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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shaman" data-source="post: 2781265" data-attributes="member: 26473">This example is terminally flawed - we're not talking about how to play completely different sports/games, but rather whether or not there are best ways to play a particular sport/game.Let's look at baseball as an example. My wife finds it puzzling that I can write a lineup card based solely on the players' positions. How do I know the leadoff hitter is likely to be the shortstop or center fielder? How do I know the guy hitting cleanup is probably a corner infielder? I explain to her that the attributes those players bring to their positions in the field often translate into batting position as well, such as mobility at the top of the order.Why not put the best hitter first, then the next best hitter, and so on down the line, she'll ask? Because there is a strategy to hitting and scoring in baseball, one that's been tested and refined for scores of years in everything from little leagues to major leagues that says this is the best way to arrange your line up, these are the attributes needed from hitters in different parts of the batting order - and that more often than not those same attributes will reflect where a given hitter plays in the field.Put another way, there's a reason very few catchers win the MVP award for drawing walks and stealing bases.Roleplaying games are no different - there is a collective consciousness among gamers about what makes a game good or not. We see it in the principles enshrined in rules systems and in adventure, campaign, and setting design. This is gaming's "lineup card."No, it really isn't problematic at all, since it's not really all that arbitrary, particularly over a long period of time.Criteria for what's fun may vary from gamer to gamer, but when you collect large numbers of those opinions trends emerge. Those trends, what I referred to earlier as the standard vernacular among gamers, develop over time and become enshrined as design principles - like dungeons that 'make sense' and campaign metaplots instead of "ten-by-ten room, one orc, one pie."Put another way, you're focusing on phenomenology (N=1) as the bottom line while I'm suggesting that there are commonalities that develop over time in the larger population.What I find silly is the idea that you believe the only way to judge quality is by fun.A poorly written, poorly edited adventure with crappy artwork can still be fun for the players if the GM overcomes the limitations of the source material - it doens't change the fact that the writing is convoluted and strewn with errors, the editing slipshod, and the artwork childish. (And on the flip side, a boring adventure with great art and polished prose still sucks.)James Whister would probably agree with you - I recall him quoted once as saying something along the lines of, "Don't say it is bad - rather, say you do not like it, for then no one can prove you wrong."barsoomcore, I don't know if it's just a simple lack of understanding on your part, or if you're deliberately trying to twist my words, but nowhere have I suggested that anyone should sit in judgement of what is or isn't fun. Rather, I'm saying that as a community of gamers, we develop collective standards of what is considered good and desireable in roleplaying games.A playstyle that encourages some measure of roleplaying is considered good among gamers -and you don't have to take my word for it. Crack open the core rules of just about any roleplaying game and you will find anywhere from a few paragraphs to several pages devoted to the what, why, and how of roleplaying by the participants.</blockquote>

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