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

[Zak S]

As part of my credentials I'm trained in Human Resource management and a bit of systems design. As such, I operate based on how things work and how people behaves, not on how I think things should work or how I wish people behaved in a perfect world.

.

Then you can surely see how it's better to design a rule around how the actual players you have behave than around how a bunch of people you'll never play with behave.

[Leress]

Now, I'll be honest. I don't even remember whatever bonus you're all still arguing about, but if said bonus happened to be clearly better and more cost-effective than any other similar player option in the game (which might or might not be, again I can't remember/don't know/don't care)... then yes, I'd say the game is The Pirates of Penzance.

The way the excerpt for the small instrument is written it is hard to tell since the amount of bonus and penalty aren't specifically given.

[Zak S]

Now, I'll be honest. I don't even remember whatever bonus you're all still arguing about, but if said bonus happened to be clearly better and more cost-effective than any other similar player option in the game (which might or might not be, again I can't remember/don't know/don't care)... then yes, I'd say the game is The Pirates of Penzance.

The way the excerpt for the small instrument is written it is hard to tell since the amount of bonus and penalty aren't specifically given.

It's written so it can be adapted to a lot of games.
In my game it's usually a +2 bonus to the cha roll on a roll-under stat. +4 if the performance maxes out (roll a natural 1). Rolling a natural 20 on a roll-under would be an autofail.

+2 can theoretically slide (but in practice never has) certain cultures may appreciate music more or less, as will people starved for entertainment or otherwise occupied.

[Kaelik]

Demonstrate you have some legitimate and honest specific question that needs to see my notes and I'll get them. Right now you could just be being a dick.

Translation: Sure I just challenged anyone to provide a better rule, and then responded to literally every single person by saying that some other thing I didn't mention that is in my rules makes their suggestion super impossible, but you can't expect me to actually tell you all the rules so that you can provide a better rule, because even though I regularly whine about how people should ask for clarification, when someone actually wants to know any of the rules that I intend to gotchas them with after they say something, I don't tell them.

Which is also why when Leress specifically asked to see the rules, I spent the next couple posts refusing to provide that information and specifically trying to goad him into making a statement so that I could call gotcha and spring one of the rules he was asking to see on him. [/translation]

Buy hey Zak S, since you are not ignoring my irrelevant 3 line insult posts maybe you could address the actual substantial ones like this one:

Hey Zak S, would you care to address the obvious contradiction between calling people who your rule doesn't work for awful people, and your repeated insinuations that those people are akin to racists who taunt people about the death of their child, as compared to your defense of your shitty shitty rules as being okay because they are like Left handed Scissors, and as long as it works for some people it follows that it is a perfect super rule that could not possible be improved in any way, because RPGs are subjectivity incarnate and there is no wrong way to play even if the way you are playing could be exactly mimiced with a rule that helped more people?

No, because you are still wrong and you still run from every place you are wrong and use "ignoring" people who have "offended" you as an extremely transparent cover story for not engaging in arguments you are obviously losing. Oh, well okay.

[Zak S]

when someone actually wants to know any of the rules that I intend to gotchas them with after they say something, I don't tell them.

Lie.

Hey Zak S, would you care to address the obvious contradiction between calling people who your rule doesn't work for awful people, and your repeated insinuations that those people are akin to racists who taunt people about the death of their child, as compared to your defense of your shitty shitty rules as being okay because they are like Left handed Scissors, and as long as it works for some people it follows that it is a perfect super rule that could not possible be improved in any way, because RPGs are subjectivity incarnate and there is no wrong way to play even if the way you are playing could be exactly mimiced with a rule that helped more people?

(First: the part about me saying 'the rule could never be improved' is a lie you made up. Which lie torpedoes your credibility and the credibility of everyone else in the conversation who doesn't call it out. So you've completely lost all arguments you ever make forever.)

Anyway: People who are all having fun playing a game together that some dipshit elsewhere doesn't like are hurting no-one and wasting nobody's anything so they are good.

People who are making the other players at the table sit through a scene where they play music despite the fact that they don't even enjoy playing music just because they want a bonus in some future roll are taking away a resource from the other players (time) and providing no fun in exchange. So they are bad.

That's the difference. One takes a resource away from innocent people. One doesn't.

[TiaC]

But also I really must again draw focus to how a key part of his defense was how everyone's clothing is fragile and constantly gets destroyed. That's gold.

dndwithpornstars?

[Leress]

People who are making the other players at the table sit through a scene where they play music despite the fact that they don't even enjoy playing music just because they want a bonus in some future roll are taking away a resource from the other players (time) and providing no fun in exchange. So they are bad.

Why are you assuming a whole scene? why can't the person just say they are using the instrument and just make the roll that takes at most a minute?

[Zak S]

People who are making the other players at the table sit through a scene where they play music despite the fact that they don't even enjoy playing music just because they want a bonus in some future roll are taking away a resource from the other players (time) and providing no fun in exchange. So they are bad.

Why are you assuming a whole scene? why can't the person just say they are using the instrument and just make the roll that takes at most a minute?

1. If you don't do anything nonmechanical with it--don't make it a scene--then there's no benefit to having music in the setting (aside from a vague sop to realism) and no point to having a rule attached. It might as well be a video game--there's a thing we know about the character, but it has no narrative interest we can talk about or use to change the situation going forward. The point of the rule is specifically to add a scene with the tension of a die roll around success. So doing it without the scene (though that could happen once in a while) would generally be just adding a boring few seconds to the game for no game benefit at all. Wasting time.

2. That scene (like any situation that needs to be set up--alchemy, trap-building) then often profoundly affects what scene happens next, not just mechanically but content wise.

You also have to find a way to narrate around it--how do we get the villagers in one place, which ones heard you, etc.

Patrick, for instance, often tries to begin playing music before strangers even see him--so the music makes an impression before his probably blood-stained and mud-caked appearance. Depending on how the roll goes, this has a knock-on effect.

Because it's a sandbox and many of the spells, rules and monsters are from many different sources, any aspect of a character might become important (a monster could eat only creatures with red hair, and I might not remember that because I wrote it 8 months before). So any aspect of the character might suddenly achieve relevance and become a scene--whether or not the GM or players planned it. Choosing a character's characteristics is like choosing which kinds of things you want the game to potentially be about for 2, 3, 20 minutes, 3 sessions, months--who knows?--and throwing them in a hat. So picking a characteristic you aren't interested in dealing with or talking about is basically throwing--into the box of possibilities--a possibility you aren't interested in.

Basically: if the player likes all the things about their character, all these characteristics can be in play and the sandbox can work organically. If the king is the kind of guy who would demand a recital from the musician, that scene can go ahead and play out and nobody gets bored. If the player doesn't like to deal with that (i.e. put some possibilities in the hat that s/he didn't really wanna deal with) then you have to either play them anyway (dull) or contort the NPC reactions etc around trying to avoid bringing up the boring fact about the PC that the player baked in. Both selfishly remove fun from everyone else in the name of the mechanical bonus.

[PhoneLobster]

It's weird you think there's some kind of moral imperative that my rules to be easy for some guy who calls himself PhoneLobster online to reference...The rules are all over the place. That's not a crime.

I think it is weird, and impossible for 100s and 1000s of people to be playing by rules they have to literally read everything you have ever said, your secret notebook, your mind, your house and your friends houses in order to know.

[Zak S]

It's weird you think there's some kind of moral imperative that my rules to be easy for some guy who calls himself PhoneLobster online to reference...The rules are all over the place. That's not a crime.

I think it is weird, and impossible for 100s and 1000s of people to be playing by rules they have to literally read everything you have ever said, your secret notebook, your mind, your house and your friends houses in order to know.

I already addressed this issue and you ignored the answer and wrote this instead. I said all those people use rules I published successfully, not that they used all my rules. Your credibility is shot.

[Mistborn]

Your credibility is shot.

[PhoneLobster]

I already addressed this issue and you ignored the answer and wrote this instead. I said all those people use rules I published successfully, not that they used all my rules. Your credibility is shot.

That would be the "rules" you publish in your book which lets be honest not only sounds like a piece of shit that just rants about supposed rules lite philosophy but which you yourself minimized as unimportant and weaseled away from just in case in your "where are my rules at?" post?

Or are they the published "rules" of FAILSNAILS the most incompetent and poorly formed skeleton of the most fucking stupidly obvious "hurdryhurhurchaosisfun" RPG "idea" ever?

Or are they the "rules" you "publish" by saying random idiocy that you THINK is rules text but isn't even that on the internet? Like the topic here?

Or are they the "rules" you "publish" scrawled by hand on the backs of random pieces of papery debris found on the floor in your and random other peoples houses?

Why stop at maybe 1000s. Perhaps MILLIONS of people have found and used the wisdom on that one napkin that escaped you that time that you totally scrawled a sweet idea for a magic sword shooting gun on that you wish you could remember the details of.

[GnomeWorks]

If the player doesn't like to deal with that (i.e. put some possibilities in the hat that s/he didn't really wanna deal with) then you have to either play them anyway (dull) or contort the NPC reactions etc around trying to avoid bringing up the boring fact about the PC that the player baked in. Both selfishly remove fun from everyone else in the name of the mechanical bonus.

Not everything a player is interested in will always fit a character concept, nor will all the things that come with a character concept interest a player.

As a rational actor in the fictional world that follows the rule this whole thread is about, if I'm a diplomacy-minded person with a high Dex, I would be foolish to not use an instrument. It's a low-cost tool, no barrier to entry, has no opportunity cost, and will most likely net me a benefit: namely, I will be better at being a diplomat.

I mean, in-character, this is a verifiable effect. People who use instruments, who are better able to play them (ie, have a higher Dex), are statistically more likely to do well in social interaction. Someone, at some point, would likely observe this, and it would almost certainly eventually become a cultural norm that social-minded folk carry an instrument of some kind.

As a player, my job is to determine what makes sense for the character to do in the world. The world you are presenting is one in which music-makers are better at diplomacy. If I want to play a diplomat, it just makes sense to use an instrument, if my stats make sense for it (having a decent Dex). Another part of my job as a player is to differentiate between myself and my character; my character almost assuredly has interests different from my own. "Playing out the scene" of the character playing the instrument is not necessary: I might not know how to play a kazoo, but my character apparently does, and so I should just be able to say, "Bob plays the kazoo for the king." And dice ensue.

[Zak S]

That would be the "rules" you publish in your book which lets be honest not only sounds like a piece of shit that just rants about supposed rules lite philosophy

Yeah, no. So you haven't read it. Your loss. You don't know what you're talking about, as usual. Happy 4th.

Or are they the published "rules" of FAILSNAILS the most incompetent and poorly formed skeleton of the most fucking stupidly obvious "hurdryhurhurchaosisfun" RPG "idea" ever?

It's FLAILSNAILS and those are not my rules. It's just an agreement we have among a lot of GMs. Which you are slagging off despite zero experience of them because I guess you're just a dick.

Or are they the "rules" you "publish" by saying random idiocy that you THINK is rules text but isn't even that on the internet? Like the topic here?

What does that even mean?

Or are they the "rules" you "publish" scrawled by hand on the backs of random pieces of papery debris found on the floor in your and random other peoples houses?

Do you have any friends who can check on you? This doesn't sound like you're handling reality coming in at you in a healthy sane way.

[Zak S]

"Playing out the scene" of the character playing the instrument is not necessary: I might not know how to play a kazoo, but my character apparently does, and so I should just be able to say, "Bob plays the kazoo for the king." And dice ensue.

You don't have to play the kazoo, but you do have to talk about kazoos a lot and about how your PC is doing that. That can be either interesting or not--and it's not if you aren't into that part of your character. So that torpedoes that argument completely.

Also, your argument very irrationally assumes that the only way to get a charisma bonus with that amount of money and (in-game and out-of-game) time is to decide to play an instrument, which is not true. So that torpedoes that argument again.

Try harder.

[GnomeWorks]

but you do have to talk about kazoos a lot and about how your PC is doing that.

...why would I have to talk about kazoos a lot?

The bonus here is minor, near as I can tell. The only reason music-playing becomes ubiquitous is because there's essentially no opportunity cost: there's no resource, aside from a very insignificant amount of cash, that has to be expended to have the opportunity to gain the bonus.

You do need a good Dex. But all that really would do, as far as I can tell, is essentially prohibit low-Dex people from becoming diplomats, because the music bonus becomes almost assumed in social interaction.

But the point here is that we're not talking about something that is a major part of the character. Between actual class, other skills, other random abilities, racial stuff, background fluff, etc etc... the kazoo probably makes up a very tiny fraction of the character's identity.

And as a player, I am not prepared to have kazoo discussions. I am no more prepared to have them than I am to explain how I might pick a lock, bench-press a boulder, or cast a spell. I'm not my character; we have different skill sets. Expecting the player to have knowledge of all the things their character does is... kind of nuts.

Also, your argument very irrationally assumes that the only way to get a charisma bonus with that amount of money and (in-game and out-of-game) time is to decide to play an instrument, which is not true.

The issue with that is (1) the "fancy pants" example demonstrated that the benefits stacked, so still no reason to not use a kazoo; and (2) you seem very unwilling to divulge any of your other rules in an open fashion, which makes it kind of hard to have that discussion.

With what information I have, playing the kazoo as a diplomat makes perfect in-world sense, regardless of my personal preference - as a player - for characters that play instruments.

Try harder.

You're kind of... overwhelmingly condescending, and I really don't appreciate it.

If you feel the need to be a dick to folks who are rude and such to you, feel free; I'm not going to judge.

But at least pay enough attention to who is flinging shit at you, and who is not.

[Zak S]

The issue with that is (1) the "fancy pants" example demonstrated that the benefits stacked, so still no reason to not use a kazoo;

Incorrect: there's an obvious reason--each new element costs at least a few seconds of out-of-game-world time. That's a resource drain. "…and I am wearing my fancy pants" is more seconds spent talking about your character you don't care about. It's a drain on everyone talking about stuff you stacked on your dude just to get a bonus. Being the source of that drain without any sense of how to make it fun instead of a drain is called being a dick.

In short, assuming you need to convince a guy of a thing and given (at least):
25 gp
3 minutes of in-gameworld time
the spotlight
and
2 minutes of out-of-gameworld time
…there are near infinite ways to try to convince a person of a thing. Joylessly punching the "play lute" button is one of the least interesting ones. You just hogged the spotlight and 2 minutes of everyone's time in return for a benefit you could have gained in 1000 better ways.

PLUS:

but you do have to talk about kazoos a lot and about how your PC is doing that.

...why would I have to talk about kazoos a lot?...the kazoo probably makes up a very tiny fraction of the character's identity.

I already explained this minutes ago and I guess you forgot:
You also have to find a way to narrate around it--how do we get the villagers in one place, which ones heard you, etc.

Patrick, for instance, often tries to begin playing music before strangers even see him--so the music makes an impression before his probably blood-stained and mud-caked appearance. Depending on how the roll goes, this has a knock-on effect.

Because it's a sandbox and many of the spells, rules and monsters are from many different sources, any aspect of a character might become important (a monster could eat only creatures with red hair, and I might not remember that because I wrote it 8 months before). So any aspect of the character might suddenly achieve relevance and become a scene--whether or not the GM or players planned it. Choosing a character's characteristics is like choosing which kinds of things you want the game to potentially be about for 2, 3, 20 minutes, 3 sessions, months--who knows?--and throwing them in a hat. So picking a characteristic you aren't interested in dealing with or talking about is basically throwing--into the box of possibilities--a possibility you aren't interested in.

