Quote from: Exploderwizard;513445The problem with all this horseshit is equating the game with the rules in the first place. In a nutshell, in an rpg if the game is nothing more than the sum of the rules I don't want to fucking play it.

But but but the book says so!!!!!!1

Quote from: Exploderwizard;513445The problem with all this horseshit is equating the game with the rules in the first place. In a nutshell, in an rpg if the game is nothing more than the sum of the rules I don't want to fucking play it.

The game is not the rules. The rules are not the game.

Absolutely agreed.

But this is horseshit, too! A PRODUCT must be evaluated on its own merits. And the rules, they are a part of them.

Why oh why is the world filled with manicheans and dogmatists all over?

From Frank's dogma to Benoist's...two faces of the same medal.

What do you guys expect? He's a frank troll, man.

Sorry, had to do it.

Quote from: Windjammer;513436Now if that's what Mearls & co. are doing, then 5E is even more intellectually bankrupt than 4E was, where they met a deadline with half-baked core books by copy-pasting stuff from Wiley "D&D for Dummies" books.

And I wouldn't put it past him. Frank's subsidiary thesis that 5E exists to save Mike Mearls' ass from the axe looks remotely plausible, when it shouldn't look plausible in the slightest. And that's about the greatest insult I can think of, not of Mearls, but to the fanbase.

It doesn't sound like this is what they are doing. From what I have heard they have a core system and concept in mind (and frankly I find the whole idea so far somewhat original). The playtests are so they dont make the same mistake they made with 4E: not listening to their customers and not giving their customers what they want. Nothing wrong with building a product your customers want.

I do think Mearls is hanging on this. If 5E bombs, he will probably be let go.

Quote from: Settembrini;513449But this is horseshit, too! A PRODUCT must be evaluated on its own merits. And the rules, they are a part of them.

Why oh why is the world filled with manicheans and dogmatists all over?

From Frank's dogma to Benoist's...two faces of the same medal.

Nope. That's because you misunderstand what I'm saying.

I'm not saying that rules don't matter at all, or that they can't be evaluated in any way, shape or form. I'm basically saying that completely divorcing a rules system from its actual possible applications in actual play, in a social hobby like ours, where so much depends on the imagination, psychology and behaviors of the people assembled around the game table is total bullshit.

That's what I'm saying.

Quote from: Benoist;513447The game is not the rules. The rules are not the game.

However, the caveat to that phrase, Ben, has always been that some rules match their intended goal, and others do not.

It is true that I can take a game like Harnmaster and run it like Barbarians of Lemuria if I want, but at that point, I'm agreeing to jettison most of the rules, which is totally fine.  However, as a customer, if I buy Harnmaster and find out that the rules they include have obvious mathematical errors, have loopholes you could fly a Great Wyrm through and generally do not match the stated intent of the game, then I would be a bit miffed if I end up running it like Barbarians of Lemuria simply because the rules they gave me don't work like they say they do on the tin. (Harnmaster used just as an example of Heavy Crunch, I actually like the system).

"The Rules are not the Game, the Game is not the Rules" is not a binary switch with the opposite being "RAW is GOD".  There is a very large excluded middle, and in there is where analysis like Frank's has a whole lot of use.

The concept of the Spherical Cow (which is a common joke in physics, btw) has been overused lately on these boards I think.  While I think JA does some great work, I also think he can be a bit too quick to deflect rules criticisms against his chosen system (3.5) by tossing out a "Spherical Cow Dismissal(TM)".  Add to that the old school oversimplification of "no rule is ever broken because you can always change it" and "Spherical Cow" is becoming a discussion shutdown technique when someone doesn't want to talk about rules holes.

No one is ever right all the time, with the corollary that no one is ever wrong all the time either, Frank being no exception.

Quote from: CRKrueger;513455However, the caveat to that phrase, Ben, has always been that some rules match their intended goal, and others do not.

See my post above yours.

