Your Rule Sucks: The Zak S Social Currency Edition

[Red_Rob]

35. I have observed that the rule actually results in high-level fighters getting disarmed fairly rarely even by mathnerd crunchmonster players whose dayjobs involve shooting lasers at things and have good reasons to believe things will continue to be that way for some time to come. Do you want to hear those reasons or will you accept that with no argument?

Zak, there is something you don't seem to be getting here. Just because you used a rule at your table and it didn't break the game does not mean your rule is balanced or works well.

At an actual game a player might choose not to play optimally for a myriad of reasons. It is very hard to look your friend in the face and explain to them that you are going to fuck up the campaign they worked hard on because the disarming rules are a pile of shit. Or that the way his social system works you can now convince every high level ruler to hand you the keys to their kingdom and the other players might as well go play Smash Brothers. But this does not mean that you can claim the rule is balanced or succeeds it's design goals - to do that you need to examine it in comparison to the rules system and figure out what are the optimum choices and results. So please stop this "Well I asked my friend and he didn't tell me to my face I'm a shit rules designer" justification. It doesn't wash and it isn't making your points any stronger.

The crux of the problem here is that you have made the statement that rather than think of a rule ahead of time and work out whether it is any good before using it, it is better to come up with spur of the moment decisions for anything and everything and this will somehow result in a fantastically balanced, easy to use and cohesive ruleset over time. That is ridiculous on the face of it, and everything since then could have been avoided if you'd just admitted that your group is more willing to accept the occasional bad ruling and inconsistent result than read a rulebook because for your players the rules are tertiary anyway and they just want to focus on the RP rather than the G. No-one would have thought worse of you for preferring rules lite gaming (Well, Misty might accuse you of basketweaving but whatever), but your claim to be able to generate a perfect rules system on the fly every time is what has lead you here. Just cut your losses, man.

[Zak S]

Zak, there is something you don't seem to be getting here. Just because you used a rule at your table and it didn't break the game does not mean your rule is balanced or works well.

"Rob, there is something you don't seem to be getting here. Just because you put on a suit and it fits you does not mean your suit fits well. "

Do explain, Rob, with all possible eloquence (because frankly, we've been here a million times and the person making your side of the argument generally explodes into invective at this point rather than explaining what they think), how you judge quality without reference to an audience if 2 different audiences want 2 different things?

Or is it just that some audiences matter more than others, Rob?

[PhoneLobster]

But Zak, your argument has always been that your audience is better. You've been pulling the "training wheels" bullshit since forever.

You've been unsatisfied with simply defending your position. Just going home and having fun without feeling small in the pants because someone somewhere knows and uses more (and more carefully better designed) rules than you.

Instead you have been overcompensating. Hard. Since the beginning.

Maybe you need to just admit that maybe you are kinda crap at rules, that you've evidenced that you actually know surprisingly little about a game you dedicate much of your life to. And that while that might mean you have just short of no place discussing or designing rules it in no way disqualifies you from having fun playing cops and robbers instead.

It's OK, you aren't alone, you won't turn into some sort of inhuman troll chewtoy just because you admit the truth. In fact as I said back in the day. It's the first step towards wisdom... you dumb ass.

[Baad Speeler]

@Zac

Just out of curiosity, how many hallucinogenic drugs do you take on a daily basis? And did you have to build up a tolerance, or are you just a natural?

[Zak S]

ANCIENT HISTORY

(again to make it easier)

38.
So when there's a design problem which pits (A) increasing computational simplicity vs. (B) reduced abuse potential, the person advocating for A has a real but unmeasurable pointand person advocating for B has a real and measurable point?

That is person B can always claim objectivity and A can't but A still has a point--is that what you're saying?

Rather like 2 engineers arguing about making a car uglier (subjective) yet more reliable (objective)? Is that what you think?

Where exactly do you draw the line between "writing a good rule but not explaining every possible knock-on effect" and "writing a bad rule because there are some situations where there's an unexplained knock-on effect"?

Same answer, minus the example then: it depends. There is no precise limit. When it becomes apparent that the rule can be, or is, abused, then it is a bad rule.

