[Shadowjack]

Either you don't know what a fallacy is, or you don't know what the stormwind fallacy is saying. It is not an opinion, nor can there be any evidence against it because it is a logical fallacy. You would have to disprove it, which would mean in this case to create a causal link between its negated statements.

Heh, made me chuckle. Somewhat ironically, this is a great example of a formal fallacy in and of itself. But keep trying; next you'll tell me Godwin's Law is an actual law.

Agreed. That's why I don't like the Stormwind Fallacy, powergamers bring it up out of desperation in every power gaming thread and gloss over details that should have indicated the original poster didn't even do what the "Fallacy" states. Trying to quote some idea and use it as irrefutable evidence is rediculous. It also makes no mention of how extreme the "optimization" is. I have stated that optimization can be important and that I do it to myself to a certain extent, but why bother acknowledging that when you can make baseless accusations? Playing a character with absolutely no thematic elements he should have is quite strange in my opinion (nice word, opinion).

[Whiskeyjack]

bring it up out of desperation

My, someone's certainly projecting.

[Shadowjack]

bring it up out of desperation

My, someone's certainly projecting.

It does seem desperate to bring up the Stormwind Fallacy even after the person you're bring into question gave several disclaimers that should make the mention of it pointless. Power gamers bring it up all the time.

[Shadowjack]

In case anyone actually cares, this is the party of the Stormwind Fallacy that I don't agree with.
"The Stormwind Fallacy, aka the Roleplayer vs Rollplayer Fallacy Just because one optimizes his characters mechanically does not mean that they cannot also roleplay, and vice versa.

Corollary: Doing one in a game does not preclude, nor infringe upon, the ability to do the other in the same game."

Sacrificing a plethora of thematic elements in favor of raw power does infringe upon roleplaying. Roleplaying a guy who can do nothing but try to kill people is a very shallow concept. Not only is it shallow, it's pretty damn basic and many would say, boring. You can come up with any wacky backstory to explain how he is how he is but the character isn't going to be as interesting as he could be. Take the same guy, a complete monster in combat but he also has a deep interest in goblin rock and knows how to  perform classical jazz and ballet, he suddenly has a lot more depth. By refusing to even consider such options you are hurting your potential as a roleplayer.

When did I ever say that optimizers suck at roleplaying 100% of the time?

[Whiskeyjack]

Sacrificing a plethora of thematic elements in favor of raw power does infringe upon roleplaying. Roleplaying a guy who can do nothing but try to kill people is a very shallow concept. Not only is it shallow, it's pretty damn basic and many would say, boring. You can come up with any wacky backstory to explain how he is how he is but the character isn't going to be as interesting as he could be. Take the same guy, a complete monster in combat but he also has a deep interest in goblin rock and knows how to  perform classical jazz and ballet, he suddenly has a lot more depth. By refusing to even consider such options you are hurting your potential as a roleplayer.

This is all completely subjective and impossible to factually prove. As are the unnecessary digs about wacky backstory, shallowness, hurt potential, what kind of depth is valuable depth etc, all of which are also completely subjective, which lead to a reasonable inference that youre claiming to know better than others about how a character "should" be built and "should" be played.

Have your preferences, nobody cares about that, but you're well beyond stating just your own preferences.

It's backhanded implications like this that make me say your actual statements as written, where you profess to not be knocking an entire group of people for playing how they enjoy, have no credibility. Because you're continually talking out of both sides of your mouth.

[All4BigGuns]

When did I ever say that optimizers suck at roleplaying 100% of the time?

Right here in the paragraph immediately before this sentence.

Sacrificing a plethora of thematic elements in favor of raw power does infringe upon roleplaying. Roleplaying a guy who can do nothing but try to kill people is a very shallow concept. Not only is it shallow, it's pretty damn basic and many would say, boring. You can come up with any wacky backstory to explain how he is how he is but the character isn't going to be as interesting as he could be. Take the same guy, a complete monster in combat but he also has a deep interest in goblin rock and knows how to  perform classical jazz and ballet, he suddenly has a lot more depth. By refusing to even consider such options you are hurting your potential as a roleplayer.

You're only proving that you're succumbing to the fallacy right now with this very paragraph.

