My broader hope is that we in the hobby can accept the diversity of other people's experience without trying to rationalize that experience within our own world view.
So given that this is addressed to me rather than the other party involved in the exchange, I have to assume that is where your sympathies lie here?
Ok, then I have to ask:
Where in your model outlined above is there space for my claim, my personal experience, to be accepted without the other party’s rationalizing their own experience within their own world view such that it leads to (a) forcing me to make multiple clarifications (that (i) don’t involve me impugning the questioning party’s integrity but rather engaging sincerely with the request…multiple times + (ii) I’d rather be doing something else + (iii) the thread now has to endure a significant sidetrack) and then (b) ultimately leads me to having to endure being called “vile” after multiple sincere attempts (time and mental bandwidth spent) to clarify?
Ultimately, where is the space in your model for my position (which is true in every way a thing can be true; technically, deductively, anecdotally non-personal, personally, autobiographically, emotionally as I’ve got quite a bit invested in actual life scars and currency in what I’ve said) and my right to not have someone else’s experience rationalized via their world view sufficient to invoke my time for multiple clarifications and then ultimately call me “vile (by proxy of holding whatever position or saying whatever thing they perceive has happened here…it still isn’t clear to me)?”
By my reckoning, through the lens of this exchange and your post to me here (rather than this being addressed to the person who called me “vile”), the upshot of your model is “there is no space.”
So given that this is addressed to me rather than the other party involved in the exchange, I have to assume that is where your sympathies lie here?
Ok, then I have to ask:
Where in your model outlined above is there space for my claim, my personal experience, to be accepted without the other party’s rationalizing their own experience within their own world view such that it leads to (a) forcing me to make multiple clarifications (that (i) don’t involve me impugning the questioning party’s integrity but rather engaging sincerely with the request…multiple times + (ii) I’d rather be doing something else + (iii) the thread now has to endure a significant sidetrack) and then (b) ultimately leads me to having to endure being called “vile” after multiple sincere attempts (time and mental bandwidth spent) to clarify?
Ultimately, where is the space in your model for my position (which is true in every way a thing can be true; technically, deductively, anecdotally non-personal, personally, autobiographically, emotionally as I’ve got quite a bit invested in actual life scars and currency in what I’ve said) and my right to not have someone else’s experience rationalized via their world view sufficient to invoke my time for multiple clarifications and then ultimately call me “vile (by proxy of holding whatever position or saying whatever thing they perceive has happened here…it still isn’t clear to me)?”
By my reckoning, through the lens of this exchange and your post to me here (rather than this being addressed to the person who called me “vile”), the upshot of your model is “there is no space.”
There's a reason that I prefaced my comment by noting that I did not agree with @clearstream 's interpretation of your comments, but that I could also see how they came to that interpretation based on the prior use of ableist language in the hobby and indeed within this very thread (which was subject to mod text earlier). Because you are speaking from your experience, and (clearly) in good faith. I'm not trying to choose sides here. But just flagging, without getting into my own history or circumstance, that the way these conversations veer towards pathology and ableism makes me, also, uncomfortable.
You’re escalating this pretty crazily and challenging my integrity (vile?) and I’m starting to get really annoyed, so you need to mea culpa or take measures to resolve this that don’t contain communication with me. I’ll spoil the below:
You need to understand who you’re talking to (and perhaps reread what I wrote in light of that).
Understand that you’re talking to someone that has dealt with chronic Insomnia since age 4. Not a sleepless night. Not “here-and-there.” Not consecutive sleepless nights. Not a few months worth. Not a spate with it for a year. DECADES. I’ve worked through this with cognitive therapy and tons of various (ultimately ineffective) regimes…but I’m persistently cognitively impaired to one degree or another because of it and I do the best I can (despite 2-3 hours of sleep a night…maybe 4 once every few weeks…and then a complete Narcoleptic spiral).
Understand you’re talking to someone working through the progressive cognitive (and more) limitations of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy due to dozens of concussions from age 3 onward.
Understand you’re talking to someone who has cared for multiple people with low-functioning Autism, some of which we attempted various games with (including games that have cognitive loops akin to TTRPGs).
Understand you’re talking to someone who has cared for (and loved deeply as she was my sister) a severely impaired (cognitively and emotionally) drug addict for a decade until her suicide.
Understand you’re talking to someone who carried for his mother…every day (complete care with virtually no Hospice help)…through 22 months of grade 4 glioblastoma, the last 4 months of which were total body Neuropathy and cognitive decline until collapse.
