TRPG General Chat

8:01 PM

Personally I think DnD 5e relies way too much on the GM's ability to make good calls. It's difficult business!

T.J.L.

@kviiri And that is not a valid answer by itself. Answers on SE are supposed to come from experience. If an answer can't provide a viewpoint based on experience, it's a bad answer. They should help the querent form an opinion on the issue, not just say "Eh, do whatever you want." That opinion can only be formed from experience and/or precedent.

BanjoFox

@kviiri -- and we don't even get PAID for it ;)

godskook

@BanjoFox That answer lacks a bit of establishing that there's no method other than the Gold Rule to establish the relevant mechanics. I upvoted it, but I can see the argument that your answer is lacking in proving the Golden RUle is the most applicable rule to apply in this cas.e

T.J.L.

To put it another way, there should be no reason to follow a good answer with "But why?"

Adam

@BanjoFox I get paid in laughter and smiles. I take tips in "f*** you" and "you're an a**"

godskook

8:04 PM

@T.J.L. "the rules say DM Perogative" is a stating a fact is an acceptable answer to the question "what is this fact"

kviiri

@T.J.L. I must've missed the bit where answers have to always come from experience.

BanjoFox

@Adam -- hahah... realizes how empty his life is without all that. damn... now I -REALLY- need to find an new gaming group :'(! :D

@godskook -- I know. It is a sucky(ish?) question because the RAW simply does not seem to exist :)

T.J.L.

@godskook It's not a useful response to the querent, unless it explains how to exercise that prerogative.

NautArch

@kviiri I think it's more that if you aren't citing a rule, then you should supply an experiential example that shows that what you are suggesting worked and how it worked. Otherwise it's just your opinion, man (in the voice of the dude)

BESW

Good answers explain how and why their solution is a good one for the problem at hand. Sharing experience is a common way to do that.

BanjoFox

8:06 PM

@NautArch abides

T.J.L.

And without references to precedents in RAW or without the weight of experience, it is just an opinion... and pure opinions are bad answers.

kviiri

@NautArch You missed the point. There are plenty of rules questions in DnD 5e where you can cite the book and the book says "it's up the the GM".

BESW

(Also, RAW is not just "what are the rules." In many circles, RAW is a tool for finding the lowest common denominator shared experience of the rules by explicitly stripping away elements like GM fiat, in order for members of the wider RPG community to usefully discuss the effect of rules on play despite having varied personal play experiences. RAW is an analytical lens.)

kviiri

@T.J.L. How is a rule in the book just an opinion?

T.J.L.

@kviiri How is "It's up to the GM" useful when "It's up to the GM" is always the case.

kviiri

8:09 PM

@T.J.L. It's not always the case.

Adam

The Code - Guidelines

►

BanjoFox

@kviiri perhaps a specific example will help? :)

NautArch

@kviiri true but in those cases to suggest a course without anything but your suggestion is incomplete. As @BESW said, using experience to support what you did and why is one way to do that.

T.J.L.

@kviiri Yes, it is. There are no gun-toting gaming gestapo marching around preventing gaming groups from changing the rules to suit them.

BESW

> In many places throughout this book, the phrase “the GM decides” is often used interchangeably with “the group decides” regarding some of these issues, because it emphatically isn’t the GM’s job to run a dictatorship—every player should always be allowed the chance to have a say in those instances. The GM should act as more of a moderator, synthesizing the group’s input with her own in order to reach a final decision. [YS306]

T.J.L.

8:11 PM

Even (especially) in games that deny GM prerogative, it exists. It may result in not playing the game as designed, but GM prerogative cannot be stopped and always exists. It may result in players leaving the GMs table, but's a player prerogative that equally always exists.

kviiri

@T.J.L. Well, you can always assume anyone who tags their questions as DnD 5e, for instance, is playing a heavily homebrewed version without a hint of the original game remaining and so, but I think a useful answer relies on the GM playing by the book unless otherwise specified.

T.J.L.

