The Guards at the Gate Quote

[El Mahdi]

Have you ever had to answer the question, "Does this dress make my butt look big?"

How you say it matters, no matter what your intent may be.

You will answer my question! And understand this: how you answer is just as important as correctly answering...

Does this armor make my butt look big???

 

[El Mahdi]

"You look beautiful."

or

"Much better than the other one. And I really liked the other one."

or

"Are you trying to turn me on? Here? In the store?"

or

"Good golly, miss molly, you so fine I lose my mind!"

Don't even try to answer the question directly. Anything else works better.

Obi-Wan has taught you well. You have controlled your fear.

Indeed you are powerful, as the Emperor has foreseen.


*vBulletin is mocking me also. I so wanted to XP this.

 

[I'm A Banana]

"Are you trying to turn me on? Here? In the store?" -- [MENTION=10324]jonesy[/MENTION]

 

[pauljathome]

Any time a GMing book gives advice on how to run the game, it has to choose one style over another. My point is that there is nothing particularly objectionable about Wyatt's choice of style, beyond the obvious point that some people prefer other styles.

Actually, it doesn't. There are lots of books of GM advice that point out that there are alternative ways of gaming and that different groups and different people prefer different mixes of the alternatives.

And it certainly isn't a matter of space since the addition of one tiny little word "if" would have made the quote quite unobjectionable.

As I said earlier, I have no problem at all with strong advice in a game that is intended for one play style (I used Feng Shui as my example).

But I think that 4th edition D&D should have better tried to support multiple styles.

Fundamentally, I believe THAT is what got people upset. D&D went from openly supporting multiple playing styles to being presented as strongly favouring a subset of those playing styles. And what is quite acceptable for smaller more focussed games was unacceptable to many people for the game that was 90 odd % of our environment

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Just you remember, it's not all fun and games for the guards either, sometimes there is danger, sometimes there are... adventurers!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPXG4pdPj4w]Python Gate[/ame]

The Auld Grump

 

[S'mon]

I'm just glad my 2 minutes spent googling for that old pic brought so much joy to so many.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Who reads a contemporary RPG guidebook and gets offended by being told that something they like in their games - non-encounter, non-action driving scenes with gate guards - aren't fun? If you disagree, note the disagreement and move on!

True, I'm not offended by it. I do think it's terrible advice, and certainly less excusable than what Gygax wrote all those years ago before the hobby had even developed. And, I think Gygax gave some terrible advice in his time, too.

What I don't get is the complaints that it's "terrible advice." What does it matter to anyone that some stranger - whose GMing practice is being shaped by the 4e DMG - might be running games in a different style? And if those strangers really want to run exploration-heavy games with free-floating colour, I'm sure they'll find there way there regardless of what they might have read in the 4e DMG.

It would be terrible advice if it was prone to produce games that were actually inferior in some way. But where's the evidence for that? I haven't seen any.

Because it will produce inferior games if followed for many groups. It would for my group. It would for others in this thread. While most of us would eventually ignore it, if I had only the DMG to go on, it'd slow down my fun to start out with. It'd actively hamper my fun.

Luckily for me, I started with my older brother getting me into the game. And, luckily for me, I'm pretty intelligent and charismatic (and good looking... I could go on), so when I started GMing myself, I got better pretty quickly (and am probably slowly improving to this day).

However, if I only had the DMG for advice to go on, and I followed the advice that he gives there, I'd be missing out on a type of fun I find fundamentally improves the game for my group. So, in my mind, if advice on Fun actively hampers the Fun I'll be having, it's terrible advice. The logic seems simple to me.

While the play style the advice will produce may work great for a different group, that matters little to giving advice on Fun to the masses. Any sort of objective value judgement on Fun is probably terrible advice, especially if it's declaring a particular common play style better than other common play styles in the hobby. And, not just better, but those other play styles "not fun" in general.

Why you can't see that as terrible advice is beyond me. He's giving advice that would actively hurt Fun for a lot of people if they followed it (passively hurting it might be bad, but actively hurting it makes it terrible, in my opinion). To me, the quality advice of advice should be judged on "what would happen if I followed this?" and not "how easy is it to ignore this?" As always, play what you like

 

[S'mon]

True, I'm not offended by it. I do think it's terrible advice, and certainly less excusable than what Gygax wrote all those years ago before the hobby had even developed. And, I think Gygax gave some terrible advice in his time, too.

Yes - I'm not offended, I just think it's terrible advice.

And I agree Gygax gave bad advice too - not on treasure placement; but his admonitions to punish problem players with in-game sanctions like blue bolts from the heavens is not a good idea, IMO. Also, some of his rules suck - 1e training costs at low level, for instance, are much too high. Not 'offensive', though, just poor.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Yes - I'm not offended, I just think it's terrible advice.

And I agree Gygax gave bad advice too - not on treasure placement; but his admonitions to punish problem players with in-game sanctions like blue bolts from the heavens is not a good idea, IMO. Also, some of his rules suck - 1e training costs at low level, for instance, are much too high. Not 'offensive', though, just poor.

Yeah, my thoughts on his terrible advice include ethereal mummies and the like (can't XP you again yet). Basically those methods of dealing with problem players, even if his number one suggestion was "don't play with them."

 

[jonesy]

Bunnies! Look, over there!