From: seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board,rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Hostility in Gamers toward Certain Games
Date: 6 Sep 92 03:32:49 GMT
Followup-To: rec.games.board
Organization: University of Pittsburgh
Originator: seawasp@pmax1.cis.pitt.edu

In article <1992Sep5.235920.6927@oz.plymouth.edu> sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan) writes:

>computer games (which include MUDs), and it saddens me.  Such a waste
>of good gamers.

	I don't generally see MUDs, at least, not the type heavily 
controlled by PEOPLE, as computer games. Computer games are inflexible;
a human-run MUD or other over-the-wire interaction is not.

>Take historical miniatures, for example.

	Paying a buck and a half for five cents worth of lead always kept
me well away from miniatures. Cardboard Heroes was such an excellent idea;
more detail for less money, and I don't even have to paint the damn things.


>This saddens me, and I don't understand it.  What harm is there in
>broadening your gaming horizons?
>
>I don't have a solution to this.  In fact, I don't live in a
>well-populated area, so I can't even take a decent poll.  I just wish I
>had more gamers to play with.
>
>I'd be interested in hearing any discussion on this, and how many of
>you are like me in having expansive gaming tastes.

	It's not a matter of "definitions" of game; I define a game as
pretty much anything you do to have fun which is not "direct life" (I
suppose you could call it a game of life, but...) like drinking, sex,
and so on. So "let's pretend" is a game, baseball is a game, miniatures
combat is a game, Monopoly (which I enjoy) is a game.

	For me, the crucial difference is philosophy. Board games and 
miniatures games fail for me (mostly) because they eliminate the one
worthwhile part of gaming which is the source of most of my enjoyment:

	IMAGINATION.

	Strategy and tactics and so on can be found in any of these things,
unless they're totally controlled by random rolls of dice. But only in a
role-playing environment can you "Kirk" the situation, change the rules
of the game, invent an entirely new solution. I did manage to pull it off
once in Naval Miniatures, by suddenly inventing the necessity for ramming
rules; I turned my torpedo cruiser on a collision course with a 
battleship, fired all torpedoes, and rammed. While we did finish that game
(And I emerged victorious) I was never invited back for another game...

	The general rule, however, holds. You can't do anything imaginative
in such games. In a WWII game you can't introduce an entirely new item
or weapon or even strategy that requires any change in the rules.

	In a role-playing game, however, I don't HAVE to make a selection
from some predetermined number of solutions (as I do have to with either
a miniatures, board, or computer-controlled game); I can invent something
completely different and never before heard of. 

	In a nutshell, MacGyver can't exist in any world other than
an RPG world... And I enjoy that kind of problem-solving, and the 
personal interaction and creation. I don't find the sterile tactics
and strategy of a miniatures battle interesting, anymore than I enjoy
the rather silly conquering strategies of Diplomacy. They're too limited.
I KNOW someone is going to win, by doing exactly the same things that
their opponents are doing, except maybe just a bit better. Now, it WOULD
be interesting if in Diplomacy the navies started disappearing, and 
then Captain Nemo issued an ultimatum, causing a reorganization, while
mad Professor Moriarty offered the atomic bomb to Turkey, and...

	
                                 Sea Wasp
                                   /^\
                                   ;;;