@kviiri You just made my point about RAW needing to be the starting point of all answers. Thanks.

kviiri

But I don't see how that makes "it's up to the GM" a bad answer, when that is the case explicitly by the book.

T.J.L.

@kviiri Because "It's up to the GM" is not useful. The whole point of SE is expert guidance. Citing a truism is not expert guidance. Describing how to apply that truism is.

kviiri

@T.J.L. I disagree with it not being useful.

T.J.L.

8:15 PM

@kviiri Everything is up to the GM, so how can saying it's up to the GM be useful?

kviiri

There are things that are up to the GM in every table, and things up to the GM in one table out of a thousand.

NautArch

I think the response the stack is looking for is "it's up to the gm, but here's what I've tried/seen and why it worked."

T.J.L.

Everything is up to the GM at every table. If the players don't like it, perhaps because it strays too far afield without good reasoning behind it, the GM may not have a table.

kviiri

@T.J.L. Because some things are literally only up to the GM and nothing more. As in, there's no alternative. No rule those 999 tables out of a thousand would use.

BanjoFox

\o/ -- Found an example!

dnd-spells.com/spell/augury-ritual

"The DM chooses from the following possible omens: "

kviiri

8:17 PM

@T.J.L. I think you're being formal beyons what's actually productive for the site.

NautArch

@BanjoFox the conjure spells are another.

T.J.L.

@BanjoFox That's not DM prerogative, because it isn't about rules. That's a storytelling element.

Adam

@T.J.L. Yes, but by that definition, it seems like having the rules in a rulebook is equally useless.The point of the rule book and session 0 and having the game system as a whole is that there will be at least some elements which the GM agrees not to fiddle with. Those rules are not up to the DM per se.

kviiri

There are things that are not covered by any rule, things where the GM has to make a call. If a user asks about such a situation, of course telling them that it's really up to the GM is the sensible answer.

BanjoFox

@T.J.L. -- eh... I got close.

Adam

8:20 PM

I agree that "DM decides" is a less than useful answer, but I think the idea that everything is up to the GM at every table is a stance that, while technically correct, misses the point in some way

T.J.L.

@Adam Correct... in many cases the GM abdicates his prerogative to that of the group. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That also doesn't make it a cogent answer to somebody looking for advice.

@Adam Well, as I mentioned above... a good GM will temper it with the players' right to pack up and go home.

see you all later.

@BanjoFox take care!

Adios @BanjoFox

@T.J.L. Answers on SE are supposed to come from experience. If an answer can't provide a viewpoint based on experience, it's a bad answer. You just contradicted yourself. Sometimes, that is the best and most correct answer, and it has to do with the art of GMing/DMing.

T.J.L.

8:22 PM

@kviiri My point is that if you can't provide expert advice (based on precedent and/or experience) on how to wield that authority, you're not really helping anybody.

@KorvinStarmast There's no contradiction - the art of DMing is learned from experience, sometimes personal, sometimes "tribal" from a lot of playing.

KorvinStarmast

@T.J.L. Advice on "how to wield the authority" is tricky, since none of us on the site are at that table. OK, on that we agree: DMing comes from experience, so you can say "make a ruling" and then provide some guidance/lessons. There has to be that follow up.

kviiri

@T.J.L. So if I cite a rule from the book and it says something, I'm an expert, but if the rule happens to say "ask the GM", it's humbug? That doesn't make any sense!

KorvinStarmast

And I'm outta here.

T.J.L.

@KorvinStarmast Yes... That was my point, you need the follow up.

kviiri

I know my way around the rules of 5e reasonably well, and I know there is plenty of space explicitly reserved for GM rulings. If I pretended these places weren't there, I wouldn't be much of an expert either.

T.J.L.

8:25 PM

@kviiri Sometimes, knowing where to look is all the expertise needed. If you're talking about GM discretion, though, the expertise comes from experience.

kviiri

@T.J.L. I'm talking about plain old rules questions.

