirely freeform formats. There's thousands upon thousands of blogs and forums and everything doing roleplaying. The problem is, these are often done by CCGs did to RPGs what RPGs did to Hex N Chit Wargames. Basically stomped the loving poo poo out of the entire market until it becomes a small but semi sustainable thing for a tiny group of people. (Except hex n chit wargames basically were really replicatable on computers and have evolved into accessible forms like the Advance Wars titles and the like. Also iOS App Store is packed with them. Mostly just endlessly repeating WW2 just as many RPGers just want stereotypical D&D style fantasy. NO EXCEPTIONS.) Its just how these things go. I remember when Magic started it just basically exploded, especially in game shops. Basically everything RPGs did wrong Magic did the opposite. Short time requirement. Short investment of money. Portable as hell. Pick up and play with almost anyone. Trading aspect good for forming communities and meetups just to trade/sell/buy cards. Stores only need a tiny bit of shelf space for a handful of SKUs. RPGs have none of this. Tons of time to read the rules. More time to play over long periods with the same people ideally who want to play both the same game, and game STYLE as you. Tons of stuff to cart along. Can't really bring tons of people in and play lots of games. And this was just back in 93-95 when I was in the Navy! There wasn't a block system or FNM or anything like that. If anything Magic basically created the modern game industry as we know it. Don't have some form of organized play program? Require a lot of SKUs? YOUR GAME IS PROBABLY DOOMED LONG TERM. poo poo, your game is lucky to eve be stocked. Magic owns all and everything else is basically just there to keep poo poo diversified in case of a bad block or those weirdoes like me who enjoy multiple games and type of games. Magic still isn't generally as well known worldwide as DnD but slowly but surely it is completely eclipsing almost everything else in gaming entirely. (Boardgames and non CCG card games are a bit of a weird outlier. Stores are stocking some of the bigger named ones but they don't exactly tend to fly off the shelves as they cost so much more and the dirty secret of normal store boardgames is THAT THEY MAYBE GET PLAYED ONCE. MAYBE. A gift of a lovely Frozen boardgame or Monopoly is a safe gift for a kid. When a bonafide wide appeal hit like Heroscape shows up they don't even know what the gently caress to DO WITH IT, and it falls to the wayside. Or X Wing in normal stores. 40 bucks for that starter set? Nobody bought it. NOBODY. Also no support or additional products were sold next to it. Normal stores don't understand that sort of supplemental product mill thing and most normal customers don't like it.) Honestly I would bet more general knowledge of CCGs would be Pokemon or maybe Yu Gi Oh which were supported by cartoon shows and videogames. (Also apparently WOTC was bought because of Pokeymans not Magic or DnD. WOTC probably only still exists because of Magic otherwise it would be just a nostalgia branding label like Avalon Hill. ) Basically someone has to invent a new hot thing that sweeps game stores to even unseat Magic as it unseated DnD which unseated Hex n Chit. ME TOO products or older IPs just don't seem to cut it. Only Games Workshop came close and that is more having a near national monopoly in their home country. And the complaints about how WOTC treats DnD nowadays? GW is a god of no marketing no effort gently caress stores gently caress customers we don't care mistakes and gently caress ups!
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Jun 23, 2015 08:46
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Bucnasti posted:What's crazy is that WotC has been terrified since day one of making the same mistakes with Magic that TSR did with D&D, that's why they are so conservative with Magic licensing deals, and there have been no movies, or cartoons. Despite that they're more than happy to make the same mistakes with D&D over and over again. WotC adamantly refuses to cross over Magic with D&D. They own both brands, they could do whatever they wanted to, handle it however they liked, and ever since WotC acquired D&D people have been asking "hey are you ever going to release M:tG settings for D&D?" and the answer is always, has always, and probably will always be a resounding "no." Now you can read into that what you want, but personally I favor the interpretation that the Magic team wants no part of D&D and its fanbase rubbing off on their actually successful and popular game, and after Mike Mearls reached out to Jon "Cultural Marxism" Tarnowski and Zak "Can we first agree that we're having a discussion, also I like to make fun of trans people" S, I can only imagine that this decision has since been reaffirmed.
