Quote from: Lunamancer;899456The more time you waste with the 90% who are so unreasonable, cheap, or of low character, the less time you have to focus on what actually works.

Then you should stop wasting so much time on someone unreasonable, cheap and low of character as myself. So you have more time to produce something that works. How's that social security number sum proof coming along?

 Well unless of course your effort spent means I'm not as unreasonable as you like to portray me. Which one is it?

Quote from: Saurondor;899465Then you should stop wasting so much time on someone unreasonable, cheap and low of character as myself. So you have more time to produce something that works. How's that social security number sum proof coming along?

 Well unless of course your effort spent means I'm not as unreasonable as you like to portray me. Which one is it?

I know I've said this to you before, but I'll say it again. That would be a great point if I hadn't already completely blown it out of the water in my previous post. As I clearly stated, when you get into your dishonest, disrespectful mode, you're not worth my time to reason with. The only value I get is entertainment value. You see that in my post you are quoting? You see how that invalidates your big "gotcha" here?

See, this is just more evidence that you're still in that disrespectful, dishonest space. I didn't need to repeat myself in this post. I know you read my counter in your previous post. And you still chose to go with an obviously false "gotcha". I made clear that I owed you no explanation. That you weren't worthy of one. But I went and laid it all out for you anyway because the past is the past and I'm ready to move on. Your post shows you aren't. And once again, rather than call you names, I am taking the time to explain this, even though I don't feel you are owed this explanation. You can choose to continue to post wise-ass remarks, and I can continue handing your ass to you by not only proving your points false, but demonstrating you had all the information to know they were false at the time you made them.

But being as I've now explained this twice, I won't even need to do that to make you automatically wrong, because if you wish to proceed in this way, it just demonstrates you're coming from a dishonest place, and you invalidate everything you say all by yourself.

Incidentally, I already busted the childish Social-Security criticism. It's a tiny spec within a broader idea. I can see how you could have missed it if you were too focused trying to find errors that you couldn't comprehend meaning. And of course, if you aren't comprehending meaning, it can lead you to thinking you've found an error when you haven't.

Quote from: Lunamancer;899469But being as I've now explained this twice, I won't even need to do that to make you automatically wrong, because if you wish to proceed in this way, it just demonstrates you're coming from a dishonest place, and you invalidate everything you say all by yourself.

Wow! That's quite a lot of power right there. So I was right and you snapped your fingers and made me wrong? What if I snap my fingers and make myself right again? Will you snap them again too and make me wrong again?

Quote from: Saurondor;899473Wow! That's quite a lot of power right there. So I was right and you snapped your fingers and made me wrong? What if I snap my fingers and make myself right again? Will you snap them again too and make me wrong again?

Um....

Quote from: Lunamancer;899469But being as I've now explained this twice, I won't even need to do that to make you automatically wrong, because if you wish to proceed in this way, it just demonstrates you're coming from a dishonest place, and you invalidate everything you say all by yourself.

If anyone's snapped their fingers making you wrong, it's you.

QuoteBut being as I've now explained this twice, I won't even need to do that to make you automatically wrong, because if you wish to proceed in this way, it just demonstrates you're coming from a dishonest place, and you invalidate everything you say all by yourself.

Oh my! Is this dishonest place on google maps? Am I from there if I proceed this way and from somewhere else if I don't? Where am I from if I don't proceed this way? From an honest place? Is that the same place you claim to be from? Is this place on google maps too?

So my place of origin depends on how I proceed? So all prior proceedings don't depend on my place of origin, only my future ones? Or is it that it only demonstrates my place of origin. If so, couldn't you have demonstrated my place of origin without future proceedings?

Please elaborate further.

It is richly ironic for Lunamancer to accuse anyone of coming from a dishonest place, when he is the one who not only demanded I explain what the word "because" means, but when I did so went on to demand further explanation. It is one thing to talk about causality; it is another to lead off such a discussion by pretending not to recognize the word "because".

Quote from: Manzanaro;899583It is richly ironic for Lunamancer to accuse anyone of coming from a dishonest place, when he is the one who not only demanded I explain what the word "because" means, but when I did so went on to demand further explanation. It is one thing to talk about causality; it is another to lead off such a discussion by pretending not to recognize the word "because".

I never pretended not to recognize the word "because." That's just more of you being dishonest.

Quote from: Lunamancer;899119Define "because".

