Ahhh.... I think I picked your meaning out of your snottiness there, and yes, that would define me perfectly. The debate between role-playing and roll-playing will go one. I can only assume you are a fan of 'roll playing', your comments have a very Leet feel to them, good for you. You have a million times more people to play with than I do, you would think that the fact that your side of the argument has so clearly, and drastically won would make you a little more cheerful...

Oops, almost missed your edit back there, culture (emoji) something or other. Culture as defined by the culture trapping? No clue what you are trying to say. Culture meaning stereotype, ummm, nope. There are stereotypes that are not cultural. To say that culture is 'only' a stereotype is a gross over simplification of reality. Which ever way you run that, it doesn't really make sense.

That symbol was 'does not equal'. I know you said you're old, but you're not older than maths, surely? *winks*



Well, you know what they say about assumptions.

Any RPG (and any edition thereof) can be role-played or roll-played. Have you read accounts of how Gygax used to run games? It was often a mathematical battle of wits and dice between him and the players, not the characters. Almost pure roll-playing. Some systems are inclined more one way than the other: I couldn't play D&D 4e because it felt like a board game, something like Warhammer Quest, rather than an RPG. D&D 5e is a big swing back towards a role-playing focus, and feels a lot more like AD&D 2e than it does 4e or even 3e. 2e was my introduction to the game, so it hit a pretty sweet nostalgia spot for me.
This message was last edited by the user at 22:50, Fri 10 June 2016.

Ahhh, no, when I did math the strike was thru the equal sign, something I am guessing our keyboards don't offer. You were making one symbol out of three, I thought it was a sequence.

Wow, you keep editing posts, maybe it would be better to make a new one when you have something to add, because otherwise the person you are conversing with might never see it.

So, to your point about culture, I don't see that we disagree in general, but perhaps in the specifics. Absolutely, takes years to study a culture to get even two or three layers beneath the surface. My argument, however, is that rather than using the inability to know the whole thing as an excuse to toss things like ethnicity out the window, that the depth  and complexity is a reason to try and deploy as much as we can, even it's only a few cultural traits, to show respect for the diversity of our varied cultures.

I'm not saying being counter-cultural is bad, when it's relevant, but it should be with effort and a recognition of what you are being counter too, not just because everyone ignores culture.

Mildly humorous example, Jimmy Wang Yang. He was an Asian pro-wrestler (you can find his theme song on YouTube, listening to it now, but still uncertain when and where links are allowed.) Before (and after) him, every Asian wrestler's persona was steeped in their Asian-ness. This guy was a shyte kicking, cowboy boot wearing country music loving good ole boy! It was a great angle, but heck, there are dozens of cowboy wrestlers too. What made him interesting was that he was an Asian who acted like a Cowboy. It made him different. (Heck of an entertainer too, never got the push he deserved.)

What I am saying is, if you play an atypical character, there needs to be some sense that it is atypical, or you're just not doing anything. To be overtly literal, you are playing a role, you are just being yourself in a dwarf body with a big axe and armor, probably talking like a pirate.

As to Gygax, I'm grateful for what he created, but I don't think he was any great genius. It was considered common knowledge that Dave Arneson wrote the players handbook and Gygax stole it. I actually found a weird self-published, cardboard and paper, hand bound book by Gygax when I was University. It was supposed to be something like a studious alternate history of WW II, but it was clearly just a journal of him writing down what happened while playing a war game, and it was really poorly done.

I know the origins of the game were born within a group of historical war-gamers, and I can see how dice rolling would be significant. That said, you can see in the various iterations of the Greyhawk world that story telling was not totally alien, but very important. They don't spend all that time giving your cultural trapping and racial traits because they don't think role-playing is important.

Anyway, I started before 1st edition, I was playing with the old blue box edition of basic D&D, and many of my early gamer friends had started with the White Box of original D&D. Spent most of my formative years in 1st ed., though I did dabble in Gamma World, Traveler, Boot Hill, Role Master, Tunnels and Trolls (who had some fun solo adventures, sort of like choose your own adventure books on steroids) and a couple of Super Hero games. The one I wanted to play but never got the chance was Metamorphosis Alpha. My experience with 4th ed was not happy, but playing 5th doesn't seem like that much of a step back. The characters in my game feel more like they should be in a superhero game than a gritty fantasy world.

