The Gaming Den

I intend to use groups modeled after these two idologies as the major Villians organizations in my next rpg game.



Actually, what I really want to discuss is how much should the system be allowed to make up for the inability of the players to approach the world in a similar fashion.

Basically, what if you had an objectivist or a scientologist at the table, they want to play a character that is say a "face" or a "scientists" but every time they try and act they say something that you as dm and not sharing their views finds illlogical or evil or ignorant, do you assess the "thats a bad idea" -2 penalty or system equivalent? If you do, and the player is seemingly ALWAYS stuck with a penalty haven't you effectively used the system to make them "worse" at being the face than if they just shut up and didn't roleplay at all? On the other hand, how can you as a dm not use your personal barometer of the logical vs. the insane in your role handing out modifiers and setting difficulties?

What exactly are you asking? How to dole out penalties if you think their course of action is stupid or wrong?

What does this have to do with the thread title? Sorry, I'm completely lost.

Why are you assigning random modifiers based on whether something is a good idea or not?

Keep assessing the penalty until they learn. A dude that moves into a flanked position in every tactical combat ever gets the occasional corrective, "are you sure?", but you don't take away the +2 Flank or +Xd6 Sneak Attack damage from the enemies.

You're not penalizing roleplay. You're penalizing being dumb. That's okay. If they stop roleplaying directly ("Uh... I just use Diplomacy") I think you're probably skilled enough as a GM to coax it out of them anyway ("okay, you lay out some decent reasons why he ought to surrender, such as your obvious overwhelming power... but he wants to know what's in it for him?").

Just keep trying to move the focus of the roleplay and source of interaction bonus/penalty into an associated arena where the game's suspension of disbelief doesn't take a punch in the eye from a non-assessed penalty.

So you actually want to know Carrot and Stick to get people playing the game more immersively?

Well, a good carrot is some sort of ability which lets them interact with the world in an unusual way. A week or so back, I used the examples of permanent at-will Greater Teleport and the Eberron Changeling Disguise Self as things which will change how a character interacts with the world and a player, if they're the thinking type, WILL have a big grin on their face as they get into the character's head.

As for sticks...Well. I dunno, honestly.

But Objectivism and Scientology are both interesting cases.

Objectivism, as purported by Ayn Rand, if you're not some insanely-talented person, you don't count. I suppose, ideally, it could be a meritocracy.

Scientology, on the other hand, is all about losing the sense of self, I suppose. It moves as one, or tries very hard to.

So you can have two super-powerful groups, one made up of insanely gifted people who think that makes them the moral superior of everyone else, but often has internal conflicts, since it allows for an ego.

On the other, you have a creepy group where the people all believe the exact same damn things and act like the people here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnNSe5XYp6E

Except they'd have powers.

NineInchNall wrote:Why are you assigning random modifiers based on whether something is a good idea or not?

These are not random penalties or bonuses.

Most games include a "beneficial situation/good arguement/useful tool" (from here on out called the "good idea bonus") for managing to do something smart.

Say you need to pry a door open, and somebody remembers that the fire salamder two rooms ago was weiding an all iron trident that could be used as a level. Its probably not covered in the adventure so you give them a small helpful bonus for having a good idea. An equivalent penalty might exist for doing things an illogical way.

However, what if you have a player whose views on why the world operates the way it does is so different from the gamemaster that their ability to function within thier talent areas is permantely penalized.

I.E. the Objectivist face who thinks they make briliant argument but to the dm/other players appears to be proposing baby genocide or blantant immorality.

Ideally they get a few times in which their world view isn't a penalty, but you can always make the people who think those arguments are brilliant, if not out and out evil, and least generally creepy and sort of weird. But if someone is seriously advocating for baby genocide and thinks it is a good idea, they should take some penalties with most audiences. To a certain extent, the contents of a campaign world have to be set up to accept the players. If you have one player that will not fit into any world you can think of, you might want to consider not gaming with them.

If you're gaming with scientologists I think you have bigger problems than situational skill penalties.

Red_Rob wrote:If you're gaming with scientologists I think you have bigger problems than situational skill penalties.

Yeah, you be gaming with pompous assholes.

Don't be a dick. There's nothing wrong with believing whatever crazy crap you want, as long as you're not being a dick about it.

A Man In Black wrote:There's nothing wrong with believing whatever crazy crap you want, as long as you're not being a dick about it.

1) Yes there is something wrong with believing crazy crap.

2) Those crazy crap things actually require that you be a dick about them, it's in the by laws. So yeah, a Scientologist who isn't a dick about his Scientology is impossible. Likewise, all other dogmatic/supernatural beliefs that oppose reason.

Kaelik wrote:

A Man In Black wrote:There's nothing wrong with believing whatever crazy crap you want, as long as you're not being a dick about it.

1) Yes there is something wrong with believing crazy crap.

2) Those crazy crap things actually require that you be a dick about them, it's in the by laws. So yeah, a Scientologist who isn't a dick about his Scientology is impossible. Likewise, all other dogmatic/supernatural beliefs that oppose reason.

Yeah, absolutists tend to be irrational raging assholes.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Yeah, absolutists tend to be irrational raging assholes.

No, people who believe things based on shit besides evidence tend to be irrational raging assholes.

Or at least the irrational part, which is what they are by definition, and the only important one.

People who are absolutist about things derived by reason and evidence are not irrational at all, though they are free to be raging assholes.

People who absolutely believe that evolution did in fact occur are not irrational, and you can stuff your golden mean down your throat and choke on it bitch.

souran wrote:
However, what if you have a player whose views on why the world operates the way it does is so different from the gamemaster that their ability to function within thier talent areas is permantely penalized.

