I’ve been having a lot of fun playing all manner of Roguelikes as I gather footage for my interview with Glenn Wichman. I knew there were lots of them, but I’m frankly stunned at the productivity of the roguelike community. Most of us have probably heard of the major roguelikes–ADOM, Angbad, Crawl, ToME, Larn, and, of course, NetHack, but that’s just scratching the surface. Roguebasin lists over 800 in 25 subcategories!
Lately, I’ve been having some thought-provoking discussions on Twitter about internet anonymity, mostly in the context of the infamous RPG Codex. I’m someone who teaches and studies rhetoric, which is essentially the art of effective discourse (pretty much any type of communication but straight out formal logic–and some would even count that). Naturally, I have an interest in how a factor like anonymity affects what we’d call the “rhetorical situation.” All else being equal, if Speaker A is wearing a mask, does that make him more or less convincing than Speaker B, who is clearly not afraid to show his face? More to the point, does wearing a mask make you more or less honest when giving your opinion?