Required Reading (silva keep out)

[Ancient History]

0: We Hate Because We Love
Being a nitpicky freak about rules doesn't mean we're obsessed with a particular game, or don't know how to have fun, or hate on every game that isn't one we like, or they changed it and now it sucks. The point of all games is to have fun. We get that. We also know that games are more fun when they fucking work. When everybody knows the rules of the game, then they don't have to concentrate on rules mastery or little fucking loopholes or the houserules du jour. They can just play. When the system is cool and well-thought out, it allows deeper games. Yes, we can all play Magic Tea Party Calvinball, but if that's the case then what the fuck are you paying for game products for in the first place?

[fectin]

Dean,

I think what your points are tripping over is a difference between how you design games and how you play games. Your point 3, "A good DM can just change any rules that don't work," that's good advice when playing a game: if something isn't working, change it. From a design perspective though, dumping things off on your users is generally poor practice.
Similarly, on balance, you might e.g. allow someone to play an NPC class in 3.5, but when designing the game you don't stick those classes in with the other options and pretend they're the same.
As for the last, it's much easier to focus on story when poor balance isn't stealing your time and attention.

[Dean]

Dean,

I think what your points are tripping over is a difference between how you design games and how you play games.

You're right. I'm kind of waffling between what are shitty design instincts and what are shitty DM instincts, I should tighten that up.

I should also do what Ancient suggests and lead off with "What is the Den and what do we do here" that explains what we talk about and why. Explain about how we critique and analyze games and how that often elicits a defensive response but our goal is to actually make better things.

[Cyberzombie]

Dean,

I think what your points are tripping over is a difference between how you design games and how you play games. Your point 3, "A good DM can just change any rules that don't work," that's good advice when playing a game: if something isn't working, change it. From a design perspective though, dumping things off on your users is generally poor practice.

Sort of. It's poor design practice to actively just have your rules hand off work to the DM, but it should also be emphasized in the rules that a DM can and should feel free to rule 0 if there's a problem.

All too often rulebooks are written with the idea that the rules themselves are perfect, and that people should follow them blindly. Rule 0 shouldn't be an excuse for bad design, but it should be a backup system in case you make a mistake, because like every other RPG designer, you're probably going to screw stuff up.

This is even more important if you're part of any major RPG, because even if by some miracle you do manage to write a perfect set of core books, there's going to be other authors who aren't you (some of which totally suck), writing splatbooks for your system. You don't want that to ruin your game.

[fectin]

The same applies to board games, and they do fine without emphasizing rule 0.

[ishy]

Sort of. It's poor design practice to actively just have your rules hand off work to the DM, but it should also be emphasized in the rules that a DM can and should feel free to rule 0 if there's a problem.

All too often rulebooks are written with the idea that the rules themselves are perfect, and that people should follow them blindly. Rule 0 shouldn't be an excuse for bad design, but it should be a backup system in case you make a mistake, because like every other RPG designer, you're probably going to screw stuff up.

This is even more important if you're part of any major RPG, because even if by some miracle you do manage to write a perfect set of core books, there's going to be other authors who aren't you (some of which totally suck), writing splatbooks for your system. You don't want that to ruin your game.

No way.
Sure you're going to screw things up, and yeah other people who design official shit for your RPG will screw shit up too.

But stating up front that you have no faith in your rules and think that random people who most likely have no clue what they are doing, are better off designing shit than you are, is in fact bad.

People who do have a clue, will be houseruling no matter what you put in your text anyway. Don't encourage the rest.

[Cyberzombie]

Sure you're going to screw things up, and yeah other people who design official shit for your RPG will screw shit up too.

But stating up front that you have no faith in your rules and think that random people who most likely have no clue what they are doing, are better off designing shit than you are, is in fact bad.

People who do have a clue, will be houseruling no matter what you put in your text anyway. Don't encourage the rest.

It's not a matter of showing no faith in your rules, it's accepting that you're a human being. A game designer needs to try to make things as functional and balanced as possible, but at the end of the day, he's still only human. Every RPG that has been created has problems, and every designer has to accept that no, they're not God, and their RPG will have problems too, like every other RPG before them.

