D&D 4E Comment about 4E designers loving D&D

[Simia Saturnalia]

I like swords.

I find I prefer spears.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Gods, I love baseball. But if only, we got 10 strikes instead of 3, and if the bases were closer, and if we moved the fences in to 200 feet, and put trampolines in the outfield, so diving catches would look more cinematic, and the pitcher should be a monkey, because, well, everyone loves monkeys. That would so, improve the game because, well, I love baseball, so I couldn't possibly screw it up, right?

Well, MLB 3e was an great improvement over earlier editions. Of course since it came out there have been a lot of fans saying that too many players struck out, there weren't enough home runs, playing outfield was boring, and the addition of a prehensile tail would open up many new pitching possibilities so, yes, maybe these changes should be considered.

 

[hong]

I prefer women.

 

[Vigilance]

Gods I love tennis.

Wait, are you saying that the people who made those changes to tennis DIDN'T love the game?

That would be very, very rude of you.

I think you probably aren't that big of a jerk.

I mean, I certainly hope not.

But here's hoping I can stir up a huge hornet's nest by running to the nearest message board and twisting your words.

Then I can withdraw and enjoy the rest of my day. [/Banshee]

 

[Wormwood]

Wait, are you saying that the people who made those changes to tennis DIDN'T love the game?

I think you probably aren't that big of a jerk.

Hyperbole is a harsh mistress.

 

[TwinBahamut]

If we are talking about rule changes to other games...

The boardgame Go has a history dating back at least 2600 years. However, major game-changing rule changes have been made as recently as 1930, with the introduction of the komi rule, which was designed to balance out the inequality between the Black player (who goes first) and the White player (who goes second).

In other words, in 1930, after thousands of years of history, they released a new edition of the game Go which nerfed Black, for reasons of improved mathematical balance. The effect on professional strategy was profound.

I don't think the people who invented the komi rule could be thought of as implying the previous thousands of years of the game's history was a giant set of people who didn't love the game...

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

If we are talking about rule changes to other games...

The boardgame Go has a history dating back at least 2600 years. However, major game-changing rule changes have been made as recently as 1930, with the introduction of the komi rule, which was designed to balance out the inequality between the Black player (who goes first) and the White player (who goes second).

In other words, in 1930, after thousands of years of history, they released a new edition of the game Go which nerfed Black, for reasons of improved mathematical balance. The effect on professional strategy was profound.

I don't think the people who invented the komi rule could be thought of as implying the previous thousands of years of the game's history was a giant set of people who didn't love the game...

My grandfather cursed that rule change. After spending a lot of money on his Go board and all the supplements and accessories, he just saw that komi rule as nothing but a money grab.

 

[Wormwood]

My grandfather cursed that rule change. After spending a lot of money on his Go board and all the supplements and accessories, he just saw that komi rule as nothing but a money grab.

Too videogamey.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

My grandfather cursed that rule change. After spending a lot of money on his Go board and all the supplements and accessories, he just saw that komi rule as nothing but a money grab.

Worse was the 1918 change that made the pieces' form slightly different and everyone had to buy new ones.

 

[pemerton]

It was clearly to my mind a logical implication between the two statements. To suggest otherwise is rediculous. Read the original statement again.

B because of A. In other words: From A, follows B.

If A, then B. (A => B)

Which incidently is not the same as "If A and only if A, then B" ( A <=> B ), which would be required for your malaria <=> mosquito comparisson. This is obviously false.

John MacKie would do well to stay away from matches, methinks. His chain of logical and philosophical thought leaves me less than impressed.

Here are some sentences of Enlgish, all completely banal, having the form "B because A":

*I caught malaria because I was bitten by a mosquito.

*I was late for work because I missed my train.

*The match lit because it was struck on the box.

None of them is equivlant to "If A, then B". Therefore, none of them entails "If not B, then not A". In particular, none of the following follows from the above:

*If I don't have malaria I was not bitten by a mosquito (perhaps I was, but it was not carrying the parasite).

*If I'm not late for work I didn't miss my train (perhaps I did, but caught a taxi so as to be on time).

*If the match did not light it was not struck on the box (perhaps it was, but the box was damp).

I don't know how much clearer I can make it. It has nothing to do with biconditionals. (That is, the claim "I have malaria if and only if I am bitten by a mosquito" is obviously false - I personally have been bitten by many mosquitos and have never contracted malaria). It has to do with the fact that "because", a conjunction of causation or explanation in English, is not used to signal only sufficient conditions, but sometimes also necessary conditions, or INUS conditions.

Thus, "It will be the best yet because we love it" does not imply "If it's not the best we didn't love it", nor "If theirs was not the best they didn't love it". What the sentence is calling out by its use of "because" is a necessary, not a sufficient, condition.

And btw, John Mackie was a fellow at Oxford and is widely regarded as one of the great English-speaking metaphysicians and philosophers of science of the second half of the twentieth century. Next you'll be saying that Nelson Goodman didn't know anything about the analysis of causation either!