A New Fallacy?

[Kelb_Panthera]

So any of us whov'e been around for a while have heard of a few logical fallacies unique to table-top roleplaying;

Stormwind fallacy: roll-playing comes at the expense of role-playing.

Oberoni fallacy: it's not broken if you can fix it.

But I've noticed, recently, one for which I don't think I've seen a name.

I posit that it is a logical fallacy that any two people who are using the same TTRPG system are necessesarily playing the same game.

Any of us who've played in any system for a length of time have seen just how drastically the game run and played by one group can differ from that run and played by another. For example, gurps was intentionally designed to be as generic as possible so as to accomodate everything from gritty, historical, light fantasy to futuristic, DBZ-esque superheroes and everything in between. From the setting itself (earth [RL] vs golarion vs abieir-toril vs earth 623 [DC universe]) to the setting's presumptions (low magic vs high magic vs hard scifi vs sience fantasy) to the power scale of the players to "you name it," everything can change from one group to the next, even if they're using the same basic ruleset.

Has anyone else noticed this and/or has the idea that this is or is not the case been formally named?

[Cluedrew]

I have never heard that one officially called out before, although I have people informally use it (or something like it) many times. The first name that pops into my head is "Play-Style Invariance Fallacy" but that is a little bit wordy.

It does remind me of the Playgrounder's Fallacy, which makes an assumption about a system (usually towards D&D 3.5e). The noticeable difference is that that is between systems while this new one is within them.

Another role-playing game fallacy:

Spoiler: The Anti-Oberoni Fallacy

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That a game can be broken means that it is broken. Which is not a fallacy for some definitions of broken.

The best example about this came from Mutants & Masterminds, someone claimed that the game was broken because of some things you can do with arrays. Someone else pointed that there is a sidebar in that section of the rules pointing that every fact out. The sidebar also says that the exploit is necessary to make some parts of the game work and it explicitly asks you not to exploit it because it will break the game.

[Anonymouswizard]

Any of us who've played in any system for a length of time have seen just how drastically the game run and played by one group can differ from that run and played by another. For example, gurps was intentionally designed to be as generic as possible so as to accomodate everything from gritty, historical, light fantasy to futuristic, DBZ-esque superheroes and everything in between. From the setting itself (earth [RL] vs golarion vs abieir-toril vs earth 623 [DC universe]) to the setting's presumptions (low magic vs high magic vs hard scifi vs sience fantasy) to the power scale of the players to "you name it," everything can change from one group to the next, even if they're using the same basic ruleset.

In the interests of confusing people when it is brought up, I suggest:

The Experience Fallacy: the system used matters more to the feeling than the group using it.

Note that I use the word experience in the present tense there, not the past tense, it's important for making it work.

Looking into I agree with you, and would go so far as to say that the group matters significantly more than the system. I've played Unknown Armies and GURPS with one group, and the only real difference is what dice we are rolling, the experience themselves aren't that different. Conversely, I've had another group where All Flesh Must Be Eaten and D&D felt remarkably similar, but Mutants and Masterminds didn't due to the group taking the latter far more seriously.

Note I've noticed other fallacies during play, from the surprisingly common 'a game is boring if it doesn't have a combat' (one of the best sessions I've been in climaxed with me losing badly at a religious debate and the engineer getting information out of a suspect, no fights at all), to 'it is inherently bad to minmax characters' (separate from the Stormwind Fallacy, but closely related), but nothing important enough to be worth naming.

[Keltest]

We could call it Fallacy Zero, as in rule 0, because rule 0 and how its applied is what differentiates tables from each other.

[Vinyadan]

So it's like saying "the ruleset has more to do with a game engine than with a game"?

[Jay R]

In the novel Glory Road, Heinlein had his character Rufo say:
"Any social organization does well enough if it isn’t rigid. The framework doesn’t matter as long as there is enough looseness to permit that one man in a multitude to display his genius. Most so-called social scientists seem to think that organization is everything. It is almost nothing—except when it is a straitjacket. It is the incidence of heroes that counts, not the pattern of zeros."

Change "social organization" to "game system," and you have Heinlein's Law of RPGs.

[ImNotTrevor]

I only think it's fallacious inasmuch as one assumes that the system is the ONLY factor to the tenor of a game, but to assume that system has only a small effect on the tenor of the game is also untrue. There is a huge difference between playing Monopoly with friends and playing Risk with friends, because the two games provide vastly different experiences despite being very similar. (Both are long-play games, both are competitive, both involve a mix of strategy and chance, etc.)

