Things that a few people pretend are really important on /tg/,

How is having more knowledge ever a bad thing?

>>51499910
Learning fifty systems is not really as important as knowing a good system well.

>>51499930

That seems like a strange false dichotomy.

And how do you know a system is good if you have no frame of reference, nothing to compare it to?

I think it's really a matter of personal preference. I love learning new systems and reading new games, seeing how they do things, their strengths and weaknesses and using that knowledge to improve my GMing and my design efforts.

Honestly, recently on /tg/ I've kind of seen the opposite, so many people crowing about how system doesn't matter because rule zero, which just seems like such a wilfully ignorant and self defeating argument whenever I see it.

>>51499891
>learning a system at all.

That's what a GM's for. I just show up with some dice and you tell me when to roll. It's your job to make the magic happen.

>>51499962
Tribal mindset. "Our system is the best because it's OUR SYSTEM. We can't be wrong, so They must be. Otherwise what's to separate Them from Us? I'm not one of Them, I'm one of Us. It's Them that likes the bad things."

>>51499984
>It's your job to make the magic happen.
See, this type of behavior is unacceptable. Just letting the wizards run shit?

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>>51499984
kek

>>51499962
>And how do you know a system is good if you have no frame of reference, nothing to compare it to?

Why are you trying to define whether or not a game is good by comparing it in relation to other games? It's a bit like asking if pineapples are a tasty fruit based on how they compare to apples and bananas.More importantly, a game does not magically improve if you learn that their are worse games out there.

There's a certain threshold that most games reach where after a certain level of design, it's up to the GM to customize the game in order to cater to their own needs. Effectively, most games that are popular enough to be discussed on this board reach that threshold, where it's no longer a discussion of quality, but a discussion of taste.

Learning fifty systems is neat. But not important.

>>51499891
Butthurt Pathfaggot spotted.

It's actually for your own good to expand your horizons, but judging from how extremely ass blasted you are about the idea, I think it might be too late for you.

>>51500093
>"pwease stop playing popular games! play my games pwease! pwease! pwease pwease pwease it will make you better gamer i promise pwease i don't want my game to die im so lonely"

You sound really pathetic right now, and this is coming from someone who's never touched pathfinder.

>>51500071

Except foodies do go out of their way to experience a wide variety of tastes, to broaden their palate and help them taste greater nuances and subtleties in flavours?

Leaning more systems is exactly the same. With more knowledge and understanding of game systems you become better able to assess them and evaluate them, noticing problems and how to work around them, finding their strengths and how to leverage them. That knowledge has a direct effect on your ability to utilise systems effectively.

All RPGs are not created equal. A game being bad doesn't mean it is unplayable, but one of the best things to have if you're trying to make a bad game work properly is an example of another game that does it better.

>>51500138

Given your lack of reading comprehension I can only assume you've never touched Pathfinder because you've no ability to actually learn the fucking rules.

It's only really important to have a passing familiarity with some of the major systems, and really just the mechanics, for reference when people talk about them so you can compare appropriately. Experimenting with a new system teaches you things about game design and GMing that are applicable to all games you play.

But in reference to the original subject:
>Being familiar with OC Project #5372 circa 2007 that /tg/ remembers fondly
>Moral relativism as it pertains to an objective moral alignment grid
>Hating Elves
>Adoring J.R. Tolkien, Frank Herbert, Terry Prachet, or New Fantasy Writer 2kX
>Using GURPS

>>51500148
>Leaning more systems is exactly the same.

The problem with just learning more systems is that you need time to learn any of the subtle nuances of a system. While you're relearning basic mechanics that are essentially just different versions of the same central concepts, you're left without any real experience with the more complex and subtle interactions.

Systems aren't like dishes. They're like books. Learning fifty systems is like reading the first chapter of fifty books. While that's certainly a good way to learn how to write a first chapter, I'd value the experience of someone who's read five books from cover to cover more.

>>51500209
I would never demand someone play it, but GURPS is fun dammit.

>>51500227

Again, that seems like an odd false dichtomy. Why not read all fifty cover to cover? Isn't that better than either alternative?

>>51499891
This is an example of the classic technique of pretending a thread is listing examples of a thing but actually just trying to make a thread calling out one specific example.

Why didn't you just make a thread saying "Learning fifty systems so that blah blah blah... is something that isn't actually important"?

Why bother with the pretense that this thread is about
>Things that a few people pretend are really important on /tg/, but aren't really important at all

Why even bother?

>>51500159
>wah pwease pwease stop pwaying popuwar systems wah it twiggers me wahhhh

Holy shit, calm down, you big baby. The fact that someone might be playing a popular system you don't like is enough to make you start shitposting here puts you on a transcendent level of butthurt.

>>51500209

>Adoring J.R. Tolkien, Frank Herbert, Terry Prachet, or New Fantasy Writer 2kX

Really gonna have to agree with this one here. Like I read LotR, I enjoyed it well enough. But if one of my players says they've never read it I'm not gonna jump on them about it. Frankly even though I like it, Fantasy's Holy Trilogy actually contributes remarkably little to anyone who doesn't go through it with a fine-toothed comb.

>>51500255

I think it's generally more amusing the logical leaps you're making to construe almost any statement into perpetuating a particular agenda you're apparently seeing everywhere. Paranoid much?

>>51500241
Because reading fifty meh books is not even as good as reading five great books ten times each.

>>51500227
>The problem with just learning more systems is that you need time to learn any of the subtle nuances of a system. While you're relearning basic mechanics that are essentially just different versions of the same central concepts, you're left without any real experience with the more complex and subtle interactions.
THIS

You end up with knowledge of RPG systems that is a mile wide and an inch deep. I don't consider myself knowledgeable about a system until I've played it, even if I had the rulebook memorized.

It's sort of like teaching a kid to drive. You can give them all the manuals, DMV booklets, even driving sims in the world, and they're still not going to need to sit behind a wheel at some point and actually drive a vehicle on a real street around other drivers. There is no substitute for experience.

>>51500271
Your hypocrisy has stopped being amusing, and now is just sad.

>>51500294

And now you're making assumptions about quality?

Also, define 'good'. If you're talking about quality of experience, sure you'll likely have more fun reading those good books.

But I'm not talking about personal pleasure. If you want to learn about literary criticism, reading fifty books spanning the range from godawful to cultural masterpieces is a lot more useful.

It's pretty useful as a GM to understand a multitude of systems, especially if you GM a long-running game. Any long running group or game inevitably dabbles in homebrew - whether that's the extreme option of inventing rules from scratch or the very common option of houseruling so much the game you end up playing only superficially resembles the original. Knowing what problems your system has and how other games may have solved or avoided those problems can inform you and lead to a better game.

Ever notice how the only people that seem to struggle with this whole "learning many systems" thing is 3.5/PF fans?

Do you all really think that because 3.PF has such a high system mastery curve that all systems do?

If you actually tried you'd be surprised to find out that, at least 90% of the time, it's not as big a deal you're making it out to be. 3.PF certainly isn't the most complicated system(s), but the high mastery curve is an anomaly, not the norm.

>>51500301

Second hand experience can be helpful, though. Reading reviews and play reports of systems, talking to people who've played it and getting their feedback and so on.

Plus, past a certain point of knowledge it's generally pretty easy to extrapolate most of how an RPG will actually play just from the book. It might take a while to get there, but if you have a real interest in RPGs it's not hard to do.

>>51500294
What if the five books you choose to read repeatedly turn out to include one or no great books and the rest are meh books? Would you be able to tell for sure whether that was the case or not?

>>51500319
>If you want to learn about literary criticism,

How far into Twilight do you really need to go?

Read the first few pages of a bad book, read the good books again and again.

It's hardly ever good advice in any regard to say "You need to read the entire Twilight Series." You really need to sit down and think up some wild situation for when that could possibly be a wise recommendation.

