Gate takes a piece of your soul? Huh?!

[Potatopeelerkin]

No? I do not think D&D invented the idea of "this makes you weaker" or "this makes you stupider," nor that the vast majority of non-D&D-playing readers would lack the "specialized knowledge" to go from "it drains my strength" to "I have less strength," not to "I have less overall power."

Well, you've made another alternative suggestion right here. "It drains my power". There are limitless ways to describe it. The choice to refer to the soul is a choice, not because there are zero other options. Whether this is because Rich is trying to establish a connection that EXP=souls, or because he was talking about something entirely different... but it was a choice that was made.

'This makes you weaker' or 'this makes you stupider' are all interpretations that make perfect sense for certain interpretations of what EXP is. I challenge you to go and ask anyone who isn't part of this conversation how they'd describe EXP/EXP loss, and I doubt you'd hear anyone say anything about souls. No description is perfect, but I don't see how the soul version is closer or more intuitive than any of the others that have been proposed.

If you want to complain about other people's tones, as you did earlier in this thread, possibly you should refrain from telling other people what they think.

Did you already know Gate had an EXP cost when you read that comic? If not, I'm sorry for assuming how you came to that conclusion- but if you did, maybe I shouldn't have said it with such certainty, but I suspect it's still true.

Anyway, what bothered me earlier wasn't the 'tone', it's what was directly said. Calling other people stupid because they disagree with the interpretation of a single line in a webcomic is ridiculous, and it's epidemic on this forum. I'm sick of the tiniest little disagreements here leading to personal insults, and I keep watching users get bullied out. It's so much worse here than anywhere else I've been. (Not that you've done that so far)

That is admittedly from the perspective of a D&D player, but you're the one arguing for the current comic being opaque to all "non-players," while I'm the one who would expect the vast majority of readers to understand it, D&D players or not.

I'm not really sure what your point is. Surely the person who is a non-player would have a better idea of what is and isn't opaque to non-players?