John L @ 230: I keep hearing people say that. I wonder if WotC has a Windows Vista situation on their hands. The parallels are strong.
Cat, that is totally awesome. It's so cool to hear about kids learning whole new kinds of creativity and fun.
Earl @ 191: Yes, what Carrie said.
David @ 184: And that's just the tip of the iceberg. :) There are many, many more games out there that are just as cool.
If anyone would like any pointers towards games to get them back into tabletop RPGs, let me know. I don't know nearly all the games out there, but I know quite a few.
Jenny @ 177: Have you seen the GNS (Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist) theory that's become popular in RPG analysis? It might help explain why D&D 3.5e doesn't appeal to your style of play, and why both styles of play are right. Neither of you is wrong; you just have different goals. (I personally prefer a game much more similar to what you're describing.)
Everyone who mourns the passing of D&D, or who dreams of picking up the dice again: Why not try to get together a game? If you can't find the time or people, that's understandable. But if it's because you don't want to buy and learn the rules all over again, spend a lot of time making characters, etc., there are lots of games out there that are cheap or free, very well designed and very rules-light, so things can go much faster. First one that comes to mind is Risus. The basic game has a humorous bent, but it's quite easy to make into a more serious game. Character generation can easily take less than a minute, if you want, and the mechanics are dead easy. And, of course, there are lots of other games out there with similarly low levels of required investment.
bill @ 83: If you'd like to talk about D&D and RPGs in general, I'd love to talk with you at Minicon. I'm the programming Rachel.
Carrie @ 56:
Good thing they're not using 3.5 rules--that's a 5000 gp diamond just for raise dead, and since gold pieces are 50 to a pound...well, a hundred pounds of gold isn't cheap.
Well, sure, but why would they use 3.5? Gary hasn't had much to do with D&D lately.
There appears to be an actual effort on RPG.net to buy Gary's family a $1000 diamond.
There is a very long memorial thread up at RPG.net.
A huge part of my life revolves around gaming. D&D was what got me into it, and for that, I owe Gary Gygax a great deal. I hope his passing was peaceful. You will be missed by millions, including me, Gary.
Abi, thanks.
Another possible semi-automated troll filter: Tagging for incorrect grammar and spelling. It seems like a lot of trolls aren't concerned with making themselves particularly understandable, just in getting a rise out of people, so they often seem to write poorly (in my experience). If there was a way to let other users tag a given post -- "Loose/lose problem", "Teh/the problem", "There/their problem", "Verb/noun agreement", etc. -- and there was a tool by which posters were educated about this (say, a link to a relevant explanatory article when their posts are tagged in such a way), then this could help identify many trolls. The people who get many posts tagged and continue to get them tagged are likely to be trolls. Of course, many trolls are very good writers, and many people with dyslexia or other language trouble have excellent ideas and no immediately useful way to change their writing abilities. But perhaps that's where the role of the moderator becomes needed again. It might be something to try, anyway.
Terry Karney @ 177:I find the same thing happens on my blog. I make posts, about things I'd love to discuss, and they sink like stones. I make a flippant comment about something which isn't that big a deal, and boom... I have dozens of replies.
I've had the same experience many times posting threads to my favored web forum or my LJ that have sunk like stones, while others have suddenly become popular all out of proportion to their importance in my life.
I've observed many reasons why this happens. One big problem is that there are a million ways to disagree, but only a few ways to agree. And many people look down on those who post only to voice their agreement. I personally don't, because I think allowing people to voice agreement is one way to give people attention that they need. Getting modded "+5 Insightful" or whatever on Slashdot serves much the same purpose.
Another, strongly related, problem is that it's uncool to be positive. In the wider culture, being enthusiastic and positive about something without pointing out its flaws is one of the surest ways to be labeled a "tool" or something equally negative. I present as evidence almost every thread on Metafilter. In geek culture, it's cool to get your geek on about some topic, it is true; but even there, I find geeks are careful to always say something negative about even their most treasured topics. This can be a desire to be truthful, based on the assumption that the truth can never be purely good or purely bad; but I'm not sure what the planck unit for this sort of thing is, and I'm not convinced that every single person has to have at least some snark in with their enthusiasm at every single moment.
Because of the uncoolness of being positive and the difficulty of finding new ways to agree, people posting on threads will often tend to be either negative or silent. When it's a forum that's intensely personal, such as a single person's blog, then the tendency to simply be silent will be even greater.
