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Which he then went on to say that D&D doesn't use Timmy cards.
"because whenever somebody links to it or quotes from it, I can almost guarantee you that they’re about to completely misrepresent the essay’s entire point." Happened again.
Here's something to consider, it doesn't matter what his "point" is with the essay. He gives information, whether intentional or not, that very easily allows us to draw conclusions that comprehension and mastery are things that are left to the reader.
Ivory Tower Game Design requires a two-step process on the part of the reader. You read the rule, and then you think about how it fits in with the rest of the game. There's a moment of understanding, and then a moment of comprehension.
When you reward comprehension, inherently you are withholding reward from those who don't reach comprehension.
Whether intentional or not, you are designing the game to favor those who comprehend it more fully and more quickly than others. You can argue until you're blue in the face whether they INTENDED to make the game harder for those who didn't comprehend the inherent advantages in the game, but the fact is that the did put those advantages into the game and purposely did not share those paths to rewards to the reader.
I don't think they intentionally put traps into the game, but rather they failed to predict that certain things would become traps for people who didn't comprehend their authorial intent.
It was an unintended consequence, but a consequence none the less.
I've had a lot of bad experiences with optimizers. Role playing usually wasn't part of the equation, but it often touched on it, especially with respect to what their characters were built around and dealing with failure-or at least lack of success - in those areas. There was also a lot of oneupsmanship and monster memorization(the dm is either incompetent or reskinning creatures to confound my vastly superior intellect, let's exasperatedly get on the train) along with blurring of the lines with respect to what a character should know and what their players know. Biggest problem with optimizers was when it came to eyes staying on their own sheet and vocal opinions on whether or not their character wanted to work with someone who wasn't optimized for their "job" as it were. That last is where the biggest problems with Internet-level autism and lack of social skills for the player more so than the character came in.
There are two primary places where you can get the "thrill of accomplishment" fun with an RPG.
1) Window shopping for combinatorial super powers.
2) Improvising a crazy out of the box solution to a problem in game.Option 1 doesn't require social skills. It just requires a near-autistic ability to focus on something obsessively. Because it doesn't require social skills, many of the people who do it are utterly lacking in them...and see nothing wrong with showing up at a game with a character/pet/eidolon that so completely outshines the rest of the party that they make the combats a yawnfest.
Option 2 requires that players pay attention during a game. It requires social skills. It also requires that other players don't sabotage you because, dammit, you've talked to this stupid sack of walking XPs for fifteen whole minutes, and they want to Be Awesome again, and that requires a brief one-round fight.
So, while it's not impossible to optimize and roleplay - and I know and play with people who do both - there is a significant fraction of people who optimize and think that roleplaying is that boring talky-talky crap that happens before "I roll initiative."
What Freehold DM posted up there is pretty common in my experience. "Winning Pathfinder" becomes a competition, and characters that render scenarios moot are common.
I just have to add that autism is not related to character optimization. I'm autistic, and my elf witch has 10 STR, and more CHA than WIS.
Whenever this gets brought up, I remember that the only thing that really bugs me about these conversations (and I've stated this on these boards before) is that a simple logical fallacy that already has a name is being called "The Stormwind Fallacy."
As I've said before, I remember Stormwind from the old WoTC boards, and I recall being friendly with him. I certainly am not ragging on him. But I don't think he was so wise and godly that we need to rename a common logical fallacy for him.
I mean, we could go to Wikipedia, look up the list of logical fallacies they have there, and try to rename each and every one after somebody on these boards, but my feeling is that this will not fly for the countless instructors, teachers and professors across the globe currently teaching Critical Thinking 101 courses. They are likely to wonder who or what a "Stormwind" is for about two seconds, before wrinkling up their noses, grunting, cutting a fart or two, and calmly reminding you to stick to the lesson plan.
The name is appropriate and useful. Instead of citing the specific logical term and outlining how it applies, the "Stormwind Fallacy" suffices as shorthand that references the logical term and how it applies to roleplaying. It's an esoteric term that applies only to roleplaying games and you're right, would be poorly understood (without explanation) outside of a roleplaying community.
Giving it a name reduces how much time we spend arguing about what exactly it means and more time we can spend arguing about the implications for our hobby.