The same thing can be said of the difference between playing Shadowrun and D&D. It has a very large impact on how things will go. Same goes for GURPS versus any other system.

The fallacy is only fallacious if being used to say that the experience of group A must necessarily be exactly the same as that of Group B because of the system. To say that they are playing the same system is not fallacious. To say that their experiences will have core similarities is not fallacious (it's the same system, after all.)

Two individual games of monopoly may be very different from one another. But both will be more similar to one another than to a game of Stratego, even if one is Star Wars Monopoly and the other is LoTR Monopoly.

Basically, there isn't a logical fallacy in saying "two groups playing GURPS will have more in common with one another than with a third group playing Dogs in the Vineyard," which is the primary idea the use of this fallacy would be aimed at. Which would be wrong.

I'm not convinced this is a fallacy at all except in very specific circumstances that may not merit it having a name.

[LudicSavant]

The Stormwind Fallacy and Oberoni Fallacy aren't so much "new fallacies unique to D&D" so much as they're specific examples of old fallacies applied to specific D&D issues and given a new name for some reason.

For example, the Stormwind Fallacy is just False Dilemma.

Also,

I'm not convinced this is a fallacy at all except in very specific circumstances that may not merit it having a name.

[Kelb_Panthera]

So it's like saying "the ruleset has more to do with a game engine than with a game"?

It's more the fallcious assumption that, "If it's the same game (ruleset) it's the same game (experience in play)."

With that explanation in mind, Same Game Fallacy?

[ImNotTrevor]

It's more the fallcious assumption that, "If it's the same game (ruleset) it's the same game (experience in play)."

With that explanation in mind, Same Game Fallacy?

I don't think I've seen anyone assert that, ever. (Granted, I don't sift through every thread.)

I've seen people (like myself) say that GURPS will feel like GURPS when you play GURPS because it is still GURPS, but that's common sense. I've never statex that any given two GURPS experiences will be the same, just that they will both obviously be GURPS.

You might put Goldfish crackers in your tomato soup, and I may put Sour Cream in mine. But at the end of the day, we're still both eating tomato soup and our two exoeriences wll be more similar to eachother than to the experience of the guy eating Chicken Noodle Soup.

[Nifft]

But I've noticed, recently, one for which I don't think I've seen a name.

I posit that it is a logical fallacy that any two people who are using the same TTRPG system are necessesarily playing the same game.

I hereby dub this the Kelp Fallacy.

Therefore, you now have the honor of getting a fallacy named after yourself, but at the same time the name is spelled intentionally wrong. (As a side-benefit, the word Kelp will not be auto-corrected into anything unfortunate.)

In the novel Glory Road, Heinlein had his character Rufo say:
"Any social organization does well enough if it isn’t rigid. The framework doesn’t matter as long as there is enough looseness to permit that one man in a multitude to display his genius. Most so-called social scientists seem to think that organization is everything. It is almost nothing—except when it is a straitjacket. It is the incidence of heroes that counts, not the pattern of zeros."

Heh.

Whenever someone standing on the shoulders of giants complains about how all that long giant hair sometimes obscures the view of the really important person -- which is himself, of course -- it kinda cracks me up.

The rather complex organization ("modern civilization") whereby a person can type words about pretend people in pretend places and exchange this act for food, shelter, and all the modern conveniences -- IMHO that "pattern of zeroes" seems a bit more relevant to my life than the "hero" getting paid to write a book which complains about it.

[LudicSavant]

I posit that it is a logical fallacy that any two people who are using the same TTRPG system are necessesarily playing the same game.

The problem with this definition is that it invites misunderstanding more than it clarifies logical error.

"I think that she's playing D&D 3.5e, and that he's playing D&D 3.5e. D&D 3.5e is a game. Both he and she are playing that game." <---Nothing is fallacious in there.

As for what you apparently meant to convey (e.g. same system != same experience)

Has anyone else noticed this and/or has the idea that this is or is not the case been formally named?

- No, I have not noticed people making the argument that same game system = same game experience. By contrast, when the Stormwind and Oberoni Fallacies were coined, I was seeing arguments committing those fallacies every other day.
- Yes, there is already a formal name for the fallacy that you seem to have meant to define. It's called False Equivalence.

[Cluedrew]

I don't think I've seen anyone assert that, ever.

Neither have I, but I have seen people make statements that use that as a base assumption. It is a very simple thing, one you might even correct when you stop to think about it without even realizing it. Lets use an example from earlier in the thread.