Adam

@kviiri The problem I have with an answer with that is that it doesn't help anyone, it just passes the buck. A player (who could be a future DM) is left not learning anything about how to come up with a rule in those kinds of situations. A DM with little experience is left in the same position; having to go somewhere else for an answer on what to do. Only an experienced DM would be like 'cool, I got this', but they would probably have already made a rule at the table anyway.

2

T.J.L.

@Adam Exactly! "Use DM prerogative" alone is not a helpful answer. Yes, it's an answer... but it isn't helpful without more guidance.

kviiri

@Adam What do you mean it doesn't help anyone? If a player wants to know, say, how much do they need to roll to diagnose a disease with a medicine check, does it not help them to tell them that the DC is up to the GM only?

T.J.L.

"The book says its up to the DM... here's what I'd do... and here's why."

kviiri

8:28 PM

That gives them information on the rules of the game, so it's helpful.

T.J.L.

@kviiri It's not expert advice.

kviiri

@T.J.L. It's not any less expert than being able to cite any other rule of the game.

doppelgreener

@BESW @trogdor:

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T.J.L.

@kviiri As I already said... sometimes the only required expertise is knowing where to look. But if there's a judgement call to be made, saying "make a judgement call" isn't useful.

The answer needs to include expert advice on how to make that judgement call.

kviiri

@T.J.L. The judgment call in this case isn't what the asker has to make. They're not a GM asking for a suitable DC.

Adam

8:31 PM

@kviiri Not really. They still don't know how much they need to roll. The question wasn't answered. They were just told to go ask somebody else. And a DM who asks that question is totally screwed since asking themselves isn't going to get them anywhere

kviiri

@Adam They know as much as they can - that they can't know.

T.J.L.

@kviiri No, they don't. They don't know what kind of reasoning the DM could use.

kviiri

@Adam And by this logic, if I gave them numbers they could use, it'd be a better answer despite the numbers probably being wrong? (As in, different from the actual target numbers)

@T.J.L. I might be too cynical here, but I don't assume GMs to be reasonable. :(

T.J.L.

@kviiri If it's a matter of judgement, after saying it's up to the GM, a good answer will explain how the answerer would reach any numbers they provide.

godskook

@T.J.L. I totally agree with that. WHen a question is asking how to make a judgement call, there should be more guidance than "you're the GM, go decide", even if RAW doesn't give more than that.

Adam

8:34 PM

@kviiri saying that the DM ultimately makes the choice, but that the DCs are set up so that 5 is easy, 10 is medium,..., 30 is impossible is infinitely more useful. It tells them that if the DM said it was an easy check, they should expect something at 15 or lower, and if the DM says it's really hard to diagnose, it's probably 16+

kviiri

I could provide the neatest disease diagnostics table or something, but no matter how good I do, the answer is only useful if the asker's GM is also good at determining their difficulties.

@Adam That's a good point for additional content.

Maybe we have a slightly different idea on what it means to answer "up to the GM", too.

T.J.L.

@kviiri A good answer should be useful to more than just the original querent. Somebody with a similar but not identical question (perhaps a GM, perhaps a player) who comes across the question should find the answer useful, too.

kviiri

@T.J.L. That I can agree with, but to be fair it makes it even harder to assume GM reasonability.

T.J.L.

@kviiri Why do you care if the GM is reasonable? Experts are reasonable (or they're not so expert as they think), so there is no reason to answer for anything but the reasonable case.

If a player thinks a GM is being unreasonable based on an answer from RPG.se, that sounds like fodder for a new gaming-social-behavior question.

kviiri

@T.J.L. Because we want our answers to be useful, don't we? If I give an answer that's true for the finest few of GMs who don't set their DCs arbitrarily, it's not useful for the hypothetical masses whose GMs are not that good at that.

T.J.L.

8:40 PM

@kviiri Sure it is. It's useful to show those hypothetical masses what their GM should be doing.

kviiri

Also (tongue-in-cheek) I can't resist pointing out how little system there is in DnD 5e outside combat :P

T.J.L.

