Minor game stuff from around the web for commentary...

[Ancient History]

Apologies for delays, day job.

You're giving people a bonus, Zak. A bonus is an incentive. The behavior that gives that bonus is the behavior you're incentivizing. How is it you can't see that?

Whether or not it incentivizes is not the question I just laid before you, strawmanning troll.

Your post actually doesn't include a question; the questions you asked on the previous page I did answer (and you misconstrued those answers and basically ignored what I said). So let's move on to stuff you actually said:

You don't even check facts: at no point did I say the point of the rule was to incentivize certain behavior and the point isn't. I said the purpose of the rule was to add tension to the situation when a PC plays their instrument. Which it does and you can check that.

Okay. Let's check that!

Musical Instrument (small):
This could be any old musical instrument you can carry: a violin, bagpipes, a triangle, whatever. Playing a musical instrument requires a dexterity check. Successfully playing the instrument gives you a bonus to reaction/charisma rolls with nonhostile beings able to appreciate music. Failure gives you a minus.

The rule itself doesn't say anything about "tension." It's sort of implicit because you can succeed (and get a bonus!) or fail (and get a penalty.) What is explicit is the whole "bonus" bit, which is an incentive for the player character to do that thing - after all, if they were no reason to do it, why would they? You don't actually mention "tension" until way down in the commentary:

Putting the bonus at stake on the dex roll gives that scene and the roll more tension. It's more exciting because there are stakes.

So now that that's clear, let's continue!

Frank alleged I inaccurately believed it incentivized a thing which is not true because I made no claim about it incentivizing anything or not.

Frank didn't allege shit: you wrote a rule that gives a bonus, a bonus is an incentive, you wrote a rule that gives an incentive. QED. You didn't claim you were trying to incentivize any particular behavior in the rule itself, but then you didn't claim you were trying to create tension in the rule itself either.

I spoke to its purpose: its purpose was something else other than incentivizing--whether or not it did that, too.

Help me on this one: the rule is a completely optional Dex check on a small musical instrument which gives you a bonus or a penalty on a subsequent Charisma check. What is it's purpose, if not to give a bonus or penalty? I mean, that's what it does, but you're claiming that the actual words that constitute your rule have nothing to do with what you intended. So what was the point of it all? To give somebody a reason during the game to whip out the lute? So that the lutist doesn't feel small in the pants for investing skill points in Perform(lute) and never being able to use it? To create tension by throwing in a completely optional test that they can totally skip if they think there's a good chance they'll fail it?

Frank lied or else is grotesquely stupid and mistakes his fantasies for reality. Do you grasp this?

Pot calling kettle, Zak. You're the most dishonest sumbitch here. I've written more game material than you, and so has Frank. I've had more game material published professionally than you. I've done my share of rules-making, and some of it was good and some of it was crap, and I admit it when I make a mistake. So does Frank. Being incorrect doesn't make you a liar, lying about how great your rule is makes you a liar. All you've ever done on this or any other thread is accuse people that disagree with you of being liars or morons, and you never ever address the possibility that maybe the rule you wrote isn't a perfect thing of pristine beauty and perfect logic.

[Prak]

"I don't want you printing this article, and if you do, i will ensure every last one of you is fired."

That's still not prior restraint, as it does not prevent them from printing the article, it only gives consequences for doing so.

It is generally true that people have no fucking idea what Prior Restraint is, and people who try to bring it into discussions are almost universally idiots. You'll note that shitmuffin brought up prior restraint in this thread and has no idea what it means, and that Occluded Sun brought up prior restraint in the money thread and is also an idiot. It's like a litmus test of idiocy.

-Username17

exactly. It's disturbing that people are having trouble with this. Prior restraint involves you submitting your expose on stalin's childhood to the political office before the publisher, they decide that is inappropriate, have the manuscript and notes burned and have you arrested before anyone else in the world ever sees it.

At no point does anyone get arrested after saying some shit. They come for you before you have a chance to say it, because rumor has it that you might say some shit they might not like. Though, honestly it largely is applied to written material, not verbal.

It is considered fundamentally dangerous to society because it is overly controlling, secretive and by nature actively takes power away from people. It isn't an asshole test, it's fucking thought control by information denial.

It is, at least, closer to prior restraint than either thing that it has been cited for in this thread. My apologies that I got the exact way by which someone would use prior restraint to stop an article (though you might want to go tell journalism instructors they're wrong too.)