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Jun 23, 2015 08:54
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I was thinking that a direction I'd like to see the hobby go towards would be better and fuller digital integration: kind of like what Fantasy Grounds is doing with D&D 5e where (if you pay for a license) the entire text of the rulebooks is in the application's client itself, and the application will help you make a completely legal, rules-observing character with a couple of clicks (if you pay for a license). Except, you know, not nearly as bank-breaking. Or a combination of DDI's comprehensiveness with roll20's Google Hangouts integration and support for battle maps. Add a Monster Creator where you can build a monster according to MM3 guidelines with a few clicks, and so on and so forth. Or really just take the multiplayer/dungeon master part of Neverwinter Nights and build out from that. If your game is going to be crunchy, and people are going to need to hook up over the internet in today's social climate, then leverage the gently caress out of the fact that you're playing over the computer! It even supports the idea of better control over piracy if the app is as locked down as any other Steam game. Unfortunately I also know this is probably a pipe dream because at some level of crunchiness you're probably going to prefer playing a full MMO/CRPG/other computer game, and any company that has enough talent to make this work is also just going to be making computer games.
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Jun 23, 2015 09:55
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gradenko_2000 posted:Unfortunately I also know this is probably a pipe dream because at some level of crunchiness you're probably going to prefer playing a full MMO/CRPG/other computer game, and any company that has enough talent to make this work is also just going to be making computer games. Bingo. I've been seeing people independently come up with the same next big thing in TRPGs for years now. Build an app! Phone/tablet/laptop integration! Go digital! Except nobody who could actually do a good job of that cares about the tiny TRPG market enough to actually do it, and the TRPG market itself is largely comprised of people so regressive and set in their ways that they look down on digital anything out of principle. Back when D&D4E had digital tools like character builders and monster builders and the Companion, this was considered proof that 4E was a dumbed down game for MMO babies because back in my day we did everything by hand and also have I told you about this thing called THAC0, well you see There's no audience for a slightly better TRPG that's going to make seriously working on such a thing worthwhile. There is an audience for traditional TRPGs if you don't mind it being A). small, B). increasingly greying, and C). kind of insufferable.
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Jun 23, 2015 10:08
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Much like PDFs and PoD becoming more prominent, I wouldn't be surprised if the tools for online-focused "T"TRPG play eventually become easy enough that it experiences a little renaissance. I'd say, much like tablet-primary reading, it's a toss up whether it becomes the norm, and probably won't be for at least a couple of decades.
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Jun 23, 2015 10:21
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You guys do realize that people can have more than one hobby at a time, right? Like when I was in high school (late 90's) I played Magic, AD&D, and video games. It was just a pick one scenario. Where are people getting this idea that RPG's are somehow in their twilight? The consumer base is certainly more fragmented than it was in earlier years, but then again there's also more choice than there's ever been.
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Jun 23, 2015 12:45
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Halloween Jack posted:I wonder how Jeremy Crawford, D&D designer, feels about John Tarnowski, D&D 5e consultant, calling Blue Rose a fascist game. I don't believe Crawford is involved with the Kickstarted revival of the game, but it strikes me as very weird. While I have no interest in reading anything by the Tarnowski, what exactly is his reasoning for calling Blue Rose fascist? I skimmed through the original book a while back and it seemed like a regular RPG. Nothing really jumped out at me as being ridiculous. Or is it just the Pundit being the Pundit and talking out of his rear end?
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Jun 23, 2015 13:09
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You know how Fox News will go "The Nazis were left wing, it was in the name, National Socialist!" Same thing. Also he has a weird as gently caress fixation on the quasi-divine deer that chooses the ruler of Aldis.