That's the whole reason to explain the thought process used for a GM discretion call.

kviiri

@T.J.L. Hm, noble idea at least.

godskook

@kviiri you keep using "reasonable" in a way that makes me want to ask: Which definition are you using? (Rational/Logical) or (Fair/Appropriate)?

T.J.L.

@kviiri Your aforementioned cynicism is showing. :)

Adam

8:42 PM

@kviiri Such a cynical view. Most GMs are doing what GMs are supposed to do, trying to make a fun game for them and their friends.

Delioth

@godskook Why not both?

kviiri

@godskook I mostly use it as a sort of antonym for arbitrary.

T.J.L.

@Delioth I think the problem is that the answer may be "neither".

kviiri

@Adam And most GMs are not, by my experience, still very good at making good judgment calls. It's not their fault, it's because DnD puts on way too much responsibility on their shoulders. For what it's worth, I don't consider myself good at it either.

godskook

@Delioth Because I would game under AngryGm, but could see how some people would call him (unfair/inappropriate)unreasonable, but he's DEFINITELY not (Irrational/Illogical)unreasonable.

kviiri

8:44 PM

That's why I try to constrain myself a lot when mastering. Makes it way easier.

Adam

@kviiri As far as I'm concerned, any judgement call which doesn't negatively impact the fun of the players is a good judgement call. All other concerns are secondary. And since I believe most people don't want to ruin their friends fun, I think most GMs can readily succeed in that regard.

Delioth

@godskook Aye, I was mostly criticizing the idea that kviiri was using "one or the other" definition rather than both to some extent. There are definitely GMs (and people in general) that are one form of reasonable but not the other.

T.J.L.

GMing is a learned skill... Heck, playing is a learned skill... and I'm not talking about rules mechanics. Some people pick it up more quickly than others.

kviiri

@Adam But they very easily do in DnD.

godskook

@Delioth XOR is not the normally proper definition of "or", AND/OR is.

T.J.L.

8:46 PM

The whole point of SE is to get that learned expertise out there in writing, referenceable and linkable.

Adam

@kviiri And I think they don't

Delioth

@godskook "Which" kind of implies XOR (Which of these things: X or Y? kind of implies that "yes" is the wrong answer)

kviiri

@Adam Well, you just need to take a look at the questions on the site. There's a ton of unfun caused by individual bad GM calls. I've had my share of them too.

Delioth

@kviiri That's also likely because no-one comes in with a question of "My GM made an awesome call last night, how can I deal with that?"

godskook

@Delioth Not really. But to humor the point, how ELSE would your phrase "Which of these things: X and/or Y?"?

kviiri

8:50 PM

OP magic items overshadowing party members, accidental player deaths, and lots of less dramatic stuff, doesn't have to be malicious but still happens.

@Delioth What is your point?

trogdor

@doppelgreener sheesh

Delioth

@kviiri While there might be tons of unfun caused, as a site we have no metric to look towards to see the fun caused by good calls. We only have fail cases to look towards and no number of success cases to compare to (if one call in 100 is bad and causes unfun, that's a pretty good ratio. However, we only see the one bad one)

Adam

@kviiri I don't mean to be snide, but the site is designed for people with issues to find solutions to those issues. so of course the site will be loaded with instances of issues cause by the occasional bad call. As a whole though, I feel that the trend is that people make good calls and that bad calls are the exception

kviiri

@Delioth I don't see how this has any bearing on what I said, because I'm speaking specifically on unfun wrought by individual bad GM calls. No matter how many fun games you have running elsewhere, it doesn't undo the unfun.

Adam

I think, personally, that many people wind themselves up and think "man, my calls have to be absolutely perfect." But they make fine judgement calls and just don't feel confident in their ability. Despite the fact that the call was fine to begin with.

kviiri

8:54 PM

@Adam I see your point, but it doesn't really change mine. The GM has way too much on their shoulders in DnD, in my opinion.

