From: millerl@wharton.upenn.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: new rec.games.frp.* groups
Date: 10 Nov 92 22:22:04 GMT
Organization: Newt World Order

In article <1992Nov10.161850.21614@lunatix.uucp>, lmollett@lunatix.uucp (Laura Mollett) writes:
> Well what happened to the discussion of rec.games.frp.campaigns?  Is it all
> taking place in news.groups now?  What about rec.games.frp.cyber-or-whatever?
> Did it die?  I hope so, but if not, I'd like to stick my two cents in here
> for a minute or two.

The discussion is going on in news.groups. Since it was proposed as an
official RFD the discussion is supposed to go on in news.groups. I count
that as a blessing, since news.groups filters off the junk that would
otherwise interrupt my reading in this usually enjoyable newsgroup.

> I noticed running through news.groups looking for the rec.games.frp.campaigns
> discussion a flame fest going on there over the renaming of a group called
> rec.music.synth.  A piece of the flame fest touched on discussion of subject
> lines in RFD and CFV's and it occurred to me that in this group, people who
> routinely put something like "cyberpunk" or "shadowrun" in killfiles

Well, after I ran the split vote on rec.games.frp and it passed and was
implemented there were a number of late complaints by people who had
"rec.games.frp" in their killfiles (to hide from the FAQs) and seemed
surprised that this caused them to miss the entire split vote.
Personally, I think people who cut themself off like that are so
oblivious that I'd rather not have them voting on the future of
anything, even the roleplaying discussion newsgroups.

> Further, I would like to say that I am opposed to ANY further splitting of
> rec.games.frp at this time.  That includes both the campaigns group and the
> cyber.dark future.whatever group.

Presently I agree with you, and I believe a large number of people
agree. The discussion/flamefest presently going on in news.groups is
over the form of the proposed newsgroups, since I and several others
think that .campaign and .cyber are deeply flawed as newsgroups and will
have negative effects on future roleplaying discussion. In other words,
the names are no good.

> While the .misc/.dnd split made sense and has enormously lowered traffic for
> those who only read one or the other of these groups, in my opinion, it has
> also seriously limited discussions and the seeds of discussions in these
> groups.  I've seen several things posted in dnd which I do not think were
> totally dndwhatever specific or that could have turned into less specific
> discussions if the whole group was together (as it had been previously).

This is true. When I proposed it I expected the dnd group to become an
autonomous discussion group with lots of generic campaign advice in it,
despite the strongly worded charter which directs only xdnd specific
issues to the newsgroup. I thought this was acceptable since both dnd
and misc seem to have large enough and loud enough readerships to
sustain themselves. So what if topics don't cross? By the way, if you
want to get a non-dnder's advice on a dnd thread, then post it to misc.

wrt .dnd and .misc
> How many people read both
> groups?  It seemed to me like the long discussion in dnd of nasty monsters
> (liches and the like) could easily have been an interesting non-genre specific
> discussion of how to challenge more advanced (higher points/higher levels
> whatever) PC's in any game.  

I read .misc and occasionally skim over .dnd. For the most part, dnd
works for me. All the dreadful system-specific talk (the stoneskin
thread, the new lich threads, the dark sun threads) stay in that group
where I don't have to filter them out with kill files, and enough
general discussion goes on in .misc to pique my interest. The point is
that we voted to separate dnd from misc. That it works proves we
succeeded.

-- 
whoah,
+++++++++++++++++++++++23
Loren Miller                           internet: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu
Mediocrity is a hand rail.                         -- Baron de Montesquieu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc