Lynx Winters posted:

I have never wanted to find out something like "Greg Stolze eats live babies" than I do right now.

Jimbozig posted:

I'm just now hearing that PF2 is "if there are no rules in the book for how to do a thing, your character cannot do it at all. Cannot even attempt it..." Is that true? That's incredibly ambitious and requires a huge amount of confidence to think that you've managed to cover every single action that a character might reasonably try to do.

NGDBSS posted:

I believe that what Arivia actually meant there was that PF2 wants you to only do what the text says you can in the context of delineated rules structures that the game revolves around, eg combat. So as an example in isolation, the PCs can probably try to dam a river just fine. But if that comes into contact with things like combat or however PF2 does downtime actions (I forget), PF2 wants you to limit its effects to what's already possible under that umbrella.

Arivia posted:

The game does not let you roll ability checks as a fall back if nothing else applies. Everything is SOMETHING you have proficiency in, or you're not rolling it. (The exception being what's called a flat check, which is literally just rolling a d20 with no modifiers and seeing what comes up - if you want a 50% chance of something, that's written as a DC 10 flat check.)

Foglet posted:

It's very weird to imply that "the letter of the law vs the spirit of the law" conflict was invented 20 years ago in the RPG community and/or has no meaningful application to this community.

Xiahou Dun posted:

If absolutely nothing else, if the words on the page conflict with the intent of the designers or the ethos of the game, it's a clear sign the book was poorly written. I'm not even talking about silly Murphy's rules or whatever, but literal examples where the game says it wants to do X thing but the rules not only don't support that but push you to do Y contradictory thing. See : basically everything written in the 90's.

That seems like a very valid critique of a game's execution that happens all too frequently, and using RAW as a short-hand for "the literal words in the book" is convenient.

Roadie posted:

You seem to have forgotten that untrained skill checks exist, and that the skills are intentionally meant to be broad enough to cover everything that could reasonably happen on an adventure, with untrained Lore as the remaining catch-all for whatever really niche stuff is left.

I think you're conflating lack of ability checks (which is an intentional design decision to make you roll skills or saves for everything instead, so the designers don't need to balance for two different levels of bonuses) with the more concrete presentation of actions (which is explicitly not the same as saying you can't do things that don't have a preexisting action; you just don't get specially rewarded for coming up with stuff not already in the rules).

thetoughestbean posted:

If I take the log rolling feat I am telling my gm that we better be on logs at least half the time

Nessus posted:

The log driver's waltz pleases girls completely... including the evil empress.

NGDBSS posted:

I believe that what Arivia actually meant there was that PF2 wants you to only do what the text says you can in the context of delineated rules structures that the game revolves around, eg combat. So as an example in isolation, the PCs can probably try to dam a river just fine. But if that comes into contact with things like combat or however PF2 does downtime actions (I forget), PF2 wants you to limit its effects to what's already possible under that umbrella.

Arivia posted:

Yes, you're both right. It's absolutely a thing to criticize a game's text and problems with it - but the idea of "RAW" has been restricted beyond that and means specifically treating the text as a holy document. That's my whole criticism, it's an internet shibboleth and not an actual way of engaging with a game that actually adds anything or is helpful to anyone.

Jimbozig posted:

So if I want to roll a log I'm standing on to make another dude fall off in combat, I need the log rolling feat.

But if I want to do it outside of combat, I don't need the feat? I can just roll Athletics or whatever?

Jimbozig posted:

I've seen plenty of games that say "if the book doesn't have rules for how your character does a thing, then they can just do it and you don't need to roll."

I'm just now hearing that PF2 is "if there are no rules in the book for how to do a thing, your character cannot do it at all. Cannot even attempt it..." Is that true? That's incredibly ambitious and requires a huge amount of confidence to think that you've managed to cover every single action that a character might reasonably try to do.

Just to throw out an example so I can understand... Are there rules for damming a river? If not, that means the players can't even try to dam a river. Which is weird because a literal rodent can manage it so you'd think it would be something a human could at least try. But maybe they really did think of everything and wrote rules for that sort of thing? How would that work?

Arivia posted:

Yes, you're both right. It's absolutely a thing to criticize a game's text and problems with it - but the idea of "RAW" has been restricted beyond that and means specifically treating the text as a holy document. That's my whole criticism, it's an internet shibboleth and not an actual way of engaging with a game that actually adds anything or is helpful to anyone.

Jimbozig posted:

So if I want to roll a log I'm standing on to make another dude fall off in combat, I need the log rolling feat.

But if I want to do it outside of combat, I don't need the feat? I can just roll Athletics or whatever?

Jimbozig posted:

So if I want to roll a log I'm standing on to make another dude fall off in combat, I need the log rolling feat.

But if I want to do it outside of combat, I don't need the feat? I can just roll Athletics or whatever?

Splicer posted:

This would be my big question. Having a robust framework for the game such that "I kick gravel at the guy to trip him" can always be easily mapped to a specific in game set of rules, but the log rolling feat replaces those generic rules with a specific set of superior rules, that's absolutely fine (asterisk) and indeed good (asterisk)

dwarf74 posted:

including feats to turn hippos or whatever it was.

Xiahou Dun posted:

I want you to not be joking so hard right now.

NGDBSS posted:

I believe that was actually 3.5, and yes there was a feat in Sandstorm that let you turn hippos. It had something to do with Ancient Egypt-themed materials.