…So that gets into the definition of "abused"...

32. This just leads back to why you have a problem with the Very Likely Action and is vague. Is it too much to ask to narrate out (it can be short) a situation where my rule results in something worse than what Charm makes likely. Like using "Ok, Dave does x…" an example?

33. (if possible show why this outcome must be less fun not just for people in a narrow taste subgenre but all possible fans of all possible kinds of games.)

Your rule's pretty vague on the situations, so...okay, let's use a very broad example.

Character A has, for whatever reason, an overwhelmingly large bonus accrued over your social rules. He is meeting Character B.

Character B is the legendary god-king of Deiopolis, the benevolent and immortal tyrant-ruler by right of his divine sword, Asskicker, whom he will never give away to anyone.

Character A: "Hey, can I hold your sword?"

<No CHA Check:>
Character B: "You've given me a lot of apples, but go fuck yourself."

<CHA Check:>
Character B: "Okie-doke."

Character B hands sword to Character A, Character A lops off Character B's head and declares himself god-king...and just derailed the entire campaign.

39. How is that different from what Charm could do? The consequence in the end is the same. and the amount of work the PC had to do to get the consequence was far greater.

40. (huge) What kind of incredibly shitty GM loses one king and it ruins his whole campaign? If your campaign is that fragile: do not ever GM. Positing a GM who could lose a villain or king (or even a god) and the campaign grinds to a halt is like positing an iliterate GM: it's asking me to design a rule for a group lacking the basics you need to play a game. No GM worth their salt would be thrown by that.

41. Why on earth would you think I'd designed a rule fit to be used by such an extremely incompetent group?

42. If God King values that service provided so much (something worth 1/10th of his entire good will) why wouldn't he want to give the PC his sword?

43. As Charm--why would the GM design an NPC whose range of possible available (non-magicked) behavior included things he didn't want that NPC (un-magicked) to do?

Then accept when I say "fuck those people" I do not mean I wish ill on them but rather that their purposes are not mine and I accept no obligation from them other than in the form of "This rule sucks if you want ___(description of game they want here that isn't some BS like 'a good game')___".

34. Do you accept that?

Well, I'd hope you'd accept that they have legitimate criticism, but yes I can accept if you have a stylistic agreement and chose to ignore them.

44. Do you see this particular rule as going beyond a stylistic agreement? Because right now all I see is a rule that doesn't work if you assume a GM who can't even handle Charm.

35. I have observed that the rule actually results in high-level fighters getting disarmed fairly rarely even by mathnerd crunchmonster players whose dayjobs involve shooting lasers at things and have good reasons to believe things will continue to be that way for some time to come. Do you want to hear those reasons or will you accept that with no argument?

I'll accept that I have no interest in the shit that goes on in your games or any of your anecdotes of the same. If I ever do care, I think you've got a couple podcasts somewhere.

(I don't have any podcasts of my games)

45. So how can you describe a result as inevitable (mutual disarm) (which you did) if you accept that it doesn't always happen? That's a contradiction. Inevitable means it always happens. I offered my recorded games as proof if you doubt the veracity of it.

you attacked me names right outta the box without even establishing any kind of complaint I could address.

I really didn't.

You did. After a rational back and forth suddenly here:
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=55 ... &start=150
…after no insult to you and no undeserved insult to anyone else you say I am "having a shitting fit" when all I'm doing is what you're supposed to do on the RPG internet--find people who don't think the same thing as you and figure out why that is. You say "shitting fit" when I did fuck-all to you and you don't even ask to confirm whatever image this is attack is supposed to mean? Chewtoy. And you got worse after that. At that point you're over as a person anyone has to be nice to. You're just The Internet.

You assumed bad faith.

You demonstrated bad faith.

46. Quote the alleged time or times before "shitting fit" I did that. Because I haven't said a single bad faith thing here ever--it wouldn't serve any purpose to say things I don't believe.

You assumed ignorance of obvious facts (like you kept telling my group isn't representative of all groups after I wrote that myself about 20 times),

You keep saying this. I'm not sure where you're getting it. I did say that because your rule worked for your group doesn't mean it works for any other group. That doesn't mean your group is representative; it's actually pretty much the opposite. Your group might well be exceptional.

