TRPG General Chat - 2013-03-12 (page 1 of 2)

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12:00 AM

a lot of groups don't even realize the rule 0 is different from game to game

@Zachiel If Rule 0 is different from game to game, how is it universal?

That's one of the problems with arbitrarily decreeing that something is a Rule or Law or Fallacy: it implies consensus of definition where there often isn't one.

Suddenly because we have shorthand for referring to a nebulous concept, we start pretending it's not nebulous.

Rule 0 can mean "the GM can temporarily arbitrate rules in the middle of play to move things along," or "the GM can change the rules without warning or compensation," or "the GM can create or adjust rules to accomodate for situations the system doesn't cover," or a number of other scenarios.

Some people think it's limited to houserules established at the start of a campaign, others think it's carte blanche to revise the entire system on the fly at his whim.

These are not the same thing, and using one phrase to describe them all is inaccurate, irresponsible, and obstructs even the possibility of discussing these issues constructively.

it's not universal. But this isn't recognized by the majority of people

heck, they don't even know what rule 0 says in their game if you ask them

(obvious generalization in obvious)

Right. Giving it a name that implies universality misrepresents the issue, and giving it a non-descriptive name like Rule 0 implies a community of discourse which implicitly discourages people who haven't heard of the term from feeling like they can participate in the discussion.

When I have to go look up the Stormwind Fallacy, or the Oberoni Fallacy, or Rule 0, before I can participate in a very simple discussion about RP vs CharOp, or the relationship of the GM to the rules, it makes me feel like maybe my ideas and experiences are less valid because I haven't read the standard texts on the issue.

Of course there are no standard texts, because it's not an academic community. It's a bunch of opinionated guys scattered across dozens of forums and hundreds of blogs, many of whom have no idea that the same conversation is being carried out simultaneously in three other places --and has been discussed before, and will be discussed again, by people who have never heard of this Oberoni person and don't need to have in order to conduct a fruitful discourse on the topic.

I do my best to link to goblin dice whenever I mention it in a context where I even suspect someone might feel confused by the term, because I want to encourage communication.

(Curse you, browser that cuts off http!)

12:30 AM

redwombatstudio.com/blog/?p=5463

@BESW: strictly speaking the Stormwind Fallacy is only that "one who optimizes cannot roleplay," and "one who roleplays cannot optimize," which is a fallacy of false dichotomy; clearly one can do both. It does not actually state that the two are independent.

oh hai

anyway, I find it depressing that this site perpetuates the "you care about mechanics, you're not a real roleplayer!" crap; that's just insulting, unwarranted, and untrue.

@KRyan And that is the fallacy of composition.

@KRyan hmm

12:39 AM

should a link to Stormwind Fallacy automatically trump others' opinions? no. should people consider what it says? I certainly think so

@BESW I'm not sure what you mean; that was not intended as purely a reaction to this event

Mmm, I know.

@BESW: ok, but when the "part" in question consists of ... actually, let's not start this. I suspect you know what I mean

You've claimed several times that "the site" holds views or performs actions which are in fact held or made by only some portion of the site's membership.

yes, I'm aware

improper/inexact phrasing is being used for reasons

but you're right that they're not good ones and the appropriate response is to either speak correctly or not speak

As someone who desires people to read his ideas carefully and give them due consideration, you might find such generalizations harmful to that desire.

12:41 AM

but my problem is that I find that the only real option is to not speak

which is why I speak inexactly

@BESW as far as I can tell, this is a thing that will never happen on this site.

Aye, well. We could also try a "good faith" policy of interpretation. I've found that it does wonders for my blood pressure.

@BESW would you believe I tried that?

this was not a snap judgment

[shrug] I refer you to my advice to Gareth.

I'm aware, and I think I do a better job than he. for the most part, I've tried to avoid this argument here

I only responded to you in particular because I trust you to respond calmly and have patience with my own communication weaknesses

And also this advice.

