This answer won't discuss the policy or why we do it, that's well covered elsewhere. It will take the Good Subjective/Bad Subjective policy as gospel and explain how to give Good Subjective answers and Back It Up! specifically.
First, per How do we ask and answer subjective questions?:
Answering Subjective Questions
The blog post Good Subjective, Bad Subjective is the gold
standard for understanding how to make good on topic answers to
subjective questions. The heart of it is using the Back It Up!
principle, which states that you should only answer based on:
- Something that happened to you personally
- Something you can back up with a reference
Here, "happened to you personally" means real play experience. We
understand that some people believe that given their wide experience
in games they think they can tell someone the right technique or
system or solution to use for their particular need even though they
haven't done it themselves - but when everyone does that, it leads to
opinion-laden chaos. "Good Subjective" is constructive and is based
on experience and expertise. "Bad Subjective" is speculative and is
based on conjecture and opinion. Speculative answers will be
downvoted, commented on ("Back It Up!"), and/or deleted.
Second, per What are the citation expectations of answers on RPG Stack Exchange?:
What are the citation expectations for Subjective answers?
These are answers drawing on experience to suggest solutions to social
problems, best practices, GM and player techniques, etc. Our
foundational rule is that these answers must follow the Back It Up!
principle found in Good Subjective, Bad Subjective:
Back It Up! means that your answers must be based on either:
- Something that happened to you personally
- Something you can back up with a reference
This means when you provide a subjective solution you believe will
resolve the situation, we expect that you cite analogous experience of
how it has worked out in actual practice — your own experience or
someone else's. Describing how it worked out is more preferable to
describing how well it worked out: “these things happened, the
players felt this way about it” is preferable to “it worked well”, but
either is preferable to no citation of it actually being tried at all.
The experience does not have to be of the exact same situation,
although that would be ideal. Experience of similar or analogous
situations is also relevant and helpful, at least to the extent they
are similar/analogous enough to be relevant.
Not OK: “Try this” with no cited experience of how it works
Any of us can say “here's what I'd do” based on no actual experience,
or come up with something on the spot as an off-the-cuff idea, but our
site is not looking for this content. We want to collect
tried-and-tested solutions with well-understood outcomes. We don't
want your opinion; we want your expertise. If you do not have
experiences you can bring to the table in that particular case, do
not answer the question. Answers not doing so may be downvoted and/or
deleted. Untested homebrew is to be
avoided.
This doesn't mean that you should avoid indicating where personal
preference comes into an answer! An answer explaining "I do this
because X, but I've seen others do this other thing because Y, and
both work" can provide an excellent overview of a wide yet deceptively
narrow topic.
Nevertheless, answering “How do I handle this issue” with a
recommendation to do this, that, and the other without any experience
doing it yourself, or having seen it done, or having anything other
than “it sounds good in my head” to believe it would help the querent,
makes our site worse.
To apply the Good Subjective, Bad Subjective's guidance on
questions to answers as well, a good subjective answer should tend to:
- Explain “why” and “how”
- Be longer, not shorter
- Have a constructive, fair, and impartial tone
- Share experiences over opinions
- Back up opinion with facts and references, including specific experiences
FAQ
Q: So do I have to back up my answers to subjective questions?
A: Yes. You should expect your answer to be downvoted, commented, and/or deleted if not (or generate a question close if others are similarly undisciplined).
Q: Do I have to have personally done that exact thing?
A: No, your two options are experience or citing a reference. That could be a book, it could be "Matt Mercer did it in a session in this video and here's what happened..."
Related experience is fine, just clarify what it is. "Well, I did this in Call of Cthulhu 5th ed, you're playing 7th but it should apply" gives someone useful information to understand the applicability of your answer to their situation - certainly much more than a bare assertion of "Do this."
Q: Is "I've played that game for years" enough of a citation?
A: Not for most questions. Most good questions are specific, and "I've played that game for years" doesn't mean you have an actual good answer to something if you didn't do that during those years. "Here's how I'd throw someone out of my group" - if you've played for 20 years but never thrown anyone out of your group - is not helpful.
Q: But isn't this "proof by anecdote" and isn't that terrible?
A: Click the link to read Good Subjective, Bad Subjective. It has two lovely diagrams showing how knowledge is a continuum, and some things have purely objective answers and others don't.
We want to tap the expertise that lies beyond the pure opinion but short of "multiple peer reviewed studies prove it."
Because in RPGs - there aren't many of those, and this would be "read the rulebook to me Stack Exchange." That's not our desired scope, nor is it the scope SEs in general are limited to (again, as that article details).
Q: So if someone cites their experience it means they're automatically right and I should turn off everything else I know about how to behave on RPG.SE?
No. Adding personal experience doesn't guarantee an answer is a good answer. But having that additional detail lets others make that judgement.
Example Question - "How do I eject a gaming group member from my group?"
- Answer 1 - "Throw their stuff outside and lock them out." - Delete, not backed up.
- Answer 2 - "I've GMed a lot of games and I'd just throw their stuff outside and lock them out." - Delete, not backed up.
- Answer 3 - "Once we just threw someone's stuff outside and locked them out. They didn't come back so I guess it worked." - Backed up, terrible answer, downvote.
- Answer 4 - "My gaming groups have ejected people several times, here's how the different approaches worked in those cases. One group just threw someone's stuff outside and locked them out; they didn't come back but it broke some friendships and there was lots of dramatic texting afterwards, I wouldn't recommend doing it" - Winner winner chicken dinner. Backed up, sound answer otherwise, upvote.
See the difference?
