Post originally by Andy K at 2003-11-30 22:00:10
Converted from Phorums BB System

apOweyn, you rock.

As for me, I'm a Japan Nut. Not so much history, but definitely language and culture (lived in Japan for 4 years, speak Japanese fluently, wife is Japanese, etc etc ect).

When I see Japan pop up in games like TORG or Shadowrun or especially Legend of the 5 Rings, it's not too long before I stumble on "strange" "confused" or "wrong" things, whether it be names, places, the use of words, or cultural elements.

And while I react on some areas to L5R the way that "Dan" reacted to Armegeddon, I don't blast my message all over the place or say ridiculous, RIDICULOUS sh1t like "Only the people hopelessly clueless about the genre could willingly suspend disbelief over these kinds of errors."

The fvck?

We play games to have fun. Game writers have THEIR fun by writing games to give us opportunities to have fun. No where in "fun", for me or anyone I know, is "do years of Masters' level reseach on the subjects related to the game before playing or writing".

Sure, I can get up and criticise the writers of L5R for leaving out Shinto, for "getting magic wrong", and for countless "wrong uses" of words, but in the time it would take me to work myself into such a furor to write a flaming post, I can (and do) easily realize that the game, as a whole, while not ACCURATE, is FUN. It's COOL. It sets off that "This is INTERESTING!" spark. And whatsmore, others play and enjoy it. Why need I complain that L5R is "not ontologically accurate"? That's MY problem, not the writers or the people who enjoy the game.

Sounds like Dan needs to get on Usenet and start a couple hundred posts about how historically inaccurate D&D is, or how wrong the mythology in Forgotten Realms is...