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Servetus posted:This is extremely close to the Culture chart from Blades of the Iron Throne, which you absolutely should not buy, a Conan themed Riddle of Steel-derived game that leaned into the racism instead of toning it down. The guy who invented Conan the barbarian was friends with HP Lovecraft and sat down and looked himself in the mirror after spending time with the dude and decided he had to be less racist so he's not as embarrassing as Howie Anyways, the biggest freaks and weirdos are always the guys saying degenerate or decadent
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Jun 25, 2023 16:58
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"degenerate" gets used as a game theory term frequently and sometimes causes arguments, but i dont know of any accepted words that really convey the same thing
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Jun 25, 2023 17:19
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Feels Villeneuve posted:"degenerate" gets used as a game theory term frequently and sometimes causes arguments, but i dont know of any accepted words that really convey the same thing Suburban.
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Jun 25, 2023 17:20
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just remembering several years ago on this forum where i was called a nazi for using "degenerate play" to describe gameplay interactions that occur when certain mechanics are broken
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Jun 25, 2023 17:22
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tcg players ftw
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Jun 25, 2023 17:30
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Ominous Jazz posted:The guy who invented Conan the barbarian was friends with HP Lovecraft and sat down and looked himself in the mirror after spending time with the dude and decided he had to be less racist so he's not as embarrassing as Howie Howard was definitely more racist as a Texan vs New Englander
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Jun 25, 2023 17:37
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Ominous Jazz posted:The guy who invented Conan the barbarian was friends with HP Lovecraft and sat down and looked himself in the mirror after spending time with the dude and decided he had to be less racist so he's not as embarrassing as Howie It’s really confusing when both dudes are racists named “Howard”.
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Jun 25, 2023 17:46
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Countblanc posted:My own experience is that algorithms, spreadsheets, etc are very helpful but tend to assume either perfect play or what the writer thinks near-perfect play looks like, so you need plenty of proper playtests along with thorough notes of said tests. It also helps a lot to go into tests with specific questions you want answered rather than general "was it fun? Did it seem balanced?" Like "did you find you were in a good position on turn 3 compared to turn 8? Why or why not?" Thank you for these tips. I'll post in the other thread when I have it more polished.
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Jun 25, 2023 17:52
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Feels Villeneuve posted:tcg players ftw This owns, it's just a yu gi oh match irl
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Jun 25, 2023 17:53
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Whybird posted:I mean there's a sense in which "too much civilisation is a bad thing, but also not enough civilisation is a bad thing" is one of the explicit themes of the Conan books, and their DNA is all over the tabletop scene, but you just know that when the author writes Degenerate he's turning beet-red and flecks of spittle are forming at the corners of his mouth as he thinks back to that time he saw two men holding hands. In case anyone wants the specific descriptions, it's from something called Magi and Marauders of Mu which, just to make it completely unpalateable, is apparently also filled with "AI"-generated art.
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Jun 25, 2023 19:30
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Plutonis posted:Howard was definitely more racist as a Texan vs New Englander I don't know his REH's life history since he committed suicide. Lovecraft was indeed hella racist if with some vague signs of nosing up into "quite racist" before he got killed by stomach cancer.
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Jun 25, 2023 19:47
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I kind of appreciate that for just obliterating all subtext and bringing the promise of D&D's race and alignment systems to full fruition. That said, if you just deleted the "Civilized" category entirely and tasked every player with deciding what kind of hosed up Moorcockian little guy they're playing as, you might have something there.
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Jun 25, 2023 19:47
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Ferrinus posted:That said, if you just deleted the "Civilized" category entirely and tasked every player with deciding what kind of hosed up Moorcockian little guy they're playing as, you might have something there. lol this would kick rear end. Just an entire party of either hedonist freakers or troglodytes
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Jun 25, 2023 20:03
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Reminded of PDQ-system game Jaws of the Six Serpents, which handled it better by saying that Civilized and Uncivilized were both advantages and flaws for characters to take. Not an inherent assumption of the game or world that either is better, but whether it tripped up or helped a character in their story.
