A lack of reward is not punishment [Archive] - Page 2

Corneel

2018-05-12, 06:04 AM

Would it change your mind to find out that "milestone' predates tracking XP (from the players point of view)?:

"Yes, although handled differently. Fighters went from flunky to hero to superhero. We didn’t track our experience points as is done now. Dave simply told us when we had transitioned from one level to another. I do not know if wizards and clerics had different levels of ability or not." (http://shamsgrog.blogspot.com/2009/05/q-with-greg-svenson.html?m=1)
Not really. I'm not an originalist or even that attached to the D&D and I'm certainly not the type of person that thinks that because the founders of something did it it's automatically awesome. I'm pretty European in that regard. :smallwink:

Milestone leveling just works well with certain types of campaign. For example, I mostly play Pathfinder and longer, more complex story arcs, so it´s quite easy to drop XP and GP and move leveling up, as well as handling WBL, over to milestones. My players will generally know what those milestones are, which actually speeds up the game because all involved want to reach the next one asap (ex: After you cross the swamp and reach the castle, after you finished your quest at the castle...)
Yeah, that's more or less what I was thinking of in terms of were it would work. Longer, more plot driven story lines/adventures, where leveling milestones can be mapped to actual story milestones while respecting a certain regularity (in terms of gaming time) in the intervals between milestones. I feel it would still take away a tool from the GM to encourage certain types of behaviour and a more immediate measure of accomplishment from the players.

I think that one of the better ways to handle XP* I've personally experienced (heh) is actually in a CRPG, namely Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. You get XP for accomplishing missions (or little milestones during longer missions, like getting inside the building where the McGuffin is, locating the McGuffin, beating the guys that also want to steal the McGuffin, bringing back the McGuffin to your boss). You can get extra XP for accomplishing the mission in a clever/better way (like NOT killing any people during the mission since that would arouse suspicion). And of course there are side missions. It encourages playing to the strengths of your character and not just murderhoboing your way through it (even though that falls a bit apart in the last chapter of the game).

*Though not leveling since it's based on WoD, so you buy advancements with XP.

Pelle

2018-05-12, 08:47 AM

For what it's worth, as I've said in a few places previous, I actually agree with Tanarii. In that style of game, and arguably even in other styles of game, giving XP only to players who attend the session should not be counted as a punishment. The part that I don't agree with is that there is a "way it's supposed to be" and that any variation from that is perforce an emotional decision based on unhappiness. There are, regardless of whether we call it "punishment" or "reward" or "none of the above, multiple acceptable ways to handle character advancement. All the eye-poking is unnecessary.

Allright, sorry for jumping on you. I didn't see the reference to players being unhappy that they have a lower level character as eye-poking, since that is the core of why people feel like they are punished.

I agree more and more with Tanarii here. Punishment is not the correct word to use. If the group has agreed together on which rules to use for character advancement, what to give xp for (finishing story archs, killing monsters, exploring, solving mysteries, or whatever), who gets it (characters or players, absent or attending), and the social contract, then you can't really say that "the DM is giving the absent players a punishment". First of all, it is the agreed rules that is followed by the group, the DM is impartial, and second it's just the consequences of the rules. You could maybe colloquially say "absent players are punished by the rules", but that is not the same as saying they are getting "a punishment".

Tanarii

2018-05-12, 08:57 AM

You could maybe colloquially say "absent players are punished by the rules", but that is not the same as saying they are getting "a punishment".
But the problem is, even that's not right, unless the rules or the house-rules involved are intentionally being designed to create a negative association between two things in order to actively discourage it.

It's not enough to say "the rules intentionally create a positive association between action A and reward A, so any not-action A may result in a negative association as a consequences because of a lack of reward A, and therefore it is a punishment." That statement isn't actually describing a punishment, because of the lack of intent, so it's wrong.

Talakeal

2018-05-12, 10:41 AM

Question, do the D&D rules ever specify whether it ismthe character, the player, or,both that need to be present to get XP?

For example, by RAW, if Bob's rogue is off scouting and the party is ambushed and the party deals with the encounter before the rogue can get back, but Bob is still sitting at the table watching the whole thing, does the rogue get XP for the encounter?

Likewise, if Bob gets a text and says "Crap guys, my wife has a flat tire and needs a ride home, Dave, play my rogue for me until I get back," will the rogue get XP for fights he participated in while his player was out dealing with real life?

Also, for the people who dont give XP to players who miss sessions, what level do you start new players at compared to the rest of the party if they join a campaign already in progress?

Koo Rehtorb

2018-05-12, 10:45 AM

Also, for the people who dont give XP to players who miss sessions, what level do you start new players at compared to the rest of the party if they join a campaign already in progress?

It depends on the system? I don't tend to play systems where starting people at "level 1" is an issue, though.

Edit - if I WAS playing modern D&D, for some ungodly reason, lowest level in the party -1.

Tanarii

2018-05-12, 11:52 AM

Also, for the people who dont give XP to players who miss sessions, what level do you start new players at compared to the rest of the party if they join a campaign already in progress?
Havent done it in 5e yet, but my knee jerk reaction would be to start them off at the bottom of the same Tier. So level 1, 5, 11 or 17. I know for a fact thay 5e can easily handle a range of player levels in the same Tier of play.

That said, as I said upthread, having a level 1 in a bunch of 4s or a 5 in a bunch of 10s might be a bit much. So probably it 2 and 6 in those specific cases.

Same for replacing dead characters.

Regardless, it seems like another one of a bajillion things to establish beforehand. Because player'll have their own feeling of whats right, and a single group of players campaign is its own monster that needs lots of things hashed out. This is just one more thing, like type of campaign, session frequency, how many months it'll run before it ends, characters that fit the theme, etc.

OTOH I know its still in vogue to sit down with your buddies and everyone makes whatever character you want regardless of theme and no discussion of how basic things work and play a random series of the DM making stuff up on the fly and calling it a "sandbox" until the campaign falls apart because someone started dating or work or kids or whatever. Been there, done that more times than I can count. ;)

Edit: meaning I've only once run a single group of players campaign for 5e once, and it only went to level 5 before the players turned into cereal flakes. (Pun intended.) Characters start at level 1 in Tier 1 sessions IMC.

EGplay

2018-05-12, 12:03 PM

Talakeal

2018-05-12, 12:23 PM

3.5 says characters (dmg page 36).

That is my reading of it as well.

So, imo, the DM denying a player XP because they had to miss a session is going outside the rules by denying the character XP, which does lend weight to the "punishment" argument. Of course, one could also argue that the DM is well within his rights to stuff the character into a convenient plot-hole as afaik the rules are silent about what happens to a character when their player can't be there.

Also when reading the section I noticed that page 41 says the DM should never use XP penalties (it uses the world penalties, not punishments) to try and correct problematic behavior, which this certainly feels like.

Tanarii

2018-05-12, 12:37 PM

Also when reading the section I noticed that page 41 says the DM should never use XP penalties (it uses the world penalties, not punishments) to try and correct problematic behavior, which this certainly feels like.
Without looking at the DMG and its context: Lack of gaining a reward due to natural consequences of the XP rules (character is is not there, therefore character does not get XP) is not a penalty.

I don't object to calling calling it a penalty to reduce XP that explicitly should awarded by the rules when the character is there and did the things, due to player out of game behavior, especially in the context of what you're saying pg 41 says.

I'm using character not there instead of player, because that's the context of your latest round of posts. The context of my OP was an assumption that player AND character are not there. It's a whole different beast if the player isn't there but his character is being controlled by another player/DM.

Talakeal

2018-05-12, 01:04 PM

Without looking at the DMG and its context: Lack of gaining a reward due to natural consequences of the XP rules (character is is not there, therefore character does not get XP) is not a penalty.

I don't object to calling calling it a penalty to reduce XP that explicitly should awarded by the rules when the character is there and did the things, due to player out of game behavior, especially in the context of what you're saying pg 41 says.

I'm using character not there instead of player, because that's the context of your latest round of posts. The context of my OP was an assumption that player AND character are not there. It's a whole different beast if the player isn't there but his character is being controlled by another player/DM.

Right, its a very muddy issue.

But I can easily see a DM making a rule that the character has to find an excuse to not participate any time their player is missing so that they don't get any XP their player didn't "earn", and in such a situation I think that would probably fall under using XP penalties to incentivize player behavior.

Lord of he Dank

2018-05-12, 01:12 PM

It just feels harsh calling it XP penalties. I know what you mean but I also like having a "base XP gain" for the character for just "existing" during a session. Keeps the group close-ish in level, especially in the beginning.

Blackjackg

2018-05-12, 07:34 PM

Question, do the D&D rules ever specify whether it ismthe character, the player, or,both that need to be present to get XP?

The answer to this question seems to be somewhere between "kind of, but not really" and "depends on the edition."

I've checked out the relevant sections of five different editions of the game--Basic (blue book), 1e, 2e, 3.5e and 5e. Most of them say that XP should be awarded to all characters that participate in a successful encounter, but they don't address the question of whether characters should be considered present if the player is absent. Of the five, only the 5e DMG tackles the question directly, specifying that "traditionally," one would not award XP to characters whose players were absent... but then turns around and says you could also do the opposite.

ETA: There are a few other variations between editions, for instance 1e specifically favored individual experience awards while 2e favored group awards and keeping everyone equivalent. But on the specific question of whether the player needs to be there, all the earlier editions were pretty vague.

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-12, 08:48 PM

I feel like noting, again, that tgere are two kinds of Punishment at play, and people in this thread only think one of them counts as Punishment. That's not true, but it colors their opinions.

Positive Punishment is usually what people think of when they say "Punishment." Ie, if you touch the wall, Jim slaps you in the face. If you fight the dragon, you'll get cursed. Positive refers to ADDING something bad to the person's life. A curse, pain, etc.

