Yes, last in the series, from here to here and now, next steps. Oh, there’s still plenty of room for negativity, but I think anybody who’s going to get it has taken time to look at themselves and their communities. I considered linking to numerous examples of screwed up things (like RPGNet using its anti-discrimination rules to protect Otherkin instead of people of colour) to set the stage for alternatives, but with an embarrassment of riches . . . of embarrassment . . . to choose from, I just couldn’t decide? Bitchy, entitlement-ridden power posters who are PDF pirates on other sites? Discussions on how to screw over the ENnies’ voting system? Easy. Easy.
Some communities aren’t so bad. Company forums are generally okay, but lack the vitality of general communities. Others (like ENWorld) sacrifice vital critical discussion at the altar of bland affability, but in the end don’t do either well. There’s got to be another way. Here’s what I’d like.
(By the way, this may look like it’s all about forums, but it isn’t — it applies to blogs and general social hubs, too.)
Intelligent Antidiscrimination
A smart antidiscrimination policy is aware that racism, sexism and other issues are not just a subset of generic discrimination against any fucking thing somebody whines about. It takes historical and cultural realities into account. It doesn’t deprive people who’ve been attacked of the ability to defend themselves, or autonomously raise objections without begging for moderation. It’s administered as a collective ally, willing to adjust itself according to criticism — but not criticism coming from a reactionary sense of privilege.
Critical Categories
By tag, forum or dinner social, communities need to clearly differentiate between their different functions. Nothing fucks up serious critical discussion like participants who expect support for their sense of self-worth, especially when they confuse comments on their game as comments on their personalities. I know some folks think their games are precious pieces of themselves. Those people are weak. Still, there needs to be a place for them along with anyone else who just feels like shooting the breeze. So devote one section to casual discussion and one to high intensity criticism. Create another, separate section for making things — house rules, mods, whole games. Again, this sounds like online business but it can just as easily apply to conventions.
Fuck Actual Play — Just Play
It’s time to kick Actual (Capitalized) Play in the teeth. No other thing is as representative of the bankruptcy of gaming’s vocal minority than its fetish for play stories because this makes them a commodity in a community that has come to believe that the most common outcome of trying to play RPGs is some form of failure. Lots of things deserve their own forums, but Actual Play isn’t one of them. Instead, community values should uphold regular play as the objective: not be a special occasion that draws applause from other hobbyists. Not playing should be a problem we work together to solve with all the social tools at our command.
Are play stories bad? No, but it’s time to break them out into a secondary form of entertainment and admit that it is a creative act above and beyond describing what happens in game sessions (which they don’t do well anyway). So let’s encourage the JRPG replay tradition and put in the “make things” category.
Sincerity, Not Selling
By clamouring for decorum at the expense of authentic conversations we’ve made communities which should burst with creative vitality into a place where the worst behaviours vomit themselves onto the public stage. Perpetrators expect some authority to deny it or let it slide. That’s why rather than being marketing resistant as some commentators naively believe, RPG communities have been vulnerable to calculated, insincere persuasion at all scales. Worse, this makes marketing something fans do to each other. Just the other day I read a fan blog for one game where the posts were mainly about delivering pitches to sell the game to other people.
If a game designer promotes this, he or she deserves your contempt. If a community emphasizes this, that community deserves your derision. Yes, boosting what you like is natural, but there are limits. Instead, demonstrate your enthusiasm by creating things, being sincere at the risk of being controversial, and valuing participation over hands-off commentary. Let’s be raw, inspiring and truthful. Let’s play.
Malcolm, sell me on actual plays while I pat my own back for finally telling all those black gamers where to go.
j/k
I feel like the selling, not sincerity thing is the biggest problem in all of RPGs. Not that a commodity shouldn’t be sold, but the issue becomes more and more clear that you can slap ninjas and dinosaurs onto anything and create a moron-feedback loop to sell or at least hype your shitty game way more than it oughta be hyped. Basically, the weird collection of nerd obsessions that fuel RPGs on a popular level (transhumanism, anime, uhh, I haven’t been on RPG.net in a while so I’m not sure what other ridiculous nerd bullshit is hot these days) just create an echo chamber of derivative bullshit.
I can still remember hearing GC Grabowski talk about how Exalted is kind of about transhumanism, seeing all kinds of nerds go buck about it, and mostly be left scratching my head about a. transhumanism, b. why it was exciting. And then, the rest of the decade happened.
Do you have some reason to think his remarks were insincere? I mean, okay, there are really delicious rat poisons I’d rather sample than get at all interested in “transhumanism”, derp, but it seems to me that if a group loves ninjas and dinosaurs and junk and has a dollar in their collective pockets, then people will come to them who have ninjas and dinosaurs and junk to sell to get that dollar.
I won’t argue the hobby isn’t so blind that “icepicks stabbed through its cultural eyesockets” wouldn’t be an exaggerating metaphor, but that doesn’t mean we’re not glad when someone with one good eye comes around.
At least in 1e, Exalted was hip deep in some pretty interesting allegories. They were laid out in the dev notes for every book back then. I have a feeling that in 2e the signifiers crowd out what they signify. Certainly, the idea that a transhuman liftoff would benefit people who don’t deserve it is in there.
Thing is with actual plays… for a while, they were retellings of “what went on at the table”, which is useful for seeing how games work, or not, what was engaged with and what was dumped… but too often, they become either war stories or strictly in game “Then my guy did THIS!” which I guess has some sort of place, but doesn;t help anyone find out what’s not working or what’s great about actually playing a game.
So yeah, if it doesn’t tell anyone about play, it’s… well not useless, but not very useful.
I’m with you on the actual play stuff, but it’s depends on what sort of goal you set for it. For example, I update every once in a blue moon the community profile I have through D&D Insider. All I do is reformat my own game notes for the game that I’m running. This means that someone who’s really interested could find session-by-session details on what my group is doing. Of course, the purpose isn’t to brag, it’s to record. I can see the use of actual play forums, but the point should be “So this is the scenario… what went wrong? Am I wrong in thinking that it went wrong? What sort of things can I do to roll with my players’ punches a little more?” not “Look how awesome my 4th level berser-sha-mage is!!”
Anyway, constructive discussion is what needs to occur in the community. It’s why I love my groups since we do deconstruct rules and rulings a bit and we do try new things and if things aren’t working, we try something else.
I like these suggestions, but I question their connection to the problem you identified in earlier posts. How would these suggestions (for example) address 1) pursuing concrete goals when socializing is expected, or 2) not performing the desired/monetizing behavior when there are other things to do? (These are the two points I remembered off the top of my head from the first post.)
Also, from another perspective, can you differentiate between the Actual Play posts you despise so much (I have always merely scratched my head at them myself) and JRPG replays? Is it that the replays are illustrated, and portray the players as well as the fiction?
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