I don't want to derail another thread, but I'm coming up short on the term 'basket weaver'.  It's being used as a derrogative, and seems directed at 'lesser gamers', but that's all I'm gaining from the context.

I found this, via Google, which may be a definition of it:

QuoteOkay, here. Now, is it a commonly held property in RPG's that, if you have a lot of skill in a particular area, you can use that to navigate nearly all challenges that meet you?

Is it about exploring a world which is actually defined by your skills/choices. Ie, increase your diplomacy skill and the world actually changes so that now diplomacy will get you through challenges more than it would have before. Where there wasn't an option to diplomatically get through before, one now exists because your PC has high diplomacy.

Likewise, if you have high basket weaving, you may be able to basket weave your way through most challenges.

Well, no. But we like to say 'Well, it should be about the GM spotting what the characters good at and giving them the opportunity to shine'. But I think the basket weaving example shows the similarity between CRPG and RPG. Most GM's aren't going to work basket weaving into the solution to challenges. Their world is going to have a central focus on challenge resolution, combat for example, and the further away you are from that skill wise, the less you'll shine.

So, perhaps, 'basket weaver' means 'player who would place points into useless skills like basket weaving'?

It brings up a side curiousity - how would you deal with deliberately non-optimal choices in your games?  E.g. character comes from a long line of basket weavers?

I'd probably advise the player that I'm not planning on touching on this topic in my campaign, and I'd make them reiterate to me that it won't wind up being a good investment.  But once everyone was fully informed, I think this would be the end of it.

I'd also give XP any time the player found creative ways to work it back into the game.

OTOH, I may well give the characters each free skill points in whatever non-useful background skills they wanted.  Something like four would do the trick, I think.  And so long as it was offered to the group, even if they didn't all take it, I think maybe the group as a whole goes unharmed.

I don't think of any points as "wasted".  Even if they are not "incredibly useful in every situation".  

If I have a "combat monger" character who dumps a bunch of points into a bunch of combat skills, but it's a diplomatic mission, I consider those just as "useless" as the "basket weaver" example.  

On one of our con games, we presented an "engineer" character for a nautical game.  We had one person complain that the character didn't have "any useful skills".  Yet another player praised the character as a fun, unusual choice that really gave him an enjoyable roleplaying experience.

One person's "useless skill" is another's "enjoyable roleplaying experience.'

In Sixcess, we try to mitigate this situation by allowing skill and attribute pairings that may seem unusual to enhance the roleplaying experience.  In fact, we've had players pair "Intellect" and "Lore" to make an attempt to hit a critter in a "sensitive area" based on his knowledge of the critter's weak points.  

That being said, if I have someone dumping a lot of points in to "Chess" and "Elven Cuisine" I'm apt to say, "those may be difficult to work into a typical roleplaying situation...."

Quote from: mcbobbo;587783I'd probably advise the player that I'm not planning on touching on this topic in my campaign, and I'd make them reiterate to me that it won't wind up being a good investment.  But once everyone was fully informed, I think this would be the end of it.

I approach my games as a GM a little differently. I start with a pitch of the setting and genre, but then have players create characters, and tailor the actual game to those characters.

For me, the choices a player makes in skills/traits/abilities etc is in a way a list of things they'd like to do in the game. So if a player takes "mountainclimbing", I'll provide opportunities for that to happen. As long as it fits the genre and tone I'm going for, I see a large part of my role as GM is to provide the experiences that the players will find most interesting.

Quote from: Ben Rogers;587800In Sixcess, we try to mitigate this situation by allowing skill and attribute pairings that may seem unusual to enhance the roleplaying experience.  In fact, we've had players pair "Intellect" and "Lore" to make an attempt to hit a critter in a "sensitive area" based on his knowledge of the critter's weak points.  

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.  MiniSix has a similar optional concept, IIRC.

Quote from: TristramEvans;587805I approach my games as a GM a little differently. I start with a pitch of the setting and genre, but then have players create characters, and tailor the actual game to those characters.

For me, the choices a player makes in skills/traits/abilities etc is in a way a list of things they'd like to do in the game. So if a player takes "mountainclimbing", I'll provide opportunities for that to happen. As long as it fits the genre and tone I'm going for, I see a large part of my role as GM is to provide the experiences that the players will find most interesting.

Do you have input in the process if/when it doesn't match your pitch?

It varies a lot, especially by system, but imagine you pitching a 'heroic' and the player wants to play a villian.  What's your schtick?

QuoteIs it about exploring a world which is actually defined by your skills/choices. Ie, increase your diplomacy skill and the world actually changes so that now diplomacy will get you through challenges more than it would have before. Where there wasn't an option to diplomatically get through before, one now exists because your PC has high diplomacy.

