Paging Dr. Hicks, Dr. Fred Hicks please

[toturi]

Do you do anything in these threads other than argue?  Usually over semantics?

Now that is the question.

To answer your question, yes, I think I do.

I was giving an example, drawn from your own recent postings, on how consensus on the interpretation of the written word is almost impossible, not an excuse for you to draw the argument onto another thread.  But that very difficulty of consensus that you just illustrated--misinterpreting my post as an invitation to explain your exampled argument from another thread instead of seeing it as the intended example--is the reason legal documents are written in the format widely known as "legalese", to eliminate as much ambiguity as possible from the document in question.

I did see that you intended it as an example but I also saw it as an invalid one and tried to show why. However, if your point here is to illustrate that it is impossible to eliminate all ambigiuity, then I think I get your point.

[bibliophile20]

I did see that you intended it as an example but I also saw it as an invalid one and tried to show why. However, if your point here is to illustrate that it is impossible to eliminate all ambigiuity, then I think I get your point.

Thank you.  And if that one short paragraph--being written and composed so that it will be able to appeal to first hand experiences on your part (the debate and attendant differential in opinion) with the intent to illustrate more clearly the point that perfect consensus in written form interpretation is impossible--was ambiguous, extrapolate from there how hard it would be to eliminate all ambiguity in a gaming document to the point of not requiring house ruling. 

Now extrapolate how stupefying and nullifying it would be on a game like this, where player creativity is such a large portion of the game.  It wouldn't be playable. 

[Shecky]

Let's keep it down to a low simmer sans the personal stuff, folks.

[Morfedel]

Dr. Fred Hicks is my father.

Me, I'm a guy who has about 10 hours a week, if he's lucky and his 19 month old kid doesn't demand too much attention, to run and grow a fledgling game company while making less than McDonald's employee compensation for doing so. So, no, I won't be showing up on a forum with regularity, unless you can find me the time and pay me a rate equivalent to what my time is worth -- based on my freelance layout work, that might come out to, say, $50 per detailed answer-set like the one today. Totally ball parking it.

The other developers who occasionally find the time to show up and answer a question? Also completely uncompensated for such volunteer efforts.

If that's disappointing to you, I get it. But I can't help you.

Iago, Nd others who've responded below, I've already said I emailed an apology. If that isn't sufficient, I.can't.think what else to.do beyond slitting my wrists, and.since I'm not Centauri, I won't be doing that.

Apparently I need to apologize here too; I've been used to having an.active presence of the developers on other boards,.and assumed that was the norm. I should have ascertained the best means of contact rather than assuming, and thus it was inappropriate of me to respond the way I did. I'm sorry for that.

And if that is likewise insufficient, then tell me and I'll vacate the premises.

[Morfedel]

As I said, dude's busy.

Morfedel, I really only want to address one thing: the bit where you say you "don't buy the peer authority thing". In a cooperative RPG, peer authority IS the ultimate authority. RPGers not in your group have researched, discussed and hammered out ideas; it'd be foolish to dismiss everything they've produced. And RPGers who are IN your group... well, the game's intended to be an agreement between the players and the GM individually and in concert, so what your peers think very much DOES apply.

Pardon me in advance if the following comes out harshly, but I'm really hoping to pound the point through unmistakably: if you still have a problem with something in the rules, take it to your GM and your partymates. It's counterproductive to keep coming back to Fred with "Yeahbuts" on the same items. In other words, figure it out amongst yourselves. In the end, that's what any RPG group does anyway.

I haven't gone back to Fred with anything. After that email from him, all I did was email an apology and came here... so its YOU GUYS I've come back to with the "yeah buts."

I understand the concept of cooperative play. I've played Ars Magica, for instance. But this whole loosie goose approach to the rules is an entirely different animal, and one I'm unaccustomed to. I'll try to adapt my thinking.

[LCDarkwood]

Let's keep it down to a low simmer sans the personal stuff, folks.

This, except, from me also. Let's try to keep this thread from being like the rest of the Internet, as much as we can, please. Thanks!


-Lenny

[Jinn Master]

As a GM, I hate rules lawyers with an unholy passion. My favorite shirt says "You're a rules lawyer? Well, I'm a GM." It has a picture of a terrasque on the back.

If someone has a problem with a house rule, fine- we can work to change that. Want to work with the rules in core, fine, we can see what we can do. But you have to give a little leeway, and when you turn the game into a dissection of the rulebook, it becomes a chore for the GM to keep up with you, and GMing is already a chore (though a labor of love) without all that added bullshit.

So when it comes to the rules, relax, and have fun. Otherwise, you won't enjoy the game anywhere near as much as is possible.

