WWGS...what does it mean...

[Blake Hutchins]

My aunt is a Nazarene, and it's like this: smart woman, Ph. D. in Education, of all things, and yet she'll point out a store that sells crystals and little resin gargoyles as an "occult" front for Satan.  As a left-wing, activist, green bleeding heart, progressive, teetering-socialist, commie pinko, secular humanist, ex-Californian, alcohol-drinking swine, I don't have much common ground to facilitate a meaningful debate with my aunt, though she's a great lady and we get along famously despite my heathenism.

In my experience, people believe what they want to believe when it comes to validating core internal value systems, usually translating to the easy road with the least departure from any uncomfortable weighing of values and facts using reasoned principles that don't derive automatically from authoritarian values.  Though I'm phrasing it awkwardly, it means it's a fight you can't win through confrontation.  For anyone to question their core values, they have to go through some kind of catalytic life experience.  I could no more convince my aunt a roleplaying game isn't at least a little demonic than I could convince her to smoke thin black cigarettes and reject the triune God.

The best argument, if I may be so bold, is to live one's own life well and demonstrate that despite roleplaying, wearing black, and listening to the wrong sorts of music, you're raising good kids, holding down a job, and not squandering your earnings in crack pipes and heroin bricks (though that might indeed be a better use of your funds than the stock market these days).

Ron, I'd very much like to hear about your efforts and thoughts about teaching evolution, if you care to share them.

Best,

Blake

[John Wick]

I always go out of my way to tell people like John Wick and the Fading Suns folks, that I appreciate them treating religion intelligently and maturely.
-d

I do?
Oh wait. Yeah, I do.
Thanks!

Take care,
John
---
Forget the hearse 'cause I'll never die.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

The best argument, if I may be so bold, is to live one's own life well and demonstrate that despite roleplaying, wearing black, and listening to the wrong sorts of music, you're raising good kids, holding down a job, and not squandering your earnings in crack pipes and heroin bricks (though that might indeed be a better use of your funds than the stock market these days).

Blake,

I think you've hit the nail on the head - at least it's my personal method. Instead of putting away the RPG material when my parents come to visit, I leave a few books out these days, especially the indie stuff my friends have done or I did (except Sorcerer, for obvious reasons.) I think seeing those things in the context of me living a healthy, happy life may start to bring them around.

[Jake Norwood]

The best argument, if I may be so bold, is to live one's own life well and demonstrate that despite roleplaying, wearing black, and listening to the wrong sorts of music, you're raising good kids, holding down a job, and not squandering your earnings in crack pipes and heroin bricks (though that might indeed be a better use of your funds than the stock market these days).

Blake,

I think you've hit the nail on the head - at least it's my personal method. Instead of putting away the RPG material when my parents come to visit, I leave a few books out these days, especially the indie stuff my friends have done or I did (except Sorcerer, for obvious reasons.) I think seeing those things in the context of me living a healthy, happy life may start to bring them around.

I'll chime in on this end, too. That's exactly the way to do it. Live right, be who you are, treat it with respect, and admit that roleplaying is only as wierd as you are.

Jake,
who's pretty wierd, but that's been true since long before his first RPG

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I really like all the posts on the thread so far. However, it seems to me as if we've settled the matter of "religion, RPGs, and myself" as far as it will go. If anyone else has more to say about that, please do, but I was thinking of returning to the issue of the WWGS pamphlet.

And ... the possibilities of the medium.

Fact #1: comics communicate like nobody's business. As Scott McCloud points out so well, the fundamental medium is utilized constantly in advertising and teaching, just not recognized as such. Fact #2: little pamphlets are a neat physical object - they get picked up, looked at, carried around, etc. Fact #3: the RPGs that the Forge is built to support, no matter what their game-preference orientation, are clear about their goals - ie, they present something that can be communicated about.

Anyone seeing where I'm going with this? Is the WWGS possibly an inspiration for something pretty cool and useful? I stress the idea of not playing a hoax but rather a straightforward comics/pamphlet ad.

Or is the fact that White Wolf did it once, and the way they did it, pretty much going to dictate that this medium/format will work once, and once only?

Best,
Ron

edited to put in a crucial "not," so as to make sense

[hardcoremoose]

While thinking on this, it occurs to me that WW has had their foot in this door for some time.  A great many of their games have used the comic format to illustrate setting, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what this ends up being.  Of course, they weren't the first to do this...

My idea for the format is to push it one step further than even advertising...to make the game itself the comic, and vice versa.  In fact, that's exactly what I've been working on of late, and it's taken interesting shape since GenCon - a game steeped in the traditions of the comic medium (my original inspiration was the EC comics of the fifties, but it's gone wll beyond that now).  This is neither the place nor the time to discuss the particulars of the design, but should I get it off the ground, the obvious format would be as an actual comic book of some sort.

And I already have my artist in mind...

Take care,
Scott

[Keith Sears]

AFAIK, it's the Demon: the Fallen promo site.

Exactly my point from the beginnig. Sick, but brilliant.

