Compromise and Conceit

Infernal adventuring…

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An Australian statistician and role-player living in Japan, interested in the theory and practice of role-playing…

Tag: controversy

  • Fantasy role-playing, the ultimate expression of post-modernism

    I’m fairly confident that Noisms, Sir Grognard, and in fact any the people on my blogroll except (maybe) Wax Banks would be quick to describe themselves as “not really much of a post-modernist,” and probably even be quite quick to tell me exactly what they think of the idea. But if we go and check,…

  • The use of Tolkien to defend fascism

    Today I discovered an interesting interview with one Stephen Shapiro, University of Warwick, which was conducted in 2003 by the German Tolkien fanclub (at least I assume that’s what it is). At that time it would appear he had been working on a research theme similar to that which I’ve gathered here and here, about…

  • A note on opinions of story-based gaming

    I posted this initially as a comment over at Zak’s blog, but thought I’d put it here too. There is a common view, I think, amongst role-players of all stripes, that later and newer editions of role-playing games encourage more “story-based” gaming than older ones, or that people who prefer to play later edition games…

  • Grindin’ for Gygax

    I am a regular reader of and occasional commenter at the left-wing political/academic blog Crooked Timber, though I don’t usually link my blog to them (the American political blogsophere is a bit scary). Recently, however, I discovered this post on the new Dante’s Inferno computer game, where anonymous commenter noen makes this great claim: The…

  • On the mischaracterisation of role-players as escapist loonies

    Over at Terra Nova there is news of the release of a study conducted with the help of Sony, which is essentially a large survey of MMO users’ role-playing style, their attitude towards the game, mental health and degree of social exclusion. It’s an interesting attempt to characterise the qualities of MMO players by their…

  • Cyberpunk theory

    After the dispute over my opinions about the nihilistic elements of cyberpunk role-playing, I did a little more digging and found that this element of cyberpunk is not exactly considered unique. I also discovered that, rather unsurprisingly, cyberpunk is a rich field of theoretical endeavour. I discovered a cyberpunk course at the peer to peer…

  • Antagonism, Nerds and our Idols

    Writing about Torchwood made me think of a conversation I had with a colleague about the show. She is your classic role-playing nerd, computer geek and all round otaku. When I mentioned – somewhat breathlessly – to her that I had watched 5 episodes of amazing Torchwoody goodness, she immediately launched into a tirade on…

  • Life imitates role-playing

    I read an article in the guardian on Saturday morning about the fall of Ceacescu’s Romania in 1989. The article is  a bit rambly, and like most attempts at opinion by journalists it fails to reach a proper conclusion. But it has this excellent passage in the middle, which struck me as a classic moment…

  • Tolkien’s Racial Theories

    In response to the recent stoush over Tolkien, race and conservatism, I did a little more  research on Tolkien’s racial theories and their similarities to other eugenic and racial theories floating about in the interwar period. I don’t have my primary or secondary sources with me, because my Tolkien Bestiary is in a box in…

  • Conservatism and High Fantasy

    In the interview linked to below, China Mieville claims that high fantasy is conservative, and that due to its prominence the fantasy genre in general is judged as conservative by critics. This seems pretty uncontroversial to me, but over at Monsters and Manuals this claim was disputed as a shallow interpretation of Tolkien and of…