Why do people fetishize Magic Tea Party

[Mistborn]

gaming den

wat r u doing

gaming den

stahp

[Kaelik]

KAELIK

So for example, what bonus does something get? Totally made up by him on the spot. How long does the bonus last? Totally made up by him on the spot.

Yyyyyyyup. See answer above for why that works.

If you want an answer where the bonus isn't made up, you should've asked a more specific question.

1) I did not ask the question in the first case. If you aren't willing to put in the effort to figure out who said something, maybe you shouldn't be talking about it.
2) It was certainly present in the actual question that the system provide advance notice to players of what they were getting.
3) I was not in fact, commenting about how the rules was terrible for your table or in fact, any table. I personally believe that MTP is the best possible system for dealing with the social minigame that has yet been constructed. I was merely commenting that in fact, your ruling is actually still just MTP.

You are now seriously trying to write in an additional mechanic where Superman doesn't get a bonus for asking for free soup. BUT he does get a bonus asking for your ARMS.

You're confused: in either case Superman isn't _asking_ . However if someone gave Superman their arms, he would recognize this as a significant show of goodwill and they'd get a bonus.

Duh.

I did not say this. If you are too lazy to look up who actually said the thing you are quoting, maybe you shouldn't be talking about it.

The name of the person who actually said this is literally directly to the left of the thing you are quoting in the original post. How many times are you going to attribute things to me that I did not say?

Duh.

Zak S's pathetic system still forces everyone to look up rules, and is purely shit, and based on his theory that 3 seconds of his brain operating creates perfect results that could not ever be improved in any way ever,

Straw argument.

You have ignored the time-saving element AGAIN.

Do not do that again.

No I didn't. I specifically fucking commented on the fact that your system does not actually save time in the long run, because you have to remember all your made up rulings and look them up.

If you are not willing to read everything that I wrote about the subject, maybe you shouldn't be talking about it.

[Username17]

At this point, Zak is simply a liar. He's literally attributing quotes to people they did not say and also quoting sentence fragments and then lambasting people for not including qualifying or clarifying statements that actually appeared in the original unabridged quote. There's no point in continuing to converse with him on this or any subject, because he is not arguing in good faith. He's just lying and insulting people.

But my personal favorite is this one:

Incorrect.

If I say "I hate Rifts" you are REQURED to ask a clarifying question before assuming "Zak hates Palladium games"

You know that RIFTS™ is an RPG, which means that by definition it is lots of different games. And that it is made by Palladium. So anyone who hates RIFTS™ does in fact hate Palladium games. They may not hate all Palladium games, but the statement that the person "hates Palladium games" would by definition be true.

It's not just that Zak is a lying liar who lies constantly, although of course he is. It's that he's also logically inept and can't follow the basic structure of implications. With all his insistence that everyone follow rules of logic and debate, he is personally too stupid to do that even if he wanted to. Which he actually doesn't, because he is a dishonest ass hat. He wants to call other people names and not have them call him names in return. To the extent he wants any rules of debate it is only for his opponents, not for him.

The bottom line is that it's always, always, always Dunning-Kruger. Always. If someone makes any claim based on personally being awesome, you would lose very little money betting that they are in fact incompetent. Zak styles himself a master of debate and rules writing, but the truth is that when he tries to use logic he can't follow the simplest "if, then" statements to their conclusions and when he tried to show us how awesome he was with rules he was unable to write even a simple functioning rule in a thousand times the timeframe he allotted for himself even when he had issued the challenge to himself.

Zak argues that you don't need to follow rules in books because he can do better. Well, no he can't. Every other part of the argument is just him throwing feces around.

-Username17

[MGuy]

And this is why this conversation continues to be entertaining. It seems as though the more Zak is proven wrong/stupid the more terrible he gets at posting a position. Could this be a sign that his cognitive dissonance is being pushed o the limit as it tries to support both the weight of his ego and his own abysmal ineptitude?

[PhoneLobster]

Could this be a sign that his cognitive dissonance is being pushed o the limit as it tries to support both the weight of his ego and his own abysmal ineptitude?