Understand you’re talking to someone’s whose partner is a PHD Chemist yet wakes up routinely with night terrors because of her childhood (one that included a long term regime of self harm which we still deal with).
Understand you’re talking to someone who two of his closest friends run games for someone (his brother) with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the other with Congenital Hydrocephalus (his best friend’s brother). I have also run multiple games for them both.
Understand you’re talking to someone who worked within and adjacent to cognitive science and field work for nearly a decade and have multiple colleagues who still work in the field and keep me abreast of research.
Understand you’re talking to someone who has the deepest possible empathy and well-practiced understanding for people beset by such things.
But also…
Understand that I’m not just talking about these things. Cognitive and behavioral impairment ranges significantly in its impacts and frequency. Infrequent, mild, impairment might be sufficient for someone to OPT-INTO a game that features (what might others might label as dysfunctional…but is not only 100 % FUNCTIONAL FOR THEM…BUT THE INVERSE WOULD YIELD DYSFUNCTIONAL PLAY) MMI, Force, and/or outright Railroading because they are personal aware of the limits of their mentally processing on Thursday evenings for the next 2 months.
My point in this…again…is that MMI/Force/Railroading are not objectively dysfunctional features of play. And those 3 cohorts I mentioned might prefer them to alternatives for those reasons I mentioned. I’m not speaking to any other cohorts…just those 3.
None of this was me saying “Only cognitively impaired people enjoy MMI/Force/Railroad games.” That isn’t even close to what I said. That shouldn’t be close to your takeaway. I spoke in defense of those 3 modes of play exclusively for a particular collective of cohorts…nothing outside of them.
Whatever you think is happening in this exchange…I hope it’s abundantly clear that you’re not only profoundly wide of the mark but boy do you have the wrong target. This was shaping up to be a good, clear series of exchanges and conversation and you’ve just completely nuked it by weaponizing some misbegotten grievance out of nowhere and tried to shame me for it. I am not playing ball with that.
I mean this. If you want to have any exchanges with me in the future you need to apologize and course correct asap. If you think I’m going to back down at your impugning my integrity with “this argument is vile” (utterly wrong) public commentary…man do you have the wrong person.
If an apology and course correction isn’t in the cards on your end, we should go our separate ways permanent-like. I have never blocked anyone on here and never reported anyone ever (nor will I). But say the word and I’ll put you on block so we don’t have any future interactions.
To make sure I now have it right, your intended argument was 1) there are many drivers of preferences that dissolve MMI, 2) among them are some associated with limitations that some folk may experience, 3) you wanted to prioritise such folk for discussion.
When I look back, I can - knowing now what you intended - glean that you had in mind particular out of an unstated number of differing cohorts. So I was wrong about that. At the time, your words to me strongly implied that people must be cognitively impaired (or socially limited) in order to enjoy features that for others will trigger MMI. It's all too common that words easily read one way are intended to read another, but please recall that my first impulse was to confirm understanding. If only you had at that point expanded as you did above! I would say that for me "defending those modes of play" continues to jar because MMI isn't a mode of play... and the framing can be construed / misconstrued in an unattractive way.
I felt additionally concerned that the words written implied that neurodivergent folk might not be able to make a wide range of choices, differing from one another in their preferences. Many of us have burdens and I appreciate you sharing yours. It does help understand your viewpoint, and perhaps you can see why I would have this concern.
If the above is close to what you intended, then for my part I would like us to keep channels open. I am not going to apologise for speaking up when I have concerns about characterisations of neurodivergence. I would rather be shown how my concerns miss their mark, or be blocked if that's how it goes, than fail to uphold inclusive principles.
So given that this is addressed to me rather than the other party involved in the exchange, I have to assume that is where your sympathies lie here?
Ok, then I have to ask:
Where in your model outlined above is there space for my claim, my personal experience, to be accepted without the other party’s rationalizing their own experience within their own world view such that it leads to (a) forcing me to make multiple clarifications (that (i) don’t involve me impugning the questioning party’s integrity but rather engaging sincerely with the request…multiple times + (ii) I’d rather be doing something else + (iii) the thread now has to endure a significant sidetrack) and then (b) ultimately leads me to having to endure being called “vile” after multiple sincere attempts (time and mental bandwidth spent) to clarify?
