Thursday, July 30, 2009

Old Schoolers Talk About Traditional Games in Antagonistic and Unappealing Ways

What's wrong with you people? Don't you know you shouldn't proclaim your love for these old games?

At least, not strongly. Not as if you, you know, actually prefer them over other games.
Don't you know that discrimination is wrong?

You should make potential readers know that their feelings, their preferences matter. You should be ashamed for exposing them to your beliefs. Why do you have such strong beliefs about anything, anyway? Be more apologetic so the people that dislike and work against your preferences don't feel threatened.

This is what a proper pronouncement of Old School enjoyment should look like:

I'm so sorry, I'm a backwards-thinking selfish bastard with absolutely no consideration for the feelings of people who have actually progressed this hobby and moved us forward out of those awful early days, but every so often, I happen to endure a bit of early edition D&D.

While I realize that my choice might offend those of you who don't play the games, at times I suffer the great burden of playing intensely inferior older games. I know that newer games do everything these older games do, and more besides, and they do them much better, but I seekburning nostalgia to feel like I'm 12 years old again.

Please forgive my straying from the path and forgoing the latest, best ever offering, but I like to project my insecurity upon you all by pretending to feel all superior and meaningful to a small amount of people by pretending to enjoy stuff that is so outdated. I realize that if any of this old stuff was worth anything, they wouldn't have changed it for the modern version!

Please don't take anything I say to mean that I am at all serious. This is a silly little game where we pretend to be elves, so of course I would never make a value judgment between different ways to do so!

I'll try to be quiet as I engage in role-playing necrophilia before growing up and joining you for a session of your completely superior game that's taken advantage of every innovation in game design, and I look forward to updating to the next version with you next year! I hope they don't make us wait longer than that!

11 comments:

  1. I think your attitude is just awful. How dare you stomp all over my opinions and feelings like that!? If you weren't so busy floating ignorantly in the nostalgic morass of your childhood you'd know that gaming has moved on, advanced, gotten better. Take off your rose colored glasses and get with it, man! If you continue in this vein I shall be forced to impose a penalty of half your Diplomacy skill rating to your next Fortitude save.

    Take that.

    ;)

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  2. You know, they say sarcasm is the lowest form of humor. Of course, they probably don't like old school games either. :P

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  3. You can state a strong opinion for something without being a dick about it. The alternative doesn't necessarily have to be hedging your speech and grovelling, as you have caricatured above.

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  4. What in the squirrel's blue nuts...?

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  5. Oh NM... I see where the hoo-haa started.

    The funny thing is, the person who is doing most of the pissing and moaning has this in his profile: "It so happens that I'm not a huge fan of D&D per se, but that type of game is what we're talking about here."

    Uh huh... blue squirrel nuts. Remember that.

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  6. Excellent work, citizen! You've made great strides in your re-education program. Soon you'll be using NewGameSpeak like a native. I'm quite confident that you'll be allowed out of the hole in the near future. No backsliding now.

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  7. Totally funny Jim. You are my half-dragon level 30 anti-paladin/prestige-cleric hero. Let's port Carcosa for d20 and then drink Finnish schnappes!

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  8. I'm not sure this post was whiny enough.

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  9. Yeah, the day I say anything like that will be the day that the drill has been applied to the front of my head for a lobotomy.

    Very good post though, James, and I think that this is what some people think we should be doing, beetling and scraping.

    However, I think closer to the truth is the notion that we are going out standing on our own two feet with our boots on.

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