Negative Punishment is the removal of good things and/or the barring of receipt of good things. If you don't go to class, you can't get candy. That's a Negative Punishment.

I also had a powow with my local PhD, and the program she wrote for the hospital I work at. It explicitly mentions things such as:
Patients who don't attend groups may not use their points to obtain items from the store. (Items include things like coloring books, crayons, and candy. This is a kids unit.)
As a type of appropriate punishment for bad behavior. It also suggests not doubling a punishment. For instance, making them choose between not getting points or losing out on going downstairs for an activity.

By how this system works, (written by a lady with a PhD in behavioral psych and makes use of the title "Dr.") Being barred from XP gain is a punishment. And a doubled punishment because you also lose out on the game.

So...

Yeah, you can say it isn't Positive Punishment 100%. You're not inflicting something bad.

But it IS negative punishment, ie the removal/prevention of something good.

And again, intent doesn't figure in whether or not something is a punishment.
Stoves are incapable of intent.
A stove will still deliver a positive punishment if you touch it while hot, which will (unless you're unusually stupid) make you stop touching hot stoves. It's a punishment, and one that successfully changes behavior.
But no intent is involved, aa neither you nor the stove intended to burn you. Stove is literally incapable of intending anything.

Tadah.

Blackjackg

2018-05-12, 09:33 PM

Negative Punishment is the removal of good things and/or the barring of receipt of good things. If you don't go to class, you can't get candy. That's a Negative Punishment.

I don't think the issue is so much that we don't understand that negative punishment is a thing, it's that we disagree on whether someone not getting something automatically counts as a punishment.

There are lots of things I don't have. I don't have a pony. I don't have a Master's Degree in Spanish literature. I don't have an Academy Award for Best Costume Design. I don't have any of these things because I haven't done what is necessary to get them. My not having them is not a punishment, it's just baseline expectation.

The central question of this thread is what the baseline expectation for XP distribution is in Dungeons and Dragons, and it seems that the answer is "the expectation is different for players in different games." And that's fine.

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-12, 11:56 PM

I don't think the issue is so much that we don't understand that negative punishment is a thing, it's that we disagree on whether someone not getting something automatically counts as a punishment.
It's not always and automatically a punishment, no. But in the case that:
1. Attendance is expected of all players every session
2. XP is awarded at the end of each session

Then that would be NP.

There are lots of things I don't have. I don't have a pony. I don't have a Master's Degree in Spanish literature. I don't have an Academy Award for Best Costume Design. I don't have any of these things because I haven't done what is necessary to get them.
Reducto ad Absurdium doesn't help this point.
The argument is not that not receiving things you've done nothing for is punishment.
It's about losing an opportunity you would have otherwise had.
Not being able to show up to a secret meeting where all attendees received $1 million because you had no idea it existed is not NP.
Not being able to attend because your friend decided not to take you after you made them mad, would be NP.
There's a difference.

The central question of this thread is what the baseline expectation for XP distribution is in Dungeons and Dragons, and it seems that the answer is "the expectation is different for players in different games." And that's fine.
That is indeed fine. But the scenario as represented in the OP falls rather clearly into the NP box.

Of course, it's worth noting that someone feeling punished probably means that it's being received as one, and the answer is probably not telling them they're not being punished and by extension their reaction is stupid/wrong. That's just being a phallus about it.

Florian

2018-05-13, 01:48 AM

@ImNotTrevor:

The major flaw with the OP is a small and simple one: "give XP to players...". That's not correct. Characters gain XP, players hopefully gain knowledge on how to run their characters.

I actually feel that the whole discussion is a very 3.5E-centric one.

Looking at Chaosium games like CoC or Pendragon, where skills/traits have to be used to have a chance to improve, which ids not a given, I guess nobody will complain to have missed a chance at an improvement roll for not participating in a gaming session.

Likewise, AD&D featured class-specific XP bonus gain options that were based on "staying in class".

So, I feel that this has more to do with systems that completely use XP as a full in-game currency to get things done. Isn't it, for example, one of the most common house rules to drop the multiclassing XP penalty? At the same time, isn't it a common complain that gms rewarding "good roleplaying" are acting unfair?

@Corneel:

That's stuff I´d personally not like in a TTRPG. In a CRPG, the main reason to engage in multiple side quests and exploration is to gain XP and items quicker than by following the main quest, so you'll have a leg up when doing so. Being able to solve scenarios/quests in "better" or "more fitting" ways is heavily tied into replay value of the game, so you can take a lot of "shots" at it and test multiple ways at solving them. That's something that doesn't translate terribly well to TTRPGs.

Personally, I like systems that work with different reward/punishment mechanics. For example, L5R uses unconditional XP, but very conditional Honor and Glory values. XP/Insight Rank will always rise, you can´t do something wrong here, the other two behave according to the actual in-game choices made and can drastically rise and fall over time.

NichG

2018-05-13, 02:07 AM

That is indeed fine. But the scenario as represented in the OP falls rather clearly into the NP box.

What scenario? Going back and rereading the OP, it's extremely vague about what kind of game might be discussed. If anything, the implication was that the OP was talking about games where characters being different levels is normal (given that there was a caveat of 'If you have a specific situation where you want all your PCs to be the same level ...').

Pelle

2018-05-13, 06:18 AM

It's not always and automatically a punishment, no. But in the case that:
1. Attendance is expected of all players every session
2. XP is awarded at the end of each session

Then that would be NP.

I absolutely agree that not rewarding xp can be a punishment, but those two points are not universal assumptions.

Lorsa

2018-05-13, 06:41 AM

Sure. The game system can punish people. For example, it could deduct XP for taking certain actions, and make clear that the developer intent is to create an association between losing of XP and the action. Some game designers in the past have specifically written punishments into their system.

You don't have to deduct something for it to be a punishment. Denying something can equally much be a punishment (such as denying a child dinner).

But that's not the same as not getting the reward being a punishment. The intent is you do the thing, you get the reward. Not that you do the other thing, and you are penalized. They're typically pretty clear about this.

The difference between what is a reward and what is a punishment is quite contextual. Rewarding a group for one thing can be the same as punishing another group for something else. At the same time. It's not black and white in the sense of "when you are rewarding people, you can not be punishing people". One action can be both.

The badwrongfun & entitlement attitude is claiming that it is globally a punishment to not grant the system-specified reward when:
1) The system rewards for the player/character doing things in game.
2) The player (and we must assume the character) are not there to do the things in game.

That's not a punishment. It's a natural consequence.

The only one attempting a global claim here is you. I've always argued for a contextual view of the matter.

Okay, stop right here.

This is the kind of tortured logic which Tanarii, or any other person, would be right to be upset at.

The reason it's not punishment is because it is not the ones who hold the game who ascribe priority to work over game. The game does not make the decision "people who have jobs are punished". The people who have jobs and prioritize it over game decide to not participate.

That assumes that having a job is optional. Which, in many case, it isn't. The ones who hold the game know full well that those with jobs are unable to attend at a moments notice, and choose to use this system of reward anyway. That makes it, in effect, a punishment.

I absolutely agree that not rewarding xp can be a punishment, but those two points are not universal assumptions.

The original claim was "not rewarding xp can NEVER be a punishment". So if the argument disputes that claim, it is successful. It doesn't have to claim the opposite, that not rewarding xp is always a punishment.

Tanarii

2018-05-13, 08:36 AM

The original claim was "not rewarding xp can NEVER be a punishment". So if the argument disputes that claim, it is successful. It doesn't have to claim the opposite, that not rewarding xp is always a punishment.You are correct. It is entirely possible to make a house-rule in which not awarding XP is indeed a punishment. All you have to do is change the XP rules to intentionally deny XP for specific player or character actions (as desired), then tell people that's why you are making the change. Because intent to punish, to create a new negative association, is required for it to be a punishment.

And there are in fact some game designers that have even written xp denial punishments into their specific games. IIRC Siembieda did, but I may be misrecalling or misattributing due to feeling like he's an elitist One True Way to RP jerk who is bad at RPG design. :smallamused:

But neither of those are the context in which people saying things like 'I don't deny players who can't attend because work/family/emergency because that's unfairly punishing them'
are using the word punish. That's not punishment within the way the vast majority of XP systems work. Nothing is being intentionally denied. You just aren't there to be able to do the thing that gives a reward. It may be bad luck or it may be you chose to prioritize differently in cases where you can't be somewhere to do things that are awarded. Either way the other party (DM for example) isn't punishing you.

Quick example: if I miss a bunch of martial arts classes due to staying late at work, and therefore have not practiced enough and cannot pass my belt test, my teacher is not punishing me by not giving me my next belt. I just chose other priorities.

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-13, 09:58 AM

I absolutely agree that not rewarding xp can be a punishment, but those two points are not universal assumptions.
Thank you for pointing out why I wrote "In the case that." :P

You are correct. It is entirely possible to make a house-rule in which not awarding XP is indeed a punishment. All you have to do is change the XP rules to intentionally deny XP for specific player or character actions (as desired), then tell people that's why you are making the change. Because intent to punish, to create a new negative association, is required for it to be a punishment.
No it isn't.
Refer to stove example:
Stove is hot. (Not intentional. Stove is inanimate.)
Tim accidentally touches hot stove. (Not intentional, Tim isn't stupid.)
Stove burns the crap out of Tim's hand. (Positive Punishment. Also a natural consequence. Still Positive Punishment. It can be both.)
Tim experiences intense pain. (There's the association)
Tim decides to be more careful around stoves. (Behavior change.)