That's not even a question. Every game is going to have its issues. The only question is what happens when those issues arise. The DM can either be encouraged to follow the rules dogmatically and watch the whole game crash and burn or he can be told from the start that game designers aren't infallible and that if things go wrong, he should probably get in there and do something.

It really baffles me that modern gaming design encourages DMs to act like unthinking machines who simply follow the rules unquestioningly. Having a human running the game should be considered an asset, not a liability.

[silva]

It really baffles me that modern gaming design encourages DMs to act like unthinking machines who simply follow the rules unquestioningly. Having a human running the game should be considered an asset, not a liability.

Care to cite some "modern games" that do this ? Because I cant remember right now of any games that simply discard the human factor as you imply here.

[Cyberzombie]

Care to cite some "modern games" that do this ? Because I cant remember right now of any games that simply discard the human factor as you imply here.

It's difficult to cite an exact paragraph anywhere, because it's more of a fundamental attitude instead of a hard and fast rule.

But I will quote ishy from the pathfinder thread here as one example of what I'm talking about and is the latest one I can remember.

I don't know much about PFS, but I've seen PFS dms arguing incredibly stupid things.

Say you are using two-weapon fighting to kill people with 2 daggers.
Then you grab vestial arm, which grants you another arm, to hold a torch or something.

But because the multiweapon fighting feat states that it replaces two-weapon fighting for creatures with more than 2 arms and multiweapon fighting is in the bestiary (and bestiary feats are not allowed in PFS unless specifically called out in a class feature etc.), your character is now no longer legal for play.

It's this sort of over-literalist BS that is a cancer on gaming, and I see this sort of thing quite a bit. I remember the one test for official 3E event DMs that they put on the wizards site was full of overly literalist crap too.

All too often DMs are encouraged to toss common sense, balance and everything else out the window simply because something is legal in the most overly-technical rules-lawyery way possible.

[silva]

Ah, now I got it. As I dont play Pathfinder - and my modern gaming sensibilities are more ecletic than just that - I had difficulty in grasping that. I fully agree with you on the subject.

[ishy]

It's not a matter of showing no faith in your rules, it's accepting that you're a human being. A game designer needs to try to make things as functional and balanced as possible, but at the end of the day, he's still only human. Every RPG that has been created has problems, and every designer has to accept that no, they're not God, and their RPG will have problems too, like every other RPG before them.

That's not even a question. Every game is going to have its issues. The only question is what happens when those issues arise. The DM can either be encouraged to follow the rules dogmatically and watch the whole game crash and burn or he can be told from the start that game designers aren't infallible and that if things go wrong, he should probably get in there and do something.

It really baffles me that modern gaming design encourages DMs to act like unthinking machines who simply follow the rules unquestioningly. Having a human running the game should be considered an asset, not a liability.

If the RPG you published can't handle people following the rules you wrote for it, it means you have no business writing an RPG. And it would be great if people could avoid your product.

So yes, in that case, do tell MC that they need to fix your broken rules.

[Neurosis]

I realized that the most efficient way to go about making a collection of good information would be to identify prevalent beliefs in the RPG community that I think are toxic. Below is a collection of those beliefs and an outline of the arguments I will be making against them. Feel free to add any bullshit beliefs you run into a lot and I'll get working on them too. Critiques, barrels of cocks and hentai are all welcome. Shitty beliefs begin...

1: Gygax was a great man
Gary Gygax was a dishonest asshole. He was an insecure braggart who hated every aspect of RPG's you enjoy or love. His propaganda of what the game was has done more damage to the RPG community than any other designer and he is personally responsible for most of the bad beliefs listed below.
NOTE: (I'd like to talk more about D&D History and Arnseson. Talk about Gygax's power hoarding and terrible beliefs. I have made these arguments many times but I've always found Franktrollman to write very well about exactly why Gygax was poisonous to the potential future of D&D and if Frank were willing to write or copypasta a few paragraphs about Gary I would use that)