Ultimately, where is the space in your model for my position (which is true in every way a thing can be true; technically, deductively, anecdotally non-personal, personally, autobiographically, emotionally as I’ve got quite a bit invested in actual life scars and currency in what I’ve said) and my right to not have someone else’s experience rationalized via their world view sufficient to invoke my time for multiple clarifications and then ultimately call me “vile (by proxy of holding whatever position or saying whatever thing they perceive has happened here…it still isn’t clear to me)?”
By my reckoning, through the lens of this exchange and your post to me here (rather than this being addressed to the person who called me “vile”), the upshot of your model is “there is no space.”
Hopefully you've read my last, but perhaps this needs addressing separately. I described an argument I read your words to be making. I asked for confirmation - was that really the argument you intended? And I described that argument as vile.
In doing so, I had firmly in mind the obvious bifurcation
You weren't making the argument I described.
You were making the argument I described.
In the first case, the argument remains vile, but it's not your argument. You have to my reading recently clarified that this is what you intended.
In the second case, you lay claim to the argument, and all that goes with it. Fortunately, in actuality, you eschew the argument.
Which for my part is what I had hoped from the outset.
No one said the player is not part of the table.
A player is not THE table. Big distinction.
I'm pretty sure you knew that reply was coming yet you felt the need to reply which I found strange. Anyways.
It goes beyond even that. @pemerton is essentially saying that a noble from the Known World of Mystara who ends up on Toril should be put up by nobles who would automatically recognize him. Every noble in the multiverse knows this guy is a noble, and not some imposter claiming to be one.
This, of course, can be a big issue. Because for all of my critique of GMs who are overly conservative for no obvious good reason, your third and fourth questions are not trivial. It'd be nice if everyone was willing to accept "You know that thing I did with the situation with the forest and the oil flasks last time? That was probably a bad idea and will tend to lead to degenerate solutions to a lot of problems if it becomes a de-facto houserule, so while I'm not going to try and do any kind of take-back on it, we're not going to do that that way again if it comes up." but many people aren't. And its even worse if you don't think about it any further until the next time it comes up (and worse yet if its a different player who tries it the second time).
So perhaps some people and/or in some systems you can be really casual about this sort of thing, but its not a universal.
You can of course do that and discuss about things later, but I feel ideally you'd get it right in the first place. And the concerns are real, and it is a bit of tightrope to walk. On the one hand you want the cool stunt to be effective and encourage them, on the other hand you don't want it to overshadow the actual features people have invested build options on or become a go-to tactic that is always used from now on. My metric is that more the stunt relies on environmental or other situational conditions that cannot be reliably replicated, more powerful I'll allow it to be.
It goes beyond even that. @pemerton is essentially saying that a noble from the Known World of Mystara who ends up on Toril should be put up by nobles who would automatically recognize him. Every noble in the multiverse knows this guy is a noble, and not some imposter claiming to be one.
It does not matter if the person is a noble or an imposter: they present the same. The noble feature just means you're also not an imposter (no risk and consequences of being found out... you're the real thing.)
Elites often have more in common with their peers in other countries, than with the other social classes in their own country. Thus, I think it would be okay for a group to decide that the trappings and habits of wealth and power, are recognised everywhere.
I do get the idea that, as on Earth, maybe nobility in profoundly different cultures might not treat each other as they would other nobles within the same culture. This runs into the Favoured Enemy problem which motivated the coining of MMI. Essentially, if a mechanic has a narrow application, it needs to be sufficiently powerful that although it seldom matters, it matters enough when it does to be worth bothering with. But that in turn can result in volatile levels of challenge which can be harder to manage... and unfortunately less times it's useful (can feel bad if someone else is deciding when it's useful.)
Solutions then have to hit the balance of
I can see why I would take this... and what it would say about my character (I'm a noble), because either
It almost always counts, so does not have to be all that powerful (always-on or no-cost-to-use features are generally lower power)
Or, it hardly ever counts, but when it does we really value it (conditional or limited-use features are generally higher power)
5e Nobility seems to me to be intended to be almost always on (relatively free to use, although... noblesse oblige and all that). If a group changed that - per the notion that elites are more diverse in their world - then they might prefer to be generous with the effect when it does apply.
I liked this detailed framework within 4e and now its inclusion within 5e in the DMG.
I cannot recall, but did they have something like this in earlier editions? I wouldn't be surprised if they did, although I know within our very closed circle of rpg players we never did use something like this prior 4e.
I have used it at least twice in 5e.