You can even unintentionally reward yourself, especially with things like Negative Reinforcement. (The removal/prevention of Bad things)
If you see Wanda coming, and you hate Wanda, so you go somewhere else to avoid seeing her, congrats! You've prevented yourself from dealing with Wanda. The relief you feel is Reinforcement. You've just trained yourself to be more likely to avoid Wanda in the future, even though that probably wasn't your intention at the moment. Still happens, though.

But neither of those are the context in which people saying things like 'I don't deny players who can't attend because work/family/emergency because that's unfairly punishing them'
are using the word punish. That's not punishment within the way the vast majority of XP systems work.
No, they're right. It's a doubled-up Negative Punishment.
1. Player loses out on the game. (NP)
2. Player loses out on in-game rewards (NP)

And before the counterargument happens, XP is a reward. I've not seen any examples where it wasnt, even in milestone levelling.
Do thing --> acquire boon
That's straight-out pavlovian Positive Reinforcement.
In D&D, Gold and Magic Items ALSO fit the bill.
For milestone levelling the Thing being Done is getting to a certain narrative point. Then they get rewarded with a LEVEL! (And all along the way with loot, too, for doing other things.)

Nothing is being intentionally denied.

1.Since the DM is not forced at gunpoint by the system to not give XP or to deny the possibility of the character being adopted for the night and rewarding XP for things done while the original player is absent, the DM is making a choice.

2. Intent is not relevant to a thing being a punishment or reward or not. Honestly, "I didn't intend to punish" sounds like some stuff I hear abusive parents say to the therapists when asked why they did abusive stuff. Not saying you're abusive, I'm not. But this is bad justification and has no bearing on whether or not the kid was punished into some bad behaviors.

You just aren't there to be able to do the thing that gives a reward. It may be bad luck or it may be you chose to prioritize differently in cases where you can't be somewhere to do things that are awarded. Either way the other party (DM for example) isn't punishing you.
DM makes the call, so yeah. DM is doing a punishment.

Let's confirm this real quick:
Tim can't make it because his kid left the stove on and he burned the crap out of himself on it. He's
in the hospital getting his 3rd degree burns taken care of.(#throwback)

DM says that's too bad that he'll miss out on the XP.

Greg offers to surrogate Tim's character so XP can be gained. "It's not his fault he's missing," Greg says, "and I'm pretty sure he'd appreciate it if we helped him out on this one. I'll record our session on my phone, too. So he knows what happened."

ENDING 1:
DM says: "No. We won't do that. He gains nothing."
Has the DM made a decision now?
In what way is it fundamentally different from just not doing this to begin with?

ENDING 2:
DM says: "Good idea, Greg. Let's do that."
OR!
DM says: "You know, the rules make me think he wouldn't be able to get XP still. Maybe we play something else for tonight or we all go see if Tim's ok after."
(Same questions as above, here.)

Quick example: if I miss a bunch of martial arts classes due to staying late at work, and therefore have not practiced enough and cannot pass my belt test, my teacher is not punishing me by not giving me my next belt. I just chose other priorities.

Actually, the teacher IS punishing you. He might not want to be, but that's the thing that's happening. Granted, he probably 100% intends to deny you the reward of a belt after seeing that dismal performance and likely tells you that you need to get more practice in before you can get your belt.

If it's outside of your control (you broke your leg) then the way to make it not a punishment is to give assistance. Perhaps by offering to stay a few extra minutes or schedule a belt review outside of the usual times. Or focus the belt review more on punches than kicks and keep the broken leg in mind.

You also might not care. That would mean the good thing you were gaining by working (money) outweighs the good thing you get from karate (sense of fulfillment?) and so the punishment is probably not going to do much. It still is one,

Tanarii

2018-05-13, 10:16 AM

A stove burning someone that touches it is not punishment. It is a natural consequence of the action. If that's how you're defining punishment, your definition is wrong.

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-13, 10:58 AM

A stove burning someone that touches it is not punishment. It is a natural consequence of the action. If that's how you're defining punishment, your definition is wrong.

Natural Consequence and Punishment are not mutually exclusive terms.

Did you stop reading there or have you just not been able to come up with a way for a decision to not be a decision yet?

Lorsa

2018-05-13, 11:40 AM

A stove burning someone that touches it is not punishment. It is a natural consequence of the action. If that's how you're defining punishment, your definition is wrong.

I have a couple of questions.

How come you believe intent is required for punishments?

Why do you consider a decision made by the DM to be a "natural consequence"?

What makes you so certain of your definition? What is your source? NotTrevor has posted theirs.

Koo Rehtorb

2018-05-13, 11:52 AM

A penalty inflicted as retribution for an offence.

Is, I think, the commonly understood definition.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/punishment

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-13, 01:16 PM

Is, I think, the commonly understood definition.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/punishment

Yes. For many, Positive Punishment is the only form. But the commonly understood definition is also not adequate, in my opinion. And it leads to misunderstandings like we have here.

That's the reason I advocate for moving towards the psych definition, since it's more robust and has clarification about type.

Frozen_Feet

2018-05-13, 01:29 PM

That assumes that having a job is optional. Which, in many case, it isn't. The ones who hold the game know full well that those with jobs are unable to attend at a moments notice, and choose to use this system of reward anyway. That makes it, in effect, a punishment.
Bull crap.

It took me a while to find the terms which apply: the reason why this argument exist is because you are conflating feedback and opportunity costs with punishment.

Tanarii is completely right: punishment is an intentional action. If you tried to make an analogous argument to yours in court (about your unemployed friends punishing you by holding the game when you are at work), you would indeed need to prove exclusionary intent. For example, a recording of your "friends" talking behind your back and saying "man, that person is annoying, let's hold games only when they can't come".

If no such intent exists, it boils down to a simple fact: work is optional. There simply exists an out-of-game web of rewards and punishments which exist to make you feel like you're forced to work. And these rewards and punishment usually exist on a higher level than those of a game, which is why the person working prioritizes them over a game.

Or, in simpler terms: work gives me real money instead of fake money of the game. Work punishes me with real misery instead of virtual misery of my game character. Hence, I choose to work instead of play, because the reward for work is greater than reward for playing, and the punishment for skipping work is greater than loss of skipping a game. Losing out on XP is an opportunity cost, not a punishment on you by your fellow players.

To argue otherwise is homologous to saying that those who win the first prize in a race are punished by not also getting the second prize.

---

Now back to feedback.

Feedback is the feeling, the emotion you feel in response to whatever action. This can be roughly divided into positive feedback, which encourages action, and negative feedback, which discourages it.

Unlike punishment, feedback does not require intent. It is solely reliant on the person's own sensory experience and internal reaction. When you touch a burning-hot stove, that's negative feedback through pain, not a punishment.

Rewards and punishments are intentional feedback. ImNotTrevor's categories are basically correct once you remember that.

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-13, 01:48 PM

Rewards and punishments are intentional feedback. ImNotTrevor's categories are basically correct once you remember that.

Intention isn't required for my definitions. And they function to explain behavior change.

They're also not mine. I'm reasonably certain the distinction was made by B. F. Skinner. You'll have to take it up with him. (Good luck, cuz he's dead.)

Corneel

2018-05-13, 02:08 PM

Intention isn't required for my definitions. And they function to explain behavior change.

They're also not mine. I'm reasonably certain the distinction was made by B. F. Skinner. You'll have to take it up with him. (Good luck, cuz he's dead.)
The problem is that your more functional definition as used in psychology is confronted with the terms as used in general parlance and usage (and even law). And while your definitions function to explain behavior change and to explain things in a psychological way, they don't help with apportioning the blame, which is what I feel this thread might be about...

Lorsa

2018-05-13, 02:16 PM

Tanarii is completely right: punishment is an intentional action. If you tried to make an analogous argument to yours in court (about your unemployed friends punishing you by holding the game when you are at work), you would indeed need to prove exclusionary intent. For example, a recording of your "friends" talking behind your back and saying "man, that person is annoying, let's hold games only when they can't come".

How is hosting a game when one person has work not an intentional act of exclusion? They know the person can not attend and choose to hold the game at that time. Why do you add this extra "talking behind someone's back" requirement for it to be an exclusion?

Now back to feedback.

Feedback is the feeling, the emotion you feel in response to whatever action. This can be roughly divided into positive feedback, which encourages action, and negative feedback, which discourages it.

Unlike punishment, feedback does not require intent. It is solely reliant on the person's own sensory experience and internal reaction. When you touch a burning-hot stove, that's negative feedback through pain, not a punishment.

Rewards and punishments are intentional feedback. ImNotTrevor's categories are basically correct once you remember that.

And as the DM choose this type of XP system, it is intentional feedback. How is something which is purposefully done by the DM not intentional?

NichG

2018-05-13, 02:27 PM

Lorsa

2018-05-13, 02:39 PM

NichG

2018-05-13, 03:00 PM

The system would reward characters with a high span of controlled damage output while simultaneously punishing characters who are focused on healing. Things can be both reward and punishment at the same time. That is, it can impose both positive and negative reinforcement. And since it is clearly made with intent, it fits into the reward/punishment picture.

This is missing the point that the P-reward/P-punishment status of this proposed rule would depend on external details such as 'is anyone playing a healer?', whereas it's status as a reinforcement mechanism can be separated from that.

If we want to discuss the rule itself (or the practice of denying XP itself), reinforcement is better terminology because it's stable across contexts and doesn't suffer from the association with intent.

icefractal

2018-05-13, 03:22 PM

Whether it's a "punishment" or not doesn't matter. The effects happen one way or the other, and you can decide whether those effects are good or bad. IMO, the latter, since I see two cases:

1) I don't normally miss games, but one time I had to work on the weekend, or was seriously ill*, or something else unpleasant happened. I'm already unhappy about whatever ate my weekend, so any negative effect in the game is just adding insult to injury. And even if it's only a minor difference, it will keep turning up (whenever I have to check whether I leveled-up when the others did, for example) and reminding me of the unpleasant time.

