Why do people fetishize Magic Tea Party

[K]

Rules-lite games don't self-destruct. They run just fine in the hands of the right DM.

Oberoni Fallacy.

[Dogbert]

If you buy a gaming book full of content you're going to largely ignore then you didn't buy a gaming book, just a book with pretty pictures (and perhaps a game setting). Some people like buying books with pretty pictures, others see it as a waste of money.

The hobby can be divided in two: Camp "Rules are Bad!" and Camp "Rules are Not Bad!" While not everyone is an extremist, most people (if not all) lean towards either of the two sides to a degree.

Personally, I'm an exacting consumer, and I demand my money's value. If a game requires more house rules than fingers in my right hand for me to enjoy it, then I'm not buying it.

[K]

The funny thing about this thread is the constant attempts to rebrand it as a rules-light vs. rules-heavy argument.

It's not. It's the Oberoni Fallacy.

Some the of the defenders of Oberoni fallacy are doing it out of ignorance ("We don't need good rules because my table is fine") and some are doing it out of arrogance ("We don't need rules because I'm an awesome DM"), but it's still the same old shit we've always had on forums any time people talk about making better rules.

Regardless of how many rules you like in your game, the Oberoni Fallacy is an attempt to shut down productive rules discussions. This means that the people who use it are the dicks on the forums and the people who reject it are the heroes.

The appeals to relativism and Godwin's Law or ad hominem attacks that we've seen are just the basic distractions of people who realize that they have no coherent position.

[NineInchNall]

You're not making a subtle or nuanced argument, you're just being an idiot. "That's just your opinion man" is acceptable when people disagree with you about what ice cream flavor is the best, it is not acceptable when we're trying to figure out how to make a oven that doesn't explode. Ovens are tools for cooking food if your oven doesn't cook food and instead explodes than your oven is not doing it's job, it is objectively bad a being an oven. TTRPGs are much the same, Rules exist for purpose, they can be judged on whether or not they are serving design goals. A rulings based system serves most if not all recognized design goals poorly.

Rules-lite games don't self-destruct. They run just fine in the hands of the right DM.

What the fucking fuck? He's not talking about rules-light games in what you quoted. Jesus Bloodycocked Shitfucking Christ!

[Username17]

Some the of the defenders of Oberoni fallacy are doing it out of ignorance ("We don't need good rules because my table is fine") and some are doing it out of arrogance ("We don't need rules because I'm an awesome DM"), but it's still the same old shit we've always had on forums any time people talk about making better rules.

Yes. Although this particular go around has been enlivened by particularly hilarious versions of same. In an effort to show how awesome of a DM he was, Zak took it upon himself to make some rulings from scratch about social systems. And he failed miserably. His product was really, really bad. Met zero of the design criteria.

Now, social systems are Nintendo hard. There's no shame in not making one that works properly. People have gotten Nobel prizes for making neat seeming social systems that don't actually turn out to work very well (see: rational expectations). But Zak voluntarily took up that challenge to show how awesome he was, and he failed.

The astounding arrogance of the Oberoni Fallacy position in this argument has always been there. But like always, it is arrogance which appears to have no real world justification at all. But you know who did make a decent small-scale social system to explain this phenomenon? David Dunning and Justin Kruger.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

You're not making a subtle or nuanced argument, you're just being an idiot. "That's just your opinion man" is acceptable when people disagree with you about what ice cream flavor is the best, it is not acceptable when we're trying to figure out how to make a oven that doesn't explode. Ovens are tools for cooking food if your oven doesn't cook food and instead explodes than your oven is not doing it's job, it is objectively bad a being an oven. TTRPGs are much the same, Rules exist for purpose, they can be judged on whether or not they are serving design goals. A rulings based system serves most if not all recognized design goals poorly.

Rules-lite games don't self-destruct. They run just fine in the hands of the right DM.

A rule is a prewritten mechanic for resolving an action which could occur at the table.

A rules-heavy system is a system in which rules are abundant and narrowly scoped.

A rules-light system is a system in which rules are few and broadly scoped.

A ruling is a method for resolving an action which is created as it occurs at the table as opposed to in advance (which would be a rule).