[sjksprocket]

This is the sort of thing that I imagine that I will eventually run into myself. I am all in when it comes to house ruling and looseness of rules to accommodate the story. I have the feeling though that some of my players might have trouble getting there heads wrapped around it. Maybe not as much as Tutori or Morfedel but along those same lines. There was talk about trying to fit these points of contention with the rules within the "spirit of the game". I'd say that each group, and even each player, has there own sense of the spirit of the game, no matter which game you play. So nailing down a rule is actually against the spirit of the game. I was seeking a game like fate because of that fact, and fate incorporates that into it's rules. I like house ruling things, player participation within the rules. Too many time have I been in a game where the GM does everything "by the book" and it becomes boring to me, because it becomes an exercise in rolling dice and looking at tables and comparing numbers. With no house rules everything becomes a lot like 4ed dnd. Everything is the same, just called different things, and arranged a little bit differently.

So concluding the rambling, If it isn't in you to house rule as much as Fate requires you to, then maybe it isn't your system. Like how 4ed isn't for me.

[Shecky]

This, except, from me also. Let's try to keep this thread from being like the rest of the Internet, as much as we can, please. Thanks!


-Lenny

Yup. Let's dial down the defensiveness, folks, and move along.

[wyvern]

For a slight change in topic, here's how I do magic circles:

It's a maneuver to set up a scene aspect.  A special kind of scene aspect - one that a mortal (who is in the same zone) can remove with a supplemental action.  But non-mortal stuff?  Magic?  That zombie that wants to kill you gets a fate point (well, ok, probably its master gets a fate point) for a compel, and then it just can't cross the circle.

GM compels allow scene aspects to function the way they need to (and this doesn't just apply to circles, either).  Of course, there's the open question of what happens if a PC tries to buy off one of those compels... hasn't come up for me yet, actually; I'll probably handle it on a case by case basis when it does.  Perhaps some random coincidence breaks the circle.  Perhaps we just take a moment as a group to come up with something else the PC could do; maybe that fate point to buy off the compel means they just happened to have a gun with them today...

[Morfedel]

You know, that's not a half-bad idea. A maneuver to create an aspect to create a compel. I will have to think on that.

[Shecky]

You know, that's not a half-bad idea. A maneuver to create an aspect to create a compel. I will have to think on that.

See? Peer authority = AWESOME. Fred said at one point that no matter how many fantastic ideas a design team has, the sheer number of players means that somebody somewhere is BOUND to come up with an idea/response that will leave theirs in the dust. (He may not have said precisely that, but that was the main bullet that I went home with.)

[Morfedel]

See? Peer authority = AWESOME. Fred said at one point that no matter how many fantastic ideas a design team has, the sheer number of players means that somebody somewhere is BOUND to come up with an idea/response that will leave theirs in the dust. (He may not have said precisely that, but that was the main bullet that I went home with.)

Yes, yes, you're right and I'm wrong. Have a cookie, on me.

Now if I could just travel back in time and stop that email from going out... sigh....

[devonapple]

Now if I could just travel back in time and stop that email from going out... sigh....

You've made a mistake, taken your lumps, been called on something, and seem to have come to an understanding about things, so I'd say you are allowed to move forward, don't dwell too much on it, and just resolve to be better. Happens to all of us.

[TheMouse]

I understand the concept of cooperative play. I've played Ars Magica, for instance. But this whole loosie goose approach to the rules is an entirely different animal, and one I'm unaccustomed to. I'll try to adapt my thinking.

A lot of role playing games -- especially some of the older ones -- try to have a rule for everything. There's a rule for falling, and a rule for fire, and a rule for how long you can hold your breath. This results in a lot of support, but also a lot of rules.

The way most Fate games work is by giving you a small number of rules, showing you how you might apply them, and then letting you use the tools you need to run the game you want. And those rules apply to story logic, not to physics logic.

So let's look at a burning room.

The obvious thing to do is slap an Aspect on it. This opens up your typical suite of options, with players invoking it, compels happening, and all that.

For whatever reason, you decide that's not enough. You want the fact that the room is burning to be way more important than that. You want it to really up the danger. How do you do that?

Environmental hazards (page 325) are one place to start. You want this to be pretty dangerous, so you assign a hazard rating of +4, and you give it weapon:3. Now, being in or crossing the zones that are on fire is frigging dangerous.

Or maybe that's too harsh. Hm, what else could you do?

A block seems reasonable. So you assign it a rating based on how hard you think it is to cross that area. Now anyone who wants to cross the fire has to bypass the block somehow.

A maneuver also seems reasonable. Anyone in a fire based zone needs to resist a maneuver to place some Aspect such as, "Choking on smoke," on them. Anyone affected gets free tagged into choking helplessly, which they can resist either by rolling better on the maneuver or by spending a fate point.

The reason there isn't one standard way of handling a room being on fire is that its importance to the story varies from instance to instances. Sometimes it's a coat of narrative spray paint. Sometimes it's the central conflict of the scene. Having one carefully defined set of rules to cover all house fires means that sometimes you're going to be fighting the rules to use them in a particular scene.