Why do people fetishize Magic Tea Party

[Zak S]

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.

Archmage made the mistake of conflating my gaming philosophy with an "always say yes" philosophy. He quoted me, yet described it.

He was incorrect. I do not "always say yes".

I addressed his error on the first couple pages of this thread, in detail.

the one criticism of 'your table' anyone has brought up.

Again: you are lying in public.

There are several people in this thread who bitched about different parts of my game. Some who said the whole game was shitty. The psychosis starts in earnest on page 3 and reaches a fever pitch with Kaelik--search "honest fuck""kaelik" and "zak s". He specifically bitches about my GMing method. Openly and specifically. Just one of several examples.

So:

You have totally lied (or been so lazy you attacked me without even checking the thread you're in to make sure you were right) in front of everyone.

Objectively.

Twice in a row.

It blows my mind that everyone reading this can just watch you lie your ass off--twice in a row now--and you think you have a logical or ethical leg to stand on.

You're obviously an unbelievably shitty person who is totally cool with just making shit up to complain about.

[NineInchNall]

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.

There are two cases here, forming a true dichotomy:

1) Superman requires your reward in order to keep doing his altruistic thing. (e.g., Supes is poisoned and you have the antidote.)
2) Superman does not require your reward in order to keep doing his altruistic thing. (e.g., Supes has his own Fortress of Solitude and can provide for his own sustenance.)

(1) is motivated by rational, if potentially defeasible, self-interest. (2) is the problem case.

[Zak S]

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.

There are two cases here, forming a true dichotomy:

1) Superman requires your reward in order to keep doing his altruistic thing. (e.g., Supes is poisoned and you have the antidote.)
2) Superman does not require your reward in order to keep doing his altruistic thing. (e.g., Supes has his own Fortress of Solitude and can provide for his own sustenance.)

(1) is motivated by rational, if potentially defeasible, self-interest. (2) is the problem case.

Two obvious things about that "problem case":

A) The rewarder would generally want Superman's goodwill, trust, and assessment of the rewarder as a good person. Useless gifts would be tokens of this. My neighbor doesn't think I need cheese, but the generous and spontaneous sacrifice of cheese (Here, have some cheese!) when I do something they like represents a degree of attention and goodwill. This person is communicating an amount of willingness-to-cooperate (a useful resource). Particularly if the gift is a sacrifice for the rewarder. (This was addressed in my previous comments, search "superman""zak s""infinite""chuck".)

B) If Superman is asking for anything (particularly in a game context), no matter how small, then the rewarder would be given to understand that the favor is (Superman being altruistic) important in some way to Superman to Superman's survival or overall project, even if the rewarder is unsure why.

That renders it easily good enough to work as a ruling which keeps the game afloat and making sense: which is all I claim a ruling needs to do. The whole point of rulings and house-rules is they are local and work locally and need not be printed as part of a published ruleset and be useful to all gamers in order to be worth doing.



NOTE TO EVERYONE ELSE: If you read only this comment and do not read the comment that comes up if you search "superman""zak s""infinite""chuck" then you will probably be moved to ask a bunch more questions I already answered about this topic. So I politely request you do that first.

[shadzar]

is this shit still going on? the "rules" people just wont learn will they, no matter how it is explained?

*a game cannot include rules for everything. FACT
*since rules for everything don't exist, exceptions to those rules occur. FACT
*when an exception occurs a ruling must be made by someone. FACT

ergo... since you are going to have to make rulings anyway based on this, the rules are not that important be it whether the exception is based on opinion, playstyle, or some other factor wherein at least one player is not of the same mind of the game's designer.

"rulings not rules" people simply trust their friends and acquaintances that they actually play with, more than some publisher or author to make the game fun.

that is the point of a game, something fun to do. someone you do not know, no matter what kind of pattern recognizing program they use, will not be able to make something "fun" for you better than someone that knows you, or yourself. this is especially true in the case of a game that takes place primarily in your own imagination.

do "rules not rulings" people throw SoD out the window and just play the rules even if they don't make sense, break immersion, or impede your imagination?

[gamerGoyf]

*a game cannot include rules for everything. FACT
*since rules for everything don't exist, exceptions to those rules occur. FACT
*when an exception occurs a ruling must be made by someone. FACT

ergo... since you are going to have to make rulings anyway based on this, the rules are not that important be it whether the exception is based on opinion, playstyle, or some other factor wherein at least one player is not of the same mind of the game's designer.

