The Emerikol Fallacy .... or .... Fallacious uses of the Oberoni Fallacy

[Tony Vargas]

A slightly large-scale example: what is the reason for the AD&D rule whereby wizards need more XP than fighters per level up to about level 5, and then need fewer XP per level up to level 13, and then catch up to fighters again at level 14 and from then on need more XP per level? And how does this fit with the evident fact that, on a level-for-level comparison, MUs are arguably weaker than fighters up to about level 5, but then stronger than fighters at all levels above that; or with the other fact that the number of AD&D players who have actually advanced an MU or a fighter above 14th level is some tiny fraction of the total number of those who have played the game?

Not only does the rulebook not tell me the goal or intent of this rule, after thinking about it for 30-odd years I still haven't worked it out. (I can see the reason for MUs becoming dominant in mid-to-high level play - that is a pay-off for starting weak - but that doesn't explain why they need fewer XP per level than fighters between 6th and 13th levels.)

And don't get me onto the XP and spell progression for AD&D druids. The goal and intent are utterly opaque to me.

Heh. For some reason, I find those questions interesting.

It occurred to me once that part of the reason for the odd weighting of the exp tables was the expectation of character death. A low level fighter is tough, but he'll be 'blocking' all the time and a lucky hit or two can kill him - then he'll have to roll up a new character, because raise dead isn't available yet. Thus the faster exp progression so the new fighter can catch up. Rogues really dash in exp because they're going to die like flies as weak characters expected to take point and save the party from traps primarily by failing their find/remove trap checks and croaking. After low-level, the dynamics change. The fighter becomes super-durable, has tank-like magic armor, and excellent saving throws - he may not be able to accomplish much compared to what spells can do, but he's unlikely to die.

That few campaigns go to high level is fairly obvious: the game just doesn't work well at those levels, so campaigns wrap or groups break up.

The 1e Druid is very odd (but was oh-so-much fun). His first three levels are very high-exp, but each level also gained a new spell level, which is unprecedented before or since, afaik. Then it zips through the middle levels, and come to a crashing halt at name level, capping at 14. There is, indeed, little sense to it.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I don't know why it's supposed to be so impossible to come up with a decent ruleset, or why it's so important to deflect any request for rules quality away from D&D. :shrug:

Quality or quantity? One does not of necessity imply the other. There have been a number of decent rulesets written for D&D

If that's the best you can do to explain your disagreement, we'll have to agree to disagree.

I was at work and short for time.

The longer version of that explanation is that when playing a game in a fictional space in real time with imaginative players, a set of rules can only do so much before it either stifles creative input or becomes too much to deal with smoothly in actual play.

Rulings pick up where the rules stop and rulings, due to their very nature, are highly dependent on the situation at hand which is impossible to codify ahead of time. These rulings require a live person who is familiar with both the rules and the current situation which may have an impact on how the rules work.
Simply piling on more rules will either reduce player options to a set menu or eventually become unmanageable.

I have games where I can choose A,B,C, or D. They are electronic and do not require gathering together with friends to play. When I play with live people it is because I want what all of us bring to the table as players to have a major impact on gameplay. A closed menu based ruleset makes that very difficult.

I'm not seeing how it's taking too far. Oberoni says don't judge a rule by how a well a good DM can fix it up. How is judging a rule by how badly a poor DM can screw it up taking that too far? An example of taking Oberoni too far might be concluding that even good rules are bad, because they work well for good DMs.

In both cases, the fallacy is in the fact that the proposition can only have one conclusion. That is, in Oberoni, the supposition that a bad rule is good if a good enough DM can fix it means that all rules are good, because any rule can be fixed by a good enough DM. Flipping that around, if you suppose that a rule is bad if a bad enough DM can screw it up, then all rules are bad. Both examples of fallacious reasoning rely on the ability of the DM to override rules, in order to block an honest evaluation of a given rule.

I would add to this that the need for rulings does not mean the rules are bad.

