Hurting Wrong Fun
I've always had mixed feelings about The Forge. On one hand, they've got some very good ideas about game design, particularly when it comes to questioning assumptions and sacred cows. And they have come up with some interesting games. On the other hand, they do sometimes come over as insufferable elitists.
But when Ron Edwards comes up with something like this, I do have to wonder if it's still possible to take him seriously. Is he becoming the Sid Vicious of RPGs?
I'll say this: that protagonism was so badly injured during the history of role-playing (1970-ish through the present, with the height of the effect being the early 1990s), that participants in that hobby are perhaps the very last people on earth who could be expected to produce *all* the components of a functional story. No, the most functional among them can only be counted on to seize protagonism in their stump-fingered hands and scream protectively. You can tag Sorcerer with this diagnosis, instantly.[The most damaged participants are too horrible even to look upon, much less to describe. This has nothing to do with geekery. When I say "brain damage," I mean it literally. Their minds have been *harmed.*]
The structure of lumpley.com makes it difficult for me to determine the context in which Ron made those comments. But it did result in a further posting by Vincent Baker
The purpose of this blog is to judge people's fun. We begin by judging our own fun, but in doing so we will and always will judge others' fun too.I hold standards of quality to be independent of individual tastes. Accordingly, everyone who participates here must do so with the understanding that the fun that suits their individual tastes might be called crappy, broken, lame, sucky, wimpy, stupid, or even pathalogical. You may feel free to defend your favorite fun if you're so moved, but you should do so in terms of its objective quality, without falling back upon "everyone likes what they like," "all tastes are equal," or "judging my fun makes you an elitist."
I expect each of you to have the self-understanding and emotional maturity to make your own decisions about your participation here, given this. My experience so far has overwhelmingly borne this out, and I expect this post to make the process only easier for us all.
Which is why I'm responding on my own blog, where I set the rules. I think Ron Edwards' post is a blatant troll, and I have every right to take offence at the idea that I'm somehow 'brain damaged' by the fact that I enjoy 'simulationist' style games. While I've also enjoyed Forge-inspired games like 'Primetime Adventures', Ron Edwards' hubris-filled attitude is likely to make me take Forgeite-Narrativist stuff less seriously.
(Link from The Phoenyx Gamers List)
Posted by TimHall at January 29, 2006 06:19 PM | TrackBackOh, what a load of crap. He's declaring something that is inherently subjective to be measurable in universal absolutes, with his own personal preferences as the "objective" standard of goodness.
Reminds me of some of the trolls who've haunted in-nomine-l and Pyramid, screaming "my personal preferences are objectively The Truth!" about everything from GMing techniques to story ideas to game mechanics.
Posted by: Amadan on January 29, 2006 08:34 PMI really think someone should sic Peter Knutsen on them...
Posted by: Tim Hall on January 29, 2006 09:04 PMForget Peter Knutsen... we need to sic T.M. "Darth Stomper" Neeck on them:
http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/2006/01/msg00062.html
That's just.. cruel. But justified.
Posted by: Tim Hall on January 29, 2006 09:38 PMI'm sorry, but the quote from Ron Edwards goes completely over my head. What does he mean by "protagonism"?
The folk I used to play RPGs with (alas I use the past tense as I no longer have time to maintain enough concurrency with any active round-the-table campaigns) expect everyone round the table to take an active involvement in producing the story. Any GM who tries to own the plot will find the campaign fizzels after one, probably short, session.
Posted by: Michael Orton on January 30, 2006 01:39 PM'Protagonism' is Forgite moon-language for the whole concept of the Player Character. I think Ron Edwards is attempting to create some kind of group storytelling game where there is no direct connection between individual players and individual characters. This might or might not result in an entertaining game, but I can't see it replacing the existing style of RPG.
I don't care for 'GM controls the story' games, that can too easily degenerate into railroading. But sometimes as a GM I find I *have* to grab the story by the scruff of the neck, because otherwise the players sit around and wait for things to happen. That's why I love to have players like Nicki Jett in my games; her characters are always pro-active, and drive the story forward by their actions.
However, I do prefer (especially when I'm GMing) that the GM controls the *setting* in the same way that the players control the player characters. The story (as distinct from the setting) should emerge from the interaction between the two, and be created by the whole group. But that's just my personal preference. If other groups want to create the setting through group consensus, and take it in turns to GM, I'm not going to call their choices 'lame' or 'brain-damaged'.
I don't think Ron Edwards is describing the same leisure activity as I experienced playing RPGs 1980 to 2005. The only question which matters is "is everyone taking part having fun?" All this waffle about "functional stories" is meaningless.
Posted by: Michael Orton on January 31, 2006 02:19 PMTim, Ron's post wasn't saying you are brain damaged for preferring simulationist games. All he was saying was that he has seen that people who were trying to create "story" using the mechanics of a specific set of games during a time period in their life when they were still developing intellectually have had their ability to comprehend story (used in the Lit 101 sense) damaged. That's all.
And he wasn't saying it to point out that these are bad people or bad gamers. He included himself in the group of people who were damaged in this way. As he has clarified, he was just pointing out something he observed and saying, "hey, this can't be a good thing for us gamers."
Man, I never thought I'd find myself defending Ron Edwards, but people are taking things all out of context and applying his comments to mean things he never said.
Posted by: Drew on February 21, 2006 05:21 AMIf you look at the date of this posting, I wrote these words *before* Ron explained what he meant by 'Brain Damaged'. I did post a followup linking to his later explaination.
Saying that, I still stand by what I wrote. Ron's "Brain Damaged" line was stupid, insulting and offensive, and any loss of reputation he's suffered is entirely self-inflicted.
Posted by: Tim Hall on February 21, 2006 01:19 PM"Oh, what a load of crap. He's declaring something that is inherently subjective to be measurable in universal absolutes, with his own personal preferences as the "objective" standard of goodness."
Exactly. This is why "the Sid Vicious of RPGs" is a poor analogy. Ron is angling to become the Ayn Rand of RPGs. Ignore the man, please. He and his little cult give us all a bad name.
Posted by: Will Mistretta on February 25, 2006 08:06 PM"The Ayn Rand of RPGS". I like that :)
I used the Sid Vicious comparison because I see a lot of parallels between The Forge and the late 70s punk movement in Britain. Just as Punk produced some great individual records, The Forge community has come up with some good individual games. But it's also spawed the same level of psuedo-intellectual bullshit, throws babies out with the bathwater, and defines itself by what it's reacting against.
Posted by: Tim Hall on February 25, 2006 08:22 PM