Dude, Godwin's Law is not a judiciary one but more a formalization of an observation. Mentioning ****s in a discussion does not break it, but only confirm it.

You can only break Godwin's Law if you maintain an infinitely long thread in which no mention of ****s is made. And I really do not want to see you do that.

Kai used the 'break' term which was a missused one to describe 'loosing by' Godwin's Law.
If the law can be broken it would probably require resorting to **** comparisons and still manage to win the argument, though that would be unlikely to ever happen.

The law has nothing to do with winning arguments.

Perhaps it would help if you didn't use it in wrong places too?
You can call a non-sequitur a non-sequitur, and then a completely different fallacy a non-sequitur as well, and it would denote a lack of understanding. I am more curious as to how exactly you feel I 'broke' Godwin's law.

This is an old game, I point out the flaws in your arguments based on what you say, then you parrot them and act as if you based your retorts on something other than monkey-see.

If you really want it broken down for you here is how it works:

Concept of precedent is that by allowing an action, you are sanctioning further similar acts on the grounds it was accepted originally.
Your comparisons however, intentially skew what can be considered an 'act' and following 'similar acts' in a case of precedent.

In your case regarding the murder analogy, it was even more flawed. To sanction murder because a person was 'very very angry' is not even a case where something is acceptable in the original but can lead to a bad precedent. Of course, you went for one of the largest most emotionally charged negative too, second to say ****s and a few other things.

If you want to get back to a closer to intact argument, you could argue that while obviously Gryf's choice in race has not been a problem that it could set a precedent by which future players are encouraged to use a similar backstory and that that could cause problems.

However, that breaks down the same way as saying that if you allow a person to claim self defense in a murder case, that it will allow all murderers to be able to get away with murder. The reason is there are other material factors involved. In the case of Gryffon, he has been playing the same character for several years - since 2k1. The community has in that time been happy with this character, and it has not led to any problems. If someone was to 'follow' that precedent there would still be material differences. These differences include, but are not limited to, that it is somewhat 'out of fashion' to have outlandish characters today, and they are actually discouraged. Players want to be involved with their kingdoms, and avoid RP histories that will only lead to conflicts within their kingdom.

I can also point out the specific flaws in your other arguments, but I barely even care to bother pointing these out to you. If you want to defend your murder analogy, perhaps comment on that, but I don't really see any point in this debate at all. Just don't post a series of pointless one liners, that gets pretty old pretty fast.

Actually your right, the law as it is written in a matter that the only way to break it would be to continue a converstation infititely, without mentioning ****s.

The general use of the law is to say if you make a **** comparison you have all but lost your argument, which is what I meant when I said that winning an arugment after mentioning ****s would do it, but that was inaccurate.

My comments on my breaking of godwin's law was in reponse to Kai's claim that I broke it, and that he was inaccurate to state such.

I already told you that there's more than one (although possibly they're not existent outside of Livejournal). Did you know that adding an 's' to the end of a word denotes plurality?

No. You make groundless assertions and accusations, expecting them to actually carry some weight, and I show that they work equally well in either direction.

If the nature of the law-making is included in the precedent, why isn't the nature of the roleplaying? Why are you allowed to be selective here?

And once more you beg the question by assuming that Gryffon's actions are acceptable. You can't use it as the basis of your arguments or criticisms until you've shown it to be true.

Again, assertion.

1) I very much doubt that anybody would actually forbid a player from crafting a similar backstory.
2) You assume that it hasn't led to any problems. I ask again: Have you taken a survey?

Hahaha.

I'd like to see an end to this back and forth bantering starting now. It's counter productive, and cluttering this forum with trash.

Godwin's law, as padren said, is a cute little theory. I give it about as much credibility and respect as, oh, say, a livejournal posting or perhaps a popup. Wow, I compared a **** to someone having an attitude that "I am right, you are wrong, even if it's none of my business". Invading OUR community's roleplay practices, though not as severe, genocidal, or tragic, is indeed semi-congruent to invading a foreign country to expand your little egocentric empire of Kai-land.

That being said, we return you to your normal thread, still in progress despite Kaimetsu's best attempts to derail it was thinly-veiled sarcastic quips and psuedo-intellectial allusions to esoteric laws of the internet counter-culture.

Then why do you perpetuate it?

I'm invading nothing. I don't profess to have any power over what you do, I merely criticise your childish and egocentric need to have a superspecial character.

I'm derailing it? You just dedicated an entire post to insulting me, without tackling any of the issues being discussed!

Valid debate isn't trash. This thread has proven an interesting and informative read.

Ya'know, Kaimetsu is part of the community, too. Rumor has it that he even enjoys Role-Playing. I guess you've never roleplayed wearing a huge purple hat.

I don't think Kai can help it if you can't (or, in the case of Padren (if he is to be believed), won't) counter his points.

I'm not sure what thread you're reading here, but Kaimetsu's been firmly arguing on-topic. The only derails I see are those that choose to argue against the person rather than against the arguments. I believe we call that 'ad hominem' in the grown-up world, and it's generally considered a poor debate tactic.

You can derail a topic while being on topic - if you are talking about the quality of bullet trains you can always compare them to purple hats...its on topic but it doesn't contribute anything to the topic.

A valid debate is not trash, but I would hardly call this a valid debate. Its a series of hyperbolic emotionally charged inheirently flawed analogies glued around a person's pet peeve, with responses in the range of 'what the hell are you on?' to 'um reality works like this...' and such.

Kai can enjoy roleplaying, but when he claims something is damaging the roleplaying community here, at the same time as he acknowledges he doesn't roleplay with the community here, and is not aware of the current events in the community here, I don't think he has the credibility to tell individual players here what they should and should not be able to do.

If you enjoy the debate you can take it up with Kai if you like, I don't think anyone else other than Kai is enjoying themselves. Myself, I have a hard time believing someone as intelligent as Kai would be so handicapped by tunnel vision to persist in his insistance that his fallacies are sound. Its probably an errant hope, but I do hope that if I break down the logic into smaller and smaller bite sized parts, maybe eventually if tea spoon fed, he will where we is off the mark. It is generally useless because no matter how simplified things get, he doesn't really care if he looks like to fool to everyone else as long as he can still convince himself that he was clever and witty.