Here's an example. In an old Dragon Magazine (and I have no idea which one, LONG time ago), they mention a Magic User using Spider Climb to pick pockets. Creative use of spell or abusive? Since the wording of the spell in AD&D is somewhat vague, the interpretation is certainly valid and supported by the text. But, I'm thinking it's certainly not supported by the intent of the rules. If the DM allows it, he now has to worry about what other things the players will try next. This might not be unbalancing, but, this plus that plus the other thing might be. Where do you draw the line? OTOH, drawing the line right away stifles creativity.

The spell provides the ability to crawl and climb like a spider. While it would be of use getting into position to pick a pocket, I don't see how it would help with the skill of actually doing so.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Quality or quantity? One does not of necessity imply the other. There have been a number of decent rulesets written for D&D

Quality, certainly. "Rules-heavy" gets tossed around like it's impossible to have good rules, so the best you can do is have a very few bad rules, so you have less to ignore. That's just not the case. You can have a few good rules and have a 'rules light' game, or a lot of good rules and have a good, 'rules-heavy' game.

I would add to this that the need for rulings does not mean the rules are bad.

They /may/ not be bad, but it can be an indicator. If a rule calls for a ruling in specific cases or outside specific cases (as you say, above 'there's only so much' the rules can cover) but is a good rule for what it doesn't punt to the GM, it would be unfair to consider only the cases it doesn't cover. OTOH, if a rule is non-functional as written without GM intervention, in all cases, that's a pretty clear case of a bad rule.

Also, 'not necessarily bad,' isn't necessarily good, either.

The spell provides the ability to crawl and climb like a spider. While it would be of use getting into position to pick a pocket, I don't see how it would help with the skill of actually doing so.

The old Spider Climb made your fingers 'sticky' (it even noted it made it hard to cast other spells with material components). "Sticky fingers" is an idiom describing a thief. I guess the idea is that you could lift an item without needing to grab it - just getting a single finger on a small/light object would be enough.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The old Spider Climb made your fingers 'sticky' (it even noted it made it hard to cast other spells with material components). "Sticky fingers" is an idiom describing a thief. I guess the idea is that you could lift an item without needing to grab it - just getting a single finger on a small/light object would be enough.

If anything, sticky fingers would make it harder to lift something without the mark noticing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If anything, sticky fingers would make it harder to lift something without the mark noticing.

I'm not taking a side in this ancient debate, just relating what I remember of it.

 

[Pickles JG]

Once you've decided that a game's fans seem to want a simpler rule system, it seems apparent to me that using simple words like "friendly" is what's desired, especially since we have the internet resources available to have arguments with the designers about the limits of "friendly". As much as I like clear rules, I admit we managed just fine for years (decades?) without needing everything spelled out for us.

My first contact with 2e was Baldur's Gate. In that the Charm Person spell gave you control of the target for 24 hours. It was far stronger than the Dominate Person spell was. This was patently absurd but it is how some rather good computer game designers interpreted the spell. All of these enchantment & illusion spells were a nightmare to adjudicate & massively varied from table to table - awful in Living Greyhawk for example.

I far prefer clarity in rules.

I do think the 5e designers have done a pretty good job. All of the mind control spells use straightforward language & seem to work as I would expect. They could no doubt be abused but the language feels pretty tight to me & I would happily use these with an unknown DM & be happy to adjudicate them myself as DM.

They have also done a reasonable job with things like fireball. It mo longer melts metals with a low melting point (whatever they are) but it does ignite flammable material. Presumably paper is flammable but wooden tables are not (even though they burn.)

Command has the option of using other commands. If one of these turns out to be generally more useful than the example then it will be used relentlessly. As a DM you need to be aware of this. However if it is useful in some specific circumstance it seems OK to retain the flexibility.

Any how I am pretty impressed with a lot of the 5e rules but not sure it's a game I will actually like.

