Dismissive posts and inclusion

^ No, really, Thank You. Entirely what I was trying to say but was still at ground level.

Hope people keep this in mind when discussing Kickstarter and CMON.

I think the most important point has already been made by several other posters: it can be hard to give a spirited opinion on something without potentially coming across as "dismissive". But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try, as doing so is often exactly where the threads of interesting, constructive discussion can be teased out of a rant.

In fact, I'd argue that's exactly what happened on the Viscounts review thread. While there were a couple of "dismissive" posts, it's become quite a lively and useful debate. Especially now this discussion has been very smartly modded out onto its own thread.

Yeah, I tend to just stay out of threads with titles that sound too Euro-y. That Rose game with the monks might be the only Feld I like.

charlest wrote: Hope people keep this in mind when discussing Kickstarter and CMON.

Whoa, whoa, whoa... can't we just work on not trashing Euros for a few weeks before we attempt to clear the "no more trashing KS" bar?
I'm not that strong yet, Charlie! I need time!

Michael Barnes wrote: Steve does not like heavy Euros, worker placement, or any of that. It’s part of his F:AT/TWBG character. I get it, I respect it. But I do also totally see where Josh is coming from- just slagging the game out of hand doesn’t really do anything other than reinforce Steve’s highly generalized, unspecific dislike for what he perceives as inferior gaming concepts.

My name is actually Mike, but you have been calling me Steve here for so long that I know when you are addressing me. It's true that I have often expressed my dislike of Euros and worker placement, but my original contribution to the Viscounts thread was to express enthusiasm for putting an AI player on the flip side of the player mat. The review did a good job of explaining the game, so I can tell that it's not my kind of game, but that AI thing is a great idea. As for eurogames in general, I am not 100% against them. Few human beings have played more Acquire than I have, and it was euro long before the hobby had a name for eurogames. My intention is certainly not any sort of gatekeeping, and this site has always been welcoming to new posters in the forums.

Just because of my role these days here, I do think a bit about what Josh is saying. Specifically, popping in to say you don't like something without any rulesbreaking can function as a form of conversation ending thread crapping if it is done *at scale.* At the scale of big internet sites, it can literally just be a bunch of fanboys jumping in to defend or attack something *done in a non-rulesbreaking or personal manner* that can function as a sort of intimidating and silencing volume of disagreement. That's why I do not envy the sort of job Octavian does over at BGG. BGG runs at such a large scale that a lot of totally normal and pretty much innocuous behaviors become a pretty intolerable and annoying form of discursive attack that is pretty offputting and unfriendly.

That said, I don't believe we have that kind of scale so this sort of thing doesn't bother me too much here, though obviously it bothers Josh so ymmv. So I personally tend to agree with ubarose's post above me that I don't think it's a big deal for people to come in and talk about stuff they didn't like if someone said they liked it in the original post or whatever. Because at the scale we run at, I don't see it as a form of exhausting disruption, especially if accompanied by actual reasoning.

I also disagree with Josh's continuing thesis that this site is still intolerant to euro discussion, but that's another topic for another day. There's still a little F:AT fuck you identity left at this site, but I personally think very little of it remains. But again, ymmv. Young people basically talk about games on reddit and discord anyway, so having forums are just an old person's tool anyway. I don't love reddit for games discussion, though, and I think Discord has some problems too in terms of maintaining discussion.

LMAO pipe down Steve what with your anti-Euro bias.

I seriously love having you here dude, I really appreciate that you will come back to us and two specifically about your experiences playing games- 1KYV, MC for example. That means a lot to me that you are finding and enjoying games here and these reports add a lot of value to the site.

But dang man, you are set in your ways! That is totally fine of course. I do worry sometimes about negativity here but I’m sometimes just as guilty as anyone else in fomenting it.

Is this where we rename the site to There Will Be Euros?


/s
For old times sake.

Am I still allowed to hate on CMON because it’s a crooked company?

ChristopherMD wrote: Is this where we rename the site to There Will Be Euros?


/s
For old times sake.

Stronghold: Mechanical Euro
The Keep on the Eurolands
Bastion of Sheep Farming
Citadel Cube Placement

The article "THUNDERDOME: Worker placement vs rondel vs tile laying: THREE SHALL ENTER, ONE SHALL LEAVE (but the others shan't be eliminated, just place a comfortably close second and third)!!!!!" is sure to be a nailbiter

The talk here is of not being dismissive to people who like something different to you (something we should be doing in all aspects of our life) but then we have prominent people:
- making quite dismissive statements about large kickstarters with inferences about people who back them
- making dismissive statements about people who use the terms 'ameritrash' and 'euro' to describe game types even though other prominent people use those terms and if you look across the boardgame internet content you will find people of all gaming persuasions using those terms to describe general preferences in gaming.
- prominent people talking about the low-cost zine games or indie produced being much more important or relevant than large and expensive games.

I have no problem with people saying 'this euro is a dry piece of shit with no life and just numerous mechanics thrown together to create VPs' (I would likely say that quite often if I played euros regularly) or saying 'this thematic game is just an overblown plastic toyset with luck being the only mechanic and absolutely no strategy' as long as they finish up with something like 'but it must be a relatively good game because so many other people like/love it'.

I've been with this site from the beginning and my recollection (although my memory has been clocking up the miles) is that we have always been pretty heart-on-our-sleeve when it comes to having an opinion on a game but not on the people who play them, and it was the site that we vacated for a time that was more into the personal attacks (the good old passive-aggressive offensive that got quite a few of us banned as we responded with far less subtlety).
We have never attacked people, just what we subjectively didn't like - I still bristle at people here referring to my fave Power Grid as a spreadsheet ... not looking at anyone in particular Shellhead.


Edit: I've just realised that my TV viewing of the past two hours has been a bit coincidental - first hour was a program on Meatloaf and his life and the next hour is on Eric Burdon and the Animals - have enjoyed both them.

Good OP

I mostly play euros these days. My tastes in games have shifted a lot more than i expected over the past 10 years. I do make anti euro jokes here sometimes, but with my tongue firmly wedged in my cheek.

I do think the staff have done a good job of getting posts on a much wider genre games to the front page, and there has been more variety in the articles since this became TWBG. Which is good because the G is open to all games in my interpretation.