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

[JigokuBosatsu]

The other day I asked my daughter the following riddle: "What is about 5 inches long, yellow, and shoots a rocket launcher at police helicopters?" She correctly answered it within 30 seconds. Can you guess it?

[Stubbazubba]

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.

They toe that line as often as they can get away with, and here's what I mean: As I said in my previous post, Aristotle's rhetoric specifically tells you to reflect the values of the society you're appealing to. That way they identify with you, and that identification alone is going to "win" the argument, regardless of logic. So if you sound like a jaded internet troll by insulting people with expletives and hyperbolic references to sexually stimulating male genitalia, the soccer moms and retirees are going to run to the other guy. People want someone they can accept, someone who clearly stands up for the things they value. Which is why every single candidate changes their pitch between the primary and the general election; the values of the target audience are different, so you change your tone and your message.

So, yeah, politicians don't go around swinging insults, but it is not because that makes convincing opponents easier. Everything is identity politics, we just don't call it that. Seriously, read Aristotle, the entire point is to ingratiate yourselves with the third-party audience. Logic is good, but he even says use fallacies when necessary. If the audience appreciates civility and restraint, yeah, you'll want to be full of that, but if the audience is the Den, then it gets you nowhere, and it's only your inability to compartmentalize Den culture from real culture that gets in the way.

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.

I actually agree with this, I don't buy the Den's idea that shaming is a useful and ethical means of regulation, I think the Den only functions because it's an internet forum. I mean, the Den is politically more liberal than it is conservative, yet here they are upholding Randian notions of competitive speech. It's not a portable example.

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.

Except that does happen. Seerow is pretty active over on GiantITP, and while personal attacks and dick references are turned down in accordance with their rules, he manages to lay out solid arguments that have more or less the same effect they do here, namely, people he's not specifically addressing learn a lot.

Re: the lawyer letter

That letter was written the way it was for several reasons, one of which was trying to publicly humiliate the plaintiff for bringing the lawsuit at all. And to that effect, it is effectively tuned to do so; the internet loved it and immediately sided with the snarky letter author. It was a media stunt, and it was written with that third party in mind. It was also full of solid legal arguments, and that with the snark was trying to shame the other legal team into dropping the suit. They wanted the targets to just go away. That's when shaming is perfectly useful.

But I guarantee you the same lawyer, if running for public office, would adopt a different tone, because snarky shaming, as entertaining as it is, doesn't help voters identify with him.

You're imagining that all persuasion has the same object, which it doesn't. "Persuasion" means a ton of different social things in different contexts, and you can't conflate the goal of changing someone's mind on an issue with getting someone to vote for you with making a plaintiff go away, etc., etc. These are different goals that require different tools. Trial lawyers routinely humiliate and shame the other side's witnesses, because it makes the jury unable to identify with that side. If they can't identify with them, they'll be hard-pressed to support them in deliberations. Sometimes politicians do this in the primary elections, but they swiftly change their tone when the general election comes up, because that tool is no longer useful since you're trying to convert undecided moderates who won't identify with the negativity they see as a problem in politics.

The Den does use shaming and insults, but not sincerely. Our shaming is hyperbole, superfluous, it rarely persists through multiple conversations (of course there are exceptions, see this thread's resident ghoul). It's just a cultural nuance. Every group has them, ours is just offensive to people on the outside. That means, to be convincing on the Den, you actually need to shame your opponent for even saying the things they are saying, not because you want them to go away (though that's often true, too), but because that's the way you gain support here. That may not be helpful for evangelizing, but the Den doesn't care. The Den is a self-indulgent place, it doesn't care about the impact it has on other people in different places, and that's OK, because it's just an internet forum, it's not trying to win anything or change the world.

However it works out, we can take what works here and go evangelize Den-inspired design philosophy elsewhere, where people's culture is more like that of actual society. And there we use different tools, different tone, etc., to achieve that goal.

[Josh_Kablack]

You're imagining that all persuasion has the same object, which it doesn't. "Persuasion" means a ton of different social things in different contexts.... These are different goals that require different tools.

Well apparently you always can just use a musical instrument......

[Stubbazubba]

You're imagining that all persuasion has the same object, which it doesn't. "Persuasion" means a ton of different social things in different contexts.... These are different goals that require different tools.

Well apparently you always can just use a musical instrument......

/thread

[Zak S]

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.

Then you value your time differently than we do. Remember all the other explanations in these answers about how setting up the situation to give the performance costs minutes of game-time.

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;

Not on par because thieves tools just aid in a thief function that:
1. The thief was gonna do anyway
2. Is definitely part of the conception of the thief
3. Don't require all the fictional overhead of a musical performance (gathering an audience of NPCs who notice you, choosing a kind of music, etc)
4. Typically costs far less out of game time than organizing a performance

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?

Again I get to be condescending:
I've answered this several times already. Like free speech it's a good rule and gives good results. You guys are only obsessing about an abuse of it (and one that never happens in my game).

"If the players WANT to play a wandering minstrel it's good. If they don't and are just doing it for the mechanical bonus it's boring."

The key word is "joylessly".

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?

You keep saying breathatkingly stupid things, like:

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.

Yeah nobody said you yourself have to want to be a wandering minstrel or play an instrument or know how to. I said:
"If the players WANT to play a wandering minstrel it's good. If they don't and are just doing it for the mechanical bonus it's boring."

I would expect that the DM would let the character succeed at violin-focused tasks without asking me violin-related questions.

Just because success is down to the die roll does not mean that a good GM, when you play the violin, will not ask you what kind of music you play or what your violin looks like or some other things, simply for the sake of enlarging the scene.

Part of what a GM does is take mechanical tasks the players are engaging in to better themselves and make them into scenes that can be followed and has consequences.

I explained this in my previous answers to you, twice. Cue condescension:

"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. "

This has nothing to do with whether your precious roll succeeds or not. It has to do with what your performance does to the story. If you don't want to talk about violins (not in a technical sense--just generally, as part of the story), don't get a character who plays violins.

"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.

Then:
1. Ask specific questions
2. If logically follows (from what you just said) that anyone who hasn't seen all those other rules is making a premature judgment if they assert the rule is bad. Are you saying your fellow Denners have jumped the gun?

[JigokuBosatsu]

Joylessly punching the "play lute" button

I'm claiming this as a song title for the next super long drone doom song I record.

[Leress]

Then answer mine, Zak.

[Red_Rob]

Remember all the other explanations in these answers about how setting up the situation to give the performance costs minutes of game-time.
...
If the players WANT to play a wandering minstrel it's good. If they don't and are just doing it for the mechanical bonus it's boring."

Zak, this is just asinine. Does a Fighter who chooses a Greatsword over a Warhammer have to talk about how much he loves Greatswords all the time or get kicked? Does the Wizard player get hassled by peasants about why he chose Sleep over Jump? Or is it just this particular instrument rule that prompts such wild accusations of assholery?

Unless your game is a non-stop parade of people justifying everything they wrote on their character sheet with a quirky anecdote, I don't believe you don't just let people pick their fucking character options and get on with the game. Have you thought about why you don't have to scrutinise every other element of the game for abuse like you do your instrument rule? It's because someone spent more than 5 minutes thinking about these things so there wasn't just an obvious no brainer option.

Also, you don't seem to have considered the fact that some people aren't psychotically hung up over minor character traits. If you tell me my character will get a big bonus for playing an instrument, sure I can spend a few minutes and come up with something thematically appropriate. I'll even drop it into conversation every now and then, it's a handy little roleplaying hook. But I originally picked it because of the bonus - so am I an asshole or not?

[GnomeWorks]

Then you value your time differently than we do. Remember all the other explanations in these answers about how setting up the situation to give the performance costs minutes of game-time.

I'll allow it.

Not on par because thieves tools just aid in a thief function that:

You missed the part where I said using them in a questionable manner, ie something they were not designed for, but for which they might function.

3. Don't require all the fictional overhead of a musical performance (gathering an audience of NPCs who notice you, choosing a kind of music, etc)

Where did this talk of overhead suddenly come from? This has not been mentioned before, to my knowledge.

If you're trying to get a bonus on social rolls involving the king, why would that involve gathering an audience? The way this rule is presented, I'd assumed that the bonus was given due to the person you're playing for being impressed (or whatever).

Why do we have to "choose a kind of music"? I don't know what a violin can do, not really, and have no idea what's appropriate music for it. And if you as a DM ask me, that's kind of you being an asshole: we're going to stop the game, now, to have a discussion about the virtues of Chopin, or if Vivaldi was better? I don't care, no one else at the table cares, why the fuck are you asking? My guy just wants to play the violin. If I wanted to play the violin, I'd be doing that rather than playing in your game.

Again I get to be condescending:

It does seem to be your MO.

Like free speech it's a good rule and gives good results.

I'm really not sure of that.

"If the players WANT to play a wandering minstrel it's good. If they don't and are just doing it for the mechanical bonus it's boring."

Why do you make the damage ranges for weapons more obvious to your players that are less good at math?

All that's doing is encouraging them to take the ones that deal the most damage. Even if they don't want to use a greatsword (or whatever), they're going to, because it's the best one.

Do you find that boring, as well?

Just because success is down to the die roll does not mean that a good GM, when you play the violin, will not ask you what kind of music you play or what your violin looks like or some other things, simply for the sake of enlarging the scene.

Really? Because that's still kind of asinine. I, as a player, may know nothing about violins or what sort of music they're best suited towards; yet you would insist that I answer questions about those things, because my character uses a violin?

Do you make monks illustrate what sort of martial art they use, too? Do you make mages say stupid shit when casting spells?

This has nothing to do with whether your precious roll succeeds or not. It has to do with what your performance does to the story. If you don't want to talk about violins (not in a technical sense--just generally, as part of the story), don't get a character who plays violins.

So I, as a player, need to know about all the things my character knows about, and enjoy having conversations about all of them.

Do you realize how insane that sounds?

Part of the joy of roleplaying is playing somebody who is not you. That you called that whole explanation of mine "breathtakingly stupid" (your typo omitted) is kind of telling.

1. Ask specific questions

I already did: I need to see all the potential areas from which an individual can derive bonuses for social interactions.

2. If logically follows (from what you just said) that anyone who hasn't seen all those other rules is making a premature judgment if they assert the rule is bad. Are you saying your fellow Denners have jumped the gun?

It isn't necessarily a bad rule, I don't think; what I do think is it should have massive repercussions on the setting in which that rule is used, and I don't think you've done that, because you do not seem to acknowledge the connection between the fictional setting and the rules used to play in it.

However, most people here have presented what look like pretty good points for the argument that the rule is shit. People here might be assholes, but they know their shit when it comes to rules, so I'm willing to accept their judgments.

For me, personally, I would need to see more context to make a judgment on the rule. That is probably because I am honestly less experienced in game design than folks around here; so what they can see in a paragraph, I probably need a page to suss out.

[ACOS]

Okay, I've finally caught up with the thread (it only took me all week)

@ Shitmuffin:
Both Leress and GnomeWorks have insisted on seeing the rest of your rules governing social interaction.
I now throw myself on to that pile.

You've promised to produce when asked for more clarification/explanation of your rules. We're not asking for the encyclopedic disertation of all of your rules - we would just like to know what all is involved with adjudicating social interaction and related modifiers.

Now produce.

---

@ rest of thread:
Also, these are the 5 most popular varieties of bananas. Compare and contrast. Discuss.