Musical Instrument (small), as you wrote it, creates a land where playing the kazoo before talking to a judge doesn't make you fined for contempt of court. It was really simple to add "In situations where's socially acceptable..." to the text's beginning, but you didn't do that.

Hell, it's really simple to respond to "um, there is literally no reason to ever not start a social encounter by playing the kazoo, under that rule" by saying "oh, shit, that should be 'in appropriate situations'." At least that's responding reasonably to critique. But... I guess they don't teach how to listen and respond to criticism in "indie 'artist' porn school"

So, in the end, your reasoning only punishes strawman people who have a failure of creativity and take Musical Instrument (small) without enjoying it. I don't care about these people, anyway, because it's possible they don't exist. But you'll be the asshole if you punish people who think that rules inform how the setting works.

Also GMs who think roleplaying is "srs bzns." But then, it's probably good to "punish" them, at least when they tell you to shit in your hand.

You guys are getting trolled by the one who must not be named, again.

honestly we've passed the trolls trolling trolls point five threads ago, all we can hope for is lulzy trolling a this point.

No, the reason we're still going is-

I seriously need to get this tattooed on my arm, or something for how much I refer to it

Zak, suppose your system has the following two reach weapons:
Spear: 1d6 damage, critical 20 x2
Glaive: 1d10 damage, critical 20 x3

If my character concept isn't "reach weapon fighter" but I decide to pick a reach weapon anyway because it can be useful at some situations, will you get mad at me if I always pick the glaive?

True story, I have actually had a GM get made at me for playing a monk who used an axe because it did more damage, so mad that he took said ax away with the implication that he would not allow me to buy a new one.

because of course a wise martial artist would never use an ax
So I could see Zak in fact being mad at you for that. He'd be a douche, and a bad dm, but I could see it.

[Wiseman]

[Cyberzombie]

As been mentioned, it's not hard to find a justification for using a Musical Instrument in a given situation. Part of what makes it "appropriate" in some context is what the roll will represent. Maybe it'll annoy the merchant, maybe instead he'll appreciate a fine tune from his homeland, or find the buyer has class and give him more respect on sales. Alternatively, if he failed, could be the opposite, finds it annoying, insult to his people, or someone trying too hard.

Well no. The roll represents how well you played the instrument, not if it was appropriate or if it should help you. It doesn't matter how high you roll on a diplomacy check to move a boulder aside that's blocking your path. It's just dead rock and diplomacy isn't appropriate to make it move. So when you roll a 40 on your diplo check, you the DM says, "You make a stunning oratory but nothing happens."

Not every social situation is the same, and we already know this because people use guitars to pick up girls, but they don't use guitars when they're testifying in court or negotiating over the price of a car. So obviously there are situations where musical instruments help you and a place where they do not. Common sense should tell you that stuff and the game world should reflect it unless the DM's goal is to produce a world with a completely alien feel. I don't know about you though, but that's not the goal in most games.

I believe the whole bit on what Frank was trying to say, in this world (one where a rule of music =bonus to social checks), it's acceptable to use music to be more social or whatever.

This is the kind of problem Monte is talking about where pandering to crazy rules lawyering just ends up terrorizing the DM and the game designer. You've got a relatively benign minor modifier that suddenly people are blowing up into a major issue that totally reshapes your campaign world and how it operates. So at any point a game designer could potentially screw up the wording on one little random item and the entire world vastly mutates via butterfly effect into something totally unrecognizable by a normal person? Damn man... if I was a game designer, I'd be terrified of writing any actual rules. You'd probably have a lower stress profession joining the bomb squad. I'm not surprised Monte would be against that sort of thing, and I don't think any game designer wants to write for a game system where the norm is expecting catastrophic butterfly effects from creating an item that grants a +2 bonus. Seriously dude, would you want to write any RPG rules while knowing even the smallest mistake you make might cause the gameworld to totally go to hell? Eventually you'd just say "fuck it, I don't design games for rules lawyering asshats" and move on.

It's insanity. People have bigger things to worry about. This is a game people play in their spare time man... I'd be happy to just get a designer who writes a game that lets you do fun stuff and has some sound math behind it that doesn't break. I'm not expecting the avatar of absolute perfection to come out of a low-paying RPG writing job.

[Username17]

So at any point a game designer could potentially screw up the wording on one little random item and the entire world vastly mutates via butterfly effect into something totally unrecognizable by a normal person?