The phrase actually means there is more to the game than its rules, and than the rules do not encompass the entirety of the game experience. Rules have a purpose to participate to the game experience, and serve as a tool to enhance it in a number of different ways, following different design patterns or logic, but they are not a substitute to this game experience themselves. They should not be conceptualized, thought of, or criticized on such a basis. It is completely missing the boat on their actual purpose at a game table.

I don't think anyone can deny that there are, sometimes, indeed, broken rules. I think however that the most important factor in games rules should be:

1) The clarity of their writing
2) The ease of  their use.

Bear in mind that unbalanced rules do not equal broken rules though.

Quote from: Settembrini;513449But this is horseshit, too! A PRODUCT must be evaluated on its own merits. And the rules, they are a part of them.

Quite correct. The problem lies in the perception of what constitutes BROKEN.

There is a rule that says I may actually have to think. Unfun/broken

There is no rule in here that guarantees I will get the same degree of spotlight as the other characters at all times in amounts equal down to the footcandle unfun/broken.

Dave's barbarian gets to do 1 more point of damage than I can on average per round!! unfun/broken.

Yes, the perception of waht is broken. And there, the problem of inductive reasoning comes in.

Again, the Diplomacy rule and Frank's take on it, are very good examples of what I said earlier about infinity.

What the Frodo&Sauron argument highlights: a FIXED DC-scale will ALWAYS break down at some point. That is the nature of it: the skill value in 3.x is open ended. No upper maximum value. The highest DC for dimplomacy though, is set in stone.

That is all that is needed to know to see the problem.

And as infinite skill values meet fixed DCs, Frank is right to conlcude bathsit insanity from it. Because it will happen.

What does this MEAN though? The MEANING of that is in the peculiars, and there TGD lacks.

Quote from: Benoist;513304BTW I don't "hate" Frank. I think he is a moron full of himself with zero experience of actual play, an obsession with rules taken in a complete vacuum, and a hatred of Mike Mearls that makes me suspect he is just jealous he could not get his jobs and opportunities for reasons that completely elude him, but I don't "hate" the guy, no.

Figure of Speech, I know you don't hate Frank, you can't, he's not English.  

Any rules system, any theory, any criticism that loses sight of the fact that rules are meant to be used by actual real people with different modus operandi, personalities, psychologies and philosophies of what it means to have fun playing a game has lost sight of the central question that lies behind all game design.

The point of a game is to be played. The natural questions that should follow are "Played by whom?" from which derives the "How?" which then informs the way rules, if and when necessary, play into this picture.

Any theory that starts with the concept that a rule is "broken" as some sort of objective fact has lost track that we are speaking about games that are not only played, but literally owned by the people who play them. This is a social activity first, with all that entails of social dynamics, leadership, collaboration, improvisation, interpretation and many more.

Reasoning about rules in a vacuum is not only a waste of time, it's anathema to the very reason these rules exist in the first place. It is fundamentally dumb, moronic, stupid bullshit born out of crippled minds that literally cannot think outside the box. It's bad game discussion and bad game design at its worse.

Quote from: Rincewind1;513458Bear in mind that unbalanced rules do not equal broken rules though.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;513460Dave's barbarian gets to do 1 more point of damage than I can on average per round!! unfun/broken.

"Here you can see young Viking lads playing a tactical game called hnefetafl.  (Chess probably didn't arrive in the British Isles until later--as far as I know the Lewis chessmen are the first evidence for chess we have.)

The game's quite instructive about Viking modes of thought.  It's played between two unequal sides (black has twice as many pieces as white), because who fights when it's fair?  Also, a piece isn't taken unless it's surrounded front and back, which leads to the formation of shield walls."

http://www.gamecabinet.com/history/Hnef.html

(Thanks to Paper & Paychecks for posting this in the first place; picture and commentary are his)

Quote from: Rincewind1;513360Then again, the AFN (Adult Fat Neckbeard... ) business model did not work that great for Games Workshop. Then again, GW probably still earns more on the models then WotC on DnD.

Games Workshop makes more on any two Skaven models than WotC makes on D&D.