You are conflating the last two of those. Oopsies. But the good news is now you know what those words mean and you can stop doing that, right? HAHAHAHAHAHA oh well worth a shot

HAHAHAHAHAHA oh well worth a shot

You can never go wrong with pessimism regarding your fellow man.

[Zak S]

In an effort to show how awesome of a DM he was, Zak took it upon himself to make some rulings from scratch about social systems. And he failed miserably. His product was really, really bad. Met zero of the design criteria.

It met all the criteria.
You are lying.
You never addressed all the inaccuracies of your critique which I brought up.

The last place we left it, you were whining "Oh no, you created a system which makes people act exactly the way you want them to act in your game and not the way I want hem to act in MY game". That was the big critique. Some people who evidently can't read asserted it made it so paladins never got rewarded for good deeds and they were promptly smacked down because that's obviously incorrect.

In order to continue to hold the position you have, you have to rewind to the last time I discussed it and address all of those issues your inaccurate critique raised.

Not just whine until people accept your declaration of victory.

(By the way: still using it, so far, game still hasn't exploded, despite predictions that it was "literally unusable".)

The astounding arrogance of the Oberoni Fallacy position in this argument has always been there.

The inaccuracy of referencing the Oberoni Fallacy is still unaddressed.

You're repeating it over and over as if it would somehow hurt you to actually acknowledge the fact you made a mistake.

The Oberoni Fallacy is about poor rules.

I am not supporting poor rules.

The position being advocated (still, since the beginning--see the first time I addressed this--search "oberoni" and my screen name) is that some issues do not need to be covered by any rules in the book (not poor rules) for certain groups.

And why not just put all those rules in all gamebooks ever just in case?
See The Entanglement Issue in this thread. Search that. Stop pretending you can't search that.

If a GM has to look through a bunch of rarely-or-never-used-rules (even if they are good, or as-good-as the ruling)-on-a-page-to-find-a-useful-rule IT WASTES TIME AND CAN MAKE YOUR GAME WORSE.

The cost of having to make up your own (perhaps imperfect) rule is, for many people, less than the cost of time spent wading through unusable rules.

(And yes: If we had perfect recall, this would be a nonissue. But we don't.)

Which nobody is addressing because.....

Because why exactly?

Because why exactly?

Because why exactly?

Because why exactly?

Like are you just too angry to address The Entanglement Issue?

Or is it inconceivable to you that someone else values time differently?

Or what?

As for WHICH RULES count as "don't need a rule"--that is, at which point you default to "this is enough, we are now getting into never-comes-up minutiae"
none of you guys have even begun to draw that line.

You came out swinging at whatever you perceive to be "my game" without even being able to name one single rule that you would call nonfunctional.

So you're arguing against bad rules: AS WOULD ANYONE. But that's an easy strawman.

Why define an actual rule that exists in an actual game that I am actually playing that is nonfunctional.

Then you can actually have a conversation about at what point a rule does or doesn't become "nonfunctional".

Give examples. Right now you're tilting at an abstraction you can make mean whatever you want.

[Username17]

Holy shit, Zak you're still standing by that piece of garbage?

Some people who evidently can't read asserted it made it so paladins never got rewarded for good deeds and they were promptly smacked down because that's obviously incorrect.

No. The fact that it's obviously incorrect means that your system doesn't work, not that people were interpreting your system incorrectly. You gave a game theory optimality exemption for people giving rewards (not that you know enough theoretical background to call it that). Well guess what? Game theory optimality is actually a really bad predictor of human behavior, and for example, literally does say that people won't reward true altruists like paladins and Superman.

The fact that this is blatantly retarded means that your system is crap, not that the critiques are disingenuous.

-Username17

[Zak S]

You gave a game theory optimality exemption for people giving rewards (not that you know enough theoretical background to call it that). Well guess what? Game theory optimality is actually a really bad predictor of human behavior, and for example, literally does say that people won't reward true altruists like paladins and Superman.

Question One:
If your I Want To Sound Oh So Scientific explanation is correct then why does it fail to account for the fact that altruists can be rewarded in the model I present? I gave clear examples you ignored.

Question Two:
Why did you even bother to give such a half-assed answer since I already explained (more than once) scenarios where altruists would be rewarded? Why would you beg such an obvious question?--it just wastes time, Frank. It's inefficient. Deal with the examples.

