"Players who see it differently are simply wrong"

Question

Yes, that's what I read today in comments on an answer to this question. Again:

Players who see it differently are simply wrong

Someone downvoted me, based on the fact that his playstyle must be the only correct playstyle (tm).

The fact that different players in different campaigns might put a different weight on risk vs. reward (or malus vs bonus in that case) does not exist in his world.

Way to go RPG.SE, because that quote is from a nearly 100K rep user.

This user calculated that trading +2 to hit for +2 armor class is not worth it. Never. Anyone doing this is wrong.

The thought that in a different campaign, this may be well worth it does not even cross his mathematically inclined mind of average and default calculations. No. If you don't fit in the standard, default, average, vanilla textbook campaign:

You. Are. Wrong. Period.

You cannot play a siege campaign where not getting hit is better than hitting yourself. That simply cannot be. How dare you play a fantasy campaign that is not kicking in the dungeon door and rolling to hit for the first orc.

You cannot play a dwarven tank with the best protective shield he can get. Because that would not be optimized the way the min/max thread tells you to. And not being optimized would be wrong.

Could we please clarify (again) that there is no one true roleplaying style and that something that ends in "... depending on your playstyle" cannot be wrong as long as it's not against the rules?

Answer 1

Flag such comments for moderator attention and we'll take care of them. Comments are fragile, expendable things that we have few compunctions about deleting, and inflammatory ones have even less chance of survival than most when they fall under the gaze of the moderators.

Once flagged, it's best to disengage entirely. If you feel you must say something to halt a flood of argumentative comments, consider restricting it to simply posting the URL to “Can we affirm that RPG.SE embraces a plurality of playstyles?” as a reminder that speaks for itself. But it's best to just flag silently and walk away, since the temptation to “score points” with a righteous rebuttal is often very great, but neither productive nor actually feels good in the end.

Answer 2

"You are absolutely wrong."

"Am not!"

"Are too."

"You're criticizing me!"

"No I'm not. But you're absolutely wrong in all circumstances."

"Stop criticizing me!"

"I'm not. Just your wrongness. Your absolute wrongness."

(continue ad infinitum)

Look, here's the deal. There is not a black and white answer here. My interpretation of the shades of grey are:

1. KRyan is being uselessly stubborn. I know it's not your "intention" to criticize the playstyle or the person, but by continuing to repeat "I AM ABSOLUTELY RIGHT I AM ABSOLUTELY RIGHT YOU ARE WRONG" it sure starts to come off that way.
2. Nvoight is whining too much. So he thinks you're wrong. It's the Internet. Someone always thinks you're wrong. Flag his comments and move on. SevenSidedDie's answer is completely correct in its advice to you.

It takes two to keep an argument up like this. At any point on RPG.SE, when you find yourself repeating the same point, that is the Universe's way of telling you to stop so that mods don't have to intervene with what you're doing.

While KRyan doesn't represent the community, so turning his comment into a "the community" question is a little overblown, KRyan, you are very high rep and are quite fond of pointing out the greater responsibility that comes with powers on this site, and I think if you reflect on this and put someone else into your spot in this argument (like say any mod), you might be quite incensed at their behavior and be chiding them about how "we expect more from you." Something to consider.

Continued argument on the question or here on meta is inappropriate and will stop. Clearly you both have strongly held, well-reasoned thoughts on the subject. Therefore you should both answer the question and move on. Comments constructively pointing out areas for improvement in your answer should be read and either edited in or disregarded, and they will get reaped either way.

With that, this is starting to become disruptive to the site, and further arguing of the point here or on main will result in mod activity that the violator won't like. This also applies to anyone else trying to escalate this conflict (Yes you, MrLemon). Drop it.

Answer 3

I think my comment is taken out of context.

The context was a question of balance. Of numbers and of opportunity cost. It was not a discussion of playstyle or preferences or characterization.

This was, effectively, my claim:

The option under discussion is, 100% of the time, suboptimal. Anyone who thinks otherwise is mistaken about the effectiveness and the opportunity cost of the option in question. There does not exist any campaign, playstyle, or play preference in which this is not true, unless the rules are changed.

Certainly, that’s a big claim. Comments don’t leave room enough to more than assert it, and I don’t expect anyone to be convinced by me merely asserting it. That’s fine; I really was only explaining why I was downvoting: because I think one of the statements made was always, 100% of the time, bad, yes even then.

But that, large claim that it is, is still all that I said. I didn’t say, for instance, that anyone who chooses to take the option despite being suboptimal was wrong. I didn’t say it was wrong to use it, to enjoy it. I didn’t say that whatever playstyle or preferences that were being claimed as situations where the option was a good one were wrong or bad. I just said that, no, even in those cases, it’s still not a good option mechanically. I said that the statement that it was an optimal choice was incorrect.

And ultimately, the validity of my claim or the lack thereof is irrelevant to this discussion. It doesn’t matter whether I was right or wrong to think the option is always, yes-even-then, suboptimal: that opinion is not an attack on anyone’s preferences. The claims that I did so, that I was pushing my own playstyle as the only correct playstyle, are wildly unfounded and off-base.

The comments went back-and-forth too much; that was inappropriate, and they have been deleted as is appropriate when that happens. I apologize for not ending the discussion sooner, but I felt (apparently correctly, given this discussion) that my comments were not being understood.