Just typical of your inauthentic bullshit semantic squabbles.

Either you didn't know what it meant, or you are a fake pedantic fuckhead. Maybe both.

See how I actually back my words up?

Quote from: Manzanaro;899612Just typical of your inauthentic bullshit semantic squabbles.

Either you didn't know what it meant, or you are a fake pedantic fuckhead. Maybe both.

OR--just to take a step back into reality--I wasn't sure what *you* meant by it. Which I had made abundantly clear that there was ambiguity to what you were saying. I mean, hell, let's look at a bigger chunk of what I said, from the exact same place you were quoting:

Quote from: Lunamancer;899119Define "because".

Did my fighter hit the orc? Well, the DM said he did. So did I hit "because" the DM said so? Well, yeah, that's part of it. But how did the DM arrive at this decision? Well, he looked at the dice rolls, looked up my hit tables, bonuses, orc's AC, consulted the rules. Still fiat?

This seems to paint quite a different picture that simply cutting off the quote after Define "because."

Notice the question. "Still fiat?" This shows not only did you lie about me pretending not to recognize the word because, but that my alternate plausible explanation--that I wanted to know what *you* meant by because--is and was already evident before you wrote this post. So you knowingly misrepresented what I said, knowingly misrepresented my motives, and knowingly made a misrepresentation via omission in quoting me.

You spent practically this entire thread in a box of self-deception. I experienced it first hand when you blasted me without provocation right from my very first post on this thread. I wasn't putting anyone down, just presenting some ideas I thought were on topic that no one had touched on. And that was 90+ pages ago, and you haven't really changed much since.

For a while, Saurondor was making some good points, but then he, too, at last gave in to frustration and began nitpicking the hell out of you. And when I saw that, I took your side, even though you probably deserved the shit he was giving you. He just wasn't arguing honestly at that point and he needed to be called on it.

You're both at the point right now where neither of you are being reasonable, and you're both making blatantly false claims. And neither of you are willing to snap out of it, get back to reality, and stop being children. You can blame me all you like, call me inauthentic or any other name you wish. It's not going to make you right about anything. So by all means, keep digging yourself in if that's what you want.

Quote from: Saurondor;898997The curves are generated using a fixed 4d6 roll and subtracting Nd6 from it. The value N is 5 for unskilled and one less for each higher level, down to 0 for legendary.

That's very innovative to me.  It seems to work well with the curve shifting.  I can see why you want to use words, the corresponding numbers decrease with increasing skill, which is against people's prejudices.  If you wanted to include a number, to help people remember how many subtracting dice to roll you could use, e.g., (just guessing on the position of expert in the hierarchy)
Legendary Apex Class (N=0)
.
.
Expert, 2nd Class,  (N=2)
.
Skilled, 4th Class (N=4)
Unskilled, 5th Class (N=5)

You could then call someone a Farmer 1st Class, or Navigator 2nd Class, etc.  providing both a fell and a mnemonic for the mechanics.


The only critique I'd have of your mechanic is the number of dice needed per player, I guess 9, 4 of one color and 5 of another color, and that you need to add them up.  Minor things but lead to slower mechanics than other approaches.

There are ways to speed it up, maybe the 4D6 are rolled for the party and the players roll only their (un)skill dice.  A Tunnel & Trolls like approach.  

I'd be more concerned as a GM having to roll for creatures, etc., having several piles of two color dice could get unwieldy quickly.

It's not uncommon for my players to face over a dozen foes, which kind of happens as there are 7 PCs in the party in the game I'm running at the moment.

Quote from: Xanther;899643If you wanted to include a number, to help people remember how many subtracting dice to roll you could use, e.g., (just guessing on the position of expert in the hierarchy)
Legendary Apex Class (N=0)
.
.
Expert, 2nd Class,  (N=2)
.
Skilled, 4th Class (N=4)
Unskilled, 5th Class (N=5)

You could then call someone a Farmer 1st Class, or Navigator 2nd Class, etc.  providing both a fell and a mnemonic for the mechanics.

Love that idea! I'll certainly consider including it in the game.

Quote from: Xanther;899643The only critique I'd have of your mechanic is the number of dice needed per player, I guess 9, 4 of one color and 5 of another color, and that you need to add them up.  Minor things but lead to slower mechanics than other approaches.

