Flavour First vs Game First - a comparison

[Fenes]

Which is, again, the hallmark of mechanics over simulation. Just as with hit points.

The question, of course, is how much "mechanics over simulation" does one want in an rpg? Like the reversed question (how much "simulation over mechanics" does one want in an rpg?), there is no "right" answer for all people. Heck, for most people (IME), there is no "right" answer that applies across all of their gaming experience.

But many seem to believe they know the right answer for other people.

 

[Raven Crowking]

But many seem to believe they know the right answer for other people.

True dat.

 

[GlaziusF]

Ah, the argument that a McDonalds hamburger is objectively better than the one barbecued in your backyard.

The whole bit where you can talk about barbecuing burgers in your backyard and I understand what you mean kind of puts lie to this. If a McDonalds hamburger were really objectively better supermarkets wouldn't carry ground beef and hamburger buns since everybody would be going to McDonalds.

A McDonalds hamburger is arguably less costly and definitely less time-consuming to make. Hence the name "fast food". For some people the savings in money and time makes up for the drop in quality. For some it doesn't.

New Basketball didn't cost any more than Old Basketball to watch. It may have taken less time on occasion. It was actually more physically demanding on the players, who pounded up and down the court much more frequently. Unlike the McDonalds hamburger there aren't any obvious factors which would explain the rise of New Basketball, other than it actually worked better than Old Basketball.

"Newer is better" and "bandwagon is better" are both fallicious thinking.

RC

"People have reasons for what they do" is never fallacious thinking. This is why the slow-food movement over in Italy is plunking down a dining table across the street from the new McDonalds and staffing it with an old Italian grandma with a big plate of pasta. They know people value their time highly enough to trade quality for it at McDonalds, so their argument is not "you are making a dumb decision" but "why value time so highly?"

 

[Fenes]

"People have reasons for what they do" is never fallacious thinking. This is why the slow-food movement over in Italy is plunking down a dining table across the street from the new McDonalds and staffing it with an old Italian grandma with a big plate of pasta. They know people value their time highly enough to trade quality for it at McDonalds, so their argument is not "you are making a dumb decision" but "why value time so highly?"

My question would be: Why value your choice in edition so highly as trying to prove it is "more right"?

 

[La Bete]

"Newer is better" and "bandwagon is better" are both fallicious thinking.

RC

As is naturellement, "older is better", and "not jumping on the bandwagon"...

 

[GlaziusF]

If this were the case, the D&D IP would be worth little, d20 Modern would still be in print and a success,

d20 Modern? REALLY? Maybe you missed the part where I said there was such a thing as "bad crunch". d20 Modern introduced a new mechanic, Wealth, which doesn't do at all what it says on the label (model gear progression). It also tried to make two creaky mechanics from 3E even more load-bearing: the "pick what you suck at" skill system with the addition of "skill encounters" without even any guidelines for setting the right difficulty, and the multivariate calculus of multiclassing which was both made mandatory and given a third tier. "4E Modern" would beat d20 Modern like a redheaded stepchild.

Also, the very notion of IP doesn't have much if any room in it for crunch. You can't copyright math. Not that this has stopped people from trying.

and the RPGs with the most elegant rules would draw the most players.

Something I didn't address in the discussion of how both crunch and fluff reflect ideas was the role of uncertainty in gaming, and entertainment in general. Entertainment simulates something you would actually get a big kick out of doing but eliminates most of the risk. It'd be a real rush to take a skateboard to rollercoaster tracks but you get a decent approximation of that rush in the coaster without the risk of caving your skull in when the board jumps a rivet.

It's possible to make mechanics so comprehensive, which "collapse" to something elegant, that there isn't much room in them at all for uncertainty. In fact, the less uncertainty there is the more easily you can make something elegant. Why is mathematics full of talk of the 'elegant proof'? As a formal and abstract system there's nothing uncertain at all unless it's deliberately put there.

But the resulting system of mechanics becomes like a modern art "chair" - nice to look at but not useful as a thing to sit in. It's satisfying to read and think about but you can't actually PLAY with it.

Dragonborn warlords don't belong in the implied setting, and nor do eladrin or tieflings.

Actually, eladrin, dragonborn, and tieflings all solve common problems.

Eladrin: Okay, so somehow Galadriel is Legolas's mum and they live in an ancient towering mystic city perfectly attuned to the forest. Um, er. Eladrin are a way to remove this cognitive dissonance by separating elves into the two fundamental components of Sparkly Elves and Woodsy Elves, each of which do appropriately different things.

Dragonborn: You want to play a dragon? Okay, how about this guy. He's all covered in scales, he's got dragonbreath - pick your own flavor - and best of all he's a standard bipedal humanoid so I don't have to bother coming up with special dragon equipment or worrying about your gear progression.

Tiefling: You want to play a "good bad guy"? Okay, how about this guy. He's got giant demon horns, his name is "Misery", and when somebody hits him, he shouts "You DARE!" and backfists them. Eventually the backfist is flamesplosive.

As ready answers to common problems, they ALL belong in the implied setting.

I'm not so sure about that; just about every campaign I've played in has had its fair share of house rules to go with it. I've also played with a few DMs who were prone to making things up as they went along and so long as they were consistent it wasn't a problem.

"So long as they were consistent it wasn't a problem" - so if there were some standard guidelines so the DM wouldn't have to worry as much about consistency, wouldn't that be better?

Also, concerning house rules, they generally serve one of two purposes. Either they're a patch for some terrible problem in the rules that the DM has encountered in the past, or they're ideas the DM wants to try out which may have their own terrible problems in the future. In the former case it would be better if that problem never happened - in the latter, the DM would be well-served by a few "best practices" to help him realize his ideas with less worry that they won't survive exposure to the players.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The whole bit where you can talk about barbecuing burgers in your backyard and I understand what you mean kind of puts lie to this.

Are you suggesting that no one plays basketball without a shot clock?

New Basketball didn't cost any more than Old Basketball to watch. It may have taken less time on occasion. It was actually more physically demanding on the players, who pounded up and down the court much more frequently. Unlike the McDonalds hamburger there aren't any obvious factors which would explain the rise of New Basketball, other than it actually worked better than Old Basketball.

If there is a paradigm shift, where one can easily find New Basketball to watch, but where one has difficulty finding Old Basketball to watch, it becomes very difficult to claim (with a straight face) that there is not a higher cost associated with seeking out Old Basketball.

Or, to put it this way, VHS wasn't necessarily the best format for viewing films on tape, but it was the most widely adopted. Hence, if you want to watch a film on tape, your best bet to find it is on VHS, even if VHS is an objectively worse format than its competitor in terms of picture and price.

"People have reasons for what they do" is never fallacious thinking.

No, but attempting to answer that often leads to fallicious thinking. As I pointed out is true in the particular case of claiming that "more people play = objectively better" (which is, in a strange quirk of fate, objectively fallacious).


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

As is naturellement, "older is better", and "not jumping on the bandwagon"...

This is absolutely true.

In the case of an rpg, IMHO, the only criteria are (1) what does this game try to accomplish? and (2) how well does it do in the attempt?

If, in the case of (1), it is trying to accomplish something you place a high value on, you move on to (2). If not, the odds are that you will not enjoy the game. If, in the case of (2), the answer is "very well indeed", you are very likely to enjoy the game. The less (2) is accomplished, the more you value (1), the less you are likely to enjoy the game.

(1) and (2) have probably at least semi-objective components. How much you value (1) is not objective. Very likely, both (1) and (2) have components that are not evenly remotely objective.


RC

 

[GlaziusF]

My question would be: Why value your choice in edition so highly as trying to prove it is "more right"?

Heh, ask me a hard one next time.

I value my choice OF edition highly enough to spend 8 hours a week prepping and playing it. I'm betting you do too. But the only person I can ever prove it's "more right" to is myself. I'm like a guy pretending to hold a conversation with his dog because it helps him think, only everybody here is filling in for the dog.

Why stick my reasons out here? That's an easy one too. Lemme hit you with a little Karl Marx: thesis + antithesis = synthesis. Pitting an idea against its opposite knocks the crud off of both of them and makes what remains stronger. And I want my idea to be strong, so that when my players pitch me a curveball I can be less "what do I do?! O mama! O papa!" and more "try to keep up. This is gonna be awesome."

Waving a spongy little equivocation out there is like saying that choice doesn't matter. Like saying my choice doesn't matter. 'course it matters! It's MY choice, and I made it for MY own reasons, so they'd better be GOOD ones! Yes, when other people make choices, they make them for THEIR own reasons, and I don't doubt that at least some of THOSE reasons are GOOD reasons for the person making that choice. But here's the thing: some of those other people's good reasons? They might be REALLY good reasons FOR ME to do something different, and if I don't get them out in the open how am I going to find them at all?

So you can hold back all you want. I'm 'a dive in and start swinging, and if it turns out I get cut down, then so be it. Better it comes out now then 10 years down the road when a flash of insight reveals a long trail of regrets.

 

[Fenes]

Heh, ask me a hard one next time.

I value my choice OF edition highly enough to spend 8 hours a week prepping and playing it. I'm betting you do too. But the only person I can ever prove it's "more right" to is myself. I'm like a guy pretending to hold a conversation with his dog because it helps him think, only everybody here is filling in for the dog.

Why stick my reasons out here? That's an easy one too. Lemme hit you with a little Karl Marx: thesis + antithesis = synthesis. Pitting an idea against its opposite knocks the crud off of both of them and makes what remains stronger. And I want my idea to be strong, so that when my players pitch me a curveball I can be less "what do I do?! O mama! O papa!" and more "try to keep up. This is gonna be awesome."

Waving a spongy little equivocation out there is like saying that choice doesn't matter. Like saying my choice doesn't matter. 'course it matters! It's MY choice, and I made it for MY own reasons, so they'd better be GOOD ones! Yes, when other people make choices, they make them for THEIR own reasons, and I don't doubt that at least some of THOSE reasons are GOOD reasons for the person making that choice. But here's the thing: some of those other people's good reasons? They might be REALLY good reasons FOR ME to do something different, and if I don't get them out in the open how am I going to find them at all?

So you can hold back all you want. I'm 'a dive in and start swinging, and if it turns out I get cut down, then so be it. Better it comes out now then 10 years down the road when a flash of insight reveals a long trail of regrets.

The problem with your line of reasoning is that we're not comparing ideas, we're comparing taste. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference. And that's something that cannot be proven right or wrong.

If I say "I like chocolate, I dislike avocados" then no one can "prove" that I am wrong, or should like avocados. Same for movies, same for editions.

And personally, if you want to hear other reasons, you should not "start swinging" - it tends to cause peopole to clam up and stop reasoning, and start bickering. And then you have the whole edition war threads, and badwrongfun accusations.