This is a Nirvana fallacy motherfucker. The fact that the rules can't cover "everthing" perfectly does not mean that we can make rules that cover more cases better. You argument is essentially that we shouldn't put seatbelts in cars because people will still die in traffic accidents even if all cars have seatbelts.

[PhoneLobster]

... if doofus the lobster wanted a system that ...

I'd argue the point, but like two posts ago you outright admitted that you ignored everything I requested because you weren't writing a mechanic for me (and also claim that would be impossible!) you were writing a mechanic that was "not for the critics".

You've outright admitted you shifted the goal posts on your own challenge so hard that you are now simply replying to ALL criticism with "That's how I retroactively intended it to be, no matter how insane that seems, and screw the request itself because fuck that guy I write what I (retroactively pretend to) feel like!"

I mean what does it matter what was in my request. You have specifically taken the stance that the contents of the request are now irrelevant to the "success" of your response. You actually did that. Yes, that was a jaw dropping piece of crazy. But you did that. In public.

[Kaelik]

It is worth mentioning, when Zak S elaborates on his totally for real social system says all these things, this is what he actually wrote as the rules for his social system:

Assign a given transaction a bonus and an "expiration", like "This is worth +something on your next charisma rolls for a month. How's that sound, player?"

However, the baseline of these bonuses would only include the differences between bonuses of competing factions and interests. So, for example if you gave an apple (+1) and a competing interest gave 2 apples (+2) then that would be a +0 for you and a +1 for the competitor.

Also: only currencies whose continued supply that might be threatened by refusing a given request are considered. Like if somebody's sure they're gonna get more apples even if they refuse, that bonus doesn't count.

So for example, what bonus does something get? Totally made up by him on the spot. How long does the bonus last? Totally made up by him on the spot. What about competing factions and interests that subtract from your role, what are they and how much do they subtract and do you know about them? That is made up by him on the spot. What about NPCs who are sure superman is going to keep saving them, how do you decide if an NPC is sure of that? He makes that up on the spot.

So in reality, there aren't actually any rules. It is literally just MTP, but he says a bonus you get on a roll instead of telling you what the NPC does. And then after you roll, he makes up on the spot the effect of your roll.

[PhoneLobster]

Aside from the rest being total nonsense and more goal post shifting "fuck you no soup for you superman"...

...Particularly if the gift is a sacrifice for the rewarder....

You are now seriously trying to write in an additional mechanic where Superman doesn't get a bonus for asking for free soup. BUT he does get a bonus asking for your ARMS.

[Plague of Hats]

Maybe if you hit 50 pages arguing with Zak this will all suddenly not have been a hilarious waste of time.

[gamerGoyf]

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.

But more seriously fuck you, you don't get to accuse people of debating in bad faith when you're Gish Galloping cross country. Your social currency system fails at doing what social currency systems are supposed to do, end of story.

[deaddmwalking]

There are several people in this thread who bitched about different parts of my game. Some who said the whole game was shitty. The psychosis starts in earnest on page 3 and reaches a fever pitch with Kaelik--search "honest fuck""kaelik" and "zak s". He specifically bitches about my GMing method. Openly and specifically. Just one of several examples.

You have failed at reading comprehension from the beginning. The attacks you claim against your playstyle that brought you here are nonexistent. The attacks you claim Kaelik made against your game are also due to a failure on your part to understand what was said. There were some issues where specific claims you made about your game were attacked, but since you've walked those back (people didn't UNDERSTAND how your game ACTUALLY works) I can't find a single case where your game SPECIFICALLY was attacked. There are numerous posts indicating why your specific gaming style IS NOT and CANNOT be universally applied.

You're obviously an unbelievably shitty person who is totally cool with just making shit up to complain about.

And you're obviously a hypocrite who whines when you feel that you're being personally attacked, complain about personal attacks as destructive toward gainful conversation, and engages in personal attacks with alarming frequency.

[NineInchNall]

A) The rewarder would generally want Superman's goodwill, trust, and assessment of the rewarder as a good person. Useless gifts would be tokens of this. My neighbor doesn't think I need cheese, but the generous and spontaneous sacrifice of cheese (Here, have some cheese!) when I do something they like represents a degree of attention and goodwill. This person is communicating an amount of willingness-to-cooperate (a useful resource). Particularly if the gift is a sacrifice for the rewarder. (This was addressed in my previous comments, search "superman""zak s""infinite""chuck".)

