Minor game stuff from around the web for commentary...

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 8:09 am

Can we not summon him by invoking his name? Just say "shitmuffin" instead, from now on.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 8:14 am

Zak S wrote:
deaddmwalking wrote: Sure, player A might say 'If I play a really stirring emotional passage on my ocarina can I get a bonus on my Diplomacy check', and we know Zak S will say yes. And if player B says, 'if I stick my tongue down her throat and get her really hot, can I get a bonus on my Diplomacy check', and we know Zak S will say yes.
Your fantasies about me are becoming increasingly bizarre.

That's really not that bizarre of a fantasy.

Zak S · Post by **Zak S** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 8:15 am

If any of you really believe any of this stuff and think you can rationally defend it instead of just talk smack, you should come out and say it.

Otherwise, hang here in your forum dedicated to crunchy games defending the objective superiority of crunchy games to each other.

Peace out

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 8:31 am

So, what you're saying is you don't really believe in what you're saying or you can't defend it and therefore can only talk smack and are attempting to lure anyone interested in arguing into a position that is more favorable to you.

While this basic concept is sound tactically your obvious, clumsy, attempts to taunt people from this forum into trying to yell into your echo chamber are both clumsy and obvious and thus doomed to failure. The only people who will argue with you on your home ground are those who intended to do so anyway.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 9:04 am

I will just point out that I am the poster Korbl, so this actually started with me "coming out and saying it," I just also posted about it here because I thought other denizens would be amused that Monte considers people like us assholes. It really explains a lot.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 9:04 am

Koumei wrote:Can we not summon him by invoking his name? Just say "shitmuffin" instead, from now on.

I'm just amazed it worked.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 10:00 am

Prak_Anima wrote:I just also posted about it here because I thought other denizens would be amused that Monte considers people like us assholes. It really explains a lot.

Here's the thing: Monte isn't specifically saying that people like us are assholes, he's saying that everyone who isn't like him is an asshole. K pretty much hit the nail on the head: Monte doesn't want to design games at all anymore. His "epiphany" was simply that people were asking him questions about things that happen in their games and he was filled with rage.

Now he describes the experience as feeling that the people asking the questions were assholes and he didn't want to do things for them anymore, and he probably did experience it that way. But the reality is that what set him off was a perfectly normal game design question. Someone asked "What happens if I..." instead of "What's going on in..." A game design question instead of a setting design question. And he felt angry and defeated. Because Monte Cook doesn't want to do game design anymore. At all.

And he is angry and resentful of the people out in the world who still want designs. This is what artistic burnout looks like. People still want Monte Cook to design games because he has a big name and used to be good at it. But he doesn't even want to do half-assed game design anymore and can only be coaxed into pretending to give a shit by people driving up to his house with piles of money.

Monte hates his job and can't really do it anymore, and he hates his fans because they continue to wave money at him and "force" him to attempt shit he can't do and doesn't like. What he really wants to do is write setting materials, but people will only let him do that if he pretends to be working on game designs as well. Most people respond to this level of artistic burnout by quitting and possibly getting a "real job," but I don't think Monte Cook can even see a way to do that.

-Username17

Laertes · Post by **Laertes** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 10:07 am

So I'll bite.

Hey Zak, I am a veteran of White Wolf and Atlas Games's products. I have run Unknown Armies and it was great. I have run Orpheus and it was awesome. I spent my teenage years vampire LARPing. I regularly attend extremely rules-light story games and indie games gatherings. I have never once run D&D. The crunchiest thing I've gotten into is Ars Magica. I am able to handwave with the best of them. Please understand that I am not attacking you from a position of crunch-superiority. However, you have asked me to come out and say what my objection to the abovementioned rule is, so here goes.

I would like to take issue with the use of musical bonuses to Diplomacy checks, because whether the game is rules-light or rules-heavy, it is simply bad design because it is inconsistent. Regardless of the relative quantities of fluff and crunch in your game, they must be in accord: the crunch must accurately reflect the fluff.

Unless you're running a Bollywood game (and if you are, then I apologise and will never speak ill of you again because that's awesome) then the fluff of your game is not "all words work better if there's music." Therefore, giving a bonus to it is bad design, and ultimately bad GMming.