For those reasons, I try (when I get the occasional chance) to encourage "me, too" posts that are positive, at least up to a point. I also try to encourage asking questions, which are a way to respond without being either positive or negative, and other, more nuanced responses. (But nuance takes time, which is another of the problems with online conversation.)
Another reason people tend not to respond to deep & meaningful posts is, I think, because well-reasoned and well-written posts will often encapsulate everything there is to say about a given topic, leaving nothing to be said. If I wrote the perfect book on, say, Chinese history, such that it left no fact excluded, no theory unexamined and no issues unresolved, I would expect it to get horrible reviews, if any. No one would be able to think of a way to respond to it.
It is, of course, nearly impossible to write such a work, and even more so in the limited medium of a blog or forum post. But still, the tendency is there; well-written, thorough essays may make people think, but they may also make people unable to think of anything to say. Ways to deal with this that I've noticed include making sure to have a meaty, nuanced question (which is to say, one without a clear or easy answer) at the heart of your post.
Yet another problem with getting responses to posts is that, I think, people are uncomfortable talking about deep issues. "Am I doing the wrong thing with my life?" If I asked that on my LJ, I'd expect very few responses, mostly just awkward foot-shuffling. Or maybe it's just the people I know, or the kinds of posts I make.
The last major factor I've noticed is how (what's the saying?) nothing makes fame like fame. People will notice big group discussions and want to take part in them. Mass psychology, in other words.
All of these factors can contribute to the evolution of trolls, I think. When people don't get responses, they may reach out in desperation to get reaction. So when I write posts, I try to write in ways that allow for responses (rather than reactions), and when I'm trying, I also try to make responses rather than reactions.
Abi @ 169: That's debatable. You'll note that there aren't any rules posted here, for instance, but there are endless oodles of them on Wikipedia. But which one is more restful to read?
Well, I guess that falls under "clear" for me. They are explicit, yes, but they're anything but clear. (Whose version of a given principle will be applied in a given situation? Anyone's guess.) Self-consistency might be another rule of thumb worth mentioning, but then again it might be a subset of clarity.
As a very occasional poster here, I have to note that I feel that tinge of excitement when people respond to my posts. I recognize that as a granule that can either grow into a pearl of interest and compassion -- and several other positive virtues -- or just some annoying grit that gets stuck in other people's teeth. (Hmm, weird metaphor. I guess that's about as good as I can do on this little sleep.)
[/de-lurk]
Madeline @ 128: Seems to me that all internet fighting comes from the desire to be better than someone else.
My personal theory of internet trolling is that it's a lack of attention. People who can't get positive attention start seeking negative attention. If you can get someone screaming at you, so the logic would seem to go, then you're building a connection. So, according to my theory, trolling is probably a symptom of deep loneliness. Being shown better than someone else is a way of getting attention, too, though, so maybe both our theories are right.
Personally, I think a very important part of moderation and troll-reduction is making the rules explicit and clear. If people know in advance that (for example) group attacks will not be tolerated, they'll be less likely to engage in them. (Less likely, but not absolutely so.) And if the mods can say, after the fact, "You've broken rule XYZ", and others see them doing that, it further reduces the tendency to troll. Many people won't read the rules, of course, but if the general populace is familiar with the rules, possible trolls will soon be alerted to the fact that they're treading on thin ice by other members of the board.
As a corollary, though, an important part of making the rules clear is making it clear how much leeway the moderators allow themselves in interpreting the rules. If the rules are followed only to the letter of law, so trolls can craft posts so they manage not to get punished, the rules are useless.
Reminds me of the panel about conversation on the Internet at Minicon last year. I was bamboozled that it turned about to be about privacy issues instead of how to better approximate face-to-face expressions and emotion. This case, however, shows how big an issue privacy and the guarantee of identity really is in online communication.
Maybe someday the Worldcon will be in China. (With things like this happening, it may very well happen.) If it happens -- and especially if it's in Chengdu -- I will have to sell blood or something to make sure I can go. Or maybe sell myself as a tour guide. I'd die for a chance to go to Qingchengshan again.
[/derail]
The reports I've been seeing say that the bridge was a single-span steel bridge. If true, collapse in the middle would be enough to bring the whole thing down.
Well, I was mostly lurking, after all... :)
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