Well, Mike Mearls got promoted. Any hope for 5e?

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 6:56 am

ah ok,....

"the rules aren't broken, because we can fix them" ~ Oberoni

now i totally forgot what the other fallacy by Stormwind is while remembering that one.

still Oberoni, doesnt indicate a rule is needed for something to be in the game. it only mentioned broken rules being overlooked.

i still find fault in it, because it is still subjective. what one person finds is broken, another may be able to use just fine as is.

it depends on what you are trying to do with the rule or the game i guess.....

Hicks · Post by **Hicks** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 7:07 am

Oberoni Fallacy (noun): The fallacy that the existence of a rule stating that, ‘the rules can be changed,’ can be used to excuse design flaws in the actual rules. Etymology, D&D message boards, a fallacy first formalized by member Oberoni.

The Stormwind Fallacy

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 7:16 am

i found them both in those two places thanks to google as well. i just kept misspelling fallacy and dont let google auto-correct for me or auto-fill-in.

still you have to be able to agree there is a design flaw, before you could enlist Oberoni....

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 7:21 am

shadzar wrote:still you have to be able to agree there is a design flaw, before you could enlist Oberoni....

That is definitively impossible due to the nature of the Oberoni fallacy itself you moron. It's used to excuse design flaws, meaning it is a (false) MEANS of disagreeing that there is a design flaw.

Not that it matters because WHY ARE PEOPLE TALKING TO YOU

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 7:28 am

It's not Oberoni unless your argument is "Although rule X is broken, the fact that your DM can fix it means that it isn't really broken."

Saying the rules aren't problematic because you think they produce results that are good isn't a fallacy of any kind. That's just someone having a (possibly stupid) opinion about what sort of results the rules should be producing.

Dog Quixote · Post by **Dog Quixote** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 10:17 am

The problem with the Oberoni fallacy is that it says nothing about how important a broken rule is to the playability of the game.

An obvious example would be if a new weapon was introduced into a game in which all weapons either to 1 or two dice of damage. Due to a typo the new weapon does 11d6 rather than 1d6. It's obviously the best weapon in the game, but also so obviously broken that anyone with the slightest bit of common sense would houserule it or outlaw it at the table. Do we say the combat system is broken?

I sometimes feel this way about the skill challenge system for 4E. Yes it's broken, but even were it workable, I doubt I would have used it when I was running 4E. I just don't like it and had no great difficulty just using fixed DCs for all skill checks.

Ultimately I have a lot of issues with 4E, but if the skill system were the only problem I had I doubt I'd be complaining.

So there's more to be said than whether or not a rule is broken. It is relevant to ask both how crucial a rule is and if there exists an obvious and easy fix. Sometimes I feel the Oberoni Fallacy is brought up as an excuse to point at any broken rule and say 'ha, ha your game is broken.'

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 10:39 am

Dog Quixote wrote:Sometimes I feel the Oberoni Fallacy is brought up as an excuse to point at any broken rule and say 'ha, ha your game is broken.'

or when one doesnt understand how it was meant to work, they think it to be broken, or dislike it so in both cases call upon Oberoni to defend their dislike and/or ignorance.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 11:18 am

Dog Quixote wrote:The problem with the Oberoni fallacy is that it says nothing about how important a broken rule is to the playability of the game.

An obvious example would be if a new weapon was introduced into a game in which all weapons either to 1 or two dice of damage. Due to a typo the new weapon does 11d6 rather than 1d6. It's obviously the best weapon in the game, but also so obviously broken that anyone with the slightest bit of common sense would houserule it or outlaw it at the table. Do we say the combat system is broken?

Actually, that is a very clear instance of the Oberoni Fallacy. The construction of Oberoni is that a rule isn't broken because the DM can fix it. If something is an obvious typographical error like that, you'd think it was pretty weird if someone said that it wasn't an error because the error was obvious enough that people can fix it on their own, right?

Oberoni is a fallacy because the very instant the DM has to step in and fix the text, the text as written obviously isn't working unfixed. So any argument based on the fact that the DM fixed the text to say that the text doesn't need fixing is a priori false.

Oberoni does not pass judgement over whether a rule error is big or small, obvious or subtle, fixable or integral, or anything like that. It doesn't even say whether the rule under discussion is good or bad. All it says is that if you are arguing that the rule is OK as written because you don't think people will use it as written you are wrong. Because Oberoni's Fallacy is a fallacy, which means that it is a set of reasoning that is invalid. That's seriously all it is.

So there's more to be said than whether or not a rule is broken. It is relevant to ask both how crucial a rule is and if there exists an obvious and easy fix. Sometimes I feel the Oberoni Fallacy is brought up as an excuse to point at any broken rule and say 'ha, ha your game is broken.'

No. The Oberoni Fallacy is only an attack on the actual people defending a broken system. If the best you can do to defend it is to admit that you don't actually use it - you've conceded that point in the argument.

-Username17

Dog Quixote · Post by **Dog Quixote** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 11:33 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
Dog Quixote wrote:The problem with the Oberoni fallacy is that it says nothing about how important a broken rule is to the playability of the game.

An obvious example would be if a new weapon was introduced into a game in which all weapons either to 1 or two dice of damage. Due to a typo the new weapon does 11d6 rather than 1d6. It's obviously the best weapon in the game, but also so obviously broken that anyone with the slightest bit of common sense would houserule it or outlaw it at the table. Do we say the combat system is broken?
Actually, that is a very clear instance of the Oberoni Fallacy. The construction of Oberoni is that a rule isn't broken because the DM can fix it. If something is an obvious typographical error like that, you'd think it was pretty weird if someone said that it wasn't an error because the error was obvious enough that people can fix it on their own, right?

Oberoni is a fallacy because the very instant the DM has to step in and fix the text, the text as written obviously isn't working unfixed. So any argument based on the fact that the DM fixed the text to say that the text doesn't need fixing is a priori false.

Oberoni does not pass judgement over whether a rule error is big or small, obvious or subtle, fixable or integral, or anything like that. It doesn't even say whether the rule under discussion is good or bad. All it says is that if you are arguing that the rule is OK as written because you don't think people will use it as written you are wrong. Because Oberoni's Fallacy is a fallacy, which means that it is a set of reasoning that is invalid. That's seriously all it is.

So there's more to be said than whether or not a rule is broken. It is relevant to ask both how crucial a rule is and if there exists an obvious and easy fix. Sometimes I feel the Oberoni Fallacy is brought up as an excuse to point at any broken rule and say 'ha, ha your game is broken.'
No. The Oberoni Fallacy is only an attack on the actual people defending a broken system. If the best you can do to defend it is to admit that you don't actually use it - you've conceded that point in the argument.

-Username17

In theory yes. In reality it's often used to sidestep a discussion.

There's not really a lot of difference between 'the rule's not broken because my DM fixed it' and 'the rule is broken but it's not much of a problem because there's an easy fix and it's impact isn't great'. The first may be a fallacy but establishing such doesn't mean that the second isn't true and may in fact be a better articulation of the point someone was trying to make in the first place.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 9:06 pm

If the fix is so obvious to be universal, like the 1d33 damage weapon in my PHB, than it is still an error but its impact on the game is minimal, not only because the GM can fix it but because his fixing it is basically inevitable. It is a fallacy to suggest that this is not a problem at all, but not a fallacy to suggest that it is not a problem worth getting your panties in a twist over.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 9:42 pm

Chamomile wrote:If the fix is so obvious to be universal, like the 1d33 damage weapon in my PHB, than it is still an error but its impact on the game is minimal, not only because the GM can fix it but because his fixing it is basically inevitable. It is a fallacy to suggest that this is not a problem at all, but not a fallacy to suggest that it is not a problem worth getting your panties in a twist over.

Most of the time they fix stuff like that without even realizing they did it.

For example how many people out there tell their players that Monks have to spend a feat to gain proficiency with their unarmed strike? Cause they don't have that proficiency by default.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 10:57 pm

He simply has an opinion that Differs from yours or mine.

No.

I'm gonna use a sloppy generalization, based solely on Inductive Reasoning derived from my own life experiences.

But every single person who has ever defended the 2e rules system is fundamentally incapable of saying anything worth hearing..

It's 2011, not 2000 now, you shouldn't even need to use THAC0's extra * -1 step as a shibboleth for determining whether the person understands computational complexity well enough to meaningfully discuss game design.

You can just short-circuit evaluate their idiocy when they say "2e" and skip to the part where you either go off to find reasonable people to talk and game with or you can choose to resort to some sort of violence - although I cannot legally condone such..

Apparently this sort of prejudice is equally valid on other continents.

And I re-iterate that based on such inductive reasoning, it is fundamentally disturbing to me that guy now in charge of the brand is basically using long-winded code-word rants to say "let's go back to ideas of the game before 3e" while he fails at basic math.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 11:35 pm

maybe you should talk to McDonalds for a job in marketing, since its 2011 not 1811, and you shouldnt need the extra step of cooking your own food, since you can buy it ready made ANY time you get hungry.

Almaz · Post by **Almaz** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 1:40 am

Shadzar, proving that in 2011, unlike, say, 1511, you don't need to go through the extra step of thinking before writing.

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 4:01 am

Almaz wrote:Shadzar, proving that in 2011, unlike, say, 1511, you don't need to go through the extra step of thinking before writing.

OBJECTION!

The combination of Sturgeon's Law and Nostalgia Filters assures that the world would look near-identical whether or not there were people publishing with absolutely no aforethought. Consequently, the dearth of shadzar-equivalent texts from 1511 compared to proportions in 2011 is non-evidence for there not having been such texts in 1511, because nobody would bother keeping them around anyway.

Yep · Post by **Yep** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:39 am

The problem with fallacies is people attempt to use them in the place of actual arguments. This is especially bad with fallacies that aren't actually fallacies but instead were made up for specific circumstances.

For instance, if I came up with the Yep Fallacy wherein an argument is invalid if it critiques me, that's great, I can apply it all day long to avoid arguments, but it is to actual debate what shadzar is to the English language.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:47 am

Yep wrote:...but it is to actual debate what shadzar is to the English language.

It is important to note that Oberoni's fallacy to a large extent came about and was popularised because it was a tool to AID debate.

Because there was a serious issue with people derailing EVERY debate regarding "fucking rules and how do they work?" with "The DM is god, so no rule is bad lulz!".

The great thing about the Oberoni fallacy wasn't that it was a grand discovery or something that hadn't been said thousands of times over in repeated "the DM is god rulez is neber badz!" derailment "debates". The great thing was that instead of having that debate AGAIN you could just refer the stupid bastards to the Oberoni falacy and go back to debating the actual rules of the game and WHAT they did and WHETHER it was wrong and HOW you could change it.

So Oberoni's fallacy was by a long shot NOT irrelevant to debate, it was about dismissing bullshit that was irrelevant to debate. Bullshit exactly like everything Shadzar has ever said about anything ever.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 5:15 am

PhoneLobster wrote:-snip-

But your whole argument is, itself, built upon the Yep Fallacy.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:06 am

Yep wrote:The problem with fallacies is people attempt to use them in the place of actual arguments. This is especially bad with fallacies that aren't actually fallacies but instead were made up for specific circumstances.

For instance, if I came up with the Yep Fallacy wherein an argument is invalid if it critiques me, that's great, I can apply it all day long to avoid arguments, but it is to actual debate what shadzar is to the English language.

That would be a specific case of ad hominum or of poisoning the well. Each of those already applies very rarely, so I'm not sure what the benefit of naming them something special would be.

Oberoni's Fallacy, on the other hand, is a specific case of ignoratio elenchi that apparently came up constantly. As such, it was convenient to name it, exactly like "equivocation" is a specific case of quaternio terminorum (because you're hiding four different things in a statement nominaly about three things). Likewise, Stormwind's Fallacy is a specific case of Affirming a Disjunct.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:30 am

Chamomile wrote:Yep Fallacy.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:41 pm

I'm usually not a fan of giving informal fallacies new commando names, but I love sticking it to the basket-weavers so Stormwind Fallacy is one of my favorites.

Yep · Post by **Yep** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:44 pm

fectin wrote:
Yep wrote:The problem with fallacies is people attempt to use them in the place of actual arguments. This is especially bad with fallacies that aren't actually fallacies but instead were made up for specific circumstances.

For instance, if I came up with the Yep Fallacy wherein an argument is invalid if it critiques me, that's great, I can apply it all day long to avoid arguments, but it is to actual debate what shadzar is to the English language.
That would be a specific case of ad hominum or of poisoning the well. Each of those already applies very rarely, so I'm not sure what the benefit of naming them something special would be.

Oberoni's Fallacy, on the other hand, is a specific case of ignoratio elenchi that apparently came up constantly. As such, it was convenient to name it, exactly like "equivocation" is a specific case of quaternio terminorum (because you're hiding four different things in a statement nominaly about three things). Likewise, Stormwind's Fallacy is a specific case of Affirming a Disjunct.

The problem here, which was my point before, is in using, "Well, I see this as a fallacy, so I don't have to answer," in the place of a fallacy. It's a dishonest way of redirecting an argument from the point you're claiming fallacy on to whether or not it's a fallacy, even if you're not doing it on purpose. It is poison to any argument; you don't see people in actual debate saying, "Heh, that's clearly an ignoratio elenchi so I don't have to say anything more than to make that claim."

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:45 pm

shadzar has managed to turn a mearls-hating thread into a shadzar-hating thread.

well done.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 5:09 pm

About the only form I see that happen with most places is ad hominem. Any poison there is usually subsumed by overeager moderation though, so its a bit of a moot point. Around here, it's mostly No True Scotsman instead, but it's usually correctly spotted, so is not really poison. I've been waiting since I got here to call someone on the fallacy fallacy ("FF, I choose you!"), but everyone here has been stubbornly logical and correct.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 5:33 pm

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cohen%27s_Law

However, there's also:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/PRATT

So some judgment is needed before you invoking a Fallacy or shooting down someone's invocation of a Fallacy.