I.E. the Objectivist face who thinks they make briliant argument but to the dm/other players appears to be proposing baby genocide or blantant immorality.

what's the focus of this game that this is (or will be) an issue?

Kaelik wrote:1) Yes there is something wrong with believing crazy crap.

2) Those crazy crap things actually require that you be a dick about them, it's in the by laws. So yeah, a Scientologist who isn't a dick about his Scientology is impossible. Likewise, all other dogmatic/supernatural beliefs that oppose reason.

Yeah, because I really honestly care about whether or not you judge people who are the wrong religion or philosophy.

My point was that it's perfectly possible to be a Scientologist or objectivist or whatthefuckever at the game table without disrupting the game. Most people realize that there's a time and a place for proselytizing, and few religions or philosophies impede getting together with some friends and rolling dice and playing pretend.

It's perfectly possible to be a pompous asshole with your religion/philosophy as an excuse and disrupt a game, but that's about being a dick and the religion/philosophy per se.

Kaelik wrote:

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Yeah, absolutists tend to be irrational raging assholes.

No, people who believe things based on shit besides evidence tend to be irrational raging assholes.

Or at least the irrational part, which is what they are by definition, and the only important one.

People who are absolutist about things derived by reason and evidence are not irrational at all, though they are free to be raging assholes.

People who absolutely believe that evolution did in fact occur are not irrational, and you can stuff your golden mean down your throat and choke on it bitch.

Thanks for supporting my point. Absolutists like you tend to miss distinctions like "tend to be" vs. "always are", and also tend to be raging irrational assholes about it.

The example of absolute evolutionists that aren't irrational assholes (and there certainly are some) by no means disproves my unsupported claim, so you can swallow your irrational argument and choke on it Kaelik.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Thanks for supporting my point. Absolutists like you tend to miss distinctions like "tend to be" vs. "always are", and also tend to be raging irrational assholes about it.

The example of absolute evolutionists that aren't irrational assholes (and there certainly are some) by no means disproves my unsupported claim, so you can swallow your irrational argument and choke on it Kaelik.

And "Don't ever be absolute about anything, except hating absolutists" retards like you tend to miss the part where people who believe irrational things are by definition irrational, and so are always irrational 100% of the time.

The fact that people who are absolute about rational things are rational and not irrational proves you wrong about your claim that they are irrational.

My argument is perfectly rational, you just can't tell, because you explicitly oppose using rational arguments in general, because they lead to "absolute" conclusions.

This is the fourth time I've peeked into this thread and I still don't know what you people are trying to do.

Is it possible that (most) everyone has given up and begun trolling?

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Is it possible that (most) everyone has given up and begun trolling?

That was my first suspicion yes.

If I'm understanding the question properly, I don't think that there is any sort of rules fix for this. The only solution is learning to detach one's own opinions when approaching what they have said, and approaching it from the perspective of the NPCs listening. A medieval lord has vastly different ethics than a modern man, and a Chaotic Evil demon will be much more receptive to the suggestion of slaughtering innocents than you are personally.

I don't want to derail this thread but I'm going to reply to OP.

I would imagine any problems with an objectivist player would sort them self out in short order, but apparently not. If the objectivist's character doesn't help the other characters or demands unjust compensation or any other shenanigans just remind the other PCs that their characters would perhaps hesitate to help the selfish prick.

As for the scientologist, has he gotten deep enough into the cult to know the story of thetans and Xenu? It's really hard to demarcate between religion and cult, but the major religions are open and free, scientology keeps a lot of things secret and costs a lot of money to progress in the organization and in the long run can really mess someone up. If he is a friend I'd tell him about all that cult crap like SeaOrg early, so that if he ever sees it he runs.

Maxus wrote:Objectivism, as purported by Ayn Rand, if you're not some insanely-talented person, you don't count. I suppose, ideally, it could be a meritocracy.

This is incorrect, objectovism is absolutely not really meritocratic, there more about standing on your own two feat. You can be mediocre so long as you are mediocre without wasting subsidies. Outcome is more important than anything else. You might be smarter nicer with a better background than someone else however that other person might be more successful and is there for better. FYI I am not an objectovist but I understand them quite well.

The fuck is objectivism?

Count Geiger wrote:

Maxus wrote:Objectivism, as purported by Ayn Rand, if you're not some insanely-talented person, you don't count. I suppose, ideally, it could be a meritocracy.

This is incorrect, objectovism is absolutely not really meritocratic, there more about standing on your own two feat. You can be mediocre so long as you are mediocre without wasting subsidies. Outcome is more important than anything else. You might be smarter nicer with a better background than someone else however that other person might be more successful and is there for better. FYI I am not an objectovist but I understand them quite well.

I wasn't meaning that. I meant, at its best, Objectivism could turn out a meritocracy.

Apart from that, it has no use. Self-righteous pricks need no encouragement to be more self-righteous.

Grek wrote:The fuck is objectivism?

Ayn Rand's Philosophy? You've probably heard of her, but was a staunchly anti-communist novellist who turned philosopher in her later years. I'm hardly well read, but from I understand Objectivism is a bit of empiricism, Aristotle, egoist ethics, and free market economics. Generally not taken very seriously by anyone not already an objectivist.

She gets a lot of flack because she had cult thing going on and was kind of crazy. More or less said that the natives in America deserved what they got because they had no tradition of property rights, and, mistakenly believing it's how the US system worked, defended granting patents to the first guy to get to the patent office.