False dichotomies and other fallacies RPGers use

[Raven Crowking]

The point about Vulcan was not made in response to a particular question.

Just scoring points, then?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Bullywugs are awesome.

See? There are some things we can agree on.

You're learning the wrong lesson from your experience if, in your experience foo doesn't work, you claim that it cannot work ever for anyone.

Now, extrapolate out again, and assume that the putative poster has also seen hundreds of other GMs attempt foo, with the same results. Should not that GM conclude that, while it might be possible for a GM to make foo work, the odds are very good that the average GM will not be able to do so?

For example, in this post (http://www.enworld.org/forum/5180342-post101.html), the poster says

I just don't see how you could sit down to play a session without any story elements at all. To me, it's an ongoing process, constantly being redefined as play progresses. But, the idea that there is nothing at all before the players sit down at the table is very difficult for me to believe.​

It seems to me that this poster is doing exactly what I am advocating.

He is not saying that it is impossible....he is saying that it is implausible (very difficult....to believe). He might even go so far (although he does not in this post) as to accept that some specific counter-examples exist, but that he would assume that they were very rare indeed.

It would strike me as odd if the poster I just quoted would suggest that other posters not extrapolate from their experiences as to what is, or is not, plausible.

Let me spin it around RC.

By all means.

I could make the following claim:

- Sandbox games cannot work. I've never seen a successful sandbox game in play as either a DM or a player. They ultimately become aimless, pointless, meaningless jumbles of conflicting goals and will always die, not with a bang, but with a whimper as players and DM lose interest.

Does that mean that I'm right? After all, this is my experience. I've never seen a successful sandbox game based on how you describe a sandbox. Should I learn from my experience and refuse to accept anyone's claims that a sandbox is different?

You are only wrong because you used the word "cannot".

If you said instead,

I find claims of working sandbox games to be implausible. I've never seen a successful sandbox game in play as either a DM or a player. They ultimately become aimless, pointless, meaningless jumbles of conflicting goals and will always die, not with a bang, but with a whimper as players and DM lose interest. There may be a sandbox game out there that defies the odds, but I am skeptical to most claims related to specific games.​

you would be golden.



RC

 

[Hussar]

But, RC, you have flatly stated that fudging cannot work. That in every game, if the DM fudges, the players will be unhappy and the game will fall apart.

Shouldn't your own standard apply here? If I shouldn't state that sandboxes cannot work (even when that follows my own experience) how can you state that fudging cannot work and that anyone who claims differently is misinterpreting the facts?

 

[Raven Crowking]

But, RC, you have flatly stated that fudging cannot work. That in every game, if the DM fudges, the players will be unhappy and the game will fall apart.

I think you should go back and read what I said, not what someone else said I said.

(I even said that I specifically believe that fudging does work in Piratecat's game -- that I specifically believe that he is an exception.)


RC

 

[Hussar]

I think you should go back and read what I said, not what someone else said I said.

(I even said that I specifically believe that fudging does work in Piratecat's game -- that I specifically believe that he is an exception.)


RC

RC, I'm not going to go back and swim in that morass of a thread just to find the multiple quotes where you flatly state that fudging is always bad. If you had said that you thought fudging was usually bad, but maybe it works for some people, do you really think we'd have not one but now two threads dozens of pages long devoted to arguing this?

So, to save me the work of screwing around playing silly bugger quoting games, what EXACTLY is your opinion of fudging?

 

[Odhanan]

"If you play [insert pre-3e edition of D&D], it's just nostalgia."

"All fighters in First Ed AD&D play the same."

"Rules balance = game balance."

 

[Hussar]

Just to wrench back to the topic of the thread (thanks Odhanan)

- The ability to ignore rules is a strength of a ruleset.

- The absense of rules = rules light.

 

[Maggan]

- The absense of rules = rules light.

One I actually have encountered is:

"I know the rules of Game X by heart, therefore it is rules light."

/M

 

[Raven Crowking]

RC, I'm not going to go back and swim in that morass of a thread just to find the multiple quotes where you flatly state that fudging is always bad.

It is my opinion that fudging is always bad, in that I believe that there is always a preferred solution (although not always by the time the actual fudging occurs). While I believe fudging is always bad, I agree that it is sometimes a necessary bad, that some people cannot achieve a preferred solution, and that some people's strengths and weaknesses as GMs combine so that they should not use what would normally be a prefered solution.

I've been pretty explicit about this.

Let me put it into D&D terms for you, by way of analogy. In 3e, the alignment descriptions say that killing is associated with evil, and that preserving life is associated with good. I would argue that, in 3e, killing is always an evil act. However, I would also argue that killing some creatures is often a necessary evil, for which PCs and NPCs alike should not be penalized. In some cases....one may argue, in many cases....all one can do is weigh the situation to try to determine the lesser of two evils.

The difference between a "Good" character performing a necessary evil and an "Evil" character using expedient means (in 3e) is this: The Good character views killing as a measure of last resort (albeit, in D&D, this last resort comes up frequently), whereas the Evil character believes killing is justified regardless of what is being killed, or what other options there were, so long as there are no obvious (or immediate) problems caused to that character as a result of his actions.

The Good character accepts and understands the larger implications; the Evil character either does not accept them, or does not understand them, or both.

(And please note that I am not claiming that fudging DMs are in any sense "evil"; that is a strawman I will not even respond to.)

Jump for a moment to the conversation you are having about illusionism with Celebrim. If you understand his point (as I believe you do), you can see how what he calls "hard illusionism" may damage the experience of the game. Fudging, specifically, is a form of hard illusionism. IMHO, and in my argument, the good GM accepts and understands the larger implications; the poor GM either does not accept them, or does not understand them, or both.

And, again, please note the IMHO. I am not claiming that what I view as a quality of poor GMing is the same as what you do. You may love and admire qualities that I believe belong to poor GMing. I am not arguing what your opinion is; I am stating what mine is. That is another strawman that I will not follow up on any more.

It is not my opinion that "fudging cannot work. That in every game, if the DM fudges, the players will be unhappy and the game will fall apart." (as you characterized it.)

It is my opinion that "fudging is a generally bad decision. If the DM fudges, the players are almost certain to discover it, which will lead to the game being less than what it could be. If the DM is capable of resisting the urge to fudge -- especially if he can do so because he has elminated the urge through better prepwork -- the game will almost always be better. There is a set of people to whom this does not apply, but IME it is a vanishingly small set, and if you tell me that you are one of them, I am not likely to accept that as plausible without some evidence that it is so." (I went on to say that I do accept that Piratecat was a member of that vanishingly small set.)

There is a difference.

EDITS: (1) Even the hypothetical DM who I mentioned above, who should fudge, should nonetheless understand the potential pitfalls and problems associated with fudging. IOW, if that DM is a good DM, it is very likely because he has an understanding of what he is doing, not because he somehow "lucked" into it.

(2) A person who claims to be a member of that (IME vanishingly small) set of GMs who fudge successfully can evidence this by demonstrating an understanding of the potential pitfalls implied (as, IMHO, Piratecat has done). A person who claims to be part of that set, while claiming that there are no pitfalls, that rationality doesn't apply, or that it doesn't matter because it's only a game, is actually demonstrating that they are very likely not part of that subset, IMHO and IME.

EDIT EDIT: I also specified that the foregoing only applies to role-playing games (using my definition of game, which is narrower than how some people use it, and which you may or may not agree with, but which you and I at least have discussed in length, and which came up at least tangentially in the first thread....though, luckily, others covered it so that I did not have to). There are certainly role-playing activities to which it does not apply.

If you had said that you thought fudging was usually bad, but maybe it works for some people, do you really think we'd have not one but now two threads dozens of pages long devoted to arguing this?

Before?

I would have said No.

Now?

My experience has taught me otherwise.


RC

 

[billd91]

And, again, please note the IMHO. I am not claiming that what I view as a quality of poor GMing is the same as what you do. You may love and admire qualities that I believe belong to poor GMing. I am not arguing what your opinion is; I am stating what mine is. That is another strawman that I will not follow up on any more.

It is not my opinion that "fudging cannot work. That in every game, if the DM fudges, the players will be unhappy and the game will fall apart." (as you characterized it.)

It is my opinion that "fudging is a generally bad decision. If the DM fudges, the players are almost certain to discover it, which will lead to the game being less than what it could be. If the DM is capable of resisting the urge to fudge -- especially if he can do so because he has elminated the urge through better prepwork -- the game will almost always be better. There is a set of people to whom this does not apply, but IME it is a vanishingly small set, and if you tell me that you are one of them, I am not likely to accept that as plausible without some evidence that it is so." (I went on to say that I do accept that Piratecat was a member of that vanishingly small set.)

There is a difference.

Yes, there's a difference - a vanishingly small difference. So you can understand why the difference in people's reactions between what you're saying here and "you are understanding your experiences wrong" would also be vanishingly small, I hope.