If you believe that this is *not* bad GMming on your part, then I extend the same invitation to you as you did to me: come out and say it and we can have a discussion like civilised folk.

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 10:16 am

It's an example intended to illustrate a spesific point.

Attacking the example from an angle unrelated to that point serves no purpose.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 10:55 am

Schleiermacher wrote:It's an example intended to illustrate a spesific point.

Attacking the example from an angle unrelated to that point serves no purpose.

The problem is that shitmuffin's example is terrible and his point is retarded. We can't even really have a discussion about his original point, because that "discussion" is just people putting up image macros and laughing at him.

Like this one.

His claim is that people won't do effective things because enough people do effective things that it will become "boring" and people will stop. Essentially his argument is "No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded." Which is a Yogi Berraism - an argument made in jest because it is obviously bullshit.

By definition, the number of people who make suboptimal decisions "just to be different" are always going to be a tiny minority. If the decision in question was common enough that making it wasn't notably different, people would by definition not make that choice for the sake of being notably different. If Spear Fighters are common, no one is going to choose to make a Spear Fighter for the purpose of avoiding common options, are they?

But the specific example is actually much worse than that. Shitmuffin presented a piece of basic equipment which provided a basic bonus for an archetype. In this case, if you want to be a face, you can get a noticeable bonus from carrying an instrument. Which means that we can compare it to other archetypal equipment to see how likely his claim that a number of faces will refuse to carry the bonus item because reasons. How many Rogues elect to disable traps while forgoing the bonus from Masterwork Thieve's Tools? How many Clerics elect to prepare spells while forgoing the bonus spell options from carrying a Holy Symbol? Not very fucking many in either case.

I can't think of a single instance of a player voluntarily refusing to carry a holy symbol for their Cleric so that they could be different from all the other Clerics. I'm pretty sure that shitmuffin can't recall that ever happening either. I can recall players spending all their starting gold and forgetting to buy a Holy Symbol and then the whole table getting a good laugh at their expense, but that's a completely separate issue.

Shitmuffin's core contention is laughable on the face of it. It is theoretically and experientially obviously wrong and unworthy of serious discussion. Discussing various reasons why the specific example rule is horseshit is really the only discussion worth having about that example. Because when shitmuffin suggests that things can be balanced by having players refuse to use them because they are overused, the only serious answer available is stunned disbelief followed by the posting of sarcasting image memes.

Like this one.

-Username17

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 11:18 am

FrankTrollman wrote:His claim is that people won't do effective things because enough people do effective things that it will become "boring" and people will stop.

The principle is even larger than that. Rule Zero says "There are no bad rules, only bad GMs". This new Rule Zero.One says "There are no bad rules, only bad GMs and bad players".

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 12:23 pm

Zak S wrote:
deaddmwalking wrote: Sure, player A might say 'If I play a really stirring emotional passage on my ocarina can I get a bonus on my Diplomacy check', and we know Zak S will say yes. And if player B says, 'if I stick my tongue down her throat and get her really hot, can I get a bonus on my Diplomacy check', and we know Zak S will say yes.
Your fantasies about me are becoming increasingly bizarre.

I thought you advocated 'say yes' as a policy. If I understood correctly, you would put caveats and/or risks. I certainly can't predict exactly what you would do, but to be consistent, in the second example, I would expect you to say something like:

"Okay, player, but she might not be that in to you. If you succeed at a Charisma check with a -4 penalty you'll get the bonus on Diplomacy (it turns out that she is into you). But if you fail, this will be considered an attack and their reaction will be hostile, how does that sound to you?"

Of course, if you'd prefer to walk back your 'say yes' advocacy, that's fine, too.

So, tell me how you'd handle it.

zugschef · Post by **zugschef** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 12:25 pm

Thread done.

schpeelah · Post by **schpeelah** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 1:27 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:His claim is that people won't do effective things because enough people do effective things that it will become "boring" and people will stop.

I'm not seeing this. Specifically, I'm not seeing the become part. Zak is making the same claim as the "choice!" guy from the Eclipse Phase thread - that people who use the world's mechanics to inform the world are Doing It Wrong. Zak decrees that playing an instrument well makes one a better diplomat, but if your character takes up playing an instrument to become a better diplomat is a boring person with no sense of style - especially if they notice and acknowledge that any character with above average Dex already can play any instrument well enough. Because that rule is expressly for those who were going to be playing instruments anyway - the only good player is Zak's world is the noob who only finds out what the mechanics of an action are after declaring it, or a player so disinterested they just don't bother remembering them.

