Let's Talk About Metacurrency

[Reynard]

Most of us have vastly different goals than Micah, it is what it is. I appreciate his play style, but it's very niche.

I don't actually think ot is particularly niche in a field of the niche. Everyone has a specific playstyle. Few are more niche than others. It is just that Micah is not shy about stating his preferences, which I think is refreshing in its way.

I feel as strongly as Micah in the opposite direction: neither immersion nor mechanical fidelity to the simulation are of any importance to me. I expect i am as niche as he, and that is tosay: not particularly.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Most of us have vastly different goals than Micah, it is what it is. I appreciate his play style, but it's very niche.

In a certain way, its an extension of immersion from character into setting. They aren't quite the same of course, but come from some of the same urges.

 

[Reynard]

Given that Boromir keels over dead at the end of Fellowship, that's mighty generous!

That last shot was clearly intended to be a coup de gras. Aragon interrupted it though,but the fight went on too long snd Bormir failed 3 death saves. The GM was nice and have him a dying speech though.

Then the player was like "Im going to play Bormir's brother Faramir. Same stats but, uh, dad doesn't like me."

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't actually think ot is particularly niche in a field of the niche. Everyone has a specific playstyle. Few are more niche than others. It is just that Micah is not shy about stating his preferences, which I think is refreshing in its way.

I feel as strongly as Micah in the opposite direction: neither immersion nor mechanical fidelity to the simulation are of any importance to me. I expect i am as niche as he, and that is tosay: not particularly.

I say this with some comfort in my assessment, but admitting I can't prove it: while perhaps not viewing the hobby as a whole, I think your position is significanly more common in the gaming populace than Micah's. It may well have been the inverse when I entered the hobby where a simulationist streak was significantly more visible.

 

[Reynard]

I say this with some comfort in my assessment, but admitting I can't prove it: while perhaps not viewing the hobby as a whole, I think your position is significanly more common in the gaming populace than Micah's. It may well have been the inverse when I entered the hobby where a simulationist streak was significantly more visible.

Possibly. I don't have any particular skill at assessing the pulse of the hobby. But I do see enough people overly (IMO) embracing sulimulation and especially immersion to not feel like Micah is too much of an oulier.

 

[mamba]

Think I have to take the other side here. As stated, the men of Numenor are not just a higher social class; the originals are just about literally Homo Superior, and even the diluted descendents are not on the level of normal men, to the degree if you were to write them up in a game system, they'd have more attribute points (certainly Aragorn and probably Boromir and his family too).

what did Boromir do that regular people could not have done? I am not aware of anything

Aragorn we can discuss, but even then there is nothing that exceeds a starting feat in D&D, he just ages more slowly on top of that. So it is a different race in D&D, but no more powerful than the others we have

This all is only a tangent to my initial point anyway, that is why I said to pick a different setting instead

 

[Thomas Shey]

Possibly. I don't have any particular skill at assessing the pulse of the hobby. But I do see enough people overly (IMO) embracing sulimulation and especially immersion to not feel like Micah is too much of an oulier.

I think its more common on the character level than the setting level, partly because the former does not demand everyone else is on board it to the same degree.

 

[Reynard]

what did Boromir do that regular people could not have done? I am not aware of anything

Aragorn we can discuss, but even then there is nothing that exceeds a starting feat in D&D, he just ages more slowly on top of that. So it is a different race in D&D, but no more powerful than the others we have

I think you are missing the point: in the setting, all of the human characters are members of the superhuman sub-race of Numenorean descendants. No one besides Sam in the story qualifies as a "normal person" -- and this is important. Because Tolkien was telling a story about (among other things) how the aristocracy needed the loyal service of the common folk, based on his very real experiences in WW1. It is IMPORTANT that Sam is the only commoner.

 

[Thomas Shey]

what did Boromir do that regular people could not have done? I am not aware of anything

Someone who, to simplfy the situation, starts with an extra couple points each of Will, Strength and Constitution isn't "doing anything a nomral person could not have done" but that doesn't make them a normal person; it just means the range of normal people is large enough to overlap the Superior Man.

Similarly, games that have PCs being something other than Everymen don't routinely (there are exceptions in urban fantasy and superheroes but they aren't the whole picture) treat PCs as radically outside the human range; they just pick them from the upper part of that range.

 

[mamba]

I think you are missing the point

I am not missing the point, I am saying it is entirely irrelevant to the original argument. This is nothing but a distraction because I chose Middle-earth as my stand-in for a low magic setting

On top of that I do not see any of those guys do anything special anyway, so I am not even sure why their heritage is supposed to be a counterargument