47. WHY did you assume I needed to be told this very basic fact when I've maintained it since my first post on this subject all those months ago? (This is the 4th time I've asked you this question) And why are you reiterating it again now?

you didn't answer questions when asked,

You've ignored plenty of my questions,

48. Quote me doing that to you. Find the question I didn't answer, pre-"shitting fit" (when you lost the right to complain). If I didn't answer it, it was a mistake and I'll answer it now if you need the answer.

and answers,

ignoring an answer is not a fault unless the person again later begs the same question that was an answer to.

49. If you believe I ever did that to you: quote me.

and you often seem to mistake some of the statements you've made as asking questions when they really aren't.

That isn't an ethical fault.

you didn't ask questions instead of assuming insulting things,

I did quote you a lot and base what I said on the quotes of the things you actually said. I assumed that since you said them you meant them. Why do you think people need to contact you for clarification regarding what you post?

Simple basic human communication and journalistic ethics: before you assume an insulting thing about someone you have an open channel to, you ask a question to make sure you have all the details right.

[Baad Speeler]

Seriously Zac. I need to know about the drugs. I'm thinking about starting to take the Acid. If you could offer some advice on that, you would actually be contributing something useful for a change.

[Username17]

Seriously Zac. I need to know about the drugs. I'm thinking about starting to take the Acid. If you could offer some advice on that, you would actually be contributing something useful for a change.

I very much like hallucinogens of that sort. First off, give yourself some toys to play with. I don't mean like legos or vibrators, but things that have interesting sensory components that you don't always notice. Crackers, for example. When your senses aren't being filtered and the inputs are cranked up to 11, eating a cracker is a really interesting experience. Obviously, don't play in traffic - you'll notice that while you're on acid that fast moving objects are both interesting to watch and easier to track the trajectories of because you can notice each "frame" that your eye captures of incoming light. But you still aren't physically fast enough to dodge bullets or speeding cars no matter what your thalamus is doing, so don't go there. And finally: you might be tempted to write down poetry or words of wisdom while you're high - do not read them when you are sober. They will be seriously disappointing.

-Username17

[A Man In Black]

"Rob, there is something you don't seem to be getting here. Just because you put on a suit and it fits you does not mean your suit fits well. "

Do explain, Rob, with all possible eloquence (because frankly, we've been here a million times and the person making your side of the argument generally explodes into invective at this point rather than explaining what they think), how you judge quality without reference to an audience if 2 different audiences want 2 different things?

Or is it just that some audiences matter more than others, Rob?

So you're attacking the idea of evaluating rulesets objectively at all?

Whatever, jackoff.

[virgil]

If you add subrules about norms and typical behavior you just pulled out of your butt that are bad, that's not a problem with my rule, that's a problem with the new, dumb rule you just made up.

But with your rule, you need to assign a value for the apple (or whatever item they surprise you with) that the player offers. Assigning a value needs to be consistent, which makes it a subrule for typical behavior in regards to apple valuation. Your rule doesn't help prevent bad subrules, and in fact slightly encourages bad ones because it can be implied that a basket of apples will provide a +100 bonus; and rules that beget bad rules are bad.

8- a successful social roll can't cause an NPC to act in a way that is contrary to their personality or alignment

That is not in your rule. Your rule can make NPCs act in ways wildly contrary to their personality and alignment. It doesn't matter what you assumed, the limits of a social roll are required in a rule about social rolls. That is not an invisible goalpost. You have failed to provide a working rule.

[Zak S]

"Rob, there is something you don't seem to be getting here. Just because you put on a suit and it fits you does not mean your suit fits well. "

Do explain, Rob, with all possible eloquence (because frankly, we've been here a million times and the person making your side of the argument generally explodes into invective at this point rather than explaining what they think), how you judge quality without reference to an audience if 2 different audiences want 2 different things?

Or is it just that some audiences matter more than others, Rob?

So you're attacking the idea of evaluating rulesets objectively at all?

Whatever, jackoff.

No, I am literally asking what he uses as a metric. It is not a rhetorical question. Stop assuming bad faith.