2: The DM is God
No they aren't. That's pure gygaxian legacy bullshit where he told you that the person in one chair (the one Gygax sat in) was more important than anyone else, had limitless power over the people around him and couldn't be questioned. These are obviously much more in line with the statements of an insecure narcissicist than advice on how to have a fun evening with friends. Now many groups do still run themselves on those ideas and those groups, most groups sadly, are basically cults of personality of between 4 and 6 people. They have an established Alpha male and will eventually self destruct when egos clash and will either disband entirely or will reform into a smaller group that still ackowledges the Alpha's leadership status.
In reality this is a very unhealthy way to behave. As a Dm you are just another player in a shared story. You have no powers and no authority and deserve no additional respect. Your measure as a DM is how much time the people around you spend enjoying your games, and how few arguments stem from your them.
NOTE: (I would like to add selections from PL's How to be a GM into here)

3: You should play the game, not the rules. A good DM can just change any rules that don't work.
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." Gary Gygax
"Gary Gygax was dishonest asshole" Me earlier
The rules are the game. The game doesn't exist except as a collection of rules bound together in a book interspersed with genre appropriate art. That is all the game is. Games are collections of rules. Telling someone to "Play a game but not it's rules" is like saying "Add 4 but not as a number".
NOTE: (I have the most work to do here. I think this would be a good spot to put Franks MTP speech)

4: Why does everything have to be balanced, not everything has to be strong. Showing off your characters weaknesses shows who's a true roleplayer.
It's not a story it's a fantasy. The reason you play fantasy games is to live out fantasies and no ones fantasy is to be worse than everyone around him. The problem with classes being drastically unequal in power is it's basically false advertising. If someone signs up to be a Pirate in a Fantasy game they expect to be fantastically good at Pirate things. If it turns out the Pirate sucks, and the other player at the table who's a Knight is actually vastly better at swashbuckling, shooting, and leading men then it demonstrates to the player that by choosing the class they chose they did not get to do the only thing they wanted to do. That is be recognized as being strong at the area they chose to be strong at.

This is the problem with all the great class imbalances in RPG history. The reason the D&D Wizard being a thousand times better than the Fighter was a problem was not because all the D&D tournaments were being won by Wizard players. The problem was there were people sitting at tables justifiably feeling bad because their Fighter was bad at Fighting.

Let me repeat this point: The reason you, or anyone, plays RPG's is to express power fantasies. Deal with that knowledge. You play fantasy games to live out fantasies and everyones fantasy is to be powerful and that's fine. People have a really negative reaction to this idea because it makes roleplaying seem almost fetishistic, perhaps even bordering on sexual with the importance it places on expressing and playing your fantasies. But there is absolutely no reason to feel shame associated with wanting to feed your power fantasies because everyone does it. Anyone playing HALO and killing alien armies or reading a comic where Superman lifts a bus above his head or watching James Bond seduce beautiful women is doing the same thing. It feels good to imagine having power and entermainment lets us feel that vicariously. In an RPG you're one step closter because you get to pretend it's you killing aliens and throwing trains and seducing russians. It's actually one of the coolest things about RPG's that they let you get a psychological insight into the people you play with and what they deeply want in their heart of hearts.

5: Balance doesn't matter. In an RPG the story is all that matters.
The people who say that the story comes first are in deep denial of real failings they have as people, and that is not hyperbole. When a DM tells you he is a "Story First" DM he is telling you that he doesn't value your input to the game, will make combative ad hoc rulings to circumvent your attempts to impact the game, and does not possess enough knowledge of the rules to play fairly and will resort to cheating or declaring character death on a moments notice. A DM who tells you they are story first is saying "I plan on treating the people at this table in a way that feeds and supports my personal power fantasies." Players who repeat these story-first beleifs are generally players who have played in "Story First" DM's tables and have basically developed Stockholms syndrome. They have been playing in an environment where they are totally powerless and can only come to take enjoyment when bad things happen to other people at the whims of their group's Alpha male DM. Nothing makes a group of Grognards happier than seeing -their- DM tear up somebody's sheet for not following -their- DM's unquestionable rules and seeing him express the wrath of his iron hand. That is because these people are damaged, and the only power they can feel at this table is vicariously through the person who has told them he is their tiny group god.