Question Three
And why are you dodging the Oberoni issue and Entanglement?

I'll save Question 4 until you've demonstrated you're rational enough to handle 1, 2 and 3. Otherwise there's no point.

[PhoneLobster]

It met all the criteria.

Well, aside from the fact that you never actually adequately addressed a single one of MANY criticisms of what you produced. Aside from the fact you actually directly wrote in the stacking apple problem instead of fixing it as requested.

You flat out seem to have failed to notice the request was for a system where you cashed in gratitude or fear tokens for stuff and you never did a fear token system at all. You just presented a gratitude token system. Only it wasn't currency based, had apple a day built in, and didn't actually reward the intended character behavior with actual gratitude bonuses.

For someone who spends a LOT of time claiming you said stuff you didn't and demanding clarification questions and similar bullshit you seem deeply unable to read the simplest of requests for, or criticisms of, rules proposals.

I mean. You still think you produced something unassailable good when what you produced is basically a blatant failure on absolutely EVERY requested level.

Like I said at the time. I wasn't surprised that you failed. I was however actually surprised how incredibly badly you failed. I mean I set you a trap. I expected you to actually meet the criteria requested but create something with unintended consequences that came back to bite you on the ass. But you failed SO badly on the base criteria I might as well have set the "subtle" trap of "write up some chandelier swinging rules that don't make walking a redundant means of civilian transport".

And I continue to be surprised how you continue to fail on this particular challenge which you requested yourself. Anyone with the most basic of grasps of language and primary school math can see you failed. To continue to defend that is... well... I have to call it spectacular.

[PhoneLobster]

why does it fail to account for the fact that altruists can be rewarded in the model I present? I gave clear examples you ignored.

Odd. Because from what I saw when you were confronted with the "Superman doesn't get gratitude points" you didn't give counter examples you flat out admitted that was how it worked and then bald faced claimed that was a good thing.

Go search for it.

[Zak S]

It met all the criteria.

Well, aside from the fact that you never actually adequately addressed a single one of MANY criticisms of what you produced.

I addressed all of the ones I am aware of. If there are any more:

Use your computer to type them out.

Aside from the fact you actually directly wrote in the stacking apple problem instead of fixing it as requested.

Then your request was unclear, (see below for why I blame you rather than me here--you seem to fail to grasp very basic things) then, as is your reasons for what "apple stacking" exactly is negative and, indeed what it actually is.

Your request was not exhaustive: I had no motive to pretend not to understand your question.

You flat out seem to have failed to notice the request was for a system where you cashed in gratitude or fear tokens for stuff and you never did a fear token system at all.

You didn't grasp the implications so I'll spell them out:

The mechanic depends on access to resources--fear creates a implied threat of limiting access to resources, taking resources, etc.

So if not responding to a request would threaten access to resources, that person gets a bonus.

You now know that, and will be referred to this response every single time you bring up this issue in the future or, in general, lie that I "have not addressed criticism" of the rule/. Please do not be embarrassed by that, or bored by how repetitive the responses you will see are.

intended character behavior with actual gratitude bonuses.

If this system: which rewards behavior that I want rewarded in the game I run, doesn't reward the behavior you want rewarded, i can only say I did not understand you wanted some thing I would not ever be able to provide.

I can't necessarily make rulings that enforce your games demands--only ones that enforce the demands of games I actually wanna run.

[Zak S]

why does it fail to account for the fact that altruists can be rewarded in the model I present? I gave clear examples you ignored.

Odd. Because from what I saw when you were confronted with the "Superman doesn't get gratitude points" you didn't give counter examples you flat out admitted that was how it worked and then bald faced claimed that was a good thing.

Go search for it.

Incorrect.

Superman's reward for his altruism depends on many factors--including whether the person granting the request is doing so publicly and privately.

Please stop lying in public.

[PhoneLobster]

I addressed all of the ones I am aware of.

You didn't grasp the implications

You don't get to have extra rules you didn't actually write and just declare they exist in your mind and we should have telepathically read them. You wrote rules for gifts and gratitude based on assessments of continued potential gift supply. Period.

The mechanic depends on access to resources

This is especially notable because it's not a fucking CURRENCY system as requested.

C-U-R-R-E-N-C-Y gratitude and fear points that work like MONEY. You STILL don't get the most basic aspect of the request. STILL.

