Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy Ackerman-Yost" data-source="post: 4992976" data-attributes="member: 4720">Wait... what?This is standard operating procedure in Hollywood, and might be in writing 101.  Easiest way to set up a straw man is to put the argument in the mouth of the jerk who is always wrong.Sadly, more than 10 years in academia has proven this to me.... <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQnAhSzb4gY" target="_blank">The creator's conscious intent is irrelevant</a> (link NSFW)One can read or view a work and construct multiple internally consistent frameworks to explain that work.  I have seen multiple occasions when a creator was presented such a analysis and the response was some version of the following:"Huh.  That's interesting.  I didn't realize I had said that.""You mean that's not what you meant?""No, it's exactly what I meant.  I just didn't realize I meant it until you showed me this.  Who wrote this?  I think I need to collaborate with them on something."One of these was an analysis of data on bird song, so it works just as well in the sciences.I have a sneaking suspicion that the cats at Pixar would have such a reaction to Celebrim's analysis, particularly the part about Elastigirl's role as a mother (which is excellent work, btw).As for the game issue....Are pre-4e casters really more special than everyone else?  Seems we have a lot of people saying, "yes, we saw that problem" and a lot of people saying "no, I never saw that problem."So, we have a potential problem which manifested at some tables and not others.  Here's the sticking point for me, possibly because I'm a scientist.... negative evidence means nothing.  Just because you don't know anyone personally who has used offshore accounts to escape from paying taxes or to launder money doesn't mean that those things aren't problems.  I personally have never met a serial killer, nor lived somewhere one was operating.  This is not evidence that serial killers do not exist.  If I claimed this to be the case, I would clearly be wrong.  That does not invalidate my experience of a serial killer free world.  It just means that I am either lucky or blessed with a skill for avoiding serial killers.  Or I'm just oblivious, but in our media-saturated world, that might be a superpower.But I digress....Let's say we're writing a new set of rules, and this potential problem with caster classes has come to our attention.  We don't even know if it really is a problem, but there's some evidence for it here and there.  What is the best way to address it?Well, we can ignore it.  Ostrich syndrome is not a very proactive stance, though.  We can go to each and every table that has the problem, and try to apply band aids to fix it.  That's time consuming, and probably impossible.  In some cases, it would require curing jerkiness, power-gaming, or both.  These are terminal conditions for most adults, IME, so that's not a viable choice.  Or we can write the rules to close the loopholes in the first place.3rd one feels about right to me.</blockquote>

Verification