FTR, I disagree with just about everything here and I have been on the Den for years.

I think Gary Gygax was a beautiful person and I seriously cried when he died. Yes, the Den's acknowledgement and condemnation of "Gygaxian fuckery" is amusing, and it's good to be aware that Gary wasn't God, wasn't perfect, and that a lot of his paradigm is incredibly dated, shitty, and/or dysfunctional The Den has made me aware of this, which I consider a service!.

But all in all...I absolutely acknowledge that he was one of the primary sources that brought us the hobby we all love as we know it. He or may not have done or said a lot of shitty things in his life (accounts vary!), but I absolutely forgive all of it if he was even 25% responsible for Dungeons and Dragons (and therefore tabletop roleplaying) becoming a thing.

#2. Obviously the DM is not literally GOD, but being figuratively GOD is a good way to describe the DM's role and responsibilities. Constructing and populating the entire world, portraying every other person in the world, maintaining balance and shepherding the story, perhaps even to some degree keeping the players alive (while trying to trick them into thinking he's doing the opposite). I don't think the DM is God but I do think that a decent-to-above-average or better DM deserves a reasonable amount of respect from the players for all the burden he's shouldering. I think that "what the DM says goes" is a fundamental building block of a reasonable social construct in games that have GMs; GMs that abuse this will naturally find themselves without a game, and/or without friends. Finally, I think that Rule 0 is, basically speaking, a good thing.

#4 is way too deeply entrenched in D&D and a classed system. It's not even applicable to games that AREN'T meant to be empowering power fantasies (i.e. Call of Cthulhu) or games that even fucking have classes to compare the relative balance of (i.e. HERO System). One of the things that actually annoys me about the Den is that a lot of grand declarations about RPGs in general have applicability that doesn't extend one millimeter beyond D&D.

#5 might as well read "Narrativism can go suck a barrel of cocks" copy pasted fifty times.

[silva]

#2. Obviously the DM is not literally GOD, but being figuratively GOD is a good way to describe the DM's role and responsibilities. Constructing and populating the entire world, portraying every other person in the world, maintaining balance and shepherding the story, perhaps even to some degree keeping the players alive (while trying to trick them into thinking he's doing the opposite). I don't think the DM is God but I do think that a decent-to-above-average or better DM deserves a reasonable amount of respect from the players for all the burden he's shouldering. I think that "what the DM says goes" is a fundamental building block of a reasonable social construct in games that have GMs; GMs that abuse this will naturally find themselves without a game, and/or without friends. Finally, I think that Rule 0 is, basically speaking, a good thing.

#4 is way too deeply entrenched in D&D and a classed system. It's not even applicable to games that AREN'T meant to be empowering power fantasies (i.e. Call of Cthulhu) or games that even fucking have classes to compare the relative balance of (i.e. HERO System). One of the things that actually annoys me about the Den is that a lot of grand declarations about RPGs in general have applicability that doesn't extend one millimeter beyond D&D.

#5 might as well read "Narrativism can go suck a barrel of cocks" copy pasted fifty times.

I agree with this, and would like to note that it just reinforces my own perceptions as stated earlier - that the Den dominant design paradygms are informed by "D&D 3E-type math/bean counting-intense gamism" , even if there are exceptions to it ( like you/Shwarzkopf, Cyberzombie, Chamomile, KZT, Prak Anima, TheNotoriousAMP, and others I propably forgot to mention, for example ).

[fectin]

"Narrativism" is a stupid and useless term. I once thought otherwise; I was younger and foolish then.

[Aryxbez]

( like you/Shwarzkopf, Cyberzombie, Chamomile, KZT, Prak Anima, TheNotoriousAMP, and others I propably forgot to mention, for example ).

First off, weren't you told in thread title to stay out of this thread? Secondly, I'd imagine it would depend what all those others you have just quoted had said.