Basically, there isn't a logical fallacy in saying "two groups playing GURPS will have more in common with one another than with a third group playing Dogs in the Vineyard," which is the primary idea the use of this fallacy would be aimed at. Which would be wrong.

In other words given all games of GURPS and all games of Dogs in the Vineyard, the difference between any two games of GURPS is strictly less than the difference between any game of GURPS and any game of Dogs in the Vineyard. Now I can't say it is wrong, because I don't know about the systems, but I am not convinced. However if you added some thing about averages and probability in there, I'd probably believe that.

Its not anything huge, it is just a short cut people run in their heads which isn't actually correct. And that is all any fallacy is in a way, although a lot are correct often enough that we keep using them.

Also... yeah this might not be naming, but I'm here for fun, not because it is an efficient and productive use of my time.

[ImNotTrevor]

Neither have I, but I have seen people make statements that use that as a base assumption. It is a very simple thing, one you might even correct when you stop to think about it without even realizing it. Lets use an example from earlier in the thread.

Games are often designed with an aesthetic and general themes in mind, and play to those strengths. Saying that games built around and made for certain themes will more often than not involve those themes is not fallacious. It's common sense. Even accounting for generic systems which can handle many SETTINGS, their tone wll be noticeably different from other systems.

In other words given all games of GURPS and all games of Dogs in the Vineyard, the difference between any two games of GURPS is strictly less than the difference between any game of GURPS and any game of Dogs in the Vineyard. Now I can't say it is wrong, because I don't know about the systems, but I am not convinced. However if you added some thing about averages and probability in there, I'd probably believe that.

Would you say you were unconvinced if I made the exact same comparison between Monopoly and Risk?
If yes, why? These are obviously very different games.
If no, how is that comparison any different when substituting two other games that share a similarly low amount of design features between the two?

Its not anything huge, it is just a short cut people run in their heads which isn't actually correct. And that is all any fallacy is in a way, although a lot are correct often enough that we keep using them.

Also... yeah this might not be naming, but I'm here for fun, not because it is an efficient and productive use of my time.

Basically, the quick and easy counter to this being a fallacy is:
If how one makes use of a system is the only thing that matters, why do multiple systems exist? Why is GURPS/FATE not at the top of the rpg charts since they would be able to handle literally anything based on the group that's playing?
Why would there ever exist more than one system if one generic system has both a rules-heavy and rules-light version, and the differences between any two RPGs was mainly in the group of people playing? Wouldn't that make it so that one would collect different groups to play one generic system rather than have one group try many systems to see what they like?
Why would people bother to recommend systems for certain things if the best answer is "How any system feels depends on the group playing it!"

When taken not too far from the underlying logical premise of the fallacy as presented (System doesn't really matter compared to any other factors) it starts to sound somewhat silly.

Now, I'm not saying this is what anyone here is asserting, but it's not a difficult next step to go into an entirely different area of mistakenness. System matters. Rules matter. Rules are the difference between Chess and Checkers. You can put drawings on the checkers pieces and use the same board to play chess. Or use chess pieces as checkers pieces, ignoring their shapes. The real difference is the rules. The rules to games MATTER, since they define the game in the first place.

[Cluedrew]

Saying that games built around and made for certain themes will more often than not involve those themes is not fallacious.

I agree, all I meant to do is point out that you left out the "more often than not" part. It is small but it turns it from something that makes sense to something invalid.

Would you say you were unconvinced if I made the exact same comparison between Monopoly and Risk?
If yes, why? These are obviously very different games.

Yes I would actually, despite the very different rule sets the overall experiences I have had playing those two games are very similar. This is both personal and hard to quantify, but they end up being games we would with significant, often overnight, breaks and the game itself was... not the main point I guess. Go back to Monopoly and Stratego, my experiences with those two games have been less similar to each other.

But about the fallacy itself: I don't think anyone here is trying to say that that the system has no effect on the experience of playing the game, just that it is not the only effect. Similarly even if you can say something in general about how a system usually plays, that doesn't mean you can say it about every game played in that system. (Hey LudicSavant, does that fallacy have a formal name?)

[Nifft]

Would you say you were unconvinced if I made the exact same comparison between Monopoly and Risk?

Interesting choices.

In my experience, Monopoly accumulates a huge number of family-specific house-rules. I've played several different games which use the "Monopoly" base rules but are not identical -- and which play differently.

Risk is a very different game if you allow "political alliances" between players (and of course the sudden yet inevitable back-stabbing that usually ends such things). The degree to which "alliances" matter will vary from group to group, and even from game to game within the same group, depending on circumstances.