Well, nor do your pathetic attempts at rebuttals.

No, your arguments are "inheirently" flawed! HAH.

When did I say that? Can you only defeat somebody's argument if you intentionally misrepresent it? My argument is that Gryffon's backstory:

1. Indicates an egocentric attitude to roleplaying, which (even you must agree) is something to be avoided.
2. Encourages other people to adopt or develop similar attitudes, especially since he commands a kingdom.

For all I know, we might've been lucky up to now. Maybe you're right, maybe he hasn't had much of a negative influence. But I do not think that luck is a good reason to sanction disruptive behaviour.

Right back atcha', buddy. Except without the pseudo-compliment.


Now, it would be awesome if you could offer more in this debate than "KAI IS WRONG KAI IS DUMB KAI IS THE SATAN". Like, maybe rational arguments in place of all your insults and assertions?

I wasn't talking to you.

Did that stop you when I was talking to Gryffon? :rolleyes:

There was hope for you then.


But since you've given me such a painfully easy example here, one more time just for you:

You contend you are making points effectively, I contend you are stating what sounds decent to you but has no actual factual or logical basis other than leaning in bias towards supporting your opinions.

Case in point:

I say: when he claims something is damaging the roleplaying community here
You reply: When did I say that? Can you only defeat somebody's argument if you intentionally misrepresent it? My argument is that Gryffon's backstory:

1. Indicates an egocentric attitude to roleplaying, which (even you must agree) is something to be avoided.
2. Encourages other people to adopt or develop similar attitudes, especially since he commands a kingdom.

However, not only does (2) of your own list mention clearly damaging factors happening to the community, you had stated in previous posts that:

And once more you beg the question by assuming that Gryffon's actions are acceptable. You can't use it as the basis of your arguments or criticisms until you've shown it to be true.

At that point, you want me to prove that Gryf's actions are acceptable and not harming/damaging the RP community. Okay, then we have this quote of yours in regards to the harm Gryf is doing to the community:

Um. A precedent is something that precedes something else. The point isn't such much what has happened, but what might. If kingdom leaders are doing something, it kind of sets the message that it's okay.

So we are back again to what? That Gryf isn't doing something that is a problem, but it could lead to other people doing the same thing and resulting in problems...even though there is no history of that happening in the last several years because of the checks and balances that you still suspect can't exist.

And of course, you have used this argument a lot Understand that I am not arguing against new races per se. I am arguing against a lack of regulation, where players are free to invent those races for themselves.

You have said that Gryf is damaging GK by adding a race that affects all the players, and when that is challanged you argue that you are actually arguing that its a dangerous precedent, and not about gryf specifically, but about a lack of regulation. Then its about Gryf being a bad example, then him damaging GK some more and the whole while you like to tell everyone else that their arguments are flawed because they can't keep up with your stance-of-the-moment.

You are all over the place Kai. Gryf and characters like him hurt the GK world by forcing new races on other players, then its just a bad precedent then a bad example and precedent then its just about the lack of regulation and not about Gryf's race specifically....can you see why you are lacking in the debate department yet?

You play the fence, when you get cornered you'll ask for people to pretty much provide evidence that they are not figments of your imaginiation before you'll accept anything they say, you flip, flop, you choose to relegate anything of relevance as irrelevent if it doesn't suit you, requiring grand proofs yet never offer any for your own arguments, you make the worst analogies in the world, then when cornered on them backpedal and claim they were 'parodies' of your opponents. You are a great arguer, and a poor debator.

You can post all the one liners and say 'NO-U-DEWS' you want but at some point in the future when people are reminded of that Kai person who posted on those graal forums, it will be your childish 'mannerisms' and annoying habits that will stand out in memory, if anything does.

And, what, I shouldn't have talked to you because the same isn't true here? Because there's no hope for you?

Yes. And I contend that, although you say that in pretty much every post, you do not (and evidently cannot) show that it is the case.

Do you understand the difference between encouraging somebody to do something and forcing them to do it? In fact, there are many differences! One particularly relevant one is that, in the former case, negative consequences are not always immediately obvious. Whether or not Gryffon's actions have any direct, immediate effect on the community is impossible to say. But I can certainly argue that they increase the probability of bad things happening.

That would be nice. Although, as explained above, the latter would not be the same as the former.

What exactly are you trying to argue here? That irresponsible behaviour is only bad if it yields immediate negative results? Let's say I load a bullet into a revolver, spin the barrel and then attempt to shoot somebody. Fortunately for them, the current chamber is not the one with the bullet, so they remain unharmed. By your logic, is my behaviour acceptable?

Except if you include the "I AM DEMON RAR" story that was posted just a week ago.

Yes, there's no way for me to link that directly to Gryffon, but I don't really need to. If a kingdom leader is using a glamorous character to make him feel special then he is automatically encouraging everybody else to do the same. He's contributing to a disruptive tendency.

Not to mention that the very use of that backstory implies a distinct lack of RP humility. Anybody that wants to be the protagonist of an MMORPG needs to reexamine his motivation before he gets involved in a roleplaying event, let alone tries to lead anybody else.

Uh, actually I'm arguing against them all. Like, at the same time. Yeah. One of my many talents is that I can hold more than one opinion at once!

As I said, I'm not against new races per se. That doesn't mean I'm not against Gryffon's race or the fox guy's race or whatever. It means that, if done properly, the introduction of new races could be something I support. There is no contradiction here at all.

The lack of regulation is a bad thing. It lets people get carried away with disruptive, egocentric roleplaying.

And Gryffon is setting a precedent. The dudes that want to be the Dark LizardMen of Al'Grat'Khur can point at him and say "hey, if he's allowed..."

You stalwartly march into threads with pomp and pride and not the slightest idea about what your opponent is saying. When he refutes your claims you resort to attacking him on unrelated matters such as the color of his hat. You make crafted assertions to support your case but refuse to back them up. You dismiss arguments, examples and analogies without even trying to prove them invalid. In the end, when everything is going wrong, you break out the psychoanalysis and attempt to blame the whole thing on the traumatising events of your opponent's ninth birthday. By this point, you've given up on debating and every post you make is a frantic, groundless insistence that you are right and your opponent is wrong. You are a terrible arguer.

