Actually, this was just a drive-by aimed at a pompous post, not a personal attack. I skim digests nowadays at an alarming rate of maybe 3/minute, but your post and the attitude it portrayed just caught my eye. Maybe that should tell you something. To be honest, I thought to myself as I was writing my hurried response, "Why is Martin Laurie spouting this drivel?" Sorry M.L.
As for the response, it was meant to be humorous, but to also put forth my opinion, which is that people who take RPGs to the levels described (and not the 4 levels listed so much as your apparent interpretation of those levels) are (a) replacing their social life and any meaningful intellectual pursuits with a mere game world (however good it might be), and (b) sucking all the "game" out of it for pretty much everyone they're in contact with.
I am a staunch believer of the MGF principal; your implied positions are totally contrary to same, as they promote a smug, "I am the pinacle of roleplaying prowess, and I can teach you how to be like me" attitude that sends most other players fleeing for the hills. Players do not play to perfect their roleplaying skills as defined by an obsessive GM, they play to have fun. This type of attitude is a big factor in the marginalization of RPGs as a hobby, i.e. you're exactly the type of player that parents don't want their children to associate with, and that mature adults goggle at while trying not to snicker.
Continue your crusade, though, by all means; it's more amusing than anything I've seen here in months...
> Brian also opines:
> >Changing any city/town/location names now would be foolish in the extreme.
> >Hero Wars only stands a snowball's chance as it is...invalidating and
> >confusing all the new material by making it out of whack with everything
> >already published would be corporate suicide.
>
> It's a tough business, no doubt. I wonder if Glorantha has much to do with
> them making money, tho' I'm sure they make some. I'll leave the business
> plans to others, however. My interest is in improving Glorantha, and in
> showing the benefits of those improvements to as many people as possible.
> I do that mainly by adding to the existing supply of information, but I
> don't feel that existing material is off-limits for discussion. If what I
> write is not to your tastes, ignore it.
I have, and will continue to do so, no doubt, as I am unaware of your credits on any publications or material I've used. Then again, I've never paid much attention to the names behind the material anyway, I just use them in my gaming without caring who wrote them much, so perhaps I'm doing you a disservice here.
> Well, Glorantha is bigger than just gaming, unless you include research and
> background writing as gaming of a sort. I don't think they're different
> types of beverages altogether, since they frequently overlap and a game can
> take place on more than one level at a time and through time.
Just the fact that you actually took time to think through and try to illustrate such a point makes my case for me. Glorantha is *not* bigger than just gaming; never has been, never will be. Reality check: what percentage of your waking hours do you spend thinking about Glorantha and/or your gaming activities? How much time do you spend thinking not even about the game material itself or the logistics of your gaming sessions, but just about ancillary crap that has no direct effect on your gaming?
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