This sounds terrible.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:
1)Let players choose their skill set based on the challenges they face.
2)Let players choose the challenges they face based on their skill set.

Do these two things and it will improve the relevance of PC skills to the challenges they face (if that's a priority for you). The behind-the-scenes changes smacks of railroading to me.

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If this is what basketweaving refers to (it doesn't sound right based on the way it's been used in discussion) I've had cases where similar skills (in this case brewing) became useful to the campaign. I basically started a tavern that expanded to become sort of an adventuring guild.

There's also the question of the resources spent. Skill ranks are significantly less important than class, level, feats, etc. in 3x. Having only spent skill ranks in this I wasn't really penalized in the role of combat monster (I was actually somewhat minmaxed outside of that).

Quote from: mcbobbo;587783I don't want to derail another thread, but I'm coming up short on the term 'basket weaver'.  It's being used as a derrogative, and seems directed at 'lesser gamers', but that's all I'm gaining from the context.

I found this, via Google, which may be a definition of it:



So, perhaps, 'basket weaver' means 'player who would place points into useless skills like basket weaving'?

It brings up a side curiousity - how would you deal with deliberately non-optimal choices in your games?  E.g. character comes from a long line of basket weavers?

I'd probably advise the player that I'm not planning on touching on this topic in my campaign, and I'd make them reiterate to me that it won't wind up being a good investment.  But once everyone was fully informed, I think this would be the end of it.

I'd also give XP any time the player found creative ways to work it back into the game.

OTOH, I may well give the characters each free skill points in whatever non-useful background skills they wanted.  Something like four would do the trick, I think.  And so long as it was offered to the group, even if they didn't all take it, I think maybe the group as a whole goes unharmed.

This is actually remarkably close to the actual definition. Seriously, I'm surprised and a little impressed.

The term originally came about because in response to some optimizer joke about being willing to optimize anything someone optimized basket weaving... which is as far away as you can get from something that'd have any practical application in a tabletop game (spare me the pedantry of Shrink Item basket hats to block AMFs, thanks).

Someone that deliberately chooses to focus on things that are not and cannot be relevant is a basket weaver. The term has since involved to include a specific subset of player that refuses to learn how to play the game effectively and insists everyone be as ineffective as them.

You can identify these many different ways. Here is a non exhaustive list:

The player blames the DM for anything bad that happens to their character even though the problem is that their character just isn't capable of preventing bad things from happening to them.
The player complains when their allies are able to successfully do something that they are not and insists this is unfair.
The DM will not allow any player to be more relevant than the Fighter, or any weak class (and as the Fighter is entirely irrelevant, so too is the entire party).
In and out of the game, the person pointedly avoids saying anything of substance. Classics include pretending things are equally valid when they are not, "There are no worthless classes only worthless players" and many other variants that can all be summarized as a standard basket weaver dodge since if forced to say something concrete they will be wrong 100% of the time.
The player complains when their character is easily killed by something they should have easily been able to handle.
The character is flat out incapable of doing whatever it is they are supposed to do and when this is pointed out to them their response is to try and claim the DM will protect them... which reminds me of that Ignoratio song.

The easiest identifier though is to simply look for a situation in which the player is not very good at doing something.

The ones that learn how to get better at it are good players.
The ones that accept they suck at it and move on are not basket weavers.
The ones that blame everyone but themselves for this? Basket weaver.

Because the basket weaver stance is inherently inconsistent, incoherent, and often contradictory (as the basket weaver still wants to succeed and win D&D, despite having no actual ability to do so) the only way of dealing with them is to just ignore them. Play the game, do not lower the difficulty in the slightest (and if your non basket weaver players want it raised, do so immediately). The result? Basket weaving characters start dying early and often. The players will get mad, blame everyone else but do not enable them. Instead continue on playing D&D.

If you can catch this early it's very easy to fix... generally after the first or second time at most they'll realize something is wrong and take steps to fix the problem.

If not... if they've been enabled a while, it will take much longer to correct their bad habits and bad play. It is still very possible though. That Temporal story with the Truenamer from a while back was a great example of how you can fix both a basket weaving player and a basket weaving DM, much to the joy of all involved.

Quote from: TristramEvans;587805I approach my games as a GM a little differently. I start with a pitch of the setting and genre, but then have players create characters, and tailor the actual game to those characters.

I once used a questionaire to each of my players when starting a 7th Sea game to great effect.  I tailored the game both to their character choices in skills and other elements -- and also to the responses that the players made to the questionaire.  It was probably the most successful game -- in terms of players telling cool stories of previous game events -- that I've ever run.

Quote from: mcbobbo;587813Do you have input in the process if/when it doesn't match your pitch?

Oh, yeah, I do final approval on all characters. If something seems out of place, I'll ask the player what their intention is, and then discuss why I think it might not fit the game. But I like to give players complete control over any choices regarding their characters, as I assume complete control over the rules and rulings as a GM.

