Re: Metlay's latest tirade...

Metlay writes:

> > Cynthia Higginbotham writes:
> >
> > Mike Metlay writes:
> >
> > >Furthermore, Refs must be careful as to how much TL advancement they want
> > >to allow in the development of these systems, before game balance goes
> > >straight out the window.
> >
> >      What's TL advancement got to do with game balance?  Just remember,
> > Rule #1: the bad guys have it too.
>
> If this is, seriously, your Rule #1, Cynthia, then regardless of your
> impressive achievements here on the TML I have just lost any and all
> respect for you as a member of the Traveller community. You are preaching
> the worst kind of ear-rot there is, and it makes my stomach turn.

Oops.  Bad karma, dude.  Much as I hate to piss on your campfire,
I've got to side with Steve Higginbotham (quoted below).  What does
your diatribe have to do with Cynthia's Rule #1?

> And if it's the whole party against the Ref? Well, two possibilities:
> one is that they're all jerks, the other is that their shared vision
> clashes with yours. The solution to both problems is the same: STOP
> THE GAME IMMEDIATELY. Then you either start a new game in keeping with
> their vision, if it's one you COULD share if you knew of it from the
> start... or go find a new game group.  And don't give me that whining
> about how tough it is to find groups these days! That's horseshit.
> There are bazillions of people looking for Refs; you just have to find
> a set that click with your needs.

I should be so lucky.  This may, in fact, be true in a city like
Pittsburgh, with a nice, big population base to choose from.  In
a city the size of Corvallis (population 48,000 and shrinking),
the only possible source of game fodder is the university, and the
kind of mewing, masturbating, adolescent slime you get there can
put you right off role-playing altogether.  If you can afford to
pick and choose, you don't know how lucky you've got it.

> Here endeth the lesson. Go, and tolerate fools no more.
>
> (And before anyone asks: yes, I *DO* practice what I preach. Ask any
> of the thirty or forty people with whom I had long-standing gaming
> associations whom I'll no longer run in Traveller games because they
> were good D&D players and ONLY good as D&D players....)

Grrrr.  That sound you hear is my hackles raising.  (More later, as
Steve H. is also guilty of this.)

Steve Higginbotham writes:

>      Mike, I fail to see the relationship betwen "Rule #1" and the
> rest of your tirade.
>
>      I have played Traveller ever since it came out, under a variety
> of GMs (mostly good.  Bad GMs seem to stick to D&D).

What *IS* it with you people and D&D?!?  I can't think of any other
example of in all my personal experience to compare with the "holier-
than-thou", elitist *bullshit* I see on rec.games.frp, and the TML,
when it comes to the subject of D&D.  You just can't seem to slam
it enough.

Complain about the *RULES*?  For Christ's sake!!  It's the oldest
FRP still in wide-spread use!  So it's been through 2 revisions.
You can only change it so much before it stops being D&D and starts
being some other FRP.  You can find tons of flaws in *ANY* game system,
(including, as we all know, our beloved Traveller), just like you can
find devotees of any game system.

Complain about the players?  Again, oldest system in existance.  Of
*COURSE* there are lots of bad D&D players.  There are also lots of
*GOOD* ones!  When you've been around that long, you're going to pick
up plenty of both.  It's just that the *BAD* D&D players get more
press (mostly from some RPG snobs I won't mention by name).  To
quote Sturgeon's Law, "Ninty percent of *EVERYTHING* is crap."

But I digress...

Mike, I agree with about 95% of your original post, but I'm having
a really hard time seeing how it relates to Cynthia's "Rule #1".

Remember, RPG Rule #1 is "Don't give the Ref. ideas."  (Oops!  That's
Rule #4.) :^)

Actually (to paraphrase from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"),
Rule #1 is "There *IS* no Rule #1".

If you want ot opt for technical consistancy, fine.  If not, and
your players don't squawk, that's fine too.

Anyway, as Steve says...

>      Rule #1, as Cynthia described it, is my rule #1.  It can best be
> translated as:
>
>      "The only advantage you have over ANYONE else is your mind, and
> it's contents.  They can, and will, use everything the universe allows
> to accomplish their goals, just as (presumably) you will.  In other
> words, if you can't outthink them, don't bet on being able to outshoot
> them."

I don't know that it's necessarily Rule #1, but it should *definitely*
be *SOMEWHERE* on the list.

			"Obviously, a man's judgement cannot be better
			 than the information on which he has based it.
			 Give him the truth and he may still go wrong
			 when he has the chance to go right, but give
			 him no news or present him with distorted and
			 incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased
			 reporting, with propaganda and deliberate false-
			 hoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning
			 processes, and make him something less than
			 a man."
				- Arthur Hays Sulzberger,
				  Publisher, New York Times 1935-1961
	- Mark C.