>>51500347
It's more they freak the fuck out when they try to do something simple and realize that there are no rules for doing said simple because something that fucking simple goes without saying.

>>51500000
Pents of truth!

>>51499891
>Things that a few people pretend are really important on /tg/, but aren't really important at all.
Magical realms and the avoidance thereof.

I'm not going to say it doesn't happen, but /tg/ leaves you with the impression pretty much everything is somebody's fetish and the concept has all but discredited some ideas, monsters, or concepts. When my group's GM gave us a tentacle monster (a mythological giant octopus, in the ocean, where one would expect such a thing to live) most of us just laughed about it and made the obvious jokes. I don't know anyone who tries to play a succubus or incubus "seriously" anymore because it's assumed to be a fetish thing, even though a seductive demon that tries to lure a hero into temptation is a classic fantasy trope and a potentially interesting change from the kill loot repeat cycle if played well.

My point is people are so paranoid about a thing that doesn't actually happen all that often that it's begun to limit what is "acceptable" in a game.

>>51500347
Are you still trying?
No one said anything about 3.5/PF.

Now, shoo, you weird troll. No more attention for you.

>>51500347

I think it's also a market share thing.

As much as people who are into the RPG hobby as a whole might be loathe to admit it, D&D and its variations is larger than the entire rest of the hobby by a significant margin. People who care about RPGs beyond D&D are a significant minority, while the vast majority only play D&D or close variations of it.

And it's just... The reality of the situation, and it shows no sign of really changing any time soon.

>Less important than /tg/ pretends it is
Quest Threads

>>51500393
It can be illuminating to examine what makes a bad book bad. You do need to learn what contrasts a good book, not just what a good book looks like. It's a poor literary critic that can't manage to do that. As in all thing sin life, knowledge of the bad leads to greater appreciation of the good.

>>51500393

If you want to learn literary criticism, you would need to read it cover to cover. The phrase 'don't judge a book by its cover' exists for a reason.

The ability to persevere, to understand why something is the way it is and assess it fully is a key and valuable skill for really evaluating media of any sort.

>>51500347
Because the people who learn new systems are inherently the kind of people who are willing to delve beyond the D&D and D&D-alikes they doubtless got started with.

>>51500423
Wew lad. First day trying to bait someone? Nah, you should've gone with 5e, or GURPS. That would've really set people off.

>>51500393
Twilight doesn't really have much pretense of being literary fiction. It's teenaged fantasy romance. But there is quite a lot of bad art (and in other genres, bad films, bad video games, bad paintings, bad sculptures, bad music you name it) that does have the pretense of being brilliant and meaningful without the substance of such, and it actually is important in professional critique to thoroughly explain why it is or isn't a good work.

Sometimes, for example, an "art film" really is nothing but a boring video of nothing interesting happening, and it's important to be able to thoroughly explain what it lacks rather than simply arbitrarily describing two superficially similar films as one being deep and the other being shallow. So it is with every medium, including RPGs.

>>51500393

You're a pretentious know-nothing and you're making a fool of yourself. Stop posting.

>>51500424
>>51500426

That's silly. I'd rather find out what makes a good book good and what also makes it bad then trudge through a bad book just for the sake of confirming what's already obvious from the first few pages.

To bring back the food metaphor, when it comes to fine cuisine, you actually need a cultured palate that's extremely sensitive and very easy to ruin. Gourmets can't eat things like junk food because it will literally desensitize their tongues.

To be able to determine that faults in a great work takes a cultured critic. To find faults in Twilight takes a 2nd grade reading level.

>>51500407

> I don't know anyone who tries to play a succubus or incubus "seriously" anymore because it's assumed to be a fetish thing

Not sure if that's the best example. Characters built around seduction--especially when the means are sexual in nature--are pretty unappetizing to most players. Even without the proliferation of the magical realm meme. In my experience people find it weird to start hitting on the GM or vice versa, even if it's IC.

>>51500554
>still trying
No attention for you, troll. Shoo.

>>51500560

If it's so simple and easy, then you should still be perfectly capable of reading the whole thing and clearly laying out exactly what its problems are, pointing out specific examples and discussing them.

High quality criticism takes effort, regardless of the quality of the thing you're criticising.

>>51500588
>everyone who disagrees with me is a troll

Maybe you should just talk to yourself in a mirror if you can't handle opposing opinions.

>>51500062
I honestly can't tell whether that's a male or a female.

Whatever it is, it's pathetic.

>>51500413
It's pure cancer regardless.

We should contain 40k/DnD/MtG to their own board.

>>51500692

/tg/ would be literally dead. Our board would get zero traffic, and long term that'd be totally self defeating. Even if it's a small proportion of the audience, that those largest games share a space with the smaller ones consistently creates opportunities for people to make the jump.

It might be frustrating at times, but retaining that strong connection is long term good for smaller games.

>>51500590

If you look at something like Homer or Dante, there's literally thousands of scholars who've dedicated their entire lives over the course of centuries to going as deep as they can into those works, going through precedents and inspirations while comparing them to contemporary works and performing the enormous task of charting what they themselves inspired.

Through their research, they've produced masterpieces in their own right, philosophical, theological, and historical dissertations that reveal facets and aspects of those stories that even other experts were not privvy too, and required years upon decades of careful study in order to compose.

If you propose that the same level of criticism should be performed to Twlight, then I'm guessing that you enjoyed those books a lot more than I did.

>>51500608
>still trying

>>51500692
>/tg/ should get its own board

Maybe you should just leave? It seems like that would be better for everyone, you little bitch.

>>51500237
I'd like to get into GURPS but it looks like a pain in the ass. Not saying anything about it mechanically. Just that it appears hard to get into from the outside. It doesn't help that whenever anyone talks about a specific game they usually mention rules coming from a couple separate books. I mean, most games you just find a copy of a core book and it's off to the races.

>>51499891
>what other people like to play

>>51500920
You can run a hell of a lot using just the 32-page Lite version. Most of the supplements are tweaks to the core to make it better simulate a given genre.

That said, GURPS is not for the lazy GM.

>>51500578
To be fair, seduction can mean more than pure sexual lust and if you widen the scope of the character just a little bit you can bring a lot under the wing of temptation and even seduction without it being a big-titted cute monster girl with devil horns and a spade tail talking like a porn actress and also without completely tossing away what makes the character a *cubus.

>>51500692
What you're talking about is an idea known as /tgg/ or Traditional Games Generals. It would absolutely ruin the board, because this same idea resulted in /v/ and /vg/.

>>51500985
What he's talking about is being a bitchy contrarian. Thankfully, there's an entire board specifically for people like him.

>>>/trash/

>>51500347
I think it's only a thing with 3.5 fans because they're the dominant force of the market and 3.5 is the first system most gamers these days learned, so the annoying faggots that wind up extremely dedicated to one system are mostly found there. I've seen similar behaviours with OWoD players before.

At the core of it, I think it's just that idea that if someone isn't loving something you love the way you love it, there's a possibility that you shouldn't be loving it thing.

>>51500750
For starters, you're inappropriately assuming a black and white dichotomy of "utter garbage" and "masterpiece for the ages."

Critics three thousand years from now will not be dissecting the themes of, say, The Hunt for Red October, as they do with Homer. That does not, however, mean Red October is a bad book or not worth reading. And it would be fair work for a literary critic to read the book and explain what makes it good or bad on its merits as a techno-thriller of its day.

Secondly, as a private individual pursuing his own tastes for fun you can use whatever criteria you want. You can read the first sentence and dismiss a book as shit for all I care - I might disagree, but it's your time and money, so what do I care? This is why I and the other anon talking to you are specifically regarding formal critique, not private individual tastes. There's no accounting for taste. But if we're talking on a level of bettering yourself as a critique and consumer of a medium, then yes, you should be familiar with bad examples as well as good ones and be able to discuss in depth what contrasts them. How can you tell what good is if you've never experienced bad?

