Saturday, March 31, 2007

Ten Things You Should Know About RPG Pundit

One of the great enigmas in the roleplaying hobby is the commentator known as RPG Pundit. I first encountered him years ago as Nisarg, a snarky new member at RPGnet. From which he was banned. He's been banned from many other gaming forums as well. Eventually he found a venue for expressing his ideas, his blog. It's at that little corner of the internet where I first started to really get to know the man behind the mayhem. Later, when he took over theRPGsite the Pundit asked me to be one of the admins, a gig I continue with to this day.

To the extent that I appear on anyone's radar at all, I kinda assume that I am sometimes counted among the Pundit's Proxy Army. It was Nicole Lindroos a.k.a Nikchick first added the word "proxy" to the Pundit's vocabulary. Given the events of the time I suspect she was talking in particular about me and Pundit's buddy Jong. So despite publicly disagreeing with the man several times the idea that some folks think I drank the Kool-Aid wouldn't suprise me.

Still, I've managed to have a vantage point closer to Pundit than a lot of other people who have a strong negative opinion about him. He may only be an internet friend that I've never met face-to-face, but I feel pretty certain that I know the man behind the myth a helluva a lot better than his detractors. I think if everyone knew Pundit the way I do they would feel differently. They might still disagree with him, as I sometimes do, but they wouldn't be so hard on him. To that end I've composed a list of things I know about Pundit that you probably don't.

  • When RPG Pundit put on the One Ring, the Nazgul just said, "Fuck it."
  • The last man who made eye contact with RPG Pundit was Ray Charles.
  • RPG Pundit always asks for the same Christmas gift: A box of Smurfs and a sledgehammer.
  • The popular videogame "Doom" is based loosely around the time Satan borrowed two bucks from RPG Pundit and forgot to pay him back.
  • Once a cobra bit RPG Pundit's leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.
  • RPG Pundit doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
  • RPG Pundit's body is composed of 95% recycled material, making him earth friendly and of benefit to society. To balance himself out, RPG Pundit sets fire to one national park per year.
  • RPG Pundit has the heart of a child. He keeps it in a small box.
  • When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for RPG Pundit.
  • RPG Pundit's calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd; no one fools RPG Pundit.

(This list cheerfully cribbed from here. Happy April Fools Day, all.)

4 comments:

  1. When Ron Edwards talks about "Brain Damage", he's really talking about RPG Pundit's stance on Star Wars D6.

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  2. Anonymous12:15 AM

    I'm touched.

    RPGPundit

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  3. you appeared on my radar because your blog kept showing up in my results when i searched on RPG stuff. after a few times of that i decided just to bookmark the damn thing. hadn't heard of theRPGsite or the (apparently infamous) RPGPundit, but i'll be checking 'em out.

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  4. Anonymous8:28 PM

    I'm officially a Pundit fan, though I'm not a very good one. I've visited his blog but ran screaming*; I used to visit RPGsite regularly but haven't in a long time, now ... (fond memories; it was an excellent forum and I left because I didn't fit in, not because of any fault of the site).

    But I'm still a fan of the Pundit.

    I disagree with nearly 100% of everything I've ever seen him write. This is impressive, as he's often naysaying Ron Edwards and I also disagree with nearly 100% of everything I've seen Ron Edwards write. I realize the math doesn't work. I think it must be the net-chatter equivalent of the Call of Cthulhu [non-Euclidean] geometry that makes your brain get fizzy and leak out your ear.

    I think it's possible that the universe spawned the Pundit specifically to battle Edwards. I kind of hope they consume one another in a colossal flood of green flame (GREEN FLAME!) but if one of them must emerge from the conflict alive, I want it to be the Pundit. And I mean that as a sincere appreciation for how memorable and interesting he is.

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    * I quickly realized that if I wanted to keep being a Pundit fan, I must never, ever, EVER read his blog again. Not sure why, but his RPGsite posts were a lot more endearing to me than the blog entries I read. Could just be the effect of Pundit-in-Social-Context as opposed to Pundit-Alone.

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