Short answer?

No.

Long answer?

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

[nockermensch]

gaming den

wat r u doing

gaming den

stahp

This is the thread that keeps on giving.

[NineInchNall]

Even if they were, the proposal that "currencies whose continued supply that might be threatened by refusing a given request" includes all the various things listed in your above criteria is untenable.

The sheer complexity involved in social networks is mind shattering

This is why you only calculate the bonus backwards from a given request and only calculate it relative to other competing interests.

In other words, you don't have to take into account all factors, merely all the interests that weren't already canceling each other out before the request was made.

It isn't possible to analyze networks in anything like O(1) time in order to determine which things are canceling each other out. Since that calculation is necessary in order to restrict one's attention to the interests that aren't canceling each other out, the overall project still must be greater than O(1). In fact, it's greater than O(n). It's greater than O(n^2). It's seriously greater than O(n^c) for all c. Managing to do it in O(n) time would probably win a prestigious academic award in computer science.

Now, one can resolve the social interaction with MTP, and that's fine. It's very likely best, even, but MTP is by definition not a rule.

Being altruistic does not require that the only requests one makes be motivated by necessity

You missed 2 points, point one is: the request granter does not know whether the request is motivated by necessity or not or whether delaying to find that out would create a problem
and point two is: even if that were true, it doesn't negate all the other points made about the system.

Let's put this response back in context.

2) Superman does not require your reward in order to keep doing his altruistic thing. (e.g., Supes has his own Fortress of Solitude and can provide for his own sustenance.)

B) If Superman is asking for anything (particularly in a game context), no matter how small, then the rewarder would be given to understand that the favor is (Superman being altruistic) important in some way to Superman to Superman's survival or overall project, even if the rewarder is unsure why.

Your response here hinges on the idea that Superman's altruism is some sort of (at least) reliable indicator of the necessity of the request. If it is a reliable indicator, then the granter has a reason to believe the request is made of necessity, and so it is in the granter's interest to acquiesce.

If altruism is not a reliable indicator, however, then the request granter does not have a compelling reason to believe the request is necessary. If the request granter is not compelled to believe that the request is made out of necessity, then he is not obligated to believe that denying the request will hinder his future access to Superman's aid. That the request is made of necessity is merely one of many possibilities. In other words, the granter is back to believing himself in the case initially described:

2) Superman does not require your reward in order to keep doing his altruistic thing. (e.g., Supes has his own Fortress of Solitude and can provide for his own sustenance.)

We return now to your most recent response, in which you state that the granter does not know whether the request is made of necessity. This entails that altruism is not a reliable indicator. We are left in the situation I just described, where we are faced with a problem of practically insoluble complexity. This is unworkable.

Alternatively, if we treat not knowing "whether delaying to find that out would create a problem" to be dominant, then the granter always grants every request to everyone even suspected of altruism. This is insane.

We are left to choose between the unworkable and the insane.

[OgreBattle]

Here's what google brought up:
First instance of Apple Stacking mentioned with Zak S

Edited for eyecancer

Incorrect. To see the inaccuracies in this statement re-read:

1. my first comment to you after your response to my challenge,
and
2.then follow my exchange concerning your and Frank's objections to the rule I invented.

The very last objection to the rule itself was raised by Frank, it was comprehensively countered and neither Frank nor you gave any response to it. Search "Zak S" "do-gooder" in this thread. (The worst anyone's said so far about my rule is it makes NPCs act exactly the way they do in my game even without the rule. Which isn't much of a criticism.)

You are allowed to disagree that these things do not prove what I say they prove. You are not allowed to do so without giving any argument and meeting objections.

