Why do people fetishize Magic Tea Party

[Avoraciopoctules]

Ain't no TGD argument as sweet as a semantics debate.

[Zak S]

AND meanwhile EVERYONE is having that same "discussion" about ALL their rules. Because NO ONE EVER talks about rules unless THEY THEMSELVES LIKE THEM. No one tries to "sell" a rule to someone that doesn't already like it,

Surely you grasp that that second statement is not a logical and necessary consequence of the first.

Ignoring the unuseful does not obviate the possibility of experimenting with the possibly useful.

no one tells the guy who wrote Hounds Of God that his game observably breaks out into everyone exchanging long rounds of "WTF?" before character generation is even over. They all have to just go out and find that out for themselves. Because screw it if someone sees a flaw of any kind in a rule presented to the public for their discussion and or use the PROPER thing to do is to shut the hell up?

Incorrect: the proper thing to do is describe the circumstances under which the rule fails to deliver something desirable and the kind of audience it fails to deliver that thing to.

Do you grasp the difference?

[silva]

The end point of analysis should not automatically be considered declaring things good or bad, but producing useful and actionable information.

If you aren't making value judgments, then you aren't doing analysis or producing useful information. You are just making shit up.

If we were talking about bridge engineering or combustion engine design, I would agree with you. But we are talking about roleplaying games, a hobby defined by making shit up.

So Zak is right - there is no point in classifying a rule as "good" or "bad", because each group will have its particular set of assumptions on what constitutes a good or a bad rule.

[PhoneLobster]

Ignoring the unuseful does not obviate the possibility of experimenting with the possibly useful.

What the hell? That's not a god damn defense of a single thing you have said.

EVERY rule is possibly useful. All the more so if you cannot and will not demonstrate or discuss WHY it is not useful. Adding that proviso just generates...

Crazy Rules Guy : Crazy ass rule, its back!
You : That isn't possibly useful to me so I won't discuss why I feel like that. I don't need to discus the reasons. Because reasons why things aren't useful are only for immature internet doody heads.
Crazy Rules Guy : I would call your argument highly questionable had you even made it, but in keeping with your argument that was actually total silence. BTW... MY RULE IS AWESOME!

Incorrect: the proper thing to do is describe the circumstances under which the rule fails to deliver something desirable and the kind of audience who fails to deliver that thing to.

Do you grasp the difference?

So once again you just say "Critics must give REASONS!" as a defense of your argument that "The only reason anyone needs is they like it!".

Do you see where you are totally fucking contradicting yourself repeatedly?

Do you see where you are making a statement utterly at odds with the statements you THINK it is defending?

[Zak S]

So once again you just say "Critics must give REASONS!" as a defense of your argument that "The only reason anyone needs is they like it!".

Do you see where you are totally fucking contradicting yourself repeatedly?

Do you see where you are making a statement utterly at odds with the statements you THINK it is defending?

You have broached 2 subjects:

What would I do with Obviously Crazy Rules guy: Ignore him because he is sexist.

And, (unrelated)

How does one stimulate useful conversation about rules?

By giving detailed analysis of what kind of audience a rule does and does not serve and in what ways.

(Not the very broad "critics must give reasons" which is too vague by half.)

What should one not do?

Declare something simply "bad". Or fail to take into account all known audiences when analyzing a rule.
-

These are not contradictory positions. It is merely that Crazy Rules Guy's sexism exempts his ideas from consideration long before I get to What You'd Do If You Hadn't Dismissed Him Out Of Hand.

So: I apologize if your example and my answer provoked confusion on this point.

[OgreBattle]

Your argument assumes that when someone proposes a stunt it always works, or even usually.

By stunt, do you mean the PC doing an action that doesn't have a particular rule behind it? Or ignoring certain rules to allow the action to be implemented faster/without failure.

If the actions already have rules that tell you how it's resolved in a clear way, is it still considered stunting?

[Zak S]

Your argument assumes that when someone proposes a stunt it always works, or even usually.

By stunt, do you mean the PC doing an action that doesn't have a particular rule behind it? Or ignoring certain rules to allow the action to be implemented faster/without failure.

If the actions already have rules that tell you how it's resolved in a clear way, is it still considered stunting?

You'd have to ask the person I was talking to what they meant. In either case, if they think that always or usually works for the player, they are wrong.

[PhoneLobster]

You have broached 2 subjects:

What would I do with Obviously Crazy Rules guy: Ignore him because he is sexist.