If this system: which rewards behavior that I want rewarded in the game I run, doesn't reward the behavior you want rewarded, i can only say I did not understand you wanted some thing I would not ever be able to provide.

YOU said you would provide a ruling I requested and it would be fucking perfect.

You do NOT get to say "no" I'll give you some completely different ruling than your request". Because YOUR challenge YOU set was to provide MY REQUESTED RULING.

You especially do NOT get to give me a ruling and then say "This ruling is NOT FOR YOU CRITIC so you can't criticize it!"

You especially don't get to say that because you issued the whole fucking challenge to yourself.

[PhoneLobster]

Incorrect.

Superman's reward for his altruism depends on many factors

Well, NO because that's not how the mechanic you wrote actually works. But especially no because fuck you, did I MENTION anything about public or private there? No. I just said your system denies superman gratitude.

And when that was challenged you claimed he got them in public (which your system doesn't ACTUALLY do). And then claimed him NOT getting them in private was a GOOD thing because, fuck, no one in a superman comic has EVER been grateful to him without the full focus of the media spot light on them when superman asks them for favors, according to you that would be INSANE.

[Zak S]

Incorrect.

Superman's reward for his altruism depends on many factors

Well, NO because that's not how the mechanic you wrote actually works. But especially no because fuck you, did I MENTION anything about public or private there? No. I just said your system denies superman gratitude.

And when that was challenged you claimed he got them in public (which your system doesn't ACTUALLY do). And then claimed him NOT getting them in private was a GOOD thing because, fuck, no one in a superman comic has EVER been grateful to him without the full focus of the media spot light on them when superman asks them for favors, according to you that would be INSANE.

OK LET'S TEST IT:

Superman altruistically saves someone. When does he not get a bonus to their reaction?

Well when the following conditions are all secured (not just one, ALL):

-Savee 100% certain s/he will never need help from Superman again (i.e. no effect on resource).

-Savee 100% certain no-one who provides important resources to savee will ever need help from Superman (if he saves the dentist down the street, your supply of dental care is uninterrupted).

(This one is huge, by the way--in the DC Universe, the entire universe is frequently threatened. This is why often even villains see the point in having Superman around.)

-Savee 100% certain s/he will never be in a position where Superman's positive judgment of him/her would be helpful in securing or maintaining a resource (For example: Superman saves Chuck. Chuck is ungrateful. If Chuck falls off a building again, Superman will still save him. However if anybody asks altruistic Superman "is Chuck a good guy?" for any reason of any importance Superman's negative evaluation of Chuck could affect Chucks access to resources. Also now Supes may be more suspicious of Chuck in any future Chuck-related resource-gathering enterprises.)

(i.e. savee regards "Superman's trust and/or goodwill" as a useless resource)

-Savee 100% certain nobody who could ever even indirectly control (pro or con) his access to resources will ever discover his/her ingratitude.
________

So:

In this fantastically unusual situation, Superman is at the mercy of a naked reaction roll, unmodified. (I think that's about right for modeling a morality I want in my game, you don't. If not: you could nicely ask for me to model the morality you want in your game instead of being a dick about it.)

This solves the problem to the degree necessary to use it at a game table and make the game run for dozens of sessions--which is all a ruling claims to be able to do.

For me, the expediency this rule offers outweighs the (to you) downside of it doesn't model the gratitude of this one rare edge case (an edge case that--since Superman participated in the Crisis and helped prevent the destruction of the entire multiverse and, since all D&D Paladins could conceivably advance to saving their campaign from domain-level or world-level threats--has never appeared in any superhero or D&D game I can recall).

Or to put it another way:

Peoples' gratitude may not actually be a hedge against possibly needing help from the benefactor (directly or indirectly) in the future, but doing the math as if it does results in a totally playable game.

So address that.

And all the other stuff you dodged.

[Username17]

Superman's reward for his altruism depends on many factors--including whether the person granting the request is doing so publicly and privately.

Now that the manager isn't looking, I can thank you properly for saving my life, Superman. By... not giving you free pizza! In God we trust, all others pay cash, Superdope!

This is too hilarious. Stop being so terrible at defending your premises or I won't be able to breathe.