Uhhh.... we're talking about a genre in which heroes who look like this:





Team up together to fight demons and dragons for a few months, following which they have gained so much power that they then murder the shit out of a dragon god that looks like this:



...following which the actual concept of envy gets written out of existence.

So, what the shit fuck exactly are you talking about mutating the game into something that isn't recognizable by a normal person? What part of that is recognizable by a normal person?

-Username17

[momothefiddler]

So at any point a game designer could potentially screw up the wording on one little random item and the entire world vastly mutates via butterfly effect into something totally unrecognizable by a normal person?

Yeah. And that's not what makes a bad game designer, because then proofreaders and playtesters go "Hey, technically this rule indicates that anyone with a 10+ dex should take an instrument to market with them to help with bargaining, is that intended behavior?" It's simple enough to go "Oh, yeah, that's not what I meant. Let me clarify that." or "Yeah, that's intended behavior. Let me mention that in setting stuff."

What makes a bad game designer is if they respond "NO IT DOESN'T THE RULE'S PERFECT BUT PEOPLE DON'T USE IT BECAUSE REASONS YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE YOU'RE FIRED."

[deaddmwalking]

I had been meaning to do this earlier, but I apparently forgot:

Some of the reasons that Zak S.'s 'rule' is unnecessary/useless:

1) There are already rules for 'aid another'. If your friend is making a Diplomacy check, you can grant them a +2 bonus by succeeding on a Diplomacy check as well. A reasonable DM (and I don't have my books in front of me, but I believe this was suggested in the rules) may find that two skills may synergize for this purpose - ie, if your friend uses Intimidate while you use Diplomacy for a 'good-cop/bad-cop' routine, a successful Intimidate check would be appropriate. This rule could have been handled by providing examples of situations where 'aid another' using a different skill would have been appropriate.

2) This largely duplicates the effects of Inspire Competence. While the SRD description mentions that it cannot be used for all skills (and was famously lampooned in Order of the Stick for using it for Move Silently checks), this would be a situation where it could certainly apply - and since a bard can inspire competence in himself, it would functionally duplicate the effects of Zak S.'s 'rule'.

3) There is a rule for 'Masterwork Tool' that indicates it would grant a +2 bonus on a check. A 'good performance' could be seen as a 'tool' that helps with negotiations. As such, the performance would grant a +2 competence bonus on the check.

4) I'm not sure if this is in the SRD, but I'm certain it was in the Core Books - when presented with a situation where things are favorable, the DM is encouraged to provide a +2 to a check; when things are unfavorable, the DM is encouraged to provide a -2 to a check. This general rule replaces codifying all of the potential cirumstances that might apply. Need to make a Strength check to keep your friend from falling into the well after he failed his climb check but your footing is poor due to mud? Make the check at -2. Need to make the check but you have the rope looped over a strong tree branch? Make the check at +2.

Zak is right that disruption of the game as a result of this rule is possibly a sign of disfunctional people, but that is a terrible justification for a rule - and was only brought up after how terrible his rule is was made obvious to everyone. Where he's absolutely wrong is pretending that he can divine intent from behavior.

Functionally, a character that 'really likes playing the lute' will perform exactly the same as a character that 'doesn't care about anything but squeezing every bonus out of every possible situation', which means he has some arbitrary limit in mind where at some point, it is 'acceptable' and at another point it is 'unacceptable' and it is some way related to whether he secretly agrees that your character is really a character tha likes music.

But this was fun. This has really given a lot of clarity into why Zak S.'s stabs at rules creation are terri-bad. And the implication that anyone that doesn't enjoy his rules will be 'thrown out' absolutely destroys any credence to a claim that 'his rules are the best for his group' - if people are thrown out of the group, it's pretty clear that the rules weren't a good fit for that group.

[Zak S]

Frank didn't allege shit:

You're lying. Here he is alleging something: " This is a discussion about shitmuffin's idea that he can make a rule whose predicted and intended effect was to incentivize certain behavior"

Frank is alleging its intended effect was to incentivize certain behavior. But it wasn't. I wrote the rule and its intended effect is to increase tension--which it does.

So Frank lied (or is an idiot), then you lied (or are an idiot) to back him up. And nearly everyone else in the thread is pretending you didn't because its too embarrassing to point out that all this bs is built on nothing.