Why do you still entertain this topic and thread, Kaimetsu?

Why do you think? It helps me catch up to Kamuii.
I'll wager that's better than Padren's excuse!

Heh... [:

I'm sorry, did I miss something? Am I the fellow that starting whining about Gryf baselessly?

Not to your satisfaction, and since you like to play both debator and moderator I suppose that means I am always wrong.

Yet, his character was started way back on 2k1. Are we worried the sky will fall...one day in the distant future on graal 3D?

That is an example of a totally deflective statement that is still on topic. It has already been established that Gryffon has had his current character for a very long time - perhaps one of the longest consistently played characters in graal.
You bring up a good fact that impacts are not always immediate, yet it is entirely irrelevant to this topic, as we are talking about a very very old character.

Do you have have some special insight to share on how it is actually relevant or will you just choose not to quote and respond to this part?

Interesting, what would you consider to be within the realm of possibility that would result in you loosing a debate?

That is a great example of irresponsible behavior, and I would be greviously in error if I was to endorse that sort of conduct, however you could not have selected a more extreeme and poor example, unless your goal is to show something very stupid to do with very bad results. If you are looking at analogies solely for their emotional impact it would take ****s to top that one.

I wouldn't doubt it if he's rethinking the quality of that story, but regardless I am sure the subsequent posts to that story would not encourage the 'rampant' use of obscure races. It supports exactly what I am saying here, and erodes the validity of your claim that such an event would likely lead to the uberdemonification of gk. Those sorts of stories will not make someone popular, and people fill find stories that allow them to play more happily with the rest of the community, since that is what they are after.
Right, he's damaging the community. Didn't you just jump down my throat a few posts ago for daring to allege that you said he was damaging the community?
You said When did I say that? Can you only defeat somebody's argument if you intentionally misrepresent it? if I recall. Still having trouble keeping your story straight Kai?
Whereas antagonists don't? I don't think anyone wants to be 'the' protagonist, *a* protagonist generally suffices. I think you are mistaking an attempt to be creative for a lack of humility. Its not like he made a race just for himself, he was part of a race on 2k1 that was recognized by other RPers.
I never doubted your capacity to be opinionated, and I never said as such. However when you say are not arguing that gryffon is damaging the community when you are arguing just that among other opinons you hold, that is where I have a problem with it.

The contradictions are in that you flip flop around on the effects it has and whether Gryffon and Shawn are causing any problems or just the potential problems which just by 'random convergence' has not, depending on what you can and cannot defend any given moment.


Certianly. However, it has never been an issue with player created races. Its worth noting that Shawn and Gryf have both contributed to roleplaying greatly on GK. Having roleplayed with Shawn quite a lot, he is definately not lacking in humility nor an attention seeker, and his character race has enriched the roleplaying community greatly. You are being uptight over a non-problem. And yes, you can say it 'could' have a non-immediate effect but man, how many years have to pass before you consider it demonstrated that it is harmless?
Right, and we are powerless to say 'you know that really doesn't work' - as if some judge will rule that if gryf did something now we have to let dumb things happen too because they both involved a new race.

If the Lizard Men contribute, then it may be a good thing to add. If they are not, then no one will want to play with them and they can either leave when they get bored, RP outside the main community, or find something that integrates better. Relax already.

I always consider the other side of an argument, care to demonstrate where I don't?
Again, example?
I break down your arguments and refute them regularily, what arguments do you consider 'dismissed' in this case?
I have made observations regarding your behavior, based on observations of your behavior. I never said you had to take any of my advice or tried to debate them until you accept them. Its your own loss if you can't benefit from some well thought out observations.
And that is why I continue to make a series of points you still can't refute, and why I still point out where you are inconsistent in your arguments and flipflop around? Or where I make the case even clearer so you can actually understand it?


I know Gryf is a good roleplayer, and I have a lot of experience with shawn about his race and can attest, as can all of Dustari and most of the RP community I am sure, that his race and character have greatly improved GK and been a great compliment to roleplaying in kingdoms. If anyone was to 'deny' him the right to play that race on the basis that it was not done with 'formal sanctions' and risks causing future harm, I can assure you that the immediate harm done by reducing the quality that he brings to GK would be far far higher than anything that will ever come about by not having your preferred regulations in place.
What is worse, is you don't even play with these people, all you can do is state your claim that it is 'bad in theory' and that you have enough experience RPing in different situations for your opinions to be sound here too.

When I point out you have no idea how this specific community self regulates on issues like this, or how much shawn and gryf have added to GK, you feel totally justified in claiming that we are all so generic that the differences between our community and the ones you do frequent are no larger than if you do or do not roleplay in a purple hat.

If you cannot see that, you are not going to, and its only because you don't want to.

You would be the hypocrite that started whining about me baselessly, and then espoused a philosophy of non-intervention that you clearly don't follow.

Haha, man, do you even read your own posts?

Yes. So? I'm expected to forgive him because he's been doing this for a while?

Neither of us can measure the effect that a single person has. It's utterly impossible. How can you realistically say that Gryffon's poor roleplaying practices haven't had a negative influence on other people?

Pretty interesting accusation, coming from you. You've made posts in this threads that don't quote anything I've written, or quote only a single paragraph. I don't think you can suggest that I do the same without giving us an example, especially since I have kind of a reputation for doing the opposite.

Huh? Where did this come from?

And, true to form, that's all you say. No explanation of how the two situations are incongruent, no logical analyses, no highlighted errors. Just a hefty "YOUR EXAMPLE SUCKS".

Well, he hasn't posted anything new. If he'd designed a new backstory, wouldn't he have amended his thread by now?

Was he ever forced to change it? That's the kind of regulation I'm talking about.

Precisely three people objected to his story. Only one of them actually plays GK on a regular basis. I do not think this supports your point.

Carefully consider the following strings of characters:

"contributing to a disruptive tendency"
"damaging the server"

The words are not the same. They are different words. It is prudent at this point to consider whether the meanings might be different, too!