Look, I'd like to go in to how the apple stacking situation in your writeup is so abusable that your subsystem collapses into a black hole of bizarre asymmetric trades. but I can't. Because I'm not DDMW, and I won't follow your inane gish gallops everywhere as long as I have you dead to rights on a single point. Modelling every villager and bar maid like they were Lex fucking Luthor is a failure of genre simulation. It's a failure of genre simulation for every possible genre, including cyberpunk and even real life.

But beyond that, the entire metagame purpose of creating a social currency system in the first place is to support heroic non-mercenary characters. In any sort of wealth == power system, the guy who saves the town because it's the right thing to do has one less bag of gold than the guy who saves the town for a bag of gold, and thus has one less bag of gold worth of power. A social currency system is supposed to alleviate that to some degree. The hero gets gratitude or karma or whatever, and the mercenary gets gold or cred sticks or whatever, and you set the exchange rate to the point where it incentivizes the kinds of actions you want the players to take in your game.

If you set it so the mercenary gets specifically as much gratitude as the hero, let alone more, you've failed at the metagame level. We haven't even gotten to questions like "what kinds of play do you want to incentivize?" or "what kinds of genres do you want to simulate?" because you actually have the sign backwards on your basic exchange rate. Your proposed system serves negative purpose and is worse than not even trying to make a system in the first place.

You've failed so totally and so utterly that there's actually no point in even discussing the laughable breakability of your proposal with apple stacking. It fails on the "Does this even address the issue in the first place?" query. This is where we respond to you with funny animal pictures or not at all, because if you honestly are too arrogant to see how badly you fucked up the challenge you set for yourself at this point, you can't be communicated with. You've descended into self-parody and then out the other side into not being funny anymore.

-Username17

[zugschef]

The funny thing about this thread is the constant attempts to rebrand it as a rules-light vs. rules-heavy argument.

It's not. It's the Oberoni Fallacy.

Some the of the defenders of Oberoni fallacy are doing it out of ignorance ("We don't need good rules because my table is fine") and some are doing it out of arrogance ("We don't need rules because I'm an awesome DM"), but it's still the same old shit we've always had on forums any time people talk about making better rules.

Regardless of how many rules you like in your game, the Oberoni Fallacy is an attempt to shut down productive rules discussions. This means that the people who use it are the dicks on the forums and the people who reject it are the heroes.

The appeals to relativism and Godwin's Law or ad hominem attacks that we've seen are just the basic distractions of people who realize that they have no coherent position.

Best summary of what Zak's, Fuchs' and Cyberzomie's arguments boil down to.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Because I'm not DDMW, and I won't follow your inane gish gallops everywhere as long as I have you dead to rights on a single point.

Who or what is DDMW?

[virgil]

Because I'm not DDMW, and I won't follow your inane gish gallops everywhere as long as I have you dead to rights on a single point.

Who or what is DDMW?

deaddmwalking

[silva]

The appeals to relativism.. that we've seen are just the basic distractions of people who realize that they have no coherent position

I disagree. What the relativists are trying to say is: whats the point of bioengineering the uber-tasty apple, if the group at hand likes orange ?

There is no problem in taking on a sacred quest for the perfect ruleset or something (like a lot of people on this forum seem to do), but only if you acknowledge that this perfect ruleset may well be considered a piece of crap by groups whose particular tastes happen to differ from yours.

[deaddmwalking]

The appeals to relativism.. that we've seen are just the basic distractions of people who realize that they have no coherent position

I disagree. What the relativists are trying to say is: whats the point of bioengineering the uber-tasty apple, if the group at hand likes orange ?

There is no problem in taking on a sacred quest for the perfect ruleset or something (like a lot of people on this forum seem to do), but only if you acknowledge that this perfect ruleset may well be considered a piece of crap by groups whose particular tastes happen to differ from yours.

You fail to understand that the design goals are laid out PRIOR to the evaluation of success. If your design goal is to make an uber-tasty apple, the fact that it does not appeal to people who prefer oranges is acceptable. The quality of your apple will be evaluated on the actual taste.

If your goal is to make an uber-tasty apple and you make an apple that tastes like shit, not only did you fail to appeal to the orange-eating crowd (which was acceptable from your design goals) you FAILED to appeal to your target market. Now, on the slim chance that there is a coprophiliac demographic that REALLY LIKES your craptastic-uber-apple, one can still say you failed in your design goals.

