From: ericg@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Eric Chris Garrison)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why the hell does anyone ever play anything at all?
Date: 12 Aug 92 21:31:43 GMT
Organization: Indiana University

In article <55684@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> jacobus@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) writes:
>Meanwhile, the GURPS/Hero war will go on, with the Hero side saying "Hero
>is realistic, so there!" and the other side saying "Hero isn't, so there!"
>Then we'll get into everybody's pet peeve over various systems, all of 
>which are put out under the egotistical and immature assumption of
>"If your tastes don't agree with mine, then you're inferior, or at very
>least, what you like is inferior."

Sure.  That's what rec.games.frp.advocacy if FOR, Bryan, it is the alt.flame
of the gaming Net.  It is here, as far as I can tell, to keep the
"is so"  "is not" and "my game is the BEST, yours is the WORST"
arguments out of rec.games.frp.misc.  The same way rec.games.frp.adnd
keeps AD&D discussions away as well.

>Guess what, kiddies, ALL GAMES ARE UNREALISTIC!!!!
>
>ALL GAMES HAVE BAD RULES!!!!
>ALL GAMES ARE THE ABSOLUTE WORST GAMES EVER WRITTEN, AND I CAN COME UP WITH
>AT LEAST TEN PEOPLE TO BACK ME UP ON EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM!!!!!!!!!

Again, sure.  But everyone has a favorite, and everyone plugs it as
hard as they can to keep the game from becoming obsolete or
unfashionable.  You never hear the people who bash Hero or Gurps bash
TFOS for instance, because the games are not competing.  Hero and
Gurps DO compete, however, and people LOVE to take camps on exceedingly
similar groups.  The Democrats and Republicans slam each other for that
reason, and they fail to pay attention to the American Socialist Party
for the same reason.

>I challenge anyone to lay down
>a universally acceptable standard of taste.

No one would try.  It is almost as difficult as laying down a
universally acceptable standard of morals, which is why similar
religions exist and attack each other.

>I run what I run for may reasons, primarily that it manages to best model the
>game world I want as I want to see it.  If I had a different view of things,
>I'd probably change systems.  Furthermore, I NEVER run anything "out of the 
>box", I just go for a closest approximation.

Alas, a lot of people either do run things "out of the box" out of 
either laziness or a belief that they HAVE to use the rules in
the book.  The former is somewhat understandable, but I feel the
latter is ignorant.  Reminds me of Gygax saying, "you can use different
rules, but then you are not playing AD&D(TM) anymore."  Scary.

>Does anybody get the point here?

Hard not to, what with all the capital letters.  :-)

Seriously, the point is well taken by most people who don't do what
you are arguing against, but those who do take sides are not going
to stop no matter what you say to them.  Closed minds tend to stay 
closed, no matter the argument.

In other words, I agree with you wholeheartedly, but I think your
arguments are falling on deaf ears, at least those ears that really
should listen.

Ben Goodwin may be reading this and might think I am contradicting
myself (I've been debating Diceless systems with him in another thread),
but it is not Amber I am arguing about, it is the type of mechanic,
and even then I concede that I'd like to try Diceless even though
I am skeptical.

Eric

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Eric Chris Garrison			      UCS Support Center
ericg@ucs.indiana.edu			      Indiana University
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy