The Impasse

[Fenes]

If you liked skill challenges because PCs failed a lot, or if you said PC's failing a lot is no problem, but then liked the new rules better since PCs did not fail that often anymore, then yes, you are or were a blind defender.

 

[LostSoul]

If you liked skill challenges because PCs failed a lot, or if you said PC's failing a lot is no problem, but then liked the new rules better since PCs did not fail that often anymore, then yes, you are or were a blind defender.

If I like skill challenges for reasons that have nothing to do with the rate of success for PCs, then I'm not a blind defender?

edit: What I'm trying to say with these leading questions is that you might read a post where a guy (me) defends the original skill challenge system. Then there is errata and the same guy (me) defends the new system. This might look like blind defense, but the reason I like the system isn't really impacted by the changes that were made.

The thing is, you don't really know why someone is defending the system. Calling it blind defense is assuming a motivation for a person that might not exist.

 

[mudbunny]

Calling someone a blind defender or blind hater is, IMO, no different than calling someone a 4E "fanboi" or a 4E "H4TER". It is an attempt to remove the legitimacy of a person's arguments or opinions by attacking the person rather than their argument or opinion.

 

[Fenes]

The thing is, you don't really know why someone is defending the system. Calling it blind defense is assuming a motivation for a person that might not exist.

If people state their reasons one knows. If someone says "PCs fail a lot, and that's good!" and then later says "PCs succeed a lot, and that's good!" when the rules changed, then that's a blind defender.

If someone says "PCs failing a lot is no big deal" and later "The new system is better because PCs do not fail a lot anymore", then that's a blind defender.

Usually we know people's motivations, since they answer the arguments of the critics in order to defend the rules.

 

[LostSoul]

Eh, maybe you're right. I think my own defense of 4E has been a little too blind at times.

 

[Rechan]

If greedy corporations that treat employees as numbers and customers as mindless sheep don't deserve to be demonized, then I guess no one does. These corporations you are defending are often run by people who would lay employees off and ruin thier families financial futures so they can get bigger bonuses. I'm sorry but I'm not going to feel sorry for people who are so greedy they will ruin other people's lives to fatten their already huge bottom line. I suppose you want us to feel sorry for Bernie Maedoff (however it's spelled) and Kenneth Lay as well. Give me a break.

I don't really see WotC as "a greedy corporation", if for no other reason than it's such a minor company.

WotC is owned by Hasbro. The amount of money Hasbro brings in from WotC is a blip. Compare D&D sales to say, Pokemon, or M:TG. Their market is small, and the number of customers (potential and otherwise) is fairly limited.

WotC caters to such a niche market that it's hard to see them as a greedy corporation. It's like being a "Greedy corporation targeting left handed coffee farmers".

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Calling a company greedy as an insult is like calling a duck a mammal as an insult. Of course companies are greedy. That's their damn purpose. Go back to communist Russia, man!

No seriously, someone explain this argument to me. I'm not quite grasping the intent of getting upset at a company - which literally exists solely for profit gaining reasons - desiring to make a profit.

 

[Admiral Caine]

Calling someone a blind defender or blind hater is, IMO, no different than calling someone a 4E "fanboi" or a 4E "H4TER". It is an attempt to remove the legitimacy of a person's arguments or opinions by attacking the person rather than their argument or opinion.

I agree with you Mudbunny, as usual.

But.. I think this still goes hand in hand with what the Original Poster was getting at..

It is not what is said, but the way in which it is said... that perhaps makes the Original Poster feel that the 'defenders' were doing so blindly.

A perceived double standard if you will.

The law supports WOTC, so whatever is said in their defense is okay? Any opposing point of view can be called ridiculous, irrational, deserving of a smackdown, or just crap?

It is the manner in which some defenders chose to voice their opinion that probably prompted the Original Poster to dismiss them as 'blind.'

Which is exactly your point.

 

[Jack99]

No seriously, someone explain this argument to me. I'm not quite grasping the intent of getting upset at a company - which literally exists solely for profit gaining reasons - desiring to make a profit.

I think it has to do with a belief that gaming companies should exist only to make games for us, not to make money.

 

[Sammael]

Patently false, of course. No one is saying that WotC should not make money. It's just that a lot of people are questioning the actual value of products vs their relative or perceived value.