[Zak S]

If you add subrules about norms and typical behavior you just pulled out of your butt that are bad, that's not a problem with my rule, that's a problem with the new, dumb rule you just made up.

But with your rule, you need to assign a value for the apple (or whatever item they surprise you with) that the player offers. Assigning a value needs to be consistent, which makes it a subrule for typical behavior in regards to apple valuation. Your rule doesn't help prevent bad subrules, and in fact slightly encourages bad ones because it can be implied that a basket of apples will provide a +100 bonus; and rules that beget bad rules are bad.

We have to assume the GM was competent even before reading the rule. The rule will not make them less competent. A competent GM knows a donkey has 4 legs and knows that a king doesn't value a basket of apples that much and even if they did, other people besides the PCs could provide them and has other people with competing claims. That knowledge doesn't suddenly disappear because there's a rule.

8- a successful social roll can't cause an NPC to act in a way that is contrary to their personality or alignment

That is not in your rule. Your rule can make NPCs act in ways wildly contrary to their personality and alignment. It doesn't matter if you assumed, the limits of a social roll are required in a rule about social rolls. You had failed to provide a working rule.

I have a baseline assumption that NPCs don't ever act outside their alignment unless there's magic. If you polled a ton of GMs I bet there'd be a lot of GMs who had that same assumption It's a reasonable assumption, if not universal. Alignment is a rule and why would you assume my house rule superceded it?

If lobster had stated clearly in his request that he needed NPCs to act unlike they ever did or would before a PC showed up he shoulda said that.

A system for drastic, novelistic changes of heart is an interesting idea (if a bit storygamey for my taste), but was not explicitly part of the subsystem I was asked to design.

AS FOR EVERYONE ELSE

Uh, looking it up for a monster that's hit by a Fireball and looking it up for when a monster's on fire takes the same amount of effort, because it's the SAME FUCKING NUMBER. In fact, Fireball probably requires more effort, because it can affect multiple targets who might have different Reflex saves. Are you seriously suggesting you can't remember a two-digit number from round to round?

Lazy assumption: that only makes sense if you assume the source of the ongoing fire damage is a fireball. If someone uses a torch that's just vs AC. Second round you'd have to look up a new number and that's an extra step.

e doesn't know how spells work and will just make up rules for spells on the fly. At least I'm going to assume that

I'm right here and you can ask: if you assume without asking you're just being an idiot and not actually trying to figure out anything about games. Which, I understand, may not be your aim--in which case, you're a troll and what you say doesn't matter.

SCRIVENER:

if there are actions that NPCs will refuse to take no matter what the PCs do, what point is there in PCs using social abilities?

Because PCs often want the NPCs to do things they could do but are currently apathetic about prioritizing them or doing them NOW or at the PCs convenience or to the PCs instead of to another target. Again: you probably COULD go to the movies right now (it's in your range of acceptable behaviors--you probably have not taken a "no movie" vow) but you don't have to. If a person used a charisma roll, then you might decide "Ok, I'll do that now".

A job interview is a simple example: picking Fran is within their range of possible behaviors. Picking Ed is, too. The PC (Fran) can use her bonus to insure it is her, now, rather than Ed.

making switching between statblocks take seconds at most.

The fuck you're seriously saying that in a world with miraculous things like the d20SRD or even a fucking bookmarks that looking up a number on a monsters statblock is this huge burden? Even if it's a number you might need to reference anyway for other PC actions. Why the fuck do you even own RPG books then?

Why do you own a watch or a phone if you don't check it every 3 seconds? Because you like to use it, just less than every 3 seconds.

DSMATTICUS

Have you considered the possibility that you are one of the most incompetently organized people on the face of the planet?

Maybe I am--doesn't mean I don't get to play D&D or like D&D or run my game or we don't have fun or that other people might not be in the same boat. I mean: there's left-handed scissors, too.

f you are using dead tree products, you should not actually close the book when you're done with it. You might even want to invest in a couple of bookmarks. And by that I mean take a sheet of notebook paper and tear it into strips and place them between pages you are using. You could even scribble minimalist statblocks for all the monsters in an encounter onto a sheet of your own notebook paper to avoid any flipping at all for trivial actions. If you are using a computer, wut. How is this a problem.

