More Threads that make us Laugh, Cry, or Both

[NoDot]

In other news: Metagaming Feats!

[Koumei]

That's stupid, but I chuckled anyway. Most of them still suck, but they get the joke across, and that's what matters. The whole "I know all about monsters in the MM" thing is cool for when you realise you just know too much and keep subconsciously utilising it, though. But that could be a regular background, "Pokemon Trainer", not a feat.

[Username17]

Yeah, I think the only metagame feat on that list that actually did something really metagame was the U R TEH LIEZ! one. All the others were just regular feats with metagame explanations. The concet was good, the execution not so much.

It should have been more like:

• Possibly Probable Position [Metagame]
  You are anywhere you could plausibly be.
  Benefit: When setting up the battlemap, your character's model is placed by you after all the other models (including monsters) have been positioned. Wherever your character happens to be has no impact on the initiative order. In addition: if the party splits up for any reason you may announce which group you are with at any time after the departure by using one of your abilities to asist that sub group.
  
  Xeno's Arrows [Metagame]
  Sloppy accounting ensures that you never run out of supplies.
  Benefit: If you have at least seven copies of the same consumable item (potions, wand charges, ammuntion, alchemist fire, rations, etc.), you do not actually lose any of them by using them. In order to use this ability with a Spell Trigger or Spell Completion item, you must successfully activate it with a Use Magic Device roll (even if you would normally be allowed to use the device with your own class features).
  Special: Items sold are still removed from the character's inventory. Items given away are removed from the character's inventory unless they are used up within the next encounter.

-Username17

[Jacob_Orlove]

Don't forget:

• Unprepared Wizard [Metagame]
  You may retroactively decide what spells you prepared for the day as you cast them.
  Benefit: at any time, you may replaced any spell you have prepared (but not used) with any other spell from your spellbook, of equal or lower level.
  

[Fwib]

1201758163[/unixtime]]Are we talking "IDDQD" immortality? You know, where you cannot die *at all* and can't be hurt? That'd be pretty cool.

"Hey, local government, I can't be killed or hurt. How much are you willing to pay me to dispose of the countries' supply of cocaine and heroin in a way that won't let anyone else get it and the environment isn't contaminated by the smoke of it being burned off?"

"Want a single person to personally bust up the local gangs? Give me money, their location and a knife!"

"Want both an awesome movie AND an end to the crisis in (enemy nation)? Pay me some money, throw me out of an aeroplane, get someone to film it, and give me weaponry suitable for the genre of movie you're after. Preferably bananas loaded with C4."

You'd also need IDCLIP, or else your enemies would just confine you somehow.

[K]

1201758163[/unixtime]]Are we talking "IDDQD" immortality? You know, where you cannot die *at all* and can't be hurt? That'd be pretty cool.

"Hey, local government, I can't be killed or hurt. How much are you willing to pay me to dispose of the countries' supply of cocaine and heroin in a way that won't let anyone else get it and the environment isn't contaminated by the smoke of it being burned off?"

"Want a single person to personally bust up the local gangs? Give me money, their location and a knife!"

"Want both an awesome movie AND an end to the crisis in (enemy nation)? Pay me some money, throw me out of an aeroplane, get someone to film it, and give me weaponry suitable for the genre of movie you're after. Preferably bananas loaded with C4."

I never understand why people think that immortality means "unbeatable". You could be unkillable like a lich and still get schooled all the time.

I mean, killing a lich is the last thing you want to do. Its far more effective to just encase them in ice, turn them into stone, or just grapple them so that they can't cast spells and dump them into an dead magic zone thats hidden at the bottom of a well. Why bother going through a quest though a dungeon when you can just nuetralize them more permanently than death (considering that Wishes and Miracles can bring back even the long dead)?

[Voss]

WotC's latest PR mess. Fun for all the children.
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=217947
&
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t ... br][br]You know, WotC would save themselves a lot of headaches if they just kept their damn mouths shut. But as usual, ENworld brings out the the crazies- a couple of conspiracy theorists and the large mob of blind people that can't see *any* potential problems with this.

Presumably, they're some ranting on this on the Gleemax boards too, but I'm unwilling to wade through their crappy server.

[Crissa]

Do people not understand the appearance of impropriety any more?

-Crissa

[Captain_Bleach]

1201822276[/unixtime]]Do people not understand the appearance of impropriety any more?

-Crissa

What is this impropriety that you speak of?

[Username17]

When you are trying to convince people of something, you are bargaining with a very strange currency called integrity. If people don't believe what you say, it becomes hard to convince people of stuff.

So for example, Bill Kristol is always wrong. About everything. His political predictions, his economic advice, his war suggestions, all of it. If he told you that your house was on fire the correct course of action would be to play it safe and stay where you are because the worst thing you could do would be to go check it out.

But it's more than just being right or wrong. It's having other people believe that you are right. And that you are honest.

---

So when WotC pulls stupid pranks that make it seem like they are intentionally fudging data, that drives their credibility down.

In this case what they did is solicited reviews from playtester staff and cherry picked the good parts for general release. Kind of like how a movie commercial will tell you that Roper and Ebert gave it Two Thumbs Up but they won't tell you that the New York Times said it was "Boring and trite to the point of madness and despair." But unlike the movie commercial, these were solicited reviews. And they were thrown up as polling data.

---

So it looks bad. Andy Collins probably thought of it in the same way that a movie producer thinks of cherry picking reviews for general release. But the thing is that unlike the movie producer Andy Collins was not actually in a position where the general public acknowledges and accepts that as a stadard practice.

And it costs credibility. It costs credibility for the same reason that SONY employees posting positive reviews under fake names on blogs costs credibiilty. When you've presented what is essentially a company statement as the unsolicited opinion of a bystander then you've shot yourself in the face if that ever gets out. It makes people openly skeptical of positive statements by bystanders.

In short, it makes people distrust positive word of mouth. And that's bad.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

Wolf, boy shouting, etc.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

It was a really stupid thing to do. They had to know that, at some point, the caution against sharing negative impressions would come out and fuel any conspiracy theories people had. The fact that the person doing this was Andy Collins, who already has a bad rep in some parts of the fanbase, just makes it worse.

[cthulhu]

1201822276[/unixtime]]Do people not understand the appearance of impropriety any more?

-Crissa

Arthur Anderson used to tell all its new recruits that repeatedly as part of employee training and induction - and look at what happened to them!

[Fwib]

1201824553[/unixtime]]When you are trying to convince people of something, you are bargaining with a very strange currency called integrity. If people don't believe what you say, it becomes hard to convince people of stuff.

.... stuff ....

-Username17

Do you have any thoughts on the 'integrity economy' regarding social skills?

[Username17]

1201883804[/unixtime]]Do you have any thoughts on the 'integrity economy' regarding social skills?

Interesting idea there.

The way I see it, you invest your credibility into things. Then the results of subsequent events cause your credibility to return to you or make you lose even more.

So for example: you try to convince people to do what you say. Whether they do or not you spend some of your credibility to make that happen. And if things turn out the way you predicted, you get a return of credibilty whether or not people took your advice. If things turn out badly, you lose credibility. If it comes out that you lied, you lose a fuck tonne of credibility.

People gain credibilty for being good at stuff. They can spend that credibility to try to get people to do things that have nothing whatever to do with their areas of expertise. If you perform well at team sports, for example, your say so influences people to purchase cars. If you're a doctor you can get people to change their positions on trade policy.

----

The mistake that WotC just made was that they just spent the credibility of "random guy on message board who says good stuff about 4e." That's a group, and collectively it has credibility, which it can spend. And WotC basically dressed up some shills as that group, and invested some credibility into proseletyzing people to go get 4e when it comes out. So when it turns out that those people weren't really random guys at all, that lie comes out and cuts into the group credibility.

So now random guys on message boards who say good things about 4e have less credibility across the board. Them saying good things about 4e carries less weight. WotC ended up kicking positive word of mouth in the mouth. People who read the works of random guys on message boards who say good things about 4e are going to give those words less credence than the words of random guys on message boards who say shitty things about 4e.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

Monk fun

Though given the local color, this could go from laughter to crying pretty quickly.

[Crissa]

How do you explain people like Bill Kristol, who are always wrong, and yet seem to have limitless supply of invested integrity?

-Crissa

[the_taken]

Infinite Monkey Theorem and Stupidity Catalyzing Genius

[Fwib]

1201902611[/unixtime]]How do you explain people like Bill Kristol, who are always wrong, and yet seem to have limitless supply of invested integrity?

-Crissa

Font of Power?

[JonSetanta]

The current American President.

[Koumei]

1201890515[/unixtime]]Monk fun

Though given the local color, this could go from laughter to crying pretty quickly.

It made me laugh. Sadly, that's all Monks seem to be good for: carrying shit and flanking for the Rogue. Oh, and running away unless the enemy has a method of catching up. Like, you know, most of them.

[Crissa]

I like the guy who says, without any irony, that a Monk rocks vs a 15th level challenge if he has twenty levels of monk and five levels of some prestige class...

-Crissa

[Crissa]

Jeff Fecke[/url]][Bill Kristol is] like Cassandra in reverse: He predicts the future and observes the present with a perfectly inaccurate record, yet people still take him seriously.

Apologies. I just had to get one last dig at the guy.

-Crissa

[Absentminded_Wizard]

You can say that about at least half of all pundits on both sides of the political spectrum.

[Crissa]

So, umm, hmm. Name one non-conservative pundit that has been wrong... I'll give you like ten years to make your case. They need to be employed by, or appear frequently on, one of the top four news networks or top fifty newspapers. 'Liberals' employed by Fox News aren't liberal, so don't count them.

I know a few off the top of my head. I bet you know none.

So don't even try that equivalency crap in a gamer thread.

-Crissa