[Mistborn]

So Frank lied (or is an idiot), then you lied (or are an idiot) to back him up. And nearly everyone else in the thread is pretending you didn't because its too embarrassing to point out that all this bs is built on nothing.

actually it's option C) Frank thought you where smarter than you actually are and assumed that you had done some basic critical thinking about your rule. Clearly you haven't.

[Kaelik]

Yeah. And that's not what makes a bad game designer, because then proofreaders and playtesters go "Hey, technically this rule indicates that anyone with a 10+ dex should take an instrument to market with them to help with bargaining, is that intended behavior?" It's simple enough to go "Oh, yeah, that's not what I meant. Let me clarify that." or "Yeah, that's intended behavior. Let me mention that in setting stuff."

What makes a bad game designer is if they respond "NO IT DOESN'T THE RULE'S PERFECT BUT PEOPLE DON'T USE IT BECAUSE REASONS YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE YOU'RE FIRED."

This times infinity. If you make a sufficiently complicated product, there will exist weird edge cases.

Nothing is inherently bad about diving spells off other people's lists.
Nothing is inherently bad about Antimagic Field.
Nothing is inherently bad about a spell that keeps you conscious when in negative HP.
Nothing is inherently bad about a spell that prevents you from dying due to negative HP for a couple rounds.
Nothing is inherently bad about Nightsticks.
Nothing is inherently bad about the concept of Persistent Spell (the implementation is shittastic in many ways and inherently bad).
I think it is an inherently bad concept to make yourself immune to your own AMF, but I could see disagreement on this point.

But obviously, when you combine all those together you get something super fucking shitty for the game. If someone asked Monte Cook about that, a real answer might involve talking about the actual flaws in exemption from AMF and Persist spell, but I would not blame him for just saying, "Fuck You, don't do that."

But Cyberzombie, in classic perfection is enemy of the good case, declares that because sufficiently complex edge cases through complex combinations will probably exist somewhere it therefore follows that the following is a perfectly acceptable rule not worth changing:

"Babble of the Rising Tide: If you slip this onto another player's character, they either have to buy you a pizza or Drown to death in a toilet, your choice."

Because after all, a babble which you give to someone else so they buy you a pizza, but then they have the ability to slip it on you and make you return the favor is just a cute joke item that doesn't matter, and only assholes will murder people with toilet water. So why on earth would you make that huge laborious change of deleting the drowning death requirement?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

You know, if I was an adult film star, I'd have better things to do than post for hours straight arguing about a minor house ruling I made.

Then again, I already have better things to do than to post for 7 hours straight about a minor house ruling I made and I only have a few friends willing to sex me right now...

I'm thinking Zak's life must not be as good as he likes to act if something like this bothers him so much...

[pragma]

I'd be happy to just get a designer who writes a game that lets you do fun stuff and has some sound math behind it that doesn't break.

I think there's a problem with these two goals. If you're not careful about your rules for fun stuff (eg: playing a musical instrument for effectively free bonuses) then the underlying math of your system becomes less sound. See 3.x diplomacy.

As you rightly point out, it would be weird for the +2 rocking out bonus to be the final straw that messes up the game. However, giving a +2 bonus that may or may not be used makes the math behind the social system less certain: do the designers set up social TNs assuming bonus-laden musical intros or not? If not, they have to keep a tight eye on the total number of goofy, easy to acquire, situational bonuses. If so, anyone who doesn't play a musical instrument does worse in social rolls than musicians.

This rule makes your two goals -- "do fun stuff" and "have sound math" --harder for the game to achieve at the same time, and you'd be better served by a different rule.

Assuming we're on the same page about that, I'd like to discuss the idea of expecting imperfections from designers. I think constructive, numerate criticism is one of the best ways to the RPG industry, so criticizing things that are imperfect is super important even if they're honest efforts. I also think the Den's tone is one of the worst ways to promulgate that kind of criticism -- people tend to adopt a "fuck you and your ideas too" attitude after being insulted -- but I'm glad this place is willing to expect perfection rather than swallowing whatever is being hardest marketed or has the best GM.

[Zak S]

1) There are already rules for 'aid another'.
2) This largely duplicates the effects of Inspire Competence.
3) There is a rule for 'Masterwork Tool' that indicates it would grant a +2 bonus on a check.
4) I'm not sure if this is in the SRD, but I'm certain it was in the Core Books

It's an incredibly stupid and narrow-minded assumption that everyone is playing versions of D&D game with these rules. They're not

Zak is right that disruption of the game as a result of this rule is possibly a sign of disfunctional people, but that is a terrible justification for a rule

It's not a justification for the rule, it's a side effect. The side effect of most rules is people who abuse them are identifiable as assholes. It happens to be a side effect people at The Gaming Den are excited about because they're rule-abusing assholes, but it isn't the major justification for the rule.