You could have just copy-pasted the bit into a spoiler block, so that it's available for everyone's quick reference. Like this.

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.

Anyway, let me see if I formalize it into a nice syllogism.

-If Chuck is not grateful to Superman, then Chuck is 100% certain about certain things. (i.e., ungrateful only if criteria are met)
-Chuck will almost never be absolutely certain about those things.
-Chuck will almost never be ungrateful to Superman.

Hopefully that matches your intent.

Problem: this argument relies rather heavily on a notion of absolute certainty, which is simply not applicable to synthetic propositions. Even if they were, the proposal that "currencies whose continued supply that might be threatened by refusing a given request" includes all the various things listed in your above criteria is untenable.

The sheer complexity involved in social networks is mind shattering, even if they are represented in a simple, abstract model like directed/weighted graphs. They are so complex, in fact, that one of the classic NP-hard problems in computer science is the Traveling Salesman Problem. The project of examining all the relationships, resources, and requests in both present and future to see which are relevant and then which are determining is orders of magnitude harder.

Since the problem can't really be solved in a reasonable time, the DM must use of some sort of heuristic. But if that heuristic is a black box, it is indistinguishable from the DM simply choosing a number based on what feels right. Now, there's nothing wrong with DM's doing that. What it is not is an output of a workable social currency system.

B) If Superman is asking for anything (particularly in a game context), no matter how small, then the rewarder would be given to understand that the favor is (Superman being altruistic) important in some way to Superman to Superman's survival or overall project, even if the rewarder is unsure why.

I think you're doing some magic with altruistic; i.e., it doesn't mean what it would need to mean in order to get (B) off the ground. Being altruistic does not require that the only requests one makes be motivated by necessity. (Actually, altruism is a rather sticky subject in general, which is why people are sticking to a rather simple, game theoretic notion.)

[shadzar]

*a game cannot include rules for everything. FACT
*since rules for everything don't exist, exceptions to those rules occur. FACT
*when an exception occurs a ruling must be made by someone. FACT

ergo... since you are going to have to make rulings anyway based on this, the rules are not that important be it whether the exception is based on opinion, playstyle, or some other factor wherein at least one player is not of the same mind of the game's designer.

This is a Nirvana fallacy motherfucker. The fact that the rules can't cover "everthing" perfectly does not mean that we can make rules that cover more cases better. You argument is essentially that we shouldn't put seatbelts in cars because people will still die in traffic accidents even if all cars have seatbelts.

no, it wold be more like saying seatbelts shouldnt be put in cars because not everyone wants to use them no matter what the reason is, as it is their human right to choose.

which would in turn remove the right to choose TO use them by others if they were not present, such as 3.x people did when they usurped the name of D&D for its game which was actually just d20 Fantasy, and saying those who liked D&D are no longer allowed to have it because there were people that didnt want to wear seatbelts.

ho w many rules can you make seriously? at what point do you stop? do you stop making rules before or after the time it takes to learn the rules the player has died before getting to use them?

this is the point that you cannot make rules fully extensive because there is a point of diminishing returns.

some people just place that point lower than others so chose that "rulings" are better since they people they know personally, and sit down to play with; are better capable of making the game work for them as opposed to some hack like Mike Mearls that just gets paid to sit all day making bad ideas and poor choices that everyone must follow from on high as the RULES MAKER.

also note "better" as you said "over more cases better", is a subjective term. which has been explained over and over that you cannot objectify or quantify what is "better" when it involves one persons beliefs over anothers. you are only showing your ONETRUEWAYISM.

just accept that NONE of you feculant beggars are going to sway "rulings over rules" people because it is THEIR choice, NOT YOURS, as to what they want out of a game, or how they want to play it. go play your fucking game at YOUR table, and quit trying to oppress others.

i mean that is why you started this thread afterall by your own words, that you wanted to suppress a view held that was different from your own?
. http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=361174#361174 .

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013

so you started a thread for the sole purpose of forcing people to agree with your playstyle?

No I started this thread to gather better arguments against a particular school of game design thought. A school of thought that if allowed to proliferate will prevent games I would like to play from being developed.

you want people to stop liking what you don't like, because you fear that they will continue to like, it and what you like will not happen.

you started a thread purposefully to oppress others and get ammunition in your war to do so.

you really think you deserve ANY sympathy for that?

just get your head out of your ass and learn, that you can play the game you like. you are jsut going to have to develop it yourself, and FIND other people that like it too. you cannot and will not force 3.x onto people that don't like it. nor 4/e, not Shadowrun, etc....

