66
A frame challenge is where an author answers a question in a wholly different way the querent never asked for, or potentially expressly forbade, but in a way the author feels will actually solve the problem. (Or otherwise improve the querent's life quality or prevent them from making some terrible mistake.) This is as opposed to answers which answer the ...
58
You should not answer in comments. Not partial answers, not full answers. Not "leads on" an answer. Not "I would answer but I'm tired/just woke up/am drunk so I'll just say this..." Not answers that you think aren’t good enough to post as answers. Not little helpful tips, not helpful suggestions, not useful anecdotes. These will be deleted. Answer in ...
48
If it is really a case of asking about the solution instead of the problem, it's OK to leave comments of the form "Can you state the real problem you're trying to solve so we can suggest alternate solutions?" or similar requests for more information (if it's relevant/needed).
However, in some cases there is already a solution domain chosen and that's OK. ...
45
If you play RPGs, you're an expert and welcome.
The line "Asking Expert questions, getting expert answers" has a particular history dating to when it was just the original three sites. "Expert questions" was important because they didn't want to teach askers the basics of how to program. Being an expert meant that you already knew how to program and what ...
38
1. State what you want to achieve, and why you want a review.
In order to give you feedback on whether your material is functioning well at its purpose, we need to know what that purpose is. Please also tell us if there's anything you're particularly worried about or looking to improve or fix.
As you share your homebrew, tell us:
What it should accomplish, ...
37
Some resources: Challenging the frame of a question.
First, we require that people Be Nice. Insulting other play styles isn't being nice.
Second, if you are going to dissent in an answer, make sure to restate your assumptions. People may not share (or agree with) your model of gaming. Being clear in why you are answering in that particular way.
Third, ...
36
This is much like the questions we get on religious sites about whether one sect should be excluded or given preference to another. The SE policy on this for religious sites is that all sects are created equal for the purpose of the site and if you really can't get on board with that, then you can find the door.
That said, one of the things that the ...
36
They're not the same
This is a common equivalence that I've seen applied too, but it's a false equivalence. The idea seems to be that every GM could rule differently, so the answer is as diverse as the number of GMs in the world, so it must be primarily opinion-based, right?
But that doesn't quite pan out in practice in regards to how to use our Primarily ...
33
In my opinion:
Answers should actually answer the question. This is non-negotiable.
The real value of multiple answers is different perspectives.
I mean, really: five or ten answers just rewriting the same post are pretty worthless! All this really does is make sure the top 1-2 answers keep getting all the upvotes while all the other ones languish (because ...
32
If, after well articulated research, you can reasonably suggest there's something missing for what's being sought in the originating system, and the querent doesn't explicitly forbid homebrew, you can answer with a "Your system doesn't support your request, but here is some homebrew I wrote, and here's how it played out in a game I ran."
That last bit is ...
30
I'll step in and provide some background here -- the reason why you see things that resemble "partial answers" in other Stacks is because troubleshooting is an iterative process. "Try turning it off and on again" is not an answer -- yet it may not be possible for anyone to answer the question well without the querent being guided through troubleshooting ...
30
Stack Exchange is a rigorous Q&A community with a mission to build up a reliable knowledge base for future readers. It's sort of like Wikipedia in that regard. To accomplish this mission we need our answers to be clearly backed up so visitors can verify our answers for themselves. Without any citation we are just random people on the internet and our ...
29
General RPG discussion forums
Roleplaying Games SE's main chat room
It's not actually a forum, but can sometimes be useful for questions that need quick back-and-forth discussion to sort out.
Pros:
Populated by the same experts as the main RPG.SE site
The same community standards of behaviour hold in chat as on main
Questions in chat aren't restricted to ...
29
We don't have a local style guide because we don’t have a house style to encourage.
There are a few common practices that we inherit from a few different sources though, which are practical matters rather than matters of taste/style. You’ll see these mentioned as ways to fix or improve posts, in the course of the usual feedback posts receive, but they’re ...
28
We close Question A as a duplicate of Question B only when all of the following is true:
It's the same question, or Question A is already covered obviously as a subset of Question B. Obvious here means I can tell at a glance it's there.
Question B has an obvious answer to Question A. Obvious here means I get a straightforward answer without hard searching — ...
26
Only specific kinds of alignment questions are on topic.