[deaddmwalking]

Just to point something out - Zak S. has indicated that three players have decided to play a small musical instrument. While that is certainly less than all of his players, and while he has mentioned that there are times when all of them are absent, it appears likely that one of them is there in most sessions. As has been pointed out by others - if someone is already 'specialized' in a task, even with virtually no opportunity cost, it still may not be worthwhile for EVERYONE to carry an instrument. First of all, it's more likely to get the GM really upset with his 'joyless powergamers' and start booting people from his game. Secondly, it may more strongly conflict with certain characterizations than others. Finally, even though the weight of the instrument is minor, most characters desire to carry more than is possible, so dropping an item that will never benefit you makes sense...

Unless everybody gets to make a Diplomacy check and the group uses the highest roll. But I don't think Zak is that crazy.

So, yeah, we're left with a 'rule' that is bad but not because it can be 'abused'. A bullshit bonus on a bullshit check that requires MTP 'all the way down' doesn't really matter. Besides the 'bajillion' other ways to get the bonus, any character could fucking sing for it. And if the Performance bonus were the ONLY type of bonus to Diplomacy, then yes, characters who want to be good at Diplomacy would learn to play an instrument, just like people that want to be good at stabbing people learn to use martial weapons - choosing an effective tool doesn't make you an asshole. Deliberately bogging the game down to cause 'boredom' when you think someone is 'using' (not abusing, but fucking using) a rule you created because they've failed some 'pure motivation' test for 'real roleplayers' is being an asshole.

[virgil]

Here's a fun little snippet:

You have given no such rule that 1 is an automatic failure.

I don't but D&D does. Jesus: what game have you been playing all these years?

[a bunch of people point out that nat 1 failure on ability checks is not something ability checks have had in almost all (and likely actually all) published D&D rulesets]

Is there a point here? Are you suggesting we play R.A.W. ? LOL. I mean, seriously, I thought you were claiming to be a grown-up.

Remember how when he fucked up what prior restraint meant, he tried to lie his way out of admitting fault? It's not a new thing. There he is trying to mock virgil for fucking up the rules, and then when it was pointed out to him that he was actually the one who had fucked up the rules, apparently he meant his house rules all along. Which is obviously not true

Hey, Zak, feel like responding to either of the two points above (rules knowledge and/or prior restraint), or are you going to ignore these errors? The fact you've not admitted error at any point, and have stated that you've never been wrong means you have LIED. Feel like fessing up to any of this?

[Sakuya Izayoi]

If I try to play an instrument and the GM says, "Make your roll," it's a fairly safe bet my instrument has a 5% chance of transforming into a Lute of Summon Bear.

[ishy]

Just to point something out - Zak S. has indicated that three players have decided to play a small musical instrument. While that is certainly less than all of his players, and while he has mentioned that there are times when all of them are absent, it appears likely that one of them is there in most sessions. As has been pointed out by others - if someone is already 'specialized' in a task, even with virtually no opportunity cost, it still may not be worthwhile for EVERYONE to carry an instrument.

You're forgetting IIRC attributes were generated using 3d6. And an instrument was a great deal only for everyone with a positive dex.

[tussock]

#Joylessly. @Zak S.

So the people who don't enjoy your game, you're happy to kick those assholes out, but funnily enough everyone who plays in your game enjoys it so you don't have to.

Because. People. Who play in your game. But don't enjoy it. Stop playing all on their own.

Thus Zak's rules remain tautologically perfect, because the people who like them, like them.


That's awesome. I'm so happy now. Because my rules are perfect too. Everyone's rules are perfect, for those who still happen to be having enough fun to turn up. Everyone who left D&D to play Pathfinder or stopped playing completely in frustration was probably just an asshole anyway, so don't sweat it. Yay! Go go gadget-5th-edition-design-principles.

[Cyberzombie]

People want someone they can accept, someone who clearly stands up for the things they value.

No doubt about that. People that are preaching rules-heavy methodologies are going to get a lot more acceptance here than those preaching rules-lite. The den is a very pro-player, anti-DM environment on average. That's just the demographic and obviously selling ideas to it that at least seem to espouse those ideals are going to be more well-liked.

