Are our standards too high, or too low?

[DEFCON 1]

My biggest issue with Kzach's point is the idea that unliked new items can discredit and retroactively change your opinion about old ones.

What I mean by this is that *if* you enjoyed playing 4E just fine when it was those first couple months and all we had was the first Player's Handbook, DMG, and monster Manual... there's absolutely no reason why you just can't continue to play using these three books if that is what you liked.

But to use the excuse that because the online Character Builder (or DDI in general, or the pages of errata, or Martial Power II) changes things in a way that you don't like, you now can no longer enjoy the old stuff you used to... I just find silly.

Now believe me... I certainly understand and have had it happen to me when I bought too many supplements to a game that (when added to the base game) made the composite too unwieldy and just not as much fun. Talisman is a perfectly example in my own personal case. But at no point after adding in Talisman The Adventure, Talisman City, Talisman Dungeon and finally Talisman Timescape and finding that I now longer took as much enjoyment out of playing this composite game... did I ever say "Well, I can't play Talisman anymore! The game is ruined!".

Instead... I just removed those expansions that did not help me fulfill my desires for an excellent Talisman game. Which meant some things from some expansions stayed in... many other things were purged.

So to basically throw away something completely that you actually enjoyed, because you have currently tricked it out too far... I just can't understand. It seems like such a waste. And I think it's a very good indication of you, Kzach... that perhaps you need to be extra vigilant in what you "add" to things, if this is your reaction to them when you've gone too far.

 

[Janx]

I don't know If I can speak to a particular person's (or even "our") standards as too high or low, in such broad generalization. That assumes there's an objective measure of standards, rather than a set of personal preferences which are not objectively better or worse than another set.

Me, I don't much like the flavor of coffee, and will usually avoid coffee-flavored food or drink. That's not a high standard, just a personal taste.

I do see a whole lot of what I tend to think of as instances where standards are too... seemingly arbitrarily inflexible or specific. There's a whole lot of perfect* being the enemy of good.




*meaning, "matching my own personal specifications perfectly"

That supports what I'm thinking. A standard is a rudimentary measure. Presumably boolean. Does it do X? Yes or No.


I need something to manage my character sheet. Does one of these alternatives do it:
Paper and Pencil with Eraser: yes
Paper and Pen: no
Appleworks on Apple IIe: yes
MS Works on Mac SE: yes
Word Perfect for DOS 5.1 on PC: yes
MS Office on Windows95 PC: yes
MS Office on Mac OSx: yes
CharGen on mac or PC via Java: yes
Excel on WindowsXP: yes


Note, the only thing I said no to, was Paper and Pen, because I can't easily erase, correct or adjust my sheet. Alrieady, right there, I'm applying some extra unspoken criteria.

Factually speaking, I have used ALL of those methods by MS Office on a Mac (I quite using Macs quite some time ago). So I know they work.

At the time, I've been happy with all of those method, though available technology changed so I changed methods with it. with CharGen, I found it cumbersom to use, and thus preferred using Excel, which gave me more power over layout and functionality (I use it live during the game to run my PC). With all the various word processors, they all worked fine, as I was printing the PC out each time.

So, by what standard does something become "not good enough to use?" If somebody else is happily using it to do the same thing you're complaining about, I'd say it's probably a personal preference issue.

Perhaps a better question for the OP's thread is "are our expectations or desires too high?"

Because clearly, by demonstration of use by a plurality, it's good enough to get the job done.

 

[fuzzlewump]

I don't entirely agree with this. People are not always perfectly rational, perfectly informed, and perfectly in tune with their own desires, and it is thus possible for a standard to be wrong if it does not accurately reflect your preferences.

Good point. What I was more getting at isn't that people are perfect or even good at identifying what they like, but that assigning standards and applying them to things that you would just fine without (non-essential) can be neither right nor wrong. There is no right vs. wrong in having the item, in this case a subscription to DDI, or not having the item, no matter what your true feelings are. Especially if something else fun fills the time that you would have spent gaming.

I definitely agree people are rarely correct in the kind of things they like, especially in a boyfriend or girlfriend. At least, that's the research I saw. Mates seem more like an essential thing, I don't see it as very similar.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

My biggest issue with Kzach's point is the idea that unliked new items can discredit and retroactively change your opinion about old ones.

What I mean by this is that *if* you enjoyed playing 4E just fine when it was those first couple months and all we had was the first Player's Handbook, DMG, and monster Manual... there's absolutely no reason why you just can't continue to play using these three books if that is what you liked.

The past tense here is noteworthy and important.

The obvious counterpoint to this is: toys get old. Once you've played with something for long enough, you need extra things to add to it to spice it back up again and make it relevant. Why do you think new material is the true food for the average RPG player? If that food becomes stale or poorly-prepared then it not only destroys one's enjoyment of the dish but the entire meal as well (even though you really liked those plates and cutlery once). There's an entropic reason why you can't go back to exactly where you were and be equally fulfilled.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[DEFCON 1]

There's an entropic reason why you can't go back to exactly where you were and be equally fulfilled.

And yet, people claim all the time about going back and playing OD&D, AD&D, 1E, 2E etc. etc... despite the fact that at some point they moved on from those games to play newer editions.

I would assume the counter to this point would be the amount of time between first playing a game and then going back to it... the longer the gap, the rosier the glasses of your time playing it. If true, then Kzach and others might some day return to 4E and find their enjoyment of the game again. And in this regard, it just comes down to personality I guess.

 

[Sunseeker]

And yet, people claim all the time about going back and playing OD&D, AD&D, 1E, 2E etc. etc... despite the fact that at some point they moved on from those games to play newer editions.

I would assume the counter to this point would be the amount of time between first playing a game and then going back to it... the longer the gap, the rosier the glasses of your time playing it. If true, then Kzach and others might some day return to 4E and find their enjoyment of the game again. And in this regard, it just comes down to personality I guess.

It's well known that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

 

[Janx]

The past tense here is noteworthy and important.

The obvious counterpoint to this is: toys get old. Once you've played with something for long enough, you need extra things to add to it to spice it back up again and make it relevant. Why do you think new material is the true food for the average RPG player? If that food becomes stale or poorly-prepared then it not only destroys one's enjoyment of the dish but the entire meal as well (even though you really liked those plates and cutlery once). There's an entropic reason why you can't go back to exactly where you were and be equally fulfilled.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

Good point.

Though I enjoyed playing Atari games, Nintendo games, etc, going back and playing them now, is kind of boring for me. Because my new consoles games are fancier and prettier. Thats not true for everyone, but it seems to hold true for many.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

And yet, people claim all the time about going back and playing OD&D, AD&D, 1E, 2E etc. etc... despite the fact that at some point they moved on from those games to play newer editions.

I would assume the counter to this point would be the amount of time between first playing a game and then going back to it... the longer the gap, the rosier the glasses of your time playing it. If true, then Kzach and others might some day return to 4E and find their enjoyment of the game again. And in this regard, it just comes down to personality I guess.

A very good pair of points.

I suppose it also depends upon whether one dined their fill on a previous edition, or merely supped the waters; and as you say, personal preference too.

My point was that stripping back to basics as it were to fight expansion bloat is not as straightforward as one would think.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Stormonu]

Good point.

Though I enjoyed playing Atari games, Nintendo games, etc, going back and playing them now, is kind of boring for me. Because my new consoles games are fancier and prettier. Thats not true for everyone, but it seems to hold true for many.

As a side note, I won't buy any system I can't get a copy of pac-man (or Ms. pac-man) up and running on - despite that I'm mediocre at the game at best.

I believe presentation often has a lot to do with our like or dislike of things. For ex., one of the things that turned me off to 4E for a while was the seeming scorn the designers were heaping on older editions and the slaying of sacred cows. If I had not come into 4E with those feelings, I might have made the switch; though eventually I came to realize a lot of the fluff-side changes were overall minor or otherwise easy to ignore I wasn't able to latch on long enough to get over my initial distaste of the game.

 

[Umbran]

There's an entropic reason why you can't go back to exactly where you were and be equally fulfilled.

And yet, people claim all the time about going back and playing OD&D, AD&D, 1E, 2E etc. etc... despite the fact that at some point they moved on from those games to play newer editions.

It seems to me that you are both correct, in a sense. It depends on what you call "equally fulfilled".

A 14-year-old schoolboy picks up a game, and plays it for a while, and puts it away.

The boy grows up to be a 40-year-old man, with a degree, a (perhaps stressful) career, a wife, two kids, and a mortgage. It is reasonable to say this man experiences pretty much nothing in the same way his 14-year-old self did, as his perspective on every single thing in life is so thoroughly different.

What on Earth does it mean to say that they have "equal fulfillment"?

So, Herremen is right, in that you can't go back again - it isn't the game that's changed, it is YOU. You can't undo yourself.

But, also, DEFCON is right, in that both these people can legitimately feel the game is one of the most fun things they can do.