D&D 5E 5e and the Cheesecake Factory: Explaining Good Enough

[Oofta]

Different question altogether from the evaluation of how safe the car is -- ie the quality of the car's safety. It's a good question, but not the same one.

The US, and many other countries, alongside the meat industries, grade meat for sale. I'd say that a high quality steak cannot be grade D meat, but rather Prime. How it's cooked, what it's seasoned with, which cut you pick, yes, these things are preferences. But the presence of a preference in some areas doesn't mean that everything is preference.

But quality is defined largely on how much intramuscular fat there is because that's what people like. It's not inherently higher quality, for some people a cut of beef with a lower fat content might be preferred even if they have to prepare it differently.

 

[Oofta]

Of course there is, they are different things. But, the argument was that quality is only a matter of preference. Easily proved to be false, hopefully discarded, and now we can actually look at things without that canard floating about and differentiate what counts for quality and what counts for preference.

You mean when assessing quality? Are you amused that because it argues against the position that quality is only preference/opinion, or something else?

I can look at a game, and without any regard to my preference, evaluate if it's mechanics and features achieve the goal the game sets out to do. I can, without regard to preference, evaluate the grammar and spelling of the text to determine if the editing was of quality. I can, without regard to preference, analysis how the rules are laid out -- are related rules placed conveniently, or do I have to flip between pages to find them. I can analyze the rules to see how and what authorities are granted and how those interact -- is it coherent, does it fight itself? These things are not preferences, but I will absolutely bring my preferences in after this analysis to see if I want to run this game. I find that FATE is a high quality game, and I don't want to run it. My dislike for some things doesn't mean I need to call the game low quality.

And, ultimately, this is what the "quality as subjective opinion" argument leads to. If my subjective opinion of a game (ie, do I like it) is that I do not, then, according to what you've explicitly said, it is of low quality. You caveat this with 'for that individual' but then have also talked about quality as a consensus or generally determine status. You can't have it both ways -- you can't say quality is in the eye of the beholder and claim 5e must be of good quality because so many people like it. Like logically can't, obviously you're more than capable of actually saying this.

You can measure things. you can assign a "level of quality" to the results of those measurements.

For the most part, it's still just an arbitrary measurement like pounds or kilos.

In addition, still has little to do with objective worth of TTRPGs. You're comparing apples to sonnets.

 

[Ovinomancer]

But quality is defined largely on how much intramuscular fat there is because that's what people like. It's not inherently higher quality, for some people a cut of beef with a lower fat content might be preferred even if they have to prepare it differently.

You keep swapping preference in for quality, and pretending these are the same thing. Things you like are not necessarily quality things. I love, as in watch whenever it's on and seek it out at times when it's not, the movie Pitch Perfect. It's not a high quality movie, but man, I enjoy the heck out of it. According to you, though, my liking it a lot means it's high quality for me. Yet, I disagree with this, I can point to any number of flaws in the movie. My liking it is not the same as my viewing it as quality.

When I bought my first car, it's was NOT a quality car. But, it was mine, and I loved it. My like of that car was not indicative of it's quality.

 

[Oofta]

You keep swapping preference in for quality, and pretending these are the same thing. Things you like are not necessarily quality things. I love, as in watch whenever it's on and seek it out at times when it's not, the movie Pitch Perfect. It's not a high quality movie, but man, I enjoy the heck out of it. According to you, though, my liking it a lot means it's high quality for me. Yet, I disagree with this, I can point to any number of flaws in the movie. My liking it is not the same as my viewing it as quality.

When I bought my first car, it's was NOT a quality car. But, it was mine, and I loved it. My like of that car was not indicative of it's quality.

And you keep swapping physical objects with TTRPGs while dancing around or ignoring that some of your "quality measurements" like the grade of beef are just a way of categorizing things based on preference.

Anyway, I need to go back to ignoring this. Have a good one.

 

[Ovinomancer]

You can measure things. you can assign a "level of quality" to the results of those measurements.

For the most part, it's still just an arbitrary measurement like pounds or kilos.

