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

[Kraztur]

<sigh> not this again.

no, mustn't start... it burns...

I made my Will check. It doesn't even burn. Maybe just a slight annoying feeling but it quickly faded away.

 

[Hussar]

See, but, this becomes the problem.

You have open ended spells like Charm Person which are strongly influenced by DM interpretation. Now, I know that Emerikol will adjudicate this strongly - this far and no further. So, knowing that, I would argue that many players simply won't take the spell and will instead stick to clearly defined spells to avoid the whole "Mother May I" nature of this spell.

Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but, I do think that it strongly influences how the game is played. When you have DM's who are very strict in interpretations of open ended elements, those elements fall by the wayside. [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION] - you're playing 3e/Pathfinder right now correct? Do you have a wizard or some sort of core caster? How often do they use Charm effects in your game? Or Illusion effects? Are charm/illusions very common spells - something you'd see cast just about every session? Or something you see very rarely?

This, to me, is the potential problem of open ended spells. The DM gets burned by the players gaining too much power for the ability, and then go too far the other way, restricting things too much. Once things get strongly restricted, players stop using those options, and the restrictions never get relaxed because the DM is too concerned about the players gaining unfair advantages.

The advantage of clearly written rules, while certainly less open to creativity, is that clearly written rules become a lot easier to adjudicate and everyone at the table knows how they are supposed to work. No one ever bitches about magic missile or fireball, and no one ever has (well, other than the poor fighter who just got toasted in the blowback - but that's a different issue). The problematic spells and other elements are problematic because the lack of clarity results in too much push back against the creativity side of the spell.

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.

I'll admit, I'm a strong fan of the 3e/4e approach - strongly written, clear rules which cover the majority of situations. I'm not a big fan of the idea of the Emerikol Fallacy where the game designers leave it in the hands of DM's with the hope that they will "get better over time". I've played with too many DM's for whom this was certainly not true.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Counter - example:

In a similar Dragon Magazine article (or was it a letter?) the writer described how players used "Frisky Chest" to give movement to a heavy gold statue, so that they could herd it out of the dungeon under it's own power. The Dragon response was that this was, while technically legal under the words of the spell, was "certainly against the spirit" of the spell. He went on to describe a very 3rd-ed interpretation of magic, that a spell does exactly what it says in the text and no more.

In other words, the official attitude of the writer at the time was that the players had not been creatively problem-solving, but abusing the rules for their own gain. So one could say that strict, limited rules act to prevent creative players from innovating solutions.

This is why middle grounds are a good thing.

 

[Emerikol]

I do not believe I am super strict. I'm consistent and I don't abide debate at the table. I believe illusions can be very powerful in my world. As for charm I've generally adjudicated it like 5e says. It's not mind control. It's a default reaction improver.

The reason I didn't want to name any specific case at first is I didn't want the discussion to be about that one case. I wanted it to be about the notion that designing rules to stop bad DMs as a prerequisite for good design is a fallacy. I named it after myself so I could go down in the annals of enworld as some super heroic advocate of truth justice and traditional D&D. ;-)

I believe a lot of skill use is open ended. A DM needs to know how to set a DC based on all kinds of factors. Some spells are open ended. I believe those things enrich the game. If the computers we have today could simulate D&D fully then the game has lost something. Not saying that is possible right now but it seems like some people would welcome it.

 

[Emerikol]

I believe there are creative uses of spells that use some aspect that seems right in line with its purpose. Setting a house on fire with fireball seems in keeping with its intent. On the other hand spoofing a rule to do something never intended is not okay. For example the idea that handing an object to another character could be repeated until it circled the world in one turn. That is bending and abusing the intent.

It is the DMs job to stop such things and apply commonsense.

Not every DM is easily swayed by player arguments. I'll reiterate that if a DM is consistent and fair he is fine. It is not inevitable that he will be manipulated by the players. That though seems to be a classic strawman a lot of people are bandying about.

 

[pemerton]

For clarity of debate, please provide example(s) of rules lacking an objectively clear goal or intent.

I think masterwork armour rules in 4e lack a clearly stated goal or intent.

I think the goal or intent can be worked out with a bit of reflection - they patch a problem in the AC scaling - but the rulebook doesn't tell you that.

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.

 

[pemerton]

In FATE, some highly important chunks of the mechanics require the application of natural language descriptive phrases to in-game situations. Since we are talking about natural language, and not game-jargon, GM arbitration is required in the game pretty constantly. This is not "edges and corners" - this is central to the game's operation. If this is instantly an issue of "here there be dragons", FATE games should, as a matter of course, go up in dragonflame, as the game has you stomping around on the horde.

Oddly, they don't go up in flames. Oddly, this game with loads of GM arbitration in its rules has, by reports, sold pretty darned well for something not published by WotC or Paizo.

It is a real question for me. Which explains why my basic read through of FATE didn't leave me enthusiastic. It's likely also my same problem with Marvel Heroic RPG.

As I said in my post on the first place, extremely vague rules tend to drive me completely bonkers.

I think that comparing Fate or MHRP to D&D just brings out how different many of the system assumptions are.

