You know, I'd never heard about the basket weaving issue before, but if it came up in a game I was running or someone insisted on mocking the basket weaving skill over and over, I'd probably slap him down as a GM in some way.

One issue is you end up with a big hole in the side of your ship and limited materials to fix it. A guy who had basket weaving as a skill might look at the materials you had and make a latticework of thin metal bands that was actually quite strong based on his basket weaving skill, which would serve as the basis for an efficient patch to get you home.

Another issue might be a guy designing a new type of ship using limited materials for maximum efficiency might end up talking with a guy with the basket weaving skill who actually has a lot of experience making strong, durable, load bearing 3D frameworks with minimum resources, and the two end up working out a framework for the hull that is strong, durable and very efficient.

I'm citing those as oiff the top of my head examples of making the skill useful, but if someone kept bashing that skill I might toss incidents like that in just to shut him up.

Quote from: Mr. GC;589641Even normal enemies have a very high chance of killing such characters, so it doesn't matter.

And so it makes a big difference if you're a badly played Rogue or a well played Wizard.

No, it doesn't matter whether a badly played Rogue or a well played Wizard.  It only matters in the one specific playstyle your group prefers.    

The DM sets the challenges, the players react to those challenges. A badly played Rogue can have easy, moderate, hard, or impossible challenges.  A well played Wizard can have easy, moderate, hard, or impossible challenges.

A badly played Rogue and a well played Wizard adventuring side-by-side can have problems.  Those problems largely disappear when it is acceptable for the party to split.  Rogue goes to handle ABC easier challenge, Wizard goes to handle XYZ harder challenge.  

Every possible character concept in the game, even the most gimpy of gimpies, can be challenged in a manner appropriate to its ability.

What you have really been saying this whole thread is that you have a preference for a particular playstyle and do not want to play under different playstyles.  Perfectly fine position to take.  The passion with which you take such a position is fun; I'm enjoying it.

Quote from: Old One Eye;589654No, it doesn't matter whether a badly played Rogue or a well played Wizard.  It only matters in the one specific playstyle your group prefers.    

The DM sets the challenges, the players react to those challenges. A badly played Rogue can have easy, moderate, hard, or impossible challenges.  A well played Wizard can have easy, moderate, hard, or impossible challenges.

A badly played Rogue and a well played Wizard adventuring side-by-side can have problems.  Those problems largely disappear when it is acceptable for the party to split.  Rogue goes to handle ABC easier challenge, Wizard goes to handle XYZ harder challenge.  

Every possible character concept in the game, even the most gimpy of gimpies, can be challenged in a manner appropriate to its ability.

What you have really been saying this whole thread is that you have a preference for a particular playstyle and do not want to play under different playstyles.  Perfectly fine position to take.  The passion with which you take such a position is fun; I'm enjoying it.

Absolutely wrong. Care to prove it? If yes, I can easily demonstrate how weak parties lose to even weak encounters. If no, stop talking.

Quote from: Mr. GC;589656Absolutely wrong. Care to prove it? If yes, I can easily demonstrate how weak parties lose to even weak encounters. If no, stop talking.

Is this one of those one liner 'fuck you' comments you are hoping to snag other people with?

But please do demonstrate this.  It would cement the fact that the party's performance and individual character performance are entirely dependent on the GM, no matter how HARDCORE those players think they are.  It's just 'Mother may I', all the way down.

Because I can turn around and easily demonstrate how a 'weak' party can manage even 'tough' encounters.  Protip:  Engaging in combat and killing everything isn't the only metric for 'winning'.

Quote from: StormBringer;589657Is this one of those one liner 'fuck you' comments you are hoping to snag other people with?

But please do demonstrate this.  It would cement the fact that the party's performance and individual character performance are entirely dependent on the GM, no matter how HARDCORE those players think they are.  It's just 'Mother may I', all the way down.

Because I can turn around and easily demonstrate how a 'weak' party can manage even 'tough' encounters.  Protip:  Engaging in combat and killing everything isn't the only metric for 'winning'.

It is an invitation for him to prove it or to go away. Now you're not him. Would you like to prove it? If so, bring it.

I can already tell you what will happen though. The party will be restricted to weak classes. The enemies will also be restricted to weak classes. Said enemies will still rofflestomp the party... even if they play well. If they play badly (say Rogue scouts, Fighter thinks he's a tank, whatever) it will be even worse.

But by all means, come at me. Prove me wrong. If you can. Do you accept the gauntlet?