Are people from Asia identical to the stereotype?
The dwarf stereotype draws from tolkien, yes, then adds a couple other sources, and distills only the most annoying and notorious traits into cliff notes. Is it a wonder that the cliff notes barely resemble the original? that played straight the result is an annoyance who's only good at swinging an axe that will derail any campaign that isn't happening on a dungeon or a tavern?

So apparently having a GM that can't be bothered to read is the same as having a game where the friction does not get to the point of unplayability, got it.

*snort* please, it is as if you've never heard what old school d&d had been played as by many, or even bothered to read the DMG-equivalent of most modern games.

Most of your whining of the newer editions has zero to do with 'rollplaying', and everything to do with the fact that you're expecting one genre but playing another, you're expecting something grim and gritty while nabbing a box designed for high fantasy, and not the tame kind either. Of course they feel like superheroes, that's pretty much the genre they're trying to portray.


That's a fair point, part of doing things respectfully is, well, not making your character be the cliff notes with nothing else there to it. Twist it, expand it, add depth, don't play all of them, contrast it to the cliff notes, anything other than using them like some kind of shopping list and calling it done.

You seem imply there was an actual dwarf culture? Not sure if you mean people like Peter Dinklage or something else.
As to Asian stereotypes, having been to Asia, living there for several years, there is a very strong tendency for people to behave like the stereotype. That said, you continually ignore my point, that it is okay to play against type, but it is only relevant if the type exists and there are repercussions from said culture if you stray too far.
You seem to be trying to force the idea that 'if not everyone acts like the stereotype, the then culture doesn't exist.' Which is odd, considering your self-proclaimed occupation.


I would guess he reads, he is a college English professor, but that is again not what I said. His gaming emphasis, rush to the combat, took the fun out of things for several of us.
Why have a character if you're not going to role-play. I could just as easily have a set of numbers akin to a Star Fleet Battles ship layout.
I can see the problem here though, because apparently any friction is enough to make a game unplayable for you. For people who play the way I play, the friction is what makes the game playable, and enjoyable. I have had more fun playing a 1st ed. 1st. level character with one spell and situations requiring thought and role-playing than  I would have ever had with a guy I knew whose character



Wait, on the one hand you understand the depth and complexity of culture, but on the other you can't understand why I don't know how everyone else in the world played the game? Maybe that *snort* comment referenced drugs and not derision.
I know how the people I played with played, and when people had some ridiculously powerful item or trait they were laughed at, or snorted at, if you prefer. I know what was in the dragon magazine, and there was nothing akin to first level characters designed to be so powerful they could single-handedly take out a Roper, for jiminies sake.  (how is single handedly not in the spell check vocabulary, but ssingle-high- handedly and single-off-handedly are?)
That was what happened when the power gamer in my 5th ed. group played his Arracocra (sp?) Monk, and was at first level apparently able to hit three times, then roll out of range to be attacked back, several rounds in a row.
I would not be surprised to find that house rules existed back in the day, when AD&D first came out, the idea of originality and creating house rules was very common. You wouldn't have found an article in the very early Dragon magazines that didn't say the DM's rule superseded the books.
I remember the day that changed, and the Dragon told players the rules trumped the DM. Very odd.


If you don't realize how ridiculous your comment sounds here, there is nothing I can do to explain it. To think that a first level character should be as potent as modern batman is bizarre beyond comprehension.

Most of your whining of the newer editions has zero to do with 'rollplaying', and everything to do with the fact that you're expecting one genre but playing another, you're expecting something grim and gritty while nabbing a box designed for high fantasy, and not the tame kind either. Of course they feel like superheroes, that's pretty much the genre they're trying to portray.

