[What Came Before]

I'm having this weird discussion on RPG.net. It seems some folk there simply can't distinguish between making shit (like an artist makes up a painting) vs following rules (like roll over a difficulty number, it's a pass. Or the person running a monster chooses it's target from a rule delinated selection).

It might be they gotten the impression I'm saying making shit up is bad, so they don't want to admit it for that reason. And that'd be the simple solution!

But otherwise - I really think these people cannot distinguish between follow a rule/an instruction someone else gave them, and an exertion of their own will.

If you happen to think of people using the bible that way, yeah - I tend to find RPG culture is a bonsai version of general culture.

My latest post is here- I give that as it's a bit hard to peg when the wierdness comes up.

Some of my favorite moments though are

Which one is 'playing exactly the way the game is intended', the open road or the traffic lights?

Yes.

An amazingly obstinant responce - as if just bloody mindedly saying both are the one thing somehow is enough.

And I think this one captures it's essence.

Could you explain how that ties in to 'what I'm doing the game author intended me to do'? Assumptions seem worthless in terms of that - I could hand you some lego and assume you might make something out of it - and so what if I assumed? Big deal? To me it's a non sequitur.

Another meaningless statement, Noon.

If some Danish guys gives me a set of coloured bricks and I build something with them then I am absolutely using them within the creator's intent, even if the creator did not specify exactly what he intended me to build. Obviously if I stick a brick up each nose and slam my head into a wall s hard that they shoot out of my ears then I'm doing something strange and unexpected.

The question is, do you feel that using RPG rules in the contexts of a coherent setting is an example of building something with the tools provided, or do you instead believe it equates more closely to the nose-plug/ear cannon approach to lego?

And if you can't see the difference then you are beyond talking to at this point.

It's basically delicious - the incapacity to see the semantic ambiguity (ie, undefined borders) of the word 'build' (or whatever word seems to make him think he's totally intended to do what he does) makes him see that as a perfectly objective word.

It's like you could ask them to cut a length of string and they'd accept not everyone would cut the same length when asked.

But then you talk to them about a world like this which is supposed to be cutting them a certain range of action and they are just lost. Devoured by the ambiguous word. It's just so clear to them - or so I presume!

My internet is shaped at the moment, having trouble linking to the TPB post on '3 readerly illusions', which covers this semantic ambiguity in greater detail.

He just thinks he's on the right side of some magical line (probably connected to a magical lottery ticket) that makes him 'building something with the tools provided' rather than 'nose-plug/ear cannon approach'.

Or what, am I too relativist/nihilistic to say actually there is no line but the one your deciding on (but you can't even see yourself deciding on it!)

Perhaps if this was about morality, I'd agree. But no, this is about table top roleplay - it's time to suck up responsibility.

I feel like I'm in the 'Those who know...' but not really feeling the '...and command' bit at all. There must be some way of making money off this for my lil' jobless ass... :twisted:  :lol:

[What Came Before]

Oh glory be

You're correct in that if someone wants to believe in fairies and is willing to reject all rational arguments then debating with them is pointless. What you fail to realise is that you're the one believing in fairies, not DarkDungeons. It's up to you to prove their existence, not on everyone else to prove that they don't. Seriously, arguing that "masses of people will take the widely interpretable word 'build' in different ways, that what is 'building' for some is 'strange and unexpected' for others"? That is completely irrelevant. When someone builds something with lego they are using lego as intended by the creators. You do not have to predefine the word build before understanding that argument. Likewise a GM 'kludging' consequences of failure in an RPG is using the RPG as intended by the designers. You have yet to provide a single argument to support your position that this isn't true... but I don't think you will. But neither to I think you will accept anything we tell you that disproves your claim, so feel free to head off, affirmed in your beliefs once again, as beliefs are always affirmed in the absence of any accepted dissproval method.

Man, that is gold. I could not write this shit! I have to steal this - modify the terms to use in some fiction! Because damn, how many words is it? And I didn't have to make it up at all!

I love the flip - it's only me making the claim! I'm the only one, even as he types out 'When someone builds something with lego they are using lego as intended by the creators. You do not have to predefine the word build before understanding that argument. Likewise a GM 'kludging' consequences of failure in an RPG is using the RPG as intended by the designers.'. Oh yeah, not a single claim in that at all - I'm the only one claiming!