But insulting people rarely helps, unless you purely want to go for a Nazi Germany approach of demonizing one side and then trying to rally everyone against that side. Of course doing that pretty much will make most people outside your particular hate-based circle tend dislike you. So while it works at purely rallying the den against an outsider like Zak S, outer groups are more likely to listen to Zak than you guys, simply because they see you as a bunch of insular assholes. That's why Zak's name happens to be listed on 5E D&D instead of Frank's or anyone else here.

Except that does happen. Seerow is pretty active over on GiantITP, and while personal attacks and dick references are turned down in accordance with their rules, he manages to lay out solid arguments that have more or less the same effect they do here, namely, people he's not specifically addressing learn a lot.

Yeah and that does good things for your ideas. Of course, if anyone actually cites where Seerow's ideas came from, it only serves to make his points look less valid, because to agree with him is to agree with a bunch of insulting assholes on the den who the common person is going to find very unlikeable. It's human nature want to find reasons to disagree with the people you dislike and vice versa. The more likeable you come off as, the more people are going to agree with you.

They wanted the targets to just go away. That's when shaming is perfectly useful.

But I guarantee you the same lawyer, if running for public office, would adopt a different tone, because snarky shaming, as entertaining as it is, doesn't help voters identify with him.

Very true. It's understandable why a lawyer looking to make a lawsuit go away would resort to bullying, because bullying can silence people. I'm not saying bullying doesn't have some uses, but generally that sort of thing is best done behind closed doors, because public bullying makes you look like a real asshole and can backfire quickly.

The Den does use shaming and insults, but not sincerely. Our shaming is hyperbole, superfluous, it rarely persists through multiple conversations (of course there are exceptions, see this thread's resident ghoul). It's just a cultural nuance. Every group has them, ours is just offensive to people on the outside.

That's pretty much why I say it's a bad policy, at least if you care about the spread of ideas at all, and given there are a great deal of would-be game designers here, I would think that would be a concern. Maybe I'm wrong in my thinking, but it seems to me people passionate enough to post a bunch of ideas to a forum and argue about them want those ideas to spread. Otherwise why bother arguing and defending those so much?

[virgil]

Anyway: my rules, they are spread out a lot of places:
1. All the posts tagged "rules" on my blog, and ones tagged "useful things". Newer ones generally supercede older ones.

I looked at the blog, and there are about 6k words per page of #rules, of which there are ten pages (for my browser). There are about half as many #usefulthings posts as there are #rules, and about a third of those are also rules posts. By incredibly rough math, that's an estimated total of 80k words just for the blog itself.

2. 3.5 for spells at home, AD&D for spells in online games. Spells might get altered before they're chosen for the first time. For example: summon requires reaching into a box of minis and pulling one out, it will have HD commensurate to the power of the spell. The alterations are written down in a notebook but not all online anywhere.

For at home games, that's about 80k words (~107 pages at ~800 words per page) of spells. This is a rough estimation, because apparently they can be changed at a moment's notice.

3. Mutations from Realms of Chaos-Slaves to Darkness and Lost And The Damned come up all the time. They get converted to D&D from Warhammer.

That's about six pages of material, or about 4.8k words. In theory you could condense that, but conversion and the effort required isn't going to make that smaller.

5. Monsters are all custom-made, including abilities that might alter PC abilities like causing blindness, etc.

On the one hand, this means one less book to keep track of...but only when you start. Remember the issue of 4E's monsters with four different versions of Evil Eye? This is an order of magnitude more significant. His rules obviously use a lot of fudging and if Vornheim is any indication, their numbers get semi-randomized every time; which rolling and deciding takes notably more effort than just reading a fraction of a page. Let's be painfully generous; assume an average of only one new monster is made for his campaign(s) each month, and he didn't start running games until the blog started, and a single monster takes up 200 words. That's 12k words for his personal compendium.