>>51500920
>I'd like to get into GURPS but it looks like a pain in the ass. [...] Just that it appears hard to get into from the outside
You're not wrong. Outside of actually having a GM run it for you, GURPS' biggest problem has been bringing in new players because of the intimidation factor and the opaque nature of its presentation. The system itself, while actually quite easy to learn, just plain puts off a lot of newbies because of the presentation, reputation and layout.

>>51501061
I have a sense you're arguing just for the sake of arguing.

You're trying to pretend people need to pay attention to things that aren't important, when there's really nothing in it for them. Between a GM that knows fifty systems and doesn't know how to run any of them, and a GM that knows one system well, I'd prefer the latter. And, between the GM that knows fifty systems well and the GM that knows one system well, if we're playing the one system, it doesn't really matter.

Expanding your horizons is great. Learning a system well is far more important.

>>51501115
My experience as a noob that tried to get into GURPS (and ultimately gave up because I flat out don't like a lot of the mechanical choices in the game or see much merit to universal RPGs these days) a big turnoff wasn't presentation so much as the sheer amount of legwork doing anything with it requires.

>>51500708
this. To a point dividing the audience among more boards is a bad thing because you do want some cross-thread traffic. Finding a sweet spot between an overly broad and an overly narrow focus is important.

>>51501174

You've not really offered any argument as to why it isn't important. Anything to contradict the prior arguments as to why a GM knowing more systems is a direct advantage no matter which one of those systems they happen to be running. Rather than falling back on assertions, would you please engage with the point?

>>51499962
CoC was a shitty meatgrinder until 7th edition cleared up all the fuckery and made it playable.

>tfw you bought a good amount of 6th ed shit a few months before 7th ed came out

>>51501048
>so the annoying faggots that wind up extremely dedicated to one system are mostly found there.

Oh, no, you'll find plenty of annoying faggots extremely dedicated to one system in every game, there's just less of them because there's just less of them in general.

In fact, the worst faggots are easily the ones who cling to unpopular systems, because they get super bitter and jealous of popular games because they think that if those games stopped being popular, people would flock to their games, their games that have been available for years but have failed to provide any substantial reasons for why people should switch over to them.

It's almost like they think that the popular games fanbases are entirely composed of people who are blindly dedicated to them, rather than just them being largely composed of people who prefer those systems over the less popular ones.

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>>51501174
>Between thing 1 and thing 2...
Again, false dichotomy. Do you even understand what one means when they say "false dichotomy"?

What we have been trying to tell you for the whole fucking thread now, you dense motherfucker, is that understanding other systems is an integral part of understanding one system well. Expanding your horizons helps you to understand your system in a way you didn't before, which is exactly why expanding your horizons is such a great thing.

>>51501247
I have the 6th ed book hanging around, what do you mean by shitty meatgrinder?

>>51501257

>It's almost like they think that the popular games fanbases are entirely composed of people who are blindly dedicated to them, rather than just them being largely composed of people who prefer those systems over the less popular ones.

Both are untrue. The majority of D&D's fanbase is literally people who don't know other games exist. That's just a fact.

>>51501231
You're playing a game of infinite time and resources. Cute for hypotheticals.

I'm simply stating that while expanding your horizons is great, learning a system well is far more important.

>>51499891
On the top of my head...
> R.A.W.
> Using coasters
> Boobplates being retarded (I mean, they are, but it's fantasy, I'm just glad it's not a chain bikini)
> -4 STR Lololololololol

I tend to enforce every single one by default (less women heroes, those with STR bonuses aren't pretty), but can recognize they're not needed for a game to be fun, and will drop the case in other peoples' games.

>>51501257
To be fair, there are lots of examples of shit being popular for one reason or another unrelated to its actual quality and worth - such as having a large marketing budget, having name recognition due to being first to market, having recognition due to celebrity endorsement or similar attention attractions, and the like. Some systems are unpopular only because they are obscure, even if they have a relatively good track record of converting people who give it a chance.

>>51501261
Do you understand that you're not even arguing in the same sphere as the argument?

>>51501283

And we're stating that the two are one and the same and that the former directly benefits the latter, which you have provided no counterpoint to refute.

>>51501277
That's a bold faced lie.

>>51501283
Why is expanding your horizons great?

You assume that any time spent learning a new system is inherently time NOT spent mastering your current one. Ergo, unless you are specifically in the market for a new system, why would a GM ever, ever want to expand their horizons? Why is it great? Isn't it, by your logic, actually a bad thing?

>>51501257
>Oh, no, you'll find plenty of annoying faggots extremely dedicated to one system in every game, there's just less of them because there's just less of them in general.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Gamers are mostly found there, and the annoying faggots that are dedicated to one system are most often dedicated to the one they started with and so are mostly found there.

>It's almost like they think that the popular games fanbases are entirely composed of people who are blindly dedicated to them, rather than just them being largely composed of people who prefer those systems over the less popular ones.

That theory would hold some water if it weren't for the fact that of a niche hobby, most people take only an entry-level interest in it and so never actually find reason to play alternate systems, so they just stick with what they know. It's not like the majority of gamers sat down and weighed the merits of every system out there.

>>51501306
Could you explain what your point was and why the post you're replying to did not address it? Because it looks pretty simple from here. You drew a false dichotomy ("Between a GM who does this, and a GM who does that...") and were called out for assuming both is not possible.

>>51501307
And I'm once again saying that learning fifty different systems does not mean you'll know one system well.

You are telling me they are one and the same, when it's flatly untrue. Learning fifty different core mechanics is neat, but that's only fifty different core mechanics, and it's hard to get any further than that when you're too focused on learning more games rather than learning games well.

That should be the priority. Let's make that clear.
Learning more games is not as important as learning games well, even if you are learning more games in order to learn games well.

>>51501061
>Critics three thousand years from now will not be dissecting the themes of, say, The Hunt for Red October, as they do with Homer.
To be fair, Moby Dick.

>>51499962
Just wanted to chime in that it's not a false dichotomy because op didn't say you should only stick to one system, given the option to learn one well or many poorly. He's tacitly granting that you could learn many well but that you get diminishing returns in real life experience or that 1 might be enough for practical purposes. That makes it opinion, not a fallacious logical argument.

>>51501402

Can you stop repeating yourself and actually acknowledge the arguments made throughout the thread? Or do you need me to go back and copy paste them all in one place so you stop ignoring them?

>>51501402
Not that guy, but most games are pretty simple. It really doesn't take much to learn them well.

>>51501430
I was just reaching for a book that is still good, but not universally hailed as a literary masterpiece with university dissertation tier philosophical themes. And that's the first book I could make out on my bookshelf at a glance, so I went with it.

>>51501307
You have a False Equivalence is at play here, and there was not a false dichotomy drawn.

>>51501458
As someone who came to the party late, I wouldn't mind that. I'm pretty curious what this shit-show of a fight is about.

>>51501061
>dichotomy
Did you just learn this word recently? It's the second time I've come across you using it without considering your opponent might not be a moron. Consider what anon said (paraphrasing): "here's one extreme of book analysis on a complex work. I don't think as much work is necessary for a pulpy opposite extreme. "

That's not a dichotomy, it's a metaphorical comparison using 2 examples, both showing you the extreme ends of the spectrum and allowing you to infer that there are gradients of work-to-analysis ratios in-between.

>>51501462
The simper games are the ones that are actually harder to learn how to run well.

It's a beginner's mistake to assume that more narrative/freeform games are better for beginners, when they typically require an experienced GM to perform the equivalent of herding cats. New players need structure, and without it they quickly lose interest because it's hard for them to find any value in looser systems with vaguer feelings of accomplishment.

Even for advanced players, simpler systems require a subset of skills not easily acquired that depend more upon improvisation and shared intuition, and while it's simple enough to "play," it's not only harder to "play well" but to define what "playing well" means.

