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

[codeGlaze]

you also demonstrate you are a surprisingly shitty GM.

Did it really surprise you? Seemed pretty predictable to me.

I'm still catching up (just started page 4).

There's all kinds of reasons that Shadzar shouldn't be tolerated, but his specific post was not bigoted - though considering how hard he is to understand I wouldn't fault anyone for missing that.

In Shadzar's mind, there are two types of people:
a) people who play D&D
b) people wo don't

Among people who play D&D, it is good that we're inclusive - women, gays, racial minorities, etc - as long as they play D&D then their opinion on D&D matters - not because of whatever group they self-identify with, but because they are players of the game.

Among people who don't play D&D, Shadzar doesn't think that their opinions matter. Changing D&D to accomodate a group that isn't interested in D&D doesn't make sense to him - it would fundamentally change D&D in a way that must necessarily make it worse.

But I can see how that wouldn't be immediately obvious.

You truly are some kind of gifted holy warrior.

For seeing and interpreting such madness is no layman's task.

[Kaelik]

So... any chance that you could offer a rebuttal to some of the more salient points posted here, in response to that thing from your blog?

I don't really expect you to offer a retort to most posts in the thread, but there were - I think - a number of good points brought up, and I'd be interested in hearing your response.

He is actually incapable of telling the difference between a good and bad point, so in order to address the good points he would have to respond to literally every single thing said.

Or you know, keep popping in with as many posts as he can with a link to his blog so that he can try to drive it up google like a kitchen salesman.

So, if you've got a player who feels the need to equip every one of his characters with an instrument to take advantage of that very small bonus, ignoring character concept and playing that instrument in every single social encounter regardless of whether it fits the scene or not solely because the rulebook told him to... that's a pretty strong warning sign that you've got a problem player on your hands. I would be really surprised if a PC like that didn't cause problems down the road.

Obviously he won't break the game with that instrument, but it says something about his attitude towards the game.

Yes, it says that his attitude is to make a character who acts rationally for the world he lives in. He responds to the obvious positive of arguing in song by arguing in song. Just like he responds to the obvious death that comes from fireballs by dodging the fireballs.

you also demonstrate you are a surprisingly shitty GM.

Did it really surprise you? Seemed pretty predictable to me.

I'm still catching up (just started page 4).

There's all kinds of reasons that Shadzar shouldn't be tolerated, but his specific post was not bigoted - though considering how hard he is to understand I wouldn't fault anyone for missing that.

In Shadzar's mind, there are two types of people:
a) people who play D&D
b) people wo don't

Among people who play D&D, it is good that we're inclusive - women, gays, racial minorities, etc - as long as they play D&D then their opinion on D&D matters - not because of whatever group they self-identify with, but because they are players of the game.

Among people who don't play D&D, Shadzar doesn't think that their opinions matter. Changing D&D to accomodate a group that isn't interested in D&D doesn't make sense to him - it would fundamentally change D&D in a way that must necessarily make it worse.

But I can see how that wouldn't be immediately obvious.

Did you quote the wrong thing? PL said that Zak S revealed himself to be a surprisingly shitty DM. I said it wasn't surprising to me. At no point is a long rant about shadazar relevant to that quote.

[deaddmwalking]

I did. I thought I quoted the Great Fence Builder telling Shadzar to get off his lawn... Too late now.

[virgil]

I thought the original blog post where Zak Z and Monte Cook called people who thought the musical instrument was broken were terrible people, not people who used the musical instrument.

[radthemad4]

Yeah, it does sound like the racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. in shadzar's post is quite likely unintentional.

[tussock]

The people called terrible match the following logic.

1: They imagine that cheap bonuses will be accumulated by players.
2: They don't understand that "real players" do not accumulate bonuses.
3: Because the only characters who would play a +10 to kill everything kazoo are played by folk who want a kazoo-playing character and not any folk at all who just want to kill stuff.

That's the argument.

"Real players only do X if they want to do X, they do not do X for a bonus to Y if they just want to do Y, they'll totally just skip that step because that's how people are".
"P.S. EVERYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE IS AN ASSHOLE."

It's hard to follow because it's so clearly wrong, but there it is. There's also a bunch of passive-aggressive notes on how to screw anyone who does X for a bonus to Y, to make sure they won't enjoy it.


