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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7518225" data-attributes="member: 6779196">Jesus Christ! “Meaning” also has an objective definition. As in, for example, “the meaning of the word.” I’m not talking about what a rule means to you personally, I’m talking about the specific game function it signifies. But f*** it! I don’t care enough about this incessant nitpicking about my word choice. If you want to pretend meaning and significance can never be objective, fine, but for the love of god, just tell me what word you want me to use to mean “is important to the rules system” so we can get on with the f***ing point!It indicates how likely a character is to act before other characters and monsters in combat.People interpret rules differently, but there are correct interpretations and incorrect interpretations. It would be incorrect to interpret higher initiative as indicating that a character is less likely to act first in combat, or that a character with a lower attack bonus is more likely to hit. One would be within their rights as a DM to change the rules such that they woeked that way in their home game, but they would be objectively wrong if they claimed that was how it works by the rules as written.That is a semantic argument. You are trying to refute my argument by asserting that the words I used to articulate it don’t mean what I think they mean. And I’m done playing that game. Tell me what word you will accept as meaning “has a function within the game’s mechanics” and I’ll use it. Otherwise, we have nothing left to discuss on this matter.I told you, “If gold offered is => [the value you decide the guard will accept], then guard accepts.” Your formula may or may not include certain actions that can increase or decrease the value referenced in the brackets, possibly depending on the results of a randomly generated number (a check). Just because you can apply formulae flexibly and without conscious effort does not mean you are not executing a mechanical function. The human brain is an incredibly powerful and adaptable computer, which is why D&D is, in my opinion, better than any video game. The hardware it runs on is capable of interpreting any input and intuitively divising a function to execute it on the fly.Those DMs are using different formulae. Much like if you put the same input phrase into 10 chat bots, you’ll get many different responses. That’s the nature of smart learning systems, they will produce different results from one another because they have learned from different experiences.That is true. But very, very few would agree that a collaborative storytelling session with no rules at all is D&D. Even fewer would agree that a game played using the GURPS system is D&D.Look, I could break down all the reasons I disagree with the things you say in this paragraph, but I don’t think anything either of us could say will change the other’s mind about this. The only reason I brought it up at all was because you were framing me as preferring mechanics over roleplay, and I wanted to make it clear that that is not the case. Roleplay is the reason I play D&D, and in my view, the mechanics cannot be separated from that. I suppose, if you had to frame me within your view, I consider roleplaying and mechanics as equally important, but it would be more accurate to say that I consider roleplaying to be of primary importance and the mechanics of a roleplaying game to be an inseparable part of that.It was Jester David. I can’t even see 5ekyu’s posts, they have me blocked.Then you, Maxperson, are not included in the general “you, who find the use of gold to be lacking” that I was using. But whatever. It’s fine, I’ll use “one” in place of the general form of you. I’m done arguing with you about what words mean.Sure, there are some big-ticket things you can spend gold on in downtime, but again, lack of scarcity is only half the problem. The other half is lack of mechanical functionality in the things you can buy.</blockquote>

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