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Jun 25, 2023 22:16
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Change it to 'Supposedly Civilized'
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Jun 25, 2023 22:26
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All men are uncivilized..... they can't leave the god drat toilet seat down....
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Jun 25, 2023 22:29
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Plutonis posted:lol this would kick rear end. Just an entire party of either hedonist freakers or troglodytes I think Berskerk the comic pulls this off by having the demon summoning freaks and the church freaks be different flavors of hosed up
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Jun 26, 2023 01:20
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Ferrinus posted:I kind of appreciate that for just obliterating all subtext and bringing the promise of D&D's race and alignment systems to full fruition. Or like in something like Bloodborne and whether your Hunter is more likely to turn into a hairy Beast or a tentacled Kin as they slip into Blood/Insight fueled madness Plutonis posted:lol this would kick rear end. Just an entire party of either hedonist freakers or troglodytes Yeah
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Jun 26, 2023 01:34
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I have posted a lot of words about the racism of Robert E Howard and of H P Lovecraft and it's kind of weird and not necessarily productive to say "which of these guys was more racist" - but without really wanting to apologize for Robert E Howard, he did soften near the end of his life (he took his own life very young) and it may have been at least partially in response to his ongoing debate with Lovecraft that they carried on via correspondence. Lovecraft had a deeply ingrained xenophobia and was convinced that miscegenation was a direct threat to (white) civilization (to Lovecraft, civilization was by definition white). Howard was skeptical that civilization was an improvement in the first place and believed that the natural state of humanity is savagery and everything else is temporary. I would like to think that Lovecraft's really explicit racist arguments in favor of civilization as a concept led Howard to actually notice some of his own prejudices and think about it. But I don't honestly know that to be true and I also don't think Howard ever turned into like, a person you could say "not a racist" of even by 1930s standards.
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Jun 26, 2023 02:43
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Lovecraft was always the most racist person in any group that he associated with, or that would associate with him, but it was most likely the former. Lovecraft left behind tons of correspondence, as he was always writing letters, and loads of people kept them. The more of them that are uncovered, the more racist tirades just get added to the pile. "My dearest Aunt. I hope you are well, and your health favors you. I've recently purchased a new tweed coat, and found the fitting mody agreeable. Also, why do we consider Greeks human and let them mingle amongst us?" He was the penultimate loser nerd before nerd culture was established, and it was EVERYONE ELSES' fault he was a loser. ninjoatse.cx fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Jun 26, 2023 |
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Jun 26, 2023 03:08
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Feels Villeneuve posted:"degenerate" gets used as a game theory term frequently and sometimes causes arguments, but i dont know of any accepted words that really convey the same thing I'd argue that the problem with using "degenerate" as a game design term is that it usually just means "That way of playing makes the game less fun for me." It's not descriptive enough to communicate much more than that.
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Jun 26, 2023 04:29
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Capfalcon posted:I'd argue that the problem with using "degenerate" as a game design term is that it usually just means "That way of playing makes the game less fun for me." It's not descriptive enough to communicate much more than that. My person. It’s a technical word. It could not be more rigidly defined.
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Jun 26, 2023 04:58
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I'm not a math person, but coming from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degeneracy_(mathematics), degenerate play seems like a decently useful/descriptive term. I could totally see the argument of "just use another word that doesn't piss off people who mostly hear 'degenerate' coming from another context", though. I just read some rule the other day where it was like if you roll high enough on your spell you get 1 mana back and of course I was immediately thinking about some nerd sitting in his living room all day spamming basically cantrips to farm mana. Seems apt.
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Jun 26, 2023 08:57
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If someone's talking about society and they use the term "degenerate", they're not thinking about maths.
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Jun 26, 2023 09:31
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Yeah the wiki article you want is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_degeneration Spoiler alert: it's bullshit. In regards to "degenerate" in a sense of game design like "degenerate combo" I imagine it is referring to the same thing: "decayed away from proper balance" or something. If that's correct, that's slightly hosed up that that is the word we use at times.