12:45 AM

nah, no one would (and, arguably, should) read it, nor do I actually have that much interest

like

I get involved in debates

but I don't go around thinking about this stuff all the time, which means I'd probably not be much good philosophizing about it

(and yes, I realize this also weakens me as a debater)

anyway, I just wanted to correct what you seemed to be referring to as the Stormwind Fallacy

Yes, well. You might want to set up some Google docs pages with your discussions and theses, to link to in answers, rather than trying to use the SE site proper as the platform.

it's extremely common for people to say "Stormwind Fallacy" when they want to say "roleplaying and optimization are independent", but it's inaccurate to do so.

I never had any intention of doing more than just having a copy of the original text as reference here; it seemed appropriate because it is a term that gets thrown around in D&D discussions (not sure about other systems) and people might have need to look it up

side-note, I do agree with you about the need to include links to it if one is going to reference it

That... actually enforces my primary point on the matter: the RPG community is not an academic community, it is a loose aggregate of amateur debaters, and using formal titles for poorly-defined and non-agreed-upon ideas obfuscates the truth of the matter.

@BESW yeah, probably, particularly since the original post isn't any kind of proof

I'll buy that; it's a claim of authority that doesn't exist

Even if it is a formal or informal fallacy by the philosophical definition, the RPG community doesn't have the standing or consensus necessary to justify giving it such a pretentious name.

@KRyan Exactly.

12:50 AM

the issue is pretty simple, though. the post is mostly a defense mechanism because it became apparent that people were going to make extreme and frequently-insulting claims about the nature of the two activities

And if it must have a name, why can't it be the RP/OP Fallacy? Something that isn't inherently presumptuous about one group of RPG debaters having the rights to that debate.

the name was literally given to try to reduce the number of times it was necessary to hash out the same debate on the particular forum that started it

the hope was that by giving it a pretentious name, people might actually read it and not start the same argument again and again

@KRyan It would be more appropriate to have an external link. It's easy enough to craft one on Google Docs if there isn't one to your liking already extant.

@KRyan Sure, but the moment it left its original context the name became a liability to constructive discussion.

@BESW eh. to be honest, if we're sticking with just "strict" form of it, I'm not going to have a constructive discussion with anyone who disagrees because I feel (strongly) that they are insulting me.

Then that's a good faith problem, and nothing any amount of posting, debating, proofs, or interpersonal action can resolve.

(Hanlon's Razor once again rears its head.)

12:56 AM

@BESW see, I meant after reading the thing

which may not really be fair

but even done in ignorance, I still have to put up with a conversation in which, until I have convinced the other party, his every counterpoint reads like an insult to me

and I have a hard time seeing how this could be unintentional

If you expect that a single well-worded logical argument which flies in the face of a person's emotionally-invested beliefs will instantly change their mind, then yes, you are being very unfair.

@BESW I didn't say I expected it to do so, I said that I don't think it's unfair to want to avoid that conversation when their beliefs are that I'm "no true roleplayer" (and the parallelism with "no true Scotsman" is very much intentional)

heh. Trying to use logic to negate an emotional belief you receive as a personal attack? That's a recipe for pain.

this was my point

this was also the reason why the Stormwind Fallacy was originally written, to try to avoid it

In my experience --and I've had these conversations several times-- the person is honestly trying to help improve what they perceive as a state of ignorance in you just the same as you are to them.

1:02 AM

I've never had anyone who believed the Stormwind fallacy to be non-fallacious do anything but tell me over and over that optimization kills roleplaying; if they were trying to teach me anything, they never elucidated what it was. All I ever got from such conversations was that I was apparently having badwrongfun.

a) Many people are seriously untrained in the ability to articulate their intent. They understand what they mean, so they're unable to see that the words coming out of their mouths only refer to but don't contain that meaning.