To argue or deny that he is actively damaging the server would take statistics that neither of us can produce without travelling into parallel dimensions with comprehensive surveys. Special effects, wacky hijinks, I know. It'd be awesome. But it's beyond our means.

What I can say is that his actions have a distinct potential for breaking cohesion on the server. That's it. Is he harming it? Probably, yes. But I won't assert that he definitely is because I don't have the wormhole generator. Same as I won't assert that firing my revolver is the same as killing somebody.

1. Do you think that those are the only two options? Protagonist and antagonist? This says more about you than it does about Gryffon.
2. Judging by the elaborate nature of his backstory - the brotherly conflicts, the torturous past, the redemption, the transformation, etc - it seems to me that he very much wants to be the protagonist. It's the kind of character you might write a book about. It's not the kind of character you should play in an MMORPG.

I have already dismissed this misconception in this post (and my previous few, too). If you are still confused, ask a dictionary for the difference between 'potentiality' and 'actuality'.

No, you are merely twisting my words to make them seem disharmonious. But whatever, I've already covered that above.

Incidentally, I don't particularly object to Shawn's character concept and I don't think I ever said otherwise. He may have invented a new race, but he did it in a humble, reasonable manner. Being a fox-person isn't particularly glamorous.

Assertion.

Well, yeah. Because there aren't any active judges and there isn't any real regulation. You make the insane assumption that kingdoms are led and populated by reasonable people. If that were the case, what would be the source of all those problems you earlier refused to name?

The whole thread, basically. Even now you're missing the point, which just strengthens my accusation. You gave a tirade of unsupported insults and assertions about my actions in the thread. I immediately gave an equivalent, to demonstrate that such tactics don't prove anything; they work equally well for either party. Evidently this lesson flew straight over your head, for now you are back to demand that I provide proof where you did not!

No! I break down your arguments and refute them super-regularly!!

PLEASE tell me you are learning!

As was already said, I don't particularly oppose Shawn's choice of race. But that's all besides the point. Would Gryffon cease to be a "good roleplayer" if he made a less self-indulgent character?

Wow, maybe you have been listening! But here's the second half of that synopsis: You haven't yet shown that I'm wrong.

Humans are humans. There are universal factors - rules that apply regardless of the minute specifics of the group. The fact is that egocentric roleplaying is as bad in your world as it is in mine, and claiming refuge because of some irrelevant distinctions is no less ridiculous than dismissing somebody's opinion based on their preference of hat.

That doesn't exclude him from replying to it - that's what's so great about these message boards. If you didn't want anyone else to reply to it there are such great programs as AIM, and always the option of e-mail and private messages.

I'll try to cut as much loose stuff and find a few things that you say that are at least marginally on topic:

If you can't measure any ill effect and all you have to go on is that it could cause ill effects? The 'Oh the Universe is Chaos!' defense is exceptionally weak, we are talking about observable impacts of people's characters and the rules people play by. You want to start making rules without any observations - just your own personal theories - to back them up?
You are the one who is trying to establish some evidence for your theory, and if the best you can do is say I can't 'prove' your theory is wrong, then you don't have a case to demonstrate your theory is sound at all.
You asserted it will likely lead to a rash of people doing this, and so far you have only seen one example, and that one person did not receive encouraging praise for those elements of his story, thus showing it is not encouraged.

But even then we could never KNOW if the statistics were sound or if it was a HUGE event of random convergence! (since you like the 'we can never know stuff' defense so much)
Making rules based soley on one person's theories also threaten to break the cohesion of a server. The question is, what is a likely to be dangerous threat? The server has not suffered for the presence of Shawn or Gryffon over the last several years, and has benefited from them.

You haven't shown you are right either...you are the one trying demonstrate a need for change here.

1) I agree with your synopsis in its general principle. What I disagree with, is your quick judgement about Gryffon being an egocentric roleplayer. He does not use his history to try to draw attention to himself, and has specifically avoided 'center of attention' positions in the past.

2) Your opinion was 'dismissed' because it held at its center a missconception of how this community self regulates that you obviously didn't have experience with.
See, your error was the reason your opinion was dismissed, which was then attributed (understandably) to your lack of involvement with the community.
There are issues in GK: No one knows how to have a war, some leaders think bugging ships is 'roleplaying' or at least have in the past, some leaders did not stop their members from PKing and disrupting RP events...there are numerous ones.
However, in this community, the persistant problems have to do with kingdom leaders that do not encourage roleplaying, not ones that encourage grand RP histories. People who DO want to RP, do so in the decent kingdoms, and really do want to be part of those communities, to the point that, they would want an RP history that works with the group, not against it.

These are factors that do not appear to be (based on your misconceptions here) a part of the communities you are involved in, and as such, they are factors of experience that made you ineffective in your assesment. Your hat analogy is totally off, because it assumes you are being dismissed for completely arbitrary reasons. You may contend the reasons you are being dismissed are not very compelling, but it does not mean they are arbitrary, so your analogy is at best, still a very bad choice.

If someone with a contagious virus walks through a crowded area, you can not say for sure if or if not anyone will contract this virus.

If or if not anyone does, the fact that this person has walked through the area makes the chances far greater that another will catch it, and spread it to even more people, than if that person had never walked through the area.

I hope you will not object if I do the same.

How would you suggest that we measure an individual's contribution to a trend? I mean, hell, I'll even let you assume that we can read minds. We still can't tell what factors combined to produce a given attitude - most people don't keep a conscious record of the things that influenced them.

Greenhouse effect: Good or bad? See, it's pretty difficult to prove that our pollution has a significant effect on the atmosphere because we can't easily make comparisons. We don't have a handy alternate universe where we didn't pollute our planet. The best we can do, pretty much, is to ask ourselves "Hey, what do we think's gonna happen if we send all those chemicals up there?"

Same applies here. We can deduce the effect of certain factors by employing a rudimentary understanding of human psychology. More on this below.

I don't think I made such a strong assertion. Nor have I given you reason to believe that I've only seen one example. I gave you a recent one because it was convenient, but it wasn't really necessary.