Delioth

@kviiri It might not undo the unfun, but you've said that you think most GMs are bad at making calls... but if only one call out of a hundred is a bad call, that implies that most GMs are pretty good at making calls

Adam

@kviiri I'm in no way suggesting that people can't make a bad call, nor that good GMs cant make a bad call. I just think it's improper to assume that people are unreasonable because they have the capacity to make bad calls.

godskook

@kviiri Stacks see a disproportionate number of DM/Player problems proportionate to how many are actually out there, in the same way that cancer Doctors see more cancer patients per year than almost anyone else would. If you're just referencing the statistic in that way, that's fine, but you can't extrapolate from "problems we see on this stack" to "how common this problem is at various tables, in general".

T.J.L.

@Adam "If you go to the doctor's office, expect to see sick people."

kviiri

@Delioth I don't mean seriously bad calls, necessarily - but probably not as consistent ones as a SE member who can take their time to craft an answer in peace without social pressure around them.

T.J.L.

8:56 PM

Speaking of sick people and bad calls... It's time for my daily commute.

kviiri

@Adam Not necessarily unreasonable, but arbitrary. It's a natural consequence of having to make snap decisions in a social situation.

Again, I imply no malice in it, nor even incompetence because GMing consistently well is hard. And I think it's a side-effect of the GM fiat -heavy design of DnD.

Adam

Table by table, perhaps it's arbitrary. But I believe that most GMs will look to be as consistent as possible within their own games.

kviiri

@Adam Look to be is the key part - but it's really, really, hard. And doesn't help that people don't all that often have the same ideas about remedies for problems :(

Adam

Life is hard. People fail. The capacity for failure isn't enough to convince me that people can't succeed a majority of the time and what we see on the site is the exception.

kviiri

@Adam I believe that too, but I think the answers on this site are also way better than what the average GM does. Again, in large part because one had to make snap judgments.

godskook

9:05 PM

@kviiri In the same way that sports announcers can make better analyzations of a sportsball player's play than the sportsball player.

Adam

@kviiri Well of course, we have the luxury of time. But so does the DM and the player after the game, when the two can talk and the pacing of everything isn't at stake.

kviiri

@Adam Assuming people talk openly, but I think that's an upwards trend at least.

At least among my circles

But then we often crash into the whole bit about conflicting ideas, not about the expected game but how to get there.

Adam

@kviiri And I think that in most cases the player and the DM are friends, and friends can work it out.

kviiri

@Adam Heh, we're more like "friends can disagree and still be friends". Too bad it's a stalemate ;(

We argue about non-combat life in DnD, for instance. My open preference is that there either is little social interaction or a robust mechanic for social interaction scenes. Some others in our party think it's better left to the GM. Even though no one seems particularly impressed with any one of our's ability to run social encounters well. (We do round-robin in this party)

Other topics are similar, I propose we use Angry's time dice pool to create a sense of hurry in the dungeon, they argue it's best left to the GM to provide reasons to hurry, then we agree to disagree and play with a GM who can't provide good reasons to hurry because they've never done it before and don't know how to do it. (And yes, this GM was me)

I don't really want to blame my friends though, I think these are system issues at the core.

Delioth

Hm, that seems different from how I've heard of social interaction generally going. At least in my groups, there's a bunch of social interaction and few mechanics for it. Free-form seems to be the way to go (at least for our table), because people are fickle and prone to non-deterministic behaviors (dice are either too random or too static- either a person is wildly unpredictable due to the dice, or you have enough modifiers that they always do what you want).

kviiri

9:15 PM

@Delioth For me, the problem is that I want a social way to solve problems in-game.

Delioth

And getting in character with the parties you're trying to talk through isn't enough?

BESW

I'm looking forward to spending more time with the Gumshoe system, especially Bubblegumshoe, because it seems to be a good middlepoint between random and non-random, mechanical and freeform, for meaningful, weighty social interactions.

kviiri

@Delioth No, because ultimately it boils to simple GM fiat.