GROW UP!

[fbmf]

you want people to stop liking what you don't like, because you fear that they will continue to like, it and what you like will not happen.

you started a thread purposefully to oppress others and get ammunition in your war to do so.

you really think you deserve ANY sympathy for that?

Shall we call you "Pot" or "Kettle"?

Game On,
fbmf

[shadzar]

you want people to stop liking what you don't like, because you fear that they will continue to like, it and what you like will not happen.

you started a thread purposefully to oppress others and get ammunition in your war to do so.

you really think you deserve ANY sympathy for that?

Shall we call you "Pot" or "Kettle"?

Game On,
fbmf

now tell me where i ever said people arent allowed to like 3.x?

you cant because i never did.

i only said they shouldnt be allowed to call it D&D as it is not. i have ALWAYS said it is not D&D, but people should be able to have a game they like playing, contrary to goyf who thinks EVERYONE should be forced to play what he/she/it wants to play.

thus why he/she/it started a thread to find ways to MAKE everyone accept the way he/she/it plays as their own.

it wasnt ever about trying to understand the other side, but tried to find a way to shut down their opinion and dismiss it as viable for ANYONE to have or play that way.

read his/her/its own responses. they want to stop people from being able to play a way (OSR) that will stop making new things for them. OSR doesnt need new things made to play, they basically exist to say FUCK YOU to T$R because EVERYONE can do what T$R had now without them and LW and the Blumes get no profit from it. WotC doesn't even have a leg to stand on to fight it because of the law and precident set in the case that WotC mostly loss involving "tapping" a magic card which said "game rules cannot be copyrighted", thought they were granted a patent for "tapping" or trademark to the term or something, but EVERY card game can use it without paying them royalties. THEN WotC gave away the d20 system free of charge to EVERYONE (one of the reasons they had to come up with 4th because they knew later that legally they gave away d20 save for its name), and so EVERYONE can make their own version of a D&D-like game. thus PF is doing better than ANY WotC creation since they cancelled 3.5.

again for the billionth time, YES people should have games they like to play; NO they don't get to call them D&D (WotC even says so with DDN as it shows 4/E is NOT D&D nor deserving of the name), but they have a right to them.

i am jsut calling people stupid for thinking 3.x is in any way D&D other than carrying that label.

gofy wants EVERYONE to be forced to play games HIS/HER/ITS way and is trying to FORCE others to not be allowed to play their own games.

big difference.

this thread was created specifically to get attacks and insults from people here to return to another forum in which to use them against people that play a different way.

while i think many people here ARE assholes, did this place turn into The Asshole Den, from The Gaming Den?

you would think, think mind you, that something called Gaming Den would be accepting of various playstyles, but we all know that isnt true. it just accepts the ONETRUEWAY style of playing no matter which game it is.

hypocrit much?

i am curious to se a thread where this one was created from to be able to read what goyf was trying to "deal" with? i would wager the thread would prove he was just trying to force his/her/its opinions onto others. sounds like something Lago or Mistborn would do actually.

[PoliteNewb]

Maybe if you hit 50 pages arguing with Zak this will all suddenly not have been a hilarious waste of time.

Already isn't. This is some comedy gold, broham.

[Chamomile]

Well he did specify that it was a hilarious waste of time.

[...You Lost Me]

Has anyone noticed that deaddmwalking, someone who routinely and calmly engages everything shadzar says, seems to have given up responding to the content of Zak's posts?

It really says something.

[tussock]

I don't read it that way.

It looks like tussock tried to argue that your style was the best, by linking your blog. See for example where he explains that he wants to play that way, but can't pull it off. Unless you think that tussock was specifically begging for an invite to your table, that suggests he was speaking abstractly, not specifically. Archmage tried to pull out what tussock was actually talking about (maybe successfully; maybe not), then you showed up to defend your specific game.

I'd read it as a couple of examples of people having a positive experience by ignoring a bunch of the rules and making up a bunch more as the game went along to keep things apace in the stakes of being dramatically appropriate.