[FST_Gemstar]

I think street sam are often the most optimized just to kill - but that is kind of their job. Thinking back to the  archetypal street sam, Molly in Neuromancer, she seemed pretty optimized to kill. She relied on Matrix support to get through some locked oors and stuff, but her skillset and resource allocation was mostly for killing and she could hold her own (if I remember, she basically solo'd a datasteel at a big bank). However, I don't think she was a boring character. She had some interesting Negative Qualities/history (in Shadowrun terms, former Banraku), and had knowledge skills. She inspired to be and became a badass, but she also was a full character.

Shadow - this is where we keep butting heads. I think everyone here feels like roleplaying in a roleplaying game is important and a big part of the fun. I appreciate your concern that comments that seem dismissive of character sheets because they are less optimal and that people are quick to point out optimal opportunities may be a turnoff. You want to make sure people have fun when they play. I just still disagree that you can't create "optimal" characters without sacrificing roleplaying  (and let's be real, being optimal to killing everything may be a big disadvantage in some campaigns/runs so it may not be optimal at all and ends up being a big roleplaying hook) . There are more to characters than their sheet AND you can create rich characters from drawing lot from all of the different parts of the character sheet shadowrun provides besides attributes and active skills (Priority Selection [ex. What is someone with A Resources running the shadows for when they can already afford a permanent low lifestyle], Qualities, Knowledge Skills, Gear, 'ware, etc.).

[Shadowjack]

Sacrificing a plethora of thematic elements in favor of raw power does infringe upon roleplaying. Roleplaying a guy who can do nothing but try to kill people is a very shallow concept. Not only is it shallow, it's pretty damn basic and many would say, boring. You can come up with any wacky backstory to explain how he is how he is but the character isn't going to be as interesting as he could be. Take the same guy, a complete monster in combat but he also has a deep interest in goblin rock and knows how to  perform classical jazz and ballet, he suddenly has a lot more depth. By refusing to even consider such options you are hurting your potential as a roleplayer.

This is all completely subjective and impossible to factually prove. As are the unnecessary digs about wacky backstory, shallowness, hurt potential, what kind of depth is valuable depth etc, all of which are also completely subjective, which lead to a reasonable inference that youre claiming to know better than others about how a character "should" be built and "should" be played.

Have your preferences, nobody cares about that, but you're well beyond stating just your own preferences.

It's backhanded implications like this that make me say your actual statements as written, where you profess to not be knocking an entire group of people for playing how they enjoy, have no credibility. Because you're continually talking out of both sides of your mouth.

It is subjective, yes, that's why I constantly say that these are opinions and I don't resort to quoting a controversial theory to debate in my stead. I never said anything was a fact, on the contrary you treat the Stormwind Fallacy as a fact, as do others here. I'm challenging the legitimacy of it. I think it is definitely shallow to build characters that don't do anything for fun other than kill people and have nothing anywhere on their character sheet that makes them appear to be more than a professional killing machine. Going all the way with optimizing is very restrictive to creativity. I don't even really see how that is debatable. A lot of the characters I'm talking about are one dimensional. They specialize in one role and can't do anything else, and they seem to have no hobbies, nor do they have a believable backstory imo. What ever happened to the ex rocker who fell from grace and took to the shadows? Do you really think he can be built without the Perform skill? How about the ghoul who was hunted and lost his home and everything he had, don't you think he should have the Survival skill or some knowledge pertaining to street life? Don't get too hung up on these examples. My point is that when you enter character creation with a bunch of restrictions (attack skills 6-7, perception 1, magic 6, never aspect, never take astral combat, always use ares predator as pistol choice, never pay for knowledge skills, never take perform or artisan, never have a 1 rating attribute, never make your dice pool too high, etc) you are effectively limiting what you can dream up. A lot of your selections are made by default.

If you can read that and not agree on any level then I think we may not be able to see eye to eye on this topic, unfortunately.

Gemstar, thanks for keeping a cool head. I think you can create optimal characters without sacrificing roleplaying elements but it would still be restrictive and I just don't see why people want to use restrictive thought processes. I think it's better to approach character creation with an open mind and make every decision based on what you think will be most fun, going in with a preset of rules can only take away from creativity. Additionally, more thematic elements = more interesting characters imo. I'm not suggesting that people need to invest a quarter of their resources into thematic elements, I'm saying that you should at least consider investing a little.

Just like you don't care how I play, I don't care how you play. However, I do care when you teach every new player to dump all thematic elements and become a power gamer, which is the purpose of this thread.