It feels off to me.

BESW

(Not all mechanics are dice-based, and not all modifiers are eternal.)

Delioth

Ah, you don't trust GM's to have consistent worlds and act in the best interests of the group. This could always be helped by having every NPC roleplayed by not-always-the-GM, but that takes a lot of people (or a lot of splitting the party so we can always have 2 people to stand in for NPCs)

BESW

9:20 PM

@Delioth Based on previous conversations with kviiri, I'm not sure it's a matter of trust.

Trish

I hate it when people don't know what they want to ask...

kviiri

@Delioth I sort of trust my GMs to be benevolent, but I just can't get the same feeling knowing the success of the encounter is pretty much pre-determined by them.

BESW

I think it's just that they want it mechanized so there's a structure to push against, master, and/or exploit.

kviiri

@BESW Yeah, I'm getting into broken record territory :D

Trish

"I want to have a list of cheap rifles in SR that pack a bang" is asked... then changed "how to acquire cheap and hefty guns and which are they?" and in a comment on my answer he says "oh,... but I was looking for military AMRs..."

BESW

9:22 PM

It's just a matter of the sorts of challenges and obstacles kviiri likes to face in RPGs: structured ones, with at least the illusion of predictable cause-and-effect interactions.

kviiri

@BESW At least one I know is objective! That there is a real, guaranteed chance for success, and for failure, and for meaningful, determined effects for each.

@BESW Yes!

Delioth

I'm a fan of GM running characters with input from players. If I feel like X action makes sense from [Character]'s perspective and there aren't super-secret portions I ask the guys if it makes sense for them to do that. That way the guys have more input to the situation (even if GM makes final call, but I guess that's where your issue lies).

I guess a system where different people thinking an NPC should have different reactions could be resolved more... randomly (i.e. 2 think X should be the reaction, 2 think Y should be the reaction. Roll a d4- odds X happens, evens Y happens).

BESW

There may be an element that it's very easy for GM fiat encounters to turn into "the person who can best please/manipulate/predict the GM wins," but that's probably a secondary concern here.

Delioth

That might give you something a little more structured without making all social situations fully "I need to roll X to get Y, otherwise Z". (Just spitballing a little here, since you said none of your group likes how it goes)

BESW

@Delioth Or you could go the direction Fate implies: each person with an idea points out an aspect which justifies the idea, and says how many fate points they're willing to spend to have their idea be the one which happens.

The person willing/able to spend the most fate points gets control of the narrative for that moment.

There are even entire games based on that concept, like A Penny For My Thoughts.

Delioth

9:27 PM

Ooh, that could be interesting too. FATE is rules light enough that you could almost implement that solution as a subsystem inside of your preferred [D&D, Pathfinder, etc] system.

kviiri

@Delioth Like in Apocalypse World, there's a move for manipulating an NPC. If a player has something they can promise to an NPC (in narrative) and they try to manipulate the NPC using it (in narrative), they roll. A success makes the NPC obey, but they'll expect the PC to keep their promise. A soft success is similar, except the NPC wants some immediate assurance ("cash up front..."). A fail means the GM is free to make the NPC do pretty much anything terrible.

BESW

(In APFMT every time your character would make a significant decision, you ask two other players what the decision is. You pick the one you prefer and give that player a coin. Your character's scene is over when you run out of coins, and the player with the most coins starts their scene next.)

kviiri

It's a common thing in AW, the GM only gets freedom when a roll fails.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my rants again

I need to tune out for tonight!

BESW

ttfn

kviiri

Tata :)

BESW

9:29 PM

@Delioth In Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, there is no GM. NPCs are controlled by whoever has narrative control at the moment: that's the current player if their PC is helping someone, and the rest of the group in collaboration if the PC is getting into trouble.

This leads to rather wild, bouncy narratives and requires that everyone pay close attention to what's been established so they can build on it coherently.

In Lovecraftesque, the roles are Narrator (like the GM), Witness (the only PC), and Watchers (support the Narrator by adding atmospheric scene details and playing NPCs). Each scene the group shifts who's got which role.

