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

[Prak]

More to the point, prior restraint has fuck all to do with this. Prior restraint is where someone looks over a news article about them before it goes to print and says "nope, You don't get to print this," an example would be the mayor looking over an article about his last speech on the budget for the next day's issye and, deciding it was unflattering, telling the paper "I don't want you printing this article, and if you do, i will ensure every last one of you is fired."

[TiaC]

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

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

[Zak S]

This is a discussion about shitmuffin's idea that he can make a rule whose predicted and intended effect was to incentivize certain behavior

This is, in a nutshell, why every time one of you says I'm stupid (dumb, bad at arguing, irrational, etc) it's transparently obvious you're wrong and biased.

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

The fact that Frank can't even get that simple, basic, thrice-repeated idea through his head because he is so obsessed with character generation and incentives in characterization is pathetic and (yet again) torpedoes your credibility completely. He just went and fabricated a fact because he was too stupid to remember the truth and nobody's saying anything.

The fact that none of you noticed or pointed this out and that, likely, none of you will admit Frank was wrong speaks volumes about how totally, completely, world-fuckingly irrational you are.

[Ancient History]

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

[Username17]

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

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

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

-Username17

[Zak S]

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

Whether or not it incentivizes is not the question I just laid before you, strawmanning troll. Frank alleged I inaccurately believed it incentivized a thing which is not true because I made no claim about it incentivizing anything or not. I spoke to its purpose: its purpose was something else other than incentivizing--whether or not it did that, too. Frank lied or else is grotesquely stupid and mistakes his fantasies for reality. Do you grasp this?

[Mistborn]

No Zak the problem is with you not Frank, when you give people with kazoos a bonus to diplomacy, that encourages people who want to be good at diplomacy to play the fucking kazoo. Frank merely assumed you where smart enough to understand that (which given your previous behavior was a big assumption)

[Username17]

I would ascribe a truth value of "tautology" to the concept that you decide to perform an action in order for the action to be done. And thus you decide to create an incentive for X because you want there to be an incentive for X. It seems that this proposition is so uncontroversial that one does not need to formally state it.

Unfortunately, shitmuffin has no idea what a tautology is, and furthermore doesn't understand why arguing against one makes him a laughingstock. But that's where we are.

-Username17

[tussock]

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

No, dude, people are genuinely surprised that you, as a published game designer, would not know that rewarding certain actions is an incentive for players to do more of them.


This is the key point of the whole thing. Your original blog post, where people who do the thing you encouraged are "assholes", it's because you don't comprehend how rewards work and don't believe you are encouraging that at all.


Well, really the key point is that Monte Cook took the same mistake and ran with it as a thing of it's own, saying that people who do "unintended" things with a game are to be ignored. Which is terrible and simply not accepted here.

It's the Oberoni fallacy only worse. It's how the rules don't even need fixed because the designed didn't intend for them to work that way. It's not even looking at designer intent to fix rules, it's just "fuck you guys for noticing my mistakes, you assholes". It's rules are perfect because fixing them isn't fucking well allowed.


But this is a forum for fixing broken rules. So, like, no.

[Voss]

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

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

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

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

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

[codeGlaze]

This thread is fucking magical.

[Mistborn]

Zak is a deranged narcissist so actually talking to him probably isn't going to do anything. So let's walk things back a bit for the people at home, if your game contains a rule gives a bonus to diplomacy checks when people play instruments this encourages people who want to be good a diplomacy to open negotiations with a kazoo solo. When we point out that having the PCs start every social scene by playing an instrument sounds kind of wonky there's basically two "correct" responses.

A) The rule is working as intended, maybe your game is based on icelandic sagas or something and tense negotiations are supposed erupt into music in your setting.

or

B) Admit that you didn't think that rule all the way through and consider revising it.

It's really not that difficult.

[Voss]

I dunno, it seems that interacting with him forces him to dig a deeper hole. That sort of pavlovian response could be harnessed for cheap labor, if nothing else. I see ditch digging as a possible career.

[schpeelah]

I would ascribe a truth value of "tautology" to the concept that you decide to perform an action in order for the action to be done. And thus you decide to create an incentive for X because you want there to be an incentive for X.

What I'm seeing here is a Doctrine of Double Effect of Game Design: positing that there is a critical difference between doing something to make X happen and doing the same thing fully expecting X to happen as a result.

[nockermensch]

You haven't addressed these things, just ranted after quoting them. Do you think these behaviors are morally OK for a person to decide to do? Yes or no?

-play through a scene they don't want to play through just to get a mechanical advantage

-create scenes or characters which you don't want to play just to get a little mechanical bonus

Say yes or no.

If I'm playing a character in a game, he has objectives and wants to succeed at whatever tasks there are in the story. I already played characters who had a death wish, but even they wanted to die in a particularly spectacular way.

If my character notices that strumming a Musical Instrument (small) gives him a better chance to succeed at social tasks, then you may be sure he'll consider to strum a Musical Instrument (small). And you don't get to claim that "I don't want to play" that scene, because I sure do.

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

So if badass Conan arrives to a land where playing the kazoo before inappropriate social interactions doesn't make people lose all their respect for you, then you simply can't pretend to know how Conan would react. Maybe Conan will refuse to go along, but maybe he will take a kazoo and gruffly sounds it while cursing these absurd musical people (all while the Player is having an absolute blast by imaging Conan doing that).

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

[zugschef]

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

[Mistborn]

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

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

[momothefiddler]

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

-Username17

Ah, so what you're saying is that you should make a rule that says "Bringing up Prior Restraint will win you the argument", and then if people do that you kick them out of the game for being idiots!

[Stubbazubba]

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

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

And that is exactly your problem. You don't even realize that by making doing X better for some reason, you are encouraging people to do X. When we say you haven't thought this through, that is what we mean: that you haven't realized the obvious impact of your rule. Instead, you try to disclaim it, you try to limit the rule's effect to only exactly what you imagined. The fact that you failed to imagine the obvious relationship between rewards and behavior is a criticism of your intellect and your qualifications to write rules.

And the fact that when people call you out on that obvious and basic failure, you flip out and call them assholes and ban them from commenting for even hinting that you're a complete and utter moron who has no idea what he is talking about, does not mean that they are assholes. It, quite obviously, means you're an asshole with deep-seated self-esteem issues.

You then continue to make false equivalencies and false dilemmas, which I believe you are totally ignorant of, and try to sound intelligent by referencing legal ideas that are beyond your exceedingly limited comprehension. You are not a lawyer (as Kaelik is), you're not even a critical thinker. You're an actor, and you BS people into thinking you're worth something outside of your actual field. You may or may not be worth anything in your field, but when you step outside of that field, your echo chamber of followers on your blog does not mean that you are qualified to actually do anything. You have allowed yourself to be deceived by the success of your own marketing, and now you scramble to defend and lie and bluff your way out of your own misstatements and bad thinking. But we don't stand for that here, and as much as you will blame it on our own groupthink, our own bias (what, we don't like porn or something?), the argument is laid out here for everyone to see.

You think we're stupid for not worshiping your supposed brilliance like all of your soft-minded fans, but let me just reiterate: you're an idiot, and you have nothing to say about morality, law, or game design.

[Laertes]

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

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

And that is exactly your problem. You don't even realize that by making doing X better for some reason, you are encouraging people to do X. When we say you haven't thought this through, that is what we mean: that you haven't realized the obvious impact of your rule. Instead, you try to disclaim it, you try to limit the rule's effect to only exactly what you imagined. The fact that you failed to imagine the obvious relationship between rewards and behavior is a criticism of your intellect and your qualifications to write rules.

And the fact that when people call you out on that obvious and basic failure, you flip out and call them assholes and ban them from commenting for even hinting that you're a complete and utter moron who has no idea what he is talking about, does not mean that they are assholes. It, quite obviously, means you're an asshole with deep-seated self-esteem issues.

You then continue to make false equivalencies and false dilemmas, which I believe you are totally ignorant of, and try to sound intelligent by referencing legal ideas that are beyond your exceedingly limited comprehension. You are not a lawyer (as Kaelik is), you're not even a critical thinker. You're an actor, and you BS people into thinking you're worth something outside of your actual field. You may or may not be worth anything in your field, but when you step outside of that field, your echo chamber of followers on your blog does not mean that you are qualified to actually do anything. You have allowed yourself to be deceived by the success of your own marketing, and now you scramble to defend and lie and bluff your way out of your own misstatements and bad thinking. But we don't stand for that here, and as much as you will blame it on our own groupthink, our own bias (what, we don't like porn or something?), the argument is laid out here for everyone to see.