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Jun 23, 2015 13:14
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Serf posted:While I have no interest in reading anything by the Tarnowski, what exactly is his reasoning for calling Blue Rose fascist? I skimmed through the original book a while back and it seemed like a regular RPG. Nothing really jumped out at me as being ridiculous. Or is it just the Pundit being the Pundit and talking out of his rear end? It's the Pundit being the Pundit. The thesis of his latest criticism (link to grogs.txt) is that since the world of Blue Rose is a utopian society, and since you-the-player are playing the part of good heroes trying to maintain the utopia, then you are The Man, and you are oppressing people when you serve in the interests of the state.
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Jun 23, 2015 13:49
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A Standard Fantasy Game where the king of a feudal monarchy sends some heroes out to slay an evil wizard is Just Good Old Fashioned Fun. A Romantic Fantasy Game where the queen of a constitutional socialist state sends some heroes out to slay an evil wizard is Creeping Marxist Propaganda. PS I'm totally a hard lefty, I'm just on the lookout for Cultural Marxists is all. And I have gay friends.
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Jun 23, 2015 14:26
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Plague of Hats posted:A Standard Fantasy Game where the king of a feudal monarchy sends some heroes out to slay an evil wizard is Just Good Old Fashioned Fun. Is that so...comrade? 
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Jun 23, 2015 14:29
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gradenko_2000 posted:It's the Pundit being the Pundit. The thesis of his latest criticism (link to grogs.txt) is that since the world of Blue Rose is a utopian society, and since you-the-player are playing the part of good heroes trying to maintain the utopia, then you are The Man, and you are oppressing people when you serve in the interests of the state. Wait, wait, his problem with the game is that somehow, playing the good guys and doing good guy things is fascist when you suddenly are no longer the underdog? If you are working for the Man, at least this version of the Man is pretty cool. Also, aren't there like two other factions of bad dudes that provide conflict. If the question is "what do you do in this game?" then the answer is pretty obviously gonna be "Defend your utopia from outside forces" which imo is a better motivation than "kick down the doors of this tomb, slaughter the inhabitants and take their stuff."
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Jun 23, 2015 14:31
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Plague of Hats posted:A Romantic Fantasy Game Do I get to kiss an owlbear?
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Jun 23, 2015 14:35
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Bear in mind that he doesn't actually read the games he rants about.quote:Legit question, can you imagine Mark Rosewater doing something like this? Do you think if WotC or Hasbro got wind that the Magic team was going to reach out to a guy who spends his days writing rambling essays about Cultural Marxists and Social Justice Warriors and give him a handjob that they'd just be like "yeah sure, that's cool, whatever?" Semi-related: I can't remember his name, but there was a guy on the D&D design team who had come over from Magic, and the going assumption in the relevant thread was that he had been exiled. Kai Tave posted:WotC adamantly refuses to cross over Magic with D&D. They own both brands, they could do whatever they wanted to, handle it however they liked, and ever since WotC acquired D&D people have been asking "hey are you ever going to release M:tG settings for D&D?" and the answer is always, has always, and probably will always be a resounding "no."
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Jun 23, 2015 14:35
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Serf posted:Wait, wait, his problem with the game is that somehow, playing the good guys and doing good guy things is fascist when you suddenly are no longer the underdog? If you are working for the Man, at least this version of the Man is pretty cool. Also, aren't there like two other factions of bad dudes that provide conflict. If the question is "what do you do in this game?" then the answer is pretty obviously gonna be "Defend your utopia from outside forces" which imo is a better motivation than "kick down the doors of this tomb, slaughter the inhabitants and take their stuff." Well, since the game is specifically meant to tap into the romantic fantasy genre, another major element is supposed to be internal politicking. Because, even discounting the evil neighbords, as much as everyone uses the word, it's really not a utopia. The problem the first edition had was that it was still, fundamentally, d20, and based on his comments the author thinks social mechanics are mostly bullshit, so eh. But, in any case, no, it's not working for The Man that's bad. It's working for the wrong kind of The Man, even if it's honestly not incredibly different from the right kind. Tarnowski has some serious hangups when it comes to politics, and the merest hint of politics he doesn't like influencing an RPG means it's time to blare the  SJW alarm.
