Why do people fetishize Magic Tea Party

[Cyberzombie]

If you want have a conversation(s) about how some rules are bad and should be changed there are quite a few threads on this very forum about that. If your issue is with following rules at all then you should just tell people why you have an MTP fetish right here because I believe that's what this thread started over. Considering that most people on these boards talk about making better rules I don't see why you would need to make a thread about rules nazis which as far as I can tell is one of the many derogatory terms that refer to people who like to follow the rules of the game they elected to play.

If you want to call ignoring rules in the name of expediting play an MTP fetish, go ahead I guess. I would think if I was an MTP fetishist I'd be playing Dungeon World or something, but if your all-or-nothing labeling system condemns me to the gas chamber because I ignore an obscure rule now and then, so be it. If the criteria for that title is anything short of absolute adherence to written dogma then I'm thinking maybe being an MTP fetishist isn't so bad after all.

But if that's the angle you're playing, all I can say is that it's D&D tradition. I have yet to see a single game of AD&D 1E or even 2E where people played every single rule to the letter. At some point people would blatantly ignore the grappling rules or the rules for cave-ins on page XXX of the Dungeoneer's survival guide. And I didn't meet a single person who cared. So long as you didn't blatantly change a mechanic like attack rolls or saving throws, people were cool with it. Everyone was playing for fun. If you were having fun, you were doing it right. Tables weren't flipped because someone realized you weren't playing with weapon speed.

It does make me wonder, when did D&D become such serious business that you'd accuse a DM of cheating if he replaced an obscure rule with an on the fly ruling? Did this game turn into some high stakes adversarial deathmatch while I wasn't looking? Is there some Achievement Unlocked pop-up that you get for following the rules to the letter?

I thought D&D night was a friendly casual gathering of friends playing a cooperative storytelling game for fun.

In the words of the Joker: Why so serious?

[PhoneLobster]

Address that.

So now you don't use rules...

...you... use rules.

You have shifted the goal posts in just about every post you have made. At this point your argument is so incoherent it is utterly unclear what you ever even intended to say. Maybe its "I like MTP! For no reason!" Or maybe its' "I like Turtles!" you've wandered that far into the wilderness of thousands of wobbling goal posts that it's getting hard to tell.

But your current position, is again contradictory and inconsistent with many if not all of your prior positions. You just claimed to use a formalized precedent based rules system. That is NOT free form RPG, that is NOT rules lite, but, in that you seem to be claiming to generate your precedents spontaniously, it IS actually remarkably stupid.

You flat out have declared repeatedly the thing you hate the most about rules is when you are stuck with a badly considered one that becomes a burden. But RIGHT HERE you just described the most effective method of repeatedly generating and being stuck with burdensome rules. Because that's what happens when you do spur of the moment precedent based real time in game rules building.

It's ALSO stupid because a large part of the POINT of sitting down agreeing to play a specific game in advance is that players know to some extent WTF they are signing up for. And by removing that you remove almost any means they have of planning or understanding what their choices mean. After all "I want a wizard because I want to cast fire ball, blammo"... "Oh wait you've finally hit level 5, gee, sorry fireball doesn't exist until I OK it, and frankly I've JUST NOW decided not to!"

But that's less important, because the more relevant criticism is that you are generating burdensome bad rules by generating them in the least considered way possible.

[Mask_De_H]

Jesus Christ fucking Buddha in a love shack what is going on in this thread?

Look, the whole rules-light paradigm is taking the idea that "If a rule is worse than MTP then it a waste of fucking space and should be excised" to the extreme. To people who are not us, the rules we try to defend are in that thought space. We've gone around in circles trying to figure out how to fix them, while others have just said fuck it. They're different approaches to the same problem.

A lot of the games that people play in this dumbshit hobby have terrible rules that are equal to MTP at best and objectively worse at worst. For fuck's sake, this board exists because of an attempt to correct dumbshit rules in a system we enjoy and that project was given up on once the designers realized it was turtles all the fucking way down.

It's not an all or nothing gambit. It's a different tool. Some rules are erroneous. Some rules need to be modified. Some situations can really just be solved with MTP because the alternative is too fiddly or modeled so goddamned poorly that it negatively impacts the game. Fuck.