>>51501538
I'm assuming the other anon is a moron because he's saying moronic things.

>>51501257
>It's almost like they think that the popular games fanbases are entirely composed of people who are blindly dedicated to them, rather than just them being largely composed of people who prefer those systems over the less popular ones.
Honestly in my experience it's true. Anyone I've met who plays pathfinder exclusively just won't give anything else a chance regardless of how good it is. I've met only like 1 or 2 people who aren't that way with popular systems, such as my father in law with 5eDnD

>>51501271
Maybe shitty is a bit stronger than I had intended.

But the game was set up with the idea of being difficult, and while that isn't necessarily bad it does make the game near impossible to play. I DM'd two modules of the game for friends inb4 barely enough experience to pass judgement (the Mr Corbitt and Dead Lights ones iirc) and a fair number of rolls ended in failure. I'm fully aware that it could be because of mine and/or their inexperince with DM'ing/building characters for this system, but I shouldn't have to plan for failure in every single instance that a skill/characteristic check is necessary.

7th edition, to the best of my knowledge, fixed a fair amount of issues with the older system by increasing the characteristics five-fold (from 3d6 to 3d6x5 and so on), and working in a difficulty system with skill checks (If your Computer Use skill is 75 then you would roll under 75 if you wanted to find porn, but you'd have to make a Hard roll of 15 if you wanted to access the deep web or some shit).

Again, I could be entirely wrong, so feel free to educate me if I seem retarded.

>>51501556
No, I meant like pretty normal games are simple to learn. I've always had the hardest time with narrative systems like Fate. But shit like Shadowrun, GURPS, AFMBE, were a cinch for me. You're making it sound as though learning a game is an intellectual discipline you have to spend an entire life to master.

>>51501560
See >>51501432

>>51501603
I must say I'm rather impressed to be talking to someone who has personally met every single person in the pathfinder fanbase.

>>51499891
>going from bitching about troll threads to outright making them
You are such a sad little fucker

>>51501682
OP actually specifically mentions modifying and houseruling anyway, and I've yet to see a single answer to the perfectly reasonable point that understanding other systems and how they resolve issues is an asset to a GM interested in houseruling.

>>51501660
No, I've had it for a while and I've never been sure what to do with it. The whole CoC thing didn't seem all that appealing since most of the stories are "you investigated this shit, went bonkers, and probably died" and that doesn't sound fun.

The best I could come up with was some sort of half-assed bug hunt scenario that borrowed from Aliens, but I'm sure it wouldn't be suitable to it.

>>51501667
I think you're still talking on the level of "playing the game" and not "playing the game well."

>You're making it sound as though learning a game is an intellectual discipline you have to spend an entire life to master.

In all honesty, yes. Perhaps not specifically a system, but learning how to run and play roleplaying games really is a hobby that has already seen many people spend their lives mastering them, and part of that process is understanding a system well enough that its more subtle nuances can be examined in detail, something that may take many years of experimentation and exploration.

>>51501784
>I think you're still talking on the level of "playing the game" and not "playing the game well."

If your players have fun, you're playing the game well.

>In all honesty, yes. Perhaps not specifically a system, but learning how to run and play roleplaying games really is a hobby that has already seen many people spend their lives mastering them, and part of that process is understanding a system well enough that its more subtle nuances can be examined in detail, something that may take many years of experimentation and exploration.

If you think this is a requirement of pursuing this hobby, you're nothing short of pathetic. It's a game, and devoting your life to "mastering" it is a fucking waste.

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>>51500000
>Tribal mindset. "Our system is the best because it's OUR SYSTEM. We can't be wrong, so They must be. Otherwise what's to separate Them from Us? I'm not one of Them, I'm one of Us. It's Them that likes the bad things."

First you have to realize the investment it takes for most people to pour over a hundred+ page book enough to be familiar with all its rules. All so you can play make believe in your head LOTR/ASoIaF/Underworld/Warhammer with some people.

Then some douche comes along and wants you to learn an entirely new one?

"It took me long enough to learn THIS system. Why on earth would I want to start over from scratch with THAT one?"

In order to get people to play a system, you kind of have to proselytize the system/setting. Or point out the flaws in another system/setting and how your system/setting addresses them.

You need that critical mass where there's enough people interested to justify playing it, or else you're stuck with a half dozen people who all want to play something different until they all settle for D&D/Pathfinder.

Or not play at all.

Learning a lot of different games makes you better at quickly learning and understanding games.

If you focus on one system up to 100%, you might master that system but it doesn't do anything to help you branch out.

However, if you learn 5 systems up to 75%, that broader understanding and frame of reference makes it significantly easier to get up to speed on a new system, and the breadth of knowledge available grows faster and faster while providing direct benefits to the games you do run as discussed in >>51501739

The only reason to monofocus on a single game is if you have no intention of ever playing other games, and even then I think you'll miss a few tricks and good ideas that are only gained from branching out and seeing what lies beyond your comfort zone.

>>51501838
>If your players have fun, you're playing the game well.

Define fun.

>If you think this is a requirement of pursuing this hobby, you're nothing short of pathetic. It's a game, and devoting your life to "mastering" it is a fucking waste.

No one said anything about requirements. I guess I just didn't pay attention to you saying "have to" rather than "can".

And, it's kind of mean to call it a waste to devote yourself to something like a game that helps people in so many different ways. In fact, I think it's quite valid to explore all the potential benefits of rolepaying games, ranging from increased literacy and vocabulary to providing a comfortable setting for social interaction and exploration and even just reinforcing rudimentary mathematics.

Then again, having met quite a few people who have dedicated their lives to games, patheticness does seem to gravitate towards them.

>>51500970

I've successfully used a succubus twice.

Once where she was a little girl the party found in a village where all the other inhabitants had been slain. She didn't do anything sexual, but used her mind control and kissed people on the cheek to put them under her spell.

Another was disguised as a Tiefling bard maid who was a pretty obvious "bad ass stronk woman" stereotype that the players seemed keen on getting on the good side of. She basically had them running around and doing her dirty work and they ended up taking the fall for her just because all of them wanted to be able to say her character was into them. Again, no actual sexy role playing on my account. She was just being herself and the players apparently liked her rebellious and PC-like attitude.

>>51501838
You are literally arguing with the autistic shitgoblin that pretends that game mechanics don't matter(while simultaneously making this thread, as if that makes sense) because you can houserule them or fudge behind the scenes, and that everyone who has ever had a bad experience with 3.PF or doesn't like it is wrong because it's popular and they're actually jealous of its success.

Except now for some brainsick reason he's making threads himself.

>>51501784
That's some top tier bullshit anon. Even if it takes "many years" that's hardly a lifetime, and there is a LOT of carryover experience to ease along learning a new system as well - that is to say, if you've GMed D&D for years, you wouldn't start on, say, Shadowrun as a complete and utter newcomer who has no idea what a tabletop RPG is.

It's not unlike, say, object-oriented programming; once you learn one language, learning a second is vastly easier because you can skip the basics and learn what makes the second one different from the one you already know.

>>51501912
>Define fun.

Something that provides mirth or amusement

>>51501912
>Define fun.

Don't have to. This isn't a scientific or philosophical paper. You know what fun is, or at least I fucking hope you do.

>And, it's kind of mean to call it a waste to devote yourself to something like a game that helps people in so many different ways. In fact, I think it's quite valid to explore all the potential benefits of rolepaying games, ranging from increased literacy and vocabulary to providing a comfortable setting for social interaction and exploration and even just reinforcing rudimentary mathematics.

Pathetic may be an overstatement on my part, and I meant it more in the context of you assuming this was a requirement of actually "doing it well." That said, devoting your life to the perfection of idle escapism isn't healthy, and it contributes nothing to anything greater. Which it's entirely up to you to decide if that's a life well spent, but I personally contend that it's not.

