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Mark Casiglio's avatar

The only time I've heard that phrase used is in response to someone outside the play group

criticizing the way the group is enjoying themselves. Maybe the better response is "you don't get to tell us whether we're having fun or not".

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accaris's avatar

RPGs were a fun hobby but they were also, in the early days, a kind of elitist hobby. Like listening to classical music, early computer programming, or building radios. A "nerd" hobby. High-class people played wargames and painted miniatures, from debutantes to generals. Go back to the 50s and tell a wargame enthusiast there's no wrong way to play. Fast forward and say the same thing to an RPG enthusiast of the 70s. "There's no wrong way to play" is just another example of a slow, crawling, dumbing down of a once-elitist hobby, a hobby for smart people who enjoyed literature and history and liked tinkering with math. Once enough people start parroting this, even some people who have been (supposedly) playing the games for decades, you know that we've entered a new era of decline for a once-cherished hobby that enriched minds at the same time that it entertained.

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