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Suleiman -> RE: Online Relationships (10/10/2004 10:50:17 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Mercnbeth
On-line is a game, evolving as the D&D players reached puberty.
HEY!!! Watch it, Bub!!!
I will point out that this is simply cliquishness in action. Every group has a certian degree of disdain for other subsets of their same community. It's just basic monkey behavior, seemingly inescapably hardwired into our primal methods of social interaction.
Among gamers, there are five major social subsets: Wargamers, Roleplayers, LARPers, CCG players, and Online or computer gamers. They all identify as RPGers. We occasionally get into mixups, and even the occasional dustup, over what actually constitutes an RPG.
Wargamers are our version of "Old Guard". Many of them are older folks, or were trained by older folks. Many have played a Role Playing version of their favorite fantasy game, but for the most part remain "purists" and "traditionalist".
Roleplayers are the second wave, and essentially set the gold standard by which all the other subsets are judged. Wargamers formed the first wave of "old school" roleplayers back in the '70s with D&D, Traveller, Gamma World, and a plethora of other game systems, which were basically just wargames with rules for interaction between characters. There are now three "waves" of roleplayers out there - Old School, of which I am a part, New School, with whom I interact frequently, and the current batch of younguns who're still trying to make a name for themselves.
LARPers are the direct descendants of the "New School" gaming revolution that happened in the late 80s and early 90s with the advent of entirely dramatic games such as Vampire. Because epic quests and physical combat were secondary to these games, it became possible for people to dress as their characters and interact with each other, crossing the border between "Roleplay" in the gaming sense and "Roleplay" in the kinky sense. A lot of roleplayers, especially those in the Old School, consider LARPers to be kind of creepy.
CCG players are an odd subset of people who play the various card games like "Magic" or "Yugi-O". Many of them are also roleplayers, typically of the New School or Modern variety. Old Schoolers consider CCGers to be fakes or "wannabes" who do nothing more than take up valuable table space at the game store or convention. Kind of like how gothy fetish fashion has a lot of posers showing up at clubs and events, apparantly masquerading as part of the community (and possibly even interested in or curious about the lifestyle) but are unwilling to actually go past dressing the part.
Online Gamers are a subset of Old School that took the wargaming aspects of RPGs a little too seriously. Since geeks are frequently multidisciplinarian, there was a solid core of Old Schoolers who were also interested in computers and were therefore there at the dawn of the internet, getting their game on with people from all over the world. I have been told by onliners that their games are just as good, or even superior to, an actual face-to-face game. I've tried it, but I still prefer the feel of dice in my hand, the sense of exultation as I get the number I need, the crackle of my character sheet, the looks on the faces of my peers as I manage to slay the dragon with an almost impossible crit.
I don't really understand online gaming any more than I understand online relationships. I am not, however, going to devolve into the same cliquish behavior that had me being shunned as a child for not being like the "normal" children.
And please - I respect your community. Try to respect mine.
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