Yes this is a bit of an issue. Fortunately given the few sides to the die they tend to cancel out quickly and if they're color coded 4 blue (positive) and 5 red (negative) it's pretty easy to remove before actually adding. There's also the fact that the game is quite lethal so such things as round after round of combat are rare, so it's acceptable to have a somewhat more complex die roll.

On the down side some players have found these d6 mechanics less attractive than my previous 2d20 vs 2d20 mechanics. Even when it's harder to add two digit numbers such as 17+14 vs say 4 + 5 + 3, they still preferred the other. Guess some dice have a charm that others just don't. Anyway I'm now working on a 3d8 exploding die mechanics that has similar behavior to this 4d6, but hopefully has better appeal among players.

Quote from: Lunamancer;899624OR--just to take a step back into reality--I wasn't sure what *you* meant by it. Which I had made abundantly clear that there was ambiguity to what you were saying. I mean, hell, let's look at a bigger chunk of what I said, from the exact same place you were quoting:

Yeah, because when people use the word "because" who knows what the fuck they really mean. (Oops, I used it again.) It's always super helpful to ask people to define even common words at every turn because it really moves the conversation forward and is a sign that one is debating in good faith rather than being a pedantic fuck only looking to 'win' the debate.

QuoteThis seems to paint quite a different picture that simply cutting off the quote after Define "because."

Notice the question. "Still fiat?" This shows not only did you lie about me pretending not to recognize the word because, but that my alternate plausible explanation--that I wanted to know what *you* meant by because--is and was already evident before you wrote this post. So you knowingly misrepresented what I said, knowingly misrepresented my motives, and knowingly made a misrepresentation via omission in quoting me.

Except when I answered you about what 'because' means, you went on to ask:

QuoteOkay, Mr dishonest. But what does "as caused by" mean?

Seriously. That is a thing that happened.

QuoteYou spent practically this entire thread in a box of self-deception. I experienced it first hand when you blasted me without provocation right from my very first post on this thread. I wasn't putting anyone down, just presenting some ideas I thought were on topic that no one had touched on. And that was 90+ pages ago, and you haven't really changed much since.

This doesn't sound like me. I normally only treat people like assholes when they act like assholes. So let's take a look and see if your remarks hold up. Here is the first post you made in this thread that I responded to:

QuoteI've been trying to read the entire thread, but I couldn't even get 20% through without reaching my fallacy limit. Is that what engaging the premise means here? Trying to reconcile dogmatic baggage of simulation with dogmatic baggage of narrative, neither of which are fundamental?

"Meaningless death" is an easy example. Spoiler warning, the death of Derek Reese in the Sarah Connor Chronicles is the exact opposite of what's often thought of as a dramatically meaningful death. It was quick, sudden, out of nowhere, very matter of fact, no special framing. Yet I felt it had great impact precisely because of that.

Similarly, there are authors, including well-known famous ones, who when they write, they are specifically and consciously seeking to free the characters from the tyranny of the narrative. So certain narrative styles are simulations of sorts. Those happen to be the narrative styles I prefer, so as far as the topic here goes, there's little to nothing to it.

Some people have pointed out the difference between RPG as media vs a novel or film. And this is true enough, though it lacks sufficient elaboration. One example of the difference which I find important is that in stories, foreshadowing is important. We've all seen the movies where some strange set of coincidences takes the story in an unlikely direction. The really good ones establish the elements of the coincidence long before they play a role in the story. Failure to do so harms the credibility of the story.

RPGs are different in this way. In RPGs, the rules may explicitly allow for extremely unlikely outcomes. So long as the rules are generally followed and the dice fairly rolled, the rules themselves fill the role of foreshadowing. It allows for effective, dramatic coincidences without them being pre-planned. The medium is quite brilliant in that sense. This allows RPGs to tell stories conventional story-telling media can't tell.

The pattern that needs breaking is the false belief that simply because the RPG does produce stories that wouldn't work as books or movies that those stories are somehow broken and that the RPG fails to produce compelling narrative.

Hmm. That opening sentence is pretty fucking snide, contemptuous, and self inflated, isn't it? But okay, let's see how I respond:

QuoteWhile I agree with a lot of what you are saying here, I wanted to talk more about the idea of foreshadowing within an RPG.

I do think that foreshadowing can be a useful technique to bring to a game, but just not specific kinds of foreshadowing.