Y'see, you're not getting the burden of proof thing here. I say that certain actions have certain effects on the mass consciousness. You say that they don't. There's no way for either of us to actually prove our case because we don't have access to the relevant information. But that doesn't mean we should dismiss each other without consideration. Failure to provide proof isn't a comment on the strength of our stances, but rather on their fundamental nature. I can't directly prove that humankind has damaged the ozone layer, but I can talk about chemistry and geology and show, through abstract reasoning, that it probably has.

Nobody ever said that it was verbally encouraged. You can encourage somebody in more ways than just saying "HEY GOOD JOB".

What are the options here? On what bases can we actually make rulings? We can make predictions about the effect that they'll have or we can roll a die and hope for the best. Personally, I prefer the former.

Dude, you can't use X as a corrolary in proving X. If you make such definitive assertions about the history of the server, you have to be prepared to support them. That's how the burden of proof works. My claim is more general and, as such, doesn't require such direct proofs. I'm suggesting that Gryffon has damaged the server, but that's as a consequence of my actual argument: That use of egocentric character designs - especially by high-ranking players - has a negative influence on other people. It's an inductive argument; we work from some known facts and we extrapolate according to some generalised reasoning.

Now, you can criticise that reasoning but you cannot dismiss it simply by asserting that its implications haven't been met. You have no way to support that claim.

Well, I guess that's a subjective thing. I would suspect that your judgement is tainted in this matter - that you are supporting Gryffon for political or emotional reasons - but who can say for sure? None of us can judge this objectively. We're pretty much forced to let the audience decide for themselves.

One fact I will mention is that the only two impartial judges here (myself and Sildae) voted against Gryffon's character concept. While that's certainly not enough for us to automatically reject it, it does show that the attitude isn't unique to any one person. I do not think you are justified in dismissing it as a "quick judgement".

For the record, you have not given me a single example of forceful regulation. Everything you've said on the matter depends on an assumption that Graal's roleplayers are reasonable people.

AKA: Nobody agrees with your opinions on how a war should be fought.

AKA: Some leaders disagree with your opinion on the acceptability of bugging ships.

AKA: etc, etc.

Above, you said that some interpret "bugging" ships as an example of roleplaying. Who are you to say that it is not?

Which are the "decent kingdoms"?

No. I will explain it again. The hat example is a means of showing that there exist absolutes, common between roleplaying experiences. The fact is that your entire argument in the above paragraph could instantly be modified like so: "Wearing a purple hat is a factor that does not appear to be (based on your misconceptions here) a part of the communities you are involved in, and as such, it is a factor of experience that made you ineffective in your assesment". Would this version be equally convincing?

Yes, inexperience within specific settings can inhibit empathy, yadda yadda. But you have not shown that the specific differences in this case are any more significant than my choice of headgear. You have done nothing but assert that they are. Why should those differences modify the applicability of general roleplaying rules?

On a less serious note, I really need to convince some GK admin to make a Huge Purple Hat item for me to wear, so I can make my character run around belittling people for their inability to empathise with him :D

Yeah, exactly. Even if they don't, it could erode their immune systems to a point where something else does get them. There's no way for us to measure the actual effect the person had, but we can most definitely speculate on the probable consequences, and suggest suitable means for avoiding them.

Impartial?

You?

Kaimestu Impartial?

You, who barraged this thread with an opinionated blitzkreig of concoluted logic?

C'est le fin.

Uhm, I am the opinionated gal. Kai is the one who came up with all the annoying logic that made me back off in the first place.

.ces le cret'rs bleha nub.

And yet another intelligent remark from Moonite!

There is a difference between being impartial and having no opinion. I suggest that you learn it before attempting to argue on this subject.

I was going to let the thread die but oh well.

Trick is to first identify problems and track them back to the causes. So far you are only talking about possible problems that may be, in theory caused by what you see are potential problems.
I am curious if you are so quick to give up on assessing the effects of people when it comes to irl politics, or if you are just doing that here because it serves you.

Keyword 'Effect' meaning, something observed traced back to probable causes. When it comes to green house theory, the science is based on a long standing observations of chemists under controlled experimental conditions. I doubt you honestly think you can equate some of your 'ponderings' on the possible effects of certian character types on roleplaying to centuries of empirical data collected by professional chemists conducting experiments.

So you think you can provide only a single instance, then act like I am out of line for not assuming you have tons of more instances to back up your case?

Small thing about debates: If you need to strengthen your case, strengthen it, don't just ellude that you 'never said' that was all you had to support your case and assume that somehow does the trick.

And about your assertion - yes, you said the danger was that anyone could make up any old race....how is that a danger if people don't start making up races? If there is no rash of races - what is your problem with it then? What are you worried will happen?

I will admit I was playing with you a bit, because you have tried to shift the burden of proof on to me so many times I thought it would be interesting to see how you respond to the same. Now that we can get past the "can't even prove this isn't aaaaaallll a dream" stuff can you demonstrate reasonably the risks you are concerned of? I will reiterate my key point (1) that even though people can make characters that are 'out there' that it rarely happens, and when it does its generally short lived as it is not conducive to roleplaying within any of the groups that do RP, and that is why people make characters in the first place. The fact that negative problems associated with 'out there' characters are few and far between over the years of roleplaying on this server suggests I am correct in this assesment.

Yet he did have verbal discouragement. What do you think is stronger, verbal en/discouragement or the 'more ways' (ones I hope you demonstrate are not purely theoretical but have actual examples) as you put it?


Rules have their place but there is also room for self regulation where it has worked to date. This is not a 'doomsday' issue like the green house effect is (the reason you choose it I am sure) because if there is a problem, we can actually solve it then with minimal effort, or at least no more than would be needed to try to prevent the 'potential' problem that has not manifested in all the years of this server.

(part 2)
You want me to prove the absense of something to disprove your case? How about if you want to contend there are problems caused by shawn and gryffon then you provide instances to support those claims?

Until you show evidence of a problem, I see no problem. Until you show evidence of bigfoot, I see no bigfoot. Get the trend? Yes - you have provided a theory of how problems are liable to come up, and I have provided a similar theory that demonstrates flaws in your theory.
A first glance look at the server shows the problems you are worried about are not there, unless you provide contrary details, that is how I intend to leave that observation.

