Subject: Re: State of Game [ISSUES]
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 1998 16:08:10
From: Quentin Bohn <phazael@usa.net>
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com


Wow.  Ouch.
    Amazingly enough the only favorable response I received to my post came
from the person I expected to be most upset by it.  A lot of people missed the
point, and I guess this is my fault since I concieved the idea on a Friday, but
wrote it on the following Monday.  Obviously the intended message lost a lot
of focus.  The result is a mountain of flames in my mailbox (And I have read
all of them, all 73 of them), one offer to join a team (suprised me), and one
well thought out analysis to my comments.  I don't want to make any
observations on the responses (which range from simple differences of
opinion to "What are you smoking?") but I will clarify a couple of things that
didn't come across correctly in the original post:

1) I lived in Lake Geneva and volunteered as a playtester during the last year
TSR existed independant of WOTC.  My commets are based on information
I witnessed firsthand or was verbally given by several hobby store owners in
the area (I used to run War Hammer 40k tourneys occasionally).

2) The Elitism I refered to is not some rant because I am "unable to win,
even if I play Sligh" (One poster actually supplied a deck list) or out of
jealousy.  I could care less about the tourneys, except as a venue of
communicating new deck ideas and play styles. My job pays well enough to
be content at that level.  What I do care about is how the crowd who seems
to be identified with this game has gone from diverse to mosty young white
anglo-saxxon prep males (or us unclean middle age overweight underbathed
white males) and how the trends in proffesional play seem to be reinforcing
this.

3)  Yes, I do assume the worst of people, particularly when it comes to their
intelligence.  This has to do with my cynicism and my own asshole
tendencies.  But that said, it is easy to lump everyone into generalities and if I
seemed to do this, I am sorry.

4)  I didn't want to stroke my own ego or kiss anyones ass when I posted it. 
In my opinion, if you can't point out the positive things too, then you
shouldn't be issuing complaints as a pattern of negativity develops.  I don't
know if he read my post, but Jacob Chens post "I can't take it anymore!"
seemed to poke fun of everything I addressed, and I think it was the most
humorous post I have read in ages.

5)  No I don't think Princess Di's death is funny (can't believe the number of
flames over this one....) but it is so hyped that one can not help but poke fun
at the situation.

6) I approached my post, mostly, as a statement of opinion and it should be
viewed as such.  It is not me saying "This is the way things are, absolutely." 
I thought I made it clear, but I guess I didn't.  It has been years since I
ventured to a Convention outside the Midwest and my opinions all are based
on observations made in that region.  Please, people, take EVERYTHING
you read with a grain of salt.

Sorry to hog more server space, but if I knew how to word things better, I
guess I would have gotten my post correctly the first time.
                                                          ~q~