@BESW if we stipulate that there is some meaning intended to be taught by these diatribes, would you hazard a guess as to what it would be?

that you don't need to optimize to have fun? because that is not a thing that I've ever heard anyone disagree with; people can be pushy about optimization advice, but I've never heard anyone literally claim that it's impossible to roleplay without optimizing

and, in fact, the Stormwind Fallacy directly includes that point in it anyway, since it claims that all four permutations (optimize and roleplay, optimize and not roleplay, not optimize and roleplay, and not optimize nor roleplay) are possible

b) You're very antagonistic when you get defensive, and frequently get even my hackles up --for example when you decided that I said D&D had no potential for option paralysis; putting ridiculous words in my mouth is kind of annoying.

So I can definitely see people getting rude in response to that.

@KRyan I'm not sure, because I don't know what the Stormwind Fallacy is. I know what it's claimed to be by multiple people, but none of them match each other exactly.

I thought it was the inaccurate claim that optimization and RP are mutually exclusive.

@BESW yes, that is exactly what I corrected when I first got onto chat

err

the fallacious claim is that they are mutually exclusive

it does not make the claim, though it's often billed as the Stormwind Fallacy, that the two are mutually independent

Then I'm lost because your statement immediately above seems to precisely contradict that.

1:12 AM

I don't see how

Anyway.

neither "optimization" nor "roleplaying" is binary

You say that the Stormwind Fallacy claims RP and Op are mutually exclusive, or at least enjoy an antagonistic relationship. And then you say that the SwF says that all four permutations are possible.

yes, there are levels of optimization that preclude meaningful roleplaying, particularly within a given genre or storyline (it's hard to imagine roleplaying Pun-pun in any meaningful way), and yes, there are roleplaying-valid concepts that are impossible to optimize in any significant way (3.x just does not work with a character who entirely eschews all forms of magic)

all four are possible

if they were mutually exclusive

then roleplaying and optimizing would not be

@KRyan Okay, because your statement above says that the SwF claims they're all possible.

1:14 AM

ok, the "fallacy" part of this is confusing the discussion greatly

because I don't know if you're saying that the SwF claims they're all possible (and that's fallacious)

or if you're saying that because the SwF is fallacious, all four are possible

I think you're using SwF to refer to the fallacy and to the discussion of why it's fallacious.

I'm not claiming anything at the moment, I'm trying to reconcile your statements.

@BESW yes, I am

@BESW (I changed that to "saying" because I realized that was the wrong word)

you're right, I'm being confusing and confusing myself

(I blame the double-negative of sorts)

"the Stormwind Fallacy [...] claims that all four permutations [...] are possible" and "the fallacious claim is that they are mutually exclusive."

Anyway.

ok, from the top, the Stormwind Fallacy is that you cannot roleplay if you optimize, and you cannot optimize if you role play

because this is fallacious, we can say that all four permutations are possible

is what I should have said from the beginning

...I think I've got this right now.

@waxeagle you around?

1:18 AM

(where "we" is "those who accept the claim that it is fallacious")

I agree, except that you arrived at a correct conclusion through affirming the consequent.

Most of the people I've talked to who feel that optimization and roleplay share an antagonistic relationship labor under the misconceptions that one must be subservient to the other.

And they're right that in many systems Op and RP are antagonistic to a greater or lesser extent.

Their conclusion is therefor an easy one to make, and acting on it represents the path of least resistance.

@BESW right, but strictly speaking the Stormwind Fallacy is not that they're antagonistic

it's just that they're mutually exclusive

I have never met someone who actually believed the Stormwind Fallacy to that extreme.

also, I would say that a well-designed system is largely one which minimizes that antagonism

@BESW it certainly does get implied when people refer to my games as "not real" because of my level of optimization

I have met people who claimed to believe the Stormwind Fallacy but actually held a milder view of the situation, because the Stormwind Fallacy is a convenient label to describe that kind of attitude.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

1:21 AM

@BESW I've seen people who've lived it.

But it's tends to describe thos who play out power fantasies

@KRyan Nah, that's not a well-designed system unless marrying mechanics with roleplaying is a goal of the designer.