I assume you consider 'That use of egocentric character designs - especially by high-ranking players - has a negative influence on other people.' your 'known fact' in this case.

Gryf's use of his character's history is not for egocentric purposes, if anything, its a basis to evaluate his character's appropriate emotional responses to situtions. You may feel that is not the best means to achieve this and I'd agree, but I will say its not for egocentric reasons.

Another factor, is can you seperate a negative influence and a negative effect? Even on the 'influence' level, given that people who make elaborate backstories -including gryf- tend to be singled out for negative commentary, why do you think that simple exposure to a person with such a backstory will result in influence people towards doing the same? Any influence towards making such a backstory is more than countered by the community's general stance towards the topic.
I think the audience has, for the most part, given up about 2-3 pages of posts ago. If you want to claim that the key elements are too subjective for us to discuss, then I don't see the point of discussing it.


At least you acknowledge you are not impartial.
.....sigh...you do realize you just contradicted yourself just one sentence above?
I never said it was. I argue though, that without some evidence to back up your theories that there is harm (not proof, but evidence) I would say your theories are not panning out. I have already offered explinations as to why your theories are not panning out.
And as I have argued we don't need forceful regulation on this topic, this is bad how?
Reasonable enough. If they weren't, how would rules help? Have you ever seen unreasonable people try to make reasonable rules? Or enforce them? Your solution does not work for unreasonable people anymore than the social dynamics that I have said already has kept this server from experiencing the problems you say could but have not happened.

You assume too much: I have no idea how wars should be fought. I have asked that question on this server, yet no one has any ideas how wars should be fought. That is generally why people feel there are no wars, and why I say its a problem.

Wrong, AKA the leaders of the other kingdoms, as least Zormite and Dustari for sure and I believe its supported by Forest (is it gryf?) is that to drop items in the water or use spells to create items to trap and damage ships is bug abuse, yet it was allowed for a time by the leader of CP.

etc, etc.
I am not anyone to say as such, other than at least 2 if not 3-4 of the other kingdoms condemned the practice. Its an example of where RP standards or lack thereof between kingdoms caused strife. You wanted examples of other problems, not for me to make the claim that I was part of them or of the victorious side.

Any kingdom that RPs and makes an effort to keep their practices similar enough to those of other kingdoms that rp to be able to rp together.

Can you clarify what you mean by 'absolutes' in this case? All that it sounds like to me is, if you were to argue about buildings being overdesigned in LA because you were an engineer from Kansas, and someone said "no but you don't have earthquakes in Kansas and thats why you think they are overengineered here" that you would retort with "Well that would be like you coming to Kansas and saying your opinions are invalid because you are an engineer from a state with a name that starts with a 'C' instead of a 'K' and thus you have no experience with engineering in a state that starts with a 'K'."

Does that clear it up a bit?

Yes I have, there is a self regulation process based on the social dynamics present in GK. That and by your theory we only have not gotten into grevious trouble due to random convegence, which is far less likely than the reason I mentioned.

No comment, lol

And how can you say that things wouldn't be significantly better if a certain factor were removed? How can you say that certain problems would still have occured? These things aren't always obvious, much like the ozone layer thing.

Give me an example.

First you argued that I cannot possibly make my argument without providing direct evidence of the phenomenon I describe. Are you now rescinding that, but criticising the inductive logic? I need to know where we stand here.

I don't think that's what I said. I think you're being irrational for going to the other extreme - assuming that I haven't seen anything else. Stop strawmanning.

That's one danger. But it's just a symptom of a wider problem - an egocentric attitude to roleplaying. That's what Gryffon encourages and condones.

Please stop trying to break my argument into itty bitty pieces. Tackle the whole or nothing at all.

Doubtful. Seems more likely that you just don't understand burdens of proof.

When have I asked you to prove a claim that you haven't made?

Seeing a kingdom leader roleplay in an egocentric fashion encourages players to do likewise. That's it. That's my whole argument. Inventing races is just one possible expression of it.

Well, I guess that depends. If you approve of Gryffon's backstory then you must have some pretty loose standards.

And again: If you make that claim, you must support it. That, or leave it for the audience to assess for themselves. Make a choice and then stick with it. Repeated assertions don't qualify as either.

Stop changing the argument. You said: "that one person did not receive encouraging praise for those elements of his story, thus showing it is not encouraged". Do you now admit that praise is not the only way to encourage somebody?

Again, evading the point. "Making rules based soley on one person's theories also threaten to break the cohesion of a server". Do you now admit that predictions are a good basis for making rulings, compared to choosing a policy at random?

Yeah, we just break out the mind control rods.

No, I want you to try and fault the inductive logic. I already explained this. Go read up on induction, damnit.


I disagree. I interpret it as an elaborate, dramatic backstory designed to make him feel special. There are plenty of more mundane ways to achieve a similar personality.

They do? Other than the two already discussed here, do you have any examples?

Yeah, probably. But the rules of the game don't change.

Do you realise that 'impartial' is not the same as 'objective'? Please try to keep a dictionary on hand while engaging in this debate.

Well, the only other type of regulation is wholly ineffectual unless you make the assumption that all Kingdoms players are reasonable, mature people. I do not think that assumption pans out.

That Raziel guy has ostensibly been using his backstory for some time. How has your non-regulation helped there?

If a kingdom leader has to approve stories then you have two minds assessing them, and more chance that a vainglorious character concept will be rejected. It could even be possible to appoint an overall authority to arbitrate on these kinds of matters. It still assumes that some people are reasonable but, even if the leaders and staff members are all as incompetent as the average player, it still adds layers of redundancy.

Right. So why are you placing the fault with CP and not the other kingdoms? Because of your opinion. Who are you to say what is and isn't good roleplaying?

Yeah? So? You still place the blame on those that didn't.

Which are the "decent kingdoms"?

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=absolute

...Town A, and you were arguing with an engineer from Town B, and he said "Look, guys, I like the style and all but is the huge carbon fibre hat actually better at preventing leaks than a normal roof?" that you would retort with "Hey, your opinions are invalid. You can't know how water behaves in this town - not until you've spoken with Mrs Peterson and Mr Jameson and the Johnsons and all the other residents! Get the hell out!"