Basically: if the player likes all the things about their character, all these characteristics can be in play and the sandbox can work organically. If the king is the kind of guy who would demand a recital from the musician, that scene can go ahead and play out and nobody gets bored. If the player doesn't like to deal with that (i.e. put some possibilities in the hat that s/he didn't really wanna deal with) then you have to either play them anyway (dull) or contort the NPC reactions etc around trying to avoid bringing up the boring fact about the PC that the player baked in. Both selfishly remove fun from everyone else in the name of the mechanical bonus.

and (2) you seem very unwilling to divulge any of your other rules in an open fashion, which makes it kind of hard to have that discussion.

This is a lie. "List all your rules now in an easy-to -read-online format" is not the same as asking a real question about what the rules are. I am 100% forthcoming. Just ask a question, you get an answer. I answer questions honestly, I'm just not gonna do a bunch of clerical work for you.

You're kind of... overwhelmingly condescending, and I really don't appreciate it.

Of course I am--I'm dealing with people who constantly attack before having any rational reason to and who lie a lot. They are dumb and deserve it. You even made me repeat myself above in this very comment--skipping points and not addressing them and so wasting everyone's time.

If you haven't called them out on it by now for all the lying they've done--it's on you, too.

[GnomeWorks]

each new element costs at least a few seconds of out-of-game-world time. That's a resource drain. "…and I am wearing my fancy pants" is more seconds spent talking about your character you don't care about. It's a drain on everyone talking about stuff you stacked on your dude just to get a bonus. Being the source of that drain without any sense of how to make it fun instead of a drain is called being a dick.

While I can theoretically see your point here - yes, it does take a few moments to say that you are wearing fancy pants, or ask the DM if your fancy pants bonus applies - I find it hard to believe that those few moments are that detrimental to the point where I'd call someone a dick over it.

I mean, do you call people out for mentioning/asking about thieves' tools in situations where their use might be valid but questionable? Because that's kind of on-par with the pants; both are tools that are providing a bonus to checks of some variety.

Joylessly punching the "play lute" button is one of the least interesting ones. You just hogged the spotlight and 2 minutes of everyone's time in return for a benefit you could have gained in 1000 better ways.

So... why have the rule, if there are tons of better ways to do the thing? Why even bother putting it to paper? If you think it's a bad rule, and an uninteresting one, why does it even exist?

I already explained this minutes ago and I guess you forgot:

No, I did not forget. I read your post; why are you assuming willful ignorance?

Part of the purpose of playing a character is that they are not you. They have different goals, personalities, likes, dislikes, histories, etc etc. There are undoubtedly many aspects of many characters I've played over the years that have interests that do not match my own. Yet I am willing to play them out, because that's kind of what roleplaying is (at least in part).

My other point that I was trying to get at - and apparently was not very clear on, so I'll apologize for that - is that it's kind of ridiculous to ask players to know the same sorts of things their characters would. I don't know how to play the violin, but if I were playing a violinist, I would expect that the DM would let the character succeed at violin-focused tasks without asking me violin-related questions. This goes back to the roleplaying thing; part of the fun is doing things I can't personally do. Maybe that's playing the kazoo, maybe that's hacking goblins' heads off with an axe. Both are equally valid, in terms of roleplaying. You can't expect me to demonstrate one and not the other - that's biased and kind of unfair.

This is a lie.

You really like that word.

Point being, no, I was not lying. Reading the thread and the past few pages, you have been very difficult when it came to trying to get you to elucidate further on your rules.

"List all your rules now in an easy-to -read-online format" is not the same as asking a real question about what the rules are. I am 100% forthcoming. Just ask a question, you get an answer. I answer questions honestly, I'm just not gonna do a bunch of clerical work for you.

You do understand that rules do not exist in a vacuum, yes? In order to understand the value of the kazoo bonus, I would need to see all the potential areas from which an individual can derive bonuses for social interactions.

I mean, sure, if your rules are as scattered as you claim, then that's a daunting task, and I wouldn't be willing to try to gather those and present them in an online discussion such as this, so I can't really blame you for not doing the same. But I would expect that you at least be willing to offer some amount of clarification and expound sufficiently so that we can get a better glimpse of the rules as a whole, not just this tiny peep through the keyhole, as it were.