Jake

I know this is just adding to something everyone knows, but I did a whois on "father-ramos.com" and the net coughed up this information:

Registrant:
White Wolf, Inc. (GUEIAZAFBD)
  1554 Litton Dr.
  Stone Mountain, GA 30083
  US

  Domain Name: FATHER-RAMOS.COM

  Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
     White Wolf, Inc.  (19917613O)chriskid@AOL.COM
     White Wolf, Inc.
     1554 Litton Dr.
     Stone Mountain, GA 30083
     US
     404 282-1819 x218 fax: 999-999-9999

  Record expires on 17-Jul-2005.
  Record created on 17-Jul-2002.
  Database last updated on 16-Aug-2002 02:44:28 EDT.

  Domain servers in listed order:

  Z1.NS.NYC1.GLOBIX.NET        209.10.66.55
  Z1.NS.SJC1.GLOBIX.NET        209.10.34.55

[Mytholder]

I was thinking of returning to the issue of the WWGS pamphlet.

And ... the possibilities of the medium.

Fact #1: comics communicate like nobody's business. As Scott McCloud points out so well, the fundamental medium is utilized constantly in advertising and teaching, just not recognized as such. Fact #2: little pamphlets are a neat physical object - they get picked up, looked at, carried around, etc. Fact #3: the RPGs that the Forge is built to support, no matter what their game-preference orientation, are clear about their goals - ie, they present something that can be communicated about.

Anyone seeing where I'm going with this? Is the WWGS possibly an inspiration for something pretty cool and useful? I stress the idea of not playing a hoax but rather a straightforward comics/pamphlet ad.

Or is the fact that White Wolf did it once, and the way they did it, pretty much going to dictate that this medium/format will work once, and once only?

I wrote up a little pamplet handout for my Nobilis playtest game, an in-character document entitled "so you've been enNobled". It was intended to be just a quick reference to my players. It took off from there, though - I know of half a dozen rpg groups who used it, it's been translated into two languages, handed out at various cons, and is up on the Hogshead site for download. :-)

It's a very - pardon the pun - handy format. Printed sheets (A4 or whatever the American equivalent is) get folded and crumpled anyway when you hand them out at a con/demo/store. Pamplets start out folded, and survive the abuse better. I suspect they hold more information too, because the margins can be much smaller.

Seeing as I wasn't there (he said bitterly), how did handing out short or "lite" games at the Forge stand go? Would pamplets have been a good format for this?

[contracycle]

Looking at this page, I suspect "viral advertising" myself.  I fear it could be too "succesful" for its own good - fans of Chick may well take all this literally and employ it as such.  Someone I know was once accused of being a Satanist by a police officer for reading a Pratchett book; these sorts will likely take this page at face value.

As for pamphlets, I like the format but they are no good for permanent storage.  No visible spine, no firm edges.  OTOH, I like the novel sized format myself and a product trailed in pamphlet form could easily be scaled to paperback size with minimal reformatting.

[Paganini]

It really comes down to whether a person of a religious bent does or does not respect Jack Chick et al. "Well, at least he's acting on his faith, and that's a good thing," some might say. I consider that to be rather a leap, myself, as Chick and friends seem to me to be acting out of stupidity (faith is not stupid).

Thanks, Ron, I'm with you 100% on this one. I'm a serious christian, faith and all. Chick is a clueless rabble rouser. He gives us all a bad name. The really sad thing is that a lot of us are taken in by him and his ilk. Lack of experience and a loud mouth are not a good combination.

(Us meaning christians, that is, not Forge-ites. :)

[mahoux]

apparently the Presbyterians are a very persuasive lot.  The site has been revamped.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi,

Just a quick comment on the "insensitivity" of WW to religions...

Mark R*H's dad is a minister, and he vampire.  Mark really thought he was creating a game about the choices one makes a mortal man (hunger and needs) and so on...

So, sometimes abuse is in the eye of the beholder.  (Or, perhaps, the creator didn't do his job as well as he wanted.)  Either way, it's sometimes difficult to judge intentions -- and Mark meant well.

Christopher

[Walt Freitag]

Mark R*H's dad is a minister, and he vampire.

Mark R*H's dad is a minister and a vampire? Or from context can I surmise that a word related to "dislikes" has been accidentally omitted?

- Walt

[Mike Holmes]

I'm guessing that the "he" refers to Mark, and the ommitted word is "wrote".

Mike

[Christopher Kubasik]

Damn, did I type that too fast.

Corrections: Mark wrote Vampire.  His dad loved it.  Hence the note about intention.  Mark really wanted to address the "dark" side of being alive as a human.... The fact that we often will *have* to hurt to survive -- but how far?  His father really respected the fact Mark addressed this theme.

My point was that while some authors might have an anti-religious bent in RPG world -- I don't think WW had one -- at least at the start.  (I havne't checked out their latest projects.)

Another example: Yes, in a source book the Mormons are ruled by Vampires. But, and I think Ron will back me up here, in the World of Darkness *every* organization is ruled by some creepy magical creature by the time you worm your way through all the books.  So that comment might not be an author's animosity toward Mormons -- it's just the goofiness of the WoD -- everyone but the PCs are dupes and there's nothing you can do about it, no matter *what* you believe.

As for the Pamphlet idea, Ron, could you clarify your notion?  Are you talking about a comic in the style of Chick's talking about how "cool" RPGs are?  Or The Forge?  Or what?

Take care,
Christopher