If its a gamer you tell them stormwind fallacy.
If its a philosophy major you tell them false dilema.
Both of your responses assume that every gamer out there knows who Stormwind was/is and knows exactly which fallacy his name has been attached-to.
I would say probably only a miniscule portion of gamers in probably three - at most four - English speaking nations even know what the "Stormwind Fallacy" is, and even fewer know anything about the poster for which it was named.
So in the end, I think any thread invoking same still requires just as much explanation as if the formal term was used. Either somebody in the thread ends up explaining to the uninitiated to what the false dilemma (or false dichotomy) applies, or somebody in the thread ends up explaining to the uninitiated exactly what the definition of "Stormwind Fallacy" is.
May as well use the formal terminology. The name at least hints at what the conversation will entail; "false dilemma/dichotomy" as terms are pretty self-explanatory, whereas the other is code. And code will always need to be explained. To somebody, anyway.
What you're talking about runs completely contrary to what I was talking about though. You're talking about trying to b#$@&%+$ around penalties, wherein I'm talking about roleplaying your character while suffering said penalties.
It's becoming even clearer to me where our playstyle differences are on that particular point - and that's a good thing, as understanding things like that can only help.
My games tend to lean towards the narrative. Building those penalties into the description of your action tends to be a lot more important in that style of game.
I'll use third person examples here, but it could just as easily be in-character:
<GM>King Ericus looks on expectantly, awaiting your trade proposal.
<Player>Thorgrim wrings his hands uncomfortably, and lays out his plan for Ericus to send troops to protect his people while they mine the gold, which they'll then trade with the neighboring kingdom of Klarn for the grain they need to start their farms. This time next year, we'll be able to send him wheat. He stutters his way through a couple of the sentences, not being used to talking to somebody so important.
Thorgrim has a rather low Diplomacy, between the actual skill and his CHA bonus (note that I treat the combined result as being the important bit, rather than one or the other alone, though). His player chose to illustrate that appropriately while narrating his character's actions, through whatever they felt was the best fit for their character's personality and background. He could just as equally have made comments about scratching things out of his beard, or taking a sideways glance at a couple of footmen holding their noses.
While it's certainly not essential, it *is* a nice touch when you're doing a more narrative game like that :) When I talk about "roleplaying your stats", that tends to be the kind of thing I mean (others may be somewhat stricter than I and want specific abilities RPed, but personally I feel the above is "about right" for my own games)
The more I look at it, the more I think we tend towards the same kind of thing, just in different ways that don't really affect the overall gameplay too much.
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Its like saying drug dealers are often violent criminals and then someone says to defend drug dealers: Drug dealer fallacy! You can deal drugs and not be violent! Well obviously that statement is deductively true. It still says nothing about the reality we live in.
Funny, the reality I lived in as a drug dealer revealed that your reality was a construct used by the press and the government to justify some seriously draconian BS. The reality I lived in was that violence was pretty rare, actually. And I was thick in the middle of it on a pretty large level. That is, domestically. The problems in Mexico are a completely different situation with much deeper roots than mere drug trafficking.
So, if you're going to try to deflate a fallacy, I'd recommend you don't commit the "I have no idea what I'm talking about" fallacy.
No offense, but I'm not going to take a drug dealer's word for it.
MattR1986, look at how much money there is in private prisons, and draw conclusions with those data in mind.
I'm not sure what you're getting at. That they're making up crimes to use tax payer dollars to fund private prisons for some company's profit?
Not making up crimes, just maintaining a "war on drugs" that exists to fill those prisons (run by major lobbyers, of course) and to make politicians look "tough on crime." If the federal government and every state legalized drugs tomorrow, civilization would not end, economically-depressed people in both U.S. and MX would continue shooting one another, and overall you wouldn't notice the difference except that a lot more people would be out working, rather than sitting in prison.
The U.S. has by far the highest incarceration rate in the world, and one of the highest anywhere in history for a major world power. Something isn't healthy there.
and overall you wouldn't notice the difference except that a lot more people would be out working, rather than sitting in prison.
Or at the very least, too stoned out of their brains to be able to shoot straight and hit anything ;)
and overall you wouldn't notice the difference except that a lot more people would be out working, rather than sitting in prison.Or at the very least, too stoned out of their brains to be able to shoot straight and hit anything ;)
It might be easier to break that new Girl Scout Cookie sales record.
