What the heck is "Unfun"?

[Gallo22]

No problem. Ironically I have always found the use of the word pedantic to be pedantic in itself. The inventor of that word was a genius.

I like this word. Never heard of it before today actually. Well used my friend!!! Personally my favorite word is "factious". Best word ever invented. Now I hope I don't have to prove it! hehehehehe

 

[Grog]

Ok, ok, I'll say it, just so Groggy here can feel better about himself/herself. Groggy....your right! There is not a single thread of evidence here on EN World ,or other worlds for that matter, that prove..., beyond a shadow of a dounut..., that there are gamers who want risk-free games.

However, (hehehehe) there does seem to be alot of you crying about things that happen to your character when they don't go your way!!! So for that reason...and that reason alone... is why Habro is creating 4th Edition. At least that's what I heard. Ut-oh. I hope I don't have to prove this?

Boy, this the most fun I've had in a long time. No really.

EDIT: Actually, never mind. Ignore list it is.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Aha, "strawman", gotcha!

the fact that a word may or may not be overused does not make it automaticly a "bad word", I'm afraid. Yes, "strawman."

So someone is calling someone else 5-headed? (using my analogy). I would think it was simply easier to prove that you don't have five heads, rather than demand that the person making the statement go and find a five headed person first. Because in the case that they prove such a person exists, they're *still* not talking about me and I could have made things a whole lot easier by establishing that.

"People who complain about parts of the game being unfun" exist. When someone makes rhetorical responses to that group of people that then add on a fictional level of baggage to them, yes, it is worthwhile to say "demonstrate that this fictional level of baggage is actually a significant component of the group you are complaining about, or address the actual people you are talking about".

Similarly, I am a person who prefers a lower lethality game. When people respond directly to such a statement of preference with "Well, if you don't want to have any risk of losing, maybe you should be reading a novel / I don't like to play games on God Mode / winning is meaningless if you can't lose" I'm not going to say "Gee, this person inexplicably started talking about something else, oh well, not my problem." Because they are not talking about something else, they are talking inaccurately about a group I am a part of.

(I could come up with a few political and religious examples, but then it would all go pear shaped....)

 

[Tewligan]

Do your players generally only carry enough arrows for 5 rounds at level 16?

More likely, they have a bow which creates infinite arrows magically, or they have a magical quiver with an obscene payload, which needs to be tracked.

And they don't always attack with the full rapid shot, so it won't always be multiples of five. There's ordinary attacking, and there's multishot.

And of course if you can run out of arrows, and you're away from civilization, you'll need to salvage arrows after a combat if you can. Half the arrows you fired are reusable. So add that bookkeeping in.

I'm still not seeing the difficulty of keeping track of arrows. Is subtracting 5 from 300 any more difficult than subtracting 5 from 25? And so what if it's not always a multiple of 5 that was fired? "Oh my god, last round I fired 5, but this round only 4?! This is a mathematician's nightmare! And what's this? I found 40 fired arrows, and half of them are reusable? Why, it'll take FOREVER to figure out half of 40 and add it back to my remaining arrows! Where's my abacus?!"

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

My personal #1 choice for "unfun" is a permanent, unalterable change to the numbers on my character sheet.

That means level drain, xp drain, permanent hp drain (hello, Shape of Fire ), things of that nature.

Heh, permanent HP drain. I suppose there's a reason that's been seen twice in one book and never again.

It's not just annoying, it breaks the existing abstraction of the game.

Brad

 

[The_Gneech]

Man, did this thread turn into all kinds of nasty!

-The Gneech

 

[Fobok]

I'm still not seeing the difficulty of keeping track of arrows. Is subtracting 5 from 300 any more difficult than subtracting 5 from 25? And so what if it's not always a multiple of 5 that was fired? "Oh my god, last round I fired 5, but this round only 4?! This is a mathematician's nightmare! And what's this? I found 40 fired arrows, and half of them are reusable? Why, it'll take FOREVER to figure out half of 40 and add it back to my remaining arrows! Where's my abacus?!"

It's not difficulty, it's annoyance factor, plain and simple. Once you get beyond a certain level and have enough money to restock multiple quivers between adventures, it's pointless to track since nobody'll ever run out. Thus, it's time spent for no real gain.

 

[Tewligan]

It's not difficulty, it's annoyance factor, plain and simple. Once you get beyond a certain level and have enough money to restock multiple quivers between adventures, it's pointless to track since nobody'll ever run out. Thus, it's time spent for no real gain.

But it's a few SECONDS worth of time spent! You can do that during another player's turn. Hell, you can do it during the time the next player is clearing his throat to announce his action!

"I fire 5 arrows at the dragon."
(On sheet labeled "Arrows fired" - "mark, mark, mark, mark, mark.")

That's just ridiculously easy.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I'm still not seeing the difficulty of keeping track of arrows. Is subtracting 5 from 300 any more difficult than subtracting 5 from 25? And so what if it's not always a multiple of 5 that was fired? "Oh my god, last round I fired 5, but this round only 4?! This is a mathematician's nightmare! And what's this? I found 40 fired arrows, and half of them are reusable? Why, it'll take FOREVER to figure out half of 40 and add it back to my remaining arrows! Where's my abacus?!"

Because it's boring, not difficult.

We're already abstracting out most spell components, specifically the ones that don't have a cash cost associated to them, by saying they're in a small pouch that the caster buys in a store or gathers along the way when feasible. There is no rule saying the caster has to refill this pouch after so many castings, at least that I'm aware of.

The argument is that ammunition is really no different in concept. After all, if we're not keeping track of how much bat poop a sorcerer has in his pouch, why should we bother keeping track of arrows? I do agree with that, to a certain extent; if someone makes an effort at ensuring they have a boatload of arrows available, I wouldn't make them account for every last regular arrow. Magic arrows and specialty ammo, yes, but not regular ones.

Of course, I'd also just use the quiver from Dragon that generated regular, silver, and cold iron arrows automatically and sidestep the entire issue.

Brad

 

[gizmo33]

Similarly, I am a person who prefers a lower lethality game. When people respond directly to such a statement of preference with "Well, if you don't want to have any risk of losing, maybe you should be reading a novel / I don't like to play games on God Mode / winning is meaningless if you can't lose" I'm not going to say "Gee, this person inexplicably started talking about something else, oh well, not my problem." Because they are not talking about something else, they are talking inaccurately about a group I am a part of.

In the first example, the use of the word "you" pretty much unambiguously applies to you and not some group. Maybe that person should be riding a bike. Or maybe he should stick to the topic instead of having weird opinions about what your hobbies should be.

In the second example, the person is telling you that they don't like to play games on God mode. The statement is difficult to argue with but also logically irrelevant to your gaming style. I think it's rude to insinuate that you play on "God mode" and not come out and say it so that you have a chance to refute it. Proving the existence of "God mode" though would be beside the point.

"Winning is meaningless if you can't lose": again, this statement stands on it's own, it's not about how you are or what you're doing. If you don't agree with the statement seems easy enough to say so. You can say "Winning is meaningful, even if you can't lose, and here's why." Or you can challenge the premise: "people can lose in my game, so your statement, while true, is not applicable to this coversation".

None of these things require complicated proofs of the existence of people. That being said, the examples you gave are examples of rudeness. Using logic might be a waste of one's time in this case. I'm not saying you should put up with rudeness, and that's as someone who probably disagree with you on the substance of many of these particular topics.