However, #4 still does have some importance in that ye want your options in a game to all be able to contribute, and/or otherwise playable options. Shadowrun is classless, but it's very much true how weak the Street Samurai is due to various Design failings. Superhero Games are generally classless, but do have concepts that won't work as well (Wolverine, The Thing, Close Melee types that have little/no way of getting into their Closet-combat they so desire. Or Captain Hobo), and want your games to minimize those issues that come up. It doesn't need to be a "class system" or "bean-counter-simulator" or whatever BS people spouting about. If in Call of Cthulu it tells me being a cop is an option, but gets me unable to contribute, taken from the story more than other options, there's a potential problem at work.

[Red_Rob]

#4 is way too deeply entrenched in D&D and a classed system. It's not even applicable to games that AREN'T meant to be empowering power fantasies (i.e. Call of Cthulhu) or games that even fucking have classes to compare the relative balance of (i.e. HERO System). One of the things that actually annoys me about the Den is that a lot of grand declarations about RPGs in general have applicability that doesn't extend one millimeter beyond D&D.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. In any game there is an expected paradigm of actions that the players take, and all of the characters should have roughly equal abilities within this paradigm or the players enjoyment will be negatively affected. Take Call of Cthulhu for example. There are classes and there are a variety of skills, and the purpose of that is to ensure that different characters have different ways to contribute to the investigation and eventual confrontation. Note that all the classes get a roughly equal allotment of class skills. There is still an attempt within the system to ensure that all the players feel like they are contributing to the proceedings. And that is what balance is about in system-agnostic terms, not levels and classes. It's about making sure everyone at the table gets to feel like there was a purpose to them being there.

[Dean]

the Den's acknowledgement and condemnation of "Gygaxian fuckery" is amusing, and it's good to be aware that Gary wasn't God, wasn't perfect, and that a lot of his paradigm is incredibly dated, shitty, and/or dysfunctional The Den has made me aware of this, which I consider a service!.

And that's exactly the service I want to provide to others too. I acknowledge him as a driving force behind the hobby, the historical record acknowledges that. But it also acknowledges the shitty things he did and said and those are the parts the rest of the nerd world is ignorant of. It's just another example of what Ancient History was saying. Let everyone else blindly defend things, let us give the factual record and the factual record will include a fair amount of him being a cock.

On the matter of Rule 0 I will strongly disagree with you and Cyberzombie and state that I absolutely don't think it's a good thing. Filling in gaps in the rules is a failure of the rules and that is obvious. It's not a positive. GTA didn't tell you to write your own code if you wanted to leave Liberty City and if it did tell you to do so it certainly wouldn't be touted as a strength. Releasing a product with a label that says "If you want more make it yourself" doesn't increase the strength of the product. It may be necessary in a game attempting to be a reality simulator to acknowledge that not all situations can be fairly resolved within the rules but acknowledging a failure is not the same as possessing a strength.

#4 is way too deeply entrenched in D&D and a classed system. It's not even applicable to games that AREN'T meant to be empowering power fantasies (i.e. Call of Cthulhu)

People talk a lot about CoC as if it is the exception to all sorts of rules. Let me go on record as calling total bullshit on that. The only games of Call of Cthulhu I have seen or heard about in the real actual world have had characters like "Shotgun wielding forbidden tome collector" "Flamethrower Nun" and "Grizzled Cop". I have never seen any inkling of the staunchly defended notion that there are groups of people showing up every week to a table, building characters, and then having them die while being informed that they are insignificant specks who have affected nothing in the plot and been destroyed by an unfathomable foe.

There is a game going on RIGHT NOW in the trenches using parts of the Call of Cthulu mythos and rules and the characters in it are just as badass and powerful as in any other game. I feel completely confident in point #4 and if anything the fact that nerds have told me over and over again that Call of Cthulhu is something diametrically opposed to every piece of anecdotal evidence I've seen on it just makes me more confident in point #4 as a thing that should be said to counter the false memetics about RPG's

[fectin]

On the rule 0 point, I do think it's a virtue to build your game to be easily extensible. That's equivalent to a computer game offering strong support for modders.
Doing that right is harder, not easier though.

[codeGlaze]

On the rule 0 point, I do think it's a virtue to build your game to be easily extensible. That's equivalent to a computer game offering strong support for modders.
Doing that right is harder, not easier though.

