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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8831602" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I would prefer &quot;fairly evocative and slightly not-ideal&quot; to both &quot;very evocative and VERY not-ideal&quot; and &quot;dull but totally free of issues.&quot;So... let's talk words.&quot;Heroic&quot; does carry a bit of baggage. Some folks think high-flying action. Others think paragons of virtue (the dictionary meaning of the term, which is what I was aiming for.) Some think Greek heroes, towering mighty figures who do big things even if it destroys them. I think this cloud is reasonably addressed purely through being clear what one means. So, when I use &quot;heroic,&quot; I am referring to the &quot;fair play&quot; stuff. I am specifically seeking to identify games that, on the net (more on this later), favor a more &quot;morally upstanding&quot; or &quot;honorable&quot; or sportsmanlike set of behavior.Personally, I'm not sure how one can do much better than &quot;pragmatic&quot; for the other side of this, because literally every other description that comes to my mind is deeply unflattering. So...again, I think just giving a clear definition and sticking to it is the fix here. There is nothing negative meant by pragmatism, the focus on getting results, regardless of whether they are socially approved or morally meritorious.It is now later, and this is the more: I disagree with you that opposites on a spectrum are useless. They can still be useful even in a world where the two sides can coexist, because we can speak of the central tendency or overall preference of a design. It might be, for instance, that 3.5e is designed with both Heroic elements (there are right and wrong actions in combat and you should avoid the wrong ones even if they would lead to victory) and Pragmatic ones (there is only the goal, and methods which achieve it; handwringing about who was &quot;right&quot; is a luxury for the winner), but overall it may lean one way or the other (e.g., I would argue that it actually ends up being extremely Pragmatic, despite the designers explicitly trying to make it very Heroic, and that this disconnect is one of the biggest secondary reasons why the game's design is so deeply flawed.) Central tendencies and overall pattern can still be very useful, so long as we recognize what they mean and the subtleties within, like the difference between &quot;this game is neither strongly Heroic nor strongly Pragmatic, as it doesn't really consider such things,&quot; vs &quot;this game ends up being about equally Heroic and Pragmatic because it has a balanced presentation with strong elements of both,&quot; vs &quot;this game can't decide whether to be Heroic or Pragmatic, and the disjointed efforts to be both things at once leaves it confused and self-conflicting.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8831602, member: 6790260"] I would prefer "fairly evocative and [I]slightly[/I] not-ideal" to both "very evocative and VERY not-ideal" and "dull but totally free of issues." So... let's talk words. "Heroic" does carry a bit of baggage. Some folks think high-flying action. Others think paragons of virtue (the [I]dictionary[/I] meaning of the term, which is what I was aiming for.) Some think Greek heroes, towering mighty figures who do big things even if it destroys them. I think this cloud is reasonably addressed purely through being clear what one means. So, when I use "heroic," I am referring to the "fair play" stuff. I am specifically seeking to identify games that, [I]on the net[/I] (more on this later), favor a more "morally upstanding" or "honorable" or [I]sportsmanlike[/I] set of behavior. Personally, I'm not sure how one can do much better than "pragmatic" for the other side of this, because literally every other description that comes to my mind is [I]deeply[/I] unflattering. So...again, I think just giving a clear definition and sticking to it is the fix here. There is nothing negative meant by pragmatism, the focus on [I]getting results,[/I] regardless of whether they are socially approved or morally meritorious. It is now later, and this is the more: I disagree with you that opposites on a spectrum are useless. They can still be useful even in a world where the two sides can coexist, because we can speak of the central tendency or overall preference of a design. It might be, for instance, that 3.5e is designed with both Heroic elements (there are right and wrong actions in combat and you should avoid the wrong ones even if they would lead to victory) and Pragmatic ones (there is only the goal, and methods which achieve it; handwringing about who was "right" is a luxury for the winner), but overall it may lean one way or the other (e.g., I would argue that it actually ends up being [I]extremely[/I] Pragmatic, despite the designers explicitly trying to make it very Heroic, and that this disconnect is one of the biggest secondary reasons why the game's design is so deeply flawed.) Central tendencies and overall pattern can still be very useful, so long as we recognize what they mean and the subtleties within, like the difference between "this game is neither strongly Heroic nor strongly Pragmatic, as it doesn't really [I]consider[/I] such things," vs "this game ends up being about equally Heroic and Pragmatic because it has a balanced presentation with strong elements of both," vs "this game can't decide whether to be Heroic or Pragmatic, and the disjointed efforts to be both things at once leaves it confused and self-conflicting." [/QUOTE]

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