Your quote seems to imply that that is what D&D meant. If not, why "Because the system and paradigm was not to my taste at all....D&D was not the game for me" if the system and the paradigm of D&D did not mean "The arbitrariness, the strange limitations, the lack of focus on things that made the game fun, and the focus on things that made it boring and bizarre"?
I don't see the implication. He asked, and I answered, but the fact that I didn't much like D&D during the "golden age" of the late seventies and early 80s and in fact left D&D for greener pastures during those years was tangential and unrelated to my point.
D&D has always been playable under a variety of playstyles, not just a single one. The mechanics sometimes didn't support you as well as I'd have liked, but that's really beside the point. Especially since they do now, under several possible rulesets, including late era 2e, 3e and 4e.
In fact, if anything I'm an example of what I've been talking about all along. There's a reason that a lot of people would rather just make a search check instead of give a detailed account of my searching... they think it's boring. Apparently the game designers agree, since several iterations of the rules now have allowed for that option.
Ariosto made a rather smug and dismissive claim that such players might as well not even play D&D at all, don't even recognize that it's a game, or are lacking in imagination, to paraphrase.
I don't see how that's a cause for confusion. I'm refuting the rather insulting notion that only unimaginitive people could possibly have a reason for that playstyle. Also, his claim that I might as well not play D&D at all then is nonsensical; for one thing, I
don't play the editions that are most closely associated with the playstyle he's talking about, and the editions I do play address that problem to my satisfaction. Therefore, I can play them, they support my preferred playstyle, and we all have fun. What's the problem?
Other than that Ariosto is making the bizarre claim that there's only one way to play D&D, and he's completely ignoring any developments in the rules systems that post-date 1985 or so? And is being insulting and dismissive to boot?
However, I believe he made a separate point assuming that option 2 is in some way true. Someone please correct me if I misinterpreted his post, or if I am wrong in my recollection. But this new argument (option 2 is correct) is distinct from the point he was making about statistical analysis (one of the three options must be correct).
It's not 100% clear if he was making that point, but it sure seemed like he was implying it. Since correlation (which I don't believe exists) does not demand causality, my point was from the beginning that even if this hypothetical correlation exists, it's some other variable that's the cause of the problem.