>>51501842
> "It took me long enough to learn THIS system. Why on earth would I want to start over from scratch with THAT one?"

Why do people erect these strawmen?

There are systems that are less than a page long. Why would anyone pretend that there's something daunting about learning that system?

I can understand why most people would not want to learn something like GURPS if they're already happy with D&D, but this idea that people who play a popular system would be unwilling to play a much simpler one out of not wanting to invest the time to learn it is kind of ridiculous, especially because there are systems that take less than half an hour to learn.

If anything, its sounds like most of the people trying to "convert" stubborn players have tried doing so in all the wrong ways, and then wondered why their "oh-so-clever" tactics failed miserably.

Sort of like the 4e ad campaign that went for the "The game you liked sucks, play this instead!" approach, which doesn't really work in any capacity.

Want people to play different games? Try short and simple games first, and don't try to turn it into a "my real agenda is that I'm trying to covert you away" scheme. I know some of you genuinely believe people that like one game are brain damaged, but listening to you pretend to understand them makes me wonder who really is suffering from mental issues.

>>51501667
Long time Fate GM here. Strangely enough, it's been my experience that longtime RPG players find Fate harder to play than newbies do. Narrativist games always require a bit of de-programming, as it were, for players more used to gamist games.

I had one longtime Pathfinder and Shadowrun player who just could not understand invokes/compels to save his life. Sure, he understood the theory, he wasn't retarded, but session after session he'd fall into the habit of trying to maximize the Fate Point economy by asking for compels on any roll perceived as safe or minor and then hoarding the resulting Fate Points for later. Which is a valid way to play in that it doesn't violate any rule, but I feel it violates the spirit of the rules in which compels are a way to reward players who suggest dramatic things that can happen even when they're detrimental to their PC's progress.

>>51501972
>This isn't a philosophical paper
immediately followed by
>literally discussing the meaning of life

I agree with you, we all know what fun is and trying to reduce the argument down that far is clearly a distraction rather than a benefit, I just thought the contrast was funny.

>>51502043
For me it was getting out of the strict relation of mechanics in a cause/effect sense. A lot of the mechanics seem to be more "this is what happens mechanically, but what does it mean in the context of your game?" whereas in other games, the express meaning of a specific role or feature is spelled out plainly.

I'm actually rather fond of it, but feel the design is a bit on the wishy-washy side.

>>51502059
I honestly completely missed that. Did I ever mention that I'm primarily a /his/ poster (my interest in RPGs declined a lot until relatively recently) and am very fond of Nietzsche?

>>51501930
Language is a good comparison, especially if the goal is something like... writing a book.

A person who studied fifty languages is going to know how to say cat in fifty different ways, but a person who's mastered English is going to write bestsellers. While it's good to know other languages in order to broaden your scope and ability with English, it's not particularly useful to understand how to say "The cat is on the box in the library" in four dozen ways unless you also have a considerable command of one language to string that together.

>>51502043
That's more of just that there's different types of players. It's not a system thing, but a personality thing.

>>51499891
Finishing third grade.

I only lose out on meme-shit systems like rolemaster, anima, GURPS, 40kRPG but those are that.

>>51502074
It is wishy-washy and sometimes irritatingly vague, and often requires houseruling if it's going to be used seriously in a very specific setting for a game lasting longer than a session or three. For instance, it relies a little too much on GMs keeping every character's Aspects in mind at all times, and my favorite houserule is getting rid of the requirement that a player spend a Fate Point to suggest a Compel to another player unless their PC directly benefits from the Compel, because the GM will never come up with as many dramatic ideas as will the GM plus every player. I also find the base rules for boosts rapidly gets irritating in practice.

On the other hand, I feel like any setting-agnostic system and any narrativist game needs to be somewhat vague, and thus that goes double for a narrativist setting-agnostic system. Being vague means having wiggle room.

>>51502167
I don't think it's bad or anything, just kinda... lacking substance. It is what it is, and it does it pretty well. I'd only use it for a fairly small group (I think two to three would be ideal) for a game with a very specific arc plotted out.

>>51501770
> half-assed bug hunt scenario that borrowed from Aliens
I've been working on a Christmas themed one-shot for 7th ed for a few months now because of procrastination. Starts as a locked room murder mystery that turns into "How do we stop the slowly evolving murderdeer bent on turning the world into a gibebring mess of rage and paranoia"

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that it's a system that could easily be tooled to either pulpy action or grinding horror, but at the end of the day deals with how you toy with your players expectations. Your bug hunt scenario may not be exactly suited for it, but taking the cheesy route (imo) of "Cult Summoning gone wrong: Shoggoth kills its summoners and hides out in Chad's basement while he has friends over and then Tommy the star quarterman is found dead in the bathroom" could make it work to a degree.

>>51501972
>Don't have to.
You do, because while I know what fun is, I don't know that you do or that I agree with your definition. But, that's really not that important, because I doubt we're really all that different.

More importantly, I think you correctly guessed that to be a rhetorical question, but you missed the point of me asking it.

There are different levels and scales of fun. While it's only too easy to have "any" fun with just about any game, it's something else to be able to produce life-changing experiences.

I genuinely believe that roleplaying games are perhaps one of the most difficult and undervalued art forms, largely due to the wide range of skills they demand. It's also bittersweet that they can't be shared with a large group, but that's what makes them personal and keeps them from becoming pretentious.

>perfection of idle escapism

I've always opposed the idea of using games as a method of escapism, even to the point of disagreeing with Tolkien's statements on fantasy and escapism. Ultimately, there's some measure of escapism in RPGs, but this should never be the focus or purpose of these games, just like how reading books should never be about running away from your life.

>>51502282
You take this hobby too seriously. Grow some chill and stop viewing it as high art. You're not going to change someone's life with it, and if you expect to, you're taking it too fucking seriously.

>keeps them from becoming pretentious.

You're at the point of thinking of games as an artistic expression of note. You're so far gone up your own asshole you're checking to see if anything is stuck in your teeth from the rear.

>I've always opposed the idea of using games as a method of escapism, even to the point of disagreeing with Tolkien's statements on fantasy and escapism. Ultimately, there's some measure of escapism in RPGs, but this should never be the focus or purpose of these games, just like how reading books should never be about running away from your life.

The point of games is about entertainment. Nothing more. It's a form of escapism that's psychologically healthy pursued in moderation. They do not compare to books, which include everything from grand metaphysical theories, to religious revelation, to commentary on the human condition as well as fun, suspense and all that other good shit.

Get the fuck over yourself, holy shit dude.

>>51502357
>i'm dumb
>you must be dumb too

No thanks. But, if it's any consolation, I do feel a bit dumb still talking to you when you don't seem to appreciate how good a good GM or player can be, likely because you've never had a really good one.

It's kind of like me talking to a third-grader who's only ever been exposed to the art of his classmates, and trying to explain to them that there's a wide world of art beyond what he knows. I guess it's just one of those things you're either going to learn in time or never at all.

>>51499984
The sad thing is that I've had players like this that don't even know their character abilities.

>>51502410
Haha. Ok buddy. You just keep thinking those idle fantasies you enjoy with your friends are high art. I'm sure you'll go down as one of the greats when they finally understand your medium.

>>51500209
>Frank Herbert
>Not important
You don't have to read all 8 books or whatever, but if you haven't read Dune, you're fucking up. That's like not having watched the original Star Wars trilogy.

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Coasters

>>51502420
>idle
It seems like you're just trying to be stupid at this point, and you're doing a great job at it.

In any case, plenty of people already enjoy the transcripts of my games, and they're actually even rather popular here on /tg/, to the point where they're consistently reposted in nearly every screencap thread.

Who knows? You might actually be talking to one of the future greats, at least as far as within the realm of role playing games.

>>51499910
Because human memory potential is limited and filling it with useless information is good determinant of a retard.

