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<blockquote data-quote="Tuft" data-source="post: 4909893" data-attributes="member: 60045">Sounds like what we here in Sweden would call a &quot;Good day, axe handle&quot; situation. It's from a tale that I think is Norwegian in origin:There was an old man that sat at a fork in the road, carving himself a new handle to his axe, when he saw a good-looking, well-dressed woman approaching. Now, as many old men, he was getting quite deaf, but he was also slightly vain and did not want to show his deafness to the beautiful stranger. Fortunatly, he had a plan.&quot;First,&quot; he thought, &quot;she will ask me what I'm making. I'll simply tell her that its an axe handle. Then, as she is a stranger around here, she will ask how long it is to the town, and I'll tell her that it is two miles. And finally, she will ask which road to take, and I'll tell her to take the one to the right.&quot;With this plan firm in his mind, he waited until the woman first drew close, and then stopped and adressed him:&quot;Good day, old man!&quot;&quot;Axe handle!&quot; &quot;Um, er, yes... it is an axe handle, yes... very nice and long...&quot;&quot;Two miles!&quot;&quot;Are you completely twisted?&quot;&quot;To the right!&quot;As can be seen, a &quot;Good day, axe handle&quot; situation is a complete failure to communicate due to too firm pre-conceptions on what's going to happen... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />In the City of Heroes MMO, there is a mission where you have to find and destroy a large number of objectives in an enemy-packed house in a ridiculously short time. I remember the first time I actually managed to beat those impossible odds with a team, and triumphatorically we returned to the in-game contact for our debreifing, and got met by the same canned: &quot;Having failed to destroy the portals in time, you now have to...&quot; Talk about a big downer. One of the big things for me with pen-and-paper RPGs instead of computer games is that you can do things other than the pre-concieved, pre-planned, pre-programmed way...You can do things that aren't paint-by-number, do more than just fill in areas that somebody else already has drawn for you. You can solve things in other ways than just bashing your way through the monsters MMO style... I really wish 4E stressed that superior aspect over computer games more.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tuft, post: 4909893, member: 60045"] Sounds like what we here in Sweden would call a "Good day, axe handle" situation. It's from a tale that I think is Norwegian in origin: There was an old man that sat at a fork in the road, carving himself a new handle to his axe, when he saw a good-looking, well-dressed woman approaching. Now, as many old men, he was getting quite deaf, but he was also slightly vain and did not want to show his deafness to the beautiful stranger. Fortunatly, he had a plan. "First," he thought, "she will ask me what I'm making. I'll simply tell her that its an axe handle. Then, as she is a stranger around here, she will ask how long it is to the town, and I'll tell her that it is two miles. And finally, she will ask which road to take, and I'll tell her to take the one to the right." With this plan firm in his mind, he waited until the woman first drew close, and then stopped and adressed him: "Good day, old man!" "Axe handle!" "Um, er, yes... it is an axe handle, yes... very nice and long..." "Two miles!" "Are you completely twisted?" "To the right!" As can be seen, a "Good day, axe handle" situation is a complete failure to communicate due to too firm pre-conceptions on what's going to happen... ;) ;) In the City of Heroes MMO, there is a mission where you have to find and destroy a large number of objectives in an enemy-packed house in a ridiculously short time. I remember the first time I actually [i]managed[/i] to beat those impossible odds with a team, and triumphatorically we returned to the in-game contact for our debreifing, and got met by the same canned: "Having failed to destroy the portals in time, you now have to..." Talk about a big downer. One of the big things for me with pen-and-paper RPGs instead of computer games is that you [i]can[/i] do things other than the pre-concieved, pre-planned, pre-programmed way... You can do things that aren't paint-by-number, do more than just fill in areas that somebody else already has drawn for you. You [i]can[/i] solve things in other ways than just bashing your way through the monsters MMO style... I really wish 4E stressed that superior aspect over computer games more. [/QUOTE]

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