As far as I can figure, this is borne of a deep-seated expectation that grass grows, sun shines, and the mechanics are inevitably shitty, so players who do not deliberately ignore them in their decision-making process are missing the point of the game.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 1:34 pm

Actually, his point more generally seems to be this:

only replace "critics" with "people who prefer a strong system"

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 2:08 pm

shitmuffin wrote:Otherwise, hang here in your forum dedicated to crunchy games defending the objective superiority of crunchy games to each other.

I'm reasonably certain that we do enjoy games that aren't crunchy, and have said so on multiple occasions. Unless you're writing setting material, which would make this forum more of a writer's workshop, there's practically nothing to talk about with the rules-lite games. Crunchy games aren't objectively superior to rules-lite games, but objective rules can be objectively superior to other objective rules, and actual discussion can be had there.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 2:08 pm

Yeh, my problem with ignoring mechanics is I can totally just do that, and when I do I end up with very beautiful characters that can't fucking do anything that they're supposed to be able to do even with great shedloads of help from the DM.

Not just compared to min-maxers or some shit. That was a popular 2nd edition D&D lie. It's just really easy to build characters in most systems who simply cannot play the game even on easy mode. There's often thousands of them for every one that works.

Say my Fighter takes toughness, high intelligence and charisma, craft and profession skills, and is like an old-timey boxer, so uses his fists and doesn't wear armour. So I take the feat to let me punch things as my bonus feat, Improved Unarmed Strike, that must help. I spend my starting money on some high-class clothes and a gem for my walking cane. Those are options, and they're cool, and the character can't even kill one Kobold because D&D does not mechanically support that concept.

Even taking a level of Monk wouldn't really help, when you get down to it. You have to optimise at least a little bit.

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 3:33 pm

Not all problems can be solved optimally by fixed rules.

A good system is a system that uses mathematics and probability when they're good for the task, and use players' willingness to have fun when it's working better.

I prefer a character creation system like " agree with the players about the level of play, then stat your character, don't worry about points or classes" than something like "here are 300 pages of character classes and rules only meant to make sure characters are balanced."
Especially since the latter never works as expected.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 3:39 pm

deaddmwalking wrote:I read the blog post, and while I don't think much of the rule, one reason it isn't going to be a problem is that it was indicated that failing the Dex check would result in a penalty.

If I want a bonus, and I have an action that can give me a bonus 50% of the time and a penalty 50% of the time, the only reason to perform that action is if I can't succeed without it. As the chance of failure decreases, the benefit of attempting it increases, but there is still the potential cost of carrying around a fragile piece of equipment.

You might want to read it again. Here:

Because for a small price, any character with a dex over 10 can buy a piece of equipment which will give them a bonus to their charisma checks more than half the time. So (they say) half of all PCs (or more than half if you do anything but 3d6-in-order) will buy instruments and so will half of all NPCs. The upside is mechanically superior to the downside in a predictable way, and the price is an amount of gp that's negligible for any PC who has had any adventures. Period. It's a good deal--why wouldn't they take it?

Note that Zak is specifically talking about characters who have a better than 50% chance and with a negligible cost.

What really confuses me though, is that their argument is basically real roleplayers don't care for the mechanical effects and anyone else is an asshole. But why add (shitty, terrible) mechanical effects to the instrument then?
Just write something like:
Musical Instrument (small):
This could be any old musical instrument you can carry: a violin, bagpipes, a triangle, whatever. After practicing X amount of time you can play the instrument perfectly. With an instrument you can entertain people, perform concerts and whatever else you can think off.

Laertes · Post by **Laertes** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 3:46 pm

Blade wrote: I prefer a character creation system like " agree with the players about the level of play, then stat your character, don't worry about points or classes" than something like "here are 300 pages of character classes and rules only meant to make sure characters are balanced."
Especially since the latter never works as expected.

Many players see chargen as a game unto itself. The whole sport of charop is based around this. If you don't give people an actual mathematical system which they can try to bend to their will in order to "win" chargen, then they'll get bored and either wreck your game or flounce.