You may return to your regularly scheduled verbal circlejerk.

[PhoneLobster]

In the words of the Joker: Why so serious?

In the future anyone who quotes that horrible line from that 2nd rate actor in that 3rd rate movie will be automatically and immediately punched in the face no matter where they are.

That is my optimistic vision of a utopian future.

[Zak S]

Address that.

So now you don't use rules...

I never said that.

in that you seem to be claiming to generate your precedents spontaniously, it IS actually remarkably stupid.

Incorrect. There is a body of rules. None are official and part of the game until discussed or used. It doesn't mean we never pull from the library of rules in the book, merely that playing does not (under the social contract we play under) imply we must.

Surely this is not too complicated for you to grasp.

being stuck with burdensome rules.

None of the rules thus generated are "burdensome"--you interpolated that.

Because that's what happens when you do spur of the moment precedent based real time in game rules building.

You....allege. Based on...........no observation of my actual game.


Things don't happen in other peoples' games just because phonelobster wishes they would happen or because phonelobster assumes they would happen. Does phonelobster understand this idea?

And by removing that you remove almost any means they have of planning or understanding what their choices mean. After all "I want a wizard because I want to cast fire ball, blammo"... "Oh wait you've finally hit level 5, gee, sorry fireball doesn't exist until I OK it, and frankly I've JUST NOW decided not to!"

You apparently missed 2 things:

Players can ask about rules at any time.

Once discussed or used a rule is fixed and does not change

-

The fact that you would write that suggests you're just skimming and typing.

If you see a contradiction: ASK and I'll explain it--don't assume stupid shit and then ask me to defend it.

[PhoneLobster]

Surely this is not too complicated for you to grasp.

It is apparently beyond YOUR comprehension that I was talking about exactly that and you didn't get it. There is NO magical difference to my response if you choose to sometimes maybe when you spontaneously feel like it draw rules from a rule book, or ten rule books, or ALL the rule books.

Spontaneously generated precedent based rulings is an unstable and stupid way to do things that is in every way bad for your goal of "avoiding burdensome bad rules".

None fo the rules thus generated are "burdensome"--you interpolated that.

... none of them...

You pull permanent rules out of your ass spur of the moment in play time and time again and you make god like perfect rulings that never come back to bite you on the ass. Ever.

Yeah ok. You are a liar. And a really lame liar at that.

I don't need to observe your damn game your claim is utterly insane.

You apparently missed 2 things:

Players can ask about rules at any time.

Once discussed or used a rule is fixed and does not change

No, really, who cares so what. If the ruling isn't decided until the spur of the moment, if you have put no thought into it until right now, quick you need an answer bam, it doesn't MATTER if it is because it came up in play or because someone asked you a question in play.

It's still spur of the moment rules generation with no time or consideration required to at least make a half assed attempt at having a rule not be total crap.

The only way you get to change that is if you are making your rulings in advance and just answering questions about rules that already exist and which quite frankly should at that stage be written down and made available in some form because anything else is being an obtuse and secretive asshole to your players.

The fact that you would write that suggests you're just skimming and typing.

Or you know, maybe you are so terrible at even understanding the implications of what you yourself are saying that you don't even get it when someone is talking directly about what you said without any fucking confusion over your quibbling attempts at obfuscation.

[Zak S]

So you're assuming, sight unseen, the rulings are bad.

That's not science.

That's just wishing.

[PhoneLobster]

So you're assuming, sight unseen, the rulings are bad.

You are claiming to generate a complex formal precedence based rules set based entirely on spur of the moment decisions.

You do not get to say "I just get it perfect first time every time! I dare you to prove otherwise. YOU DON'T KNOW ME!".

Because that is a stupid thing to say. Only a very very very stupid person would honestly say that.

I mean the actual competency level to even BEGIN to run a game in that manner with even MARGINAL success requires someone with sufficient intelligence to actually honestly admit that fuck it, sometimes their spur of the moment rulings are not in fact fucking perfect.

I mean holy fuck man, the first step towards wisdom and all that.