You even made me repeat myself above in this very comment--skipping points and not addressing them and so wasting everyone's time.

...excluded middle much? For now I'm willing to chalk it up to miscommunication, and you should really refrain from assuming spite unless proven otherwise.

Stop assuming willful ignorance and that you're the smartest person in the room. It's... really tiring.

If you haven't called them out on it by now for all the lying they've done--it's on you, too.

Villain by association, hmm? Just because I happen to post here? How noble of you.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Having barely skimmed the thread, I take it to be the case that Zak plays with bonuses being capped in a manner somewhat akin to PL in Mutants & Masterminds, where as long as a given character meets their caps, the method by which they do so is a secondary concern, and largely a matter of flavor. Assuming resources are prevalent enough that a character need not bring everything they have to bear on a given skill check in order to reach those caps, spamming a resource that would often be out of place, such as musical instrument use, would quickly become irritating to the table. In such cases one interested in, say, being particularly charming might cultivate multiple approaches to the same end, which given that amount of ability overlap could cost comparatively less in character resources. Perhaps the bard tries to smell nice, in case he's trying to schmooze with the tone-deaf.

While there are other personal preferences to consider, such as not caring for ability checks as an ersatz skill system, or finding distasteful both disingenuous argument and people indulging in being an internet shitheel, I suppose I don't see the issue. One is effectively talking about limiting circumstance bonuses, and allowing multiple methods of achieving such.

[virgil]

Of course I am--I'm dealing with people who constantly attack before having any rational reason to and who lie a lot. They are dumb and deserve it. You even made me repeat myself above in this very comment--skipping points and not addressing them and so wasting everyone's time.

You've repeatedly lied, skipped, and not addressed the prior restraint thing. Is there a reason you're being hypocritical here?

If you haven't called them out on it by now for all the lying they've done--it's on you, too.

That is an a@$hole thing to do.

[fectin]

Guys - it's a stunt bonus. He hates it when people stunt all the time.

That's an issue in Exalted too, and is solveable in exactly the same way.

Why is this even a thing?

[momothefiddler]

I can actually totally understand the desire that you only spend time on the things you actually want to have a story about and that extraneous backdrop stuff doesn't get boring. I don't think it's vital that all games go that way - I have fun fiddling with +1s sometimes, too - but I definitely get the appeal.

I think that some good ways to achieve that, such as only having mechanics tied to explicitly story-important things (FATE, perhaps, with aspects. Or RISUS), or clearly delineating which mechanics are meant to have time spent on them and which can be incidental (Ars Magica's Story Flaws vs Lab Customization rules). I think it's important to note that these mechanics get tied to characters, not to situations or items. We care, ostensibly, that Harry catches the snitch, but that's not about the snitch. We don't care about the Durmstrang record-snitch-catcher of '88. Saying that snitch-catching is important to the story doesn't make the story better. Saying that snitch-catching is important to Harry's story, well... might. There are better examples.

Point is, I think that a tremendously awful way to achieve that is to declare that anything with mechanical effect be treated as important to the story. Under this paradigm, wearing fancy pants gives you social bonuses, so you must spend wordcount on how fancy your pants are. This is awful. This sort of ruling would, in fact, keep me from playing a musician unless that was my primary goal from the very beginning. It would also keep me from playing at all, because there are a bunch of fiddly bonuses that you're expected to collect to have a not-shit character, and each one of them has an out-of-character price measured in not-fun. Thus I can choose to have a character who isn't good at what I want them to be good at (not fun) or I can choose to spend a non-negligible amount of time describing my pants every time I do something (even less fun).

There are many different ways of incentivizing certain behavior. There are various ways to arrange that people stick closely to a core concept, or focus on story-relevant traits, or whatever. But in an activity where the primary (probably even sole) goal is fun, it is nothing less than reprehensible to make rules whose primary purpose is the reduction of fun. Out-of-character negative reinforcement is a shitty, shitty way to write a game. It is literally better to say "you cannot get bonuses from doing x unless it was in your initial character pitch" than it is to say "if you want people to like you, you must do x, but you have to spend at least five real minutes talking about it per +1".