What you specifically can't do is foreshadow outcomes because you are not going to be guaranteed those outcomes without railroading towards them, which is bad- or at least decidedy non-simulationist.

What you can do is foreshadow events.

Like, I think it is perfectly valid to, as a GM, say to myself, "This new Duke of the region is a prick, and he is causing a lot of civil unrest that is going to lead to a rebellion, or assassination attempt or whatever" and then decide to foreshadow that by beginning to sprinkle indications of the unrest into overheard conversation and so on.

Or, for a more overt example of foreshadowing, I might decide as the GM that a time approaches when the stars are right and some ancient eldritch abomination will arise from the lost depths of the earth. I think it would be perfectly fine to start foreshadowing this coming development by telling the wizard or the priest about the horrible nightmares they have begun to have... I just can't foreshadow how it will turn out, as I don't know!

And for that matter, it is quite possible that the PCs may take actions to defuse either of my example situations so that it doesn't end up being foreshadowing at all, but I still think it is fair to at least look at it as attempted foreshadowing.

Wow, I really let you have it with both barrels, didn't I? "I agree with a lot of what you are saying here" What a fucking prick I am!

So yeah, sarcasm aside? It seems you are full of shit, as usual.

Oh, and by the way? A few posts later (#455) you call me a 'hostile idiot' and an 'asshole' when I had done nothing but ask you for some clarification on remarks you had made, so it seems you have the initiation of antagonism precisely reversed. In conclusion? Fuck you.

Xanther, this is the distribution curve for the 3d8 exploding die (reroll and add) mechanics I'm considering for my prehispanic RPG.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]86[/ATTACH]

The curves are finite to the left and infinite to the right, although for graphing purposes the anydice.com function depth was set to 5 and that leads to a truncated result set.

When subtracting them I get an infinite curve to each side (cyan). So the skill curves in black and orange are like the delayed airplane example Lunamancer brought up. They can't arrive any sooner than the departure time, but they can take any amount of delay, even near infinite. Yet they'll usually cluster around lower values.These curves aren't as "correct" as the d6 ones in regards to variability and all the "nice features" you mentioned about their moments, but I'm betting a bit more on the coolness factor. Adding 3d8 is quite easy the whole reroll and add gives this feeling of destiny, and luck, and power. What if I keep rerolling and end up with a 45!  Does Huitzilopochtli materialize from the heavens and kicks their army's ass back to Mictlan?

With more skill comes greater odds of rerolls so unlike the d6 system you get to add more which is a bit of an overhead, but on the other side it's a direct benefit.

Thoughts?

Quote from: Saurondor;899932Xanther, this is the distribution curve for the 3d8 exploding die (reroll and add) mechanics I'm considering for my prehispanic RPG.

The curves are finite to the left and infinite to the right, although for graphing purposes the anydice.com function depth was set to 5 and that leads to a truncated result set.

When subtracting them I get an infinite curve to each side (cyan). So the skill curves in black and orange are like the delayed airplane example Lunamancer brought up. They can't arrive any sooner than the departure time, but they can take any amount of delay, even near infinite. Yet they'll usually cluster around lower values.These curves aren't as "correct" as the d6 ones in regards to variability and all the "nice features" you mentioned about their moments, but I'm betting a bit more on the coolness factor. Adding 3d8 is quite easy the whole reroll and add gives this feeling of destiny, and luck, and power. What if I keep rerolling and end up with a 45!  Does Huitzilopochtli materialize from the heavens and kicks their army's ass back to Mictlan?

With more skill comes greater odds of rerolls so unlike the d6 system you get to add more which is a bit of an overhead, but on the other side it's a direct benefit.

Thoughts?

Seems very good to me for what you are looking for.  Not sure I can add more.

My own thoughts are it seems a fair amount of complication for the benefit and would be cumbersome for the kinds of adventures I run.  That being said, I have put up with other games that were more "complicated" and for far less benefit.  

By complicated I don't necessarily mean intellectually so but in a more Methods Engineering sense.  That is to break down the steps and operations that take you from first determining a roll is needed to result.  More step and more complex the operation the more complicated the system.  

The terms complex and complicated are bit of a misnomers.   Adding three numbers ranging from 1-8 is not complicated but in the context of a game, where you want things to flow very fast and where the complication (time to resolution) increases non-linearly with the number of steps, even simple one, a lot of simple things become very complicated very quickly.