Your Doing It Wrong Syndrome
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/Start Rant
Sure this could probably go in the general topic, but I guess It applies in other places too.
Where the hell did this "Your Doing It Wrong" syndrome come from?
On some games that only have one way to do something, sure I understand but lately (and increasingly frequently) on the MMO's , RPG's and even pen and paper games I play (So its not just CoA I see it happen); If I so much as not take the "Optimum" build or go for something slightly unusual, I'm thrown a ton of text on how its the wrong class, it doesn't fit (despite it clearly fitting) the concept.
For example (And don't take this as a dig Misa, its not :) ):
Doigan Kastoot. He is my Dwarven Wizard who focuses on Lore, History and research; but has a poor memory. Because of that I put points and feats (specialising) in Lore.
When I explained the concept to Misa when asked who Doigan was, I was told that it should be a Bard as bards are the loremen etc etc And that how can my Dwarf be good at Lore with no skill in Bard, somehow implying that skill in lore -has- to be linked to skill in perform.
Yet the obvious logic is that if someone is skilled in Lore, but not perform (and thus is a loreman of any class but Bard) then that person is knowledgable, not a performer. For example a Warrior who can identify any kind of weapon, a Teacher who can tell you of the world.
Just because Bards sing about all sorts, doesn't mean they are the 'best' Loremen (I knew one or two bards who sung about Gumpf and lies).
Same applies for my Pen and Paper game last week. I intentionally rolled a gimped Fey and the GM we had saw that and gave him challenges appropriate for it. Meanwhile the other three people sat around the table were forever bemoaning because my Fey was more vampiric than stealth..
Just…
WTF.
Its a RP.
/rant gotta pick up the kiddo from school.
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Golin Forkbeard was a warrior focusskilled in Taunt.
Not a class skill.
He was also telling horrible jokes to support his tauntin'.Should have I made him a barbarian because taunt is a barb skill?
Was I doin' it rong?
Well no, I had fun, others had fun with Golin, there is no recipe for a particular class, it's the concept that should fit.COming back to your point, a bard might have knowledge of a particular item because she's heard somewhere of that thing happening, a wizard could know of it because she's studied it.
The only thing that I don't get is how a loremaster has a poor memory. If he has a poor memory I would not put much points in lore no?
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I have a very poor memory, but i know an awful lot about specific things.
For instance, you can tell me five times in one day, that i need to pay a bill, go to the post office call so and soo, but i will totally forget, meanwhile, i have just created a fully three d model, to scale of a recently discovered dinosaur, using non uniform rational b-splines, rigged it using inverse kinematics, and then animated a ten second walk cycle and composited it into some footage of me throwing rocks at thin air. Using knowledge of methods and technologies i learned a while back, and some i even developed as i went along
I totally get this concept.
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It's not the perform skill and song that make the bards the typical lorists. It's their free feat Bardic Knowledge, giving them +1 Lore per level, reflecting their time spent adventuring, listening to stories, gathering information at shady bars etc.
Still, a wizard with high intelligence and Lore feats could match a bard's Lore, reflecting his time spent in his study and his superior intellect. Misa may have just meant that it's easier to get an incredibly high Lore modifier as a bard than as a wizard, if high Lore is what you want.
But all that aside, it's not like you must have a maxed out Lore modifier to roleplay a lorist. Lore is one of those skills that can never be translated perfectly into RP with PC's, and should be treated pretty light-heartedly (at least in my opinion). Would a high Lore modifier mean you, as a player, have to read thousands of articles on the FR wiki, to be able to RP the humongous Lore modifier? I doubt anyone thinks so, because everyone's here to have fun.
Like Meriomac Bruwbarrow, just to take an example, is a very taunting fighter (at least when my character has interacted with him). Does he have a very high Taunt score? I don't know and I don't care. It's a fun character whose characteristics shouldn't be ruined by minor technicalities like Taunt not being a fighter skill. Same would/should go for your lorist, I say.
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Mm, I was more or less hinting at the "Youre doin' it wrong" culture but those are good points.
There was a time when the "Youre doing it wrong" meme was funny, but lately I see it quoted in so many places (Steam forums, when chatting to other people) and not even just in games but real life. It seems to have gone from being a funny meme though, into a really serious thing.
I remember one work colleague being told she was "doing it wrong" despite the fact that her way was more efficient for her. She was threatened with sacking unless she adhered to the exact order her superior set out.
She won in the end, her Section manager was fired a month later :D
I do see it creeping into Arabel in places though, I think that might partially be down to the 'Pure Class' hype everyone is in at the moment, but I can see why too. Multiclassing is vewwy tricky. Get it wrong and you are boned unless you are willing to lose time by dropping down levels to retake, so in the end it becomes easier to stay Pure.
@Stappit; I forgot about the Bardic Knowledge Feat… might sneakily take a level of bard just for it.
But yeah a Lore Wizard isn't that far a jump from plain wizard, especially as the High Intelligence works for both very well. And in Doigans case, as a Dwarf it would be too weird to have him as a very gifted spellcaster, so It made more sense for him to be more of a Researcher Wizard.
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Its the world of warcraft mentality…
Where in order to succeed a raid, you have to look at every player in it and tell them exactly what build to use and what abilities to use in what order and when...
That seems to be the key of a successful raid in that game and as a result people have taken the habit of trying to get everyone to play the same thing, in the same way as everyone else.
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I would say bards have more general knowledge of all sorts of lore than wizards but wizards are more likely to know specifics about things they have studied. A warrior can be a lroemaster no less than a bard. It is definately not a class issue.
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what he has said
When someone (no, not only me) suggests something half of the comments are about what do they do in a different way instead of talking the effects (balance or other) of the actual suggestion.
Is this the same syndrome what you speak of, or do I get you totally wrong?