Which is where the MTG link comes in, that games should actually optimise toward things that are fun and make the boring shit a bit sub-optimal so that people don't generally want to do it too much (but still can if that's their thing).

[nockermensch]

The following fragment is horrible:

It's not like you have to just say "I play the fiddle" you have to, like, talk to villagers and say what you're playing and hear jokes about the damn fiddle and, in general, take precious minutes out of the 2-4 hours they get to spend playing D&D to talk about music and villagers

There are several wrong things with it. In no particular order:

1) Is there any difference in substituting fiddle for "masterwork climbing tools" or any other tool characters can buy to improve their chances? If I buy masterwork alchemical tools and want to identify a potion do I have to take precious minutes out of playing D&D to describe how awesome the vials and tubes are? When somebody attacks with a magical weapon do I need to take precious minutes out of playing D&D to describe eldritch energies flowing through the the weapon and into the wounds it causes?

2) if people react to Musical Instrument (small) by making jokes about it, instead of liking the performer a bit more, then the way Musical Instrument (small) is written is at best misleading as fuck and at worst an outright lie. A more honest description would start by "On situations where playing music is acceptable or called for..."

3) how is it describing your actions in character and having npcs react to it NOT PLAYING D&D? Are you the kind of DM that cares only for combat? You're the cancer killing the hobby!

4) While "I play the fiddle" can be too sparse of a description, "I play a jolly tune on the fiddle to set up the mood" should be enough. If you insist on more than this, then you still suffer from the Gygaxian disease: Characters use their own skills, not the player skills to interact with the world, and this includes the social skills. I'm not a charismatic person, but I may want to play a charming character. If I want that my badass Conan or austere sorcerer start a musical number to impress people (seriously, read The Hobbit or some viking sagas to see how this is done) then I'll say: "I'm saying the following in a [ happy / martial / uplifting / sad ] rhythm: [whatever I want to say]."

[Cyberzombie]

This is just willful blindness on your part. The most famous example around these parts is when Benoist of the RPGsite went off on a rant about how playing a 2nd edition AD&D Priest of the god of war who used their prayers and knowledge of weapons to be a better front liner than the fighter was not only an exploit, but an exploit so egregious that he would physically attack the player with his actual hands completely out of game and then never play with that person again or allow them into his house regardless of past friendships. That's the most famous example here because it's so disproportionate and insane, but the truth is that CoDzilla has always caused the basket weaver contingent to completely flip their shit. Since before it was even called CoDzilla for that matter - lots of people on the WotC boards accused me of cheating when I presented the Cleric Archer build as part of an argument about Arcane Archers.

AD&D grognards... Yeah, I'm going to take back what I said about people being reasonable probably when it comes to AD&D grognards. Those guys do tend to have trouble confusing the difference between powergamers and rules-exploiters. Probably because a lot of them deny that AD&D had any problems at all and they basically live by the Oberoni fallacy as far as I can tell. I actually do like AD&D, but it has a lot of annoying fanboys, or whatever the grown man equivalent of fanboy is because they're always older guys.

As for the cleric archer build, I'm not sure what the exact build was, so I can't speak for who was right and who was wrong. The general principle of cleric archer isn't exploitative but certain elements that you take can be. Divine metamagic + nightstick for instance is pretty exploitative, but using buff spells to make you better isn't an exploit, it's what they were designed for. So it's possible certain things on the build were exploiting the rules in some way, though I obviously can't say one way or another because I don't know what the build is.

And orbital cows? Rocks fall stuff has been around forever. Some people consider all powergaming to be bad, regardless of it's exploiting the rules or using them as intended. That sort of attitude is more a sign of a bad DM than a bad player.

back on topic to Monte: He's the guy that coined the whole "reward system mastery" thing and how he wanted to encourage it in 3rd edition. So I give the guy credit that he's not the type to point the finger at any powergamer and immediately accuse them of being a rules exploiting asshole. Monte may be many things, but I don't think he's the type that has an irrational fear of powergamers.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Yeah, I'm thinking I should put this Zak guy on ignore. His avatar is gross and he seems to not have anything to contribute to his discussion.