This is what I got at the table during my game tomorrow:
A book which has a hex map and key in it
A book which has magic items in it
Vornheim
two 3.5 PHBs (for the wizards to pass around, mostly)
Monster Manual I (AD&D)
DM notebook
Laptop with, seriously I checked, over 100 random tables on it at this point and two SRD windows open all the time and a toolbar widget with 22 instant random tables on it
Plus the minis and snacks and what all on the table

You can see how fast or slow I handle this stuff on video if you want. It is a lot to handle but it works well and the price is…I use different rules than you. And lose….nothing in the process. So why not?

But this is a derail, since the question, as I gather is not "ZAK YOU FUCK WHY DO YOU USE YOUR RULES???" but "ZAK YOU FUCK WHY DON'T YOU LET US CALL THOSE RULES OBJECTIVELY BAD???"

It's very difficult to imagine a monster taking a turn in which you don't have to use anything from its statblock, so its statblock is already right fucking there in front of you and you don't have to do anything at all except be literate and glance down.

Again: monster attacking is like one roll or two and one computation. Monster attacking and saving and damage is extra rolls and computations. Just because I can look it up doesn't mean it takes zero time and effort. And if I didn't do that I'd gain………what? Nothing. Stuff that has no value to me. Stuff you want and I don't.

You made a vague claim about using alternate encumberance systems to prevent people from using large amounts of oil, but that completely fails to address the existence of beasts of burden, portable holes, polymorphing into a creature that can carry that much oil, and sundry other ways to avoid interacting with whatever houserule you think prevents it.

And you failed to address how hard that is in an actual adventure. If the PCs know the target and location and disposition of the enemy they have already mostly won and can plan ahead. But they seldom know any of those things. And, of course, the bad guys think just like the PCs.

Dude, he is all in favor of making DM life as easy as possible, thats the reason his social system tells the DM to make up a range of possible requests for every NPC the heroes interact with. Because that is totally less complex than looking to a page that is already open

Lobster told me to make a system that fit certain requirements. It is not my job to question his desire.

Because when you make a challenge with PhoneLobster, and take PhoneLobsters input, and have PhoneLobster as the audience, and you answer PhoneLobsters post, than PhoneLobster is not the targeted audience. Because ... stuff.

PhoneLobster met the call. YOU went out of your way put it on display here.

If phonelobster had requirements not in his request that is phonelobsters fault. I addressed only the things he SAID. Not the things he forgot to say.

Your encumbrance rules are not an argument. Mine are. Because ... stuff.

Silly. If the attack is on my house rule interacts with encumbrance than my encumbrance rules are relevant, not some random one the dude picked.

If I assume an audience, that is a viable and necessary thing. If you do it, fuck those guys. Because ... stuff.

Inaccurate. I am saying "my rule fits my audience". You're saying "We demand it fit one you'll never play with and have no firsthand knowledge of". My statement is reasonable . Yours is not. That's like asking me to cook your favorite meal for you right now and send it to you.

WOTMANIAC

WTF kind of Frankensteined rule set like that could ever possibly result in anything resembling functional gaming?

Is that a serious question? If it is, there are several cheap, easy things you could do to find out how that happens--most obviously come play a game on G+ and see.

Your shit doesn't even resemble casual plausibility. That's the kind of gonzo shit you're supposed to outgrow by time you finish middle school.

When the girls start complaining about my game's aesthetics, I'll call you--until then, I, unfortunately, have to run my game according to what they want rather than what you want. Same for the people who read the blog.

This whole thing started with YOU coming HERE and trying to ram down our throats the awesomeness of your rules-making abilities.

Incorrect. This thing started with me seeing a trackback on my blog to someone getting my rules wrong and me politely correcting them:

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=54 ... sc&start=0

…and then several people going apeshit for no reason.

[Username17]

That is not in your rule. Your rule can make NPCs act in ways wildly contrary to their personality and alignment. It doesn't matter if you assumed, the limits of a social roll are required in a rule about social rolls. That is not an invisible goalpost. You have failed to provide a working rule.