[ZombieAcePilot]

I've heard of some people playing the "how can I rationalize or make a story for this build" game. On the one hand there is nothing wrong with wanting to play a certain type of character and crafting backstory around it. I do it all the time. The trick is similar to spotting obscenity. You know a bad character when you see it. Once that point has been reached, no amount of rationalizing matters anymore. As emotional creatures, we've already made our decision and are unlikely to change it.

All the promises in the world of good roleplaying mean nothing. I know most of these people fail and are disruptive. At that point I'm just waiting for the moment to say, "I told you so." That is if I wasn't able to bypass that all and force a rebuild previous. I'd rather avoid playing with that guy than be the cynical dick after the fact.

[Shadowjack]

I've heard of some people playing the "how can I rationalize or make a story for this build" game. On the one hand there is nothing wrong with wanting to play a certain type of character and crafting backstory around it. I do it all the time. The trick is similar to spotting obscenity. You know a bad character when you see it. Once that point has been reached, no amount of rationalizing matters anymore. As emotional creatures, we've already made our decision and are unlikely to change it.

All the promises in the world of good roleplaying mean nothing. I know most of these people fail and are disruptive. At that point I'm just waiting for the moment to say, "I told you so." That is if I wasn't able to bypass that all and force a rebuild previous. I'd rather avoid playing with that guy than be the cynical dick after the fact.

I know what you mean. It's really annoying. I remember once I was playing pool against a friend and as I was lining up my shot he said "that shot is impossible". I said "Nah, it's very possible and I've made this shot dozens of times." He says "Nope, it can't be done". So I'm pretty distracted at this point, and not the best pool player either, I go back to lining up my difficult shot and miss. He says "I told you it was impossible." Lol.

I agree too that characters can be built  with their story coming before or after stat selection. I tend to implement both methods depending on my mood.

[FST_Gemstar]

Shadow -

Another hypothetical - Shadowrun rules allow for someone to take Attributes and Skills at D or E (or both E if using sum to 10). Let's say they don't take magic above C so added skills are nil or minimal (if adept or aspected mage).  It would be tough for this character to win any opposed test without some optimization, but it would leave the character with several low attributes and few skills to spread around. Is this a character that shouldn't be made in shadowrun?

I am still having trouble with your original thesis that some characters with specified skill allocation are not believable characters. Maybe there is a reason for this. The system certainly allows for character to start play with very few skills. Considering they are also shadowrunners, they are going to be optimized in some respect in order to get a job.  Having low attributes/skills that are specialized could be part of a rich roleplaying experience and back story.

I just disagree that building specifically limits creativity, both in game mechanics and in roleplaying. I don't think they are related. You can have a really uninteresting/unlikable/unbelievable un-specialized character too. I think some of my most creative characters are one that had a specific build in mind, and I had to be creative in putting it together within the rules system and think of a character background and personality for such a character.

Yes. I am guilty of now pushing characters to get odd Body and Willpower stats. This is a formulaic suggestion. However,  I stand that it is a reasonable suggestion to make to someone especially if they have stat at a level that ISN'T doing a lot for their character concept or may be out of character. For example, If your street sam has a Logic of 5, no logic linked skills, has nothing in his character background or personality that indicates she is supposed to be highly rational, it might be better/believable for the character to move some of that Logic to Body to get that extra damage box and soak.

[Marcus]

Oh my goodness what a mess. Lets clean this up.

Shadowjack, you're very prejudicial, and it is an issue, but more on that later.
The argument I have been making is counter to this:

However, I must insist that my view is not ignorant, it is based on many years of visiting this message board.

Your views are ignorant. You said nothing that disproves it and so many things that have. As you started with Stormwind's Fallacy, I'll begin with that as well.

First off, It's not opinion, it's logical definition, specifically a logical argument which states: "The Stormwind Fallacy, aka the Roleplayer vs Rollplayer Fallacy Just because one optimizes his characters mechanically does not mean that they cannot also roleplay, and vice versa."

Which brings us to this little gem:

I must also note that people toss around the Stormwind Fallacy as some kind of irrefutable fact but it is very far from it and many people, myself included, consider it to be completely false.

Which mean you're logically saying someone cannot both Optmize and Roleplay. That is what those words mean. That may not be your intention, but it is what you have said.

Which brings us to this:

I have explicitly stated, even on multiple occasions, that an optimizer can be a good roleplayer.

So you believe you can Optimze and Roleplay? Or in short you DO believe in Stormwind's Fallacy.

What this contradiction actually demonstrates is that you don't understand what the Stormwind's Fallacy is saying. Which is ignorance.

