I have a post I’m working on, but in the meantime, I offer you this:
http://indiegamingscene.blogspot.com/2006/10/discouraging-actual-play-recounting.html
I get the impression that it (and most of the rest of the blog) is meant to be tongue in cheek. Honestly, my immediate reaction was to have PTSD flashbacks and foam a bit.
Then it occured to me that I’ve similarly tried to impose my own gaming ideals on others, especially in games I’ve run. In my defense, most people at least find me entertaining.
Most.
I read that and thought to myself, “What an asshole.” What that whole thing was, was trolling.
I think everyone in some way tries to impose their gaming ideals on others… but I can’t picture you doing something that, well, trollish.
Actually, thinking some more, as you mentioned PTSD, I think I’m actually having a few flashbacks to my ex boyfriend. So that might be why reading that pissed me off so much.
Since you didn’t ask, I’ll tell you. He used to harrass me to run a game for him. I may have told you I really don’t run games because I just kinda get stage fright and go utterly blank and then will tend to start crying. Anyway, he was insistent that it could be absolutely any system I wanted, and he didn’t care if it was a straight dungeon crawl from one room to another with nothing but a monster in each room. He would be happy with ANYTHING. So, I agreed, and even thought up a premise that was at least better than a dungeon crawl. I chose a system. That’s when he became a complete asshole. He dissed the system non-stop for another system that I didn’t have the books for. He would loan me the books, but if I was going to run a game, which I wasn’t even comfortable doing to begin with, I was damn well going to at least use a system I know really well, rather than one that he knows and would correct me on non-stop. So, then, there was the whole character creation. He refused to create a normal, standard character type and was insistant on this obscure thing that I didn’t even have the book for, again. And he had a way of bullying me into doing what he said. But he never did stop bitching about the system I chose, until eventually, the subject never came up again and said game never happened. Thank the gods.
When I started skimming the rest of the blog, it’s very funny. Especially the Prof. Curtis bits.
Personally, I feel that everyone has their own gaming ideals, and no two are identical. Kinda like religion, I suppose. Sometimes I’m amazed that any game/campaign/whatever reaches a natural end before the group implodes.
Just the most recent post on that blog is beyond awesome. Thanks for getting me to look.
I haven’t read the whole blog, but that post in particular has GOT to be tongue in cheek.
No, I’m just the only person to make a high concept (and likely weird) character amidst a bunch of power gamers, and then feel frustrated when the rest of the players aren’t really roleplaying much.
Or the person who tries to run high roleplay games for power gamers.
I think I’ve only gotten by on stupid belligerence.
The rest of the blog is pretty tongue-in-cheek/over-the-top. But the worst part is that… I could see someone doing that.
Oh, yeah, I could too. But the tone would be totally different.