6. Combat is done D20 style basically, with ascending AC and target numbers, but grappling is simplified. Looks most like Castles & Crusades. Most noncombat tasks are roll-under unless they have to do with a PC's class specifically, in which case there's a system you'll find if you read through the rules tag on the blog. No skills or feats as described in 3.5, though there are class-specific tasks that get difficulty bonuses based on level.

I'm going to use the C&C quick start rules, then use a fourth of the document (6 out of 24 pages), to approximate the amount of material this represents. That's another 4.8k words.

7. Everything in Vornheim is in effect.

I have this book, and a large majority is taken from the blog. I'm going to be magnanimous and consider it covered by the earlier material I'm counting, despite the fact it's easily a 20k word document.

8. There's some other stuff that's in my notebook or just common practice in every game I ever played as player or GM

This is an area that I can't even begin to make an accurate estimation for. It could a couple thousand words that help remind him where the rules are, or it could be hundreds of thousands of entirely new rules. Let's, again, be incredibly helpful and assume zero and use it as a buffer to support the earlier word count estimations.

Total Word Count of Zak's D&D 182k words, or roughly the length of 3rd edition's DMG if and only if you had it all neatly typed out and formatted in a single codex. We have all seen evidence of how Zak operates, and the density and organization of information just isn't that high.

…but no, they're not all in one place.

Piles and piles of crazy-person organized notebooks only truly understood by the author, with every decision and rule given zero playtesting or theorycrafting, nominally set in stone once pen hits paper. All of that is somehow far superior than a professionally edited book...

I like to call this Loquacious Bears. No player can reasonably make predictions of what will happen, blocked by an insurmountable learning curve. Even a question as simple as "what kind of social bonuses can I get" is met with closemouthed or opaque responses, making your decision-making process one of mother-may-I veiled with passive-aggressive comments that place failure entirely on you because you didn't ask the right questions.

For something like buying a D&D book, Zak's style is inexcusable design theory. When paying real money, rules that incentivize the kind of game it advertises (and superior to MTP) is the entire point. Citing the fact other people use/enjoy the 'rules' posted on his blog as evidence of their quality is an outright lie, because nobody uses the same set of rules as Zak and so nobody is using that rule. The musical instrument rule is terrible for games with skills and no Dexterity (extreme example), and if you can't call the rule bad because it's being used in a different system, then you can't call it good for the same reasons.

The fact you've put a rule up on the internet invites it to criticism. Nobody should have to add a multi-paragraph disclaimer about its place & interactions with your or their campaign rules, because such a fact is self-evident, and harping on that is concern trolling.

I have long held the belief that for as social a game as TTRPGs are, the social dynamic is the primary element for an enjoyable game. A group that works excellent together can overcome terrible rules like nWoD, Rifts, and the like. An unhealthy group will ruin any game it touches, and leave social scars for years. Rules in this case will, at most, put a damper or a booster to the overall experience. Once you have a group that's closer to the middle, not perfectly mind-synched yet not violently clashing, is where rules matter the most. Good rules will make a so-so group still have fun, while bad rules will make the entire venture collapse (usually with a whimper).

EDIT: Zak, I would appreciate it if you refrained from responding to this post until AFTER you addressed my prior post in this thread.

[DSMatticus]

Cyberzombie's last post: "being mean to me on the internet is comparable to attempting to silence minorities through violent intimidation." What's next? "You know who else was mean to people on the internet? Hitler."

But insulting people rarely helps, unless you purely want to go for a Nazi Germany approach of demonizing one side and then trying to rally everyone against that side.

I can't. I'm done. I can't beat your self-parody.

[deaddmwalking]

The den is a very pro-player, anti-DM environment on average. That's just the demographic and obviously selling ideas to it that at least seem to espouse those ideals are going to be more well-liked.

In point of fact, the Den recognizes that the DM is a player in the game, with a different set of responsibilities than the other players. The Den is very against a false distinction such as 'DM is God' or other claims to unfounded privilege. Every player, including the DM, should have fun. It is precisely because there are times where the players disagree and the DM has disproportionate power over the story that other players ought to have more codified input. In most systems, the DM can continually say 'my way or the highway' - and in many they are encouraged to do exactly that.