There are a variety of kinds of alignment questions, some of which can be constructively handled by our site and some that can not. There's not really a need for special rules for alignment questions; these are covered by the usual close rules (too broad, opinion based, etc.) but it can be hard to see ...
23
No really, we mean it.
When, in the course of natural events (i.e. not searching specifically for it) you see signs of a poorly edited-in edit, correct it.
And regarding d7's claim about the flamethrower squad being called to deal with threads...
I can only allude to the Dragonriders of Pern, burning Thread.
23
The policy as stated is pretty clear. But.
Generally the policy is not enforced. Enforcing it capriciously is not appropriate and having a blanket "no swearing" policy is wrongheaded at best.
However, there is a much bigger issue here. Editing posts for language without bothering to edit the rest of the post. I don't care if we're going to edit posts for ...
23
People come here with questions (often from Google) to find answers. They shouldn't have to sort through a pile of "Edit", "Edit 2" amendments to work out what the answer is. There should be a straightforward question, and a straightforward answer.
Consider the case of an answer saying something like this:
The answer is A.
Edit: ...
23
In the interests of visibility, I'll say I'm (part of) the reason comments are being deleted.
In my year on the site I've flagged comments ~230 times for deletion. I'd estimate based on my "helpful" rate and the number of times I'm flagging as "obsolete along with successors", that I've probably triggered the deletion of over 500 comments.
Often the mods ...
20
After discussion, the mods believe we should stick to the standard SE "no expletives" policy to promote a friendlier and more civil site.
As on English.SE, exceptions can be made for actual technical terms. If, as seems oddly likely, there is "An Apocalypse World move called Fuckbunny" then that can be used in the technical sense in a question. Or a direct ...
19
I admit, I'm a long time lurker and a relatively new joiner. That said, I think pragmatism is an operative word. Unfortunately, this also introduces individual judgment, cultural variance, and a number of vagaries influenced by demographics.
While I'd like to avoid a deep dive into all that is profanity, I would like to point out that there is nuance here ...
19
If someone hasn't explained their downvote, chances are there's nothing much helpful they can say, or their comment would be the kind that historically causes problems. Or, they just haven't gotten around to it yet.
We do leave comments when we can suggest an improvement, provide constructive criticism, or when we can ask for clarification. (Those are in ...
18
We are all roleplayers, and there is a lot of room in this tent for the many ways we play. We have no need for comments that suggest there is one universal "true" way to play RPGs, disparage other playstyles as "wrong", or erase our or others' preferred ways of playing by asserting or implying that they don't exist; regardless of whether the motive is ...
18
This topic was initially addressed in the beginning days of the site under How much subjectiveness is OK? but our understanding of this issue and best practices surrounding it have changed somewhat so this is the new normative guidance on RPG.SE and subjective questions.
Some, but not all, subjective questions are on topic, and there are rules you need to ...
18
Community Wiki seems pointless.
After reading through the history of CW on RPG.SE, and the blog post about CW, it seems like there really isn't much use for Community Wiki here. The main arguments that I have for this actually come straight from that blog post:
If a question is valuable enough that you believe it belongs on the site, chances are you don't ...
17
A tidy site is safer from trolls
Another, way less obvious reason to ruthlessly remove comments used for anything other than managing Q&A posts: innocent but chatty comments would provide “weeds” that give cover for trolls and other bad actors to better blend in with our good users.
By contrast, removing everything that's not focused on improving Q&...
17
I suggest the guideline of asking yourself this question: to what extent is correcting the errors itself solving the problem they're facing?
If you're substantially solving their problem by correcting them, then post an answer and include the corrections as part of that answer. (Make sure you answer the question independently. Answers that solve just a ...
16
Yes
Questions can be clarified, but new questions aren't clarifications and should be posted as separate, new questions.
The correct course of action is to revert to the last version that wasn't a different question. (Further edits may be appropriate to clean up, clarify, or whatever that revision still needs that didn't happen because of the new-question ...
15
(This answer is not about the linked post(s), it is in general)
The "expert" terminology is from an earlier rev of Stack Exchange, where Stack Overflow and the other sites tended to talk about "expert" users, and have since moved to terminology like "professional and enthusiast" or similar.
So no, you don't have to be an expert to use the site.
Asking
...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible