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Dying From Exhaustion While Petrified
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9299128" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>I am skeptical of the first claim, and outright reject the latter claim. The really severe problem with "natural language" is precisely the same as the really beautiful strength thereof: different people understand common words differently. A poet can do so much, express so much, with such a severe economy of words, specifically because natural language is vague and subtle, because natural language is a many-to-many mapping. But many-to-many is exactly what a rule should not be. It can be many-to-one (e.g. an extensible framework, which I'll get to in a sec, or mere basic abstraction, e.g. HP abstracts such that losing 20 hit points has no specific meaning or anchor, while AC abstracts such that "14 AC" could come from many different origins, high dex, natural armor, plate, etc.), but it should never be one-to-many (a single situation which <em>correctly</em> points to multiple results). </p><p></p><p>I fully expect to be told "but that's what GM judgment is for!" and to that I reply: Yes, because you are <em>using</em> the GM judgment to convert a one-to-many case into a one-to-one case. That's precisely why folks talk about how GMs need to be "consistent" and (usually) "fair" and "reasonable" etc. As soon as that consistency is broken--as soon as the GM rules on functionally identical situations in contrary ways--the rules have broken down and a problem occurs. The one-to-one or many-to-one connection still remains: play must produce one, clear, cognizable result or else problems arise.</p><p></p><p>Now, as for the second claim, the aforementioned "extensible frameworks" are the disproof thereof. See, there's a missing premise in the argument, which (generally) goes as follows:</p><p></p><p>1. There are infinitely many potential cases that rules could apply to.</p><p>2. Making infinitely many rules to cover those cases is impossible.</p><p>3. Therefore, having complete coverage is impossible.</p><p></p><p>But there's a hidden premise here required to reach the conclusion: <em>each rule must be singular and only cover finitely many cases</em>. Once we include that premise, the argument is of course airtight! In any system which only permits singular, finite rules, it is definitionally impossible to achieve complete coverage. You will hear absolutely no argument from me on that count.</p><p></p><p>You will, however, hear me dispute vigorously the idea that singular, finite rules are the only possible rules that can exist. If you can construct an extensible framework--one that leverages abstraction in order to cover not just individual cases, but whole <em>classes</em> of cases, then it is no longer guaranteed that complete coverage is impossible. The trivial, bad-design version of this would be to replace all rules evaluations with "flip a coin, if heads, the player decides what happens, if tails, the GM decides what happens." This, of course, abstracts out absolutely all of the details completely, and (as stated) would be very bad game design in the vast majority of contexts--certainly, it makes for rather dull gameplay unless you just really really love coin flips. But the point stands: comprehensive coverage <em>is</em> possible. It leaves open the question of whether comprehensive coverage exists that is effective, that achieves the experience for which the game was designed, actually exists. But that question is open, not closed; we do not know for sure either way, unless and until we actually start designing.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Again: No. Extensible frameworks and other forms of abstraction can get you there. As stated, that doesn't guarantee that these results are <em>good</em>--but there's also nothing saying they'll all be <em>bad</em> either. Which means the ball is now in the critic's court, to show that abstraction-in-general is unacceptable, in order to pitch the ball back the other way so the proponent of abstraction has to defend why <em>this</em> abstraction is good. However, that's something the critic will usually struggle to do, because D&D (every version, doesn't matter which one you've played, every single one) contains abstractions. Since very few are willing to throw out absolutely all abstractions (mostly because there would be hardly any game left if they did!), it thus becomes a matter of the critic needing to show how the proposed abstraction must be bad in general...which is an extremely tall order, one I've never seen happen.</p><p></p><p>Even designing under a maxim like "minimize abstraction whenever possible" doesn't achieve that goal--because there are too many grandfathered-in exceptions for classic D&D abstractions we've all grown so used to, we don't even think of them as abstractions anymore.</p><p></p><p></p><p>In which case, they can (and should) override the rules. As they have always been able to do. Nothing has ever taken away that power. Ever.</p><p></p><p></p><p>But that's precisely my point. "Natural language" was explicitly sold to us as <em>avoiding</em> having to talk about edge cases. As <em>preventing</em> rules debates in their entirety, because folks would already know what all the words meant and wouldn't ever be confused about what was intended. That's why I said they promised the world; they essentially claimed that "natural language" would let them speak both briefly <em>and</em> precisely. That was quite openly their intent.</p><p></p><p>We have seen that this is manifestly not true. If you need extra sentences to explain what "petrified" actually means, then you already aren't using natural language. You're defining a jargon term, and specifying how it works in edge cases.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9299128, member: 6790260"] I am skeptical of the first claim, and outright reject the latter claim. The really severe problem with "natural language" is precisely the same as the really beautiful strength thereof: different people understand common words differently. A poet can do so much, express so much, with such a severe economy of words, specifically because natural language is vague and subtle, because natural language is a many-to-many mapping. But many-to-many is exactly what a rule should not be. It can be many-to-one (e.g. an extensible framework, which I'll get to in a sec, or mere basic abstraction, e.g. HP abstracts such that losing 20 hit points has no specific meaning or anchor, while AC abstracts such that "14 AC" could come from many different origins, high dex, natural armor, plate, etc.), but it should never be one-to-many (a single situation which [I]correctly[/I] points to multiple results). I fully expect to be told "but that's what GM judgment is for!" and to that I reply: Yes, because you are [I]using[/I] the GM judgment to convert a one-to-many case into a one-to-one case. That's precisely why folks talk about how GMs need to be "consistent" and (usually) "fair" and "reasonable" etc. As soon as that consistency is broken--as soon as the GM rules on functionally identical situations in contrary ways--the rules have broken down and a problem occurs. The one-to-one or many-to-one connection still remains: play must produce one, clear, cognizable result or else problems arise. Now, as for the second claim, the aforementioned "extensible frameworks" are the disproof thereof. See, there's a missing premise in the argument, which (generally) goes as follows: 1. There are infinitely many potential cases that rules could apply to. 2. Making infinitely many rules to cover those cases is impossible. 3. Therefore, having complete coverage is impossible. But there's a hidden premise here required to reach the conclusion: [I]each rule must be singular and only cover finitely many cases[/I]. Once we include that premise, the argument is of course airtight! In any system which only permits singular, finite rules, it is definitionally impossible to achieve complete coverage. You will hear absolutely no argument from me on that count. You will, however, hear me dispute vigorously the idea that singular, finite rules are the only possible rules that can exist. If you can construct an extensible framework--one that leverages abstraction in order to cover not just individual cases, but whole [I]classes[/I] of cases, then it is no longer guaranteed that complete coverage is impossible. The trivial, bad-design version of this would be to replace all rules evaluations with "flip a coin, if heads, the player decides what happens, if tails, the GM decides what happens." This, of course, abstracts out absolutely all of the details completely, and (as stated) would be very bad game design in the vast majority of contexts--certainly, it makes for rather dull gameplay unless you just really really love coin flips. But the point stands: comprehensive coverage [I]is[/I] possible. It leaves open the question of whether comprehensive coverage exists that is effective, that achieves the experience for which the game was designed, actually exists. But that question is open, not closed; we do not know for sure either way, unless and until we actually start designing. Again: No. Extensible frameworks and other forms of abstraction can get you there. As stated, that doesn't guarantee that these results are [I]good[/I]--but there's also nothing saying they'll all be [I]bad[/I] either. Which means the ball is now in the critic's court, to show that abstraction-in-general is unacceptable, in order to pitch the ball back the other way so the proponent of abstraction has to defend why [I]this[/I] abstraction is good. However, that's something the critic will usually struggle to do, because D&D (every version, doesn't matter which one you've played, every single one) contains abstractions. Since very few are willing to throw out absolutely all abstractions (mostly because there would be hardly any game left if they did!), it thus becomes a matter of the critic needing to show how the proposed abstraction must be bad in general...which is an extremely tall order, one I've never seen happen. Even designing under a maxim like "minimize abstraction whenever possible" doesn't achieve that goal--because there are too many grandfathered-in exceptions for classic D&D abstractions we've all grown so used to, we don't even think of them as abstractions anymore. In which case, they can (and should) override the rules. As they have always been able to do. Nothing has ever taken away that power. Ever. But that's precisely my point. "Natural language" was explicitly sold to us as [I]avoiding[/I] having to talk about edge cases. As [I]preventing[/I] rules debates in their entirety, because folks would already know what all the words meant and wouldn't ever be confused about what was intended. That's why I said they promised the world; they essentially claimed that "natural language" would let them speak both briefly [I]and[/I] precisely. That was quite openly their intent. We have seen that this is manifestly not true. If you need extra sentences to explain what "petrified" actually means, then you already aren't using natural language. You're defining a jargon term, and specifying how it works in edge cases. [/QUOTE]
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