[kzt]

Among people who don't play D&D, Shadzar doesn't think that their opinions matter. Changing D&D to accomodate a group that isn't interested in D&D doesn't make sense to him - it would fundamentally change D&D in a way that must necessarily make it worse.

But I can see how that wouldn't be immediately obvious.

Well, yeah, if that's what he means. Changing D&D to appeal to people who don't play D&D would be like changing hip-hop to appeal to people who don't listen to hip-hop. If you can get Eminem to change his music to sell albums that appeal to people who are George Strait fans I suspect that Eminem's current fans won't be very happy or buying many albums.

[deaddmwalking]

Among people who don't play D&D, Shadzar doesn't think that their opinions matter. Changing D&D to accomodate a group that isn't interested in D&D doesn't make sense to him - it would fundamentally change D&D in a way that must necessarily make it worse.

But I can see how that wouldn't be immediately obvious.

Well, yeah, if that's what he means. Changing D&D to appeal to people who don't play D&D would be like changing hip-hop to appeal to people who don't listen to hip-hop. If you can get Eminem to change his music to sell albums that appeal to people who are George Strait fans I suspect that Eminem's current fans won't be very happy or buying many albums.

Yeah - that's his point in a nut shell. He's just really bad at communicating.

[Maxus]

Yeah, I'm thinking I should put this Zak guy on ignore. His avatar is gross and he seems to not have anything to contribute to his discussion.

His avatar is him.

Evidently he's decided to portray himself as "The villain from 5th Element. When he was teenaged".

[Prak]

Most likely from Halloween. This is really more scorn worthy than, say, a topless centaur, or a demon bat/raven "furry."

[erik]

Meh. It's cheap to grouse on avatars/appearance.

That doesn't even figure into the myriad of reasons I perma-ignored him months ago.

[souran]

The most famous example around these parts is when Benoist of the RPGsite went off on a rant about how playing a 2nd edition AD&D Priest of the god of war who used their prayers and knowledge of weapons to be a better front liner than the fighter was not only an exploit, but an exploit so egregious that he would physically attack the player with his actual hands completely out of game and then never play with that person again or allow them into his house regardless of past friendships. That's the most famous example here because it's so disproportionate and insane, but the truth is that CoDzilla has always caused the basket weaver contingent to completely flip their shit. Since before it was even called CoDzilla for that matter - lots of people on the WotC boards accused me of cheating when I presented the Cleric Archer build as part of an argument about Arcane Archers.

-Username17

While nothing excuses the idea of assaulting another player over in-character choices, I would be interested to see this cleric. Considering that specality priests were an optional rule in 2E anyway, and that the examples from both the players handbook and the complete cleric were terrible (lose most of your spellcasting for a terrible berserk ability!) I am wondering what the hell is meant by a "cleric of a war diety."

Also assuming that you had a fighter with quality stats, weapon specilization was pretty powerful. Also, the list of unique cleric buffs that couldn't also be put on a beatstick fighter was much smaller than 3E. Generally, in 2E if you rolled really good stats you played a warrior type because good stats let you abuse the combat system while if you rolled average stats you played a cleric or wizard because then it didn't matter becuase you were going to cast spells.

If this sounds strangely like the thinking that Mearls has used to put together 5E I would say that it almost certianly is. As far as I can tell, 5E is really 2E with modernized mechanics.

[fbmf]

Yeah, it does sound like the racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. in shadzar's post is quite likely unintentional.

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
I get what he meant. I also get that he phrased it in a very racist way. Early Shadzar posts show he is capable of clear communication, and by his own admission he stopped doing that because he didn't care enough to take the time to do it right. He was warned less than a month ago about racist remarks and called me (and others) bigoted when it was pointed out.

So, yes, Shadzar has been banned. Let's move on.
[/TGFBS]

[Zak S]

The people called terrible match the following logic.

1: They imagine that cheap bonuses will be accumulated by players.
2: They don't understand that "real players" do not accumulate bonuses.
3: Because the only characters who would play a +10 to kill everything kazoo are played by folk who want a kazoo-playing character and not any folk at all who just want to kill stuff.

That's the argument.

Incorrect as usual: the people who want to accumulate the tiny bonus even if they don't want to play a musician and roleplay musician-situations are assholes. As are the people who demand that rules be made to account for these assholes.

[deaddmwalking]

The people called terrible match the following logic.