2) I can't reliably make the game, I've missed it repeatedly. So over time, I'll fall farther and farther behind, having increasingly less opportunity to contribute IC. Seems like this will lead to less engagement with the game and even more missing it in future. If the point is to gently kick non-reliable players out of the group, then fine, but otherwise this seems undesirable.

* Incidentally, any policy that encourages people who are sick and contagious to come to the game anyway is an ass backward policy. I would give people bonus XP to not show up when they're sick.

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-13, 03:38 PM

The term 'reinforcement' is better for the psychological definition anyhow, since that definition is concerned with the alteration of behavior rather than the social context, and it's pretty clear that the thing Tanarii is referring to is the social perception of someone meting out punishment. That is to say, with 'reinforcement' you can say without anthropomorphizing 'when the child touched the hot stove, that behavior was negatively reinforced' and you capture the idea that the behavior itself is the subject of the conversation. On the other hand, since the term punish means colloquially 'to impose a penalty upon', you're left with the awkward usage that the hotness of the stove must be imposing a penalty on the act of touching it - thus the tendency to see intent as relevant.

There's also the fact that 'reinforcement', by getting directly at alteration of behavior, is a more context-free term. For example, if we're discussing the practice of having XP be tied to in-game actions such as dealing death blows to monsters, it's pretty clean to say 'that's a form of reinforcement'. But if using the words punishment and reward, it's not cleanly either - that is to say, it would be considered a reward (positive reinforcement) up until the point comes when someone is caused by circumstance to be unable to partake of it e.g. by missing game, in which case it may well act as a negative reinforcement. But to say, because of something external to the thing itself the nature of that thing changes from 'reward' to 'punishment' suggests a semantic problem with those definitions that is likely to cause issues.

If you look at my first post I explain the 4 options.

Negative Reinforcement means to reinforce a behavior (make it happen more) my removing bad things.

Punishment is used when the stimulus/consequence makes the behavior happen less.

Positive/Negative refers to adding or removing good things or bad things.

Positive Reinforcement:
Do the thing, gain a good thing.
(When you push the green button, you get candy)

Positive Punishment:
Do the thing, gain a bad thing
(When you push the red button, you get an electric shock)

Negative Reinforcement:
Do the thing, habe bad thing removed/prevented
(When you press the yellow button, the shock stops)

Negative Punishment:
Do the thing, have good things removed/prevented
(When you press the blue button, candy stops being dispensed for 5 minutes)

And of course, I agree with the post above.

If the person receiving the consequence feels punished, the correct response is not to say they aren't punished and their feelings are wrong.

If I feel like I'm being punished for having a sick kid, I'm not unjustified for being upset about it. I'm 100% justified in being upset that none of my supposed friends threw me a bone on this one and instead opted to add insult to injury.

Now, again, for a game without a set party, this goes away.

For a game without per-session xp, this also goes away.

But if those two above are true....

NichG

2018-05-13, 08:52 PM

If the person receiving the consequence feels punished, the correct response is not to say they aren't punished and their feelings are wrong.

If I feel like I'm being punished for having a sick kid, I'm not unjustified for being upset about it. I'm 100% justified in being upset that none of my supposed friends threw me a bone on this one and instead opted to add insult to injury.

This is overly generous, I think. Of course, what people feel is real, but at the same time that doesn't mean that everything people feel is always justified.

Someone who feels that e.g. the universe is punishing them because they were burned when they touched a hot stove may experience a behavior change, but if they take the leap to assign blame to the universe rather than to their own behavior it's going to be a very unhealthy pattern to take up.

Since the colloquial use of the term punishment shares a lot of overlap with the term persecution, I can definitely see why Tanarii would be unsympathetic and generally miffed at things being called punishments (even if they technically are) if the overlap is being used to push an attack against their playstyle by exploiting that association and using it to justify a hostile stance. And there is some of that going on in this thread.

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-13, 10:26 PM

This is overly generous, I think. Of course, what people feel is real, but at the same time that doesn't mean that everything people feel is always justified.
I never said it was always justified. I said that telling them their experience is invalid is the wrong response.

Those are two different things.

Someone who feels that e.g. the universe is punishing them because they were burned when they touched a hot stove may experience a behavior change, but if they take the leap to assign blame to the universe rather than to their own behavior it's going to be a very unhealthy pattern to take up.
I think you're mixing the colloquial term and the technical term. Colloquially, most people don't associate burning yourself on a stove as punishment. Technically, it is still a punishment.

Since the colloquial use of the term punishment shares a lot of overlap with the term persecution, I can definitely see why Tanarii would be unsympathetic and generally miffed at things being called punishments (even if they technically are) if the overlap is being used to push an attack against their playstyle by exploiting that association and using it to justify a hostile stance. And there is some of that going on in this thread.

Is disagreeing with a particular behavior the same as attacking a whole playstyle now?

I haven't seen (then again I've not exhaustively read) anyone claiming that any XP system is explicitly wrong. (Though there was a lot of initial hostility to Milestone-based systems)

I know I've claimed that yes, given the parameters I outlined, denying XP would be a punishment and maybe not so great for players not actively deciding to skip.

NichG

2018-05-14, 12:52 AM

I never said it was always justified. I said that telling them their experience is invalid is the wrong response.

Those are two different things.

I think you're mixing the colloquial term and the technical term. Colloquially, most people don't associate burning yourself on a stove as punishment. Technically, it is still a punishment.

There are cases where I think saying 'your experience is invalid' is the correct response - that is to say, cases where the viewpoint underlying the experience-as corresponds to a harmful way of viewing the world. Someone who says e.g. 'the stove punished me when I touched it by burning me, what a terrible stove, I hate it' isn't going to be served by encouraging that point of view, even if their feelings are, presently, real. Correcting that viewpoint isn't as simple as saying 'you need to feel differently', but even starting to figure out how that viewpoint might be corrected requires being able to acknowledge that in this case they are in fact experiencing it wrong, or at least are experiencing it in a way that will cause them to continue to harm themselves.

Is disagreeing with a particular behavior the same as attacking a whole playstyle now?

I haven't seen (then again I've not exhaustively read) anyone claiming that any XP system is explicitly wrong. (Though there was a lot of initial hostility to Milestone-based systems)

I know I've claimed that yes, given the parameters I outlined, denying XP would be a punishment and maybe not so great for players not actively deciding to skip.

The general thread of the attack has been '(unlike rewards), punishment is wrong if it's done for something someone has no control over' with examples such as e.g. sick kids, mandatory overtime, etc. That's using the colloquial sense of the term since it conflates the experience of something as a punishment by the player who is not receiving XP (which is neither intrinsically right nor wrong) with the intent of the DM/rulemaker for it to act as a punishment in the conditioning sense (which would be wrong if done for something someone has no control over in the sense that it would be unable to achieve the ends of conditioning a change in behavior).

The reason I say it's attacking a playstyle is that there's a disagreement as to the relative importance of things such as balance/absolute equality among characters and players, which is definitely a playstyle issue. Heterogeneous games are a thing, games with distributed play opportunities are a thing (for example, I've been in a game that ran two sessions a week where you could attend neither, one, or both at your opportunity; and while XP was granted at the end of session, it was - intentionally - extremely heterogeneous in that campaign), and games where various permanent losses or missed opportunities are the norm are a thing.

Frozen_Feet

2018-05-14, 01:49 AM

How is hosting a game when one person has work not an intentional act of exclusion?

I already answered that: because it's not them who ascribe priority to work over game. They don't choose to exclude you, you choose not to attend.

They know the person can not attend and choose to hold the game at that time. Why do you add this extra "talking behind someone's back" requirement for it to be an exclusion?

Wrong. They know a person has work at the same time. That is not equivalent to knowing a person cannot attend, because the choice of whether to attend is the person's. Again: work is optional. If the game was genuinely more rewarding than work, the person would skip work for the game. Hence you really need proof of intent on their part, because by default the intent and choice to participate is yours, not theirs.

This is not rocket science. It's the same for every hobby. My karate club is not punishing me by choosing to hold sessions every week, even though I can only attend every other week due to evening shifts. Losing out on practice is an opportunity cost I inflict upon myself by choosing to work. People simply knowing I can't be everywhere at once does not make them responsible for where I am.

And as the DM choose this type of XP system, it is intentional feedback. How is something which is purposefully done by the DM not intentional?
Yes, it's a reward, intentional positive feedback, encouraging you to play a game. It's not punishment, intentional negative feedback, in any way whatsoever.

---

@ImNotTrevor:

It doesn't matter who came up with the distinction you use, your terminology is obsoleted once separate words exist for the emotion and the act (negative feedback versus punishment).

And the separation exists because what emotions people feel cannot be held as judge of what other people are doing. It is perfectly possible, for example, for someone to feel punished, to feel they are intentionally being discouraged from a course of action, despite the fact that no-one is acting with such intent towards them.

Just because your emotions exist and you can't stop yourself from feeling them, does not make them valid. People feel emotions for faulty reasons all the god-damn time and this leads them to act in stupid ways. Seeing intent where there is none or pinning blame on others for emotions they didn't intent to cause, or even know they caused, are some of the more common social misunderstandings.

Tl;dr: the emotion is not the act; feedback is not the same as intentional acts to cause it. This distinction exists in both common speech and modern psychology so there's no good reason to use words in a way which confuses the two.

