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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kobold Stew" data-source="post: 6309908" data-attributes="member: 23484">Ruin Explorer, I do not believe this is a Straw Man. While the poster you cite did *not* mention your posts, you are responding as if you saw yourself as the target, and so I looked back. And it is not hard to find this as a fair summary of the position you are espousing. Not exactly, of course, but near enough that anyone who has read the thread can identify the position. Certainly *you* identified with the position being described, which is enough to counter the straw man argument. It was a general position, derived from the thread, with which you yourself identified. So let's take a random <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?355455-Can-an-elf-rogue-be-a-decent-archer-in-(Basic)-D-amp-D-5th-edition/page10&p=6307867&viewfull=1#post6307867" target="_blank">post of yours</a>, which reads in part:Okay, we can accept your use of hyperbole ("about 14 checks") because it is an informal discussion: you are laying out your experience in order to justify your position. You have a view of how 4e play works, and you want to share it:I have no doubt this reflects your group's experience. Many people have said it does not reflect theirs. By implication, you are saying they are wrong and you are right, by your appeal to authority. Your summary of both 3e and 4e are (again) obviously reductive.  Your quotes are not actual quotes, but your simplistic black-and-white summary of how you see things, which (I presume) you offer for those who you believe are unclear of what you believe. But you also use sarcasm ("do you know what that is?" -- I'll assume it's sarcasm, because otherwise in the context of a discussion specifically about p. 42 it's simple rudeness) with your reductive summaries, and, yes, I can see why The Hitcher thought that at least some people in the thread thought could draw the inference that you with your appeal to authority, hyperbole, sarcasm, and reductive summary, might think you were suggesting they were "playing it wrong".Was The Hitcher referring to you? I have no idea. But your posts suggest to me that at least one person on the thread was indeed remotely suggesting this, and your response here (and following) confirms it. So no one is denying your experience, and we all accept that your experience is different.  In fact you tell us so:Ah, but again, you start making assumptions about your interlocutors, and it gets ad hominem. This framing of the argument suggests that anyone who hasn't played 4e "regularly since release" has less experience than you, and therefore less authority to speak about it. I don't buy that. I, as a reader of the thread, am interested in a variety of voices, and your attempt to silence and/or browbeat those who disagree with you seems unhelpfully hostile. You say: As someone who has played AD&D, 3.5, 4.0, and the play test for Next, as well as dozens of other RPGs, I can say that it does not seem really weird. In fact, it matches my experience. And I know, since I have read the thread, that it doesn't match yours.  You say:I don't know from this one post what you mean by "seems" (you may clarify it elsewhere), but one might reasonably infer (since you play 4e "regularly") that you are not also regularly using the play test materials. Again, my experience, with a range of groups, has been that Next does deliver the freedom that you say is lacking. Your actual play experience may disagree, and if it does -- you know what? That's fine. I understand what you have seen, and though it surprises me, I am aware that there are more things under the sun.</blockquote>

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