This is actually somewhat unfair. Zak provided a rule that created modifiers to social rolls. Now, it failed on many many levels. First of all, that the challenge was to make a social currency system, which we can all see is in no way the same thing as a modifier to a social roll. But in making a rule that modifies a social roll, he actually is allowed to assume that the other rules involving rolls exist. So he doesn't need to include rules for setting the charisma scores of player characters or the potential output space of a diplomacy check.

I think it's informative that in sixteen fucking pages of this clusterfuck (and this being round three at that), I think this is literally the first unfair accusation made against Zak. His rule is very terrible and also wasn't even on topic for the challenge it was made for. It fails both in the specific challenge and in the generic sense of being a rule non-morons would actually want to include in their games. But he really did just sign up to write a rule rather than an entire system, so you don't get to mock him for failing to include other rules that one might plausibly expect to interact with that rule.

-Username17

[Korwin]

Stop assuming bad faith.

i would say this whole thread is prove of your bad faith.
No need to assume anything.

[MGuy]

"Rob, there is something you don't seem to be getting here. Just because you put on a suit and it fits you does not mean your suit fits well. "

Do explain, Rob, with all possible eloquence (because frankly, we've been here a million times and the person making your side of the argument generally explodes into invective at this point rather than explaining what they think), how you judge quality without reference to an audience if 2 different audiences want 2 different things?

Or is it just that some audiences matter more than others, Rob?

So you're attacking the idea of evaluating rulesets objectively at all?

Whatever, jackoff.

No, I am literally asking what he uses as a metric. It is not a rhetorical question. Stop assuming bad faith.

Except that in the original challenge that you asked PL for you were to give a rule that satisfied one specific audience: PL. You didn't. And thus far you haven't admitted that you failed the challenge that you set yourself up for. Considering that, and the 30+ pages that reinforce it, it's really weird that you'd think that someone wouldn't assume everything you said was made in bad faith especially when directed toward someone who disagree with you.

[Zak S]

But Zak, your argument has always been that your audience is better. You've been pulling the "training wheels" bullshit since forever..

I like rules that fit people I like to play with, and freely admit that's subjective. I call rules I don't like rules I don't like. You like rules that fit you--but pretend that's objective. You call rules you don't like "shitty".

There are objective questions in rules design, like having a low level spell do more damage than a high level spell that does otherwise the same thing or typos, but so far all the complaints about this rule have not been those--they have been asking it to make it fit your (undescribed and invisible and possibly notional) game group at the expense of mine.

[Zak S]

First of all, that the challenge was to make a social currency system, which we can all see is in no way the same thing as a modifier to a social roll.

I know you're not real smart, Frank, but could you explain the difference. The idea of what a "social currency system" would be if not this rule was developed on this forum in discussions I wasn't in.

And linking would be dumb--don't be dumb. Just say what the difference is, to you, in English.

[MGuy]

But Zak, your argument has always been that your audience is better. You've been pulling the "training wheels" bullshit since forever..

I like rules that fit people I like to play with, and freely admit that's subjective. I call rules I don't like rules I don't like. You like rules that fit you--but pretend that's objective. You call rules you don't like "shitty".

There are objective questions in rules design, like having a low level spell do more damage than a high level spell that does otherwise the same thing or typos, but so far all the complaints about this rule have not been those--they have been asking it to make it fit your (undescribed and invisible and possibly notional) game group at the expense of mine.

So all the times that people pointed out how your rules fall apart when not used in the way you specifically envisioned were... what exactly to you?

[virgil]

I think it's informative that in sixteen fucking pages of this clusterfuck (and this being round three at that), I think this is literally the first unfair accusation made against Zak.

Fine. Given my track record thus far, I bloody quit trying to make an opinion on rules. So I am done with trying to make a contribution in various discussions. I will continue attempting to make my own stuff and put them up, even if they're failures more often than not, but that's it.

[Zak S]

But Zak, your argument has always been that your audience is better. You've been pulling the "training wheels" bullshit since forever..