Do you think official, published, style guides would help with that?
It's a thought I've had before, but never saw an opening to ask about.

[fectin]

I have no idea.

Speculating freely, I would think that well-developed design docs would help immensely. Style guides would be nice, but I think there's a lot less issue with writeup quality than with design quality in most games.

If I were uncharitable, I might say that anyone who was actually good at design could get a far better paying job, but that's probably unfair.

[TheFlatline]

People talk a lot about CoC as if it is the exception to all sorts of rules. Let me go on record as calling total bullshit on that. The only games of Call of Cthulhu I have seen or heard about in the real actual world have had characters like "Shotgun wielding forbidden tome collector" "Flamethrower Nun" and "Grizzled Cop". I have never seen any inkling of the staunchly defended notion that there are groups of people showing up every week to a table, building characters, and then having them die while being informed that they are insignificant specks who have affected nothing in the plot and been destroyed by an unfathomable foe.

There is a game going on RIGHT NOW in the trenches using parts of the Call of Cthulu mythos and rules and the characters in it are just as badass and powerful as in any other game. I feel completely confident in point #4 and if anything the fact that nerds have told me over and over again that Call of Cthulhu is something diametrically opposed to every piece of anecdotal evidence I've seen on it just makes me more confident in point #4 as a thing that should be said to counter the false memetics about RPG's

I've never played a game of CoC that was worth staying in that wasn't about clinging by your fingernails to your character's sanity and inevitably losing it. CoC is boring if you're not put into no-win situations like that and bargain bits of your soul and your sanity away to gain just enough power to deal with the situation.

Sacrificing everything including your identity to fight the good fight when nobody will ever know you existed or fought back is an extremely romantic notion (from the traditional sense of something the Romans would have held as virtuous).

[Chamomile]

Okay, let's look at deanruel's stuff.

2: The DM is God

As mentioned, "God" is actually a pretty effective descriptor of the guy who creates the entire setting except for six characters. But the "GM is God" philosophy is in fact harmful and toxic. What I would say is "GMs don't have divine right to rule." Because that makes people think of "GM is God" but then you can point out that this is in fact ridiculous. Divine right is the notion that a king is appointed by God himself to be your ruler, so a GM who seriously argues that he should be treated as though he has divine right to run a game is arguing that he has been chosen by God himself to run a tabletop roleplaying game for 3-6 other people, and that if anyone else shall rule the group will descend into anarchy and be conquered by vikings. Not in-game. In real life. That's insane. The only reason a GM ever walks to a table with legitimate bargaining power is because GMing is an unpopular job in some places which means if the GM walks away the entire game may collapse immediately.

4: Why does everything have to be balanced, not everything has to be strong. Showing off your characters weaknesses shows who's a true roleplayer.

Your entire response to this is terrible, and awful, and dumb, and you should feel bad for having written it. Some people do not want to play power fantasies. Power fantasies are common, but some people really do play for other reasons. No, the reason things have to be balanced is so that people can make informed decisions about the story they're making. If the game's fluff says that Rogues are master sneakers, then the Rogue should be the best class for sneaking, because if Wizards casting Invisibility are the real master sneakers, then your story has decent odds of wrecking because you thought the world worked one way for half the story and then figured out midway through that it works another. That can be fine for characters in the story, but if it's happening to the authors, your story will be inconsistent and bad. If you don't care about rules, then you are especially the kind of person who should want the rules to function properly, because poorly built rules will be constantly crippling your story with nonsensical or genre-defying results and you will not have the relevant talents to fix those rules. Options that are clearly weaker than other party members can exist and you can have fun playing them, but they should be clearly marked as such. If you want to play an underpowered character, you should not be required to have extensive system mastery to find out what that actually means. You should be able to play a character who's just a level under the average.

5: Balance doesn't matter. In an RPG the story is all that matters.