And, (unrelated)

How does one stimulate useful conversation about rules?

So... you don't understand what a Hypothetical is or how that even works then... Okaaaay...

Not really sure how the hell to have a productive discussion with you if you are going to pretend to be that dumb.

[Zak S]

So... you don't understand what a Hypothetical is or how that even works then... Okaaaay...

Not really sure how the hell to have a productive discussion with you if you are going to pretend to be that dumb.

What I have said thus far is consistent, rational and true even if it is not, due to your choice of an eccentric example (a rule not just suspicious in itself but generated by a morally reprehensible person) clear.

If you do not believe anything I am telling you is indeed consistent, rational or true, feel free to ask other questions.

I benefit not at all from your confusion and have no motive to lie.

[Avoraciopoctules]

[K]

The end point of analysis should not automatically be considered declaring things good or bad, but producing useful and actionable information.

If you aren't making value judgments, then you aren't doing analysis or producing useful information. You are just making shit up.

If we were talking about bridge engineering or combustion engine design, I would agree with you. But we are talking about roleplaying games, a hobby defined by making shit up.

So Zak is right - there is no point in classifying a rule as "good" or "bad", because each group will have its particular set of assumptions on what constitutes a good or a bad rule.

Game theory is a science. Art has rules. Hell, even mythology has a recipe.

Zak is attempting to defend a variant of the Oberoni Fallacy because it is the most successful excuse for incompetence that the RPG industry has ever come up with. People who think that there is no such thing as a good or bad rule invariably writes bad rules that make most people sad and sell few copies. (See Apocalypse World.)

The only reason that I mention it is because it's an attitude that's actively damaging to any discussion where people are trying to cooperatively figure out how to write better rules for a commercially-successful game or want to get better at playing games where good judgement is required for an enjoyable play experience (basically every commercially-successful game ever made).

Nihilism is not a good design principle.

[Zak S]

Zak is attempting to defend a variant of the Oberoni Fallacy because it is the most successful excuse for incompetence that the RPG industry has ever come up with. .

Totally incorrect:

The Oberoni Principle's about bad rules

I am not defending bad rules.

I am defending absent rules and saying when addressing rules one's analysis should be complete and not confuse opinion for fact.

[K]

Zak is attempting to defend a variant of the Oberoni Fallacy because it is the most successful excuse for incompetence that the RPG industry has ever come up with. .

Totally incorrect:

The Oberoni Principle's about bad rules

I am not defending bad rules.

I am defending absent rules and saying when addressing rules one's analysis should be complete and not confuse opinion for fact.

When you dismiss my facts as only opinions, you are defending bad rules and ruining the discourse for everyone. Maybe that is not your intent, but that is the effect.

An example: "I think the DnD 3.5 grappling rules are bad rules and I don't think we should use them for our DnD 3.5 game tomorrow."

Now, are you going to immediately dismiss my statement as an opinion, or are we going to have a conversation about the merits and flaws of the DnD 3.5 grappling rules and then come to a rational decision about whether to use them?

Protip: There is only one right answer here and that's a fact.

[silva]

Game theory is a science. Art has rules. Hell, even mythology has a recipe.

And yet Monopoly and D&D are two of the most played and commercially successful games ever.

Your argument is killed.

[TiaC]

So apparently there are rules that shouldn't exist because they will make things harder for GMs.

Also, you can't say a rule is a bad thing at a design level if it works for someone.

Therefore, no rules should exist. Because if some rules don't deserve to exist, but you can't make a value judgement to say that they're worse than other rules then no rule deserves to exist.

I'm not clear what Zak wants game designers to do. Apparently they are supposed to select a market without regards to its size, and if that results in a game about training hamsters to dance then so be it. Then they should just write a bunch of rules, without any real QA. It's fine if the rules don't tell you how to do things because some GMs like that. Then they are supposed to starve in a ditch somewhere I guess.

[Zak S]

An example: "I think the DnD 3.5 grappling rules are bad rules and I don't think we should use them for our DnD 3.5 game tomorrow."

Now, are you going to immediately dismiss my statement as an opinion, or are we going to have a conversation about the merits and flaws of the DnD 3.5 grappling rules and then come to a rational decision about whether to use them?

Depends whether you are in a tournament where you are trying to tackle the challenge of playing 3.5 RAW vs other players.