Any GM who actually believes they make perfect rulings in that manner is an exceptionally incompetent one. So incompetent that I actually don't think you ARE that bad, if for no other reason than that level of stupidity being statistically unlikely to encounter in real life. You're just blowing far too hard on an internet forum and making a fool of yourself because you don't want to admit you are wrong and maybe even rather confused.

[Zak S]

Let's test your theory, lobster.

Ask me for a rule.

[PhoneLobster]

Sure.

Some people around here want a "Social Currency" system. A way of representing and recording gratitude, fear, and honorable debts.

Stated requirements include that in the event of gathering large amounts of "Fear Currency" by winning a war that a bunch of high level characters can give it to a 1st level Herald and he can go make the high level enemy generals surrender by cashing it in.

However at the same time it is important that you cannot accrue large amounts of incremental small pieces of currency like a gift of an apple a day and then cash them in for a kingdom.

Make THAT work. You have 1 Minute.

[Mask_De_H]

Okay, Zak, you're missing the point here. PL is not trying to test your knowledge of rules minutia, he is trying to help you understand that people are fallible as well. A snap judgment can be detrimental to play enjoyment as a shitty rule, but unlike a shitty rule you can't take back or excise a snap judgment because there's nothing to fall back on.

A good rule not only defines a portion of the play space, it allows the players and the MC to engage in that play space the same way. Improv needs structure, even if that structure is "don't say no". Rules add that structure, even if the rule is "make shit up and stick to it".

[...You Lost Me]

Stop responding to the sock puppet account pls.

[PhoneLobster]

No no Mask De H.

You are of course entirely right and your response is far more sensible and mature and correct.

But he doesn't seem to grasp discussion on that level.

Mind you time is well up and we don't actually HAVE a ruling... not that a direct "show not tell" method of teaching him this one will be likely to succeed either.

And yeah. He does seem to scream out some sort of trolling sock puppet vibe.

[Zak S]

Sure.

Some people around here want a "Social Currency" system. A way of representing and recording gratitude, fear, and honorable debts.

Stated requirements include that in the event of gathering large amounts of "Fear Currency" by winning a war that a bunch of high level characters can give it to a 1st level Herald and he can go make the high level enemy generals surrender by cashing it in.

However at the same time it is important that you cannot accrue large amounts of incremental small pieces of currency like a gift of an apple a day and then cash them in for a kingdom.

Make THAT work. You have 1 Minute.

CAVEAT:
Since it's a whole subsystem. This is not an example of the kind of thing we'd create mid-session.

This is more like: you think about it (as you do here) write on the forums, discuss it, and introduce it after it's baked.

Though I think this idea is interesting and have experimented with things like it in my domain-level game, turning around a ruling on it would give a distorted perception of how rulings-not-rules really works.

THAT SAID:

What I'd actually do in real life is record the transactional events of the session, then work on a subsystem to cash them in the following week.

In the unlikely event that during the campaign were moving at such a speed that this was impractical, I have a spot system I just invented if you want to hear it.

[Zak S]

Okay, Zak, you're missing the point here. PL is not trying to test your knowledge of rules minutia, he is trying to help you understand that people are fallible as well. A snap judgment can be detrimental to play enjoyment as a shitty rule, but unlike a shitty rule you can't take back or excise a snap judgment because there's nothing to fall back on.

A good rule not only defines a portion of the play space, it allows the players and the MC to engage in that play space the same way. Improv needs structure, even if that structure is "don't say no". Rules add that structure, even if the rule is "make shit up and stick to it".

What's your point Mask? All That Having Been Said..the dire predictions of what would happen in my game if I make rulings haven't come to pass.

So how do you explain that?

Your theory does not have predictive power. It is therefore a flawed theory and you need a new one.

[PhoneLobster]

THAT SAID:

That said I note we have no on the spot ruling whatsoever.

.the dire predictions

Dire predictions? You're game is imperfect. It could be less imperfect. You are making it more imperfect than it needs to be.

None of your player's chests are going to explode and have a bad rules alien burst out.

People will just be less happy with your game than they could be.