You make a ton of assumptions here, and those assumptions might even be usually accurate, but you don't use helpful qualifiers like "usually." You're dealing in absolutes, which means you are most definitely wrong and also a Sith. As it happens the answer to this one is the same as the answer to #4: If your rules are dysfunctional they will impair your stories instead of helping them. Better rules make for better stories. That's not just a TTRPG thing, that's setting design 101.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I've never played a game of CoC that was worth staying in that wasn't about clinging by your fingernails to your character's sanity and inevitably losing it. CoC is boring if you're not put into no-win situations like that and bargain bits of your soul and your sanity away to gain just enough power to deal with the situation.

When I started reading this post, my mind initially went to an entirely different game with those initials.

It took me a few seconds to realize what you were actually talking about.

[shadzar]

1: Gygax was a great man

2: The DM is God

3: You should play the game, not the rules. A good DM can just change any rules that don't work.

4: Why does everything have to be balanced, not everything has to be strong. Showing off your characters weaknesses shows who's a true roleplayer.

5: Balance doesn't matter. In an RPG the story is all that matters.

How surprising to find someone that hates D&D and worships WotC just keeping up with edition warring for the sake of it. Still have no idea why these sorts of people NEED D&D so badly when they apparently never liked it to begin with. What attention whores and needy narcissists.

1.He created something, though not alone in doing so. that is all that really matters. he is like Tolkein. he is the source, but as Jackson proved, he is not the only one able to play in that sandbox. JKR herself lets people play in her sandbox with her new website where she can control it. Gygax is like the guy who "created the internet" (and I do't mean Al Gore). You have to credit him for starting something.

2. Well the DM is god, in the game. but even if it is his house, the player need not worship the one running the game, they can leave. bet someone else has already stated how the players only control ONE thing each int he world, and the DM runs the world. if you do not accept this basic concept of D&D, then stop playing it, stop talking about it, and fuck off to do something else.

3. D&D set out to be an extension of make-believe using some common ground, that is it. the common ground is NOT the game, the make-believe is. learn this and you will understand why there is more than jsut D&D but thousands of TT, computer, and other RPGs in the world. the game is still make-believe, the rules are just the themes or other nuances people chose to employ to set their RPG into.

4. this doesn't even make sense. it really just shows how the arguement is basically a case of attention whoring. this stupid "no one left behind" in schools that lets kids continue through grades even if they learn nothing and breed stupider society with participation awards. aside fromt he fact, that this isnt even what people are saying, it is this optimized bullshit and stupidity that isnt needed across the board jsut because some are too lacking in imagination they think the numbers are the game and only play with the numbers (see 3)

5. why is balance mentioned twice? double the need for attention whoring? oh right, you want to FORCE people to take part in things they don't like because they are sitting at the table. you masturbate over 4th edition fighter and their vancian spellcasting, when someone wants to play a fighter to enjoy the story and play the game with their brain on autopilot to relax. you are the fun police and get to decide how everyone must play? you must have missed naptime today. I hope they at least changed your diaper at the daycare you attend.

[Neurosis]

People talk a lot about CoC as if it is the exception to all sorts of rules. Let me go on record as calling total bullshit on that. The only games of Call of Cthulhu I have seen or heard about in the real actual world have had characters like "Shotgun wielding forbidden tome collector" "Flamethrower Nun" and "Grizzled Cop". I have never seen any inkling of the staunchly defended notion that there are groups of people showing up every week to a table, building characters, and then having them die while being informed that they are insignificant specks who have affected nothing in the plot and been destroyed by an unfathomable foe.

There is a game going on RIGHT NOW in the trenches using parts of the Call of Cthulu mythos and rules and the characters in it are just as badass and powerful as in any other game. I feel completely confident in point #4 and if anything the fact that nerds have told me over and over again that Call of Cthulhu is something diametrically opposed to every piece of anecdotal evidence I've seen on it just makes me more confident in point #4 as a thing that should be said to counter the false memetics about RPG's

I've never played a game of CoC that was worth staying in that wasn't about clinging by your fingernails to your character's sanity and inevitably losing it. CoC is boring if you're not put into no-win situations like that and bargain bits of your soul and your sanity away to gain just enough power to deal with the situation.

Sacrificing everything including your identity to fight the good fight when nobody will ever know you existed or fought back is an extremely romantic notion (from the traditional sense of something the Romans would have held as virtuous).

This.