And if I ask "What's wrong with them" then "They're bad" is an inadequate analysis.

[NineInchNall]

tl;dr: Even if you take a purely subjectivist view on the normativity of rules in games, it is not necessary to restrict the universe of discourse for normative judgments to particular audiences.

If I really was curious, I'd then go:

"Ok, this rule looks Crazy and Useless--people: tell me has anyone not Crazy out there ever found this useful? Why and how?"

And either get an interesting answer or not.

I think most people just like declaring rules FUCKING RIDICULOUS instead of "not for me" because complaining on the internet is their main source of entertainment and it's fun for them to do that--not because it helps them understand games. And crazy stupid generalizations are funny and fun and get you internet backslaps.

You appear to have an odd fixation on personal experience here. By which I mean that the above quotation is highly reminiscent of discussions on the Paizo forums during their initial playtest.

A rule was revealed. It was subsequently math-hammered and the results posted. Those results were roundly ignored and decried as useless because they were "theorycraft". However, a day later someone would post how they used the same rule in a play test, experienced results (which were identical to those in the math post), didn't like those results, and gave reasons. (Those reasons were exactly as predicted in the math post.) The play test post was paid attention by all.

Why is that? Why should we ask people whether they've used a rule, whether it worked for them, or what? Why do we need to get an experiential account of the phenomenology of a rule in order to make informed inferences about that rule?

How does one stimulate useful conversation about rules?

By giving detailed analysis of what kind of audience a rule does and does not serve and in what ways.

That's the thing, though. A rule qua rule serves a purpose in a game. That purpose is to shape player choice (and control outcomes that are not player-determined, should those exist in the game) such that the play states that typically result are those that are desired by the game designers. The core conceit is that the designers and the players consider the same states, the design goals, desirable.

We can look at any given game and analyze whether its rules tend to lead to the fulfilment of its design goals. Moreover, we can do this independent of any consideration of audience except that the audience considers* the design goals good. Alternatively, we can talk about the preferences of the probable or intended audiences for the game. Finally, we can talk about the table you and I share, where you and I are players in a particular group.

These are the only three possible contexts that matter, because they are the only ones in which we can have any sort of reasonable discussion. No discussion can be had when our attention is both more specific and unweighted, for there is an intractably large number of individual groups.


*An interesting discussion can be had about the relative importance of the audience's conscious opinion regarding the design goals vs. their unconscious preferences. That's a bit of a tangent, however.

[Do not] Declare something simply "bad". Or fail to take into account all known audiences when analyzing a rule.

We do not need to take into account all known audiences when analyzing a rule. When we call kitten torture bad, we do not need to take into account those who find kitten torture a transcendently enlightening experience. When we say that guns are lethal weapons of violence, we do not need to take into account those who only shoot skeet. The former we ignore because they are a minority (and we have independently motivated reasons to reject their opinions on the matter); the latter, because a gun qua gun is a lethal weapon of violence.

We can declare something simply "bad" because all such assertions have a default dialectic context. That context is not "that table over there where players A, B, and C are playing." It is one of the three contexts mentioned above; i.e., the minimum spanning audience, the intended/probable audience, or the table shared by me and my fellow players.

We declare a rule to be bad when it fails to fulfill the design goals. We declare a rule to be bad when it is so unwieldy that a sizable portion of the intended/probable/actual audience ignores it, gets it wrong, or finds (assuming enjoyment is a goal) their enjoyment of the game hindered by it. Other normative statements can similarly be employed.

[Zak S]

So apparently there are rules that shouldn't exist because they will make things harder for GMs.

No, they shouldn't be used by certain groups.

Also, you can't say a rule is a bad thing at a design level if it works for someone.

But you can say it's bad for certain purposes and people.

I'm not clear what Zak wants game designers to do. Apparently they are supposed to select a market without regards to its size,

Correct: it's called integrity.

and if that results in a game about training hamsters to dance then so be it. Then they should just write a bunch of rules, without any real QA.

Incorrect: it should work for the game designer and anyone s/he wants the game to work for.

It's fine if the rules don't tell you how to do things because some GMs like that.

incorrect: depends on the chosen audience.

fixed quote tags --Z

[K]

Game theory is a science. Art has rules. Hell, even mythology has a recipe.

And yet Monopoly and D&D are two of the most played and commercially successful games ever.

Your argument is killed.

Killed by what?

