A question on a fundamental, whether it's taken as a given and taught by default
greyorm:
Callan, actually, an Actual Play example might help because I have no clue at all what you're actually asking about -- other than it sounds like some kind of a personal beef to me about something someone said once.
Ron Edwards:
Callan, I have no idea what you think of this, but the whole +2 from high ground issue is extremely open to discussion here. Raven's right: ground the issue in an instance of actually playing, post it in the right forum, and we're off to the races.
Speaking for myself, I can draw upon about 100 examples of either "no, the ground isn't high enough for your bonus," or "yeah! +2!" from real play. I can also speak of real play in which that entire approach is unacceptable, and if you have the +2 on your sheet, you get it, which forces the high ground into the fiction then and there. I say this to claim that there is no imaginable basis, as I see it, for trying to shirk the actual-play requirement for discussion of topics like this.
That's the only hard barrier you're hitting in this thread - not regarding content (and why you think that content is some kind of sacred cow, I have no idea), but regarding flat-out posting policy for minimum content requirements.
Best, Ron
Callan S.:
What I'm refering to could only exist as a sacred cow, whether it's recognised as one or not. There's not much point going into a discussion to disect a sacred cow if everyone says they are free of sacred cows/no one will humour the idea that perhaps they do have a sacred cow to dissect. That or if no one genuinely has any sacred cow, the discussion is as short as I would have expected it to be, as people repeat something much like my small text from above (they repeat something that refers only to actual physical things as the reference) and that's that. But if there are sacred cow(s), recognised or not, discussion without humouring the idea would be like an AA meeting where no one even humours the idea they might possibly be an alchoholic. So it's not just about minimum content requirements from me. But I hadn't thought of stipulating requirements when writing the first post, because it's not something I usually do.
M. J. Young:
The subject of the +2 bonus for height has to be connected at the very least to a particular game rules set. Obviously if a game has extensive rules concerning terrain in combat, the answer is going to be obvious, and if it doesn't it's going to be more difficult. Running Multiverser, if a player were to say to me that because the fight is occurring on a staircase and he is above his opponent he should get a bonus, I would probably agree and give him one--and if the rules formalized what that bonus was, then it would apply when the circumstances of the described play made it apparent that it applied. Whether it applies in other situations requires much more detailed consideration of the circumstances, so take it to an actual play thread.
The question that does belong here is whether there is an inherent "taught" concept set at The Forge, "fundamentals" that everyone either "knows" or "learns" from being here. The answer is really yes, there is--we teach that games are a social activity governed by sociological "rules", and we try to fathom some of those rules; we teach that different ways to play are all legitimate, even if individually we don't enjoy some of them; we teach that mechanics should be designed to foster specific responses in play, that is, that the rewards and advancements and whatever else should encourage the kind of play the game is supposed to foster.
We don't teach that any particular approach to play is superior to any other--whether it's narrativism versus something else, or rules-light versus something else, or gm-ful versus something else. We want to encourage designers to explore all the possibilities and create good games of all types.
In that sense, no, there is no implicit list of fundamentals that answer the kinds of technical question you've raised. It's specifically the kind of question that goes to the social contract of the specific gaming group as impacted by the authority of the documents that attempt to represent the game. More simply, those kinds of things are determined on a case-by-case basis within the context of actual play. In one game, such a bonus would be applied whenever it obviously applied, in another it would be a recommendation for use whenever whoever makes those decisions thought it ought to apply, and in another it would be a completely meaningless statement. If we applied the rule to chess, there's no information about which squares are higher; if we applied it to Risk, we'd need to add topographical information to our world map. I think if we applied it to Final Fantasy Tactics, it's an obvious inclusion.
--M. J. Young
greyorm:
Callan, dude, WHAT SACRED COW?! You're blathering about some height bonus, then you're going on about sacred cows, and then...well, fuck man. This is why I said, "Actual Play example". Because I have NO CLUE AT ALL what you're talking about.
NONE.
You might as well be standing on a street corner with a badly spelled sign screaming incoherently about society's wickedness and weinerschnitzel. And you've decided that because everyone is giving you weird looks and saying "What are you talking about?" or not engaging with your subject the way you want, this means that everyone is denying that there's a sacred cow in the room. No. They just don't know what the hell you're on about.
Consider the reaction to your attempt to discuss...whatever...isn't that everyone is running away from looking at some idea they all hold sacred, but that you haven't clearly explained what it is you want to talk about. At all.
So, seriously, I repeat my above post: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Tell us that. Don't sniff derisively and roll your eyes, "Well, I expected you were all too blind to see your own biases, so I didn't think I'd get an answer. No point in continuing." Because right now it looks to me like you're complaining that "the Forge teaches people to apply a +2 bonus for characters being on higher ground and won't admit it"...wut?
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