Bellando REally?

Alright guys, take a breath.

I think it may be a good idea to bring these kinds of initiatives to this section first before making it public.

Pete has been working on an FAQ which probably deals with the majority of the questions being asked here. The other issue is that I (and others of us) think that some of these questions are delving into the hyper technical just to squeeze out an advantage.

While I understand the desire to have a uniform rule system, this is not D&D 3.x and not every single circumstance is going to be spelled out (like the current Ss’ressen sect thread). THe idea perpetuated by the RPGA that every table should have an identical play experience is ridiculous. Player make up, GM experience, etc makes every table different.

So Josh if you want to collate the information on this board that’s fine, but PLEASE (A) don’t expect everyone to adhere to it and (B) it may well be superceded the FAQ that’s being worked on mow.

Henry

Sorry Henry, I had saved this to post before I saw your message. I’ll keep any further discussion here instead of the thread.

John

Going to try and answer this as clearly as I can.

and I certainly don’t expect everyone to adhere to the things I’m just throwing out there, however I do feel if John or anyone else doesn’t want to sign on and participate, that’s fine, don’t try to tear it down. It’s really hard to create something when someone is going “I don’t like this one part so I reject the whole thing and demand you change it to appease me”

First of all, nowhere, anywhere, at any time did I say “I don’t agree with one part so I’m rejecting the whole thing.” In fact, I said exactly the opposite several times. I said I agree with 95% of it, and I also said if you’re attitude is “This is the way I say we all should do it even if no consensus exists,” then I would pick and choose which pieces I would use (which is mostly all of it). Please stop attributing things to me that I did not say or in fact said the opposite. It makes it really hard to have a discussion.

for me it really comes down to: if I make a decision that I base my character on, and some judge just invalidates it because they don’t like it ( a ranged based character for example, if you look at all of those tricks and maneuvers that have problems ) then I feel that I might as well not be playing.

Why make a character that’s focused on gathering Herbs as something he is good at for 1/2 of the GM’s to say “I don’t know those rules, so I’m not allowing it”

Here we agree 100%. That’s why I think A) this document is a great resource and have never said otherwise, and B) that it’s critical to use consensus (strong majority) rulings and not just the ruling that Josh thinks is best.

@John

I feel that you are using hyperbole to describe my actions, I Have been trying to present both sides of the argument and then my opinion. In the Gentlemen’s agreement post I Specifically asked for PMs instead of argument posts , and I Specifically called you out with that as a response to your first post.

If I’d sent a PM saying “This isn’t consensus, so it should be excluded” would you have changed your document? Why you want to hide discussion behind PM confuses me, and I don’t want to split my responses between public forum and PM as it requires tracking 2 different threads. This isn’t a matter of a simple ‘typo’ or inclusion/exclusion, so you and I discussing it in PM’s wasn’t going to solve anything, as I don’t think either position should be called out as the ‘informal agreement’ until some agreement is established and that is something that requires more than you and I in the discussion.

Your post basically says “Here is what I put together. Here are the ways you can respond: Send me a PM if you think I’m wrong, Correct a mistake, or Accept what I wrote.” You created this document out of nowhere (Which is a good idea, FYI) but then presented it semi-officially without offering up the opportunity for *group* discussion. I don’t want to discuss it with you in PM for reasons above. On the issue of languages, you have your opinion, I have mine, and the rest of the board is split between the two (read all the threads for evidence of this). You and I discussing in PM isn’t going to change either’s view. If it was going to, it would have changed it by discussing it on the boards. If that makes me a bad person for not following your directions on that issue, then I’m sorry you feel that way.

John I’m really trying to not have blown up public fights with you, but if you wont talk with me privately, how can we have any sort of civil discussion?

If you make personal attacks at me when you “support 95% of the document” how the hell am i supposed to respond to you, but you insist that its your right to derail my threads with petty rules arguments every time.

so please read the things I’ve posted, I’ve outlined how specific kinds of responses should be dealt with,and you chose to ignore that and attack me.

John, why do you have such a problem with everything that I say and do?

I don’t want to have blown up public fights any more than you do, but we are both strong willed, passionate people, and conceptions of how the other is ‘saying something’ in a text medium creates a problem.

I also wasn’t attacking you until you got on your soapbox.

Here was my response about languages:

Fair enough. I don’t have anything to offer new in a PM. You’ve asked the question and there was about an equal split of both schools of thought, so there wasn’t an informal agreement. I think it’s premature to list only one opinion as the “Agreement”. If your goal is to have guidelines for GM’s across the board, it needs to be fairly represented.

To which you replied:

the goal is to have one answer not fair representation, specifically not “this or that”, and I’m usually going to pick the more restrictive answer if its not clear.

Which says to me (whether that’s what you meant or not) “The goal isn’t to discuss and come to an agreement, it’s for me to dictate which rule I feel is the best.”

That’s when I took issue. If you don’t want me to take issue, then you really need to be more accommodating to discussions on a public forum. Maybe that’s not what you meant, but that’s how it came off, and I don’t agree with that approach.