Does that clear it up a bit?

That is a huge generalization. If by 'a' certain factor you meant posting know-it-alls and by 'things' you meant the forums then sure, I could agree with you. There are tons of 'things' and tons of 'factors' so whether 'things' would be significantly better or not kinda depends on the 'factors' and 'things' in question.
Poltician nukes the capitol and chaos ensues. Can you track cause and effect in that case?
I am saying when taking drastic enough action as to limit what people can and can not do via a governing body that you need to have some level of evidence to support the need. I am also questioning the inductive logic in your assertions.
I am not strawmanning I am asking you to provide more examples that you feel support your convictions instead of just saying you could know of more examples than you have mentioned.
Can you outline the dangers you are asserting are a problem so then perhaps, at this late point, we can actually debate if they are well founded or not? I am attacking your assertions as to the risk of that one danger you outlined because it is all you have mentioned so far. How can you say 'there are more' with any weight if you won't offer them for evaluation?
Its the only substantive risk you have mentioned as a basis for your concern - its perfectly valid for me to point out its an ill founded one.
We are not talking about proving proof for claims not made, we are talking about your requests that I prove that there is an absense of proof that your points are wrong, as if your arugments have an intristic authenticity about them.
Yet you have not seen him roleplay, and are assuming he is an egocentric roleplayer because of his background story. Yet I have personal experience with seening him roleplay and roleplaying with him. But should I assume that difference between us is really no larger than if say, if I had but you had not roleplayed in a large purple hat?
I approve of how he has roleplayed to date with that backstory, and I don't think that is the result of loose standards.
I support that just because people can does not mean they do, and that in this regard the community is self managing.
When the heck did I ever say praise was the only way to encourage somebody? All I was saying is the sum effect between encouragement vs discouragement leans very heavily towards the discouragement end, and that anyone who mistakes Gryf's backstory as an encouragement to make a similar backstory, would be more than disuaded by the amount of discouragement.
Who has endorsed policy at random? I know I haven't. When rules are being made already based on concrete needs allowing predictions - at least well reasoned and generally scientifically backed ones - to shape them is fine by me. But as a general rule an unsubstantiated prediction is not a good reason to make a rule where one has never been needed.
All it would take is for kingdom leaders to say "you know this has gotten to be a problem we need to rethink this now" and we could leave the mind control rods at home.

No, it's an explanation of the nature of the universe. Billions of variables, too many for you or I to process. When dealing with collective consciousness, it's utterly impossible to reliably track causality.

Yes.

Butterfly flaps wings, hurricane brews in south Atlantic. Can you track cause and effect in that case?

Believe it or not, giving one example of a possible thing does not mean that all similar things are possible.

Which is where the inductive logic comes in. If it is sound, there is no need for direct observations.

Right. So a simple 'yes' would have sufficed.

You intentionally misrepresent my position. I say that you have no reason to believe ¬X. You say that I'm accusing you of being "out of line" for not assuming X. These are completely different things.

Already tackled this, man. Induction. The only reasonable way for you to argue is to analyse the logic.

You make assertions about the game world. Their relation to my predictions does not define them. You say that the world is in a certain state, but you don't offer to prove it. What value can I give this claim, then? If you base your argument on it then your argument is void.

I, meanwhile, base my argument on generalised reasoning about human nature. It is not specific to any single gameworld.

I have seen him create an egocentric backstory. Does this not qualify as roleplaying?

I don't think that sentence makes sense. In any case, it is certainly not a proof of your claim about the events on GK.

You argued that ¬praised(x) -> ¬encouraged(x).

We saw an example of one person with a ridiculously egocentric story, and only one GK player reprimanded him for it. How many GK players posted in that thread without doing the same? And would he have been reprimanded if his story were slightly less grandiose?

Well, you have argued against making policies based on theory. What else is there?

Because, what, the act of five people thinking about something has the power to instantly rewrite the attitudes of everybody on the server?

Even inductive logic requires limited observations to back it up, what observations do you feel back up your assertions in this case? You have asserted a need for rules to counter negative effects of people being able to write their own backstories without rules. You cited the demon fellow thread, though there was clear disproval of that and I doubt he will be up playing backstory anytime soon in any rping - and all done without the rules you feel we need to adopt to police this. Then there is Shawn, though his backstory has only led to enchancing the roleplaying of GK (I press you to find one person that disapproves of Shawn, he is an all around liked and good guy who roleplays his character very well), then there is Gryf, whom you assert supports egocentric 'bad' backstories. He however, arrived at his backstory when an entire new race was added to 2k1, a long time ago, with another group of roleplayers, which was recognized at the time by at least one existing kingdom leader. In that time, these are really the only cases I am aware of. If you have more observations as the basis for your argument, provide them.

When it comes to unsual backstories, a few rare instances of unlikely stories is not bad, when the unlikely stories become common to the point of being more likely and becomes tired, its an issue.

