Comments on Interregnum #32:

Me

Argh... I shouldn't assume WYSIWYG, at least as far as my zine on my computer screen. Apologies to all for my zine's rather messed up layout.

Dana Derryberry's Roll Your Dice and Move Your Mice

It was so nice to read you again! Will you be staying?

I found your reaction to Joe Teller's BRAVO interesting. If I understand your zine correctly you seem to be addressing the issue of diceless/systemless vs. (semi)diced gaming, and I pretty much agree with your comments in-zine.

I got something a bit different from Joe's zine, however. The impression I received (quite probably erroneous ;-) was that he was more addressing a lamentably common net phenomenon, namely loud assertions of having the One True Way[TM], coupled with insulting dismissal of any that disagree, however polite or reasoned their arguments may be. Scott Ruggels mentioned similar behavior in his zine also.

As far as I've seen, this rudeness is a net phenomenon. It's not common to everyone there, thank goodness, but that sure doesn't help much when your carefully crafted, reasoned commentary is dismissed with snotty ad hominem remarks... or to put it another way, how my mother dressed me has nothing to do with the veracity of my arguments!

The anonymity of the net seems to engender a sort of mental disconnect for some folks. It's as if they don't realize that on the other end of the connection is a live, feeling human being. Or perhaps they do, and simply enjoy being disruptive, I don't know. All I know for sure is that I no longer enjoy bulletin boards -- the 'white-noise' drowns out the reasonable, thoughtful discussions -- and I'm no longer willing to game on mutual consent, gaming-by-assertion MU*s -- I find them antithetical to role-playing gaming.

Scott Ruggels' Commentary from an Internet Survivor

Good to see you again, Scott -- stick around a while! ;-)

For everyone else, RAEBNC. Later!

Last Updated: Sun Jan 30 2000