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Private prisons are a multi-billion dollar a year industry. They just had a major convention close to here, most of which dealt with how to sustain growth in the industry (clue: a lot of it dealt with fighting pro-marijuana laws and immigration reform).
The best part is they are publicly held companies traded on the stock market. You can actually follow the money. You'd be surprised how many politicians' relatives (both parties) show up on the stockholder rolls.
And I think you underestimate how many people are held in private facilities. There are over 200k available bunks in private facilities, about ten percent of the overall prison population. Also, they do not count INS detainees into the criminal figures, as most have served their sentences and are awaiting deportation. A deportation that can take up to two years for some reason ($$$ if you aren't paying attention).
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The War on Drugs is a separate thing I'm talking about and yes is a failure. Yes, our prisons are full of mostly (IIRC) people who were arrested on drug charges for things like marijuana and smaller offenses, not violent offenses. This doesn't change that there are a lot of violent crimes related to drug selling/trafficking each year.
To say it's "Draconian B.S" as if we've progressed into some more refined and civilized era of drug dealing is completely silly. When business is good for everyone, violence goes down (not away), when its down or someone wants to move up in the world, it goes up. Even if statistically violent crime has gone down that's irrelevant. If statistically, less deaths have happened to figherfighters over the last 20 years that doesn't make the job not dangerous. Its part of the occupation just like violence often is for drug dealers since you can't take someone to small claims court for stealing your meth.
Funny, replace "drugs" with "booze" and you get the Roaring Twenties. Amazing how the violence directly related to alcohol distribution completely disappeared the second it was legal again.
Cause and effect. It's everything.
Funny, replace "drugs" with "booze" and you get the Roaring Twenties. Amazing how the violence directly related to alcohol distribution completely disappeared the second it was legal again.
Cause and effect. It's everything.
One thing that is often overlooked is that prohibition actually had a pretty dramatic effect on drinking. Before prohibition, people were drinking ridiculous levels of alcohol (think frat party every night for everyone). After the prohibition era, the public's consumption of alcohol never reached the individual levels it was before it.
So while there were a lot of bad things that came out of the era, there was also some small bit of good, that probably helped to extend quite a few people's lives.
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Actually, the biggest impact Prohibition had was change us from a mostly beer drinking culture to more of a hard liquor drinking culture (cocktail culture). The stereotypical "whiskey shot to cut the dust" in Westerns was, essentially an anachronism, and became part of Western Lore more due to the movie industry becoming huge during Prohibition than anything else.
And, sorry, we still consume at outrageous levels. We just have cleaner water, so we don't need to brew it into beer to make it drinkable. ;-)
Indeed.
Still have NO idea what this has to do with the topic.
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Actually, the biggest impact Prohibition had was change us from a mostly beer drinking culture to more of a hard liquor drinking culture (cocktail culture). The stereotypical "whiskey shot to cut the dust" in Westerns was, essentially an anachronism, and became part of Western Lore more due to the movie industry becoming huge during Prohibition than anything else.
That doesn't seem likely to me.
Brewing and distilling are both equipment intensive operations, well you can do brewing simply but it's on a very small scale. It's a lot easier to ship whiskey than beer, it doesn't spoil nearly as easy and the value/weight ratio (due to alcohol content) is much higher.
Small operation brewing and distilling usually happens where there are farmers with excess grain, something that occurs less and less the further west you go.
Also, cocktails are actually part of Western drinking customs. Most "whiskey" was a neutral grain alcohol, more like the worst vodka you've ever had than modern bourbon. A lot of middle-men did work as "rectifiers" adding flavors and colors to make it look more like whiskey (or whatever they thought would sell). Of course, these middle-men watered it down to stretch their profits.
Then the saloon got a hold of it, and needed to stretch their profits, so they watered it down again. This would make it too weak, so they'd add turpentine or ammonia to it to kick it up again. Since that stuff still tastes awful, it had to be mixed with more flavors, like various bitters recipes (alcoholic bitters were also a common medicine).
Lastly, in the warmer places, like Arizona, beer would spoil very fast without refrigeration. Again, making whiskey a much more common and likely choice (you could still find beer though).
