From: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Subject: Re: Hostility in Gamers toward Certain Games
Reply-To: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Organization: Plymouth State College - Plymouth, N.H.
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 92 14:50:31 GMT

bsrae@warwick.ac.uk (Dave Lockwood) writes:
>
>My observation (which may be biased or unfair) is that most role-playing
>gamers have never had to work (outside academia) in the real world. Having
>done ten years in industry before becoming a mature student, I had to
>do enough role-playing and making up the rules as I went along 
>during working hours to want something more mechanistic as a hobby (see above).
>There is a definite tendency to give up RPGs at graduation. 
>One (very rude) view is that most people have
>to grow up at that point ;-) Another (equally rude) is that once you have a
>salary coming in you can afford something better :-). 
>It might be interesting to note how many flames
>of this paragraph have .edu or equivalent addresses ;-)

Well, this isn't a flame, just a response, but my address definitely
has .edu in it.  Some of us work in such institutions, you know.

Since I graduated from college before the first RPG was published, I
don't fit your (self-admitted) rude views about RPGamers.  I'm not sure
what your point is, though, except that I gather you feel hostility
towards not only RPGs, but also RPG players.  Correct me if I'm wrong,
but it seems to be just an example of my earlier post.

>Essentially, it *is* 
>considerably harder, (and not just IMHO, IMHO!) to design games systems
>which simulate concrete things like physical battles with a fixed set of
>rules than to design conceptual things like committee games/RPG with a
>mutable set of rules. 

This paragraph is another example of the hostility in the gaming world
I talking about, and has little to do with the realities of designing
different types of games.  Having designed more than one wargame and
set of miniatures rules, I agree that they are not easy to do right.
On the other hand, having also worked on "committee" type games and
more than one RPG, they aren't any easier!  Consider: a good RPG tries
to simulate all of known reality, plus some aspects of non-reality.  In
case you haven't tried to model such a simulation, and make it
playable, let me assure you: it's tough.

>>I don't get it.  I play them all - except Monopoly and computer games,
>>that is.  
>
>Then by definition, you don't play them all, and would have to justify
>your subjective choices as being more objective than someone else's. 

Agreed - I don't really play all games.  But I admitted that earlier in
the post, and pointed out that I like all *classes* of games.  I may
dislike an individual game, such as Monopoly, but I don't dislike the
generic class of games to which Monopoly belongs.  (That is, I play
other games that involve buying and selling property, and I play other
games that are multi-player cut-throat, etc.)  I also dislike SPI's
Armada, but that doesn't mean I dislike sailing ship games in general -
on the contrary!

As to computer "games" - I subjectively justified that ones by defining
games as face-to-face encounters.  :-)

>I've
>tried to explain my reasoning above - keep politics out of my hobby and in 
>the real world; if you claim to be producing a simulation then know what
>simulation formally means... 

I have no idea what you are referring to in this paragraph, sorry.
"Keep politics out of my hobby ..." - does that mean you dislike
politics in the games, or in discussions on internet such as this one I
started?  Either way, you can boycott such games and discussions.  It's
up to you to keep politics out of your hobby, not us.  There are folks
who like politics in games and in discussions about games, so we'll
continue to make them.

As to the comment on simulation - you lost me there, too.  I don't
remember using the word in my post.

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.board