 

[Emerikol]

I believe that your definition of strict and mine are very different. If you will not accept debate at the table, I would call you super strict. If players are not allowed to disagree with your rulings and discuss it at the table, ever, that counts as very strict in my books. I'll admit that I'm not a great fan of huge rules debates at the table, and I've certainly run into players who would argue over which shade of blue a Smurf is, but, by and large, I'm very open to players questioning my rulings. I believe in a very transparent table because it allows players to make informed decisions. If I ever have to shut down rules discussions simply because I'm the DM, I consider that a complete failure on my part.

For me it's never worth it to argue at the table. If the players know up front it's not allowed they are actually happier because it lifts a burden to argue off their shoulders. I welcome discussion after a session because then I'm not wasting game time. If I feel due to error I royally screwed over one of the players then I consider the cosmic forces of the universe in that players debt. Having the cosmic forces of the universe in your debt is a truly great spot to be in. Most of the time though (like 99.9%) the ruling is what fits and I explain and they understand.

My players can ask me at any time the chances of success before attempting an action. I will mostly tell them if I think it is at all possible for them to know. I believe in most cases they would.

 

[Emerikol]

Oh, so that's what you were trying to get at!

DMs can always change the rules, so the idea that a rule can stop an even-slightly-skillful but malicious DM (hardly the only kind of 'bad' DM) is, indeed, absurd. And, if you limited the construction of your fallacy to that, you'd've been fine. Instead, you took it 'too far' and tried to propose that even playing strictly by the rules to get a malicious result was just a case of 'bad' DMing. Actually, it's a case of the DM failing to do what a 'good DM' would do - look past the rule and adjudicate for the good of the game. That's 'fixing' the bad rule, so, really, in constructing the Emerikol Fallacy, you've actually committed the Oberoni Fallacy, again.

I'm talking about making poor judgments when given the right to make a judgment. Not necessarily houseruling in something evil. I do not believe a game should be considered to contain bad rules just because some DMs will make poor judgments when they make rulings.

I feel like I keep writing the same exact thing over and over and you keep seeing new things left and right. Try reading a bit closer.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm talking about making poor judgments when given the right to make a judgment. Not necessarily houseruling in something evil.

I caught that, and that's where you blew it.

Let's try looking at it yet another way. When you commit the Oberoni Fallacy, you're making the mistake of assuming that every DM will be good enough to note that the rule is broken, and exercise his right of DM judgement to fix it. If you even acknowledge that not every DM might be able or inclined to do that, you essentially assert that his players deserve it. (And, I can see why you'd want to chip away at Oberoni, since I'm afraid you do commit it now and then.)

When you constructed the Emerikol 'Fallacy,' you did basically the same thing. You figured that the rule could only be tested for functionality when the DM was good (competent & benevolent) enough to exercise his 'right of judgement' benevolently. That would have been valid if you were only considering when the DM /changed/ the rule out of incompetence or malevolence. (It's not longer the same rule, so you can't judge the actual rule on the basis of the mangled one.) But, if the rule give the DM no choice but to use his judgement, then there's no change to the rule implied in doing so.


FWIW, I don't think Charm Person needs this elaborate defense. It /does/ use an actual mechanic (advantage on social checks) and that mechanic works fine for determining if a caster can talk a 'new friend' into something questionable. The DM just sets the DC as normal, and advantage gives the caster two chances to hit it. Now, one could argue the skill system leans too heavily on DM judgement, too (the 'DM may I' criticism), but that's no longer the spell that's at issue.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The spell provides the ability to crawl and climb like a spider. While it would be of use getting into position to pick a pocket, I don't see how it would help with the skill of actually doing so.

"During the course of the spell the recipient cannot handle obiects which weigh less than 50 g.p., for such obiects will stick to the creature's hands/feet..."

Edit: Ninja'd by Tony Vargas.

Merely touching a purse string or item instead of having to actually grasp it should make it easier to pilfer in certain situations.