That's a fair point, part of doing things respectfully is, well, not making your character be the cliff notes with nothing else there to it. Twist it, expand it, add depth, don't play all of them, contrast it to the cliff notes, anything other than using them like some kind of shopping list and calling it done.
</quote>
Again, simply ridiculous. The proper use of a cliff-notes version of a culture is to use it to build the loose framework within which you character lives, not to be set on fire to heat your pop-tarts. You treat Cliff-notes as if they are meaningless, but they are educational, and in some cases give the student an insight reading the original wouldn't get.

Note how I touch on all your comments, and not simply ignore the stuff I don't like. It's called 'an adult discussion'. Try it sometime.

I think my problem is that I'm not sure how 'here's a caricature of how I perceive other cultures' is exactly respectful. As I said, it may be necessary given how hard it is to truly represent others (the alternative would be excluding people from playing other races or cultures, which doesn't help anyone to my mind), but there needs to be an awareness that, at best, you're doing well-intentioned pantomine.

...which is a pretty good definition of roleplaying in general, now that I think about it.

I think expecting awareness is pretty much akin to demanding everyone join your religion. Many people don't care about cultural awareness and many simply aren't capable of grasping the complexities of this world, many unaware of the layers upon layers of their own culture, much less someone else's.

That said, let me see if I can find another way to make my point.

Take one.

You're dating a new girl, she said she loved flowers, but you forget what her favorite was. Is it wiser to (a) bring her some flowers anyway or (b) simply bring no flowers at all.

I would go with (a).

Take two.

You have two choices on your date, (a) buy her a caricature of herself from a street artist, or (b) buy her a blank piece of paper from a stationary store.

Take three.

I guess what I am trying to say is that even the creation of a caricature is more respectful then pretending that their culture does not exist.

example one

People who claim that because you can't catch all drug dealers, you shouldn't try to catch any.

Ridiculous, right, but it is the meaning of what a lot people say when they disagree with the efforts of law enforcement.

Hope something there helps make my opinion more clear. Don't expect you to necessarily agree, but even if you understand it, it was worth the effort.

No, I'm implying the fantasy dwarf stereotype draws from several fictional characters, of course, being a stereotype it turns into a caricature, a caricature that is largely unplayable straight. Which is apparently the problem, I see the word stereotype and think of a caricature of something that is often fairly insulting, you see the word stereotype and it somehow lacks any of those implications.

You're starting from the assumption that the stereotype is exactly the culture with no deviation, granted, there isn't much to go on with a fantasy culture, but if you truly care about the background you're writing, you can at least add some humanity, some rationality to it, some more depth than just a checklist before using it as such.

what? are you mistaking me for dirigible? and when have I said that at all?

Back to a more real world example, say you have a culture, then you have a stereotype, often an insulting caricature as seen from the outside and just as often tinged with a good dose of racism. Most individuals are unlikely to act like the stereotype, many may adhere to some of the traits, and the worst examples, often those looked down upon by the same culture, may adhere to nearly all of them.
Other times, the stereotype is a caricature of how the culture looks at it's own worst traits. Would you say that USA's culture is the same as, say, Hommer Simpson? should I consider all people from the country to be Hommer Simpson clones and everyone that strays from that would face dire consequences?

I would guess that he doesn't, at least when it comes to the history/biography section of your character sheets, or he simply didn't care and saw no reason to include them in the adventure. Or perhaps it was simply a matter of miscommunication on what type of game you all wanted to play.
Or maybe he doesn't believe he has the skill to pull it off, or he feels the group is too new and wants to get a handle of how much is too much before including such things.

Mind you, if he only did that with the first combat, well, there are benefits to an early first fight from both a storytelling, social and mechanical perspectives, it's not a bad plot hook, it lets you know just what kind of players you're dealing with, and it lets you plan or adjust your adventure to be more fun while the players are busy having their post-battle back-patting.

I'm sorry, but after several posts this is just being deliberately obtuse.
How is not wanting a game where the friction does not get to the point of unplayability implying zero friction? is it a checkbox for you? is it either a hugbox or the drow assassin trying to murder the party 5 minutes in because "mah concept!" or the paladin gutting the thief the first time he sees him trying to unlock the door of the evil dungeon? is the idea that I'm advocating some middle ground so difficult to comprehend? a middle ground based on roleplay, where the characters are played true to their concept, only that their concepts are chosen so they don't hit 'derail beyond recognition and ruin everyone else's fun' levels?