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Jun 23, 2015 14:36
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Mors Rattus posted:Magic is incredibly popular in Japan, and Japan and China consistently do really, really well in Magic tournaments. Wizards actually has very strong connections in Japan, to the point that when a manga author asked if they could do a Magic-based manga, Wizards literally offered to make a new game for them to base the manga on.
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Jun 23, 2015 14:40
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Serf posted:Wait, wait, his problem with the game is that somehow, playing the good guys and doing good guy things is fascist when you suddenly are no longer the underdog? If you are working for the Man, at least this version of the Man is pretty cool. Also, aren't there like two other factions of bad dudes that provide conflict. If the question is "what do you do in this game?" then the answer is pretty obviously gonna be "Defend your utopia from outside forces" which imo is a better motivation than "kick down the doors of this tomb, slaughter the inhabitants and take their stuff." I honestly envy your ignorance of Tarnowski's mindset.
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Jun 23, 2015 14:41
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Serf posted:If you are working for the Man, at least this version of the Man is pretty cool. Yes, you are correct, and Pundit is either playing dumb or actually is dumb when he stakes this claim that "working for The Man" is bad regardless of who The Man is and what he represents. To just very briefly touch on Debate & Discussion instead of D&D, it's a common tactic I've encountered when talking to conservatives/libertarians to engage in this kind of projection and willful ignorance of context: if it's wrong to discriminate based on ethnicity, then that means Affirmative Action is wrong, too. If owning guns is bad, then owning guns is bad even for the President's Secret Service, and on and on and on.
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Jun 23, 2015 14:42
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Serf posted:Wait, wait, his problem with the game is that somehow, playing the good guys and doing good guy things is fascist when you suddenly are no longer the underdog? Pundit is a creepy American who hides out in South America while preaching about how storygamers are the corrupt invaders despoiling the purity of RPGs and they must be purged from existence to save the sacred institution of D&D. More or less his entire shtick is regurgitating fascist rhetoric while espousing far-right viewpoints, and then claiming he's totally not a fascist, guys.
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Jun 23, 2015 14:44
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Evil Mastermind posted:I honestly envy your ignorance of Tarnowski's mindset. I've been reading about the guy for years now and I still have no idea what goes through his head. And honestly I don't think I want to. E: Lemon Curdistan posted:Pundit is a creepy American who hides out in South America while preaching about how storygamers are the corrupt invaders despoiling the purity of RPGs and they must be purged from existence to save the sacred institution of D&D. More or less his entire shtick is regurgitating fascist rhetoric while espousing far-right viewpoints, and then claiming he's totally not a fascist, guys. So, like, his story is so close to that of all those ratline Nazi dudes who escaped to South America that I have to wonder if there's any swastikas in his house. Serf fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Jun 23, 2015 14:46
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Isn't Blue Rose based off the same romantic ideas as Tolkein and the Faerie Queen? Just you know made by someone in the modern era so there are like gay people and female agency isn't seen as a bold change in direction. How can you be "protecting the purity of roleplaying" if you're against what D&D is explicitly based on?
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Jun 23, 2015 15:31
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The "Romantic Fantasy" that Blue Rose takes its inspiration from is mostly YA fantasy written for an audience of pre-teen and teen girls, and is thus anathema to the manly men of true gaming or something. But you know, those writers were -also- inspired by Tolkien and Spencer and whatever, so it's really turtles all the way down.
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Jun 23, 2015 15:37
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Serf posted:So, like, his story is so close to that of all those ratline Nazi dudes who escaped to South America that I have to wonder if there's any swastikas in his house.
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Jun 23, 2015 15:39
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Terrible Opinions posted:Isn't Blue Rose based off the same romantic ideas as Tolkein and the Faerie Queen? Just you know made by someone in the modern era so there are like gay people and female agency isn't seen as a bold change in direction. How can you be "protecting the purity of roleplaying" if you're against what D&D is explicitly based on? It sure is based on that (along with a lot of other stuff. You could run a ton of 90s fantasy series with it). They're not protecting anything but their 'One True Way'.
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Jun 23, 2015 15:45
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Bucnasti posted:What's crazy is that WotC has been terrified since day one of making the same mistakes with Magic that TSR did with D&D, that's why they are so conservative with Magic licensing deals, and there have been no movies, or cartoons. Despite that they're more than happy to make the same mistakes with D&D over and over again. I read somewhere that TSR sold/leased the film rights to some fly by night before WOTC bought the whole thing, and so, thanks to the same kind of licensing rights that have Fox cranking another terrible Fantastic Four flick out every few years, they make new ones with dwindling budgets. The same story claims that Wizards has been trying to buy the rights holders off, to no avail.
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Jun 23, 2015 15:58
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Kai Tave posted:You can't, not "successfully" by, like, real-world metrics of success. There's no license, there's no magical combination of words, no system that's going to jumpstart the second elfgame golden age. Like, even if WotC spent beaucoup bucks aggressively marketing D&D, who are they going to pitch the "spend 6-8 hours around a table with 4-5 other people who've also cleared their schedule once a week indefinitely" thing to? The younger crowd? The younger crowd's got Skylanders and Disney: Infinity and poo poo, man, they've got other video games and, yes, they even have Magic: the Gathering. The older crowd? The older crowd has jobs (well, not all of'em these days I guess), they have families and kids and stuff, soccer practice to go to and doctor's appointments and I dunno man, I'm loving exhausted and my wife's got the flu, can we just grab some beers and play Cards Against Humanity or something?
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Jun 23, 2015 17:44
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Blue Rose was what made the Pundit get banned from RPG.net and set up his own site in the first place. He just would not shut up about the evil magic deer.
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Jun 23, 2015 17:53
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The fields have already been salted, though. If a new, popular, and accessible RPG were to crop up heralding a renaissance? ,The Old Guard would gatekeep the living gently caress out of it and its players.
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Jun 23, 2015 17:55
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Kai Tave posted:Bingo. I've been seeing people independently come up with the same next big thing in TRPGs for years now. Build an app! Phone/tablet/laptop integration! Go digital! Except nobody who could actually do a good job of that cares about the tiny TRPG market enough to actually do it, and the TRPG market itself is largely comprised of people so regressive and set in their ways that they look down on digital anything out of principle. Back when D&D4E had digital tools like character builders and monster builders and the Companion, this was considered proof that 4E was a dumbed down game for MMO babies because back in my day we did everything by hand and also have I told you about this thing called THAC0, well you see There's a gigantic audience for TTRPGs and LARPs. First of all, there are a lot of people that identify as "nerdy" or "geeky" who thus have an academic interest in doing this geeky thing. There are a substantial number of people who already "roleplay" on blogs, imageblogs, twitter, etc. There are a number of people who would find it appealing if exposed to actual play. There are a number of people who engage in fantasizing in their day-to-day life, who could also be served by roleplaying. Reaching these audiences is fairly difficult because of the way roleplaying games are manufactured, sold, and often designed. But there's also a large part of the existing market that doesn't interact with organized RPG culture except marginally and via the outskirts, who are currently underserved too. But RPGs don't really compete with any other type of game except themselves, at least beyond the abstract way that all activities compete with one another. The challenge is to make games that a) understand what makes RPGs distinct, b) are able to successfully appeal to people, and c) are able to be sold beyond the somewhat incestuous world of RPG culture. moths posted:The fields have already been salted, though. If a new, popular, and accessible RPG were to crop up heralding a renaissance? ,The Old Guard would gatekeep the living gently caress out of it and its players. Those people can't gatekeep their refrigerators, let alone a roleplaying game. It's easy to blame things on the damnable grognard, but it's also wrong.