The justification for the rule is it gives the scene where a musician player plays their instrument tension about whether there's a bonus.

Functionally, a character that 'really likes playing the lute' will perform exactly the same as a character that 'doesn't care about anything but squeezing every bonus out of every possible situation',

If you can't tell what your friends do and don't like, you are bad at GMing. And bad at being a grown-up. The behavior of their PC on paper will be the same, but they--the human there--will not act the same.

And the implication that anyone that doesn't enjoy his rules will be 'thrown out' absolutely destroys any credence to a claim that 'his rules are the best for his group' - if people are thrown out of the group, it's pretty clear that the rules weren't a good fit for that group.

Which seems to make sense until you realize nobody's ever been thrown out.

I have no rules contingency for what to do if a player is racist. It's never come up. But if they were I'd throw them out. The same with the character 'doesn't care about anything but squeezing every bonus out of every possible situation'.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Fix your fucking tags, jackass.

[Mistborn]

The justification for the rule is it gives the scene where a musician player plays their instrument tension about whether there's a bonus.

So basically it adds nothing to the game beyond an extra dice roll, why is this a good idea again?

Edit: Tags unfuck them

[Prak]

No no! You don't understand Zak's subtle genius, Lord Mistborn! See, no one knows if the musician will succeed at a simple Dex check! (he will) So there's all this high tension as Zak forces the player at gunpoint to pull out a lyre, tune it, drop the die into the hole, and play a jaunty tune before shaking the die out to see if they get their piddling bonus!

Translation for the sarcasm impaired (ie, Zak): Either this rule is reasonably non-demanding, and everyone will use it, or you make it a herculean ordeal, and no one does. Or your special snowflake player asks "GM may I" before they ever do anything, and you say "yes, sweetie, you may roll to try to get your tiny bonus."

Which, hilariously, is the closest thing you will find to prior restraint in a game- players being forced by the gm to ask permission to do things, and the gm allowing or vetoing as he pleases.

[nockermensch]

Frank didn't allege shit:

You're lying. Here he is alleging something: " This is a discussion about shitmuffin's idea that he can make a rule whose predicted and intended effect was to incentivize certain behavior"

Frank is alleging its intended effect was to incentivize certain behavior. But it wasn't. I wrote the rule and its intended effect is to increase tension--which it does.

So Frank lied (or is an idiot), then you lied (or are an idiot) to back him up. And nearly everyone else in the thread is pretending you didn't because its too embarrassing to point out that all this bs is built on nothing.

Suppose that your game has only one model of sword, one that deals 1d8 damage.

Zak is claiming that when he introduces a new sword that deals 1d6 damage 25% of the times and 1d12 damage 75% of times, that's just for increasing tension, and that players who want to pick this new sword because they noticed that it has better damage average are assholes that need to be booted from his game.

[Zak S]

Oh this one is easy:

Either this rule is reasonably non-demanding, and everyone will use it,

Yet not everyone does.

...or you make it a herculean ordeal, and no one does.

Yet people do use it.

Or your special snowflake player asks "GM may I" before they ever do anything, and you say "yes, sweetie, you may roll to try to get your tiny bonus."

Yet that does not happen at my table either.

So you've made a prediction about the effect of the rule and your prediction is wrong. So the first thing to do (if you're sane) is to admit you are wrong, then go back to your lab--chastened and humbled by the massive failure of your gigantic RPG brain to wrap its head around the actual practical effect of a rule--and think hard where you went wrong.

[Prak]

Zak, adding a roll to determine a binary state does not increase tension. Narrative increases tension. A roll that can make or break an hour-long encounter increases tension. A roll at the start of an encounter to determine whether you have advantage or disadvantage does not increase tension. If you have anecdotal evidence otherwise, then I would contend that it is because you have conditioned your group to believe that every die roll is critical to success, when in reality, most aren't.

[DSMatticus]

"
Prior restraint (also referred to as prior censorship or pre-publication censorship) is censorship imposed, usually by a government, on expression before the expression actually takes place
"

You're not a lawyer, Kaelik. You're just a troll.