You've been around long enough, and interested in the hobby long enough, to at least have spotted the wargame roots, and you demonstrated a scorn to the kind of game Gigax ran. You don't need to know how everybody else in the world played the game to be aware that the 'rollplay' you're moaning about is not some newfangled invention of those annoying new kids.

Oh please, if you pick any sourcebook of any vaguely decent game system, you'll see Rule 0 being stated on pretty much all of them, from old school all the way to the newest systems.
You'll also see, particularly in newerish games, a great deal of care and love put into explaining what it's all about, how to handle things so everyone has fun, how to construct an interesting tale, how to model storytelling aspects and when to drop the rules to the side.
If you've never bothered to read that because you were only interested in the mechanics of the new system, if your powergamer obsessively read the rules but skipped a full chapter dedicated to this, if your GM just skipped reading it, then I'm sorry for you.

If all the players are at that level, well, you're simply playing a more superheroish game, if not, then you have a problem player.
But let's not kid ourselves, it wasn't some newfangled kids that started that trend, it was a trend that existed all the way back to the wargame roots, and I'm fairly certain it's a problem as old as games have existed. Are you telling me that you have never met or heard of someone trying that kind of rulelawyering with Monopoly? card games? Clue? never seen a kid cheat in hide and seek?

It IS a problem that exhibits worse behavior when companies either not being as careful as they should be with the things they print or just wanting to sell more stuff and not caring, but let's not kid ourselves, that powergamer would powergame no matter what game you pick, if it is someone that routinely pulls that, it's someone you might not want in your table, or at least someone you might want to have a stern talking to.


You're assuming an arbitrary idea of what first level means, but first level only really means "what the game assumes most adventures start at". Just because one system designed for a more gritty feel assumes first level is "threatened by a cat" doesn't mean another system or edition, designed for a more heroic feel, can't have first level be guys that are already past their rat catching days and are ready to be actual, serious adventurers now.

Some system are dedicated to the low magic, gritty feel you seem want, and that's fine, there's enough systems that there ought to be many that cater to your preferred genre. Or perhaps you want something that starts at the dirt bottom? that's fine too, plenty of systems do that as well.

But many systems are looking at modeling something where the starting characters are already skilled/powerful/awesome/special in their own right. That's fine too, there are plenty of books and movies that start that way, and many people that want to roleplay that.

The problem comes when you want and expect the first, and pick a system on the second category, obviously, your starting characters aren't where you want starting characters to be, and the game takes a heroic feel that is just not what you wanted.
This message was last edited by the user at 02:03, Sat 11 June 2016.

It depends on the stereotype or caricature, doesn't it? You don't have to go far to think of plenty of stereotypes which do more harm than good. Examples you yourself gave:



I would be extremely leery about including some or all of those in a PC or NPC.

In reply to Dirigible (msg # 65):

Okay, we've drifted back to the original topic, which I like. obvious any stereotype is better than none when we are dealing with fantasy races. Dealing with real world ethnicies, things are a bit more nuanced.

Here is what I have to say about the black stereotype which you brought to the fore. You are never going to please everyone. Let's use TV for an example.

If you had no blacks at all, there will be complaints.

If you show a black family is impoverished and struggling, you get complaints, prime example Good Times. Yes, a lot of people praised it as an attempt at showing the struggles of lower class urban black America, but they got a lot of complaints for calling it a negative stereotype.

If you show an affluent black family, there are blacks who will complain that is it 'unrealistic'. Case in point, the Cosby show. Sure, plenty of people say it as a positive example of what is possible but there were plenty of detractors saying it was 'unrealistic' and failed to show the real struggles of black Americans.

So yes, people can get upset regardless of what you do.

That said, if the circumstance was that I was playing in a modern or near-future game, or even not too distant past, (imagine the learning potential of a game set in the sixties south during the heyday of the civil rights movement), damn right I would play poor urban black characters with most if not all of those characteristics.