@BESW I'm having a hard time imagining an RPG system where that isn't a goal. Otherwise what is the point of having the mechanics?

I view the rules' entire point as facilitating roleplay

primarily by serving as a conflict-resolution mechanism

@KRyan I like games which do that, but I'm very aware that there are games in which that is not a major goal.

@BESW then what is the major goal of having the rules?

that's my point, I'm unaware of any such games and I'm having a hard time conceiving of them

hey @BrianBallsun-Stanton

1:25 AM

@KRyan How about a game tailored to those who enjoy the power fantasies you mentioned above. Conflict resolution for its own sake becomes the goal, and mechanics are in place to support their own implementation.

@BESW I think you're referring to the power fantasies that Brian mentioned, not me

@KRyan Ah, sorry, his tiny icon in my peripheral passed me by.

and while I've certainly seen people "play" with the rules of systems with no regard for roleplaying (theoretical optimization exercises, fluffless arenas)

@BESW I correct you only because I'm not quite sure what you're referring to

I was once invited to a game to "teach them how to RP."

are my references to theoretical optimization (is this a term you're familiar with) and straight PvP in line with what you're thinking of?

1:27 AM

@KRyan No, I did mean Brian's statment.

@BESW well then I'm not sure what he means if not TO or arenas

Before I arrived, the group's process was to create the most mechanically powerful characters they could as a CGen minigame, and then inflict their mechanics on the fantasy setting until the GM was able to take them out without breaking the rules.

ok

It was GM vs players in a "who can exploit the game system more" battle of wits.

and I would argue that the described style of play does not preclude roleplaying (I gather that they weren't, but they could have), or a plot by the GM

that's probably irrelevant

I could imagine a system that literally is designed solely for that with no regard to roleplaying

1:30 AM

Exactly.

I'm not aware of any systems like that that exist, though

Honestly, D&D comes to mind.

I think D&D comes to mind because it is poorly-designed, because I think that marrying mechanics and roleplaying was a design goal

If you strip the fluff and just look at the mechanics, it has little (though admittedly not no) regard for characterization.

it also doesn't prevent it

I ignore most of the default fluff in favor of inserting my own

1:31 AM

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that RPers gonna RP.

allows for more unique and interesting characters

my character rather than the one WotC wrote up

@BESW this, I think, is the point of the Stormwind Fallacy

In fact, that's why I was invited to that optimization game: I had a reputation for RPing in the most dire of mechanical circumstances.

and on some level, the inverse: "that munchkin who was a cheating bastard and a terrible roleplayer and abused the mechanics all the time? He'd still be a terrible roleplayer if you gave him a weak character that could not be abused."

yes, with new players, worrying too much about mechanical success can lead them to not giving roleplaying due consideration, particularly in rules-heavy games that can be overwhelming

yes, most systems have roleplaying concepts that are just not going to work at a given level of play, and yes D&D in particular is really dishonest about which those are.

yes, there are levels of optimization that eliminate all risk of failure and therefore pretty much nullify any interesting roleplay

but all of these, I think, are extremes with very wide areas of "play nice" between them

Agreed.

but then I have literally had people tell me I would roleplay better if my character, scratch that, the characters in the entire party, were weaker.

1:39 AM

There's some very strong experiential evidence to support that.

Being unable to solve problems mechanically forces a player to either improvise a way out of the situation narratively, or have his character die.

"I cannot possibly survive this fight" is a very strong motivator for convincing everyone to sit down and talk it out.

The problem comes when you think that's the only way to encourage RP, but sadly it is also true that when you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

wow, just wow

that sort of assumes that the DM is incapable of challenging a mechanically-superior party

actually, a thought I just had, and this never dawned on me

you know why I optimize?

I wish I had time to discuss that now.

PCs with effective mechanical solutions to any given situation are more likely to use them, and for people who find RP burdensome or who were trained to think of RP as "what you do when you're not fighting," that means less RP.

because I like epic games of heroes who actually do pretty significant things, but I despise higher-level D&D

so we, as a group, replace higher levels with stronger optimization

1:42 AM

@KRyan "If it can be fixed, it's not broken?"

@BESW considering that the claim was that the roleplaying in my games is inferior because we have strong characters, yes. Because we have strong characters facing strong opposition, and we do not have mechanical win buttons – or more accurately, we do, and the DM knows it and trips us up

@KRyan Then that would be the argument: your PC power to enemy power ratio is unchanged.

"You need a smart DM to encourage RP if optimization is high"

But keep in mind, that is an Oberoni Fallacy in action.

Do we actually care if it's broken?

1:45 AM

You're relying on the GM to change the game's difficulty from the basic level expected by the system, in order to compensate for player choice and maintain the expected experience norm.

I'm not saying that's bad; it's an essential part of any game, I think.

Yeah I saw that while playing LoL also

But it is changing the game's basic assumptions, and as a result it's something you can't expect someone in a debate to just know.

@BESW probably fair, but ultimately at least in 3.x it's an almost meaningless statement because, well, the expected norm is all over the place

I can name monsters so terribly designed that I could not take them on as a CR-appropriate encounter even if I prepared especially for them

at least, not without measures I personally find too extreme

(though, of course, I'm aware that anything can be done)

Now I'm curious

@KRyan Again, I agree but that is not a common truth.

1:48 AM

@Zachiel read Monster Manual II, it's horrendous. In particular, take a look at the CR 9 Adamantine Horror: it has at will disjunction

Consider that Gareth is constantly frustrated by people not taking his careful maths seriously because their experience doesn't match his findings.

@BESW how not? I'm going by the system used by the rules to dictate what you are "supposed" to be doing

3.5 is so insane that there is no baseline, I agree, but if even Gareth thinks there is, how can you expect Joe GM to recognize that 3.5 is all over the map?

Gareth is confident that there's some mathematical baseline Ideal 3.5 Experience from which all experiences deviate by some definable degree.

@BESW well, this is part of the reason why I strongly feel that knowledge of optimization, even if not put into practice, is an important part of the system. I also consider that a failing of the system and pretty awful design, but I think it's a fact.

(I use "ideal" in the "conceptual rather than real" sense, not the "perfect" sense.)

1:51 AM

@BESW that's... bizarre. I'm not sure why he thinks that

@KRyan Because for a logical, mathematical mind it's comforting to reduce things to absolutes, and because for that same mind it's very hard to wrap your head around the concept that with all those numbers and charts and tables there's nothing solid beneath them?

All that math ought to be supported by something! Numbers don't just appear!

@BESW actually, I mostly find it bizarre because Gareth knows just how bad 3.x's design is and how all-over-the-place the CR rules in particular are

and I really would be shocked if he actually believed that there is any consistent model for all creatures' CR

[shrug] Even Vulcans aren't perfectly logical.

actually, at this point I'm talking more about the Gareth I know; what you describe does not fit my experience with him

because he's not particularly hardcore everything must be numbers and rational and the like, at least in my experience

but maybe I just have that wrong

I think there is no consistent model but there should have been one

1:56 AM

oh, without a doubt

I don't think he wants to admit that's what he's doing. [grin]

they certainly intended for there to be one

I don't think so

they didn't assign CRs to monsters intending for those numbers to be wrong

or, at least, it's going to take an awful lot to convince me that they did

But it's an underlying flaw of all logical arguments regarding the relative merit of choices in 3.5.

1:57 AM

They hapazardly put some rules togheter and whatever came out was empirycally tested (or not) and revised

You can't possibly declare that X choice is underpowered. That's like saying my shirt is more red.

Underpowered compared to what? More red than what?

And thus all discussions of relative merit break on the back of "But in my campaign..."

undorpowered in regard to some other possible choice?

anyways, time to go now

remind me to read you tomorrow

@random_user Hi!

hi!

@BESW eeeh. yes, you're right, but when feat A is sitting right next to feat B, and A gives you a small bonus to an unimportant stat, while B doubles your damage or something... I think his point was that the thing labeled underpowered was less powerful than other options of the same opportunity/"obscurity" cost

where "obscurity" cost is how many different books/unusual books/unconsidered interactions are involved

and yes, of course, that's horribly subjective

@random_user also hi!

2:06 AM

Right, and he's trying to make absolute declarations.

When someone says that in his campaign X underpowered feature is fine and even powerful, Gareth wants to say "but your campaign deviates drastically from the normal."

Sadly, he is thus far unable to define "the normal" such that he can support these claims.

mm, I have the same feeling but know it to be due entirely to personal anecdotal experience

@random_user What brings you to our neck of the woods?

@KRyan Agreed. It's kind of an "I know it when I see it" situation.

But the poor guy wants to make absolute declarations supported by unassailable logic, because that's his response to ignorance or idiocy: educate 'em into complacency. I laud the concept, but it's sadly doomed in this context.

Education in this context needs to be more gentle and feely.

yeah, hard to do that while the other guy is insulting you

Simply because 3.5 doesn't do logic --unassailable or otherwise.

Just fed magic elephant to a hydra, then triggered it. Blew one of its heads off. Now there is a traumatized elephant in the water, though.

Tweeted by UrsulaV on March 12, 2013 at 1:59 AM

I suspect Gareth's just fallen prey to 3.5's seductive siren cry of "we have numbers! Of course we make sense!"

@BESW no, I don't think so; I think he's just basing his "normal" on his experience and the experience of those he talks to on a regular basis, and inappropriately generalizing it

2:14 AM

The generalization might even be appropriate; it's just not verifiable or quantifiable in any meaningful way.

anyway, I'm going to go, nice chat

Ta!

see ya later

2:54 AM

@DForck42 am now, what's up?

1 hour later…

4:14 AM

Dear printers of Guam: half of you have disconnected numbers listed in the phone book.

2 hours later…

5:57 AM

area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/52380/…

6:09 AM

...what is quilling?

6:24 AM

rpg.stackexchange.com/q/22885/4089 the makings of a sweet question. By sweet I mean "one I'll be watching."

Yes, I have an experience-based answer but no idea how to rephrase the question.

Yeah. It's on the asker to define, otherwise I'd try and tweak it.

Plus it might throw the "Stormwind Fallacy" under site-scrutiny

It needs it IMO

Sigh. I'd try to phrase the question so it's obvious that the SwF is irrelephant to it.

Especially since it appears to be some sort of catch-all in discussing the differences between roll and role-players.

Which is weird, because I've spent years hearing about roll vs role, but didn't hear about the SwF until it was posted on this site.

6:27 AM

lol. Probably a good call, and the higher road. I would probably phrase the question so not only does it beg for the SwF but it would also invite other solutions.

Same here. And I don't consider myself a laymen for that lol

Many things humble me. Many, many things. Not that.

I think it's a meta example of @Magician's postulate that D&D does not exist.

Interesting postulate.

Feb 27 at 5:54, by Magician

And with regards to the whole topic, lately I've been thinking that D&D doesn't exist. It's a mass hallucination, perpetuated by local gaming groups and favourite house rules and forumite misconceptions and the sheer bulk of it. Everyone plays their own D&D.

Some sort of Cartesian argument?

Ahh

I like it.

Indeed. Something Descartes might have thought lol. It's really true.

Feb 27 at 5:57, by Magician

When 4e tried to be an actual game with a unified concept, large proportion of gamers felt betrayed because their D&D wasn't it.

Feb 27 at 6:00, by Magician

So to some extent what Next is promising is the right way of doing it: make a module for everybody, let them assemble what most resembles the D&D that lives in their head. So far the results... Don't impress. Makes me question the need for D&D's existence, other than a cultural artifact from whence other games sprung.

6:29 AM

Yes! This!

