Author Topic: A Study in the Logic of Gaming  (Read 168892 times)

rayner23

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #30 on: April 02, 2009, 11:25:24 AM »
Try to have sex with every and all NPCs at all time. It's great for character development.

I'm done defending myself on this topic.

I've been a great role-player and then I make one character and all my street cred is lost.

 :-\


In one emoticon, my feelings have been hurt and my confidence shattered.
I'm from Alaska. About Fifty miles south of Ankorage there's a little fishing town, maybe you've heard of it, it's called fuck your momma.

clockworkjoe

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #31 on: April 02, 2009, 12:37:36 PM »
Try to have sex with every and all NPCs at all time. It's great for character development.

I'm done defending myself on this topic.

I've been a great role-player and then I make one character and all my street cred is lost.

 :-\


In one emoticon, my feelings have been hurt and my confidence shattered.

 :(

Tadanori Oyama

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #32 on: April 02, 2009, 01:04:46 PM »
Would freaking out over a tiny digital representation of a human emotional expression be considered Gamer Logic?

Or using one for that matter.

rayner23

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #33 on: April 02, 2009, 01:46:31 PM »
I don't think it's gamer logic so much as it is my crippling fear of paranoia.

Yeah, that's it.
I'm from Alaska. About Fifty miles south of Ankorage there's a little fishing town, maybe you've heard of it, it's called fuck your momma.

Tadanori Oyama

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #34 on: April 02, 2009, 01:56:05 PM »
Wait, your afraid of paranoia? That sounds like some kind of meta-flaw for a point based system.

rayner23

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #35 on: April 02, 2009, 02:07:38 PM »
Guh. I hate myself somedays.
I'm from Alaska. About Fifty miles south of Ankorage there's a little fishing town, maybe you've heard of it, it's called fuck your momma.

Tadanori Oyama

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #36 on: April 02, 2009, 02:26:02 PM »
Changing the subject, here's a nice commentary on the logic of a player as pertains to dice. It's written by the Irregular Webcomic guys as a commentary on this Darths and Droids strip.


"One possible superstition about dice, subscribed to by many gamers, is that if a die rolls badly (for some definition of "badly"), then it is obviously "tainted" and cannot be trusted when the chips are really down. There's also the idea that some dice are "hot" or "lucky" and will have a better chance than others of giving you the results you want. If you are lucky enough to possess such a hot die, you must be careful that nobody else ever uses or even touches it, as that will "rub the luck off". Gamers can have many quirks about how they treat their dice.

As pointed out so clearly in this essay on dice superstition, if dice are random, then it doesn't matter if you're superstitious about them. But if they're not... well, you better make sure you do the right thing and treat them properly. No use taking risks now, is there?

Pete, being the highly logical, calculating person he is, rejects all of that as superstitious nonsense. He instead applies the scientific approach. Over the years, he's collected somewhere around a thousand twenty-sided dice. Every so often, he gathers them all together. He sits down at a table and carefully and individually rolls each of the thousand dice, once. Of course, roughly a twentieth of them will roll a one. He takes those fifty-odd dice and rolls them a second time. After about an hour of concentrated dice rolling, he'll end up with around two or three dice that have rolled two ones in a row. He takes those primed dice and places them in special custom-made padded containers where they can't roll around, and carries them to all the games he plays.

Then, when in the most dire circumstances, where a roll of one would be absolutely disastrous, he pulls out the prepared dice. He now has in his hand a die that has rolled two ones in a row. Pete knows the odds of a d20 rolling three ones in a row is a puny one in 8,000. He has effectively pre-rolled the ones out of the die, and can make his crucial roll with confidence. Furthermore, being scientific about it means he knows that it doesn't matter who rolls the die for the third time, so he has no qualms about sharing his primed dice with other players, if that's what it takes to avoid disaster."

clockworkjoe

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #37 on: April 02, 2009, 02:27:59 PM »
Wait, your afraid of paranoia? That sounds like some kind of meta-flaw for a point based system.

ok I laughed. I love how ambiguous the statement is and how it could be interpreted as:

1. A fear of becoming a paranoiac 

2. A fear of people who have paranoia

3. A fear of the game Paranoia

Tadanori Oyama

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #38 on: April 02, 2009, 02:36:43 PM »
I like to think it's the fear that you might be paranoid and not know it.


Addition to my previous post there is this comic from the same series, Darths and Droids.

For those who don't know it's a screen cap comic about gamers playing a settling that happens to be Star Wars but in a world where Star Wars doesn't exist. It was inspired by DM of the Rings.

Anyway, this particular strip shows the end result of some gaming logic and a typical reaction to it.

wrotenbe

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #39 on: April 02, 2009, 03:38:57 PM »
I have seen players get into near fist fights over dice superstitions. What I always find hilarious is that it's not only the dice themselves, but the plane they roll on that factors into it. I've heard arguments about texture and gradient of surfaces, elevation, leylines, feng shei positions, etc.

Maze

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #40 on: April 02, 2009, 09:33:39 PM »
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned dice superstitions very early in the thread.

Anyway, to make Cody feel better, my character actually slept with a goblin princess once. I was playing a drunken fighter (to-be) in a 3.5e game and as the night went by, the more tired I became. At around 4 -5 AM, our party split and my very drunk monk came upon a bedroom where this goblin was trying to seduce me. I told the DM "fuck it." and passed out on his couch. I found out the next morning the other players were in a long painful encounter while I was sleeping. So basically, while the two other players were fighting for their life against a high level goblin shaman, I was discovering how goblin labia is really worst than how it sounds, and it already sounds pretty fucking horrible.  :-X

The campaign didn't continue, only because the DM sucked though. It's still a fucked up gaming moment though.

wrotenbe

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #41 on: April 03, 2009, 01:53:59 AM »
At around 4 -5 AM, our party split and my very drunk monk came upon a bedroom where this goblin was trying to seduce me. I told the DM "fuck it."

At least you didn't to lone wolf it later.

Right?

clockworkjoe

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #42 on: April 06, 2009, 06:36:33 PM »
I got to play D&D this week so I got to indulge in player logic for a bit. Our characters woke up in a different land and no one had any idea how we got there. I immediately decided that a wizard did it so my character's goal is to find the most powerful wizard he can and force him to teleport me back home.


Tadanori Oyama

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #43 on: April 06, 2009, 07:14:57 PM »
Well, obviously.

My group had some pretty ones this weekend. We had a major session, six hours from start to finish, with what was supposed to be four seperate encounters that ended up blending into only two because some players like to chase retreating villains and ignoring hints.

clockworkjoe

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Re: A Study in the Logic of Gaming
« Reply #44 on: April 06, 2009, 07:36:44 PM »
Well, obviously.

My group had some pretty ones this weekend. We had a major session, six hours from start to finish, with what was supposed to be four seperate encounters that ended up blending into only two because some players like to chase retreating villains and ignoring hints.

BBEG (big bad evil guys) are very tricky to handle in RPGs. They are either mary sues who can't be killed or the players kill them as soon as it is physically possible. I played in a mech warrior game where we had to fight a BBEG samurai type who died in the first round due to a max damage critical hit to the head rolled by one of the players.