Moving right along.

  I did not say that optimizers are incapable of roleplaying. In basketball, there is a common opinion that black players can jump much higher than white players. As a white person that played against many black players I found this to be very accurate, but every once in a while there was a black player who couldn't jump as high as me. That's how I look at "optimizers", they are usually much more focused on the game elements and pay little to no attention to the roleplaying side of the game.

Wow, this called Stereotyping and it's very prejudicial. For the purposes of this argument what you just said was b/c white people can't jump, power gamer can't roleplay. LOL I don't even know how to take that seriously, it's hilariously ignorant.

Agreed. That's why I don't like the Stormwind Fallacy, powergamers bring it up out of desperation in every power gaming thread and gloss over details that should have indicated the original poster didn't even do what the "Fallacy" states. Trying to quote some idea and use it as irrefutable evidence is rediculous. It also makes no mention of how extreme the "optimization" is. I have stated that optimization can be important and that I do it to myself to a certain extent, but why bother acknowledging that when you can make baseless accusations? Playing a character with absolutely no thematic elements he should have is quite strange in my opinion (nice word, opinion).

It's logically impossible to play a character with no thematic elements, raw mechanic effectiveness is by itself a thematic element. But lets talk about the rest. If you feel my argument is in desperation rest assured it is not. I have gone 19 pages with you, and been personally attack by you. I have enjoyed the vast majority of this thread, as it has very clearly shown, our (being the Optimizing way) is the right way and I'll keep going for as many pages as it take to help you see it.

What I would suggest is to tell him that you like his character and give him encouraging feedback.

You have encouraged us to lie to new players, to tell them that things that will fail are good, and they should be excited to play them.

The fact is that not everyone wants to use the
1. I don't see the  point really, there are people that have been here for many years trolling and being abusive and they haven't been banned.

2.I said that because it's true. Every time these discussions pop up a power gamer makes an abusive post. I don't see why I'm not allowed to point that out.

You have told us not to rely on the mods, even this thread show that they are doing their job.

I could actually have gone on with this for a lot longer, I have another 10 pages to pull quotes from. But I think the point is pretty clear. Tragically Ignorant. All your ideas are not wrong, and over the course of the thread you have made some improvements. Which I think is very encouraging. But you need to understand the higher order consequences of what you are saying. By choosing a course of action you are also choosing the consequences of that action.

So once again I respectfully ask you to consider, please correct your ignorance. Accept that Role Playing and Systematic Master are separate but equal parts of gaming, that tearing down one does not build up the other. That story and mechanic have no intrinsic link, one represents the other but only in general sense. This will lead you to the best of both worlds a place that is much more accepting, where you can support your table, and still have a good time. It can help make gaming fun for everyone. One of the greatest proofs of game theory says, you do what is best for yourself and what is best for the group. 

As I said before think about it.

[All4BigGuns]

To be perfectly honest, taking either the Roleplaying aspect or the Game aspect to an extreme is a serious problem these days. They are both a part of the hobby's title for a reason, and thus they are both equally important.

With the former, this generally comes in when people complain about people wanting to actually make use of the mechanical social skills they spent character generation resources acquiring while just stating a general gist of what they want their character's 'argument' to entail and those who complain when the Fighter's player says "I hit make an attack on <blah>." instead of going into some in depth (and possibly convoluted) description of the attack.

The latter is more difficult because even a 'Roleplayer' (if they're wise) will try to get a dice pool or bonus that allows for a good margin of success. Taking this part too far would be trying to actually play theory-crafts like Pun-Pun or the Pornomancer.

[FST_Gemstar]

Going back to previous arguments too:

Looking at the skill training time table (core 107) - they really don't seem believable nor match up with descriptions of in the skill rank description list.

It really only takes less than 100 days, and that's without an instructor, to get to a skill rating of 6. So someone training in mechanical engineering can learn it to skill 6 part time in less than a year. It's not a great simulation...

[Marcus]

It really only takes less than 100 days, and that's without an instructor, to get to a skill rating of 6. So someone training in mechanical engineering can learn it to skill 6 part time in less than a year. It's not a great simulation...

Your are very correct Gemstar, SR is not a very accurate simulation system. It's intended to be action oriented. It's more die hard, then band of brothers.

But that has many advantages as well. To me runners are Larger then Life, Heroes in dark days, facing overwhelming odds. But sticking to their Code. Compromising and forcing compromise where they can for the greater good of all people.