Dulrik wrote:
grep wrote:
The idea that PC's shouldn't be snowflakes and should be happy playing out as anything less than what they find incredibly fun to try is a malignant elitism that deserves to be crushed.
1. I completely disagree that you have to be a snowflake to have fun.
2. It's the snowflakes that are elitist.
3. Don't copy my lines.
3. Sorry, it was a good line. Imitation and flattery and all that...
2. I like to settle for an idea being elitist, not an entire person for having it.
1. Sometimes, a designer is faced with the possibility of capitulating to fans, players, or standards that he or she may not agree with. I guess the question is whether people having fun is fun to you, and then looking at how to not get in the way of that happening.
patrisaurus wrote:
Galactus... I'm not sure that word means what you think it means.
e·lit·ist wrote:
adjective
1.
favoring, advocating, or restricted to an elite.
"the old, elitist image of the string quartet"
synonyms: aristocratic, snobbish, snobby, superior, supercilious;
Code:
'Elite \['E]`lite"\ ([=a]`l[=e]t"), n. [F., fr. ['e]lire to
choose, L. eligere. See Elect.]
1. A choice or select body; the flower; as, the ['e]lite of
society.
[1913 Webster]
2. See Army organization, Switzerland.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
Aristocracy \Ar`is*toc"ra*cy\, n.; pl. Aristocracies. [Gr. ?;
? best + ? to be strong, to rule, ? strength; ? is perh. from
the same root as E. arm, and orig. meant fitting: cf. F.
aristocratie. See Arm, and Create, which is related to
Gr. ?.]
1. Government by the best citizens.
[1913 Webster]
2. A ruling body composed of the best citizens. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
In the Senate
Right not our quest in this, I will protest them
To all the world, no aristocracy. --B. Jonson.
[1913 Webster]
3. A form a government, in which the supreme power is vested
in the principal persons of a state, or in a privileged
order; an oligarchy.
[1913 Webster]
The aristocracy of Venice hath admitted so many
abuses, trough the degeneracy of the nobles, that
the period of its duration seems approach. --Swift.
[1913 Webster]
4. The nobles or chief persons in a state; a privileged class
or patrician order; (in a popular use) those who are
regarded as superior to the rest of the community, as in
rank, fortune, or intellect.
[1913 Webster]
Looks pretty spot-on to me: the idea that a certain ideas are okay and certain ideas are not based on the measuring stick of certain people and tradition and not, in fact, on Rule 0 means that some people's ideas of interesting or fun concepts are invalidated by the opinions of those in positions of creative power. Some people have enjoyed lenient interpretations by immortals, however, and probably haven't ever felt the uninviting assault of so many bricks in so many walls.
patrisaurus wrote:
Pathological snowflake players (those who -only- choose to play characters that bend and break the normal expected boundaries) are at the very least selfish and probably do in fact fit the definition of "elitist" as they seem to believe that their minority view of the way the game should be played is superior to the vision of the game admin and the rules accepted by majority of the playerbase.
If these threads have shown us anything, it is that the majority views of the playerbase might not necessarily be the official nor the most repeated lines of a few over-indulged trolls. Just look at what happened in this poll: the feature Dulrik was most excited about adding to the game has become the least-favored option in this poll at the time I checked.
As for snowflakes, I'm willing to suppose that my definition of snowflake is probably different from the pejorative term used by other people. The Bilbo and Aragon references are fitting, but it is also important to consider that Aragorn rolled human and somehow decided that he'd be a shiny human or something by going with the Dunedain sub-species and being the last of the line of Isildur. Bilbo might have been the better example, but even he in practice gets to live longer and boast a special background and precedents when compared to others of his kin. They both get to act unlike their typical counterparts, which means going against their help files. They just happened to do so in a way that told a story, but they're still bending the rules by being somewhat singular. If all of their kin were just like them, neither Bilbo nor Aragon would have been able to have the story they did. They had to be special for it to work. QED snowflakes.
Maybe I should've said that each PC should be a protagonist? Snowflake seems to be too charged a word with the old guard.