Someone said.. Maybe it was @BrianBallsun-Stanton? The only system that is perfect is the one you make yourself.

I've got my own build point system in the works. Likely nothing marketable, but something I could collaboratively make with the people I'll be gaming with

Nov 5 '12 at 8:56, by somori

The only perfect system is one you build yourself :P

It would fill in everything we wish for a gaming system to do. None of us care too much for Oblivion-style herb collection but others would want that. Hence one example of that system perfection differentiation

Your search skills impress me, @BESW

The Google-fu is strong in this one.

hehe

I try for Google capoeira. Usually it just ends up in me sitting down and not much else.

For English we had to find two websites for our research question (half term project, that). This assignment was surprisingly difficult because not only did we have to find a "good" one but also a "bad" one, using the CRAAP method.

I'm good at finding credible articles. It was finding the "bad" one that stumped me. Ultimately I just stuck with Wikipedia and called it at that.

Such a curse!

6:36 AM

lol

I found a blog. Did some digging and it turned out to be someone attending the Rockefeller Institute who taught at NYU.

It seemed to me to be Murphy's Law all over again. I must dissect the intricacies by attempting to find more "bad" articles for my paper.

6:58 AM

@LitheOhm - You are cognizant of the statement made under the SwF that "roll" players and "role" players both exist, but any given player is not necessarily one or the other?

Am I the only one laboring under the illusion that it's incorrect to refer to name an argument against a fallacy as if it were that fallacy?

And this being the internet, reference to the argument got shortened to the name we keep using

The reason it's called "The Stormwind Fallacy" is he opened the article by talking about the fallacious statement, "Roleplaying and optimization are mutually exclusive"

Ooookay that was odd

Reverse my posts

Anyway, does that make sense @BESW?

No. Is "Stormwind" the name of the poster?

Yes.

He codified the fallacious statement and wrote the first article about it in recent public memory

I would almost go so far to say that his was the first written work on it

Okay, so it's still at best misleading to say call an essay exposing a fallacy by a name that implies it is itself the fallacy.

7:12 AM

Hrm. On the flip side "The Stormwind Article" just doesn't click. I suppose I can call it Mr. Stormwind's Work

" Seriously, this is better then some of the crap that gets submitted to professional short-story anthologies (according to my wife who is a published author)." <-Suddenly all that effort for +1 point is vindicated

"The Stormwind Fallacy essay" would do nicely.

Especially if its first mention in a conversation was accompanied by a link.

Admittedly all conversations on the SwF would be helped by more linking

Mr. Stormwind wrote very eloquently

(SwFE?)

For a personal convention between us, that works.

The thing to remember is that in a nonstandard community like the RPG "guys on the Internet" group, there is no convention and there can't be.

We're a bunch of tiny groups with casual connection to each other, no way to standardize our dialect.

Except in a few cases that became nigh-universal conventions - DM, for example

Yes, but see also GM, Storyteller, Keeper.

I've adopted GM over DM because it's the most generic.

But DM is probably the most widely recognized.

In this case I made a conscious decision to use a slightly less well-known term because I valued its system neutrality.

7:22 AM

GM runs a fierce second place, though

I tend to default to GM as well

7:38 AM

STAND THE HECK BACK @BESW, THERE'S A PLANESCAPE/WOD CROSSOVER QUESTION

Well okay can't make epic answer yet

Need to know which Hunter he's using

Sadness

8:00 AM

...1,007 rep to moderator tools access. Oh, goody.

[contains his excitement]

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

0

Q: Is OD&D faster than D&D 3e at low levels, and why?

I've never played OD&D, AD&D or retro-clones, but fans of those games often say they run much faster than D&D 3e and 4e, especially to resolve combat. However, it's my experience that D&D at low levels (say, 1-6) runs combat pretty quickly too. Those of you who have played both o...

dnd-3.5e dungeons-and-dragons osr e6

I feel like replying "But 4e is pretty darn fast compared to 3e".