You want to see an intense moment in role-play imagine an affluent African American going into a poor neighborhood and try to explain how easy it is for them to fix their lives. That would be something else...

It is a far greater insult, in my mind, to pretend that there is no difference in being black in America, and I can see really good stories to be told with the richest of backdrops possible, the one based on our own reality.

Anyway, my suggestion to people who are leery of such things, stick to fantasy games, or far future stuff. None of those traits would make sense if I was blacking a black Jedi or Storm Trooper. The one point I have tried to make that seems to get overlooked is that there is no wrong way to roleplay, I just think my way has merit.

Quick step back ... been thinking on't, and to my mind, the reason the 1st Ed barbarian was playable was because back then gaming was face to face, so I was playing with Andy, Bob, Carol and Dave, and we were all friends anyway ... so if one of us was playing a barbarian, we focused on the advantages and worked around the disadvantages.  And yes, more roll-play than role-play in those days.  Fast forward to online gaming, and all I see is the mage that's going apoplectic - and in most cases, I don't know their gamer handle, let alone their real name and heaven forbid anything at all about their real life.  So while in the old days my mates and I would laugh about the barbarian's hang ups and then go watch a movie, nowdays there's little if any of that wider social context.  Online rightly or wrongly the character is equated with the player and vice-versa.

And back up to date ... while there are many many social issues in the real world, race, gender etc ... that's not something I'm looking to bring to the gaming table.  Sure, that might not be realistic, but in a world of fireballs and dragons, I'm good with that.  :>

But all that boiling together of Dwarven myths and legends was done on Tolkein's side  of things, and his distillation is the one upon which D&D dwarves are based. You may (and I am guessing do) have a deeper understanding, but we are discussing the race as it is discussed within the D&D framework. Going beyond that is more than simply stretching the point.


How have we drifted back to writing. Certainly if I was writing a novel or a script I would like to do more research, but we are talking about role-playing, and while I am not assuming that the stereotype of all that  a culture is, I am assuming that within the context of a game it is unrealistic to expect or demand more.
You almost make my point there however when you say you have to add humanity to it. That statement implies that the character in based in, and growing out of the stereotype. It isn't 'more depth' to say 'I want my character to behave however I feel at the moment' that is less depth, and less humanity (Or dwarfity, or elfity, whatever.)


No, that was actually what I was getting out of your posts.


Your casting a wide net there, but I don't see that it's catching anything relevant. What exactly do you think common stereotypes include? Asians eat rice, and a lot fish. Certainly not all encompassing, but you try playing a character who is exactly like three billion people. If you're saying 'if you can't be like everyone at the same time, you should play?" You want to play the Average American by playing your character like Homer Simpson? Not a huge compliment, but I would certainly recognize it, and would think you were making from of me, as an American Male, by doing it. I would prefer it to playing the Average American as a Harvard Educated philanthropist who holds no racists thoughts and is a perfect (yet non-denominational) Christian, because while there may be an American like that, he's not representative of the fat part of the bell curve.
You see to imply that if I play a retarded person as slow, or a crippled polio victim as paralyzed, it is some giant insult, but when Larry David played a retarded clerk on LA Law, all he got was praise for his ability to make the character so recognizably retarded. By portraying the stereotype. That's what won him two emmys.


Fascinating, your entire diatribe agrees with my point.


Nonsense, we had no reason to be together, and no understanding of why we went where we did. It wasn't some forced happenstance, it was simply assumed that for the ease of playing, no friction would be allowed, and my friction, in this case, I mean 'any personal interaction'.