Part of pre-game prep in Lovecraftesque is agreeing on the NPCs which are expected to appear and defining a handful of character traits to help everyone's portrayals stay consistent.

nitsua60

10:32 PM

21

Q: How does Augury work exactly?

I am the DM for a party that started to rely more and more on the augury spell, casting it as a ritual at least daily, because it has shown them the 'right' path on multiple occasions in the past. The description of augury seems pretty straightforward, but in our experience there are many differ...

@kviiri I've instituted the time pool in my most-recent 5e game and have loved it. I'm using it in AL starting this fall.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

@nitsua60 Just noticed how fast does my rep grow now, since I have started to actively participate in pathfinder tag.

nitsua60

@Baskakov_Dmitriy Yeah... PF, 3.5, 5e will do that.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Rep seems to be even more meaningless now.

nitsua60

Alternatively, provide a good answer to a decent [tag:problem-*] question that hits the Hot Network Questions list.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Would I also participate in dnd-5e tag, it would be twice faster (200+ each day)

@nitsua60 It is good, but not really: you get 9000 upvotes one day, hit the daily limit, full stop.

If you provide 100500 answers to 100500 "read the book for me" questions, though, you get a lot of accepted answers, and the bonus for your answer being accepted ignores the limit

So, it is not that hard to "cheese" rep, lol.

nitsua60

10:40 PM

@Baskakov_Dmitriy in my experience HNQs tend to stick around a couple of days.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

OK, you get it for a couple of days. Pretty good.

But cheesing 5e, 3.5e and Pathfinder questions is still more effective, requires less experience, doesn't require such a good English, etc.

(I am not implying that this "cheesing" is bad for the site, though) xkcd.com/810

nitsua60

@Baskakov_Dmitriy Absolutely--the more people are helping build this project, the better the result! (We hold as a matter of faith...)

BESW

Yeah, that's one of the interesting things about well-curated Stacks; "gaming the system" is roughly synonymous with "doing it right."

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Because the system is right.

At least more right than forums, lol.

nitsua60

...for some purposes.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

10:48 PM

Yes.

BESW

And yes, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a user in want of easy reputation must participate in popular tags.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Well, it is clear

But I just didn't imagine how huge the difference is.

VtM is a more or less popular game

If you discard D&D system tags, world-of-darkness would be the most popular one.

BESW

@Miniman Query request: the tags used by new users, ranked by most used.

godskook

@Baskakov_Dmitriy In this context, does "cheesing" mean "providing useful services for others" or not? Cause if it does mean "providing useful services for others", that's the point of Reputation.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

@godskook Well, "cheesing" content in some games (I have learned it from Warframe) means "to get a lot of reward from the system with the least possible effort"

In our case an attempt to abuse the system by answering lots, lots of 3.5e, Pathfinder and 5e questions would actually be the right way to go.

godskook

11:02 PM

@Baskakov_Dmitriy That's called min-maxing or optimizing. Cheesing is MUCH more derogatory. knowyourmeme.com/memes/cheesing

Baskakov_Dmitriy

@godskook Cheesing requires optimizing, and in Warframe it means min-maxing.

But cheesing is, for example, doing some missions that are supposed to be very hard and that give huge rewards, while your builds allow to go through the mission without any effort.

godskook

@Baskakov_Dmitriy there's some framing you seem to be missing here. In Warframe, there's certain tests of skill that are the *POINT* of the game. Cheesing, as used by the few examples I could find on Warframe, are violating that point of even playing Warframe in the first place.

However, when we transfer that usage over to the Stack, the point of the Stack is not to have the answers be hard to give by the answerer, it is to have those answers, period. How easy or hard it was for you is a secondary benefit, but not, imho, the goal. Thus, circumventing the difficulty it takes for you to …

Miniman

11:56 PM

@BESW Sure, how do you want to define new users?

BESW

Can we say "first question asked by a user"?

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