Lorsa

2018-05-14, 04:54 AM

The general thread of the attack has been '(unlike rewards), punishment is wrong if it's done for something someone has no control over' with examples such as e.g. sick kids, mandatory overtime, etc. That's using the colloquial sense of the term since it conflates the experience of something as a punishment by the player who is not receiving XP (which is neither intrinsically right nor wrong) with the intent of the DM/rulemaker for it to act as a punishment in the conditioning sense (which would be wrong if done for something someone has no control over in the sense that it would be unable to achieve the ends of conditioning a change in behavior).

If a choice is made to do a certain action, which then acts as a conditioning for another person, and it was not the intent, then the natural thing to do is to change the first action once knowledge of the conditioning has presented itself. Otherwise, how is it not intentional conditioning from that moment onward?

The reason I say it's attacking a playstyle is that there's a disagreement as to the relative importance of things such as balance/absolute equality among characters and players, which is definitely a playstyle issue. Heterogeneous games are a thing, games with distributed play opportunities are a thing (for example, I've been in a game that ran two sessions a week where you could attend neither, one, or both at your opportunity; and while XP was granted at the end of session, it was - intentionally - extremely heterogeneous in that campaign), and games where various permanent losses or missed opportunities are the norm are a thing.

For the type of game that Tanarii hosts, it makes sense to have this type of system, even though it may punish (or not rewarding depending on how one wishes to see it) certain players. I am not sure the alternative would be preferential in Tanarii's case.

I already answered that: because it's not them who ascribe priority to work over game. They don't choose to exclude you, you choose not to attend.

The default assumption, at least in the circles I move, is that people prioritize work over games.

Wrong. They know a person has work at the same time. That is not equivalent to knowing a person cannot attend, because the choice of whether to attend is the person's. Again: work is optional. If the game was genuinely more rewarding than work, the person would skip work for the game. Hence you really need proof of intent on their part, because by default the intent and choice to participate is yours, not theirs.

This is not rocket science. It's the same for every hobby. My karate club is not punishing me by choosing to hold sessions every week, even though I can only attend every other week due to evening shifts. Losing out on practice is an opportunity cost I inflict upon myself by choosing to work. People simply knowing I can't be everywhere at once does not make them responsible for where I am.

It is equivalent if the default assumption is that people should prioritize work over games. If the group sees work as something which is NOT optional, then deliberately placing sessions on someone's work time is an intentional move to exclude them.

You can't really compare with the karate club, as the club will generally post its schedule before you even decide to sign up for classes. If you know the schedule in advance, and still decide to join, the decision of priority is indeed on your side.

However, if you decide to join a RPG group first and they decide to schedule sessions later (possibly with an irregular interval), which 'coincidentally' happen to land on your work hours, then I believe it is grounds to claim there is an intent of exclusion.

If the group said "we're going to play on Mondays, do you want to join or not?" and you work every second Monday, then it's another story. The sequence of events (decision to join and decision to schedule) matters.

Yes, it's a reward, intentional positive feedback, encouraging you to play a game. It's not punishment, intentional negative feedback, in any way whatsoever.

If it is intentional, and causes negative feedback, how is it not intentional negative feedback?

You could make an argument from ignorance I guess, that the ones who made the decision wasn't aware that it would cause negative feedback. But once aware of it, sticking with the decision would make it intentional negative feedback no?

NichG

2018-05-14, 05:29 AM

If a choice is made to do a certain action, which then acts as a conditioning for another person, and it was not the intent, then the natural thing to do is to change the first action once knowledge of the conditioning has presented itself. Otherwise, how is it not intentional conditioning from that moment onward?

If the feeling is an unreasonable one, changing actions to avoid that perception isn't really productive. If someone feels punished by a stove because it burned them once, that doesn't mean that the natural thing to do is to throw out that stove or limit its maximum temperature to 50C. Especially if the perception of punishment is hypothetical (e.g. a lot of people here saying 'if I were in that situation, I would feel punished' but they're presumably not Tanarii's players). The natural thing to do in those cases is to say 'I think that complaint is unreasonable' and explain why, which is what's going on in this thread.

Pelle

2018-05-14, 06:14 AM

The original claim was "not rewarding xp can NEVER be a punishment". So if the argument disputes that claim, it is successful. It doesn't have to claim the opposite, that not rewarding xp is always a punishment.

Well, my impression was that the original post was claiming it is not a punishment. Maybe it's faulty logic, but to me if it is only a punishment under a specific set of circumstances, then it is generally not.

Thank you for pointing out why I wrote "In the case that." :P

No problem :) So you agree that it is generally not punishment, then.

And before the counterargument happens, XP is a reward. I've not seen any examples where it wasnt, even in milestone levelling.
Do thing --> acquire boon

In your definition of punishment you are punished for doing something, not for not doing something. If the rules reward xp for killing monsters, not getting xp for not killing monsters isn't a punishment. That's just not getting a reward. It might feel like a punishment if you associate getting xp with attending a session, because you usually kill some monsters each session.

And as the DM choose this type of XP system, it is intentional feedback. How is something which is purposefully done by the DM not intentional?

I think that is being a little unfair to the DM.
If the group has chosen to play a system which rewards characters with xp for doing certain things, then it is not the DM that is punishing the player if their character is not doing those things. That is the responsibility of the player. If the group doesn't like this reward system, then the group should discuss together what is the best way to award xp, including awarding to absent players or not. It is still the responsibility of the whole group, not only the DM. The DM may want to give xp to the missing players to keep them happy, but the other players may not want to share the xp. If that's according to agreed rules, don't blame the DM.

If the person receiving the consequence feels punished, the correct response is not to say they aren't punished and their feelings are wrong.

If I feel like I'm being punished for having a sick kid, I'm not unjustified for being upset about it. I'm 100% justified in being upset that none of my supposed friends threw me a bone on this one and instead opted to add insult to injury.

Of course, if players are unhappy with the xp rules, they should be changed. It's 100% justified to be upset if you feel punished by the rules. But when you have chosen and agreed to those rules, you are not justified in saying that the DM is punishing you. Then you instead need to voice your unhappiness, so that the group can acknowledge your feelings and decide on what works best for you all.

Maybe it's correct technically, but I think the Tanarii's main issue is that since the colloquial meaning of punishment is usually understood, saying he is punishing players sounds like ascribing him an intent he don't have.

Lorsa

2018-05-14, 06:34 AM

If the feeling is an unreasonable one, changing actions to avoid that perception isn't really productive. If someone feels punished by a stove because it burned them once, that doesn't mean that the natural thing to do is to throw out that stove or limit its maximum temperature to 50C. Especially if the perception of punishment is hypothetical (e.g. a lot of people here saying 'if I were in that situation, I would feel punished' but they're presumably not Tanarii's players). The natural thing to do in those cases is to say 'I think that complaint is unreasonable' and explain why, which is what's going on in this thread.

The natural thing to do if someone feels punished by the stove is to say "yes, the stove burns you if you touch it when it's hot, so don't do that". Not all punishments are bad, especially if they change behavior in a direction we want.

If someone told me they felt punished due an XP system of the way Tanarii uses, I would probably go with one of three response (depending on what I am after):

1. "It's good that you feel punished. I want you to prioritize coming to sessions regardless of whatever else goes on in your life, even if you're sick or whatever."

2. "Oh, that's not at all what I was after! I didn't think of that effect and will change my system accordingly."

3. "I'm sorry you feel this way. Unfortunately, the way this game is structured, it doesn't make sense to give XP to PCs whose player is absent. As you know, no two characters have exactly the same XP anyway, and I make sure that you get to play in a Tier with characters of roughly equal strength. So at some points during the campaign, you'll be the strongest character and at other the weakest. Try to have fun at the level you are at and sooner or later you will reach the top Tier."

which to me seems like better replies than:

4. "A lack of reward can not be a punishment. Why are you trying to twist the language like this?!"

PhoenixPhyre

2018-05-14, 06:47 AM

From my perspective, the whole struggle to define punishment is...less than useful. What's important from a people standpoint is that someone feels unfairly dealt with, rightly or wrongly. That means that a communication failure occurred and expectations were not properly set (by one side or the other or both, I'm not blaming any particular person here).

One one hand, pulling the "it's an inevitable consequence" card feels callous and blame-deflecting.

On the other hand, based on the game structure, not granting XP to a missing person may be the best option for the game as a whole.

So the action isn't inherently wrong, but may have been miscommunicated. And trying to deflect blame just makes the hurt feelings worse.

Perception is reality in this case, even if it's not objectively true.

Pelle

2018-05-14, 06:58 AM

So the action isn't inherently wrong, but may have been miscommunicated. And trying to deflect blame just makes the hurt feelings worse.

Yes, and so is trying to direct blame as well. Saying "you are punishing me" is assigning bad intent, instead of " I feel punished" which is completly acceptable.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-05-14, 07:06 AM

Yes, and so is trying to direct blame as well. Saying "you are punishing me" is assigning bad intent, instead of " I feel punished" which is completly acceptable.

Absolutely. I feel that way about blame in general--not a problem to identify that a problem exists, less useful to try to apportion blame. Exceptions exist, but not so much in games.

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-14, 11:56 AM

Well, my impression was that the original post was claiming it is not a punishment. Maybe it's faulty logic, but to me if it is only a punishment under a specific set of circumstances, then it is generally not.
If those circumstances are the most common, then it generally would be.

No problem :) So you agree that it is generally not punishment, then.
Since those two apply to most d&d games, no. It generally would fall into NP.

In your definition of punishment you are punished for doing something, not for not doing something.
That's an example, not a definition. I've listed my definition several times. Please read.

If the rules reward xp for killing monsters, not getting xp for not killing monsters isn't a punishment. That's just not getting a reward. It might feel like a punishment if you associate getting xp with attending a session, because you usually kill some monsters each session.
By the system I'm using, that is Negative Punishment. Intentioned or not.