For instance, in D&D the default consequence for losing a conflict, or even a check of any significance, is PC death. (In modern versions of the game, it might instead be a step on the way to PC death.) PC death, in turn, is pretty typically experienced as a "loss" condition among D&D players: you can roll up a new PC, you might even get to rejoin the party in the same adventure, but you're not doing as well as you might have in the game.

I think part of what opens up Fate and MHRP (and Burning Wheel, and HeroWars/Quest, etc) to more GM adjudication is that they all stress "fail forward", and hence don't have such a strong correlation between losing a conflict or check, and losing the game.

Another thing these non-D&D games tend to have in common (BW is a bit of an outlier here) is non-sim, non-process oriented resolution systems where - once the system is in play - the players have mechanically-underwritten abilities to change the fiction in meaningful ways. So the connection between GM adjudication and player agency is much looser than it is in White Plume Mountain or ToH-style D&D play.

4e D&D can be pushed in the direction of these sorts of games, but only by playing up all the most contentious aspects of the system (skill challenges, skills as loose descriptors, player protagonism in combat via the non-sim action economy, etc).

For a game like traditional D&D, I can see how and why GM adjudication has to be handled with care. (Which isn't to say it's out of line. But it's a more delicate matter than in Fate or MHRP that is much more likely to blow up in the GM's face.)

I will give and example which perhaps spawned the idea. The charm person spell. It says in plain English that it changes the target's reaction to friendly acquaintance.

Now a totally incompetent one could adjudicate that a friendly acquaintance might allow his friends into the bedroom of the King who he is sworn to protect. They just want to gaze upon royalty is their reason. I believe such a ruling would indicate incompetence on the part of the DM. Just because you are a friendly acquaintance you would not totally abandon duty.

Another example. Suppose my character enters a store and we cast charm person on the owner. I then state I am asking the owner for a free bottle of his finest ale that costs like 25gp. The DM that gives him the ale is an incompetent DM. Friendly acquaintances don't just give away things that cost such a massive amount of money from the eyes of the proprietor.

Both these examples are extremely contentious. How many people, over the course of human history, have abandoned duty for a friendly acquaintance? Whether by telling lies, or corroborating lies, or whatever.

When I was a parliamentary officer with my state Parliament I once took a friendly acquaintance, together with her friend whom I'd never met before, through the chambers, I'm pretty sure in breach of the guidelines that governed my access to those places, because it was a chance to show off a bit and spend a bit of time with them. Would I have let them in to look upon the face of the beatific king? It's hard to tell, but perhaps. It's certainly not outside the realm of conceivability.

As for your shop keeper bestowing gifts upon his friendly acquaintances, again this is entirely a matter of personality (and to some extent culture). Some people are extremely generous to their friendly acquaintances; others are not. In Gygax's DMG there is a calculable % chance that an NPC will risk his/her life for a friendly acquaintance (it's part of the loyalty mechanics).

Whether or not a charm person spell along the lines you describe is a bad rule for me would depend on how robust other parts of the social conflict resolution system were. But the idea that a GM who would rule contrary to you is incompetent is not one that I can remotely agree with.

 

[Emerikol]

Whether or not a charm person spell along the lines you describe is a bad rule for me would depend on how robust other parts of the social conflict resolution system were. But the idea that a GM who would rule contrary to you is incompetent is not one that I can remotely agree with.

I deliberately chose extreme examples just to illustrate the point. Obviously, if the issue is less clear cut one DM might rule differently than another and that is okay.

It only breaks the game if the DM allows the spell to do more than it was intended. In this case the intent is not that you have mind control of the charmed person. If he is a sworn defender of the King and in his personal bodyguard, no I don't think it's reasonable he would let someone into the personal sleeping quarters of the King. In fact I'd go so far as to wager that you could be the very best friend of a secret service agent and they aren't taking you into the President's bedroom while he is in there.

I meant the 25gp example to be an extreme one. 25gp to a shop keep was meant to be a small fortune. If you missed that then I suppose make it 2500gp. The idea is that the shopkeeper might give them a gift depending on his nature otherwise, he's not going to bankrupt himself.

The intent was to use extreme clear cut examples to illustrate the point that it is not mind control. If the situation is more reasonable then a DM may very well allow it. Allowing reasonable things is not a problem in my book. The only danger is a DM who can't tell the difference and who allows the charm person spell to become a defacto cheap high level spell.

 

[Hussar]

I do not believe I am super strict. I'm consistent and I don't abide debate at the table. /snip.

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.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The reason I didn't want to name any specific case at first is I didn't want the discussion to be about that one case. I wanted it to be about the notion that designing rules to stop bad DMs as a prerequisite for good design is a fallacy.

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.



Furthermore, the fact that a vague rules can be abused by a malicious DM hiding behind the responsibility of 'fairly interpreting' such rules is far from the only reason that they're bad. Vague rules can also be leveraged by rules-lawyering players, for instance. They can also just sow confusion or tie up game time in futile debate. They also make the game harder and more frustrating to learn, leave players unsure of whether their characters really have the capabilities they tried to select for them, and so forth.
Clarity is simply a good thing for a rule to have.