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Jun 26, 2023 10:20
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Xiahou Dun posted:My person. It’s a technical word. It could not be more rigidly defined. *lol
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Jun 26, 2023 11:05
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I have never heard degenerate used as a technical term in regards to RPG mechanics, I would be fascinated to hear about how I somehow missed it in my 30 year history of RPGs. 
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Jun 26, 2023 12:30
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Kwyndig posted:I have never heard degenerate used as a technical term in regards to RPG mechanics, I would be fascinated to hear about how I somehow missed it in my 30 year history of RPGs. It's a thing, so who knows. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/what-is-quot-degenerate-quot- Josh Sawyer uses it a fair amount, so you can ask him in the Obsidian thread in Games. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68379-on-degenerative-gameplay-fixing-the-incentives-for-healing-and-scouting/
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Jun 26, 2023 12:49
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That's video games, not tabletop.
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Jun 26, 2023 12:51
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it shows up frequently in CCG discussions, usually involving people wanting cards banned
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Jun 26, 2023 12:55
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It's a broader game design concept, which applies to both videogames and tabletop. There's not a lot of articles that specifically discuss it, but I do hear it mentioned a fair bit here and there.
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Jun 26, 2023 12:55
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anyway a ton of people use it badly and i don't know if there *is* a rigid definition but I think it's because there isn't really a better word to describe how certain problems in game design can cause it to break down, and devolve. like literally devolves - a hallmark of a broken game is when a complex game is reduced to something simple, like say, a complex game turning into "who can input the one mechanically ideal strategy in the quickest".
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Jun 26, 2023 12:58
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Another example would be "first-order optimized" strategies, like the Big Money strategy in Dominion. You find one easy strategy that even beginners can do to win reliably, and then you just do that, even as it starts failing in more complex play.
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Jun 26, 2023 13:05
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Kwyndig posted:I have never heard degenerate used as a technical term in regards to RPG mechanics, I would be fascinated to hear about how I somehow missed it in my 30 year history of RPGs.  It's common enough in theory discussions, I've heard it a fair bit in my 40 (  ) year history of rpgs
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Jun 26, 2023 14:01
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This is a weird discussion to read since it's a term I use a lot. So, say a game has five choices, and one choice is the mathematically optimal choice such that none of the other choices should ever be made. That's a degenerate case, and playing in a way that you make use of that degenerate case is a degenerate strategy. However it also works in the opposite direction. If one of your choices is so bad it should never be used that is also a degenerate case. I suppose it could become a degenerate strategy too, but the thought is horrifying. But yeah, the thing that makes it degenerate is that it is always better/worse than all other choices. Unhappy Meal fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Jun 26, 2023 |
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Jun 26, 2023 14:14
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yeah i think the most "proper" use of it has been with things which specifically devolve the game due to provably ideal strategies. Civilization games where ICS is viable are another classic example i think it especially gets used when said strategy is either obviously contrary to the intent of the game design, or if it's otherwise toxic for the game. e.g. things like best-of-3 / best-of-5 competitions where if you aren't careful with your tiebreak/time rules, you might accidentally promote an ideal strategy of "win game 1, timer-stall game 2 and win on tiebreak"
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Jun 26, 2023 14:25
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Yeah, I've used the term a ton when describing mechanics that collapse a complex or interesting set of options into a narrow, optimal, boring one. I've heard and used it for decades.
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Jun 26, 2023 15:13
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also it gets used badly a lot, same with other similar terms like "toxic" which is maybe the #1 word that's a substitute for "strategies i personally dislike". i don't think a formalized definition exists
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Jun 26, 2023 15:29
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dwarf74 posted:Yeah, I've used the term a ton when describing mechanics that collapse a complex or interesting set of options into a narrow, optimal, boring one.
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Jun 26, 2023 15:30
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Plutonis posted:lol this would kick rear end. Just an entire party of either hedonist freakers or troglodytes Your alignment options are Troglodyte or Bertha Butt
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Jun 26, 2023 15:37
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