I think that is being a little unfair to the DM.
If the group has chosen to play a system which rewards characters with xp for doing certain things, then it is not the DM that is punishing the player if their character is not doing those things. That is the responsibility of the player. If the group doesn't like this reward system, then the group should discuss together what is the best way to award xp, including awarding to absent players or not. It is still the responsibility of the whole group, not only the DM. The DM may want to give xp to the missing players to keep them happy, but the other players may not want to share the xp. If that's according to agreed rules, don't blame the DM.
Agreeing to the punishment doesn't make it suddenly not one. And if you want to expand the acting party to be the group, cool. Still counts.

Of course, if players are unhappy with the xp rules, they should be changed. It's 100% justified to be upset if you feel punished by the rules. But when you have chosen and agreed to those rules, you are not justified in saying that the DM is punishing you.
I mean, you'd be justified and accurate in saying it was a punishment. But you'd be silly to be shocked or surprised by it.

Then you instead need to voice your unhappiness, so that the group can acknowledge your feelings and decide on what works best for you all.
Yup.

Maybe it's correct technically, but I think the Tanarii's main issue is that since the colloquial meaning of punishment is usually understood, saying he is punishing players sounds like ascribing him an intent he don't have.
I fully believe he has no intention of inflicting Positive Punishment and certainly no intention of being abusive or trying to exact retribution.
Still a punishment, though.

There are cases where I think saying 'your experience is invalid' is the correct response - that is to say, cases where the viewpoint underlying the experience-as corresponds to a harmful way of viewing the world.
I work with kids with these kids of viewpoints. Calling their experience invalid is how you get into a violent situation.
The response in this situation is to ask about the underlying reasons behind the perceptions and offering alternative perceptions.
Not "no, you're wrong."

Someone who says e.g. 'the stove punished me when I touched it by burning me, what a terrible stove, I hate it' isn't going to be served by encouraging that point of view, even if their feelings are, presently, real. Correcting that viewpoint isn't as simple as saying 'you need to feel differently', but even starting to figure out how that viewpoint might be corrected requires being able to acknowledge that in this case they are in fact experiencing it wrong, or at least are experiencing it in a way that will cause them to continue to harm themselves.
I think it's telling that you're defending the behavior with, basically, "unreasonable people exist."
Sure. I'm well aware.

The general thread of the attack has been '(unlike rewards), punishment is wrong if it's done for something someone has no control over' with examples such as e.g. sick kids, mandatory overtime, etc. That's using the colloquial sense of the term since it conflates the experience of something as a punishment by the player who is not receiving XP (which is neither intrinsically right nor wrong) with the intent of the DM/rulemaker for it to act as a punishment in the conditioning sense (which would be wrong if done for something someone has no control over in the sense that it would be unable to achieve the ends of conditioning a change in behavior).
That's a specific behavior, not a playstyle.

The reason I say it's attacking a playstyle is that there's a disagreement as to the relative importance of things such as balance/absolute equality among characters and players, which is definitely a playstyle issue.
"A single behavior tied to playstyle" and "a playstyle" are two different things. I've not talked about the playstyle. I've talked about the behavior.

Heterogeneous games are a thing, games with distributed play opportunities are a thing (for example, I've been in a game that ran two sessions a week where you could attend neither, one, or both at your opportunity; and while XP was granted at the end of session, it was - intentionally - extremely heterogeneous in that campaign), and games where various permanent losses or missed opportunities are the norm are a thing.
Accounted for.

I already answered that: because it's not them who ascribe priority to work over game. They don't choose to exclude you, you choose not to attend.
For those of us for whom the choice is work or have insufficient to live, that's a steaming load.

is[/i] optional.
In the nihilist sense of Absolute Freedom, sure. But the exclusion is obvious to reasonable people.

This is not rocket science. It's the same for every hobby. My karate club is not punishing me by choosing to hold sessions every week, even though I can only attend every other week due to evening shifts. Losing out on practice is an opportunity cost I inflict upon myself by choosing to work. People simply knowing I can't be everywhere at once does not make them responsible for where I am.
Regular, pre- scheduled activity =/= activity scheduled minutes before it begins

It doesn't matter who came up with the distinction you use, your terminology is obsoleted once separate words exist for the emotion and the act (negative feedback versus punishment).
Too bad the terms are still used, and form the backbone of the modern casino industry and most designed - to - be - addictive mobile games.
Bur yeah. Obsolete. Sure.

And the separation exists because what emotions people feel cannot be held as judge of what other people are doing. It is perfectly possible, for example, for someone to feel punished, to feel they are intentionally being discouraged from a course of action, despite the fact that no-one is acting with such intent towards them.
Allow me to repeat for the umpteenth time:
INTENT. DOESNT. FIGURE. IN. THE. DEFINITION.
Neither do feelings, but I'll get there.

Just because your emotions exist and you can't stop yourself from feeling them, does not make them valid. People feel emotions for faulty reasons all the god-damn time and this leads them to act in stupid ways. Seeing intent where there is none or pinning blame on others for emotions they didn't intent to cause, or even know they caused, are some of the more common social misunderstandings.
Sure. I never said all emotions are valid, though. So that strawman sure is sore from that beating. My point is fine, though.

And yes, i agree that the thing to do is to talk it out and solve the problem. Blame doesn't help, especially since the punishment isn't intentional. In many cases.

Tl;dr: the emotion is not the act; feedback is not the same as intentional acts to cause it. This distinction exists in both common speech and modern psychology so there's no good reason to use words in a way which confuses the two.

Modern psych still uses the same quadrant system I use, so.....

Hence why I am specific about the distinctions between types of Punishment. The distinction is present in the terms I use. The problem comes not from my failure to be vey clear about which I mean. But from failure to read/ attempts to add meaning i did not explicitly state

Koo Rehtorb

2018-05-14, 12:34 PM

dascarletm

2018-05-14, 12:49 PM

Arguing this from a psychological standpoint is arguing a different definition/context of a word. It is like someone came up to me and said, "This apple is organic yours isn't," and I preceded to argue that the definition of organic is any carbon containing molecular compound. They are different definitions for different contexts, and arguing that a colloquial use of punishment doesn't meet a psychological definition is not useful.

NichG

2018-05-14, 12:50 PM

I work with kids with these kids of viewpoints. Calling their experience invalid is how you get into a violent situation.
The response in this situation is to ask about the underlying reasons behind the perceptions and offering alternative perceptions.
Not "no, you're wrong."

I think it's telling that you're defending the behavior with, basically, "unreasonable people exist."
Sure. I'm well aware.

If you're 'offering alternative perceptions', that sounds like you're already considering the experience incorrect, it's just that you're approaching the situation from a direction that you think is most likely to succeed in enacting a change in those perceptions, which I don't think is inconsistent with my underlying point. At that stage you've moved past 'is the experience valid?', concluded 'no it isn't' (or at least, decided that it's untenable), and then proceeded to strategize as to how to best enact change while not reinforcing that particular framing of the experience.

I'm not sure potentially violent kids = average tabletop players though.

Pelle

2018-05-14, 01:27 PM

If those circumstances are the most common, then it generally would be.

Since those two apply to most d&d games, no. It generally would fall into NP.

Doesn't apply for the context of the OP, though. Don't know what is most common in D&D games, but the rules gives xp to the characters doing things. It might be really common with metagame rules that keeps every character the same level, I mostly use milestone myself.

That's an example, not a definition. I've listed my definition several times. Please read.

Negative Reinforcement means to reinforce a behavior (make it happen more) my removing bad things.

Punishment is used when the stimulus/consequence makes the behavior happen less.

Positive/Negative refers to adding or removing good things or bad things.

[...]

Negative Punishment:
Do the thing, have good things removed/prevented
(When you press the blue button, candy stops being dispensed for 5 minutes)

Sorry, I was just looking at this post, not sure if you defined it elsewhere to include "not doing something". Calling "not doing something" "doing something" is just silly IMO, though depending on the context it might feel like a punishment. By the same token, not getting a punishment would be a reward. If I am not driving, I am "not speeding" and am rewarded constantly by not getting tickets.

Agreeing to the punishment doesn't make it suddenly not one. And if you want to expand the acting party to be the group, cool. Still counts.

Sure, ok.

I mean, you'd be justified and accurate in saying it was a punishment. But you'd be silly to be shocked or surprised by it.

Well, if you are complaining about it, "you are punishing me!", then you are ascribing intent, not using the "technical" definition. If you are only using the "technical" definition, then you are just nit-picking, but that's ok I guess. Whether it's technically a punishment or not is irrelevant to if you should change the rules, being unhappy about them is not.

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-14, 03:18 PM

This whole multiple meanings of punishment that conflict with the commonly understood definition thing just reeks of equivocation, frankly. Chances are fairly good that this thread was not about a psych definition of punishment.
It wasn't. But it was asking. And since it explains why people react unfavorably to it and feel that it is punitive, the distinction has use.

Arguing this from a psychological standpoint is arguing a different definition/context of a word. It is like someone came up to me and said, "This apple is organic yours isn't," and I preceded to argue that the definition of organic is any carbon containing molecular compound. They are different definitions for different contexts, and arguing that a colloquial use of punishment doesn't meet a psychological definition is not useful.
Except in that it explains the reactions seen.

If you're 'offering alternative perceptions', that sounds like you're already considering the experience incorrect, it's just that you're approaching the situation from a direction that you think is most likely to succeed in enacting a change in those perceptions, which I don't think is inconsistent with my underlying point. At that stage you've moved past 'is the experience valid?', concluded 'no it isn't' (or at least, decided that it's untenable), and then proceeded to strategize as to how to best enact change while not reinforcing that particular framing of the experience.

I'm not sure potentially violent kids = average tabletop players though.

Yes. You've correctly read that the approach matters.