Kinda like this:
Someone: Why are variant rules for chess unpopular?
Tussock: Man, chess is best when every move turns into sexy mud-wrestling! Zak has the best mudchess! Oh how I wish I had a mud pit like his...
Archmage: [quotes some mudchess advice], but many people just want to move pawn to queen 4, without having to set up a suplex.
Silva: boobies!
Zak S: My chess features the finest mud, the sexiest wrestlers, and a chess set so exquisite that human eyes cannot perceive it. [mic drop]

Yay me. See, when he does this disjointed point-check stuff on his blog it's cool (and he links his and other people's previous arguments all by himself), because I can read it, disgree, and move on to the posts about how snakes are books, or the d% random wardog table, or the ones with the Kenku, or the art stuff from whenever back that was a cool new look at how you can change up some of the flavour stuff on monsters (like, tribal culture, fashion, mythology, whatever) and get a lot more use out of them for "seen it before" vets (while still having Goblins be proper Goblins who rush you in numbers and die when you sword them).

And the ones where he promotes the idea that rules should let players do what they're trying to do (within appropriateness constraints, whatever), and you just chuck out the ones that don't work as you notice. Only it turns out he's all anal retentive about doing it properly for encouraging player empowerment, and so objects to being labelled a Magic Tea Party type.

Meh. I'm all disillusioned now. But it's fine, because that means I'm not failing to whip up that stuff on the fly and make a cool game out of it, because no one does that anyway. So I'm only disillusioned about the wider world, and happier in myself.

[deaddmwalking]

Has anyone noticed that deaddmwalking, someone who routinely and calmly engages everything shadzar says, seems to have given up responding to the content of Zak's posts?

It really says something.

The 'content' has markedly decreased. Besides claiming that people said things they didn't (and if you don't believe him, just read 25 pages of posts rather than him offering the quote), he has also argued that anything he said up to this point that paints him in any kind of negative light is due to a failure on your part to understand what he really meant, so instead of responding to the content of his posts, you are required to ask clarifying questions until you understand what he was thinking, not what he said. Between those, it would be hard enough to justify continuing, but there's also the part where he brands anyone that disagrees with him on the internet as an 'unbelievably shitty person'.

There is a vast gulf that I cannot mentally cross to be able to come to the conclusion that someone is 'shitty' because of posts they've made online about roleplaying games. I don't always read what Shadzar says because sometimes his writing style requires more effort than I'm willing to invest, but I at least understand where he's coming from - he feels it was unfair to him personally that they used the name 'Dungeons and Dragons' when making different, incompatible games. Considering his derision toward computer games, thinking of the game as a 'series' is beyond him. But I legitimately cannot understand where Zak S is coming from.

'Rulings' might offer quite a few advantages in particular circumstances - and are absolutely required when the rules fail to address a situation. But Zak isn't really an advocate for rulings - since he codifies all of his rulings and refers back to them whenever they come up again, whatever time savings he THINKS he is achieving seems likely to be completely offset by potentially needing to refer to a giant book of every ruling ever made to maintain consistency. There's stuff that I'm sure he believes that I agree with, but he's gone off the rails. It started when he tried to insist that any form of discussion had to follow his rules and refused to accept that, as presented, they stifled rather than encouraged discussion. Mostly, that's still what it is.

But if I were to take his position on 'how to discuss' as an example of his 'rulings not rules' - where if you then try to respond to what he says he insists that 'you didn't understand him' and it 'actually works a totally different way' I can see why he'd be defensive. It's Magic Tea Party, all the way down.

[DSMatticus]

To be as clear as possible, making rulings on the spot and promising to adhere to them in the future is not entirely the same as a rule-based system. It's actually much closer to the worst of both possible worlds, where you are promising to spend as little time and effort developing your rules as possible (downside of rulings) AND promising to end up with a rule base at least as difficult to remember and reference and likely considerably harder (downside of rules). It's only particularly useful in the case where you reuse as few rulings as possible or flush the rulebase frequently, and if you do that then then it devolves straight into refereed MTP where every action except the most basic has special snowflake resolution. Which isn't strictly speaking bad, but I consider it incredibly player disempowering in the context of D&D to have the DM decide how badass my character is and what sorts of badassery they can get up to on the fly as opposed to making those decisions during chargen and having the DM vet them so we're both on the same page from square one.

[Kaelik]

To be as clear as possible, making rulings on the spot and promising to adhere to them in the future is not entirely the same as a rule-based system. It's actually much closer to the worst of both possible worlds, where you are promising to spend as little time and effort developing your rules as possible (downside of rulings) AND promising to end up with a rule base at least as difficult to remember and reference and likely considerably harder (downside of rules). It's only particularly useful in the case where you reuse as few rulings as possible or flush the rulebase frequently, and if you do that then then it devolves straight into refereed MTP where every action except the most basic has special snowflake resolution. Which isn't strictly speaking bad, but I consider it incredibly player disempowering in the context of D&D to have the DM decide how badass my character is and what sorts of badassery they can get up to on the fly as opposed to making those decisions during chargen and having the DM vet them so we're both on the same page from square one.