[Wiseman]

Zak S, why are you still here? It's clear you're not convincing anyone that you're right. So why stick around?

[Dean]

I think it's interesting that it takes a long time for Shitmuffin to get himself into full gish-gallop mode like he's in now. There is a slow buildup period where he snipes occasional posts to make clipped responses to, but then there's the phase where he starts promising that every flaw you see in his writing is solved behind a mysterious veil that no one is allowed to see through like he's the narcissist of Oz. Then having built some momentum he goes into a dead sprint away from any argument. He gets running in tighter circles moving away from actual points and statements to making insane declarations like "prove I don't like a thing" or "prove what my notebook says" or "please tell me I'm pretty and someone likes me".

The gulf between Shitmuffins imagined knowledge and actual knowledge is so wide that at least once per thread he'll show a glaring lack of knowledge in some area he claims authority in and, because that reality is not acceptable to his mind, he inevitably retreats to a position where he claims supreme authority deriving from the one area he actually IS an expert in: His own subjective views and information that exists only in his head. It's an interesting process and one that's gone full cycle 3 times now.

Shitmuff claims he doesn't want to collect his rules into one place unless he knows you'll like them. Well tough shit. This is a games design forum where people here post games they design. No one gets that luxury, we just print what we have. If he had something, anything, and wanted to defend it the only reasonable response would be to print it. But no one here actually thinks Shitmuff has, or even could have, a collection of his rules written into a cohesive document. Because that would create something that could be critiqued and critique causes him to have actual breakdowns where writes 300 posts a day and challenges Kaelik to DM for his friends cause he'll send him a camera and other weird shit.

[Cyberzombie]

The Den, however, doesn't need cooperation. It doesn't need an actual meeting of the minds. It doesn't need anyone to do anything. So the other models aren't that worthwhile. Aristotle's model teaches some logic and some reasoning, but it also teaches you to appeal to your audience.

But as politics proves, that doesn't work either. Politicians are all about playing to a crowd and trying to sway them, but you don't see them going out there with super aggressive insults and constantly calling their opposition idiots. While they do point out flaws in their opponents policies/history they don't go to the levels of insulting here. This is because just throwing out a bunch of insults doesn't sway you support. Politicians have done plenty of research on what works and what doesn't and just going pure aggro insults on your opponent isn't an effective strategy. I don't care if you're trying to convince the other person or trying to influence an audience. It's not effective.

You are here for the rigorous intellectual exercise of drilling down to get to the bottom of an argument, and the anti-respect culture is partly a result of that, and partly, as PL demonstrates, a reaction to the lack of such freedoms in other places.

I don't think so. The fact that the discussions are different here are because some of the posters here have different ways of looking at things. The den unlike, most places, embraces powergaming as a way of life and the natural conclusion of that. But it's possible to make the same points without tossing out insults. It's very easy actually, It just takes a few presses of the delete key. There's no actual argument being made when people call others morons or tell them to fuck off, so it can be omitted and it does nothing to actually change the conversation. There are rules on other boards that do hinder intelligent conversation, but preventing ad hominem attacks isn't one of them.

Who knows, it might be possible to spread some important den concepts elsewhere, unless the goal is to keep the design concepts here an insular secret. It's a shame because in many cases it's a total waste of talent. People here have some good ideas, but don't know how to present them in a way that doesn't showcase them as assholes. That's why people like Mike Mearls are producing games. He starts with a turd and knows how to polish and perfume it. You guys on the other hand start with some good stuff and then proceed to piss and shit all over your own work until it reeks like a sewer.

Just imagine if people here actually learned some PR skills.

I don't complain about people being assholes here because my feelings get hurt. I do so because I see a lot of wasted talent in some posters here. some people here may have a good message, but they do everything possible to make sure that message won't get heard in a positive light and will convince the minimum number of people.