And no, I'm not saying average trpg players are like my kids. But my kids are, in their own ways, representative of human emotions dialed up to 11. If one of my adolescent boys would swing a punch over it, a normal adult will certainly not feel good about it and it won't come across as being a good thing.

Also, those examples and options I talked about a few posts ago remain unanswered as of this writing... weird.

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-14, 03:34 PM

Doesn't apply for the context of the OP, though. Don't know what is most common in D&D games, but the rules gives xp to the characters doing things. It might be really common with metagame rules that keeps every character the same level, I mostly use milestone myself.

Based on the rules, this would be the standard approach. Most people play d&d by a close approximation to RAW. Which tends to have it go by party (unless I've been misreading my 3.5 books. Totally possible, it's been years since I looked) rather than by individual character. So the same-xp-amount is implied.

I'm all in favor of milestones. More power to you.

Sorry, I was just looking at this post, not sure if you defined it elsewhere to include "not doing something". Calling "not doing something" "doing something" is just silly IMO, though depending on the context it might feel like a punishment. By the same token, not getting a punishment would be a reward. If I am not driving, I am "not speeding" and am rewarded constantly by not getting tickets.
Skipping a session is doing something.
Hence why when one of my boys makes a decision to not go to group, he loses access to all of the cool stuff he could do downstairs.
In something telling, if the boy doesn't attend group because he's doing another kind of treatment that takes precedent, he WON'T lose the priviledge, even though he DID miss group, which is a stated requirement.
This is because that would be punishing them for doing something they need to do. So we don't, as it's counterproductive and causes problems for no benefit.

Sound similar to another process we're talking about?

I'm all in favor of denying XP if they "forgot" or "slept through" or did nothing to give a heads-up and have no good reasoning. Go for it. I'll support you 100%.
It's also 100% a punishment, but hell yeah. That's some good learnin'.

I'm not against the practice in sum total. Just that not being aware that it is a punishment leads to thinking it's ok to deny to people who didn't have a real choice.

On your analogy, your action is Driving Within the Speed Limit.
A lack of tickets would be Negative Reinforcement to continue. (Lack of bad things)

Now, people who speed don't get caught every time. Which means they're positively reinforced to do it by their increased speed of travel and convenience, and positive/negative punishments happen rarely. Meanimg they're likely to speed. This is why people in Houston drive 75-80 on the freeway when the speed limit is 65. Always. Even past cops. Because cops can't pull over EVERYONE and they won't try.

So yeah, you ARE rewarded for not speeding. But you're also rewarded for speeding, hence why people do it.
See?

Well, if you are complaining about it, "you are punishing me!", then you are ascribing intent, not using the "technical" definition. If you are only using the "technical" definition, then you are just nit-picking, but that's ok I guess. Whether it's technically a punishment or not is irrelevant to if you should change the rules, being unhappy about them is not.

It being a punishment is relevant since it plays into the emotion. It's why people feel penalized.
And it helps us identify what might need to be changed, based on the interactions.

Pelle

2018-05-14, 04:36 PM

I don't really have much more to add to the discussion, I'll just make a few comments.

Based on the rules, this would be the standard approach. Most people play d&d by a close approximation to RAW. Which tends to have it go by party (unless I've been misreading my 3.5 books. Totally possible, it's been years since I looked) rather than by individual character. So the same-xp-amount is implied.

In 3.5, "Only characters who take part in an encounter should gain the commensurate awards". Meaning you are supposed to give different xp to also the present players if their characters split up. The rules don't adress what to do with the characters if players are absent, that's a metagame concern. If you have someone else play the characters and they participate in encounters, get xp. If they are not participating, no xp.

You are also supposed to award different xp to pcs with different levels, indicating that having a player with a lower level character is "normal". So the same-xp-amount is not really implied at all. Which is not really enjoyable for long epic quest campaigns, with a fixed character party on a long journey...

On your analogy, your action is Driving Within the Speed Limit.
A lack of tickets would be Negative Reinforcement to continue. (Lack of bad things)

My intention with the analogy was that the action was either snowboarding, watching TV, doing the dishes etc. Those may technically be considered Driving Within the Speed Limit and Negative Reinforcement, but using that terminology just becomes silly.

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-14, 04:59 PM

My intention with the analogy was that the action was either snowboarding, watching TV, doing the dishes etc. Those may technically be considered Driving Within the Speed Limit and Negative Reinforcement, but using that terminology just becomes silly.

That would be choosing not to drive, which makes you not part of the reinforcement loop at all.

Saying that the decision to not attend the Session is the same as non-interaction with it entirely is inaccurate. And this whole argument is basically Reducto Ad Absurdium, as several arguments have been.

"Do I still count as Not Speeding if I'm sitting at home, Knitting?" No. You're Knitting. That's an action.

Deciding to skip a session is an action.

Attending to your sick kid while the session goes by is an action.

These are not non-actions. I have no idea why I have to convince people that decisions are decisions, and that choosing an option between two options is an action, because that seems to be fairly obvious to me.

Lorsa

2018-05-15, 07:14 AM

This whole multiple meanings of punishment that conflict with the commonly understood definition thing just reeks of equivocation, frankly. Chances are fairly good that this thread was not about a psych definition of punishment.

Arguing this from a psychological standpoint is arguing a different definition/context of a word. It is like someone came up to me and said, "This apple is organic yours isn't," and I preceded to argue that the definition of organic is any carbon containing molecular compound. They are different definitions for different contexts, and arguing that a colloquial use of punishment doesn't meet a psychological definition is not useful.

If people disagree whether or not something is a punishment, bringing up academic definitions seem perfectly reasonable to me.

For example, if I feel that it is a punishment, but Tanarii doesn't, understanding of psychology might help us get the bottom of our difference.

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-15, 10:09 AM

Also, reading through my documentation and some old programs we had at the hospital:

If it makes you feel better, you can call Negative Punishment by the name "Response Cost."
It's still exactly the same thing, but it might be more palatable for people in here.

Telok

2018-05-15, 11:15 AM

Show up -> play the game
Not show up -> not play the game

Part of some games is awarding and using xp.
Is it fair? Maybe, maybe not.
Is it life? Yes.

We can engage in verbal gymnastics to over which definitions of punishment and fairness we use, or make the same event both positive reinforcement and negative punishment at the same time. We can't change the first two lines.

Pelle

2018-05-15, 12:28 PM

That would be choosing not to drive, which makes you not part of the reinforcement loop at all.

Saying that the decision to not attend the Session is the same as non-interaction with it entirely is inaccurate. And this whole argument is basically Reducto Ad Absurdium, as several arguments have been.

Well, it might actually be. I think my problem is that it can easily be unclear to determine when not doing the thing is related to the situation or not. It is much cleaner to say "do the thing and get reward" and "not do the thing and don't get the reward", instead of " do the "not doing the thing" and get punished ". When is "not touching the hot stove" not part of the situation anymore? - Leading to RAA.

The 4 definitions works perfectly when they work from "doing the thing" persepective. The kid is throwing food on the floor, so you take the food away, NP ok. It's when you start calling "not doing the thing" something, and calling the consequence a reward and punishment at the same time it stops making sense to me.

Let's say you eat dinner with your kid, and the kid don't want to eat the broccoli. You don't do anything, so there's no reward or punishment. If instead you offer a reward for eating; you will make dessert. If the kid eats broccoli, it gets a reward. If not it doesn't. The latter is the same situation as before the offer, so why is that suddenly a punishment? It makes much more sense to just call it "not giving a reward".

"Do I still count as Not Speeding if I'm sitting at home, Knitting?" No. You're Knitting. That's an action.

Deciding to skip a session is an action.

Attending to your sick kid while the session goes by is an action.

These are not non-actions. I have no idea why I have to convince people that decisions are decisions, and that choosing an option between two options is an action, because that seems to be fairly obvious to me.

Because it is not very intuitive? When the action is defined by what it is not, it is vague.

Since I found the topic interesting, I've tried reading a bit more about it. According to the source of all knowledge:
"Negative punishment (penalty) (also called "punishment by contingent withdrawal"): Occurs when a behavior (response) is followed by the removal of a stimulus, such as taking away a child's toy following an undesired behavior, resulting in a decrease in that behavior.", which I think matches your definition.

The thing is, it defines the NP as occuring when removing a stimulus after a behavior decreases it. Not giving a reward is not removing a stimulus, even if you call "not doing the thing" a behavior or action. So NP doesn't fit the not giving dessert as reward example (there is no stimulus to remove, dessert doesn't exist until presented as a reward). Also, NR does not fit "not touching the stove", because it doesn't involve any new stimulus either. If you are touching it instead, NR do fits "stopping to touch it", because then pain is removed.

On the internet there's a lot of people showing examples of the 4 kinds of reinforcements/punishments, and no one I have seen uses examples of NP as not giving a reward for not doing the thing. There's plenty of taking away a privilege already given, say taking away dessert from a kid who hits its sibling. But none of the kind not giving dessert to a kid who didn't eat the broccoli. I admit, it is anyways easier to explain the 4 types with these kinds of examples. If you have links to someone expanding on it and linking PR and NP, I would be interested.

So for XP, in a single player game I am not yet convinced that not getting xp for not killing monsters is a negative punishment. It is simply not getting a reward. If the character kills the monster, a stimulus is added (giving xp). If it fails to kill monsters, no stimulus is removed (xp wasn't taken away and getting it isn't assumed) so it is not NP. It can maybe feel like a punishment, but it's not according to this definition. So I think you have misinterpreted the part about removing/adding stimulus and extrapolated yourself... If you can guide me somewhere that backs you up I would appreciate it :)

For a group setting I am more inclined to agree, however. If the default is that everyone gets xp (because they usually kill monsters), your own choice of killing monsters doesn't affect the others. So then the situations becomes "if you do not kill monsters" you will not get the same xp as the other players, which fits NP. It's not "not getting xp" that is the punishment, it is "not getting the same as others". Here getting the XP is the default, and so it is also not a reward anymore!
If dessert is already prepared and the rest of the family is eating it, then not getting it is a punishment. But here as well, it is no longer a reward.