You think we're stupid for not worshiping your supposed brilliance like all of your soft-minded fans, but let me just reiterate: you're an idiot, and you have nothing to say about morality, law, or game design.

Mic drop.

[nockermensch]

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

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


Now suppose your system has Musical Instrument (small), that gives a bonus to social checks more than 50% of the times. In fact, since it seems to work by a 2nd edition style roll under ability check, one can make a 1st level elf or halfling that always makes the check.

If my character concept isn't "party face" but I decide to pick a Musical Instrument (small) because it can be useful at some situations, you say that you'll get mad at me.

How is case 1 different from case 2?

[Pseudo Stupidity]

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

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

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

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

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

[deaddmwalking]

To a degree, if your character is Krondar Skull-Fucker, Ender of Orcs, you're not going to want to use an instrument before opening negotiations. But let's be honest - you weren't going to use Diplomacy to begin with.

If you were going to play Gilead the Wandering Minstrel, you were going to play the lute, anyways.

Obviously this rule would encourage someone who was going to do a lot of negotiations to opt to be a musician - giving a bonus makes that a more effective option. But it doesn't require that everyone start playing the kazoo. Character concept is a real thing and some people won't participate in 'optimal strategies' if they feel that it is 'not true' to the character.

As a result, Zak S's rule encourages a player to make a character that 'really likes playing music', but existing character concept provides some barrier to existing characters swarming over to take advantage of this bonus.

Further, Zak has now indicated that there are 'billions' of ways to get this bonus (as I correctly surmised in one of my first posts in this thread) so Krondar Skull-Fucker won't play the kazoo - he'll flex his manly muscles and so impress his audience that he gets a bonus.

And of course the bonus doesn't actually mean anything - we were going to be playing Magic Tea Party so if you ask for something the GM was going to decide whether it was 'reasonable' or not - this just slightly increases the odds that the GM has decided you've done 'enough' to justify the result you wanted to begin with - because even with a Natural 20 and a stack of bonuses, the king wasn't going to 'do something he would never do'.

As far as whether a rule like this one (but you know, with actual rule text such as what type of bonus you could get and in what situations it might be appropriate - that is to say, a 'real rule') might be appropriate, I could see the benefit.

Ultimately, Zak S is wrong to complain about people 'seeking mechanical advantage' - and we all know he is. But there's a real issue that he's grappling with, and he doesn't know how to handle it. It's basically 'spamming stunts'.

It's awesome if your character is in a situation where swinging on a chandelier and making the attack is thematically appropriate and the DM grants you a bonus. You are an 'asshole' if you magic up a floating chandelier that travels everywhere you go so you can swing on it in every combat. Again, obviously, if swinging on a chandelier is so effective that traveling with one makes sense in character, but the result of everyone traveling with magical floating chandliers is setting-destroying (or mood disrupting), there need to be limits on when it is allowed.

So, Zak S understands instinctually that spamming stunts is bad, but he also wants to encourage stunts (in this case, getting a bonus on Diplomacy by using music to 'set the mood' when it would be setting-appropriate) - but he doesn't have any idea on how to stop people from abusing the system without just calling anyone who does so an asshole and throwing them out of his game.

This thread is like a manual on how badly impaired Zak S.'s cognitive function is, and the real problem (how to encourage 'stunts' without people spamming them) is actually an interesting question that has a few possible solutions, but none that are 'clear and away' the best.

If we wanted a productive conversation (and I'm not sure we do, because pointing and laughing at Zak S while he throws a tantrum and says obviously stupid things has an appeal), that should be the focus. Unfortunately, since Zak S fails to understand the issues with his 'rule' probably wouldn't benefit from that discussion.

[nockermensch]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[ishy]

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

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

Zak's argument is that if you pick something because it is useful instead of because you want to play it, you're an asshole. So in your case, your concept is not reach weapon fighter, thus picking up a reach weapon makes you an asshole.