(FORKED) Fire Extinguishers and Prozac - AKA Why We Care

[Keefe the Thief]

Alas, for years past, honey and sparkling sunlight touched the newby when they entered our hobby, for AD&D and 3e sprinkled fairy dust over their hungry anticipation. Now in 4e brimstone land, vile tongues touch them in unmentionable places once they open the new red box. Who is the hero, come to rescue them from fourth editions iron grasp? Stopping their horrified flight from all RPGs?

I summon thee, spirit of Gygax! Save the new generation through complex prose and non-unified game mechanics!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

But here's the real kicker -- So Why Does It Really Matter What Rules We Play
And Why Do We Argue About It?

I think it has to do with all the factors mentioned above...plus at least one Geek Social Fallacy.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm sure some of you saw the light much earlier, but this is the first real statement I've read that has truly convinced me that there is no "logical" or "rational" way to prove that one "edition" or rule set is better than another. Unless both parties inherently agree on the premises of the argument, and more importantly, why they matter, then any real attempt at "proving" how one rule set is better than another is futile. And I don't know why I'd never thought of it that way before.

I think you make a fundamental misunderstanding here. I don't expect people to convert from my arguments if they are already opposed. But:
1: Arguing is fun.
2: When I argue properly I spend more time listening to the other point of view. And sometimes (not often, mind), I learn something. And occasionally have my viewpoint shifted.

For example, the statement that "4e's mechanics present just as many or more viable character building options as 3.x" is an objective, logically provable argument, because it can be calculated within the context of the rules

Give or take the word viable. To pick one example, is a Fighter 12 (weapon specialist) a viable build in 3e? I don't think so - it is in 4e. And then we run into distinctions without differences; is a character with Alertness really different from one with Skill Focus (Spot)? For that matter, how different is a fifth level character with 3e Toughness from one with Skill Focus (Basket Weaving)? And I'm aware I'm reinforcing your point

Someone who's totally enthralled by the tactical elements of 4e combat isn't looking to scratch a different itch. Someone hooked by more narrative-style systems likely isn't looking to jump into a combat-heavy system. There of course can be crossover between both styles, and sometimes we want heavy roleplaying, and sometimes we just want to roll dice and bash stuff.

And there are crossover elements in players. The 4e DMG2 goes into this in detail (or recycles Robin's Laws of Good Gamesmastering if you prefer - with Robin Laws having written those chapters in the DMG2). And to take myself as an example, I'm a mix of tactician and storyteller. And it's this combination that makes me really dislike 3.X; I like playing spellcasters. But the magic rules are broken enough that if I'm playing at above 4th level I'll make DMs want to tear their hair out (I do that enough with 4E characters even at quite low level). The only alternative is to play less than intelligently - which not only do I dislike but means that I can't use the stats indicated for most casters (high int or high wis). So far from scratching the storytelling itch, 3.X makes me break out in a rash (and honestly even working well is no better than 4e for games that wouldn't work better in WHFRP anyway).

If we're forced to admit that any argument about a game's rules is ultimately pure preference, then why do we care?

That isn't the case. For instance THAC0 is objectively faster and easier to calculate than using a lookup table. And objectively harder than ascending AC (although how much harder differs on an individual level).

Seriously, is there another hobby on planet Earth where participants are willing to put up with the levels of douche baggery that RPG players are, because our hobby is so niche that the choice is often to play with misanthropes, or not play at all?

... First Person Shooters, mysogeny, homophobia, teabagging, and all. WoW? If there'd been as much griefing at my table as I've seen on FPSs or MMOs I'd have done the same thing I did there - left. And those are much bigger niches than tabletop RPGs.

And the more of each we have, the more our hobby grows.

Indeed

 

[Umbran]

And to take myself as an example, I'm a mix of tactician and storyteller. And it's this combination that makes me really dislike 3.X; I like playing spellcasters. But the magic rules are broken enough that if I'm playing at above 4th level I'll make DMs want to tear their hair out (I do that enough with 4E characters even at quite low level). The only alternative is to play less than intelligently

My post here is a complete tangent.

You ever have a moment when someone says something, and a rather different point falls into place in your mind. That just happened.

No, it doesn't mean you have to play less than intelligently. Another alternative is to play your spellcasters intelligently, but understanding that they have never heard of hit points and armor classes, and cannot do average-damage-per-round calculations to figure out optimal choices. They have qualitative knowledge of what happens, but not all the quantitative information the player has.

Way back when, playing 1e, we had a couple of folks in the party who could cast Fireball. 33,000 cubic feet of flaming death, that would shape itself to the space, if it couldn't just be a sphere. We, the players, having been told we were in a space with 10' ceilings, could count map squares and know how far back down a corridor a fireball backblast would come, and thereby whether party members down that corridor might take damage.

But, would the characters know? They didn't have tape measures, or even so detailed a map as we players did. We instituted a coupe of rules - no counting the squares individually, and no announcing exactly how many hit points you had left unless the GM asked you.

Suddenly, what counted as "intelligent" spellcasting became much different - less about outright calculation, and a whole lot more about quick risk assessment.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Three reasons:

1/ To figure out our own preferences. People suck at introspection. Being forced to defend your position is an excellent way to gain insight into your position.

2/ To expand the mindshare of our peer group. More people playing MY game = more options for ME. Arguing has not been proved to accomplish this, but why risk it?

3/ Because it feels good to win, even if it's just an argument against some monkey on the internet.

Cheers, -- N

4/ To improve the signal to noise ratio so that more of those three can happen. If someone is using logic improperly--for example, to assert a preference as a fact, then they are creating noise.

There is an old (now defunct) gaming board where I used to post where I'd have almost killed to have sat down at a table with three or four of the people that frequented it, and talked about this stuff. Everytime they were allowed to develop a line of thought, I learned something useful, even when I didn't agree with them. I spent an awful lot of energy trying to get some other particular people from derailing them ... to the point where I finally had to give it up as a soul destroying lost cause.

One of them asked me later why I left, and when I told him, he said, "I thought it might have been something like that." He had the, I guess serenity, to merrily develop his line of thinking with all that fur flying and ignore it. I've only got about 85% serenity, and that ain't enough for a poorly moderated gaming forum...

 

[Neonchameleon]

My post here is a complete tangent.

You ever have a moment when someone says something, and a rather different point falls into place in your mind. That just happened.

No, it doesn't mean you have to play less than intelligently. Another alternative is to play your spellcasters intelligently, but understanding that they have never heard of hit points and armor classes, and cannot do average-damage-per-round calculations to figure out optimal choices. They have qualitative knowledge of what happens, but not all the quantitative information the player has.

Way back when, playing 1e, we had a couple of folks in the party who could cast Fireball. 33,000 cubic feet of flaming death, that would shape itself to the space, if it couldn't just be a sphere. We, the players, having been told we were in a space with 10' ceilings, could count map squares and know how far back down a corridor a fireball backblast would come, and thereby whether party members down that corridor might take damage.

But, would the characters know? They didn't have tape measures, or even so detailed a map as we players did. We instituted a coupe of rules - no counting the squares individually, and no announcing exactly how many hit points you had left unless the GM asked you.

Suddenly, what counted as "intelligent" spellcasting became much different - less about outright calculation, and a whole lot more about quick risk assessment.

That to me is barely relevant to playing a caster smartly. Fireballs and other evocation spells aren't the hallmark of a smart wizard in 3.X. Rather the reverse. The art of strategy isn't beating the enemy, it's rendering the enemy irrelevant. Illusions, walls, petrification. The sort of spell you aren't really stopping by those restrictions.

Also especially for martial classes, people get good at judging effects by eye. No tapemeasures - but none needed to be within five feet.

 

[wedgeski]

But, would the characters know? They didn't have tape measures, or even so detailed a map as we players did. We instituted a coupe of rules - no counting the squares individually, and no announcing exactly how many hit points you had left unless the GM asked you.

We waived this problem with the justification that these are wizards. They've been doing this thing their entire working life. Plus, when you're conjuring things that can burn you and/or your comrades to a crisp, spatial awareness courses are a requirement to pass your final exam.

It's a bit like asking, "Sure, *I* know it's 273 yards to the green because it says so on my TV, but how would the professional golfer know?" Well, he knows because he's just *that good*.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That's a nice way of looking at things...and you see it all the time in sports.

1. A pro quarterback who squeezes a pass between the hands of 2 defenders to hit a receiver running 40 yards downfield.
2. A hockey player who smacks it home from the blue line through 4 other players into a space hardly bigger than the puck itself
3. A home run king who stands at te plate because he knows the towering shot he just delivered is going to hook 1 foot foul 350 feet away

Why SHOULDN'T a trained war wizard be able to judge with meaningful accuracy how many targets he'll hit if he aims his fireball. Right. There.

And just like Burt in Tremors 2, that wizard will have an intimate understanding of the characteristics of the explosions they can create.

 

[Umbran]

We waived this problem with the justification that these are wizards. They've been doing this thing their entire working life.

Yes, you can certainly do that and not stretch credibility - it is a reasonable justification.

But, it also completely misses the point. Neonchameleon was complaining that he was driving his DMs batty with spellcasters. Your justification fails to address, and in fact enables and exacerbates, the stated problem. It makes it easier for spellcasters to drive the GM batty, especially in the hands of a player that's better at the game math than the GM.

Why SHOULDN'T a trained war wizard be able to judge with meaningful accuracy how many targets he'll hit if he aims his fireball. Right. There.

Well, if you want a fluff-description: Because the Quarterback doesn't hit it on the nose all the time either. Only sometimes. In my version, the QB does still hit it exactly sometimes. He just doesn't *know* he'll hit it spot on. There's a bit of tension to be found there that we liked, actually.

The point of the exercise was to put some basic guidelines in place to minimize runtime mathematical min-maxing. In reducing the detailed bean-counting at the table, you reduce the player's ability to hit some of the most egregious combinations so regularly (and you also tend to speed up the rounds, as people are doing less math).

The Fireball was only one example - in general we played that the exact info on your character sheet, in terms of numbers, was not to be communicated in discussion between players. When planning actions, we didn't talk about what our exact bonuses were, how many hit points we had left, and so on. Much of the detailed math was replaced with educated guesses. This had an impact on everybody, not just the spellcasters, so we found it to be pretty fair.

It did not remove intelligent spellcasting. When you have less than perfect information, you can still play it smart. It just changes what the player has at hand to make his choices. We found that players were still able to develop an intuition for what they needed to do, and the really cool stuff they did pull off was more rewarding, because they had less certainty their plans would work.

By no means is this to say that this is the end-all, be-all of gaming. It is simply a way we found to address something some people find problematic.