However, that doesn't answer the question.

Based on what I've heard, OD&D experiences were so individual to each group and GM that a statement like that can't be made generally for the system.

And considering that D&D is a hallucination‌, comparing two experiences of it objectively seems doomed to failure.

@Magician You need to write a blog post about that, so I can link to it, too.

You also need to start playing FATE so I can rip off your ideas in that system like I did in 4e.

8:43 AM

Put down my experiences to it anyhoo

Also morning all

4 hours later…

12:25 PM

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130311.html

rpg.drivethrustuff.com/rpg_gmsday.php

0

Q: Get started with RPGs

I don't know anything about RPGs, but I would like to start with Dungeons and Dragons. Where do I begin, what do I have to do?

dungeons-and-dragons new-players

Isn't there a dupe of that?

or should you just close it as not constructive?

nvm, mxy got it

18

Q: What is role-playing, and where do I start?

I have been told that roleplaying is great fun. I've looked and looked and it all seems so complicated. Could anyone tell me a good place to start, and what sort of things you end up doing in roleplaying?

12:47 PM

0

Q: Dealing with skill rerolls by several players

I could use some advice as a GM on how to handle rolls which get repeated by several players one after the other. Example 1 The PCs stand in front of a locked door and try to force it. The tough guy: "Stand back, I'll handle this!" Gives it a try, fails his roll, the door stands. Up come...

gm-techniques system-agnostic skill-check

If I didn't have an infected finger to soak, I'd be writing up an "if failure is not interesting then don't ask for the roll" response.

1:11 PM

erro

@Eric Hi!

@C.Ross it is NC, but yeah closing as duplicate is friendlier (plus the new heading is awesome "this question has answers here: link ")

@BESW Hey @BESW, Getting the answers you're looking with your grapple/rake question?

Between 'em, I think so.

I agree those rules are one big nest of ants...

*hill

1:19 PM

Aye.

Between failing to standardize conventions between publications, holdovers from previous editions, and the hallucinogenic nature of D&D as a whole...

I'm considering asking if there's a definite answer as to how many extra rake attacks a monster gets when grappling (ignoring Rake's use with Improved Grab and Pounce).

Rake's definition says 2, most of the time. Actual monster entries seem to disagree though.

Sorry, I'd be more talkative but I'm soaking an infected finger and have to peck-type with the other hand.

@BESW :( been there. What'd you do to it?

Aggressive nail-biting due to stress and avoidance issues.

@BESW no worries, I'm a compulsive groomer myself :)

1:46 PM

@BESW working on that, actually. Slooowly. Once you stop writing, even for a short while, it's so hard to start again.

@Magician that's one of the reasons Jeff created SE: codinghorror.com/blog/2011/02/how-to-write-without-writing.html

@waxeagle Huh, interesting. And it works, too :)

Cute.

@Magician yes it does

That explains a lot about my relationship to SE, for sures.

1:49 PM

although it's a fail on SO sometimes. too many answers there are just code

but if you take a minute and write words with your code, you often end up rewarded for it. take this question from yesterday: stackoverflow.com/questions/15346468/… . I posted the latest answer, but it's the only one that took the time to explain the whole thing.

I see the discussion of late has been... stormy.

@Magician yeah I usually try not to stir the pot too much but sometimes....

purely unintentional :|

@Magician Discussion where, here?

@BESW Any suggestions from that sale? I hear Fiasco is nice...

@BESW Yeah. I was making a pun. Nevermind :P.

1:58 PM

@Magician I thought so.

@Eric I've heard that too, but never tried it.

@Eric Fiasco is nice. And Marvel Heroic RPG is interesting, too.

@Magician I've got a hard copy of heroic, but I haven't found anyone to play it with yet

I'd recommend Strands of Fate, but the FATE Core is coming out relatively soon...

@waxeagle I'm yet to play it, too. But that'll likely happen next week, once we wrap up our unexpected DRYH adventure, that's somehow grown to 3 sessions...

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