So far when I point out that no one wants a backstory people find tired and problematic, you seem to say I am assuming people here are reasonable. I would say that the observations to date support that they are, as these problems have not arisen in any number that would cause disruption.
You are talking to people who have a lot more experience with him to deduce his motives from than just reading one backstory. You may as well be claiming that gryffon is a cruel person based on a hand writting analysis, and expecting to convince people who have day to day experiences with the fellow.
Um.....are there even any more examples of people with 'whacky backstories' to use as examples? That actually made me laugh when I read it.
Just making an observation.
I knew that would be your argument and I would ask you to point out the subtle differences of nuance you implied when you used these two words which, are generally interchangeable when it comes to a debate of this nature.
Your preferred method for regulation fails when implemented by unreasonable people, as would any. I have already said people are 'reasonable enough' and point out that it has seemed to work so far.
His use was limited to thinking it over and hadn't shared it with enough people to find people don't like those sorts of backstories and see how it makes it difficult to roleplay with him.
You seem to think that these players don't know each other or act more competitively than cooperatively. As it stands if a backstory is so objectionable to a kingdom leader they technically can tell the person to change it or they are kicked out. The current structure is that people want to play in a cooperative fashion with the other members, and anything they add that is disruptive is likely to be shaken out. The people within these groups are not roleplaying 'at' each other but with each other, there is already a bias towards acheiving a degree of harmony there without draconian rulesets.
If you are trying to demonstrate that I like a 'no rules' approach because I have some mechanism for 'getting my way' anyway you are mistaken. I simply favor and am among the 'other kingdoms' as opposed to CP. I personally of the opinion that bugging boats results in no naval abilities whatsoever, on either side, and that it is unreasonable to assume creating a slice of cake could damage or block a boat. I don't care to argue my opinion - its just that, my opinion. The issue is that it caused problems for all the kingdoms, and is an example of an actual problem, which you asked me to provide.
You asked for an example of a problem and I gave you one. Whether you found the community as a whole resolved it badly or not is not of concern to me.
I just gave you the definintion of what I would consider the attributes that make a kingdom decent within the context that I used the word 'decent' - its not a 'I name these kingdoms as decent and those ones are not' sort of issue.
I wanted the context you were using the word in or a clarification of your statement where you used it, I know my way around a dictionary.
See you proved my point on this one. Your example is flawed because you are comparing what actually does behave the same - water - (well drainage can be enormously different but that is not where you were going) between the two communities to something that is different. See, the self regulation in Kingdoms is (apparently) something you are unfamiliar with and it greatly affects the issue at hand. Water on the other hand, is as arbitary as a large purple hat - offers no significant difference.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Experiences of human nature. I do, of course, assume that other people have similar experiences.

I think your "doubts" are worth precisely diddley-squat. Anyway, we're discussing this above.

I've already said that I don't particularly object to Shawn's character. Strawmanning again.

Again you are misrepresenting my argument. I do not oppose Gryffon's story solely because of his species - that is just one factor.

Anyway, why should the invention of a race be excused just because it happened a long time ago? How many birdmen were there on 2K1? And lastly, moving a character from 2K1 to GK is not something that should be done casually. They are different worlds with different styles. Migrating without considering the suitability of your character is an example of poor roleplaying.

Assertion.

Well, I am talking to hundreds of people, potentially. Some of them will have more experience with him than I. Hopefully they have the sense to recognise his faults, too.

Begging the question. Your comparison assumes the very claim it's supposed to support; that the event on which I'm judging him is not representative of his character.

Exactly. Your claim is predicated on the inaccuracy of your earlier assertions. If you want to argue that there are never any unsuitable characters then you cannot make claims about how the community deals with them. One or the other, dude. Choose.

The only people that use them interchangeable are those who don't know the difference between them. They are completely different terms. By your logic, no human can ever make an impartial judgement, correct?

I have already covered this point below. Layers of redundancy, dude.

Assertion.

According to him, he's been carrying that heart around for a while now. Do you have any grounds on which to say that he hasn't been outwardly playing the character?

You seem to think that these players act more cooperatively than competitively.

You clearly implied that to do so was not an example of roleplaying. Do you think you have the authority to make such a claim?

It is only a problem to those who get "bugged", right? I'm pretty sure the pirates aren't shedding any tears over it. If they were interested in being reasonable, cooperative roleplayers, they wouldn't be doing it.

Which are the "decent kingdoms"?

What exactly needs to be clarified? It all seems quite simple to me.

See, you are begging the question again.

I agree that water behaves the same between towns. In the example, you are the one arguing that it does not.

Everything is part of a system and some systems are simplier than others.

This community is simple enough for it to self manage the issue of races. It has not had trouble with races for this exact reason.
And yet I would find it difficult to believe you could devise a rule system to manage South Atlantic hurricanes. Lets keep the examples relevant maybe?
Of course, simular does not mean identical, thus its an issue of probability.
Inductive logic needs at least limited observations, and you have to demonstrate that the 'sound logic' is sound and fits the situtation.
I have already said your logic is 'generally sound' in my opinion but fails to account for local factors, which I already outlined.
'Both' would be more accurate.
I don't think that analogy fits - care to fill in the blanks with the actual case in point that you are referring to?
I already did that, and whereas your logic fails to describe the environment (you add a 'constant' of sorts for us being lucky and not yet having the problems you warn of) I have proposed an augmentation to your logic (the self regulation elements) that accounts for both your concerns and describes the environment accurately without relying on luck or other modifying constants.

Your only recourse, is to attempt to challange the logic of my countering argument as unsound or provide some missing evidence that supports the idea that your logic represents the environment more accurately than mine.

If you are just catching up that is why environmental observations have come into play.
Other than Shawn and Gryf and 'the demon' (all of which I have already explained) there are no other examples to even reference of these problems. My assertion is to that of an absense of something. The absense of something can never be effectively proven - you should know that - it can only be disproven by showing that such is not in fact absent.
Yet it does not accurately reflect the shape of the game world, and does not take into account specific local factors, such as the ones I outlined.
I can make a generalized argument about human nature that 'humans are violent' and assume that it is safer to walk empty dark alleys than in a crowded church. That does not mean it reflects all the local factors accurately to have any relevance.
We've all had the experience of reading (not seeing him create it) his backstory, but many of us have also had many hours of playing with the fellow to add to our experience. Can you say the same?
Let me add quotes:
I support "that just because people can does not mean they do", and that in this regard the community is self managing
By which I mean, just because something can happen does not mean it will, as there can be and actually are other factors, such as the self regulating ones I already mentioned.
Huh? Clarify?
The issue is not how grandiose a story is but if it negatively impacts it has on roleplaying within the community. One person at least feels it does, it bothered her, and she was asking if it bothers other people, who I assume based on their direct experience of playing with him, and the unique factors that went into the creation of that backstory, do not feel adversely affected by his backstory. Given that it is unlikely that anyone else would reproduce the unqiue factors that went into the creation of Gryf's story nor would they likely roleplay their characters as humbly in nature as Gryf has proven to over the years, it is unlikely that people would be more supporting of new 'outlandish' stories anymore than people were of the demon backstory.
Observation.
If it became a problem it would be a problem for more than just 5 players, not a case of people all having a great time with grand backstories living it up and having the party stopped by some cranky kingdom leaders.

you guys spent hours typing to argue over races in graal

go buy yourself mcdonalds you deserve an award