Recommending that the system and the players (including DM) take into consideration input from the other players is not 'anti-DM'. It is pro-social norms.

But insulting people rarely helps, unless you purely want to go for a Nazi Germany approach of demonizing one side and then trying to rally everyone against that side.

As someone who is fairly new here, I think the insults actually help significantly. First of all, rules discussions can be dry - the insults are extremely entertaining. Further, everyone gets insulted - even very prodigious posters that have a solid record of more good ideas than bad ideas. While it can be discouraging for a new poster to be told to suck a barrel of cocks, ultimately it becomes a reminder to check your ego at the door. Your ideas will be evaluated on their own merit - not based on some cult of personality. If your new idea is a turd, even if everything else you've ever said is a diamond, you will be called on it. So, besides being entertaining, they also amount to a democratization of the space - ideas are judged on their own merit, not in relation to the body of work of the designer.

Yeah and that does good things for your ideas. Of course, if anyone actually cites where Seerow's ideas came from, it only serves to make his points look less valid, because to agree with him is to agree with a bunch of insulting assholes on the den who the common person is going to find very unlikeable. It's human nature want to find reasons to disagree with the people you dislike and vice versa. The more likeable you come off as, the more people are going to agree with you.

Certainly, I would agree that sometimes people have difficulty agreeing with someone that they dislike, even if that person is clearly right. That's a problem that they should try to address. Could you imagine a world where nobody dared to be a vegetarian because of the association with Hitler? It's good that the Den gives people an opportunity to work on agreeing with people who are clearly right on a particular issue, even if they disagree on other issues. That's important for any true debate - I can't reject every position you have or stake out the opposite - ultimately, I should choose my positions based on my own rational beliefs. If I have done so, I can defend them against any criticism.

If someone says 'that's what the DEN thinks, so of course it's garbage', well, I can see that they are too intellectually lazy or dishonest to address any of the points that were brought up, and it does win converts. I speak from personal experience.

Maybe I'm wrong in my thinking, but it seems to me people passionate enough to post a bunch of ideas to a forum and argue about them want those ideas to spread. Otherwise why bother arguing and defending those so much?

Maybe you're wrong to think that they don't spread. And what you should realize is that 'shock jocks' work to get discussion going - even if they're trying to shut down that type of discussion. People that DISAGREE are often more likely to listen BECAUSE of the offensive way the ideas are presented - and as a result, they're forced to engage them.

I don't really care what idea the Den offers up this week - engaging those ideas because you don't accept them or reevaluating your stance because you find the argument compelling is actually good. The examination of our biases and preferences is definitely a good thing.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

I started to shift over to Den ways of thinking as I felt, as a GM, with the games that I was running, I had too much power. My players weren't complaining. Players give terrible feedback. it's like asking your mother if she thinks you're ugly.

Like, imagine playing Warcraft 3 with infinite gold. Boring, right? Yet, all over the Internet, discussion of tabletop RPGs INSISTS that the DM being able to leerage infinite orcs against the player is just a "skill" that you develop; the sense of how many orcs is fair to send at your players. Never mind that TPKs are the only victory condition monsters can achieve, it's not fun if they actually try to win.

It was my quest to not be the Warcraft 3 player with infinite gold that led me to the Den, not grudges against past GMs.

[Mistborn]

But insulting people rarely helps, unless you purely want to go for a Nazi Germany approach of demonizing one side and then trying to rally everyone against that side.

ಠ_ಠ

this one deserves another one of my shitty custom image macros

[fectin]

From a different medium:

The nice thing about working on 5e is that by examining the audience response you can find out which people fuck pigs all day.

[darkmaster]

What? Pics or it didn't happen.

[fectin]

http://twitter.com/ZakSmithSabbath/stat ... 5923642368

[darkmaster]

Stay classy shitmuffin.