[Torg] What a tech 23/24 diamond shop is like

[Kansas Jim]

Benjamin Grant wrote:

> Curious:  apart from the conversations I initiate, the bulk of the traffic
> on this list is more like this:  usually short bite sized comments or
> suggestions for addons, or game content, or stuff in the world that reminds
> one of Torg...  there's nothing wrong with that, of course, but come to
> think of it, it does appear that whenever the deeper discussions of the
> *philosophy* of the game design vis-à-vis Torg comes up, that one either
> gets no replies, or extremely defensive, even outright hostile ones.

Pshaw! If you think you've been getting a hostile reaction now, some of
the heat generated in the, er, passionate debates carried out in years
past would burn your face right off.

It's largely due to those old heated arguments that some of us old-
timers just don't care to get all that involved in deep discussions
anymore. Not only have we probably been there, done that and bought the
t-shirt, we simply don't have the time, drive and passion to do it
anymore. I'm willing to offer up answers, help explain things in the
rules and toss out the occasional "here's something neat that might be
of use in a game" post but big, long discussions about esoteric aspects
of Torg game design and theory, something I would have dived into head
first back in the 90s, they give me headaches and heartburn these days
so I just tend to stay out of them or at most lurk on the fringes.

Take a part of the most recent kerfluffle. Splitting P-Points into
metapower points and skill points? Masterbook did that about 15 years
ago. We probably discussed the possible merits and drawbacks of it back
then, and probably intermittently in the years after. But since I never
played using those rules I really can't offer any concrete information
today on how the change affects gameplay, and I simply don't have the
energy to speculate and argue one way or the other about it anymore.

(Though to my recollection, most people on the list didn't care for
the change SZ/MB made because they didn't see a problem in the first
place. Sound familiar?)

-- 
Kansas Jim, Torg guru (ksjim (at) sdc (dot) org)
Torg website: http://www.sdc.org/~ksjim/index.html