ftl wrote:He does NOT have respect for the rules. He wants to bend them whenever he can, get around them when he can't. And even tries to break them when that's boopin' possible.
Well, ok. What I meant by respect is illustrated in the last exchange between he and Sizemore.
Sizemore: Warlord, you can't [enter the MK to get to Jetstone].
Parson: Can't? Physically can't?
See, if Parson simply couldn't, that is a rule he would respect. By virtue of physically not being able to bend it, get around it, or break it. Remember the "I wanna see if I can leave GK" expeditionary picnic? Once he bounced against that zone wall, that was it. No attempt to issue a stern lecture that he is a player rather than a piece, a scream of "FUCK YOU!", and another attempt to see if could step through after that. He just turned to telling stories with a couple of (new) drinking buddies, culminating with various attempts to mate with, I mean mount, no that's still not right, fly on a dwagon.
Yeah, you could say that he just got around that rule by his shameless self-promotion (And yeah, I had to), but that is beside the point.
Raza wrote:On one hand, you have mechanics. Game mechanics in this case, and as such also referred to as rules. Physics, psychology/natural thinkamancy, that sort of thing. You can't break these, only falsify them - which is generally a respectable accomplishment. You could say Parson respects these, since he works with them closely in a field he loves, but it'd be a bit of an anthropomorphism.
Yeah, I wish I'd read this post before composing my response to
ftl. You have captured the essence of my intent, sir or ma'am.
I do not agree with
kagato23. Resents and chafes? Never. Parson simply adds the rules to his gestalt, and carries on. I'm not going to claim to be anything like Parson in how his genius is portrayed, but I have a saying that I have used to teach several of my long time gamer friends a winning approach to gaming in general: Play to the victory conditions.
What does that mean? Don't hate the rules, just be aware of them and play to them, rather than simply within them. An example: I have completely dominated new games that my gamer friends and I have tried out, to the point where after having won three times previously in a row without anyone else having noticed the pattern, I have announced to the table exactly what I was going to do to win. My wins were on three different days spread across several weeks and some shuffling of players, so there wasn't a clear line of "OMG, he is winning yet again!" And then I won again, as I wasn't taken seriously enough. How? I played to the victory conditions. Rather than scrabbling for this or that short term position, I read the rules of the game and determined the fastest and best means to victory. One such game was Milton Bradley's Shogun (it's been printed under at least one other name, Sword of the Samurai I believe was one other). The victory condition was rather simple: At the end of your turn, control X number of territories. The mechanic: Each turn begins with a bidding phase, where you spend money (koku, earned by some simple calculation such as (territory count)/3 = koku earned for the next turn) to buy units, hire an assassin, hire mercenaries, purchase your turn order ("sword" number, with the first sword going first in the turn, etc.) , etc. The win tactic: Turn 1 - Buy the last sword. Turn 2 - Buy the last sword. Turn 3 - Buy the first sword and win. The exploit? Victory comes at the end of
your turn, as long as you have the number of territories required to satisfy the victory condition. There are no fair ups, no one else has a chance to stop you. So you end the third turn in a horribly extended and completely vulnerable position, but the winner by the rules as the game ends and no one has a chance to roll you up. The two turns of buying the last sword allow you to carefully manipulate your and the other players total territory counts, placing them just below cash thresholds and placing you just above. In the first three games people were bidding against the first sword, so I won with ease. In the fourth game I had some competition, but always managed to spend more for my sword of choice, and that was all it took. And that is it. And this is but a single example. As Bruce Lee would say, "It's like a finger pointing at the moon. Do not concentrate on the finger or you will miss all of the heavenly glory!" Similarly, do not focus on your game position, if the game is going to be over with you the victor. Just win.
I have several friends who have designed games. Some of them actually good games. They now always ask me to read the rules and look for the loop holes and exploits, to help them eliminate them. On one ride back from a convention where a friend had run his new skirmish level WWI game, I liked the game but not all the dice throwing. My friend who designed the game pretty much loves to throw dice, but I found them to be getting in the way of the play. You rolled to hit, and then to penetrate armor. Any penetrations of armor were wounds, which the opponent rolled to shrug off. And if that series of rolls resulted in an actual...result... it was a morale counter if there was only a single hit (two hits was a kill). Which, before that morale counter could actually slow down the unit it had been placed upon due to the turn order, there was a rally roll to remove. I pointed out that there was a huge amount of dice being thrown for a result that might go away before it actually had any impact upon the game. Using the standard mathematics of probability we reduced the "Hit/wound/resist" series of rolls to a single die roll with very similar odds, and moved the moral check so that the impacted unit would have to at least bear with the result for one turn until the rally phase. This game, fairly decent at first, is now rather good and plays fast and clean.
effataigus wrote:When I'm gaming and I come across a grammatical error, power combination, cheat, or exploit that could break the game, I typically don't have my character use it despite the obvious advantages (or I at least give the GM fair warning).
I remember a huge debate on the GitP forums a few years back. The crux of the argument was that Druids were OP (a recurring and true theme), and how Hide from Animals (a mere 1st level spell) would neutralize the Druid's animal companion.
D20SRD wrote:Animals cannot see, hear, or smell the warded creatures. Even extraordinary or supernatural sensory capabilities, such as blindsense, blindsight, scent, and tremorsense, cannot detect or locate warded creatures. Animals simply act as though the warded creatures are not there. If a warded character touches an animal or attacks any creature, even with a spell, the spell ends for all recipients.
On the side of the Druids the claim was that the Druid, who could clearly see the opponent with the Hide from Animals spell up, and who can also communicate with their animal companion, would just send that animal companion blundering into the Hidden persons square until there was contact, thus breaking the spell and allowing the animal companion, a rather potent combatant, to join the fray and overmatch the opponent.
My counter: The word "touch" is both a noun and a verb. The phrase "If a warded character touches an animal" is similar in aspect to the situation of you and your kid brother riding in the back seat of your mother's car. Your kid brother keeps poking you in the ribs, and you keep telling him to stop. Finally, your mother turns around and orders your kid brother to stop touching you. Your clever kid brother points out that for every time he poked you in the ribs, your ribs also touched his finger, and so you are just as guilty of touching him as he is of touching you. How do you think this scenario is going to play out for your kid brother? I'm guessing in pain and tears, or at least time out and tears, depending upon the mothers views on corporal punishment. See, the animal companion touched you, so you touched the animal companion, so the spell is broken, is the same argument as your kid brother made. No rational person or mother is going to blame the rib for touching the finger, and no rational GM is going to blame the person for touching the animal sent blundering around in the deliberate hops of a "touch." Again, touch is both a noun and a verb. If the person touched the animal as a verb, the spell is broken. If the person touched the animal as a noun (i.e. the animal companion managed to blunder against the person), the spell is not broken. Do the rules really need to make this distinction? No. Will players still argue it? Yes. Does that make it right? No.