Personally I find that to be damning enough.

edit: Mind you the risk of a major breakdown is a minor but ever present threat in any group and you are courting a greater risk than most with your, well, "I and all my spot rulings are perfect!" bullshit. However small it is a needless risk you should be minimizing, and if it ever comes down to it, remember, the GM who claims his rulings are perfect and never ever cause dissatisfaction among his players is the GM who never sees the chair to the back of the head coming when the table riot breaks out.

[Mask_De_H]

Okay, Zak, you're missing the point here. PL is not trying to test your knowledge of rules minutia, he is trying to help you understand that people are fallible as well. A snap judgment can be detrimental to play enjoyment as a shitty rule, but unlike a shitty rule you can't take back or excise a snap judgment because there's nothing to fall back on.

A good rule not only defines a portion of the play space, it allows the players and the MC to engage in that play space the same way. Improv needs structure, even if that structure is "don't say no". Rules add that structure, even if the rule is "make shit up and stick to it".

What's your point Mask? All That Having Been Said..the dire predictions of what would happen in my game if I make rulings haven't come to pass.

So how do you explain that?

Your theory does not have predictive power. It is therefore a flawed theory and you need a new one.

Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't ever happen. It's good to have a contingency in case of emergencies. If nothing else, it's less work when you're drunk or tired or whatever and need a template to come up with cool shit.

The "different strokes for different folks" defense cuts both ways: your players may be alright with the way you make rulings, but that doesn't mean that all players will be alright with the way you make rulings. The point of rules is to give everybody a shared starting point for their happening; if in your particular happening you have a way of doing things that's cool. But you have to, absolutely have to understand that just because it's your way of doing things doesn't mean it's the only correct way of doing things.

Both sides of the argument need to realize this. You're never going to get through to us if you don't produce workable discussion on how your rulings improve the game as a whole just like we're not going to get through to you if we call you a drooling retard for making snap adjudications.

It takes two to tango and neither of you fuckers seem to feel like dancing.

[PhoneLobster]

It takes two to tango and neither of you fuckers seem to feel like dancing.

I tell you what. I did the being nice thing with this ass and I'm sick of it and now I'm being a big meanie about his incredibly insane claims.

So how about YOU explain to him that he isn't a perfectly infallible GM for a while. And it looks like it is going to take rather a while.

I'll have a rest for a bit, and if after trying in good faith to be nice you end up as pissed off with the idiot as I currently am, and I suspect you will. Then you can tag off back to me again later. Or hopefully to someone else.

[Zak S]

your players may be alright with the way you make rulings, but that doesn't mean that all players will be alright with the way you make rulings.

That would be a problem if I was GMing all players.


But I'm not.


As for Lobster's "It's good to have rules to fall back on" sure. And it would be nice if they were good.

But that doesn't suddenly make all the bullshit you said before true. Like it doesn't suddenly mean we;re gonna get into fights over the rules or that rules that are published by a company are suddenly gonna magically be good.

But you have to, absolutely have to understand that just because it's your way of doing things doesn't mean it's the only correct way of doing things.

I have said that about 9 times in this thread. Are you reading this thread?

You seem to be pretending I'm one-true-waying it whereas literally from the beginning I've been saying "IF THAT OTHER THING WORKS FOR YOU, DO IT,"

So...please quote me doing the opposite or stop it.

[Mask_De_H]

your players may be alright with the way you make rulings, but that doesn't mean that all players will be alright with the way you make rulings.

That would be a problem if I was GMing all players.


But I'm not.


As for Lobster's "It's good to have rules to fall back on" sure. And it would be nice if they were good.

But that doesn't suddenly make all the bullshit you said before true. Like it doesn't suddenly mean we;re gonna get into fights over the rules or that rules that are published by a company are suddenly gonna magically be good.

But you have to, absolutely have to understand that just because it's your way of doing things doesn't mean it's the only correct way of doing things.

I have said that about 9 times in this thread. Are you reading this thread?

You seem to be pretending I'm one-true-waying it whereas literally from the beginning I've been saying "IF THAT OTHER THING WORKS FOR YOU, DO IT,"

So...please quote me doing the opposite or stop it.

Well since you said please...