I like rules that fit people I like to play with, and freely admit that's subjective. I call rules I don't like rules I don't like. You like rules that fit you--but pretend that's objective. You call rules you don't like "shitty".

There are objective questions in rules design, like having a low level spell do more damage than a high level spell that does otherwise the same thing or typos, but so far all the complaints about this rule have not been those--they have been asking it to make it fit your (undescribed and invisible and possibly notional) game group at the expense of mine.

So all the times that people pointed out how your rules fall apart when not used in the way you specifically envisioned were... what exactly to you?

A complaint in the form of "This rule is bad if you assume (tons of things that y'all assume--bad GM, railroad plot where killing a king is a disaster, infinitely malleable NPCs, character altruism fueled by the players' self-interest, lots of pausing and/or memorizing rules, etc)" is acceptable. A complaint in the form of "this rule sucks" is unacceptable and lying. It is claiming an objective failure rather than a characteristic that is a bug to some audiences and a feature to others.

Likewise, therefore, a complaint in the form of "This rule passes PhoneLobsters challenge but he wouldn't use it because of a gazillion requirements he forgot to mention" would likewise be acceptable.

THE BEST criticism would be a rule that was better than this one for y'all BUT also worked as well or better for my group. Which has not been forthcoming.

If the best you can do is imagine a rule you'd like better that I'd like worse and call that "better"--you're privileging yourself and calling it "objective" and that's stupid and selfish and narrowminded.

[deaddmwalking]

That is not in your rule. Your rule can make NPCs act in ways wildly contrary to their personality and alignment. It doesn't matter if you assumed, the limits of a social roll are required in a rule about social rolls. That is not an invisible goalpost. You have failed to provide a working rule.

This is actually somewhat unfair. Zak provided a rule that created modifiers to social rolls. Now, it failed on many many levels. First of all, that the challenge was to make a social currency system, which we can all see is in no way the same thing as a modifier to a social roll. But in making a rule that modifies a social roll, he actually is allowed to assume that the other rules involving rolls exist. So he doesn't need to include rules for setting the charisma scores of player characters or the potential output space of a diplomacy check.

I think it's informative that in sixteen fucking pages of this clusterfuck (and this being round three at that), I think this is literally the first unfair accusation made against Zak. His rule is very terrible and also wasn't even on topic for the challenge it was made for. It fails both in the specific challenge and in the generic sense of being a rule non-morons would actually want to include in their games. But he really did just sign up to write a rule rather than an entire system, so you don't get to mock him for failing to include other rules that one might plausibly expect to interact with that rule.

-Username17

Frank,

If I recall correctly, Zak made a big deal about how his 'rule' was 'system neutral'. As such, I don't think that we could safely assume anything about other interlocking systems - other than he used the word 'charisma'.

In the event that it was a D&D-style system (and thus, not truly system neutral), he has been reluctant to say what version(s) of D&D it is compatible with. Several posters have pointed out inconsistencies with his demonstrations of the rule in play as far as any published version of D&D.

Since Zak insists that we are not allowed to assume and not asking makes you a troll, and being a troll means he has no cause to ever address anything you ever say ever again (neener, neener, neener), Virgil is absolutely being fair by pointing out that we either need to assume things about the rule in order to make it almost function or we need to ask the designer for a whole bunch of clarification so it can almost function.

Ultimately, the 'rule' fails because it doesn't impact the game at all. You're tracking something that is ultimately meaningless. You can use the 'apple-stacking' to ask someone to do something for you, but it only works if they were going to do it anyway. At least, apparently.

@Zak - don't worry that I didn't ask for clarification. Others already have, and I'm waiting on you to respond to their 'alphabet soup'. I don't want to pile more on in that regard.

But there are a couple of minor points that I feel worth addressing:

how you judge quality without reference to an audience if 2 different audiences want 2 different things?

If you're clear on your design criteria, you can evaluate a rule for different audiences. In the case of your 'easy disarm' rule, where even a novice can easily disarm a sword-master, we can extrapolate what kinds of situations would arise out of using that rule. If those extrapolations don't match what your audience desires, we can show it is a bad rule for your intended audience. The problem, such as it is, is that even if the rule is bad your audience may choose not to use it because they either don't like the effect it has on the game, or would prefer that it not be used against them.

