Iron Lore: Malhavoc's Surprise?

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

OK, so that all could have been stated more clearly with fewer words. Are you intentionally trying to drive home the previously-mentioned quote from Mark Twain? I beg you to spare any other threads.

I really don't think so, not for the sense I was trying to arrive at. If you could demonstrate a good rewrite I'd gladly amend to it.

Further, I reject your plea for mercy. No thread shall be spared. Within the hour all your base will belong to us.

Don't try to over-analyze common sense. it's evident in a matter of seconds whether or not something is so ridiculously beyond the realm of possibility that the immediate reaction is to snort in disdain. It's a gut reaction, though the term "common sense" allows for a certain margin of folks to lack that faculty.

It goes as far as your gut takes you.

Common sense is fine for adolescents and people at the edge, not adults with the leisure to discuss a hobby or culture.

In terms of the thread in question I have absolutely no hesitation in calling 'common sense' simply a prejuidice, and no desire to clarify it as the nice sort of prejuidice either.

Particularly since, by your argument here, you'd need demographic certitude to claim legitimacy other than through assumption and exclusion.

I'm not over-analyzing common sense I'm outright rejecting it. It's a stupid way to look at media. Cause if it's your taste, then it's just your taste and you should own it as such rather than give it a puffed up name, dignity it doesn't have, and a false sense of commonality. And if you want to make an argument around your overall sense of a thing then you really can't call it common and run with it, you've got to specify and negotiate. If you don't want that then you don't have to do it, but you can't then join the fight weilding 'common' like a banner. It's like praying for victory before a game, it may be a great sentiment for you, but the other's sides doing it too.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

And Zorro you just can't say that at all. Zorro as written and as played, at least for the most and best parts, is a very limited and realistic character in terms of what's possible for humans.

Zorro's world (at least, the one most people have been exposed to) is ultimately a pretty harmless one. It's hard to cross-pollinate swashbuckling with grim-and-gritty.

To put it another way, the reason that Zorro doesn't "ring true," from a GnG perspective, isn't the "wahoo" of the action (although that's part of it), but rather the pervasive feeling that the protagonist (and many of his enemies) are in no real danger.

Zorro just doesn't drive his blade through the heart or throat of his enemies when pushing them down a flight of stairs or bowling them over like bowling pins will do.

Verisimilitude is broken specifically because Zorro would choose the more cinematic approach-- this in itself is not very realistic, even if the physical action is possible.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I'm not over-analyzing common sense I'm outright rejecting it. It's a stupid way to look at media. Cause if it's your taste, then it's just your taste and you should own it as such rather than give it a puffed up name, dignity it doesn't have, and a false sense of commonality. And if you want to make an argument around your overall sense of a thing then you really can't call it common and run with it, you've got to specify and negotiate. If you don't want that then you don't have to do it, but you can't then join the fight weilding 'common' like a banner. It's like praying for victory before a game, it may be a great sentiment for you, but the other's sides doing it too.

So... you're not just saying you don't get it, you're saying you don't want to get it.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

That's part of the real issue.

Hmm, fair enough, though I have my suspicions.

If he's clumsily trying to walk across water-- shuffling, really, at best-- wearing boat-like shoes on each foot, we can accept it, but it's not going to be particularly gripping action.

Depends, if it's dark enough, you add the threat of discovery, and you put in some quipping I think you can do it.

I've seen people do it in a non narrative context and it's actually not so muc clumsy as weird. The motion is so different, but it's obviously working and the joints are in the right place so it's not as nightmarish as stilt walkers.

Neither of these cases is likely to show up in Iron Lore, of course-- but nothing that a PC can do in 6 seconds is likely to be believable.

Sir, in the hyperbolic terms of the hobby I would gladly cry 'Wulfus Volt' paint some sort of barred circle over a six on my shield and travel in full panopoly to all the centers of national role-playing in order to save our hobby from the heresy that is the 6 second unit of basic action.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Zorro's world (at least, the one most people have been exposed to) is ultimately a pretty harmless one. It's hard to cross-pollinate swashbuckling with grim-and-gritty.

To put it another way, the reason that Zorro doesn't "ring true," from a GnG perspective, isn't the "wahoo" of the action (although that's part of it), but rather the pervasive feeling that the protagonist (and many of his enemies) are in no real danger.

Zorro just doesn't drive his blade through the heart or throat of his enemies when pushing them down a flight of stairs or bowling them over like bowling pins will do.

Verisimilitude is broken specifically because Zorro would choose the more cinematic approach-- this in itself is not very realistic, even if the physical action is possible.

Hmm, I think you're missing my point, but I'll take yours.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

So... you're not just saying you don't get it, you're saying you don't want to get it.

No, by the formulation you've put together above, I'm not just saying there isn't an it to get, I'm saying that it's wrong to get it.

To put it closer to the way I've actually put it. If you want me to get it, you've got to give me something to get or just admit it's personal and arbitrary and without real merit to me or anyone else.

 

[Felon]

In terms of the thread in question I have absolutely no hesitation in calling 'common sense' simply a prejuidice, and no desire to clarify it as the nice sort of prejuidice either. Particularly since, by your argument here, you'd need demographic certitude to claim legitimacy other than through assumption and exclusion.

OK, let's try to save some time here: if you believe it's necessary to convene a focus group to declare with objective certainty that farts smell bad, then please state so now so you can be catalogued amongst the hopelessly obtuse.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

OK, let's try to save some time here: if you believe it's necessary to convene a focus group to declare with objective certainty that farts smell bad, then please state so now so you can be catalogued amongst the hopelessly obtuse.

And if you want to argue that farts are always bad in movies or books or even in real life I'd be happy to leave you in some sort of home for the terminally Episcopalian and visit you every sunday after sung services. In the few years you have remaining until you expire from terminal bloatedness, and on that day I pray that I am not present for I imagine that will be among the most powerful expirations I could encounter.

If you thought about, were honest with yourself, and asked people in a relatively free environment I bet you would get a lot of disagreement over that issue.

In fact I bet you get a lot of disagreement about it over the course of much of your life without any of those things being true.

Those no real need to convene a focus group, unless you had figure out a way to medicate people so they consistently produced different flavors of fart, since there's really no way to arrive at certainty with regard to that.

And on a side note, this is fun. Let's try using common sense some more, I've got reams of fart jokes and ucky anecdotes we can use to arrive at a good sense of thing.

 

[Felon]

Thanks, Monkey, that'll do just fine....

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I guess that settles that.