Sage... Dragon... Advice... what?

dcollins · Jan 22, 2004

Caliban, sorry to hear about your recent troubles. I hope you're holding up okay at the moment.

D+1 · Jan 22, 2004

Caliban said:
As I pointed out, his bad rulings are very tiny when compare to the number of good rulings he has made.

I've certainly had my opinion of the Sage's reliability and usefulness drastically reduced in the last few years. I generally look to him LAST after first opting for my own solution or one I can glean from elsewhere on the net.

The Sages problems are twofold:

First, he speaks in an official capacity - his "opinion" is OFFICAL RULE. In a sense he thus doesn't get the luxury of being wrong in the first place since the position of Official Sage exists to ELIMINATE inaccuracies and mistakes, not ADD MORE. It's not a terribly enviable position and he deserves credit for the effort.

Secondly, though you are correct that most of his rulings are fair, balanced, accurate, etc., when he is wrong he can be so OBVIOUSLY wrong and that's what really rankles. "What the hell was he smoking?" kind of wrong. "Did he not even READ the damn rules in the first place?" kind of wrong.

It would be one thing if they said to just consider his rulings official - but to keep in mind it's still just one man's opinion. It's MY opinion that they really don't run the position of sage as effectively as they could and should. Once a month Skip issues a new batch of rulings in Dragon whether they're really needed or not. Check me if I'm wrong here but that means he's got about 30 days between each issue to select a new batch of questions, look up answers, add his own opinion or fill in rules that are absent - and then bounce them off several other people or hell, even post them publicly somewhere and SOLICIT answers that he can then add with his own and collate it all into one OFFICIAL response.

It's the last part that I assume is lacking. He possibly keeps it all to himself until he actually submits his responses and apparantly nobody does more than check his spelling before his word becomes "law". That's no way to run this kind of railroad. The resource of player feedback on this sort of thing is going UTTERLY untapped and that's almost a crime. Several thousand heads on the net are certainly better than one when it comes to getting EVERY question on EVERY aspect of the rules correct 100% of the time. These sorts of questions are practically the raison d'etre for message boards like this and rgfd on Usenet. He could redouble his reputation and accuracy scores in a month by submitting his answers for review/comment somewhere before they get graven in stone.

Caliban · Jan 22, 2004

D+1 said:
The Sages problems are twofold:

What you say is true, but it shouldn't be the Sage's responsibility to do that, it should be WOTC doing it. He's just one guy who writes an advice column, and they have decided to make official rather than putting any real effort into the matter themselves.

WOTC should be hosting an official rules forum on their boards, that the R&D team posts on, specificially to deal with technical issue, ambiguous rules, and to answer questions of designer intent.

Instead they put it all on the Sages shoulder's, because he's the only one willing to do it full time. And then you jump on him for doing it by himself. He can't win.

Caliban · Jan 22, 2004

dcollins said:
Caliban, sorry to hear about your recent troubles. I hope you're holding up okay at the moment.

Most of the really stressful stuff was last year, around the time 3.5 came out. Although I'm about to be unemployed again, as the contract for my current job is up at the end of the month. *shrug* I'll manage.

Hypersmurf · Jan 22, 2004

Caliban said:
WOTC should be hosting an official rules forum on their boards, that the R&D team posts on, specificially to deal with technical issue, ambiguous rules, and to answer questions of designer intent.

Well, when all else fails, we've always got Customer Service

-Hyp.

Nightfall · Jan 22, 2004

When all else fails, I go for my shotgun.

Ranger REG · Jan 22, 2004

D+1 said:
First, he speaks in an official capacity - his "opinion" is OFFICAL RULE. In a sense he thus doesn't get the luxury of being wrong in the first place since the position of Official Sage exists to ELIMINATE inaccuracies and mistakes, not ADD MORE. It's not a terribly enviable position and he deserves credit for the effort.

Geez, make him Lono until he bleeds.

[A Hawaiian reference. That's what happened to Captain Cook when he impersonated a Hawaiian God until he bled during a scuffle, then they mobbed him.]

"Doesn't have the luxury of being wrong in the first place." Who made him a deity? He's as human as all of us. He can err just as much as professional experts in their field of expertise. And honestly, have someone counted his mistakes?

dcollins · Jan 22, 2004

Caliban said:
Most of the really stressful stuff was last year, around the time 3.5 came out. Although I'm about to be unemployed again, as the contract for my current job is up at the end of the month. *shrug* I'll manage.

Best of luck -- I know how it is, I've been "underemployed" (teaching college allegedly part-time) for about 2 years now.

jgsugden · Jan 22, 2004

Caliban - I also am sorry to hear of your troubles.

I have nothing further to add to this discussion without repeating myself. I stand by what I have said:

The Sage makes a significant number of mistakes due to a failure to do a reasonable amount of research on the questions he answers. Nobody should expect him to be perfect, but we should have an expectation that he will not make careless mistakes. The Sage has authority to answer in an official capacity - and with that authority comes the responsibility to do the job right.