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Fallacious Follies: Oberoni, Stormwind, and Fallacies OH MY!
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<blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 9177279" data-attributes="member: 6690965"><p>Three thoughts: </p><p></p><p>One, you're describing an unusual process of play that's outside the normal rules of gameplay, and it's more or less normative in different environments. It's rarer (and harder to do) in board games and things like video games. Variant rules can be interesting (and obviously serve a greater role in TTRPGs than other kinds of games) but can't be held up as a basic part of a design without compromising the design in the first place. You can't write rules with the assumption they won't be used.</p><p></p><p>Secondly, I don't actually think that follows in a cooperative game the same way it does in a competitive one. You're more likely to see accommodations there with things like character difficulty ratings, or being pointed to established, known strategies whilst one gets familiar with the mechanics. Sometimes you even see cooperative games themselves suggested as a solution for divergent player skill, to avoid the negative experiences competition can bring. Cooperative play has its own problems (i.e. "quarterbacking" where a more experienced player effectively makes choices for a less experienced player), but I don't think this kind of variant is common in play when everyone is driving at a shared goal.</p><p></p><p>And finally the thing you're describing is contrary to the goal of play of many environments. What you're describing would be better understood as a training exercise than the experience of gameplay; the goal of the game is to win under a known set of conditions, the players are actively trying to get better at playing under those conditions. You might set a handicap to test a scenario, to practice a specific skill and so on, but ultimately the goal is to deploy those skills in a live gameplay environment.*</p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">*While it's not necessarily relevant, I don't want my point to be construed to suggest that games shouldn't offer accommodations to allow more people to play them in general. Accessibility is a different question, and a change to gameplay that doesn't alter the shared goal of play but allows someone who would otherwise not be able to effectively participate should always be lauded.</span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pedantic, post: 9177279, member: 6690965"] Three thoughts: One, you're describing an unusual process of play that's outside the normal rules of gameplay, and it's more or less normative in different environments. It's rarer (and harder to do) in board games and things like video games. Variant rules can be interesting (and obviously serve a greater role in TTRPGs than other kinds of games) but can't be held up as a basic part of a design without compromising the design in the first place. You can't write rules with the assumption they won't be used. Secondly, I don't actually think that follows in a cooperative game the same way it does in a competitive one. You're more likely to see accommodations there with things like character difficulty ratings, or being pointed to established, known strategies whilst one gets familiar with the mechanics. Sometimes you even see cooperative games themselves suggested as a solution for divergent player skill, to avoid the negative experiences competition can bring. Cooperative play has its own problems (i.e. "quarterbacking" where a more experienced player effectively makes choices for a less experienced player), but I don't think this kind of variant is common in play when everyone is driving at a shared goal. And finally the thing you're describing is contrary to the goal of play of many environments. What you're describing would be better understood as a training exercise than the experience of gameplay; the goal of the game is to win under a known set of conditions, the players are actively trying to get better at playing under those conditions. You might set a handicap to test a scenario, to practice a specific skill and so on, but ultimately the goal is to deploy those skills in a live gameplay environment.* [SIZE=3]*While it's not necessarily relevant, I don't want my point to be construed to suggest that games shouldn't offer accommodations to allow more people to play them in general. Accessibility is a different question, and a change to gameplay that doesn't alter the shared goal of play but allows someone who would otherwise not be able to effectively participate should always be lauded.[/SIZE] [/QUOTE]
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