You say that, but every level of human interaction mentioned has resulted in your response that it would make a game unplayable for you.
Case in point, my barbarian. I don't think it was huge imposition on the party to know what my characters attitude towards magic was, not because he was my character, but because by the rules, that was how every barbarian behaved.
I've yet to see anything you say advocate a middle ground, your party line seems to be 'everyone must behave in the most friendly fashion'. It puts me in mind of A Brave New World, it seems so mind numbingly cloying. That may be where you think the middle ground is, I disagree, that's not the middle ground any more then the Pope is agnostic. You have argued, repeatedly, that 'concept' takes not the backseat to party unity, but isn't allowed in the car. Your concept of a Paladin who doesn't care about behavior that falls outside of his honor code isn't a role-playing construct, it's a fighter with a bunch of cool abilities that will help us 'win'.
But it wasn't a problem in many games, because the party and the thief role-played that they understood the Paladin so they hid the thiefly behavior. Which isn't, by the way, unlocking a door, it's unlocking someones door illegally. Not so subtle a distinction in my mind.


You've been around long enough, and interested in the hobby long enough, to at least have spotted the wargame roots, and you demonstrated a scorn to the kind of game Gigax ran. You don't need to know how everybody else in the world played the game to be aware that the 'rollplay' you're moaning about is not some newfangled invention of those annoying new kids.</quote>
Having never played with  Gygax, as you apparently claim to have, I can speak only to your one dimensional definition that all his games were dice-oriented fight fests. If that is what he play, yes, I will cast aspersions on it. If, however, I look at the growth and expansion of the game, I find it hard to believe that is the only way he played, and I would go so far as to say his game 'grew' out of roll-playing into 'role-playing'.
Speaking of which, roll-playing is hilariously not only not new, archaeology suggests it may be one of the oldest game forms in existence. What I  dislike is that a game which seemed to depart from roll-playing, and whose departure is what made it great, is being reduced to the lesser form. It is how I suspect you might feel if suddenly people had their cars pulled by horses again.

Specifically talking about D&D here, but I am poor and new systems cost way too much money for me. I only own a Pathfinder payers handbook because I found one for $35.00 bucks. I have never actually read 3.5 or 5th ed., my experiences are based on playing with other peoples help.
I have read a few free or cheap systems found on line though, and when (for example in the Window) the storytelling aspect of the game is given primacy, there are no rules to enable (or stop) power-gaming, the GM simply has to throw those kind (your kind I am guessing) out of the game.
Played in some superhero game awhile back, and the only thing that stopped it from being fun was that there was a powergamer who had a hissy fit if he wasn't always the bestest, fastest, most importantest little buttercup in the game. The DM wasn't up to the job of curtailing his behavior, so I quit, which was a shame, because there were some good roleplayers in the group, but if your not having fun, don't play, is my hard and fast rule.



Even first level Batman wasn't as disgusting as  modern Batman. I grew up when he was mostly a detective and I could learn how to detect counterfeit money or tell if a guy was left handed by the way he wore his belt.

That said, if there is one game where I don't feel first level characters should be super heroes, it's D&D. My idea of first level comes from books like the Hobbit and the Trilogy, and if Bilbo, on page three, ran into a grizzly bear and tore it in half with his Super-Vorpal Hobbit-Kick-Of-Doom, it would have been a very different, and for me, less enjoyable book.

What we did when we wanted to be powerful in the old days was start an adventure with tenth level character, or fifth if we wanted a bit less horsepower. What are you going to do with 5th edition if you do want to play humbler, more day-to-day people? Nothing, because they are born gross.

Even if I play super hero games, I want my first level character to be less powerful than he he will become.

I guess the difference between the style I am championing and the new wave of D&D systems is that my character, if he became cool, did so thru my actions as a player, by the story that was told, the process of the game was to be cool. My younger friends who pay 3.5 can spend hours trying to generate and maximize a character, and the coolness is based, not on the result of creativity and story telling, but because they knew how to put their metaphorical lego's together in the most interesting fashion.

Much the way I don't cheat at Clue or Risk, because it reduces the feeling of accomplishment, and heck, if I can't have fun losing I should play, is the way I feel about the dominant power-gamer style of play.

That was certainly the way most people played it, they wanted the good stuff for playing a  barbarian, so they ignored the stuff they didn't like. As I said, the mistake  was in making the bad stuff ignorable, it was all role-play stuff. Imagine if instead, the barbarian had been given all that cool stuff, and a d6 for hit points. Much more balanced. Clearly the game designers expected the role-play aspects to be the way people played, but they were being unrealistic. I'm guessing people like me who tried to play it by the rules were few and far between.

