Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7656464" data-attributes="member: 4937">That's it?  Thanks for my examples?  Seriously?  Not, "ok, I guess I was wrong to cast this debate as 'dictatorial' versus 'collegial'"?  No apology for trying to poison the well?  Or if not a concession, then no attempt to explain how I've still got it all wrong and you were using definitions of the words different than I suggested?  No pulling out quotes showing how clear I really made it how much I abhor people who play a 'collegial' game?  Or other hand, no admission how games are played at the table can't be neatly lumped into two opposing categories, and that indeed your whole argument really was a false contrast?   Or failing that, no rebuttle to show how wrong I got it?Just thanks for the examples?  Why should you thank me at all?Not really.  Rules is rules.  I have provided house rules precisely so that there would be clarity regarding what rules we are playing with.  If I find fault with my own rules through the experience of play, then I try to change them only between play unless everyone agrees at the time they are really not working at all (which has never happened, I'm far pickier regarding the rules we play by than any player).  Just the one, huh?  Are you sure you are looking hard?  Because I feel I've a bit of valid complaint that I'm not being read charitably, if the only thing you can pick out is that one is a house rule and the other isn't.a) One involved a rule.  The other a guideline.b) One involved setting information.  The other involved process resolution.c) One involve a metagame question about a metagame event - an attack of opportunity.  The other involves a metagame question about an in game event - the appearance of a manticore.d) One involved information that a character could pursue in game - the habits of a monster - using in game knowledge.   The other involved information that the character can't pursue in game, because it involves something which doesn't exist in game (an abstraction of the in game events during a combat).   e) One involves a request for clarification of the rules.  The other involves a request to overturn a feature of the setting.f) One involves a request which cannot possibly reveal in game information (though it could conceivably reveal metagame information, if for example there was a known feat or class power that caused circle maneuver to draw an AoO, it couldn't reasonably damage the plot).  The other on the other hand almost certainly reveals in game information by out of game means.g) One by description provoked a long argument.  The other didn't.h) One involves usurpation of the authority the table has agreed to yield to the DM.  The other doesn't.i) One involves an actual mistake by the DM.  The other, since the rules don't demand that a monster only be found in a favored environment, was not but involved a mere player preference versus a DM preference.  Recall, by Hussar's own admission, he preferred that manticores occur in all environments and expected that (as with 1e) they would.j) One involves a reminder of rules agreed upon to all in play and which part of the player rules of the rule set.   The other involves an appeal to rules that are not only the sole purvey of the DM by both convention and written statement of the rules, but that the DM had not even read much less agreed to abide by. Consider my list of differences again.  The Luke example is entirely questioning not of rules but of setting, and involves demands by the player that the player's expectations regarding the setting be imposed on the GM.   This is entirely of a different character than asking for a rules clarification.  In the Luke example, rules questions never came up.For example, the GM has no recourse for actually explaining to Luke why things are happening except by blowing a big reveal.  What makes this particularly bad play is that the player, if he would engage the setting actually knows enough about the setting to draw conclusions in play that would be really dramatic and fun for everyone one if he'd just trust the GM and go with it and accept that there must be an explanation.  Whether or not such an explanation exists or is immediately to be found (as we in on it know that it will be), not only does the GM deserve the benefit of the doubt, but the game would be more enjoyable for everyone if the player would simply play at trying to find an explanation in character.   The Star Wars example occurred to me precisely because this is the situation with the manticore example.   A really cool or even simply sufficient explanation could easily exist.  The GM - as at the least a fellow player at the table - deserves the benefit of the doubt.  And even if this was an oversight, going at this from the in game perspective is more graceful, reduces embarrassment, argument, anger, resentment and all the other potential nastiness that in all likelihood actually occurred at the table and well just happens to be fun and likely to stimulate GM involvement and creativity in response.   In truth, the amount of trust the GM in the Star Wars example needs relative to the amount any GM actually deserves is trivial.   At times something weird may happen in game that a player might not discover the legitimate reason for real life years, if ever.   All the Star Wars GM is asking for is 5 minutes of patience.The armor example is also a matter of setting.  It doesn't matter why the GM doesn't want heavy armor in his game setting.  He doesn't need to justify that decision and get interrogated over it.  It's enough that he's running the setting and he likes the feel of a more primitive feeling setting.   Table arguments about what is actually realistic go no where.   Concerning plate armor, I could argue either side of the historicity of that one and depending on what you meant by 'right' and 'realistic', I'd be right and realistic.   Point is, unless we all agreed ahead of time that we'd share the setting equally, DM's generally have a right to set the parameters of the setting without getting third degree about it.   It didn't occur to you that if you concede that the player of Luke in the hypothetical is playing wrong, then you've conceded the main point of my argument that everyone is getting so upset and angry about - that it is possible to play the game less well than other ways?   And if it is possible to play the game less well, less skillfully, and less artfully, and we can actually agree to that, then we presumably have gotten past what seems to be the big hang up in this thread, namely, whether I'm being an arrogant jerk to suggest that you can play an RPG well.   And further, that if you can play an RPG well, and it's not merely a question of 'style', then perhaps we can get past all these false arguments regarding how I just have a dictatorial style and others have a collegial style?And that's setting up a strawman is it?Oh never mind.  I don't know why I bother.   I'm dictatorial, right?   You're collegial!  Why don't we just keep it at that.</blockquote>

Verification