Would a game of Monopoly with "economic alliances" be similar to a game of Risk with "political alliances"?

[Anonymouswizard]

Interesting choices.

In my experience, Monopoly accumulates a huge number of family-specific house-rules. I've played several different games which use the "Monopoly" base rules but are not identical -- and which play differently.

I have bad memories of Monopoly due to how my family plays (specifically, we avoid giving other people monopolies). I've always wondered why people seem to enjoy it, because it's a slow decline to me always losing first.

Risk is a very different game if you allow "political alliances" between players (and of course the sudden yet inevitable back-stabbing that usually ends such things). The degree to which "alliances" matter will vary from group to group, and even from game to game within the same group, depending on circumstances.

I've always played Risk as 'Diplomacy lite', alliances included, since even before I'd heard of Diplomacy, and it changes the game a lot. I remember the first time I played my step dad got everyone else to gang up on me because I'd played well and was in a position to beat him (not helped by the fact I'd been either expanding aggressively or stagnant for the last couple of turns, it's been too long since that game). It's a very different feeling to what other people I know normally play it as, which is a friendly free for all no alliances game. The available strategies vary massively, let alone the optimal one.

Would a game of Monopoly with "economic alliances" be similar to a game of Risk with "political alliances"?

I'd say it could be, but not to the degree Risk and Diplomacy can be.

[Frozen_Feet]

There aren't a whole lot of new fallacies in the field of RPGs - but there are a lot of widespread, specific manifestations of old ones.

I would peg this fallacy as "mind projection fallacy" rather than "false equivalence", though I suppose you could argue the former is specifix example of the latter.

[DontEatRawHagis]

Geoff/Travis's Fallacy: Any sufficiently powerful build can be nullified by proper application of the rules.

6+ Player Law: for every player above 6 the likelihood of the DM not incorporating backstory and rage quitting is increased.

[veti]

"I think that she's playing D&D 3.5e, and that he's playing D&D 3.5e. D&D 3.5e is a game. Both he and she are playing that game." <---Nothing is fallacious in there.

Yes, there is. The statement "D&D 3.5e is a game" is not true.

It's a game system. A game engine. To say that any two DMs' versions of 3.5e must be the same game is like saying that Fallout: New Vegas is the same as Assassin's Creed because they both use the Havok engine.

You could have a Forgotten Realms (kitchen sink) setting, a setting where the only playable race is humans, an E6 setting where "wizard" is a proscribed class, a setting using core rules only but in a monotheistic universe, a setting where guns and internal combustion have been invented... These would be quite different games, but could all be using 3.5e rules.

[Thrudd]

The issue of assuming all games of a given system are equivalent is one of drawing conclusions without sufficient data. Further inquiry is required before making comparisons between one table's game and another's.

It is a fallacy to equate system with actual game experience only because a large number of tables modify or ignore the rules of any given system to the extent that they often can't really be said to be using the same system.

In a hypothetical discussion of the experience generated by playing a given system entirely according to the rules as written, experiences should be closer. Of course, inquiry must still be made into what official optional rules were being enacted that would create variance.

Usually the discussion goes along the lines of: "What game are you playing?"
"3.5e...well, with some house rules. We only allow tome of battle, psionics, and full spell casting classes. And we don't use XP, just level after every session. And we use d20 modern style wealth rules instead of keeping track of gold. And we have a rule that lets us reroll a number of dice each session based on points the DM awards us for good role playing or trying cool stunts."

So...that isn't really D&D 3.5e, it's a homebrew based on it. You can't compare how that game works with someone playing RAW out of the core books. False equivalence. Not the same game, not even the same system.

[ImNotTrevor]

Yes, there is. The statement "D&D 3.5e is a game" is not true.

It's a game system. A game engine. To say that any two DMs' versions of 3.5e must be the same game is like saying that Fallout: New Vegas is the same as Assassin's Creed because they both use the Havok engine.

You could have a Forgotten Realms (kitchen sink) setting, a setting where the only playable race is humans, an E6 setting where "wizard" is a proscribed class, a setting using core rules only but in a monotheistic universe, a setting where guns and internal combustion have been invented... These would be quite different games, but could all be using 3.5e rules.

Wizards of the Coast disagrees with you.

http://dnd.wizards.com/dungeons-and-...ears-adventure

1983, 5th bullet point: D&D is referred to as a game.

1987, 3rd bullet point: AD&D is referred to as a game.

1990, 1st bullet point: AD&D referred to as a game.

