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RPGs / Re: I am a horrible monster because I didn't let a player control another PC

« on: April 07, 2010, 11:39:00 PM »

I haven't insulted him - that's Cody and he speaks for himself.

Insulted? No, I suppose not. I didn't say you insulted him. I said you treated him badly. Using your podcast as a bully pulpit, to pile-on someone who has no chance to defend himself or his viewpoint, is treating someone badly. You could have had him on the show. You could have found someone who holds the same view. You didn't.

You have insulted me with your passive-aggressive comments about how I lack maturity and how I'm not a good gamer because I haven't encountered this dilemma before.

I fail to see what's passive-aggressive about it. I take issue with what you did, to the extent that I felt the need to say so. How is that passive-aggressive?

I don't know what kind of maturity you have as a person. I know that the podcast episode you put out was very low, and that what you did there was incredibly immature--something I probably would not have remarked upon, had Cody not made a point of emphasizing your "maturity."

You may be a very good gamer, but evidently not a very broad gamer, since you've never encountered a very common approach to gaming before.

And I'd like to hear about how players can use social skills to take control away of their PC from other players is very wide spread. What games specifically allow that in their written rules?

Taking control of other players is not widespread, but then, that's not what's at issue here, either. That's just a bit of overblown rhetoric you keep falling back on to avoid dealing with the actual issue. The actual issue is to what degree the player is separate from the character, and to what degree the traits of the character you created should influence discussions between players. I can respect differing opinions on that question, and had you decided to put out an episode exploring that question and you held to all the same opinions you have now, but provided an opportunity for Aron or anyone sharing Aron's opinion to defend that viewpoint, I would have enjoyed the show. But you didn't do that. You got your friends together and gave this guy a public dressing-down in a format hand-picked to deny him any opportunity to defend himself. You didn't even address his actual viewpoint; instead, you set up straw-men like "using social skills to take control away of their PC from other players". That is shameful.

I have no interest in trolling or being "passive-aggressive" or anything like that. Frankly, it's taken me only a few posts to see that the tenor of this forum is not one where I'm well-suited at all. But what you did with this podcast was shameful, and it needed to be said.

EDIT: I suppose I never quite answered your (somewhat loaded) question there, so I'll refer you again to the titles I mentioned before. Burning Wheel's Duel of Wits mechanic is very much in this vein, as is the Argument conflict in Mouse Guard, which is derived from that. Dogs in the Vineyard has argument mechanics that work just like its gun-slinging mechanics. I've seen Primetime Adventures' mechanics used for arguments to good effect on many occasions.

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RPGs / Re: I am a horrible monster because I didn't let a player control another PC

« on: April 07, 2010, 10:18:44 PM »

I'm not angry about it - it honestly blows my mind still that anyone would think that taking control away of a PC from a player and giving it to a different player is a good idea. I've gamed for years and I can't think of a single time it's come up in any of the games I've played or run until Fear the Con.

It's a very wide-spread approach, with no small number of fairly popular games built on the idea. As you can see from the length of these threads, there's no dearth of supporters for it. If you've never encountered it before, that doesn't speak very well for the breadth of your gaming experience.

except change video games to read role playing games

The game doesn't upset me, but this is a person, and you treated him very badly, and that upsets me.

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RPGs / Re: I am a horrible monster because I didn't let a player control another PC

« on: April 07, 2010, 10:04:53 PM »

I've listened to RPPR for a while, but I've never commented before. I never felt the need to before. But this time, I feel like I have to say something, even if it means signing up on a new forum to do so.

What I listened to today was just shameful. As I said, I've listened to RPPR for some time, I've enjoyed it, but this might be the most shameful thing I've ever heard on a podcast. An episode-long pile-on, on a guy who isn't even there to answer for himself? You could have made something good out of this. You could have Skype'd in Aaron and had a real discussion about it. Or you could have invited anyone who's played Burning Wheel or Dogs in the Vineyard or any other game that handles social conflict well. But you didn't. Instead, you used your podcast as a bully pulpit to shout down someone who criticized you (and rather mildly at that). I can see that you're angry about that criticism--after all, despite the relative mildness of Aaron's criticism, this thread is titled in the most overwrought terms--but being able to control your emotions when you're upset and still treat people with some common courtesy seems, to me, the very soul of maturity. "Adults," indeed.