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Jun 23, 2015 17:58
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why do these "libertarian gamers" care so much what games other people decide to play
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Jun 23, 2015 17:59
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Because ways other than mine are wrong.
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Jun 23, 2015 18:03
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Like this is somehow exclusive to "libertarian gamers".
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Jun 23, 2015 18:04
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Mors Rattus posted:Because ways other than mine are wrong. That's basically it, and it's not unique to tradgames. The Hugo fracas this year was caused by a bunch of milsf grognards declaring that anything not their thing being popular had to be the result of a conspiracy of wrongness for the sake of whatever 'political correctness' is supposed to mean now, gamers whine about filthy casuals ruining 'real games' or even complaining that Bioware chose to widen its audience. Even Disco Demolition was a whiny manbaby response to something part of the status quo didn't like being popular or even existing. It's not new, but it is a completely childish and aggressive set of behaviors by insecure people.
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Jun 23, 2015 18:09
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I'm really not sure how grognards are going to "gatekeep" people out of the hobby. I have a really hard time imagining that a group of high school kids getting into RPGs are going to give a poo poo that some random people on the internet think that story games aren't real RPGs or whatever, assuming that they even have a chance to encounter those opinions in the first place.
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Jun 23, 2015 18:16
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alg posted:why do these "libertarian gamers" care so much what games other people decide to play Because libertarians.
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Jun 23, 2015 18:20
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It's a different situation nowadays because the main way people learn about stuff is via the internet. Someone interested in trying D&D is more likely to google "how do I learn D&D" or ask on Facebook than just go to a bookstore and grab the core books. I mean, look at the kind of groggy poo poo that got posted on every official WotC FB post during the 4e era. If you're trying to learn about RPGs and run into that poo poo and see the kinds of people involved with the hobby, would you bother digging deeper?
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Jun 23, 2015 18:24
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It's tribalism, plain and simple. Nerdgames in general and RPG games in particular have been a flagpole around which a particular sort of person has rallied and pledged allegience for a very long time. It is their Safe Place, a retreat (literally, because this is escapism-as-hobby) from a broader society that many gamer nerds don't feel they fit into. Anything which threatens to encroach on the ground they claim as their own is a threat. Anything that could potentially skew the population of the tribe away from the social-outcast (usually white) (usually male) demographic is going to ruin gaming. Because the RPG table will no longer be a bulwark against the jocks and the beautiful people and the norms (and whatever other prejudices the particular speaker holds; the gays, the queers, the SJWs, the women, the socially well-adjusted, the sports fan, etc. etc.) that it's supposed to be. Of course RPGs have never been the exclusive domain of the goony grognard stereotype. Ever. But tribalism isn't about a clear-eyed census of the actual population of the tribe, and a nuanced assessment of who they are and what they want and do. Tribalism is about feeling supremely confident that my group is the best group, and everyone else is the outsider or even the enemy; and in order to sustain that attitude, one must take on faith that pretty much everyone in the tribe shares your personal views (or if they don't, they can be easily convinced, because they're "your kind" of people). And anyone who you discover actually really really doesn't share your views must be ejected from the tribe with a scarlet letter sewn on, so tribalism also has that infighting aspect. occasmnailfile has it in a nutshell: tribalism is about insecurity.
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Jun 23, 2015 18:24
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Leperflesh posted:Anything which threatens to encroach on the ground they claim as their own is a threat. A good example of this is the thread over at RPGNet where people are discussing THAC0; there are a lot of people who feel that not accepting the switchover from THAC0 to "ascending AC/only do addition" makes them inherently smarter than everyone who prefers to just add instead of having to add and subtract. e: another prime example of "groggy gatekeeping" would be people who would poo poo in discussions about 4e with the WoW comparisons and go on about how it wasn't actually an RPG.
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Jun 23, 2015 18:29
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