It's also estimated that in the first half of the 19th century alcohol consumption may have peaked at an average of 7.5 gallons of pure alcohol per adult per year. That would be just the alcohol from all the beer, whiskey, rum and wine consumed. That number dropped pretty significantly to around 3 gallons prior to Prohibition (actually dipped quite a bit lower just prior) and around 2.5 gallons in the modern era.
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When you reward comprehension, inherently you are withholding reward from those who don't reach comprehension.Whether intentional or not, you are designing the game to favor those who comprehend it more fully and more quickly than others...
This is almost by definition what a game is. What game out there doesn't "reward" people who have a better understanding of its rules, goals, and strategies?
This is almost by definition what a game is. What game out there doesn't "reward" people who have a better understanding of its rules, goals, and strategies?
Candyland, Uncle Wiggly, Chutes and Ladders. Basically games with just a random element.
This is almost by definition what a game is. What game out there doesn't "reward" people who have a better understanding of its rules, goals, and strategies?
When you reward comprehension, inherently you are withholding reward from those who don't reach comprehension.Whether intentional or not, you are designing the game to favor those who comprehend it more fully and more quickly than others...
You cut out an important piece of information contained in the post. Cutting my post up to exclude certain pieces of information makes it easy to misconstrue the post or miss how certain points relate to each other. Here's the relevant piece you need to consider (grammar mistake and all):
purposely did not share those paths to rewards to the reader.
Cook talks about that in the blog post. They could have added advice to the Toughness feat illuminating when and why this feat would be a good idea to take, thereby reducing the odds that a player would choose it in a situation where it doesn't benefit them very much.
You can in essence reward all players by overtly sharing the information necessary to take advantage of the rule, instead of waiting for players to learn on their own which rules provide advantages. The advantages are there either way, it's just a matter of how easy you make it to find them.
A non-RPG example: Teach someone a board game.
When you teach someone a board game that has a lot of hidden strategy (and you know it quite well), do you explain those hidden strategies? If you don't, and they don't realize them quickly, odds are you will be able to take advantage of those strategies and win very handily. If you do share those strategies, the game will be more challenging for you.
My point isn't whether or not those strategies do or don't exist in D&D 3.0, but rather whether they were explicitly shared in the Player's Handbook. It's the lack of illumination within the game text that creates a greater contrast between good and bad choices within the character building options.
There are lots of other games that do include tips on using or not using certain abilities in them. Dresden Files tries to do a good job of explaining how to take advantage of your character, 13th Age does it a couple of times in the text I believe as well, noting how certain options combo well.
Another example: Chess
You don't become good at chess by studying the rules of the game. Learning the rules takes only minutes really. The hard part is understanding the execution of chess and the strategies employed while doing so. If you were to apply this to D&D, how much of the game should "won" through character creation and how much through execution of actions with that character? (I use "win" loosely, not to imply that D&D should be competitive)
This is almost by definition what a game is. What game out there doesn't "reward" people who have a better understanding of its rules, goals, and strategies?
When you reward comprehension, inherently you are withholding reward from those who don't reach comprehension.Whether intentional or not, you are designing the game to favor those who comprehend it more fully and more quickly than others...
Actually it's not but that's nitpicky. The definition of "game" is something long debated and everyone has their own definition.
However, there's a difference between a game that rewards skill and a game that punishes NOT having skill.
It's a thin line but the gist of it is most games have options that increase the effectiveness of your character. A skilled player will pick the more effective options and end up more powerful, while a less skilled/newer player won't end up as powerful, but at least won't end up comparatively worse than he started.
A game that punishes not having skill would do just that, offer options that in the long term actually make you LESS powerful overall than you were at the start as compared to the game as a whole.
Stuff like Weapon Focus for a Wizard, that doesn't help them in the slightest, meaning they've wasted a resource on a worthless option.
It's why games that restrict options like that or give advice to the effect of "This option is only really useful for this sub-set of characters" are great games for beginners, because the game actually tells them "This is a bad idea. You can do it, sure, but it's a bad idea", rather than D&D/PFs "This is an option, but we're not going to tell you it's a bad one for you, so if you take it tough noogies".
Retraining rules help matters though.