Quote from: thedungeondelver;670667magical tea party is how 4vengers say "wah your game touched my no-no spot"

This.

Quote from: Rincewind1;670683Frank Trollman is a proof that maths don't make an RPG.

And a zulu inspired orc miniature does not racism make.

Can't forget that gem.

Quote from: Rincewind1;670683Frank Trollman is a proof that maths don't make an RPG.

He's good at maths, but he's not infallible. He and I strongly disagree on the issue of d%. I want to roll under my score, and pretty much don't care about margin of success (GM can assign a bonus/penalty prior to rolling, crit if you pass and roll is divisible by 10 is nice and quick), he wants to spend his evening adding big numbers and seeing how much they pass 100. I love maths, but I don't let it get in the way of a good time.

The last time I said anything good about MTP on TGD, they said "No one here cares about that time you had fun playing MTP".

Quote from: jeff37923;670713And a zulu inspired orc miniature does not racism make.

Can't forget that gem.

I can't quite remember if I was around for that one but yes, I do remember it. Anyone remembers his "WoD with proper maths"?

It evokes the idea that, without rules, there's no possible way we could get along.  That would be magical, imaginary.  Impossible.  At least, not in an activity that involves conflicting goals (e.g. between a player who wants his character to climb a wall, and the GM who has decided that the wall is probably too high, or with another player who wants his character to climb up first).  

Therefore, freeform must mean there are no conflicting goals, we're just happily playing together.  A tea party!

Eric Berne wrote about an interesting concept in the sixties, the "time structuring problem."  He argued that totally unstructured interactions were stressful, and that conversational rituals and pastimes have arisen to deal with that (e.g. talking about the weather).  I'm sure this is one of the attractions of RPGs - lovers of fantasy (or whatever) can spend long hours together, getting the benefits of intense social interaction (more intense than, say, golf, which has a weather-like repetition of 'nice shot' and so on) while facing minimal uncertainty about the procedures of interaction.

Without the 'rules', when there's conflict relating to what happens in the game, it's just Geoff and Craig having an argument.  So freeform play looks impossibly harmonious to some people.

The strict role definitions of the Immersion/Emulation play style strikes me as serving the same function: it gives everyone an absolutely clear understanding of who is responsible for what.  Any hint of collaboration or reduction of GM power dilutes this clarity.  Geoff and Steve start 'collaborating', but disagree - now the game is on hold while they work it out (or others chime in), or ultimately fail to work it out.

Golf at Hogwarts?

Oh, tea, not tee ...

WTF is a magic tea party? WTF is a TGD. Why do I care. Who is this trolling troll and his wankfest over bullshit that is pretty much meaningless.

Madhatter's tea party is something I can get behind though.

So if I understand this correctly, 'magic tea party' is basically non-functioning manchildren's term for adults capable of getting along without a gamebook to institute a "social contract" for them?

Quote from: TristramEvans;670917So if I understand this correctly, 'magic tea party' is basically non-functioning manchildren's term for adults capable of getting along without a gamebook to institute a "social contract" for them?

That would be the scientific description, yes.

Quote from: TristramEvans;670917So if I understand this correctly, 'magic tea party' is basically non-functioning manchildren's term for adults capable of getting along without a gamebook to institute a "social contract" for them?

Pretty much.

Quote from: TristramEvans;670917So if I understand this correctly, 'magic tea party' is basically non-functioning manchildren's term for adults capable of getting along without a gamebook to institute a "social contract" for them?

A less harsh wording might be 'People that are happier with rules than without rules'

Another harsh wording could also be "How can I break the system with my uber build and strategies if the gm is not forced by the rules to only use level appropriate challenges I can easily defeat?"


I have met a handful of gamers that feel strongly about rules constraining the gm...period...absolute rules conformity.

I don't personally think the gm should be constrained, but tastes will vary.

A gm that does wacky crazy annoying !@&#$ will not have players for long.
So I don't see a problem with letting a gm do whatever they please.

Quote from: Bill;670941Another harsh wording could also be "How can I break the system with my uber build and strategies if the gm is not forced by the rules to only use level appropriate challenges I can easily defeat?"

I don't get where all this level appropriate challenge nonsense comes from -- nowhere in any of the books does it say "thou shalt only deliver level appropriate challenges to thy players". I think it's intended just as a guideline to judge how difficult the encounter is.

Or is the GM putting ancient red dragons in the cave behind the sign marked "Wotchout, anchient redde dragone liveth yonder" just MTP?

MTP (Magical Tea Party) is a short-hand invented by The Gaming Den (http://www.tgdmb.com/) to describe a situation where there are no 'rules' to adjudicate the situation.  While it is generally disliked, it's not really a pejorative term - most people admit that there will be situations that the rules don't cover - but that those situations should tend to be based on uncommon situations.  Things like combat and exploration and social interaction are expected to be common in a game like Dungeons and Dragons, and therefore we'd expect rules for them.

Closely related to MTP is the term 'suck the DMs cock'.  That's the pejorative.  

The idea is that if you can get the DM to agree that your action is reasonable (because there are no rules) you can succeed by gaining favor.  If you want to 'win', you can suck the DMs cock and he'll agree that whatever you suggest is 'reasonable'.  

There have been some discussions here where people talk about 'tracking a dragon to his lair' despite not having any tracking skills, the dragon flying, etc.  The Den prefers real skills written on a character sheet so you don't have to convince the DM that 'you can totally track'.  

Some people here think that if the rules don't say you CAN'T, then you can try it.  Others prefer to have rules that say what you can do or how it works if you try something.

I'll believe its not used at the Gaming Den perjoratively in the same way I believea 4e fan isn't being dismissive when he talks about 'legacy mechanics' ' or 'people only play osr games because of nostalgia'. And for my next impossible thing before breakfast I'll believe thay t I don't mean it negatively when I say 'character optimization is just a polite way of saying min-maxing'.

Yeah, Magic Tea Party certainly doesn't sound like a neutral term. The whole "sucking gm c**k" business frankly says more about people invoking the phrase than anything else.