It seems we are both strong-willed, passionate individuals. I would like things to be smoother between us, and I’m open to suggestions. I don’t feel either of us is solely at fault, and it’s generally a combination of personality and perceptions of what the other person’s attitude is within the text. Many times your responses to me on the forums have been curt, condescending, and felt like personal attacks, whether you intended them that way or not.

I don’t seem to have this issue (that I know of, someone may correct me) with anyone else but you, so I have to chalk it up to a clash of personalities and will just take some conscious effort to keep things toned down. I’m open for dialogue anytime and the PM works both ways.

John

Josh,

If John or anyone else doesn’t want to participate, they are within their rights to say “I won’t participate”. I’m sorry to say but I think the issue is that instead of asking people if they think creating such a consensus document is a good idea, you went ahead and just did it.

Now, I know your heart’s in the right place, but it could be interpreted as you pushing this on people and if some people don’t want to be obligated to not only know the rules, but also these consensus rules, then they should be free to say that they aren’t going to buy into this.

If these dissenters don’t speak up, then others that are less confrontational would just have to suck it up and do something they may not wish to do.

I’m not trying to poo-poo on your idea, but I think this sort of thing should be broached first to the Harvesters before thowing it out there for everyone.

Just my 2 cents.

I feel really passionately about this arcanis campaign, and thusly I am empassioned about the things that I put effort into. And I know John feels very similarly.

Henry you are absolutely correct some of these things are rediculously niggling points of minutia, the number of languages a person gets at cretion being a good example of that. But its something every character has to do, and its confusing and contentious. It may not be the best thing to end up as offical eratta, but it certainly is a very frequently asked question.

I was/am trying channel one kind of dissent elsewhere, the dissent inherent to the rules that are getting collected I want to see in other threads, and I want to do that so that dissent can be had about the idea itself. I’m not trying to stop the dissent only make it managable and addresable and organized.

that is why i got so frustrated at John for derailing the intent of the thread (similar to the last few times ive gotten frustrated at john.

Henry, to be clear you say jump I say how high, you say stop and its done.

To address specific points:
I am asking for just one rule, if you dont like the one I picked provide a compelling argument, I want to hear anything that will give something to hang it on other than “because”

I feel that you were asking me to display both answers, I dont want two answers I want one, I’m not in a particular care of which one as long as there is a reason. and in this case I wanted you to restate that reason in the original discussion of the issue or to PM me about it to not distract from people talking about the idea itself.

Moving Forward:
John I really dont know what to do, I really wish you would stay on topic or at least let the topic devlop before it gets derailed. I have no idea on how to make that happen between us, I can spell out what i want any more clearly that i have already.

John or Henry do you have any suggestions?

This is hard to respond to, let me say My mind is not made up on any particular point but I’m stating them in the interest of fostering solutions.

1 I’ll keep on with the unofficial doc and hopefully things can fall off it as there are ruled on and put into the official FAQ.

However I don’t think that campaign specific rulings need to end up in the FAQ (things like how fate is handled, or crafting mundane items or gathering herbs) but there are enough of them they would benefit from something.

There is something that I think needs to be made into a formal rule and included with the FAQ and other docs:

The Rule of Henry
(paraphrased) Use common sense, the rules can’t cover everything, so doing something would grant you a disproportionate advantage, then it shouldn’t be allowed.

2 Responding to rules questions online, I am sorry that some of these rules quibbles seem hyper focused, some of them come from an easy question that’s not answered well in the rules, like “what are my starting languages”
But we as a player base can only argue back and forth on what we think the rules should be or how we adjudicate them, Having someone say “this is how its supposed to be” particularly in cases where we seem divided, would be invaluable to the campaign.

Henry I think I disagree with you on one particular point, consistency, not in general but character creation. I think character creation should be consistent across the board, complications and hidden rules when creating a character is probably the single most frustrating thing for me when I’m trying to get new players into the system.

3 I’m a programmer by profession, something we talk about a lot is lifecycle of programs, and I think its natural that I think of gaming systems in similar terms, with use things change and develop, I think planning recurring updates for the important documents for Arcanis would be a really good thing, even if the plan is update the FAQ once a year, the book(s)/ruleset every five years.

I think any change to the rules will ripple over time and eventually prompt for other changes, I would advocate rule changes/ clarifications going through a public playtest process (I’m think of the way Paizo did their ultimate book playtests but on a smaller scale, like playtesting rules for advanced spells instead of an entire book)

4 I like the idea of releasing a v1.01 of the ruleset, It really sends a message that PCI is dedicated to the fan base, its something that I don’t think most companies would do.

Henry, Thank you , I realize that I’m sometimes a thorn in your side because I’m hotheaded and impulsive, and for that I apologize and will try to keep it in check better.

John we discussed things in private, but the same goes to you, thanks for being a fellow harvester, Lets both work on trying to meet in the middle and communicate better

I haven’t mentioned it before but I got a Delbert costume maybe we can get some awesome Delbert Vs Kelb pics