 Luckily I've had good luck with groups and we're all pretty much on the same page most of the time. We tend to discuss genres and the themes of the games we're going for quite a bit.

Quoteimagine you pitching a 'heroic' and the player wants to play a villian.  What's your schtick?

Basically "not in this game". I'm not a big fan of antiheroes or villains as protagonists, and I'm upfront about that from the start with my players.

Quote from: Mr. GC;587815The term originally came about because in response to some optimizer joke about being willing to optimize anything someone optimized basket weaving...

Actually, that's false. The term originally comes from Fate 2nd Edition.

Quote from: TristramEvans;587827Actually, that's false. The term originally comes from Fate 2nd Edition.

Is this the part where you start talking about something irrelevant?

Here, let me go ahead and stomp out that pedantic bullshit since this thread is actually useful:

Basket weaving, in the sense it is being used in regarding D&D came about...

Quote from: beejazz;587814The behind-the-scenes changes smacks of railroading to me.

It isn't a one-to-one corellation, though.  If the PCs want to go off the rails, having a nearby village (that didn't exist a minute ago, and you had to invent it on the fly) host a basket weaving contest, might be a good diversion.  Gives you a chance to think of what to play out next...

Quote from: beejazz;587814There's also the question of the resources spent. Skill ranks are significantly less important than class, level, feats, etc. in 3x. Having only spent skill ranks in this I wasn't really penalized in the role of combat monster (I was actually somewhat minmaxed outside of that).

Yeah, that's true.  And I think I'd adapt my advice a great deal based on the amount of investment.

I hate optimisation becuase its highly unrealistic and becuase I love role playing.

So I create a character and if they end up withe lots of points in basket weaving then so be it, if they for example come from a long line of basket weavers.

No problem with that. You have to have options. Options enable roleplay. Roleplay is good.

Now deliberately optimising basket weaving is just as faux as deliberately optimising everything but spending enough points to be a master weaver that is fine.

I dislike 'professional adventures' far more than I dislike basket weavers, plumbers, horse salesman and egyptology professors.

I ran a Zombipocalypse game one shot where the PCs were all workers on a tube train. I used a modded oWoD system. Each PC rolled a job. We had 2 office workers, a plumber and a teacher. They created their PCs as realistically as they could. The tube (underground train) they were on got caught in a temporal rift, triggerd by an NPC on the carriage, they all wake to find themselves and a handful of others on the crashed train,. Then the Zombies show up.
I didn't tell the players what was coming but there was a definite desire to get the usual combat skills if they could trying to justify it through being in the TA, being an amateur boxer, a martial arts fanatic etc ..
They eventually got the idea and pulled that back to norm levels.

Quote from: mcbobbo;587836It isn't a one-to-one corellation, though.  If the PCs want to go off the rails, having a nearby village (that didn't exist a minute ago, and you had to invent it on the fly) host a basket weaving contest, might be a good diversion.  Gives you a chance to think of what to play out next...

Improv is improv, and I won't argue that it shouldn't become necessary. But I prep to minimize the need for it. And again, I'd set up a few things happening in the town and let the party select, rather than making the town about one thing that a PC happens to be good at.

Ultimately it's just a difference in how we'd run it.

QuoteYeah, that's true.  And I think I'd adapt my advice a great deal based on the amount of investment.

Yep. With the Denners, I'm sure the outrage is predominantly over the fighter given the significance of the cost associated with class. I doubt any would actually bitch about my brewer if I brought him to the table.

As for the imagined personality of someone who invests in basket-weaving... *shrug* They're prone to hyperbole and ad-hominem. It's not actually worth addressing.

Quote from: jibbajibba;587840I ran a Zombipocalypse game one shot where the PCs were all workers on a tube train. I used a modded oWoD system. Each PC rolled a job. We had 2 office workers, a plumber and a teacher. They created their PCs as realistically as they could. The tube (underground train) they were on got caught in a temporal rift, triggerd by an NPC on the carriage, they all wake to find themselves and a handful of others on the crashed train,. Then the Zombies show up.
I didn't tell the players what was coming but there was a definite desire to get the usual combat skills if they could trying to justify it through being in the TA, being an amateur boxer, a martial arts fanatic etc ..
They eventually got the idea and pulled that back to norm levels.

Sounds like a hoot.  Did they know ahead of time that things would go zombie on them?

I did this with a d20 modern game, but mine was more of a bait-and-switch.  They made a scientific/military team, and thought they were going into space.  Through a mishap, though, they wound up in RIFTS.  At the end of the adventure, I gave them all two free levels, and we opened up the fantasy classes and other options.  I said time was passing and they could tailor their characters to the setting.  Worked pretty well, and made for some 'organically grown' characters.