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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ydars" data-source="post: 4567138" data-attributes="member: 62992">I am not sure that the only object of the game is to gain XP; surely we play the game to have fun and enjoy ourselves since XP don't really exist?  I totally agree with your sentiments about the futility of legislating what is "fun" for any particular group, which is why it surprises me that you feel that level advancement is the sole aim of the game. It is one important part certainly, but for me not remotely all. In fact there is a side of me that dislikes more power because I love that seat_of_the_pants, running_around_in_constant_danger feeling of low-level games. There is also a more grounded and realistic feeling to low level games because my character's abilities feel much closer to mine and for many people this leads to greater immersion and emotional connection. You see I play D&D in many different ways; if the logical and rational part of me is "in command" then I love the powergaming and the level advancement and battles. The game can then become reduced to what you describe; a very complex tactical situation. I think it is interesting that when Gygax was writing one of the AD&D DM manuals he states that his games (played this way) often become stale after a while. If I always play with my logical brain, I can understand exactly what he means.  Whereas, I can also shift gear to enjoy exploring a situation and playing my character as a real persona and "feeling" like I am there. This is more emotional roleplaying and is about creating a shared story. There is more laughter and less worry about advancement etc.  I think it adds an enormous amount to the game to be able to switch between these two (and a few other) modes, even in the same session. I would also dispute that all human behaviour can be understood by Ethicist theories. If I understand correctly, their theories actually originate in evolutionary biology; i.e. trying to understand apparent altruism in animals versus the selfish gene concept. I know this only too well as I run a research lab and teach biology and biochemistry to undergraduates. This is what I meant about the blind man and the sun; selfish gene theory does describe animal behaviour very well because animals have very little capacity to reason. They only protect each other because of genetic programming that arises because evolutionary mathematics can show that postive <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />_ for_tat type tactics are very successful in the eventual survival of a species; so as you say animal behaviour is mainly about "winning" even when it doesn't seem to be. Man is different from animals precisely because we can choose to lay down our lives for perfect strangers, for animals, for friends even for abstract ideals. This makes no sense in evolutionary terms. It is true Altruism in many cases because the individual is not thinking of himself but of something outside him. Many of these actions cannot be accounted for by ethicists' narrow ideas of "apparent altruism" and I would argue that human behaviour in RPGs doesn't all come down to "I want to win and the best way is to co-operate" type of situations either. Sometimes we risk our characters lives to save a character in game for the same reason it happens in real life. Our character is a very important thing to us and yet we risk it because of our humanity and nobility. I saved another character's life the other day by using benign transposition to switch places with him when he was drowning. I had a slightly better swim roll but we were both in similar straits, very close to death. Why did I do it; because I wanted the others to do the same for me? No; I did it because it was noble and that is what I aspire to both in game and out of game.</blockquote>

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