AronFF
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One of the biggest insults, imo, for people really dedicated to their RP is to tell them how to play. JUST DON'T DO IT.
I can recall a time sitting around a PnP group I was playing with for a short time. The rules lawyer of the group, an odd fellow who was obviously lacking in certain social skills, told me he hated the way I played my character and said it was a bad character. Just the look I gave him alone made him apologize quite profusely the next day. (The discrepancy was I was playing a traditional elf. Had stumbled onto a set of armor that, despite my super high spellcraft, he was unable to identify. After putting it on, it had changed him into a drow. He freaked out over it when apparently I should have been super stoked at the awesome item I had)
Weather it is your vision or not of the way things should be, it doesn't matter. What matters is THEIR view. Let them do things their way. This goes for alot of things.
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You really shouldn't name names in a thread of this type.
It's unecessary and your point could have been relayed without it.In this instance you're doing it wrong. :oops:
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@Fur:
You really shouldn't name names in a thread of this type.
It's unecessary and your point could have been relayed without it.In this instance you're doing it wrong. :oops:
Well, because I know Misa was only ribbing me over it I thought it would make a good example…
:roll:
Edit: Also funny how no one even cared up until you. A problem is only a problem until someone makes it one. Yay.
When someone (no, not only me) suggests something half of the comments are about what do they do in a different way instead of talking the effects (balance or other) of the actual suggestion.
Is this the same syndrome what you speak of, or do I get you totally wrong?
AronFF
Kind of it basically stems from my way or the highway kind of thing.
What you stated is just people saying "Well this is how I would do it", but the trend these days (And it probably comes from the younger generations), it goes from "this is how I would do it" to "do it my way!".
I already see it happening in my 3 year old daughter, yet its not because of myself or her mother as we are forever letting her come up with her own opinions and ideas on how to do things but just this afternoon she came back from school and immediately told her mother off for making sandwiches different from how she did at school with her teacher.
@ Archangel Perhaps the paragraphs above are why PnP groups are getting thinner and thinner on the ground. I have a couple of people like you do, they've already had one of our players give up DMing because of that kind of thing.
Lastedit: Oh and Fur my general point of the OP was just..
Really where did this My way or the highway social nature come from? I can't be getting that old surely. I'm only almost 26 but I never remember growing up and finding people this aggressive in general with regards to how anything is done.
Teachers don't seem to teach any more; just lecture. Doctors god doctors are the worst, my mother in law was told by her first doctor that she wasn't clinically depressed and that "shes not the doctor, he is. Go home make a cup of tea." despite another two older doctors classifying her as a serious case. Or how people can read or hear things that aren't being said.
Some people will say its 'just the times' but people just seem to be getting ruder, more impatient and less understanding.
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Well fair enough. But sometimes when names are named in threads of this sort things can degenerate swiftly and flame wars erupt. That was my point, no offence intended at all.
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It sounds like you're making a big deal out of something that isn't a big deal. If you don't want to hear what other people have to say about your build, don't tell them about it. In any game.
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Also, on CoA the lore skill just lets you identify items, and is used by dms when you roll for certain things.
Thats it. All the 'lore' your character knows, is learned in game, unless you apply to know something obscure, like the exact nature of the planes, or who runs the sixth layer of hell.
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@AWESOMEMAN:
It sounds like you're making a big deal out of something that isn't a big deal. If you don't want to hear what other people have to say about your build, don't tell them about it. In any game.
Half Message Harry :lol:
Again like my last post' Its more a notation on peoples behaviour in general. Not just in games.
Also funnily enough, the whole "Don't listen if you don't like it" is probably part of what fuels this ignorant society of "Do it my way".
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Well if my way is better than yours then there is no reason why you should not do it like me. After all, I have obviously gained a better understanding of the subject which allows me to improve the performance, compared to your method. Do you want to be ineffective? What is the point of doing things if you are not doing it the best way possible? You will lose out to the competition!
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I jest.But I suppose it might be part of the individualist/elitist mentality of the modern capitalst society (see, I managed to get politics involved!) where you optimise or fail. I usually prefer flavoured characters with flaws and differences (even thought the mechanically optimised ones are nice to bring for quests).
I do see your point though, and I sort of agree. But I guess I'm with golw on this one. If you're satisfied with your choices, there is no need to get critique on them or discuss them in any great detail. You'll be good at lore even if you're not the best in the world but at the same time you'll be highly skilled at magic, vastly much more so than any bard. So in that sense you win anyway.
To answer some slightly related topics above:
- Dwarf is the best (lore) race. (Skill affinity: +2 lore!!!)
- Bardic knowledge is only useful for pure or near pure bards (in a low-level environment) since its +1 lore/level of bard and not +1/level. You're WAY better off as a pure wizard (always). See, I'm telling you to not "do it wrong" again! I'm doing cirlces.
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Well if my way is better than yours then there is no reason why you should not do it like me. After all, I have obviously gained a better understanding of the subject which allows me to improve the performance, compared to your method. Do you want to be ineffective? What is the point of doing things if you are not doing it the best way possible? You will lose out to the competition!
lille often says silly things, but today he speaks truth.
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You all forget the very basic principle. You're doing it wrong. Play an elf :P
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You're still doing it wrong. Dwarves are always right. :P
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You're doing it wrong.
So?
It would be better if you did this and that.
Yeah, so?
You'd get more awsomeness out of it.
So?
That class isnt the best for this.
So?
You'd get better results if you did it this way.
I dont want to do it that way, I want to do it this way.
But-
But what?
But-
Ah shut up. I'm having fun like this and if I want advice on how to play something, I'll ask for it. Really I will. Because I love RPing things in a good way. But for now, I wanted to play this for my concept and its what I'll do because its fun for me. I like the challenge it brings. So there is nothing wrong with it.