As to the racial/ethnic stuff, finding a level of gaming where it doesn't detract from your fun is the way to go. Imagine the outrage if you tried to play D&D where women were treated the way they were in the real middle ages, oh the outrage.

Who remembers that in 1st ed. AD&D different genders had different max stats? Weeeee....

you've entered the realm of judging other people for what they enjoy.  Never really makes sense.  You have dang good reasons for enjoying lowl evel play.  I have dang good reasons for not.  We can both enjoy the games we play.  so who cares how other people play?

We can, not sure why my defending the style I like comes across as an attack to you. Usually that's a sign of being defensive, which most shrinks will say means you harbor a hidden dislike of yourself, but I think that's foolish. It is awesome that you enjoy gaming, and only expected that you would like to game the way you like to game.

Doesn't mean my way is wrong though. Why does the existence of people who game in ways different from you make you so unhappy?

Nothing stopped players from starting at any power level they wanted in first addition, why can't I lament the fact that the games starting line is now more powerful then I enjoy. For years people wanted, and got games that had tougher and more powerful levels. TSR created an entire set of rules dedicated to the Immortal levels (set 5) for people who wanted that. Power gamers have been catered to for decades, you're not winning, you have won. Your style is now the default style.

But because I decide to whimper and lament, I'm imposing on your good time?

That's rather unfair of you, in my opinion.

Ha, that was a joke, power gamers don't want fair, they want DOMINANCE! Cheat codes! Lesser players to call noobs. This is the life's blood of the power gamer!

Hehehe... or not.

again, you're using a lot of generalizations that are fairly negative.  just because people want to be higher than 1st level doesn't equate to using "cheat codes" (which pretty much universally implies you're doing something wrong) or wanting dominance or power gaming.  Those all have fairly negative connotations.  And even if someone DOES want to do that, what's wrong with that?  it's something you do for fun.  if I enjoy wading through armies of goblins like a golden panzer tank in armor, why can't I?
The only time it would be a problem is if two players with opposite sensibilities ended up in the same game.  Then it would likely mean one of them needs to bow out, and that would be a discussion for the pcs and the gm.  But implying either type of play is wrong, just doesn't really make a lot of sense.

I didn't attack the style of game you prefer.  my first post was actually aimed at both people in the argument, English just doesn't have a second person plural, so you is the best I can use.  I think it's fine it you want to play starting level.  It just isn't something all people enjoy.  But if you enjoy it, go for it.  Have a ball.
This message was last edited by the user at 05:15, Sat 11 June 2016.

Negative is in the eye of the beholder. I knew quite a few Leets who reveled in their cheat codes, and actually go self-esteem from winning thru cheating.
If you think these words have a negative connotation, then it seems we may have a similar attitude towards these folks.
I also knew a few who hid their cheating because they were ashamed enough not to want the fact known, but not ashamed enough not to cheat.


 
Exactly what I said, it's apparently you who has an issue with it, why else would you need to feel defensive when I have already said, good for you?


I agree, that's what I have said all along, neither style of play is wrong.
And, amazingly enough, a really talented DM can make the game work for both of them, it only becomes a deal breaker when that doesn't happen. I never quit a game, just because someone plays a style other than mine, the situation also has to include a DM either unwilling or unable to make the game fun for me as well.


While I agree, I feel you miss the key point of my lament, with 5th ed (and to a greater degree 4th ed) has made first level so potent it's already beyond what players like me enjoy. As I have said several times, power gamers have always had the option to start at higher level, when the lowest level in the system is pretty effectively sixth or seventh level, the system has no way to scale down. I feel a bit marginalized that the system, by design, doesn't really allow for low level games. Not when first and level characters are half-way to Godzilla in DPS (had a player claim that with the current system his low level Paladin could deal 100 hit points in a single round. I never had a tenth level fighter of any type who could do that.)
As a previous discusser pointed out, there are systems out there that may offer low level play, but D&D is, to me, the Gold Standard, so it's sad to see it move so completely in this direction. That plus the vast majority of other systems seem to stop being supported after a short people of time, and I really don't know how I would find such a system with so many out there.

I guess you'll just have to stick with lower iterations of D&D.  I've never played anything past 3.5, and I'm quite content.

and, no, cheating always has a negative connotation.  The fact that you consider starting higher level equates to cheating implies a negative view of it.  That's not just my perception.  But it doesn't really matter, my view won't change how you play, just as yours won't change how I play.  and that's just fine.

That's true, as long as we're all having fun, that's all that counts.

I do still disagree with your use of always, it may always have a negative connotation for you, but there are people who don't feel the same way, heck even cultures that do.

Google the riots in India by students who protested their right to cheat on exams. They claimed it was their right to cheat, because people had been doing so for a very long time. Not the only culture to work that way, either. In Mexico the practice of the police taking bribes is simply a fact of life. Mexican's driving home from the US for Christmas often bring extra presents just for the cops to take. They call the cops right to this extra income the mordida, the little bite. And it's not just cops...

none of those examples break the rule that cheating is viewed as negative.  If it wasn't viewed as negative, the students wouldn't need to justify their actions, and the police wouldn't call it bribes and at least pay lip service to hiding it.  Both of those instances, they aren't saying what they do is right, they're just saying they should be allowed to get away with it.  If the action was right, and ok, and above board, no one would call it cheating.

Cheating means to break the rules.  In an RPG, anything agreed upon by the GM and the players isn't cheating, even if it rewrites every aspect of the game books.  It's just modifying the game so that everyone enjoys it.  If I run a vampire game, and decide that bullets do half damage to vampires to play up on their inhuman, undead nature, and make them a step above humans, is that cheating?  No, it's just house rules.  Increasing a character's level, or giving them bonuses, or making them a god is no more cheating than creating a new race, a new weapon, a new spell.  It's just part of the game you're playing.
This message was last edited by the user at 06:45, Sat 11 June 2016.

In reply to gladiusdei (msg # 76):

It wasn't seen as negative by the students though. You seem to think the view that cheating is bad is universal, but there are plenty of cheaters who disagree. The fact that you think all cheating is wrong doesn't make it so, anymore than their belief that cheating is acceptable makes that right either.

History is full of examples where cheaters win, and they are lauded for it. All's fair in love wand war they say. When Rommel lowered his 88's to fight off tanks, he was 'cheating' by the British concept of the rule of war, I think he was smart in doing so.

Cheating, by definition, means going against the rules, so of course if an action has been placed within the rules, it's not cheating. I've played some capture the flag games on line where everyone used all the cheat codes. It seemed silly, but it wasn't cheating, (despite the use of the term 'cheat code')

That said, I've known many a player to rig the dice, or simply lie about their roll when the DM was down the table, and they thought it was okay. I knew a player who got so frustrated with a particularly difficult dungeon, so he bought the module to read it's secrets. People do cheat, and they almost always find a way to justify in their mind. It is rare to find a cheater who would admit to the fact.

By that argument, murder doesn't have a negative connotation because some people choose to do it.  The word cheating has a negative connotation.  People who 'cheat' like your examples, would argue what they were doing was not cheating, not that is good.

There are people who think murder is good. There are no universal moral rules, they are all human constructs. You cannot have a connotation without a person to feel it, not every person feels the same connotations.

Funny, we seem to have come full circle, different cultures have different connotations, among other things. None of them are 'right' or 'wrong' but it seems built into the concept of 'connotation' that people will assume their own are right.

I wouldn't recommend it, because they are pretty boring, but there was a generation of British philosophers who claims that, by using pure logic, that the British standard for beauty, music and art was what was (surprise) what was the height of fashion in Britain at that time.

Racism at it's finest...

I'm not going to add to this discussion. It has gone too far from the original topic.

But this comment:



You are really opening a hornet's nest. That's usually the argument used to justify everything we normally don't accept in our society such as murder, rape, racism, incest, etc. by those committing said acts.