Good golly you're really still going on about this? Given how thoroughly you lost that argument I'm surprised you brought it up again. PhoneLobster asked you to invent a subsystem on the fly. You presented them with a subsystem that lets people trade apples for castles and never rewards the Paladin for his good deeds. it was a bad system and if you actually implemented it in your game you would be worse off. You've been pwn'd deal with it

Only if you stack higher than all benefits of all other interested parties

If your system allows "apple stacking" where one minor favor gives +1 two minor favors gives +2 and those add linearly your system is fucktarded. Your solution only make your system even worse motherfucker because apparently every time you roll to cash in a favor with the king you have to somehow roll against everyone else who has a competing interest. That's literally unplayable

Also you a read your posts that is why I am continuing to complain about how you type like a tool. It's not that haven't read you arguments they just have not convinced me because they are wrong, you are wrong, and it's becoming increasingly clear that you are fractally wrong. Your post are stupid and the only result of engaging you thus far has been even more stupidity spewed from your festering ignorance hole.

Zak S replies to apple stacking comment:

Yes. You haven't described how this is bad.

The bigger bribe gets the bigger bonus.

The example assumes a target for whom an apple is a relevant gift. A horse or a beggar would be obvious candidates.

Alright then the verdict is in, your system is indistinguishable from MTP only you've added a bunch of complexity that doesn't solve anything, so it's worse than MTP. That's what happens when you write rules on the fly you write bad rules.

That's why you are wrong. When you resolve a situation by ruling you essentially using MTP, now according to rulings advocates this is supposed to be better than straight MTP because once a ruling is made then it will be applicable later, essentially you made a new rule. Only that rule was tailored to an extremely specific situation and made under time pressure. So what happens next is a situation relevant to that new comes up where that rule ends up being terrible. Then your argument is right fucked because either you change your ruling and admit that your "rulings not rules" system is really thinly veiled MTP or you keep your ruling and end up saddled with shitty rules.

Only if you stack higher than all benefits of all other interested parties

If your system allows "apple stacking" where one minor favor gives +1 two minor favors gives +2 and those add linearly your system is fucktarded.

It isn't. You never asked about the increments considered bonus-worthy so your entire comment is textbook

"Rather than ask a clarifying question, I assumed bullshit and yelled about it"

every time you roll to cash in a favor with the king you have to somehow roll against everyone else who has a competing interest...literally unplayable

Playtested it last night, actually. Competing interests cancel in the case of most requests, works so far.

We literally played it so it is not literally unplayable and you are literally wrong.

Phonelobster's thoughts:

Here is the rule I wrote hours ago:

"
Assign a given transaction a bonus and an "expiration", like "This is worth +something on your next charisma rolls for a month. How's that sound, player?"

However, the baseline of these bonuses would only include the differences between bonuses of competing factions and interests. So, for example if you gave an apple (+1) and a competing interest gave 2 apples (+2) then that would be a +0 for you and a +1 for the competitor.

Also: only currencies whose continued supply that might be threatened by refusing a given request are considered. Like if somebody's sure they're gonna get more apples even if they refuse, that bonus doesn't count.
"

Ok so my plan was to point out the emergent behavior that would promptly come back and bite you in the ass. And that would probably be doable with that... mess you produced. Eventually rather than, you know, actually spontaneously like you claimed.

But... you actually failed rather more abysmally than I had even expected.

You have not even clearly made an attempt to address the basic situation presented. You did NOT present ANY rule for a 1st level Herald somehow claiming or cashing in the social credits of his masters. You did NOT present a rule to prevent apple stacking (hell you actually have explicit apple stacking in your example) and instead you get bogged down in an unasked for divergence about some sort of counter credit system with opposing interests, which is, trust me, a really dumb divergence because you just opened yourself up to all manner of coming back to bite you on the ass there.

But even that doesn't matter because you wrote a bunch of borderline gibberish which fails to even parse correctly.

You have a second paragraph about competing interests and never define competing interests. How many are there? Do they stack? Or does the single greatest interest win out on everyone else and no one else has any influence? Where do these competing interests have to be when they compete in an action? What are they doing to count as competing? How the hell do competing interests even come into play when you consider the multiple factors of Fear, Gratitude and Honor based currencies suddenly bonuses now?

Your third paragraph is an AWESOME side track about "threatened continued supply". Which is so awesome it starts talking about "requests" which remain utterly undefined in nature and the only remotely intuitive reading turns the entire thing into a time pretzel where you apparently declare apples and requests exist in some sort of strange quantum state of total interconnectedness where neither ever truly comes before the other.

But my FAVORITE paragraph is the first one. Because...

"This is worth +something on your next charisma rolls for a month. How's that sound, player?"

It might seem like a minor nit pick. But it's honest to god a sentence that cannot decide whether you are giving players a bonus on all their charisma rolls for a month, or on their next charisma roll that month.

Even better while this is generated by a transaction... it just flat out applies to ANY damn thing. Which is hilarious.

And really. At that point alone your entire. "I never get this stuff wrong I'm just that awesome" basically drove into a remarkably solid brick wall.

I was NOT expecting THAT.

What are you arguing about?

[TiaC]

Why did you have to inflict this on us again?

[hyzmarca]

Tea is sexy.

That is why people fetishize it.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Tea is sexy.

That is why people fetishize it.

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[virgil]

Hey man, empires have gone to war and fueled nation-wide drug cartels for that stuff.

[TiaC]

Hey man, empires have gone to war and fueled nation-wide drug cartels for that stuff.

And, to tie this back to gaming, High Tea.

[OgreBattle]

Hey man, empires have gone to war and fueled nation-wide drug cartels for that stuff.

Tea, Tobacco, Sugar, Cotton, it's the comforts in life that we kill for.
Oh right, spices too.

[NineInchNall]

Hey man, empires have gone to war and fueled nation-wide drug cartels for that stuff.

Tea, Tobacco, Sugar, Cotton, it's the comforts in life that we kill for.

Except for the first, those are necessities of life.

[GâtFromKI]

Is Zak a real person, or a computer program pretending to be a human being ?

Yeah, thread necromancy is Evil. But I had to ask. I can't convince myself that a real person would do that amount of random gibberish.

[RobbyPants]

Is Zak a real person, or a computer program pretending to be a human being ?

Yeah, he's a person. He runs the blog D&D With Porn Stars.

That, or he's a computer program who also runs a blog.

[silva]

That, or he's a computer program who also runs a blog...

...and also writes kickass RPG stuff like Vornhein and A Red and Pleasant Land.

...and also does porn movies banging chicks.

Thats a lot of things for a computer to do.

[GâtFromKI]

Yeah, he's a person. He runs the blog D&D With Porn Stars.

Yes, the blog seems to be the work of a real person. In the other hand, I can't distinguish Zak's gibberish on TGD from the gibberish generated by a program created to pass the Turing test.

So... Maybe there's a real perso named Zak who run a blog, and a program pretending to be Zak who post on TGD ?

Or maybe Zak is a real person who doesn't pass the Turing test.

[erik]

I could see a shithead writing an Eliza bot modded to be an asshole, which is unleashed on threads that caused a single digit spike in traffic, resulting in vitriol and gibberish on the premise that any press is good press.

[GnomeWorks]

Or maybe Zak is a real person who doesn't pass the Turing test.

I could see Shitmuffin failing a Turing test, if only because of his bizarre leaps of logic, non sequitors, and weird way of communicating. It would be understandable if a normal person wasn't sure if they were talking to a person or a very poorly-written bot.

[GâtFromKI]

I could see Shitmuffin failing a Turing test, if only because of his bizarre leaps of logic, non sequitors, and weird way of communicating.

That, and he often seems to catch a single word instead of the whole sentence; then he writes something involving some words of the sentence instead of answering the sentence. Therefore he insults peoples who are agreeing with him, he regularly miss the point and answer something unrelated... Or look at his social currency system: it is a social system, but it fail at being a currency; the original challenge involved the word "apple" in a sentence about "incremental small piece of money" and stuff like that, so the system also involves apples and apple stacking... Except it does it backward.


I mean, reading Zak's writings is really weird when you're not involved in the conversation and not trying to understand and answer him. He uses the same words as the other people in the conversation, but he does not seems to answer them. That's just plain weird.