Now there's a strong argument to be made that you should encourage such people to leave the game, and in fact should go out of your way to discourage them from playing. However, in some cases these people are your friends, and thus you want them in the game no matter how much you and they want different things.

More charitably, a good framework of chargen can help people understand where the bounds are. White Wolf's chargen is a good example of someone trying to do this - if you ignore for a moment the breakage inherent in the system, then you can see where they tried to say "this is what a balanced character looks like, and what a specialist looks like" via the system.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 3:47 pm

Ancient History wrote:Zak Smith, Zak Smith, Zak Smith...

Zak S wrote:
deaddmwalking wrote: Sure, player A might say 'If I play a really stirring emotional passage on my ocarina can I get a bonus on my Diplomacy check', and we know Zak S will say yes. And if player B says, 'if I stick my tongue down her throat and get her really hot, can I get a bonus on my Diplomacy check', and we know Zak S will say yes.
Your fantasies about me are becoming increasingly bizarre.

Checkmate, Atheists.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 3:50 pm

ishy wrote:What really confuses me though, is that their argument is basically real roleplayers don't care for the mechanical effects and anyone else is an asshole. But why add (shitty, terrible) mechanical effects to the instrument then?

This. This has always gotten to me. Why are you writing rules if they don't matter? Why are you making rules and then ostracizing people for actually thinking about them? Why are you making rules with clear incentives and then berating them for taking the bait? Are DMs supposed to unironically be The Computer from Alpha Complex?

Laertes · Post by **Laertes** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 4:06 pm

virgil wrote:
ishy wrote:What really confuses me though, is that their argument is basically real roleplayers don't care for the mechanical effects and anyone else is an asshole. But why add (shitty, terrible) mechanical effects to the instrument then?
This. This has always gotten to me. Why are you writing rules if they don't matter? Why are you making rules and then ostracizing people for actually thinking about them? Why are you making rules with clear incentives and then berating them for taking the bait? Are DMs supposed to unironically be The Computer from Alpha Complex?

It's not that they want rules that pull in opposite directions from their fluff, it's that they are rules-blind. To them, any rule that can't be handwaved is a bad rule, and therefore the concept that there might be good rules, ones which actually work with the setting, doesn't occur to them.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 4:10 pm

virgil wrote:
ishy wrote:What really confuses me though, is that their argument is basically real roleplayers don't care for the mechanical effects and anyone else is an asshole. But why add (shitty, terrible) mechanical effects to the instrument then?
This. This has always gotten to me. Why are you writing rules if they don't matter? Why are you making rules and then ostracizing people for actually thinking about them? Why are you making rules with clear incentives and then berating them for taking the bait? Are DMs supposed to unironically be The Computer from Alpha Complex?

This is easy to answer: You start by assuming players can't into numbers, because Math is hard and they're not as smart as you. Then you add appropriate numeric bonuses to things that you think they'll pick because it fits their character's concept. What you actually expect is that you'll help innumerate players to build competent characters. So when you find a player who also look to the numbers and realise their consequences, you get mad, because in your mind that's "unfair".

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 4:33 pm

Blade wrote:Not all problems can be solved optimally by fixed rules.

A good system is a system that uses mathematics and probability when they're good for the task, and use players' willingness to have fun when it's working better.

There are lots of rules that are not about math and probability. Like an ability that says the PC can cast wall of stone with a 10 minute casting time. That is just a rule that makes the game better without probability.

There are basically no problems that can't be improved by better rules unless the rules are already amazing.

Blade wrote:I prefer a character creation system like " agree with the players about the level of play, then stat your character, don't worry about points or classes" than something like "here are 300 pages of character classes and rules only meant to make sure characters are balanced."
Especially since the latter never works as expected.

I prefer a character system that doesn't reward you for liking things the DM likes and punishes you for not thinking like the DM. If the DM likes dumb fighters he is going to like powerful warriors, and if he doesn't like ice mages, he is going to throw a shit about every single cool ice ability.

If on the other hand he likes ice mages, he is going to be fine with all the cool ice abilities you can come up with and make sure the fighter is a DMF who does nothing.

That is what happens when you don't have actual character creation rules to tell people the value of different abilities.