In addition, still has little to do with objective worth of TTRPGs. You're comparing apples to sonnets.

I violently disagree it has nothing to do with TTRPGs. That you insist RPGs are special, and immune from any objective measure, is a strange position that appears to be taken so that any criticism of a favorite can be dismissed. It's an emotional argument, not a logical one.

Let's look at RIFTS, from Palladium. That game had conflicting systems in it. It's rules didn't achieve the idea on tin, bogging down in strange sub-systems at weird times and having almost nothing available for important, common occurrences. The character options ranged in power so vastly that you could end up with a vastly powerful dragon PC and a vagabond PC (like, literally a hobo). Directions on how to run the game were terrible -- you had to bring your own understanding along and just make it work. RIFTS was a poor RPG system. However, it was an amazing setting, and I had massive amounts of fun with it, warts and all. So, was it high quality because I liked it?

 

[Maxperson]

I'm amused how measurements magically turn into opinions so that you can preserve the argument. I mean, they have anatomically correct dummies that have advanced sensors that can measure impacts and tell you if injury (and how severe) occurs, then they actually crash cars and take those measurements, which show if and how people are hurt in those crashes and how the safety features work to reduce those injuries, but, hey, it's really just opinions, right?

Just out of curiosity, what does this have to do with art?

 

[Ovinomancer]

And you keep swapping physical objects with TTRPGs while dancing around or ignoring that some of your "quality measurements" like the grade of beef are just a way of categorizing things based on preference.

Anyway, I need to go back to ignoring this. Have a good one.

Which quality measurements have I offered that offend you as being opinions masquerading as facts? Your complaint is hollow, because it supposes what I'm doing is a trojan horse to smuggle something else in. They aren't. I can evaluate RPGs without regard to preference, but I sure as hell shouldn't pick one to play without referring to my preferences. I think you're mixing up analyzing an RPG with determining if it's superior or should be played. Don't care what you chose to play except to hope it's fun for you. However, whatever you choose to play based on your preferences really doesn't impact good analysis of what and how the game does what it does.

For instance, I listed above the quality of the copyediting as a measure of quality. It is -- fewer mistakes is a higher quality of copyediting. Should you care about this? I dunno, that's up to you. If you have a high tolerance for spelling and grammar mistakes, then this measure of quality is of less value to you when making a selection. It doesn't remove the evaluation of the quality of the copyediting.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Just out of curiosity, what does this have to do with art?

I dunno, did you lose your place in the thread? You responded to Umbran's response to me. If you meant to be talking about art, it was unclear, as the response Umbran made to me wasn't on the topic of art.

 

[Oofta]

I violently disagree it has nothing to do with TTRPGs. That you insist RPGs are special, and immune from any objective measure, is a strange position that appears to be taken so that any criticism of a favorite can be dismissed. It's an emotional argument, not a logical one.

Let's look at RIFTS, from Palladium. That game had conflicting systems in it. It's rules didn't achieve the idea on tin, bogging down in strange sub-systems at weird times and having almost nothing available for important, common occurrences. The character options ranged in power so vastly that you could end up with a vastly powerful dragon PC and a vagabond PC (like, literally a hobo). Directions on how to run the game were terrible -- you had to bring your own understanding along and just make it work. RIFTS was a poor RPG system. However, it was an amazing setting, and I had massive amounts of fun with it, warts and all. So, was it high quality because I liked it?

Well as long as you violently disagree I guess that makes you right.

I've explained multiple times that I agree there are some objective measures of a TTRPG that I list as coherence, consistency and conciseness. That's the baseline. Everything beyond that is preference and opinion.

But as long as you violently disagree I guess it's fine that you ignore that and keep insisting that the grade of beef is an inherent measurement of quality that has anything to do with TTRPGs.

 

[Maxperson]

I dunno, did you lose your place in the thread? You responded to Umbran's response to me. If you meant to be talking about art, it was unclear, as the response Umbran made to me wasn't on the topic of art.

Just wondering since this started with movies and movies are art.