"Syndrome" Syndrome: or the Fallacy of "Special"

[GMforPowergamers]

as a parent of kids that age, the 'celebration of mediocrity' point is a valid one, in my opinion.

qft...

 

[Umbran]

Surely the writers don't place the movie's message in the mouth of the movie's villain, or of a character who is merely a petulant child at the time the line is delivered. This would cause nearly everyone who sees the movie to miss the message, because it's been said by somebody who, in context, we can't trust.

Sure they would - in general, villains and petulant kids are wrong. The audience would expect the message to be some negation of whatever such characters happen to believe.

In the case of this movie, I think one can say that the negation is that the line is irrelevant. Comparing who is more or less special is pointless and ultimately unfulfilling - what matters isn't what you can do, but what you choose to do.

I think that rather goes for the game, too.

 

[rogueattorney]

I think missed in this is that when Dash says "when everyone is special, no one will be," he thinks it's bad. When Syndrome says it, he thinks it's good.

Dash is the gifted athlete or student who sees everyone put through a mediocre challenge where everyone get the same little trophy or star. He's begging to be challenged for real.

Syndrome is the one charging $50 per head to enter a beauty contest and then gives every contestant a prize to make sure his customers don't get their feelings hurt and re-enter the contest next year.

It's interesting that the younger Syndrome had been discouraged from excelling with his amazing gifts as a child, too. Much like Dash had. His frustration turned to life-long rage, a direction it wouldn't have been too difficult imagining Dash heading down.

I could get real political about state enforced mediocrity and the fate of the super heroes in that movie - humiliated, beat down, and eventually rounded up and murdered - but I won't.

 

[Marius Delphus]

Sure they would - in general, villains and petulant kids are wrong. The audience would expect the message to be some negation of whatever such characters happen to believe.

Just to nitpick, I'd say that in this case, the line given to the villain or petulant child is the *antithesis* of the movie's message, so I'm going to assume we actually agree. But I do take your point that if the antithesis of the message comes out clearly enough, the actual message is equally clear.

 

[Belen]

In any event, I was speaking of meaningful choices during combat, not at character creation. When the wizard player hems and haws over his spell list trying to decide which of his 5 encounter-winning options to use (and which to save for later), while the fighter's only meaningful decision is which opponent to hit next, I'm saying the wizard's play experience could be viewed as "more special."

Only if you view the game as players competing with each other and the DM. Maybe Wizards has decided that this is how most people play the game.

Every other character class has meaningful decisions in combat. In 1e/2e, they could get creative by sliding under the orc etc. A Wizard could cast a spell and pray that no one hit them.

In 3e, every class could take feat chains that gave them cool things to do in combat. A Wizard could cast a spell and pray they made their concentration check.

I know that it is currently in vogue to use the meme of Wizards that could do everything and make every other class feel bad, but that is just not the case.

The only time I have seen such an issue crop up is when a DM allowed a Wizard to get away with murder. This is a player/DM issue.

In a game where either (1) the wizard can end the encounter in one fell swoop or (2) the wizard can save his spell but the rest of the characters must take a few rounds to achieve the same end, IMO the other players could be excused for thinking the wizard is cheating just a bit. In a game where the CODzilla barrels through a fight and achieves the same thing all the other melee characters, combined, achieved (and in the case of the druid, takes up nearly as much game time as all the other melee characters, combined), and afterwards heals the other melee characters to boot, IMO the other players could be excused for thinking the CODzilla is a bit of a cheat.

I can see why you may have that opinion if you suffered through bad DMs or overreaching players. One issue with 3e was the true lack of consequences for casters, such as extended periods to cast spells or aging effects etc. Heck, they could almost never be threatened.

However, playing by the rules is not cheating. The players play a cooperative game. Jealousy defeats the purpose. It seems that a lot of people had Wizard envy or experiences games where the DM just did not challenge the Wizard.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Indeed. I don't know jack squat about 4e, but in my 3.5 Age of Worms game, when we faced whatever demon it was near the end that could have been a TPK, my shifter ranger/barbarian (who had the Pounce ability from the Reachrunner prestige class) was able to go first, critted the thing, and did about 120 points of damage in the first round. The sorcerer later caused a critically fumbled save when he banished the creature (using limited wish to cast as a cleric, IIRC) on the next action, but it was almost anti-climactic at that point. The combat had clearly started off on completely the wrong footing for the monster because of a ranger of all things..