1: They imagine that cheap bonuses will be accumulated by players.
2: They don't understand that "real players" do not accumulate bonuses.
3: Because the only characters who would play a +10 to kill everything kazoo are played by folk who want a kazoo-playing character and not any folk at all who just want to kill stuff.

That's the argument.

Incorrect as usual: the people who want to accumulate the tiny bonus even if they don't want to play a musician and roleplay musician-situations are assholes. As are the people who demand that rules be made to account for these assholes.

Surely you'd agree that if the bonus for playing a musical instrument were sufficiently large that they make accomplishing something that they do want easy, then people will do that thing.

For example - some people don't actually care about playing the guitar. But they do like having sex with women. Some people think that learning the guitar is a good way to 'pick up chicks'.

If the bonus to 'picking up chicks' is sufficiently large and the character wants to succeed at this task, learning the guitar is an optimal strategy for doing what the character actually wants to do.

Real people do lots of things that they'd rather not do because it helps them do something that they want to do. For example, some people learn about car maintenance not because they care about cars, but because they want to avoid being screwed by an auto mechanic. They do something they don't want (learn about car maintenance) to get something that they actually want (saving money).

It then becomes a question of how valuable the end goal is, whether there are other equally valid ways to achieve said goal, and whether there are any negatives associated with the chosen method.

But for most 'real' people, it is a calculation that they can run 'by gut'.

[Stubbazubba]

Incorrect as usual: the people who want to accumulate the tiny bonus even if they don't want to play a musician and roleplay musician-situations are assholes. As are the people who demand that rules be made to account for these assholes.

So the only way to avoid being an asshole is to rigidly define your character concept and aesthetic and then never waver from that predetermined path, no matter what new knowledge you obtain or what happens in-game?

If I play a Rogue who is not musically-inclined, but the party frequently ends up in social situations in which I am useless because I have a fairly low CHA, and then decide "Y'know what, I need to get better at this talking thing," then I face two choices:

1. I sink valuable ability increases or skill points into increasing CHA, Diplomacy, Bluff, or other things that have been designed for use in this, and forego increasing other things in their stead.
2. For next to nothing, I pick up a lute and suddenly I'm not hurting as bad. Even if the bonus is small, it means I do this and then don't have to spend as many character advancement resources in #1.

So the answer is always buy an instrument and play it in social encounters.

To that end, my Rogue suddenly remembers that his father used to always play the ocarina before the Orc hordes slew him and the rest of my family, so I obtain an ocarina and learn the songs of my people.* I did this purely so that I would be more able to participate in the social encounters, I end up helping the party more, and I cleverly found a way to leverage what I am good at (DEX) to help with what I'm not good at (CHA).

But I just went from perfectly acceptable player to asshole? That's a razor thin line you're advocating, dude. What you're arguing for is stupidity and not just ignorance, but actual disciplined stupidity where you have to consciously resist all incentives in a game that is made of incentives. You clearly have no concept of how players of a game interact with rules.

*Which, of course, does not require that I do anything to actually learn them, just say that I do and presto, learned.

Edit:

Meanwhile, I am a good player if I just want to make an "interesting" scene for myself every social encounter, so I write my ocarina into my character concept/aesthetic from the beginning and pull it out every time we try to haggle for a better price on a job. I narrate the genre and backstory of each tune, I take time to make music one-liners because hey, those are hilarious, and make some out-of-game jokes, too. This is the true purpose of the rule, as you explicitly said: to slow down social encounters with needless description (like, talking to NPCs and stuff), to seek in-game attention through MC Killzalot shenanigans, and to give everyone at the table the opportunity to collectively make fun of what you are doing. The bonus applied is just, I dunno, there for something. Like a belly button.

This is what "not an asshole" looks like, but the Rogue who picks it up even though it's not a part of his character concept in order to, y'know, help the party a bit, is an asshole. You've never really thought through this whole rules thing, have you?

[codeGlaze]

Yeah, it does sound like the racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. in shadzar's post is quite likely unintentional.

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
So, yes, Shadzar has been banned. Let's move on.
[/TGFBS]

Holy.
Shit.

(I know, I know.. I'm late to the parade.)

[Username17]

I always knew I'd be fired...

