8
\$\begingroup\$

I asked a question about out-of-game ways to help with choice paralysis. It now has 14 answers, and at least 3-4 of them have solutions that a) contain something I will be using with my players, and b) are, in my biased opinion, "good" answers. Usually whichever one fit both of those criteria would be the one I accepted, but in this case there's multiple.

I now have no idea how to choose an official answer.

Is there some unspoken guide on RPGse about picking an answer when there's lots to choose from? Does one generally go with the community and (if it was on my shortlist anyway) select the highest upvoted or is there some other preffered methodology?

Incidentally, this is possibly the best kind of problem to have :D

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • 10
    \$\begingroup\$ With 4 good answers, roll 1d4 and see which one to accept. This is RPG.SE, and we use funny dice. :) \$\endgroup\$
    – KorvinStarmast
    Jan 11, 2018 at 21:47
  • 20
    \$\begingroup\$ So... you have analysis paralysis about picking the right way to solve analysis paralysis? \$\endgroup\$
    – Philipp
    Jan 12, 2018 at 16:05
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ @Philipp It's really funny that you say that because I was talking about this question to a friend and they pointed that out to me and I straight up had a cartoon "..." moment where I stared into the middle distance and rethought my life choices. They had a good laugh about it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alex
    Jan 12, 2018 at 16:21

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
16
\$\begingroup\$

Usually the accepted answer is to mark “this fixed my problem”. So, try your favourites out in practice, see what you find, and if any one answer is the one you go with that solves it, accept that one. (If any go untried, well, luck of the draw.)

If your findings are that an answer gets 90% there, but you need to do something extra to make it fully work at solving the problem, I'd suggest accept that one and modify it to reflect your findings. (Consider this to be helping others in a similar position. When you revise the answer, it may help to think about it as talking to past-you who still hadn't tried this.)

If you find that no one answer does it, or a combination of answers are necessary, I would invite you to post an altogether new answer sharing with us what you did, and accept that. If you utilised other answers' methods in your own answer, you can attribute those linking to the other answers.

\$\endgroup\$
8
\$\begingroup\$

Everything doppelgreener says in their answer is perfectly correct. Those are all good solutions. Here's one more:

Don't accept any. If you feel like accepting one of the four would lend too much weight to that one over the other three, just don't do it.

In that case, given that you've indicated four that you'd all give a check-mark to if you could, I would suggest that you, as a courtesy, make an edit to include such information at the bottom of your question post. Something like

I struggled a bit and just can't accept any one answer: Alpha's, Bravo's, Charlie's, and Delta's [link each] really are all good and helpful enough that I'd accept any of them if the other three weren't also present. So thank you, Alpha and Bravo and Charlie and Delta, for helping me sort this out. And you, Dear Reader, if you've gotten this far, I'll beg one last favor of you: give a look at all four of those fine answers.

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I would prefer they pick something if there's an answer that solved the situation. At least one answer had to work, and if multiple answers needed to be combined they can provide an answer that combines them. The accepted answer helps out as a guidepost, and if the problem was resolved, people will benefit from a guidepost showing what resolved it. It's hard to have "too much weight" when that one was the answer that solved it — the weight it may get is exactly the weight it deserves at that point. \$\endgroup\$
    – doppelgreener
    Jan 12, 2018 at 16:50
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ @doppelgreener But if there were multiple solutions that worked equally well and would be good for different situations within the space specified in the question, accepting one is weird. In that case I think it's better to let voting sort it out (assuming the 4 good answers or whatever aren't being drowned out by a highly-upvoted wrong/terrible answer). \$\endgroup\$
    – Please stop being evil
    Jan 13, 2018 at 22:38
  • \$\begingroup\$ @thedarkwanderer In practice: the guy has 2 players. At most, 2 full solutions will work. (If he has to try a third solution, that means a previously-tried solution didn't work.) This means he can accept one of two, or leave an answer saying that in practice he had to do two different things and explain what went on when the first method didn't work for the second player and why the second solution worked. If such an answer is left, pointing to the original answers, readers get added context on when each answer ought to work. Accepting no answer and adding no new one means we miss out on that. \$\endgroup\$
    – doppelgreener
    Jan 15, 2018 at 10:08
5
\$\begingroup\$

The correct answer should be the one which solved your problem.

So I would recommend to wait with accepting until you tried the proposed methods in the real world. Then accept the answer which proposed the method which was most successful.

When that method was mentioned by multiple answers, then it's basically about which of them you considered the best written one.

\$\endgroup\$

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .