Is RPGnet just a haven for bitching? Or, as aptly put by a colleague, "I guess the new hotness at RPGNet is to come into a thread about a new game & bitch about it." Well, sorry to bitch about bitching, but it's hardly a new hotness. It's part of our shared cultural history!

Bitching on RPGnet is a time-honored tradition. Back in 1998 I wrote that the flame is seen as the pinnacle proof of skill. Disciples of specific game systems war with the infidels from the other side. Call it dice versus diceless, points versus classes, LARP versus tabletop, it's all the same conflict: "What I like is better for all." .

The Tangency Timeline has a scholarly deconstruction of the role of flames in Tangency.

Even recently (say, 2008), when Ken Hite shifted 'Out of the Box' to blog format, he noted I have already been paid that most contemporary of compliments, a ten-page (and counting!) flamewar on RPG.net carried out by people who haven't read the new column yet. For the free advertising, I thank everyone involved. For those who have risen to the defense of my columnial integrity, I thank you rather moreso.

Urban Dictionary defines To Cessna with on any RPGnet flamewar (then expanded to the whole of the internets) the longer a flamewar occurs, the closer the probability of Stalin being invoked equals one, if Communist Administrators are involved in the discussion.

So there you have it. Flaming is hot again, it's also old and tired, it annoys writers and writers love it.

Oh, and Shannon-- sorry I was late with this column. If you have a problem with that, feel free to bitch. It's practically your civic duty here!

Until next month,
Sandy
sandy at here, freelance