Allowing 50 pints of oil to do 50d6 points of damage, for instance, would fall into this category. While it is clearly a bad rule and can be abused, it probably isn't worth abusing because of the impact on the game.

You have conflated 'gentleman's agreements' which really are a part of playing with friends and/or competent GMs with 'good rules'. Agreeing not to abuse 'bad rules' does not magically transform them into good rules.

Have you considered the possibility that you are one of the most incompetently organized people on the face of the planet?

Maybe I am--doesn't mean I don't get to play D&D or like D&D or run my game or we don't have fun or that other people might not be in the same boat. I mean: there's left-handed scissors, too.

Considering your ability to quickly recall and review any 'ruling' you've ever made (as you have previously claimed), it seems you could include monster stat blocks in your 'ruling' organization method and have it on hand faster than reading the 'real rule' in a book or online SRD. Or would you like to claim that you've never said that?

In general, I've enjoyed this thread. Ancient History, it was nice that you tried to point out in your first post that this was focused on what was wrong with the rule, not a personal attack on Zak S. It's unfortunate that he does not appear to be able to separate himself from his 'design work'.

I for one, would really appreciate you making this type of thread for other rules that he has developed for his blog. Although it would certainly summon Zak S to 'defend' what he wrote, I think with the participation of everyone else, it would actually provide a useful education.

[MGuy]

So you're attacking the idea of evaluating rulesets objectively at all?

Whatever, jackoff.

No, I am literally asking what he uses as a metric. It is not a rhetorical question. Stop assuming bad faith.

Except that in the original challenge that you asked PL for you were to give a rule that satisfied one specific audience: PL. You didn't. And thus far you haven't admitted that you failed the challenge that you set yourself up for. Considering that, and the 30+ pages that reinforce it, it's really weird that you'd think that someone wouldn't assume everything you said was made in bad faith especially when directed toward someone who disagree with you.

Not gonna go too far back on these quotes. As I said here, the original audience for the challenge was PL. You're the one who wanted to be challenged so you can't complain about the target audience. You failed not only to satisfy the target audience but what you produced didn't even adequately do what was requested of it. That seems like failure. Remember, you didn't make the rule just for your group in this case, it was to answer a challenge. It failed to do so. Reasons and the math behind it were given as to why it failed by multiple people and for multiple parts. You can say that a GM and players who want to play specifically in the way you imagine they should can make it work (though that doesn't even seem to be a viable option given how bad the rule is) but that just makes it more obvious that you failed the challenge. You can surely at least admit that you're bad at making rules for your own group or try to get away with claiming that your experiences don't reach that far outside of very likeminded and equally rules ignorant people.

[ishy]

You have conflated 'gentleman's agreements' which really are a part of playing with friends and/or competent GMs with 'good rules'. Agreeing not to abuse 'bad rules' does not magically transform them into good rules.

I like the way this article describes that.

[OgreBattle]

In general, I've enjoyed this thread. Ancient History, it was nice that you tried to point out in your first post that this was focused on what was wrong with the rule, not a personal attack on Zak S. It's unfortunate that he does not appear to be able to separate himself from his 'design work'.

Zak S is actually a book and all of his rulings are written on his belly scales, so he cannot actually separate himself from his design work.

[MGuy]

In general, I've enjoyed this thread. Ancient History, it was nice that you tried to point out in your first post that this was focused on what was wrong with the rule, not a personal attack on Zak S. It's unfortunate that he does not appear to be able to separate himself from his 'design work'.

Zak S is actually a book and all of his rulings are written on his belly scales, so he cannot actually separate himself from his design work.

There a like button on this board? There needs to be one.

[fbmf]

Because I haven't said a single bad faith thing here ever--it wouldn't serve any purpose to say things I don't believe.

You once said on this message board that admitted internet trolls forfeit all human rights and shouldn't be rendered potentially life saving medical care if they needed it. Do you stand by that statement, or (what I find more likely) in a moment of frustration did you say something you didn't believe?

Game On,
fbmf