-Username17

[Cyberzombie]

To that end, my Rogue suddenly remembers that his father used to always play the ocarina before the Orc hordes slew him and the rest of my family, so I obtain an ocarina and learn the songs of my people.* I did this purely so that I would be more able to participate in the social encounters, I end up helping the party more, and I cleverly found a way to leverage what I am good at (DEX) to help with what I'm not good at (CHA).

But I just went from perfectly acceptable player to asshole?

Any player who is going to start every single social encounter, regardless of context, by whipping out a lute is being an asshole. It's treating the world like it's a computer game and disrespecting your DM by assuming he's a mindless rules robot.

[virgil]

To that end, my Rogue suddenly remembers that his father used to always play the ocarina before the Orc hordes slew him and the rest of my family, so I obtain an ocarina and learn the songs of my people.* I did this purely so that I would be more able to participate in the social encounters, I end up helping the party more, and I cleverly found a way to leverage what I am good at (DEX) to help with what I'm not good at (CHA).

But I just went from perfectly acceptable player to asshole?

Any player who is going to start every single social encounter, regardless of context, by whipping out a lute is being an asshole. It's treating the world like it's a computer game and disrespecting your DM by assuming he's a mindless rules robot.

Respecting spontaneous choreography, especially when explicitly encouraged by the rules, doesn't exactly sound like jerk behavior to me. Sounds fun to imagine, in fact.

[Cyberzombie]

Respecting spontaneous choreography, especially when explicitly encouraged by the rules, doesn't exactly sound like jerk behavior to me. Sounds fun to imagine, in fact.

Maybe if you want your game to be silly in nature, then it's fine. If you're going for something serious, you want to have some respect for story.

Just imagine an episode of Cops where the police come to the scene and start asking questions. So one dude, instead of answering the cops questions, decides he's going to ignore the cops, whip out a guitar and start playing a song. There's no way that's going to net him a reaction bonus.

Now these type of players aren't always total assholes, a lot of time in this case the blame can go to the DM more than anything else for being a spineless rules robot and not using common sense. It's up to the DM to try to portray a living world and if he's giving his NPCs the same degree of common sense as the average NPC in the Fable series, then he's doing something horribly wrong.

[Username17]

To that end, my Rogue suddenly remembers that his father used to always play the ocarina before the Orc hordes slew him and the rest of my family, so I obtain an ocarina and learn the songs of my people.* I did this purely so that I would be more able to participate in the social encounters, I end up helping the party more, and I cleverly found a way to leverage what I am good at (DEX) to help with what I'm not good at (CHA).

But I just went from perfectly acceptable player to asshole?

Any player who is going to start every single social encounter, regardless of context, by whipping out a lute is being an asshole. It's treating the world like it's a computer game and disrespecting your DM by assuming he's a mindless rules robot.

Respecting spontaneous choreography, especially when explicitly encouraged by the rules, doesn't exactly sound like jerk behavior to me. Sounds fun to imagine, in fact.

Yeah, if you told me that your game had people making their own leitmotifs every time they entered a room, that would be really weird, but I wouldn't say it was bad. In fact, I would say that once you've established that that is what people do in your story, it would be really immersion breaking to stop. If we're doing a weird meta-opera musical thing where all debates are handled via rock-off, then that's what we're doing. And if someone refuses to have their character do a musical number for one social encounter in the middle of such a game, there'd better be a damn good reason.

A character in a musical who didn't follow the genre conventions and talked normally while other people were singing their ideas would really fuck up the dynamic of the whole musical idiom.

Which is pretty much the bottom line as to why this idea presented by shitmuffin is a shitty idea and why shitmuffin's complaints about the people responding to his idea make him a terrible person and a terrible DM. If you institute a rule that gives people mechanical bonuses for entering social encounters with musical accompaniment, then you have made your game into a musical. Period. That is what you have fucking done. And while that's fine, getting upset that people respond to being told that they are in a musical by behaving as if they are in a musical is completely fucking insane.

If you call the people who buy in to the game's conceits and have their characters act accordingly "assholes," you have missed the entire point of the hobby. I'm not even exaggerating there. You have missed the entire point of roleplaying if you think that people who buy into the conceits of the games they are playing and have their characters act accordingly are assholes. It's seriously like getting upset at basketball players for trying to score points.

-Frnak