So, as has been said by others before, not getting xp being a punishment depends on the expectations of your group. Though, if getting xp is expected, it can't be said to be reward...
If people have different expectations, I see that the stimulus can be both a punishment and reward at the same time, but not to the one individual though. So yes, not getting xp can be a punishment, but not getting a reward is not.

icefractal

2018-05-15, 01:07 PM

Re: XP being organic and uneven as a play style - I think that would work better for me if XP was something concrete in-game. XP is literally a substance, or the result of training, then sure, people can end up with more or less of it. Probably won't be balanced, but that's not the only thing that matters.

But when XP is highly abstract and basically corellates to being at the session and doing stuff, then it feels more like an OOC pacing mechanic. And in that case, saying "well Bob was sick last week, so let's have him be lower-power for a while" seems jerkish.

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-15, 05:46 PM

Well, it might actually be. I think my problem is that it can easily be unclear to determine when not doing the thing is related to the situation or not. It is much cleaner to say "do the thing and get reward" and "not do the thing and don't get the reward", instead of " do the "not doing the thing" and get punished ". When is "not touching the hot stove" not part of the situation anymore? - Leading to RAA.
When the stove isn't reasonably part of the interaction.

The 4 definitions works perfectly when they work from "doing the thing" persepective. The kid is throwing food on the floor, so you take the food away, NP ok. It's when you start calling "not doing the thing" something, and calling the consequence a reward and punishment at the same time it stops making sense to me.
1. I've never called consequences both reward and punishment at the same time.
2. Deciding between two options is doing a thing. Specifically, doing one thing instead of another.

Let's say you eat dinner with your kid, and the kid don't want to eat the broccoli. You don't do anything, so there's no reward or punishment. If instead you offer a reward for eating; you will make dessert. If the kid eats broccoli, it gets a reward. If not it doesn't. The latter is the same situation as before the offer, so why is that suddenly a punishment? It makes much more sense to just call it "not giving a reward".
Opportunity lost. NP.
If kids have no ability to go downstairs (such as due to occassional trainings happening in the recreation area) then taking away their ability to go downstairs stops being an effective response to behavior pretty much immediately. (The moment they become aware that they won't be able to go down either way)

No patients in the hospital can go downstairs by default.

Because it is not very intuitive? When the action is defined by what it is not, it is vague.
They are defined by what they are:
Choosing an option other than playing the game.
That's an action.

Since I found the topic interesting, I've tried reading a bit more about it. According to the source of all knowledge:
"Negative punishment (penalty) (also called "punishment by contingent withdrawal"): Occurs when a behavior (response) is followed by the removal of a stimulus, such as taking away a child's toy following an undesired behavior, resulting in a decrease in that behavior.", which I think matches your definition.
It is simplified, but close.

The thing is, it defines the NP as occuring when removing a stimulus after a behavior decreases it. Not giving a reward is not removing a stimulus, even if you call "not doing the thing" a behavior or action. So NP doesn't fit the not giving dessert as reward example (there is no stimulus to remove, dessert doesn't exist until presented as a reward). Also, NR does not fit "not touching the stove", because it doesn't involve any new stimulus either. If you are touching it instead, NR do fits "stopping to touch it", because then pain is removed.
You've solved your own problem. Once presented as a potential reward, it is a thing that can be lost.
See: I apply this principal for 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, with pretty good success.

I'll have a look, I know the binders for our old program have info about it.

[QUOTE]
So for XP, in a single player game I am not yet convinced that not getting xp for not killing monsters is a negative punishment. It is simply not getting a reward. If the character kills the monster, a stimulus is added (giving xp). If it fails to kill monsters, no stimulus is removed (xp wasn't taken away and getting it isn't assumed) so it is not NP. It can maybe feel like a punishment, but it's not according to this definition. So I think you have misinterpreted the part about removing/adding stimulus and extrapolated yourself... If you can guide me somewhere that backs you up I would appreciate it :)
I would agree here. But I'm not speaking on single-player games.

For a group setting I am more inclined to agree, however. If the default is that everyone gets xp (because they usually kill monsters), your own choice of killing monsters doesn't affect the others. So then the situations becomes "if you do not kill monsters" you will not get the same xp as the other players, which fits NP. It's not "not getting xp" that is the punishment, it is "not getting the same as others". Here getting the XP is the default, and so it is also not a reward anymore!
Your own definition you quote disproves you.
An action (monster killing) is still required to gain the reward,as evidenced by a lack of doing it leading to no XP.

If dessert is already prepared and the rest of the family is eating it, then not getting it is a punishment. But here as well, it is no longer a reward.
It is 100% still a reward. Just a reward everyone else IS getting, because they're all doing the required action.

If the rule is: Press red button, receive candy, then just because it is fairly standard for people to press the red button does not mean it stops being a reward.

Where we get into the sticky bits is if we ask:
What if the kid left out is only not eating broccoli because he had dental surgery this morning? (Assuming dessert is something like pudding, which he could still eat.)
Is it then still ok to deny dessert for failure to eat broccoli?

So, as has been said by others before, not getting xp being a punishment depends on the expectations of your group. Though, if getting xp is expected, it can't be said to be reward...
You disproved that last sentence on your own.
So...

If people have different expectations, I see that the stimulus can be both a punishment and reward at the same time, but not to the one individual though. So yes, not getting xp can be a punishment, but not getting a reward is not.

Again, yes. It plays off of expectations. But you do lot of mental gymnastics based on not fully comprehending some fairly basic summaries of a couple decades worth of psych research.

Like, feel free to question it but...
That's not how that works.

Pelle

2018-05-16, 04:21 AM

You've solved your own problem. Once presented as a potential reward, it is a thing that can be lost.
See: I apply this principal for 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, with pretty good success.

Allright, I see that you can remove the possibility of a reward and count that as a punishment. As long as the kid is at the table, doing the not eating broccoli action, the possibility remains however and is not NP. To me, deciding to leave the table and give up the reward is a different action than not eating broccoli, but I see you can argue otherways.

I'll have a look, I know the binders for our old program have info about it.

Cool.

I would agree here. But I'm not speaking on single-player games.

Allright good, I thought you would disagree based on the dessert and stove examples.

Your own definition you quote disproves you.
An action (monster killing) is still required to gain the reward,as evidenced by a lack of doing it leading to no XP.

Well, it's the same reward conditions as in the single player, so in that case it is a reward - not punishment. But you are also calling it a punishment, right?

It is 100% still a reward. Just a reward everyone else IS getting, because they're all doing the required action.

And it becomes a punishment at the moment the kid choose to give up on the broccoli and not get the very possible reward?

If the rule is: Press red button, receive candy, then just because it is fairly standard for people to press the red button does not mean it stops being a reward.

And if you choose to not press the red button and not get candy, you are getting a punishment?

Where we get into the sticky bits is if we ask:
What if the kid left out is only not eating broccoli because he had dental surgery this morning? (Assuming dessert is something like pudding, which he could still eat.)
Is it then still ok to deny dessert for failure to eat broccoli?

Well, then you don't need to offer to make dessert to make the kid eat broccoli in the first place. If you assume there were other kids present who also didn't want to eat broccoli, you need to be more careful about what to offer as a reward to them, like offering to make a dessert that the dental surgery kid doesn't like. If it wasn't just a one-time offer, but rather a fixed rule about broccoli and dessert, it is a great analogy to the absent player situtation, though!

Again, yes. It plays off of expectations. But you do lot of mental gymnastics based on not fully comprehending some fairly basic summaries of a couple decades worth of psych research.

Like, feel free to question it but...
That's not how that works.

I notice people more qualified than me also questioned it, so I hope you can forgive me.

ImNotTrevor

2018-05-16, 11:13 AM

Allright, I see that you can remove the possibility of a reward and count that as a punishment. As long as the kid is at the table, doing the not eating broccoli action, the possibility remains however and is not NP. To me, deciding to leave the table and give up the reward is a different action than not eating broccoli, but I see you can argue otherways.
The punishment kicks in when the action is over, yes. The chance existing to not get the punishment wouldn't cause it to not beVa punishment. It just still might not happen.

Allright good, I thought you would disagree based on the dessert and stove examples.

No. Those are very different situations.

Well, it's the same reward conditions as in the single player, so in that case it is a reward - not punishment. But you are also calling it a punishment, right?
I'm talking about Losing out on xp being punishment, xp gain being positive reinforcement.

And it becomes a punishment at the moment the kid choose to give up on the broccoli and not get the very possible reward?

Yup. So long as you don't cave and give dessert anyways.

And if you choose to not press the red button and not get candy, you are getting a punishment?

Aye. Perhaps not an effective one (you might just not like candy. )If you flat-out dislike candy, you might be negatively rewarding yourself when you actively choose not to press it.

Well, then you don't need to offer to make dessert to make the kid eat broccoli in the first place. If you assume there were other kids present who also didn't want to eat broccoli, you need to be more careful about what to offer as a reward to them, like offering to make a dessert that the dental surgery kid doesn't like. If it wasn't just a one-time offer, but rather a fixed rule about broccoli and dessert, it is a great analogy to the absent player situtation, though!

It was meant as an analogy to that situation.

I notice people more qualified than me also questioned it, so I hope you can forgive me.
Nothing to forgive other than the usual ad absurdium and some kind of weird continuum fallacy thing. But hey, questioning stuff will always have my approval.