And still, despite you performing an improbable and unlikely feat, it made no difference to the outcome of the combat at all. If you had not even been there, the sorceror would still have won the fight for you.

You get lucky, the monster has a slightly hard time. The sorceror gets lucky and the combat is over.

 

[Belen]

And still, despite you performing an improbable and unlikely feat, it made no difference to the outcome of the combat at all. If you had not even been there, the sorceror would still have won the fight for you.

You get lucky, the monster has a slightly hard time. The sorceror gets lucky and the combat is over.

When did this argument get codified? I think my time away from ENWorld has caused me to miss lots of edition wars goodness.

I have seen fighters one round BBEGs at high level before a wizard gt a chance to go. High level 3e was always about who got the nuke out first.

 

[TwinBahamut]

The "anti-political correctness" message is in the movie, though never stated outright.

It is most apparent when Bob and Helen are arguing after Bob comes in late. At one point Bob says, "They keep coming up with new ways to celebrate mediocrity." This is in reference to Dash's 'graduation' ceremony, moving from 4th grade to 5th grade.

As a parent of kids that age, the 'celebration of mediocrity' point is a valid one, in my opinion.

You know, I don't really agree. For one, I think the context of that scene and Bob's current mental state when he says that may be a strong element of what we are supposed to take from it (single lines out of context can be taken to mean anything, really), but it has been so long since I have seen the movie that I can't remember this scene at all.

Honestly, I might just write this one off as one of those cases where Pixar throws in some crude political commentary that is mostly unimportant to the central themes of the story (kind of like the strong commentary on comercialism and such you see in Wall*E that has absolutely nothing to do with the main action of Wall*E's own story). This is the one criticism I would give to almost all of Pixar's works. They are not perfect, after all.

 

[Doug McCrae]

It's true that the best damage dealers in 3e are the melee guys. I had a warblade who dealt about 160 dmg on a charge at level 10. But the casters can do so much more. Solve non-combat challenges, movement, battlefield control, save-or-f--ked-up. There's only one thing the wizard can't do as well as a min-maxed melee guy. And clerics and druids don't have that weakness. I've seen a shapeshifted druid dealing well over 100 dmg a round in the vicinity of level 10. This is using splatbooks such as Spell Compendium ofc, the Bite spells. And the druid can do lots and lots of other things too.

Once you get to around level 7 in 3e, casters are best. At levels 1-4, the melee guys are top dogs. D&D's kind of broken that way, but the whole clunky thing sort of almost works if you just play at levels 3-6.

I've been saying casters are OP long before 4e. Honest. Balance has always been a big deal to me.

 

[Marius Delphus]

Only if you view the game as players competing with each other and the DM. Maybe Wizards has decided that this is how most people play the game.

I don't view the game this way, and it's still my contention that (a) pre-4E spellcasters have more cool options on their character sheet than non-spellcasters do, and (b) 4E appears to have "leveled the playing field" in this respect.

I know that it is currently in vogue to use the meme of Wizards that could do everything and make every other class feel bad, but that is just not the case.

I hate memes, and I don't care what's in vogue. I'm speaking from experience as (a) a 1E–2E player who has used single high-level wizard/magic-user, illusionist, cleric, and druid spells to effectively end combats in a single round and (b) a 1E–3E DM who's had players do this with wizards/magic-users, illusionists, clerics, and druids.

The only time I have seen such an issue crop up is when a DM allowed a Wizard to get away with murder. This is a player/DM issue.

Not necessarily. Playing completely within the rules, it's possible, for example, for a wizard to seem far more awesome than a fighter during combat and have much more impact. I've seen it happen in fairly-run games where everyone liked each other, nothing peculiar was going on, and no significant house rules were in play.

I can see why you may have that opinion if you suffered through bad DMs or overreaching players.

It's not necessary to have had either, as I state above.

One issue with 3e was the true lack of consequences for casters, such as extended periods to cast spells or aging effects etc. Heck, they could almost never be threatened.

This is not a problem I've ever really had.

However, playing by the rules is not cheating. The players play a cooperative game. Jealousy defeats the purpose. It seems that a lot of people had Wizard envy or experiences games where the DM just did not challenge the Wizard.

But it can *feel* like somebody's cheating. Without any player animosity, and with all players focused on cooperating in-game, in pre-4E games, it's possible for high-level primary spellcasters to "steal the show" and have plenty of options left over, while the non-spellcasters don't have that many options.