>>51500692
/tg/ is already 80% reddit,purging anything system related will literally make it "muh cool homebrew" board.

>>51499891
Haha. Sadly OP, no, your stated fact really is true among some people.

Hide.

>>51502507
>In any case, plenty of people already enjoy the transcripts of my games, and they're actually even rather popular here on /tg/, to the point where they're consistently reposted in nearly every screencap thread.

Oh that's a mighty big claim to fame. The same board that thought the Unified Setting was a good idea likes your games.

Hey it's more than I've accomplished artistically, so you have that at least.

>idle

Yes, roleplaying games are an idle escapism, nothing more. You're just asshurt that someone is mocking you for considering them an artform.

>>51502565

/tg/ still has the advantage of anonymity, the removal of consistent identity preventing hierarchies forming. It's the primary value I find in the board, a place where you're taken on purely what you say rather than any particular reputation.

It's also what makes people who accuse random anons of being the same person across many different threads and large spans of time highly amusing to me.

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>>51502624
It's not really so much as asshurt as saddened that you genuinely seem to believe that. It paints you as the kind of child that's unable to appreciate something because you're not only stupid, but trying to be stupid.

If you genuinely think roleplaying games are and can only ever be absolutely nothing more than "idle escapism," enjoy some genuine pity.

On a completely, 100% unrelated note, have you seen Record of Lodoss War? It's pretty neat.

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What the fuck is OP talking about.

Learning a system to perfection takes at most three-four days of casual reading and a single 7-10 session campaign.

Is he mentally challenged?

>>51502690
>On a completely, 100% unrelated note, have you seen Record of Lodoss War? It's pretty neat.

Yes, I know it was based on an RPG campaign and I'll say this plainly: it's also escapism that's artistically void.

>If you genuinely think roleplaying games are and can only ever be absolutely nothing more than "idle escapism," enjoy some genuine pity.

I do, and I think the people that think otherwise are consistently some of the most awful and obnoxious elements of gaming.

You keep calling me a child here, but so far you've only displayed a completely childish understanding of art that seems to serve the purpose only of elevating your hobbies and using it as an excuse to justify the amount of time you've devoted to "perfecting" (as though there could actually be a standard of perfect when it comes to something as ridiculously subjective as a game experience) a fucking game.

>>51502721
He's one of those losers that thinks gaming is about artistic expression and life-changing experiences.

>>51499891

Every tabletop wargame besides 40k

>>51502721
Are you a mememancer?

>>51502849
Fail to see how it's relevant, but yes.

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>>51502773
I get to call you a child because you're arguing in bad faith here.

>it's also escapism that's artistically void.

You're not the guy who gets to define what is or is not entirely escapism, nor what is or is not artistically void. In fact, even if you truly believe that to be the case, that only applies to you, and anyone who disagrees and chooses to value it as something other than escapism negates your entire argument.

All you've got left is demanding people to accept your opinions wholesale in order for your ideas to have ANY merit. Since your opinions are quite easy to disagree with, you're basically without argument.

Let me also call you a child once more.

>>51502961
>posts quote about enjoying childish things in adult without fear
>ends post by calling other poster a child as if liking childish escapism is a bad thing.
wew lad

And yes it's escapism. Trying to make it more adult by "perfecting" it and adding in all these other pretentious things is an attempt to cover up the simple childish escapism at its heart. Maybe you should take the advice of CS Lewis there and learn to enjoy the simple escapism it presents.

>>51500407
Best post in this thread.

>>51502961
>I get to call you a child because you're arguing in bad faith here.

Disagreeing with you is not bad faith, you goddamn sack of crap.

>You're not the guy who gets to define what is or is not entirely escapism, nor what is or is not artistically void.

Yes I fucking am, because I have eyes to see, ears to hear, a mind to think, a mouth to speak, and RoLW is themeless escapism. It says nothing and challenges its viewers in no way, and neither do roleplaying games. Nor fucking should they; your players aren't a captive audience you stand on a soapbox and preach to: they're people that are there to have a good time.

>In fact, even if you truly believe that to be the case, that only applies to you, and anyone who disagrees and chooses to value it as something other than escapism negates your entire argument.

Sure, I never claimed to speak absolute truth. But you'll just have to deal with the fact that someone out there thinks that considering games an art form one ought to master is kind of pathetic, and there are others that agree with me I'm sure.

>All you've got left is demanding people to accept your opinions wholesale in order for your ideas to have ANY merit.

Haha, oh boy. You assume I'm demanding you to agree with me? I expect that if you're a healthy individual with a strong enough sense of self, that you'll go your own way and disregard my heckling. But you've taken personal offense to someone not valuing games the same way you do. Meanwhile, I'm just enjoying heckling you. Now, I need to do a second part because I wish to relay a concept to you.

>>51500257
As an asshole who loves Tolkien way too much I understand that really loving it is a matter of very specific taste. I would of course recommend it just because it is such a cultural touchstone, especially for any fantasy based interest but only the most autistic would actually get up in arms if someone didn't read it.

>>51502961
>>51503130
Part two, because I wanted to relay a definition of art (not an absolute definition, contest it or ignore if you want, perspectivism is great like that) that explains why a game shouldn't be treated as art and serves the function, first and foremost of being an escapism.

>Since your opinions are quite easy to disagree with, you're basically without argument.

Ok then. Art, in the sense of not just a piece of artistry (such as an illustration) but in the higher concept of art that philosophers talk about, is the combination of expressions of the human condition and skill, the highness of art is best categorized by the difficulty of the emotion reached and the subtlety used in doing so (porn is low art because lust is easy to appeal to and it does it with the subtlety of a hammer, for instance).

Now, a game isn't there to attempt reaching any emotion but the simple visceral pleasures of problem solving, task resolution, and accomplishment, and any attempt to reach deeper emotions is actually only tangentially related to this core feature of gaming; so on this ground, they could be considered artistic in the lowest absolute sense. You can try to appeal to harder to reach emotions in the game, but in so doing you're basically jumping ship from these core features of gaming into collaborative storytelling, which is in fact just storytelling (assuming you're not just holding your players hostage and trying to force them to play along with these emotional themes), at which point one must ask why you bother with games of which those earlier mentioned features are a big part of in the first place.

Sure, a game may naturally drift into these subjects and may achieve some element of artistry, or it may try for its core themes very subtly, but these are still, at their core, just a diversion from the primary purpose of games.

>>51503058
You misunderstood both the quote and its usage here.

I can't deny that it can be used as escapism. But to try and claim that's all it is has you arguing in bad faith. You've painted yourself into a corner, I understand that much, but it's about time you gave up with this bizarre fear to look beyond this bizarre preconceived notion that you are clinging to, likely only for the sake of pride in not wanting to submit to the superior argument.

You are afraid of "childish" things and looking deeper into them, and that's what keeps you repeating the mantra of "it's only escapism! it's only escapism!" as if you genuinely believed it.

I said it earlier. You're really kind of sad. Now, I understand that you have a limited imagination and are potentially genuinely stupid, to the point where even when presented with an example of something that developed beyond mere escapism you stupidly tried to dismiss it as having no artistic value just to avoid having to face the reality of how empty your arguments are, but to continue this strange farce where you can't even conceive of a single merit to roleplaying games beyond escapism is just too much.

Let me wash my hands of you. Earlier, I hoped to speak to you at least on a civil level, but since you've chosen to be stupid just for the sake of holding onto your pride, I guess all that's left is to once again call you a child, because there's no better thing to call someone who resists only for the sake of continued resistance.

>>51503159

> really loving it is a matter of very specific taste.

Best way to describe it. If you're someone who really enjoys long epic poems then you'll probably be a huge fan of LotR.

I read the Odyssey. I liked it. Probably won't read it again though.