Again, this is not about rules-heavy versus rules-light - this is about achieving your design goals. If your design goal is 'resolve through MTP', that's pretty much going to be accepted since at some point, every game will hit that point. But if your rules are WORSE than MTP, they are bad rules and should not be included in the game. If your rules boil down to 'make shit up' then you don't need to waste extensive page count on it (since it makes finding the actual rules more difficult). In any case, having a ruleset that BOASTS about including Magic Tea Party is rather silly - you don't need to spend ANY MONEY to be able to make stuff up. If you want to justify your purchase because you like pretty pictures (rather than rules) that at least makes sense (though you'd likely get more art for less money if you purchased an art book rather than a rule book). Under no circumstances should your justification for the rules be 'nobody sane would use them anyway'. If you, as a designer, have come to that conclusion you should either excise those 'bad rules' completely, or write 'good rules' that achieve your design goal.

[silva]

So it seems we are on the same page on this, dead.

[Zak S]

Look, I'd like to go in to how the apple stacking situation in your writeup is so abusable that your subsystem collapses into a black hole of bizarre asymmetric trades. but I can't.

Just do it once, then.

Instead of repeatedly doing the thing where:

You are supposed to be so much better than everyone at this.
So that demands you talk smack on the rule.
Then you get called on the smack you talked & your lie is disproven.

But you can't think of a counterargument (maybe because there isn't one).

So you just characterize the argument and then whine about it rather than addressing it.

Frank: it's ok to go "Oh, wow, you called me on my giant mistake, Zak, I will now apologise to you and everyone reading." No babies will die.

But beyond that, the entire metagame purpose of creating a social currency system in the first place is to support heroic non-mercenary characters.

Again: if doofus the lobster wanted a system that supported mercenary players being mercenarily rewarded for enacting their characters' non-mercenary behavior he should have stated that in the request. It was not clear.

This point's been brought up several times, and--I guess because it's difficult for you to address--you are dodging it.

You could just say "Oh you're right, we're asking you do something that was unclear because we made a bunch of dumb assumptions. I, Frank Trollman, deeply apologize--that was stupid as fuck. I shouldn't ave got all het up about it."

In any sort of wealth == power system, the guy who saves the town because it's the right thing to do has one less bag of gold than the guy who saves the town for a bag of gold, and thus has one less bag of gold worth of power. A social currency system is supposed to alleviate that to some degree.

And this one does balance that out

and
it
is
stunning
that
you
still
don't
get
that

because the person who saves the town because it's the right thing to do is:

a) more trusted (and therefore has a repository of social power just by being known to be altruistic) so treating them well in public has a higher benefit than giving the mercenary a reward. Like you get more social power and goodwill from the community for rewarding the selfless do-gooder than rewarding the guy who helped you because it was to your advantage. Giving Nelson Mandela a medal gets you more goodwill (valuable resource) than giving your crony a medal.

(duh)

and

b) actually altruistic: so people playing the odds know that this person is generally useful. Helping superman keeps him around for when the world needs saving and there is no hope of reward. Helping MaterialRewardMan not so much.

Frank:

You need to address these things if you think you even remotely have a rational argument.

Just characterizing the argument and then dismissing it without doing that only further exposes how your veneer of logic is bullshit.


And, again:

You
still
haven't figured out how to address all the other problems with the shit you said.

Deal with them.[/b]

Otherwise at least admit you're just typing totally random nonsense.

[deaddmwalking]

You
still
haven't figured out how to address all the other problems with the shit you said.
[/b]

Speaking of which... Since you recently made a big deal about the post that brought you here - which referenced the 'always say yes' philosophy, it was pointed out by the first poster that had an issue with it that players could ABUSE the system. You may have reasonable players, but it sounds like someone could say:

"If I aim for his neck and hit, can I decapitate him?"

If you say 'yes' to this request, you have, quite possibly, created a situation where hit points no longer matter.

Since you feel that your play style has been under attack (even though it hasn't - but that hasn't stopped you from acting like an idiot and receiving a number of personal attacks as a result) perhaps you would like to explain what you would do in that situation. Otherwise, in 25 pages, you'll have completely failed to address the one criticism of 'your table' anyone has brought up.