Edit: Blessed by Tem-Et-Nu

quote:

If you ever lose favor with Tem-Et-Nu, or change your patron deity to another deity, you lose all benefits of this feat and take damage as if you were bitten by a hippopotamus.

Kurieg posted:

MollyMetroid posted:

And to qualify for the hippo feat you must defeat a hippo in ritual single combat.

We share a ridiculous hobby designed to allow us to engage our fantasies about stupid poo poo we can't do in real life because lack of opportunity or presence of consequences.

Whybird posted:

I'm battling a hippo right now if you know what I mean

That Old Tree posted:

Not everyone has had that experience, so please refrain from dismissing and attacking someone who uses it in good faith. Death of the Author has a fraught past too but it's not totally useless and you shouldn't be a dick to someone just for bringing it up.

NGDBSS posted:

I believe that was actually 3.5, and yes there was a feat in Sandstorm that let you turn hippos. It had something to do with Ancient Egypt-themed materials.

Edit: Blessed by Tem-Et-Nu

Arivia posted:

This is an honest good faith question: what would you like me to do when someone uses it with no critical value outside of just invoking RAW/RAI, like hyphz did? Because his accusation was solely something like “the rules have corner cases in both RAW and RAI” (my paraphrase). There’s no content to that - it’s alleged corner cases on the basis of that invocation, without actual substance or evidence. There’s nothing to actually engage with.

From my perspective the right thing to do is to identify the invocation as not doing anything substantive and dismiss it as an incomplete statement, which I did. What would you have me do instead?

Dismissing a part of hyphz argument is not dismissing him overall, nor is it acting in bad faith or working to undermine the rest of the thread. We’ve had a good discussion about the actual issues, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to dismiss a single contentless unsupported assertion.

quote:

RAW/RAI is a terrible nonfunctioning way to look at RPG books, please do better than that.

Arivia posted:

RAW/RAI is a terrible nonfunctioning way to look at RPG books, please do better than that.

SkyeAuroline posted:

It sure didn't read as good faith when the whole length you were willing to engage to was:

There's no argument made whatsoever to why it can be dismissed besides "RAW/RAI bad and talking about it bad", coupled with condescension towards someone actively engaging in good faith themselves. "What I'd have you do instead" is at least explain why you don't think it's applicable instead of just putting "argue to my arbitrary standard I won't disclose or I won't engage" out as the whole sentiment. (e: that's been done since then, this is from the perspective of what kicked it all off)
I don't think this is worth getting into any further on anyone's part because it isn't going anywhere constructive but please at least reflect on the statements you make when saying how they look to everyone else. I have no real stake in this and don't especially care what any of y'all do, but until we find out about some actual cannibal author or something else that shifts the news, it's taking over the thread.
Something something, "arguments as written vs arguments as intended", there's something to be made of this but I don't have it

Arivia posted:

"Rules as Written" is the strict idea that only the exact wording, punctuation, and grammar of the written rulebook's text matter, like it's the Ten Commandments or the US Constitution or some other holy text carved in stone. "Rules as Intended" is adding strictly the developer or designer's interpretation of the "RAW" text to interpreting it.

Neither of these methods match how humans read and write, period. Neither of these allows for any difference in reading between the readers, any other interpretations, or any understanding of the game beyond the most basic level of reading the printed word. (To put it another way, there are literary criticism techniques for solely looking at the text on a page, but they require a lot more rigor, care, and depth of analysis than you get from "RAW.")

They're shibboleths flung around from forums arguments about D&D 3e 20 years ago, and neither of them is actually a productive way to approach reading, understanding, or criticizing RPGs (any of them, whether it's Pathfinder 2e or Lasers and Feelings.)

Splicer posted:

I'm just scrolling back to this again. You seem to be saying that ambiguity due to language for the rules parts, where multiple people may read one rule and come away with different interpretations of what that means, is a good thing? Not just stuff deliberately left to the reader like "salt to taste" or "the exact structure will depend on your organization's needs", but that a question like "do the basic rules allow me to hit this monster with this spell" should have a subjective answer based on the individual reader's understanding of what "is" is?

quote:

Crane characterized his decision to list contributors in reverse alphabetical order, and by first name, as just one of his “missteps and miscalculations.”

“That came off as duplicitous,” Crane said, “for which I apologize.”

Kai Tave posted:

Guess who doesn't work at Kickstarter anymore

https://twitter.com/Peter_Smyk/status/1375551643698274306

Kai Tave posted:

Guess who doesn't work at Kickstarter anymore

https://twitter.com/Peter_Smyk/status/1375551643698274306

Leraika posted:

Someone linked the full text of the apology earlier if you're interested in it for completion's sake, but given that the comments section is full of people defending Crane and Koebel's honor, it's probably not worth it.

also: eat poo poo luke crane

Kai Tave posted:

The apology is extremely boilerplate softpedal poo poo, absolutely unexpected and nothing at all new. He apologizes for how aspects of his project were "perceived as duplicitous," he apologizes but in a way that's entirely vague about what the "hurt he caused" actually is, of course there's no mention in his apology of trying to smuggle his sex pest friend back into the hobby, failing to notify a bunch of other creators about it, the thing that actually resulted in creators pulling out of the project when they found out, etc.