>>51501432
I'd say that when we talk about numbers <= 5 learning basics different systems with varying core mechanics before learning one or two of them really deep gives bigger returns than mastering one system deeply because:
I've seen enough first non-dnd experiences to be sure that "hasn't eaten anything sweeter than turnip" is a real problem in /tg/ community. If you don't like class-and-level advancement, changing systems is way easier than homeruling it out of DnD.

Implementing good game design solutions from other systems to your system of choice. There are easily portable mechanics that can improve your experience with your system of choice greatly. I.e. drama dice, fate points, reputation systems.

Being able to discuss systems here without looking like a moron. I.e. Knowing that character without negative aspects in fate will be weak because no fate points for him (master can't give him shit without breaking the rules) unless it is a GMGFPC.

>>51503171
>You are afraid of "childish" things and looking deeper into them, and that's what keeps you repeating the mantra of "it's only escapism! it's only escapism!" as if you genuinely believed it.

He's not me, and I'm not even slightly afraid of childish things. I just don't try to dress them up.

>I said it earlier. You're really kind of sad. Now, I understand that you have a limited imagination and are potentially genuinely stupid, to the point where even when presented with an example of something that developed beyond mere escapism you stupidly tried to dismiss it as having no artistic value just to avoid having to face the reality of how empty your arguments are, but to continue this strange farce where you can't even conceive of a single merit to roleplaying games beyond escapism is just too much.

But RoLW is indeed just escapism. It has that same thing LotR going on has, where it's basically Winnie the Pooh for slightly older people, only with even fewer core themes.

>>51503170
>just a diversion from the primary purpose of games.

You're not the one who decides this, no more than you are the one who decides if a painter is an artist or not. People will play games differently than you do.

>a game isn't there to attempt reaching any emotion

You're not the one who decides this, no more than you are the one who decides if a painter is an artist or not. People will play games differently than you do.

>You can try to appeal to harder to reach emotions in the game, but in so doing you're basically jumping ship from these core features of gaming into collaborative storytelling,

You're not the one who decides this, no more than you are the one who decides if a painter is an artist or not. People will play games differently than you do.

>which is in fact just storytelling

An artform.

Please, just give up. You're really being too stupid now.

>>51503201
>But RoLW is indeed just escapism.

I'm convinced you really just don't know what escapism is, and how trying to label something like RoLW "just" escapism is ludicrous.

>the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities,

You can enjoy RoLW without wanting to distract or relieve yourself from unpleasant realities.

>>51503183
Yeah, a couple of years back I kind of went through a reawakening when it came to Tolkien where I felt I finally understood what the hell it was trying to be. I read and enjoyed it when I was 11 or 12 but only recently have I really fell in love with all parts of it, reading the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, the History of Middle-Earth, all that jazz.

>>51503210
>You're not the one who decides this, no more than you are the one who decides if a painter is an artist or not. People will play games differently than you do.

But I absolutely am. This is something people miss in hiding behind their sense of absolute relativism: people are allowed to have opinions. You can either ignore them or contest them, but you can't shut them down just by saying "nuh-uh, that's just an opinion bro." The key strengths of gaming have always been these elements, and they're really the sole reason gaming has anything to offer over collaborative storytelling.

But I can see by the fact you repeated that three times, you're seriously fucking asshurt.

>An artform.

Which is not gaming, and has literally nothing to do with the design or strengths of roleplaying games as a medium.

>I'm convinced you really just don't know what escapism is, and how trying to label something like RoLW "just" escapism is ludicrous.

I'm convinced you don't. RoLW has no deeper themes, it asks no questions, and invokes no thought. It posits a childish good versus evil narrative, and nothing else.

>You can enjoy RoLW without wanting to distract or relieve yourself from unpleasant realities.

Sure. It's entertaining, but that doesn't change the fact its primary narrative is a simplistic good versus evil affair that designed primarily as an escapism.

>Please, just give up.

You haven't actually made a defense of your position yet; just retreated into relativism repeatedly.

Come now, surely someone who has thought so at length about his medium could mount at least a halfway philosophical defense of its artistic merit.

>>51500000
CHECKED AND KEK'D

It's alright OP, you can play your realistic sci-fi political intrigue campaign in modified pathfinder, no matter what people tell you. Screw the haters! :^)

>>51502101
Not the anon you're arguing with, but I got to disagree.

Expanding your horizons in a hobby (be it translating, writing, DMing or programming) is an incredibly effective way to improve the quality and creativity of your work.

Assuming you already know your language, genre or system of choice well enough, learning more will help you make creative connections, compare what works and what doesn't, and generally give you inspiration and useful habits you wouldn't get from trying to learn 100% of an existing language or system.

>>51499930
But a good system is doesn't require system mastery so your point fails

>>51501319
True, they also know that White Wolf stuff exists but only goths and weirdos play it. They are stuck in the past that far back.

>>51504065
Just because a good system does not require system mastery, doesn't mean that its system mastery is unachievable or undesirable

>>51502436

If your host has provided you with coasters in the expectation they be used, not using them is not only rude, but disrespectful.

I personally don't own any coasters and don't really give a fuck about my surfaces as I live in squalor, just wipe shit down if you're leaving a puddle, and don't set your drink by anything important.

But manners are fucking manners, and disrespecting someone else's home and property are not okay.

>>51500071
> it's up to the GM to customize the game in order to cater to their own needs.
'Don't you think being familiar with a wide range of game systems and how they work and approach different issues would help with that?

>>51500411
>No one said anything about 3.5/PF.
They really didn't have to, everyone knew exactly where OP was coming from.

What the fuck is mastery even in this context?
Knowing how to play the game? In a good game that should take little investment.

Knowing how to change the rules? In a good game you either shouldn't need to (either because it's part of what the game sets out to do and does it, or isn't part of it, and you are better off with a different game), or, in a dream scenario, should be designed in a way that it's easy to brew for it and implement it. Either way, knowing more games to lift ideas from helps immensely.

>>51501289
Couldn't boobplate make sense in that it's protecting the heart and lungs ie the most vulnerable locations? They call it a BREASTplate for a reason after all.

>>51501321
>Why is expanding your horizons great?
I dunno because you might find something better then what you already have, why just settle for what's familiar because it's easy? Are you really this incurious? Imagine if the only rpg someone knew was FATAL, wouldn't it be good for them to expand their horizons?

>>51500071
>It's a bit like asking if pineapples are a tasty fruit based on how they compare to apples and bananas.

Except it's not really. It's more like you compare pineapples from one location to pineapples from another to see which one's taste the best

>>51504589
It was a rhetorical question posed towards someone who was arguing that it's better to master your current system than try new ones. See
>>51501283
>I'm simply stating that while expanding your horizons is great, learning a system well is far more important.
I agree expanding one's horizons is great, and was only asking rhetorically to highlight their calling it a good thing but denying the very reasons it's a good thing.

>>51503660
Storytelling is more of a craft or vocation since it is a vehicle for content. It would be akin to studying composition as opposed to philosophy or history. That said, plenty of people put their lives into crafts and vocations out of the sheer joy of doing it. Let's just consider honing storytelling as a form of that, but with very few ways of monetizing such prowess in today's economy. It's as ridiculous as it seems primarily because of this factor anyways; we probably would have applauded him had we been living in times where history was passed down by song and tale.

Besides, a good storyteller has to diversify his content consumption. The imagination feeds off of the works of others or life itself. A functioning game world cannot hold muster without some solid understanding of the phenomena underlying its behavior. NPCs require knowledge surrounding the human condition to really breathe. A backstory is mere postulation unless if it is backed by observations on history. By digging deep into what he believes in, he inherently has to live a great deal in your own shoes (or cripple his own potential). Isn't that enough to agree to disagree?

>>51504611
It's more like eating a pineapple and declaring it the greatest fruit of all time and dedicating yourself solely to trying every possible cultivar of pineapple without ever once trying an apple or a banana. Even if the apple or banana don't change your opinion on pineapples, it's still better to have tried them. And who knows, you may discover an even better fruit, like peaches.