1991, 4th bullet point: You guessed it.

2000, 3rd bullet: Indirectly referred to as a game.

2004, 2nd bullet point: Reads as follows "The 30th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons is honored with a retrospective book on the game’s history, 30 Years of Adventure."

The creators of the Game call it a Game. It's a game. It's a game with rules that can be altered if you want (Hey, so can Monopoly!) and one where you can create your own storyline and setting (various board games involve narrative while still being Games.)

So no, D&D 3.5 is an RPG. Which happens to stand for Role-Playing Game. D&D is a game even by dictionary definition "a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck." So to be a game the criteria are:
1. A form of play or sport (D&D fits this!)
2. Played according to rules (D&D fits this!)
3. Decided by skill (somewhat), Strength (nope), or Luck (Yup!)

D&D is a game. End of story.

[themaque]

D&D is a game.

True, but it's also like saying "I'm playing Solitaire." With so many different variances and permutations it's just saying I play 3.5 could mean... just about anything.

It's like Thrudd said, it's working under insufficient information.

And I will back the OP and say I've seen people base opinions and arguments on this sort of thinking but also agree that I'm unsure it requires a full Fallacy description. Such a name would just make conversation more confusing rather than a shorthand for clearing things up.

[Lorsa]

I'm not really sure this is a fallacy. It all depends on the contextual meaning of "game".

Even though the experiences are very different, D&D for example, is a type of "game" that can be applied to a very broad spectrum of experiences.

I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone claim that one game is equal experience for everyone. That would be like saying that me and my four friends getting together to play football (the Association type) is the same experience as when Real Madrid meets FC Barcelona.

[Comet]

The problem with giving this a cool name and celebrating it is that it makes conversation that much more difficult rather than helping anyone achieve anything in particular.

"How do I optimize our party for dungeons and trapfinding?"

"What are you playing?"

"3.5 D&D"

"Okay, maybe you should get a rogue and some ten-foot poles and put your barbarian up front to detect traps?"

"Same-name-same-game-fallacy! Our game doesn't have rogues or barbarians, ten-foot poles are sacred totems worth a thousand gold and everyone is playing uplifted cephalopods!"

"Okay, cool."

I'm being difficult and annoying, of course, but the point remains: the reason that hobby conversation assumes common ground is that it gives you something to talk about without spending hours defining the conversation beforehand.

[LudicSavant]

Yes, there is. The statement "D&D 3.5e is a game" is not true.

Both Dictionary.com and Wizards of the Coast disagree with you on that.

[Frozen_Feet]

I think this discussion has taken a wrong turn.

"A game" may refer to ruleset which defines process of play, but also to a specific iteration of play. Chess is a game, but not all games of Chess are equal - even though the rules are the same.

In the same way, two games of D&D can be different, without having to argue D&D is not a game.

[kyoryu]

Regardless of terminology, the point that two different groups may well have entirely different experiences at the table, even if using the same system, still seems appropriate and accurate based on my experience as well as conversations I've had with others.

It might be true that, for instance, two "games" of GURPS might be more similar to each other than a game of DitV, but at the same time, those occupy two pretty divergent points in the solution space of games, and DitV, particularly, was written to attempt to be fairly consistent in how it's run.

At the same time, I've seen so many games fall apart (most typically D&D, since it's the "default") because of expectations of how things would be run - linear story vs. more open sandbox vs. world sim vs. story-game-like vs. dungeon crawl etc. I've seen games run with the same system that bear almost no similarity to each other apart from basic genre.

[OldTrees1]

I think this discussion has taken a wrong turn.

"A game" may refer to ruleset which defines process of play, but also to a specific iteration of play. Chess is a game, but not all games of Chess are equal - even though the rules are the same.

In the same way, two games of D&D can be different, without having to argue D&D is not a game.

Correct.
It can also mean a specific adaptation/configuration of the general ruleset, that would define process of play for a group (which is somewhere in the middle of those two). Essentially there is an abstract-concrete continuum where each more abstract layer acts as a customizable game engine for the next more concrete layer.

[Cybren]

I don't know if any of those fallacies were particularly useful to discussion and in many ways I feel they regressed the discussion concerning D&D. The Stormwind fallacy is often used as a justification for people doing exactly what it says isn't necessarily true, and the Oberoni fallacy ignores that we don't play D&D in a sterile computer controlled environment, and the definition of "broken" for most RPG players is "something I care strongly about using this arbitrary metrics that don't necessarily impact play unless I decide they should impact play".