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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 3, 2020 2:18:21 GMT -5
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Post by Admin Pete on Jan 6, 2020 18:53:37 GMT -5
I am enjoying these columns of Robs, his writing is much more accessible. I hope that his future books are written more in this style.
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Post by hengest on May 8, 2021 17:53:20 GMT -5
This is an excellent post by RJK. Not only is it an interesting anecdote...it reminds me of the days when people actually lived somewhere. You knew the local people, your brother ran games at a local high school...something would be happening near where you lived and maybe you were part of it.
I remember when I was an adult, at least 25. I was just blocks from where I had grown up but no longer lived. I saw two kids on bikes, not older than ten. I have no idea what they were involved with, some kind of conflict they were taking very seriously. One screamed at the other "Go to ***** [name of local school]!" I could tell that the meaning of this was "We're involved in some conflict with other kids in different places around this small town, it's going on right now, I'm repositioning you within this conflict, go to place X and be stationed there."
Now this is not directly related to the RJK post. I mention it because:
-this was a local phenomenon. I am sure things like this happen everywhere but I mean it was localized at least by language, I think most people not from that general area would not even have understood the speech, it sounded very local.
-kids were doing something in a group that they made themselves (if they were actually doing or threatened by violence, I am not supporting that, I am just saying that they were doing an activity of their own).
-they were school-age kids who were clearly, for the present activity, using the school purely as a nearby "place": go there and be stationed there. It just underscored how distant this was from any planned, formal, or "adult-approved" activity.
Now part of it is my age, I am not a ten-year-old anymore. But I never see this where I live now. I had even forgotten it existed although I used to participate to some degree. I do not believe that RPGs are the ONLY legitimate social imaginative activity but I do believe they are a big one and that they exercise faculties that are exercised ever more rarely these days.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 22, 2021 12:16:48 GMT -5
Sadly enough RJK, after the initial burst, has not done any more of these essays. He does remain active on ENWorld though.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 22, 2021 12:20:17 GMT -5
Now part of it is my age, I am not a ten-year-old anymore. But I never see this where I live now. I had even forgotten it existed although I used to participate to some degree. I do not believe that RPGs are the ONLY legitimate social imaginative activity but I do believe they are a big one and that they exercise faculties that are exercised ever more rarely these days. This is an interesting observation and I think it is spot on. I think that even in RPGs the faculties are seldom used these days. The universal standard is the railroad game with player choice being largely meaningless, so imagination is needed less and less all the time in a game that used to be all about imagination.
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