>>51501912

holy shit what a fucking faggot

>>51500000
Checkd

Oh my god. I returned to this thread expecting more amusing stuff about OP trying to argue monofocusing on a single system is best, but this is a fucking dream. The sheer degree of pretentious bullshit is almost unbelievable.

>>51505815
>butthurt that he got manhandled in an argument
>"I know! I'll pretend I didn't lose and I'll also erect a strawman so maybe people will ignore how badly i got reckt!"

Wow, your personal brand of patheticness dropped to a new low.
Can you put on a trip? You seem like a special kind of faggot, and I think it would be nice for weird trolls like yourself to get the eventual ban they deserve.

>>51505851

Mate, I've been asleep for the last eight hours and I never had a horse in the race, I just thought it was fuckin' funny. But holy shit, you're still here? You care that much about this bollocks?

>>51505975
>"I got so badly rekt that now I got to do damage control!"

Holy shit, you're still here? You care that much about this bollocks?

>>51500000
This is now the truth.

>>51505975
My trolldar identifies OP as a low profile troll by the anon-given nick name "Petty Richard", possibly an imitator.

Tells: being butthurt about people disliking 3.PF, "eternally triggered bitch anon", "put on a trip", using "you hate it because it's popular" and "it wouldn't be popular if it wasn't good" arguments, as well as a subset of the Nirvana fallacy ("no game is perfect, so one game can't be better than the other"), also has a generic, but somewhat recognizable sentence structure due to repeating words (in fact got his name because of repeating "petty" a lot in one of his early threads).

Diagnosis: Petty Richard (or whoever was inspired by his antics) found a good bait but had ran it into the gorund. This thread is an experimentation, a mutation of sorts, carefully expanding his "philosophy", trying to build upon its foundation and repackage it in ways to make it seem fresh.

Advice: First encounters with PR may be source of some amusement, but the repetitiveness gets boring quite fast. Against early strains the use of kindergarten logic was somewhat effective, but it seems that PR had since immunized itself, and will not let the conversation advance beyond a few loops. Once the novelty wears off, the poster can be safely ignored, as he will just repeat itself ad nauseum.

>>51501842
>implying learning a new game isn't fun
>implying reading a good rulebook doesn't give you a thousand new ideas
>implying learning a new system isn't a core part of our hobby
sure, some people who like to play boardgames don't like painting miniatures but most of us go for the real deal

>>51502043
>Narrativist games always require a bit of de-programming, as it were, for players more used to gamist games.
that's not the problem. the problem is the dropping of SIMULATIONISM (REALISM) by FATE. in FATE, if it fits the story, it can and probably will be shoe-horned in. in traditional games, the GM is bound to providing a consistent gaming world.

>>51506092
The GM is bound to provide a consistent world in Fate too. It's just assumed that the GM knows that. After all, fitting in the setting consistently IS a part of "fitting the story," is it not?

>>51506055
>This thread is about 3.PF!

This is beyond crazy.
Have you considered seeing a brain doctor? You've got a weird persecution complex to the point where you've not only started to imagine that everything is about a topic you're obsessed with, but that anyone who disagrees with you, even if its on a matter solely in your imagination, must be a singular entity.

Advice: The internet is a lot bigger than your own brain. You might want to try stepping outside of your head once in awhile.

>>51502428
>That's like not having watched the original Star Wars trilogy.
O-oh.
I must have shit taste. I've tried watching the original trilogy and got too bored within 20 minutes to even finish watching the first movie.

That, or it's one of those "I was God-tier at the time, but since then everyone else has learned from it and improved upon the formula" making it relatively worse than modern works that owe credit to the original.

>>51502533
> human memory potential is limited

it's not

Time is limited though, which is a better argument.

>>51502428
I'm 100% sure that the vast majority of people in the hobby hasn't read a single Dune book. They know it exists, there's arab big worms and shit, and that's it.

In general, people today just doesn't read.

Observe how even mentioning his name and 3.PF had triggered the specimen, despite the reply not being aimed at him, nor 3.PF being an integral part to it.

However, although it shows all the usual signs of projecting and butthurt, we can not discount the possibility that it is a troll craving attention (either the original or using similar tactics), instead of a retarded mid-twenties autist. For this reason, we should deny it the (You) it craves, although it will probably still find some meager amount of self satisfaction even from just discussing the related counter measures.

>OP advises against searching for the Perfect System for your extremely specific campaign
>First post doesn't understand the question, argues in favor of knowing as many systems as possible
>Second post ignores OP, argues in favor of knowing a single system as well as you can
>People automatically assume second post anon is OP
I mean... there's a line between "don't look for the perfect system for your steampunk walmart themed campaign" and "just stick to 1 system", these are different opinions. OP really doesn't look like the obsessed 3.PF poster to me.

>>51500000
How many more time are you gonna post this pasta?
It's not even pasta anymore, just a brick of flour with water.

>>51506208
You're trying to reason with a mad man. That's the very definition of futility.

>>51499891
I'm proud that I have only ever played D&D with its various derivatives and my own systems with ultra simple rules. In this case, ignorance is bliss.

>>51506403

Accusing it of being pasta doesn't stop it ringing true.

>>51506376
Looking back, the first mention of 3.pf in this thread was this guy.
>>51500093

It really looks like there's an obsessed guy on /tg/ who's gone off the deep end, fighting against shadows of the system he can't stop thinking about.

>>51506270
>I've tried watching the original trilogy and got too bored within 20 minutes to even finish watching the first movie.
Try it again. It's from an era in which action movies weren't mindless IV drips of adrenaline and actually had pacing wherein they set up their conflicts and their main characters before having them shoot at one another. I know it's weird at first, but it's a good thing and once you appreciate its benefits you'll find modern movies that don't spare the time to show us what our MC's life is like and what they hope and dream about and care for before they go on a murder spree to be boring.

>>51506270
>I must have shit taste. I've tried watching the original trilogy and got too bored within 20 minutes to even finish watching the first movie.

Yep, you have shit taste. Glad you recognize it though.

>>51506640
I think you're talking to a very special sort of contrarian.

>>51499984
This triggers me.

>>51506270
Nope. It's not all one of those "obsolete classics". They're genuinely good movies enjoyable on their own merits. The Empire Strikes Back is one of the greatest science fiction films of all time. The original holds up surprisingly well for a movie from 1977, since the "used" aesthetic lends itself well to aging gracefully.

>>51506312
>it's not
It is.You can only hold memory of 200 people.And thats a world record.

>>51506671

Well that's an incredibly vague statement without any of the clarification necessary to let it mean anything.

>>51506494
It is pasta. I've read it (or some minor variation) 3 or 4 times just today

>>51509386

Link?

>>51509428
On the phone right know, but shouldn't be hard finding them searching some key words.

>>51499984
He's trolling, but he's accurately describing the vast majority of perma-players.

>>51499910
Not all knowledge is useful or even usable. Please stop pretending like that isn't the case.

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>>51500623
Nah, that's just Pat.

>>51506500
In that guy's defense, usually the people that cry about being told to find a new system are d20 players.

>>51511410
Most players in general are d20 players.

>>51502849
What system would be best for playing a mememancer?

>>51511663
Unknown Armies

>>51504576
The problem with boobplates is that they would end up driving some glancing blows into center mass blows

>>51511760
Also, falling on them or getting hit on them would drive the middle wedge into your chest.

There's probably ways around all that, but it's really unneeded imo; you can make an armor pretty feminine if you want without giving it boobs.

>>51506055
Richard Petty, mate, not Petty Richard.

Also don't forget about crying about a persecution complex you clearly have because you dare disagree with him.

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>>51500422
>Someone mentions Quests
>No shitstorm
Somethings fishy.