My Life As A Gamer: When You Can Tell They Fear The Standard

Cirsova posted this elsewhere, and it was too good to not share.

Yeah, it's standard Motte and Bailey bullshit.

Be it Pundit's recent bad take, or those of the Death Cultists he opposses--and, for the record, sincerely and in good faith does so--this is exactly how their takes fall down when put against the Standard. The counters proffered are themselves Straw Man attacks, doubling the error, and revealing the underlying rot at the root.

The lack of rigor and discipline creates the environment for the cancerous growth of Death Cult sophistry and its socially-based centralization of control. It is a micro example of how the degradation of such character inevitably leads to this state of affairs every single time, and as it is in this hobby environment so it is everywhere else--fractal things are fractal--because the same inputs into the same process produces the same results every single time.

And if you think the Standard doesn't terrify them, look at the reaction it's already had: freakout reactions by terrified Cultists (Pop and Death).

By the tells you can know you're on the right path, and their balking at having a standard applied--and applied rigorously with consistent discipline--is telling indeed. I was not overstating it when I compared their psychology to that of rabbits or locusts, accustomed to no resistence and no scarcity, as they just move on when one verdent field is eaten to the root and they do not care about others preying on others so long as they can continue on their Dionysian existence.

Which is why the most predatory among them are the socially-adept manipulators, the clout-controllers, that Wormtongue their way into centralized control of things and gaslight whomever they can into going along with them.

If this is how the initial reaction to the Standard is, imagine how it will be when awareness gets to critical mass.

And it will.

Why?

You want a hot take? I have one for you: The Standard is the most Normie-friendly way to play tabletop RPGs that there ever was.

Rules as-written? That's exactly what Normies expect. That, right there, does the heavy lifting; the rest is the cognitive load distribution between Player and Referee, which is light on the Player especially as he learns how to play.

Status Quo is the enemy? Gives the Normie his dream of being a player in the world, something that otherwise is the realm of history or fiction.

Multiple characters per player? Lets the Normie play all parts of the game, as he's not locked into any one piece for the long haul.

Patron play? Again, plays to Normie dreams to be someone that matters, and lets him stay in the game when he can't be at the table by playing via email, text, Discord, etc.

You get the idea.

Now compare that to how the Cultists--Pop and Death--want Normies to play: make long-term standing commitments, have no frame of reference for taking actions, their actions have no impact and have no consequences, and--as Rawle Nyanzi has repeatedly said (as have I)--produces gameplay experiences identical to, but strictly inferior to, videogames across the board.

Why would any Normie that knows the difference choose to play Suck RPGs when proper play not only gives them the gameplay experience that they expect, but does so better than every alternative in every other medium as well as within the tabletop RPG niche?

Hammer this. The Standard is wholly superior, and as it reaches critical mass the preference cascade will prove it.