I think this has been harped on a lot, but I can't get over this. Shitmuffin is such an idiot it's beyond imagination.

Kaelik is a lot of things, an asshole, a lawyer, and not as good as me at League of Legends, but the one thing you can learn from just taking a look at literally anything he's posted is that he's a pretty smart dude and is definitely knowledgeable about the law. Those are the two things you need to be to be a (good) lawyer.

Beiber/shitmuffin quoted Wikipedia's first sentence and never tried to learn more. He acted like he knew anything based on the first sentence of a Wikipedia article. That is dumb beyond all imaging, and I have worked with people who thought research was "copy and paste Wikipedia." Because at least those people copy and pasted more than the first fucking sentence.

So, are you saying Zak just reached Occluded Sun's levels of dumbness?

Actually, the first sentence of the wikipedia article disagreed with Zak, in the same way that the first sentence of the wikipedia article disagreed with Occluded Sun. Occluded Sun "solved" being wrong simply by ignoring that sentence and quoting a different one that disagreed with him less. Zak "solved" being wrong simply by quoting the sentence that disagreed with him repeatedly and obnoxiously as though it meant something else. You wouldn't be wrong to say that Zak is worse at this shit than Occluded Sun.

[Stubbazubba]

Frank didn't allege shit:

Frank is alleging its intended effect was to incentivize certain behavior. But it wasn't. I wrote the rule and its intended effect is to increase tension--which it does.

Don't be a dick, you made up the tension thing later, it doesn't appear once in your original post. And that was only after you made up the idea that it gives players who were already playing instruments an extra opportunity "to find fun for themselves" or some other BS. And when that was called a "bonus" for instrument-playing you vehemently denied it because you're stupid and don't realize what a bonus even is.

Give it up. I don't have to reference anything that Frank said to tell you how wrong you are.

[Josh_Kablack]

I also think the Den's tone is one of the worst ways to promulgate that kind of criticism

Okay, this is a point worth exploring.

Firstly, the Den has a much deserved reputation of being home to unrepentant assholes. And we are by and large proud of that reputation and strive to maintain it.

The reason for such a tradition is a rejection of passive aggression in favor of active aggression. We like to think that such reduces the echo-chamber effect of internet forums and helps to prevent groupthink. Not that the Den doesn't have its share of echoey groupthoughts, but that share is reduced due to out proud hostility and profligate profanity.

And so when we discuss what "designer X" did in a game rule, we tear the rule to shreds, we invent new profanities just to call that designer, we wish all sorts of (just within the boundaries of legality) harm upon that designer's family and such. And we do it to illustrate ways that the rule could have been better and how much we care about the rules. Yes, I just said that we hate because we care.

However, you are quite correct in that the Den's usual actively hostile tone where "go suck a barrel of cocks" translates to roughly "and a good morning to you too, sir (or ma'am)" does not go over well with non-Denizens. But usually that isn't a problem. On the 'Den I swear freely. Elsewhere on the internet I write much more formally. Newcomers to the Den are initially shocked, but either become acclimated or shortly decide that the pro profanity mass flaming environment is just too hostile for them.

The only real problem is that game designers are people too. And these people occasionally get directed to writings about them posted on the internet. Like sometimes the arguments we here on the Den are having about them. And when one of those designers unwittingly wanders into a Den argument where the main divide is between the side who is certain said designer must have an unhealthy obsession with the weirder Bollywood musicals and the side which maintains that said designer is just setting a new low in the chronicles of stupidity, then said designer is likely going to conclude that we are all potty-mouthed assholes with nothing relevant to say. While we are by and large potty-mouthed assholes, we do fairly frequently have relevant things to say.

[Ancient History]

You're lying. Here he is alleging something: " This is a discussion about shitmuffin's idea that he can make a rule whose predicted and intended effect was to incentivize certain behavior"

Frank is alleging its intended effect was to incentivize certain behavior. But it wasn't. I wrote the rule and its intended effect is to increase tension--which it does.

Frank made a statement of fact. You did incentivize certain behavior. You did obviously intend this, because you gave a mechanical bonus for succeeding, and a better than average chance of succeeding. If you did not want to incentivize this, there would be no bonus. You may or may not have also intended to introduce an element of tension, since there's a penalty and a dice roll involved, but you quite obviously did include an incentive.

Now of course you refuse to admit this, but then you're a notorious liar at this point.

