Unpopular opinions go here

[Milieu]

I'd like to see the case for that

Here's the case: 10 is evenly divisible only by 2 and 5 (and, trivially, 1 and itself). 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6, making it more often convenient to divide. This is why we still have 24 hours per day (often counted 1–12 twice), each divided into 60 (5*12) minutes, divided again into 60 seconds; 12 inches per foot; dozens of eggs, cookies, and doughnuts; and 360 (12*5*6) degrees in a circle, each of which is also divided into 60 minutes of 60 seconds. Prior to decimalization, a British pound was divided into 20 shillings, each of which was divided into 12 pence.

For units that are commonly divided, 12 is generally more convenient than 10. The only advantage to 10 is it matches the number of fingers most people have. But there are other ways to count that have historically been used by many cultures: base 20 (for fingers and toes, which also lets you divide by 4) and base 12 systems (counting the bones of your fingers, excluding the thumbs). (The Oksapmin people of New Guinea count up one arm and down the other up to 27.) The Babylonians and Sumerians used base 60, which is even more divisible than 12.

This is also why we have special names for 12 things ("a dozen") and less commonly 20 things ("a score"). We even have a special name for a dozen dozen ("a gross") and a dozen dozen dozen ("a great gross").

 

[ichabod]

(The Oksapmin people of New Guinea count up one arm and down the other up to 27.)

There's a variety of systems like this with different bases throughout the Pacific Ocean. IIRC, one counts up to 13 as well.

 

[MGibster]

I agree with all of this. What do you have mixed feelings about?

Sometimes the metaplot could be fun. For Deadlands, they had metaplot campaigns where the PCs were responsible for confronting and defeating each of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. These were events that were driven by the PCs rather than NPCs and changed the setting. But they still managed to do the annoying metaplot thing over the years. The "Hey, we can't spell out all the details in this book, so look forward to buying this future product if you want to learn more."

Another positive is that it can be good to change the setting a little bit from time to time just to keep things from getting stale. Most games I think have done a pretty poor job of it. I never cared for any of the metaplot in Legend of the Five Rings, and pretty much always play the game as if none of it ever happened. Cyberpunk has tried to change over the years based on in game events, and in my opinion at least, they've never done better than they did with 1991's Cyberpunk 2020 (I do not care for Cyberpunk Red). In contrast, Shadowrun has progressed their setting and kept things interesting. But I'll never play it because I dislike their rules.

However, it has also been very strange to see how much people venerate Gary Gygax, treating him like the "Founding Father of D&D", and saying that the game has only gotten worse since he left TSR (or since TSR went bankrupt).

Well, I think it's accurate to refer to him as one of the founding fathers of D&D. It's just that for many years we've been praising Jefferson and forgetting about Washington, Adams, Hamilton, and Franklin.

 

[MGibster]

Yeah, geez, we'd have to have 12 inches in a foot or something silly like that.

Ha! We're closer to the duodecimal system than metric! We win!!!

 

[overgeeked]

Dragon Quest is better than Final Fantasy.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There are some players, however, who don't (can't tell if it's can't or won't) adapt, then complain about the game not being their favored poison. (The most egregious examples have been Classic Traveller players with no other RPG experience.)

When that complaint is attached, I'm not sure there's any meaningful difference between "won't" and "can't"; its hard to see someone who complains that its not what they're used to is trying at all hard.

 

[overgeeked]

Now you are reduced to making axiomatic assertions. RPG live play produces a story. It has the elements of a story - characters, events, plots, setting. It has the structure of a story. That structure isn't always classical and sometimes meanders, but many modern stories (and even some fairy tales) do the same. So, yeah, I feel yours is the extraordinary claim.

So? It's still a story if it has a sequence of events. The fact that some are boring and utterly mundane doesn't make it less of a story. It might not be what you claim is a good story, but then that returns me to my point - you seem to be defining certain qualities of story-telling into your definition of story and if the story doesn't have those qualities you prefer (every moment meaningful and non-mundane?) then you claim it is not a story. When really, all you are saying is that the story isn't to your taste in stories.

But it's a story before you do all of that.

A story isn't defined by its action, adventure, and death-defying feats! That's just one type of story. I asked my daughter what happened at work today and no action, adventure, or death-defying feats were involved but it was still a story!

A story is defined by conflict. Without conflict, there's no story. (Yes, I'm aware of Kishōtenketsu.) Things like drama, theme, causality, increasing stakes, dramatic reversal, plot twists, plot points, etc are important as well. This is why your real life isn't a story. Because most of your life doesn't actually involve conflict. It doesn't involve most of the other elements important to a story either...unless you happen to live an incredibly interesting life. In the Chinese curse sense. A sequence of random events does not make a story. Seriously, try to write that story and get it published or write that script and get it produced. You'll be rejected by every editor or script reader worth their salt. I'd suggest picking up basically any intro to writing book and going from there. There's a lot to learn out there. Either way, tschüss.

 

[Celebrim]

A story is defined by conflict. Without conflict, there's no story.

Like I said, if you define your terms in a personal way, then you can make any argument you want simply by creating a tautology where your claim is true by your own definition. You want to add to the definition of story in a way that makes your claim tautologically true. But of course, you don't get to define words in special ways and then claim that because you can alter the definition of a word you are now correct.

The dictionary definition of a story is simply something like: "an account of incidents or events", "a statement regarding the facts pertinent to a situation in question", "a description, either true or imagined, of a connected series of events:, or "an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment". Pick your dictionary, but your special definition of it being defined by conflict won't be there.

Now, I agree that a good entertaining story has some sort of conflict, but again, a story doesn't have to be a good and entertaining story to be a story. And in any event, you seem to have forgotten what you are trying to prove, because one thing that a story produced by an RPG will surely have is conflict so your attempt here to contridict me by saying a story has to have conflict or it's not a story suggests that you are now creating your argument ad hoc and not explaining some previously well thought out train of thought.

But even if we were to take your argument at face value, I protest that it doesn't make sense.

This is why your real life isn't a story. Because most of your life doesn't actually involve conflict.

I beg your pardon but everyone's life involves conflict, if only Man against Himself. You will find that internal struggle against ones own impulses is in fact accepted as a narrative theme. I'd suggest picking up basically any intro to writing book.

 

[MichaelSomething]

The power and rules should go where they belong: in the hands of the people! That every player should be free to think - to play - for themselves!

That more Enworlders should go run game on Start Playing so that the world can experience the greatness of our judgement!

That Elon Musk should run WOTC! (When a person's unironic opinion is more unpopular then my ironic opinions)

 

[mamba]

The only advantage to 10 is it matches the number of fingers most people have

The other is that we are using a decimal system, so dividing by 10 is much easier than dividing by 12