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

[Ovinomancer]

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

Thise were discussed, yes, but, no, it did not start there.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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

Of course it doesn't, which is why I continued with my reasoning. Pretending that's all I said for points, though... gkad that was enoufh to immediately pull you out of your third stated disengagement.

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.

And your baseline is such that I can't think of a single RPG that fails to cross that threshold, which means it's pretty useless.

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.

Ah, the same strawman from the start, nice to see it again, this time paired with a new one! Quote where I say the grade of beef has anything to do with TTRPGs. You can't. You can find it in response to a direct question to me about quality of steak, though.

Can we stop with the strawmen? That'd be swell.

 

[Umbran]

Of course there is, they are different things. But, the argument was that quality is only a matter of preference.

List elements that you think indicate quality.

Dollars to donuts, for each item on the list, you'll find someone around here who disagrees with you that it is a measure of the quality of a game.

How, then, is it not a matter of preference?

For something like a car, we define goals - we have a goal that people not die in car crashes, for example. Or a goal that the car not require expensive repairs often. If people don't get hurt, and the car needs little maintenance, we say it is a quality automobile. Most of us agree on these measures of quality, and agree what a quality car is.

But then along comes the joker who wants his car fast and fancy, and does not give a crumb about costs or personal risk, and he buys a Jaguar (in the US, they have a reputation for needing to go into the shop) or a Porche, which will not protect you as well as a Honda Civic. Those qualities do not matter to him. He thinks the Civic is a lousy car.

 

[Oofta]

Of course it doesn't, which is why I continued with my reasoning. Pretending that's all I said for points, though... gkad that was enoufh to immediately pull you out of your third stated disengagement.

And your baseline is such that I can't think of a single RPG that fails to cross that threshold, which means it's pretty useless.

Ah, the same strawman from the start, nice to see it again, this time paired with a new one! Quote where I say the grade of beef has anything to do with TTRPGs. You can't. You can find it in response to a direct question to me about quality of steak, though.

Can we stop with the strawmen? That'd be swell.

Dude, I'm done engaging with you on this. Quality is in the eye of the beholder. Feel free to disagree.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Dude, I'm done engaging with you on this. Quality is in the eye of the beholder. Feel free to disagree.

You use statements of being done quite often. Do you think this will actually end discussion on your favor?

 

[Oofta]

You use statements of being done quite often. Do you think this will actually end discussion on your favor?

LOL. I don't give a #### what you think. Have a good one.

 

[Ovinomancer]

List elements that you think indicate quality.

Dollars to donuts, for each item on the list, you'll find someone around here who disagrees with you that it is a measure of the quality of a game.

How, then, is it not a matter of preference?

For something like a car, we define goals - we have a goal that people not die in car crashes, for example. Or a goal that the car not require expensive repairs often. If people don't get hurt, and the car needs little maintenance, we say it is a quality automobile. Most of us agree on these measures of quality, and agree what a quality car is.

But then along comes the joker who wants his car fast and fancy, and does not give a crumb about costs or personal risk, and he buys a Jaguar (in the US, they have a reputation for needing to go into the shop) or a Porche, which will not protect you as well as a Honda Civic. Those qualities do not matter to him. He thinks the Civic is a lousy car.

I have listed elements. I also pointed out that preference plays a part on whether or not you select a game based on thise elements. You use an example of selecting a car. Is the sports car's quality of safety changed by your preference that it's not important? Again, quality is an input to selection; it's not a requirement. A car can be very safe and I can not care about safety. This doesn't alter the quality of the safe car, it just means I prefer something different.

People seem to approach my argument from an assumption it's smuggling in a statement that choosing one game over another is a bad choice and using quality as the vehicle for this. It's not. The game you choose to play should, like art you buy, be because it speaks to you and you enjoy it. The quality of the work may be an input to this, but it's not defining. I can talk about how well a game is put together, how well it does things, and other factors of quality, and you can still like it ir not for whatever other reasons you want. 100% fine. But, insisting it's all opinion is saying there's no real difference between ganes except some preferences. This is silly on its face.

There's no lurking gotcha behind my posts.

 

[Eric V]

Just because I like something more than another thing, doesn't mean that first thing is of higher quality...it just means the latter thing hits my preferences better.

Since @pemerton brings up Age of Ultron a few times, I'll go with that: I know it's not a high quality movie, but having now seen it a few times, I enjoy it more.

Maybe that just means I like kitsch. Or that particular brand of kitsch. I have no trouble admitting that there are things I like that aren't of the highest quality. That doesn't mean that objective quality isn't a thing, though. John Stuart Mill's ideas about levels of pleasure might be worth looking at here.

5e, when talking about the quality of TTRPGs in general may end up being of a middling quality, but 5e is of very high quality in being D&D. As it was designed to do. It is very good at delivering a classic, non-offensive "D&D Experience" which include the sacred cows, the adventures mostly being reimaginings of classic adventures, etc. If I have a disparate group of people, each coming from a different D&D experience, the edition I will likely get the most buy-in for will be 5e. Hence, the Cheesecake Factory analogy.

(As well, 5e is popular because "popular" was a high priority (as evidenced by the extensive playtesting and data gathering), as well as a zeitgeist of other factors the design crew had no control over).

 

[Oofta]

Just because I like something more than another thing, doesn't mean that first thing is of higher quality...it just means the latter thing hits my preferences better.

Since @pemerton brings up Age of Ultron a few times, I'll go with that: I know it's not a high quality movie, but having now seen it a few times, I enjoy it more.

Maybe that just means I like kitsch. Or that particular brand of kitsch. I have no trouble admitting that there are things I like that aren't of the highest quality. That doesn't mean that objective quality isn't a thing, though. John Stuart Mill's ideas about levels of pleasure might be worth looking at here.

5e, when talking about the quality of TTRPGs in general may end up being of a middling quality, but 5e is of very high quality in being D&D. As it was designed to do. It is very good at delivering a classic, non-offensive "D&D Experience" which include the sacred cows, the adventures mostly being reimaginings of classic adventures, etc. If I have a disparate group of people, each coming from a different D&D experience, the edition I will likely get the most buy-in for will be 5e. Hence, the Cheesecake Factory analogy.

(As well, 5e is popular because "popular" was a high priority (as evidenced by the extensive playtesting and data gathering), as well as a zeitgeist of other factors the design crew had no control over).

I guess I would fundamentally disagree that Age of Ultron was not a quality movie. I mean, technically the CGI was very good. The acting for the nature of the film was excellent. It's goal, it's reason for existence was to make money for the studio by entertaining people which it succeeded at.

How else would you measure quality other than that it was successful at it's goals?

 

[Maxperson]

I guess I would fundamentally disagree that Age of Ultron was not a quality movie. I mean, technically the CGI was very good. The acting for the nature of the film was excellent. It's goal, it's reason for existence was to make money for the studio by entertaining people which it succeeded at.

How else would you measure quality other than that it was successful at it's goals?

There are lots of ways to measure quality other than it was successful at its creator's goals. That made it a quality film for them, but subjectively you could look at it with other metrics in mind and the quality will shift up or down depending on the film's success at these new metrics. For instance, if I were to take Age of Ultron and choose measure whether it was a quality Romantic Comedy, it would do very poorly.