To indulge it is to breed it. To punish it is to feed it. RPG forum discussion knows no bridle but the knife.  :lol:  :roll:

[What Came Before]

I call it "Magical Tea Party".

If you're not following some kind of consistent written rule-set, you are doing nothing different than the 5-year old girl playing tea-time with her stuffed animals.

While D&D 4th edition had a lot of crappy things about it, it DID make the combat somewhat 'balanced' and emphasized tactical gaming. The result was that when you a play a 4e game, there's a lot less Magical teaparty and more thinking about how to min-max your build and your turn. The negative consequence is that many MANY traditional fantasy tropes are VERY hard to balance within the paradigm of 5-foot-square tactical combat. (Shapeshifting, wishes, flight, summoning, illusion, etc)

Non-combat skills (diplomacy etc) in 4e are still Magical Tea Party.

EDIT: there is a roleplaying system that embraces its MTP roots and actually tries to layout a consistent ruleset for doing MTP-like things. It's called FATE and it's pretty rough, but with a lot of houseruling it can be made to be awesome.

[What Came Before]

Power cut ate the post I just wrote.

I had this post about how you can get something like 'sympathetic causality' rather than just raw MTP, but the qualifier is that you 'can get', not 'you will get'. Probably not worth noting in short term, but internet ate my post...

Anyway, it's good to know someone else can identify a MTP effect - the posters I've quoted will seemingly twist any social connection with another person, in favour of their principle. Stuff like saying they are just claiming the moon orbits the earth, it's myself who's claiming an orbiting teapot. How intellectually dishonest are you at actually questioning your own claim, when you frame it that way? They really believe if something is repeated in alot of texts, that counts towards being evidence of it being correct to begin with?

Anyway, on 4e (and IMO, 3.x), it did refine the actual tactical game. But I think it'd be worth scientifically testing just how much ones choices actually matter in terms of losing. Whether not doing them would lead to losing, or you'd win anyway, making them just busy work.

I know of someone who pines to continue a fate game they started. But I haven't read or run it myself.

[What Came Before]

Oh jeez - I'll rez this post...

Today I gave the equivalent of saying that if you have a bucket with 99 red dice and 1 green die, you can't really say you have a bucket fulll of red dice. Sometimes to be lazy you might, but if pressed you'd say there's a green die in there.

So I blasphemed and said if you add house rules onto D&D, it's 'house ruled D&D' not just 'D&D' anymore. It's not like 100% D&D, more like a lower percentage - there are some green dice amongst the red.

After alot of people exploded - perversely accusing me of excludign a middle (when they can't stand to think they do anything but play 'D&D' or don't - no in between they will acknowledge) Got moderated out of the thread! No reason given - could just tell to give a reason would give away that I'd done nothing wrong except challenge what they took to just be the case (ie, somehow they can do whatever, and it's still just straight, pure 'D&D').

Just facinating how pathologically wrapped up in identity politics they are, that certain facts simply become unmentionables.

[What Came Before]

The rules wee the game, and if one played by different rules, then one simply played a different game.  Since a fixed framework of rules determined the meaning of every move as a move, gmaes possessed a clairty that made life seem a drunken brawl by comparison.  The properties were indubitable, the permutations secure; only the outcome was shrouded.

(I.10 at 294).

[What Came Before]

It's that very point that makes a gamer culture that is so certain that no matter what they add, it remains the same game, that's makes for a car wreck sort of fascination on my part.

Once they have abandoned distinguishment (prompted on by various sold products 'It's your game', apparently), then the outcome isn't just shrouded - the actual thing itself is shrouded. Perhaps like a permutation of conciousness or something! Well, without the distinction, the damn game keeps changing to other things, but appears to remain the same - so it, the one thing, always appears to contain so much, instead of being a scattered legion. A bunch of mini games, losely played one after the other.

Sadly I got rather adamant about wanting to know more about benjuka once, on TPB, because the hints of how it screws around with things I thought is there some angle I'm missing, or is benjuka simply that exact lack of distinction issue?