So Frank lied (or is an idiot), then you lied (or are an idiot) to back him up. And nearly everyone else in the thread is pretending you didn't because its too embarrassing to point out that all this bs is built on nothing.

Well, no. All this bs is built on what you initially wrote (and, to a greater extant, Monte Cook seeing the world as full of assholes).

As you yourself wrote:

It's a good deal--why wouldn't they take it?

You bitch about people that would take the fiddle just to get the bonus, but then if you didn't want player characters to get the fiddle just for mechanical advantage why give them a bonus? You set up a world where you're rewarded for playing the fiddle, even if you don't like it, and then bitch because someone decides to play the fiddle.

[Prak]

Oh this one is easy:

Either this rule is reasonably non-demanding, and everyone will use it,

Yet not everyone does.

...or you make it a herculean ordeal, and no one does.

Yet people do use it.

Or your special snowflake player asks "GM may I" before they ever do anything, and you say "yes, sweetie, you may roll to try to get your tiny bonus."

Yet that does not happen at my table either.

So you've made a prediction about the effect of the rule and your prediction is wrong. So the first thing to do (if you're sane) is to admit you are wrong, then go back to your lab--chastened and humbled by the massive failure of your gigantic RPG brain to wrap its head around the actual practical effect of a rule--and think hard where you went wrong.

Admittedly, your group is unique, and given that I cannot cast "summon players" at will, I must look at rules with hypothetical rational actors. The rational actor would act as I predict, given my data. However my information about your group is limited (1- they work in the sex industry, 2-at least one or two are people I consider to be quite intelligent, 3-they are alleged to enjoy your games. This is the sum of my knowledge of your group), so of course I cannot make absolute declarations about it specifically, only the aforementioned hypothetical rational mind. Whether intended or not, you have created a rule which, on the face of it, incentivises a certain behaviour. The tendency to behave in an incentivised way is human nature, that is a recorded scientific fact which a game designer must remember if he is making rules for anyone outside of his personal group (and even then, he should recall that it is human nature, and so even a specific individual or group thereof will have a tendency towards it).

The sane way to handle what we have been trying, sometimes mockingly, sometimes seriously, to inform you is the problem is to say one of several things:
1) "Oh, I didn't realize or intend that. I could see how that might cause problems with some people, but I really was just jotting this down for my own group, and I don't think it will be a problem"
2) "Oh, that's not what I intended, let me change that"
3) "I totally intended that, this is a rule for my upcoming Scott Pilgrim tabletop rpg. I know it's a bit late, but negotiations took a while. I think you'll really like my 'pee meter' mechanic"
4) "Yeah, you're right. I didn't intend that, but I kind of like it now..."

Now, technically you have taken the position of statement #1. There is a key difference however. You basically said that anyone outside of your unique group is awful and horrible and evil because they would, consciously or no, follow human nature and make use of a rule which incentivises a behaviour you did not intend. In which case, I can only ask "since when does the church allow porn performers in it's upper ranks?" There are very few wrong ways to play an rpg, but the one clear one which most people agree upon is that blocking other people's enjoyment is a wrong way to play, and, by extension, calling play styles other than your own wrong or bad is a bad way to approach discussion of games.

[nockermensch]

Oh this one is easy:

Either this rule is reasonably non-demanding, and everyone will use it,

Yet not everyone does.

...or you make it a herculean ordeal, and no one does.

Yet people do use it.

Or your special snowflake player asks "GM may I" before they ever do anything, and you say "yes, sweetie, you may roll to try to get your tiny bonus."

Yet that does not happen at my table either.

What seems to happen on your table based on what you wrote a few pages ago is that Fiddlin Joe (Patrick Stuart of False Machine) is playing a bard or something and you wanted to spice up the scenes where he's doing his party face job. We got this, but you get to understand that Musical Instrument (small) isn't a rule intended for general consumption. It's something you made to cater for one player of your table. Here, I'll write an updated version of Musical Instrument (small) for you:

Musical Instrument (small):
This could be any old musical instrument you can carry: a violin, bagpipes, a triangle, whatever. Playing a musical instrument requires a dexterity check. If you're called Fiddlin Joe and played by Patrick Stuart of False Machine, successfully playing the instrument gives you a bonus to reaction/charisma rolls with nonhostile beings able to appreciate music. Failure gives you a minus.

Customising the game's content to make your players happier is awesome and recognised here. But nobody here would be so arrogant as to believe that everybody else should like the same things as your players.