Indeed, Fuchs (presumed because he never actually answers the question when asked) method of completely ignoring all his past decisions and making up completely new ones at least has the advantage that though objectively worse rules are being implemented in a way disempowering to players, it would actually be faster than looking up rules.

Zak S's pathetic system still forces everyone to look up rules, and is purely shit, and based on his theory that 3 seconds of his brain operating creates perfect results that could not ever be improved in any way ever, not even by such obvious improvement creating systems as "asking his players what they think a week later after seeing the ruling in action" or "thinking about it for an hour."

[deaddmwalking]

To be as clear as possible, making rulings on the spot and promising to adhere to them in the future is not entirely the same as a rule-based system. It's actually much closer to the worst of both possible worlds, where you are promising to spend as little time and effort developing your rules as possible (downside of rulings) AND promising to end up with a rule base at least as difficult to remember and reference and likely considerably harder (downside of rules).

I agree completely! Zak S has tried to put himself in the 'rulings not rules' camp, but his position appears to be instead 'rulings that BECOME rules'. Unless the rulings happen to be 'the best possible solution' everytime they're made, I would consider such a solution to be the worst of all possible solutions. In Zak S's case, he has made the claim that his rulings are always the best, so in his particular case, he may have the 'best solution for his table'. However, I'm skeptical of anyone that claims to be able to make perfect decisions quickly and consistently - but I'm not willing to review every single one of his rulings to see if there are any 'bad rules' or 'mediocre rules that could be improved' because:

1) BORING!!! I really do have better things to do than watch (or read) about other people playing D&D.
2) Any objective improvement will be dismissed as 'this worked for my table - YOU DON'T KNOW ME!'

I do hope that Zak S starts to realize that in trying to instruct people on how to disagree with him, he's creating impossibly difficult hoops to jump through - which, considering that this is a forum where people can introduce relevant examples as part of the discussion - which I find mildly annoying.

[shadzar]

To be as clear as possible, making rulings on the spot and promising to adhere to them in the future is not entirely the same as a rule-based system. It's actually much closer to the worst of both possible worlds, where you are promising to spend as little time and effort developing your rules as possible (downside of rulings) AND promising to end up with a rule base at least as difficult to remember and reference and likely considerably harder (downside of rules). It's only particularly useful in the case where you reuse as few rulings as possible or flush the rulebase frequently, and if you do that then then it devolves straight into refereed MTP where every action except the most basic has special snowflake resolution. Which isn't strictly speaking bad, but I consider it incredibly player disempowering in the context of D&D to have the DM decide how badass my character is and what sorts of badassery they can get up to on the fly as opposed to making those decisions during chargen and having the DM vet them so we're both on the same page from square one.

but the thing is no set of rules in a game system is ever fully playtested, as they cannot have one person or more from every playstyle and mind present in it, not even DDN. the act of making a ruling, even if forgotten or changed later, is the act of playtesting that is ongoing. you learn AS you play. this is why so many people have variants of d20/3.x because they want different things and don't agree on the rules. the concept of "rules" as in tournament play, fails when you come to an RPG that cannot in any way for people to conform to agree on one over the other, when they are not connected to other players at home like would be in a tournament.

this is why WPs in 2nd was for tournament play, because it gave a bit of uniformity, and NWPs were optional, because it only mattered what the players wanted and whether to use them or not. at home, BOTH were optional and you could play with NWPs and without WPs.

you jsut cannot pin down that one set of rules for everyone, so every moment played is playtesting since every group won't instantly agree. and you cannot force them to instantly agree since nobody signed up for tournament style play at home was the only way to play.

sure rulings are forgotten or changed, but so were the rules to begin with. playtest packet 1 for DDN is not the same as the most recent is it? well these are rules, so which is correct, the first or the later "ruling"?

the same thing happens in home games. you cannot force people to use encumbrance because some people just throw it out and that is a ruling they make that violate the "rules".

damn all the barracks room lawyers that are around today trying to force people to play by the letter of the rules, rather than the spirit of the game is just astounding! it is like they jsut don't understan RPGs at all, and well that was foreseen in 1979 and warned about, yet those warnings were not heeded.

[fectin]

The letter of the rules is the spirit of the game.