Quote from: Mr. GC;589623If you wanted to bring up competitive games you'd bring up the relevant ones. You know, the skill based ones, not just pass gear check to win.

WOW is where the action is for raiding.  PVP, you got a point; PVE, no.

QuoteThat said, you're right that outside of tabletop people are much less stupid about effective play as they don't have these bizarre blocks against it. But that's the only thing you were right about.

No, the common tabletop RPG user does not give a shit about that, on both sides of the screen.  This is your disconnect; you think it matters, and we know that it doesn't.  That's not the driving motive to play TRPGs, and it never has been.

QuoteIn order to continue with your whole making effective D&D characters is stupid spiel you must first explain why any real person would not choose to be good at a job that has a high chance of killing them and yet continue doing that job. As you will be unable to do so, and roleplaying is about portraying a fictional character as if they are a real person, you must then accept that real roleplaying is optimizing.

No, I need do no such thing.  I do not accept your premise, and I rebut your presumption.  The common TRPG user is there to socialize--it is a pastime more than anything else--and not to win a contest.  Your position is, far and away, in the minority and the history of the business as well as the hobby demonstrates this handily.

QuoteThat said, I have players to play with. The problem is the good ones are so extremely rare.

I disbelieve you.

Quote from: Mr. GC;589646Is this a serious question?

Yes.  It was.  Thank you for the answer.

Mr GC dared people somewhere to come up with ONE instance where basket weaving could actually be a skill relevant to the D&D game and provide a valuable contribution to the party's actions in the game. I'm just too damn lazy to fine-comb the whole thread to find it back, but without further ado, I propose to you... the Woven Dungeon.

The PCs are getting involved in the search of people that disappeared in Ptolus.

After investigating the whereabouts of these different individuals who have different ways of life and means of income (some of them delvers, some of them servants for the noble houses of Ptolus, some of them working for the courts, etc.) they determine the one common element between all these individuals: they have all been dealing with a strange merchant family going by the name of the Panienari (think the fantasy equivalent of the Giovanni, or an ancient Italian Renaissance family dealing with specific crafted goods, cunning, political etc).

Osman Panienari is the patriarch of the house which specializes in the production of woven goods, particularly baskets of the most exquisite and exotic nature. A visit at the Manor House of the Panienari family reveals it is in distress: there is something wrong going on with the household, but they are not open about it, and don't want any visitor stepping beyond the meeting hall of the manor.

Showing some skill in the craft of weaving, and basket weaving in particular, will grant a greater amount of trust amongst the Panienari. They are in such distress, however, that any diplomatic attempt is unlikely to make them helpful in any way, since the revelation of their secret would probably mean the end of House Panienari.

Osman Panienari and his daughters are in fact practioners of magic and experiment with their craft and various dweomers of ancient, forgotten origins. One such experiment allowed them to create a sentient woven art piece made of different dried leaves of Black Lotuses and even more exotic fabrics. This basket, as it were, is a potent artifact that sucks souls into its inner core which replicates the reality it makes contact with. It grows and becomes like a tumor slowly growing within the manor, catching individuals, objects, sucking into its self entire rooms which it then recreates in its own psyche, creating a "dungeon" as it were constituted of all the woven strands it is made of and growing as it learns and gains more and more conscience of the unknown universe it inhabits.

To solve the dire situation in which House Panienari has put itself, the adventurers have several means, amongst which they could offer themselves as victims to the creature and be sucked by it to then make their way into the Woven Dungeon to find the souls which have been taken within the artifact and liberate them by then undoing the core of its making, undoing the strands as it were, to break its inner core being, or could create their own versions of the creature empowered by the Panienari family so that one would come in contact with the other and create an alternate, compound reality allowing the PCs to travel from one to the other without the deleterious effects of the possession that occurs if they are just taken by the artifact as its prisoners.

Along the way, the PCs will have to confront ancient spirits of the fabrics that made the original basket, confront souls that are too far removed from reality to be effectively saved, and battle all manners of sentient dust and other miniature threats (now gigantic, as they are adventuring through the beast) that have been elevated to various degrees of conscience by the malvolent will of the artifact they came in contact with.

Conclusion: here is a scenario where the Craft (Basket Weaving) skill could have an important impact on the game, from gaining access to the Panienari mansion in the first place to understanding the problem, potentially dealing with it by crafting the PCs' own artifact, confronting the woven tumor itself and understand the features of the Woven Dungeon within... here you go. I just created a scenario where Craft (Basket Weaving) is actually relevant and could significantly help the party.