What's your point Mask? All That Having Been Said..the dire predictions of what would happen in my game if I make rulings haven't come to pass.

So how do you explain that?

Your theory does not have predictive power. It is therefore a flawed theory and you need a new one.

Okay, I'm going to ask you to reread what Frank and K said on page 5 because they have said what I think you think you're saying better than I can express this.

The fact that we have hit an impasse on adapting ideas from the micro level to the macro level means that there is a fundamental disconnect between the understanding between us. Because when Frank and K said "here's this other thing that works for us and other people, so you want to do it" you said they were wrong and spewing bullshit because they did not like your particular way of doing things. What seems to be the sticking point here is that the way we do things isn't the way you have honed in practice as the way Things Should Be Done. If this weren't the case, we could have an open discourse about design principles and this thread would be five pages smaller.

Two of my posts prior, I explained what rules are meant for and you shot me down because it didn't apply to you personally. Since it didn't apply to your way of doing things, it became invalid as a talking point. That is one-true-wayism. It may be unconscious and unintended, but them's the breaks.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

I would play a game about a tea party, where magic was involved. Especially if, in an ironic twist, we ran it RAW.

[Mask_De_H]

I would play a game about a tea party, where magic was involved. Especially if, in an ironic twist, we ran it RAW.

How the fuck do you get working Internet in Gensokyo?

[Sakuya Izayoi]

I would play a game about a tea party, where magic was involved. Especially if, in an ironic twist, we ran it RAW.

How the fuck do you get working Internet in Gensokyo?

You hook a modem into one of Yukari's modified yin-yang communication orbs. It doesn't get a smooth framerate on Netflix, but it works.

[Username17]

And there we are. Arrogance and Willful Ignorance.

Zak's current claim, for those of you trying to keep track of his amazing shifting goalposts, is that he can consistently pull rules out of his ass in the middle of the action which are as good or better than any rule that could possibly be established ahead of time. Now, since one rule that could be established ahead of time might be a rule he himself pulled out of his ass, we can instantly dismiss the "or better than" portion of his proposition out of hand. But since another rule that might be established ahead of time might be a rule that he himself pulled out of his ass and then subjected to scrutiny, math hammering, playtesting, and editing to improve, even the "as good" portion of his proposition is quite an extraordinary claim.

Now extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but currently the only evidence he has offered is to point out that he has made podcasts of many of his games and you could "prove him wrong" by sifting through all that crap and finding a ruling you didn't agree with. An exercise which is pointless on the face of it, because obviously anyone arrogant enough to make such a silly claim in the first place will double down on any specific ruling you happen to pick out as sub optimal, thus reducing any discussion into a shouting match about minutiae.

But think about what his claim really entails. It is the claim that his personal rulings are so awesome that he couldn't find a better one written in any book by any other person, and perhaps more importantly that his own ideas are so great that he personally couldn't improve them with a few hours of scrutiny, critique, and math. I don't actually know how you get so arrogant that you think all your own turds are perfectly formed golden statues that couldn't be improved - even slightly - with any amount of attention. I suspect it involves a lot of cocaine. I don't see a lot of people achieve that level of over confidence without drugs. Although narcissistic personality disorder is a thing, and people don't need chemical inducements to suffer from it.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

Nobody at the table even cared enough about the rule to learn it, so why does it even matter if you get it right?

You are making a probably false assumption. Fuchs doesn't remember the rules, whatever. But I'll bet a lot of his players did. After all, he looked up the rules that he didn't remember, why did he do that? Because his players remembered it, and doing exactly what Fuchs says he does when players bring up rules or question his rulings (no seriously, just look at any thread about players bringing things up to the MC) he looked up the rule to tell them they are wrong, and then to tell them that his rule is better.

And eventually, they just decided that telling him about rules he doesn't remember isn't worth it anymore, and they stopped bringing them up.

Again Kaelik is talking shit. If my players would have remembered a rule I'd not have had to look it up in the first place. I used to look up a rule since I knew there was one, but not what it said because it was almost never used in my game.

There are players who simply don't care about all the little rules and modifiers. They say what they want to do, and let the GM sort out the DC or modifier.