[Fuchs]

I have never said they were all cowards or n00bs, merely noted that the only justifications given so far for NEEDING (rather than merely preferring) heavy rules in this thread are:

1. Fear of a GMing wrong
2. Fear of an unjust GM
or
3. Inexperience

That hits the nail on the head. Many prominent Posters here are deeply afraid of trusting anything at all to the GM.

Anything that lets the GM decide something about a player's action without a dice roll is called "Mother may I", and painted as a "Bad ThingTM" by some here.

The idea that many players are playing with friends, and not strangers and assholes, and that GMs generally do not try to abuse their power to hurt their friends, is often dismissed.

In short, those people usually try to design for the worst RPG case - playing with an asshole DM who will use every loophole in the rules to personally ruin the game for you. And they think that rules can be made that will make it so that even such GMs can't do anything but run a good enjoyable game.

The idea that asshole GMs are not a rules Problem, but a personality Problem, and have to be dealt with with other means (such as not playing with assholes) is dismissed as well.

[Fuchs]

Quotes tag!

[TiaC]

So apparently there are rules that shouldn't exist because they will make things harder for GMs.

No, they shouldn't be used by certain groups.

Then what was that bit complaining about d20 Majestic Wilderlands and how the mere existance of those rules makes your life harder?

Also, you can't say a rule is a bad thing at a design level if it works for someone.

But you can say it's bad for certain purposes and people.

That's not talking at a design level, unless you are writing the game for a single person. There will be disagreement among your audience. So, if you are writing a game for A and B and A thinks your new rule is awesome but B hates it, what do you do?

I'm not clear what Zak wants game designers to do. Apparently they are supposed to select a market without regards to its size,

Correct: it's called integrity.

It's called being broke.

and if that results in a game about training hamsters to dance then so be it. Then they should just write a bunch of rules, without any real QA.

Incorrect: it should work for the game designer and anyone s/he wants the game to work for.

This is how we got FATAL and RHO.

It's fine if the rules don't tell you how to do things because some GMs like that.

incorrect: depends on the chosen audience.

Again, your audience will disagree. Some will want more rules, some will want less. However, the ones that want less can just ignore them, the ones that want more would have to invest a great deal of time and effort to make more. Therefore, err on the rules-heavy side.

[TiaC]

I have never said they were all cowards or n00bs, merely noted that the only justifications given so far for NEEDING (rather than merely preferring) heavy rules in this thread are:

1. Fear of a GMing wrong
2. Fear of an unjust GM
or
3. Inexperience

That hits the nail on the head. Many prominent Posters here are deeply afraid of trusting anything at all to the GM.

Anything that lets the GM decide something about a player's action without a dice roll is called "Mother may I", and painted as a "Bad ThingTM" by some here.

The idea that many players are playing with friends, and not strangers and assholes, and that GMs generally do not try to abuse their power to hurt their friends, is often dismissed.

In short, those people usually try to design for the worst RPG case - playing with an asshole DM who will use every loophole in the rules to personally ruin the game for you. And they think that rules can be made that will make it so that even such GMs can't do anything but run a good enjoyable game.

The idea that asshole GMs are not a rules Problem, but a personality Problem, and have to be dealt with with other means (such as not playing with assholes) is dismissed as well.

Even when playing with friends it leads to "But you let A pull off his stunt, why do you like him better?" As a DM I don't like these rules because they make me the bad guy.

[Fuchs]

Even when playing with friends it leads to "But you let A pull off his stunt, why do you like him better?" As a DM I don't like these rules because they make me the bad guy.

But that type of friend will complain about any GM decision. "Why did the ogre attack my character, and not A's? Do you like him more than me?" The only way for that type to be happy is to codify the rules to the extent that the GM won't be making any decision without a dice roll or rules check.

What I am saying is that for some here, the target audience for their rules is a rather extreme case of a borderline disfunctional or worse gaming group, not a group of friends who want to have fun and respect each other.

[K]

Even when playing with friends it leads to "But you let A pull off his stunt, why do you like him better?" As a DM I don't like these rules because they make me the bad guy.

Yeh, bad rules often turn good guys into accidental assholes.

Rules-heavy games use rules to reduce bad behavior both intentional and unintentional from both PCs and DMs. The basic idea is that you are playing with friends and the game itself should not be a source of conflict with your friends.

Falling into the "we are all friends here and we don't need good rules" is just another amusing variant of the Oberoni Fallacy.