Hey, Mr. GC? You fail at imagination, dude.

Quote from: Benoist;589664Mr GC dared people somewhere to come up with ONE instance where basket weaving could actually be a skill relevant to the D&D game and provide a valuable contribution to the party's actions in the game.

I somehow doubt Mr GC has actually ever met a single player who took basketweaving as a skill.

Mainly because it's not offered as a skill in D&D...

The term was taken from an essay in FATE 2E entitled "How does basketweaving help my swordplay?" And seems to have been entirely distorted by people who didn't read that essay, and are looking very hard for some "group" to rally against, because ...life's no fun without invented antagonsists. Might as well call Basketweavers terrorists and get it over with.

Another idea someone shared on facebook: "Party raids kobold warren in a reed-choked swamp, finds thousands of copper pieces, has to get the loot back to town. BAM." - Steve S.

Another one of mine: "Likewise, putting some item back together using the Basket Weaving skill to solve some riddle or open some area in a dungeon."

Another one: constructing a woven net to stop the progression of some growing threat in the dungeon, an ooze of some kind that cannot be stopped by any other means but has to be contained, etc.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;589662WOW is where the action is for raiding.  PVP, you got a point; PVE, no.

Apparently, you don't understand what competition is. Competition is competitive. Competitive would be something like Starcraft if you're going to use a Blizzard example, but never WoW, or any MMO.

QuoteNo, the common tabletop RPG user does not give a shit about that, on both sides of the screen.  This is your disconnect; you think it matters, and we know that it doesn't.  That's not the driving motive to play TRPGs, and it never has been.

Correction: The common tabletop user is constantly shielded by Ignoratio and therefore thinks it is unnecessary. The moment D&D is played instead of pretend, bodies hit the floor.

QuoteNo, I need do no such thing.  I do not accept your premise, and I rebut your presumption.  The common TRPG user is there to socialize--it is a pastime more than anything else--and not to win a contest.  Your position is, far and away, in the minority and the history of the business as well as the hobby demonstrates this handily.

I disbelieve you.

You offer no proof then? Very well, then you have no further words to say to me.

Quote from: Benoist;589664Mr GC dared people somewhere to come up with ONE instance where basket weaving could actually be a skill relevant to the D&D game and provide a valuable contribution to the party's actions in the game. I'm just too damn lazy to fine-comb the whole thread to find it back, but without further ado, I propose to you... the Woven Dungeon.

Except for that part about me not saying that. Yeah, see how my posts don't mention literal basket weaving and specifically say this isn't about literal basket weaving?

You keep chasing them shadow demons (lowercase, not proper name).

QuoteHey, Mr. GC? You fail at imagination, dude.

Hey, Benoist? You fail at reading comprehension, dude.

It has started to rain and the character weaves a simple hat from reeds to keep dry.

The lair of the Black Dragon is in a swamp and the dragon has lived there so long that the local vegetation has become somewhat resistant to the Black Dragon's acid. The best armor that you can use against its breath weapon can be woven from the reeds and grasses, it might just save your life.

A Paladin is tested by their deity. Manifesting as an old woman struggling to fix her thatched roof, the deity asks the passing Paladin for help. If the Paladin ignores her and does not assist in fixing the thatched roof of her hut, then they are not charitable enough to be in service to that god as a Paladin and stripped of their powers.

Quote from: jeff37923;589680It has started to rain and the character weaves a simple hat from reeds to keep dry.

The lair of the Black Dragon is in a swamp and the dragon has lived there so long that the local vegetation has become somewhat resistant to the Black Dragon's acid. The best armor that you can use against its breath weapon can be woven from the reeds and grasses, it might just save your life.

I'm going to stop your sperg tangent to LOL.

Dragon breath is weak, and black dragon breath especially so. If you're going into a fight with a black dragon, and are worried about "its breath weapon" on any level, you have far, far worse problems... like perhaps, the actual kind of basket weaving, causing your party to suck so badly the dragon's weakest attack by far can kill you.

Quote from: Mr. GC;589684I'm going to stop your sperg tangent to LOL.

Why? Are you getting overwhelmed by the number of examples that demonstrate how wrong you are?

Nope, but I would like people to stop sperging about literal basket weaving when that's never been what this is about and so people are having to do some fucking contortionist bullshit to try and find a position that makes them seem correct.