Quote:
Originally Posted by JTS
He's also accused soviet and myself of being "emotive". Not at all. I have better things to get worked up about than a RPG review. I can be perfectly calm and recognize deceit.
And I can also be perfectly calm and recognize that the most specious arguements in this thread are Conan's. I appreciate the fact that the other responders are being less silly than Conan and resisting the attempt at an "easy win" with loaded language ("specious") and most assuredly false accussations (that I am getting worked up).
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Except that I am not the one going for the easy win, here, JTS.
Take a look at my posts. I back up every comment I make with examples and counter points.
However, your arguments are not built on any foundation. You're claiming that the reviewer is deceitful, which is an emotive term, and then struggle to prove this.
Your argument is founded on the idea that by saying "this game has lots of crunch" the reviewer is thus forcing herself to say that the substance should be high score.
Not so. As I, and many others, have pointed out quantity =/= quality. The issue being made is that the lack of sufficient setting along with a plethora of rules that, for the reviewer, just got in the way of the roleplaying meant that it was a game that did very little other than one very limited style of play. For a book that contains 600+ pages, that accounts for a low substance.
Within the reviewers own text, there is plenty of justification as to why the score is so low.
Picking on me because of the language I use is also a rather weak argument. You fail to show how my own points are specious. In fact, neither you nor soviet seem willing to actually read my posts and counter them. You rely on claiming that I'm making silly "easy-win" arguments but fail to show how.
Conversely, I have managed to show that both of you have:
a) used emotive language.
b) by the use of that language made arguments that go for an easy win. Soviet has made appeals to fairness and then used an pointless and unrelated example (D&D for sci-fi) to back up his claims. You have decried decietfulness, and then stated because the reviewer said that there was a lot of book there that she
must then score substance at a higher number.
Those are specious arguments. They sound reasonable, but they are not related to review they are criticising. Soviets is not related because his core example as to why the review is unfair is reliant on the claim that Mechante hates science fiction games and is trying to play a totally different game than Burning Empires while using the BE rules and thus was never going to enjoy the game. But that is not the case. Mechante made it very clear that she attempted to play the game as is, and still came across issues with her group. Thus his argument is specious - she did not try to play firefly or Battlestar Galactica. She tried to play BE within its own rules and conditions.
Your argument is that because the book is 600 pages long, then it must have a high substance regardless of how much she didn't like the game or how little setting there is. You claim that because she comments on how a majority of 600 pages is rules, that a score of 2 for substance is deceitful.
This is also specious because the review is built around explaining her reasoning for that score. Your argument relies on the use of the word deceitful - an emotive word - to appeal to people that the review should not be considered legitimate. But the fact of the matter is, nobody buys your argument. Because they can see why Mechante scored low. They might not agree with the score, but it isn't because they see her as lying, it is because they disagree with the criticisms she made.
They accept that based on her review, she scored it as she felt it should be scored. They disagree with the points in her review. You're saying that by the points in her review she should have scored it higher.
The reason I use the word specious is because that is exactly what both your arguments are. They rely on emotive language and arguments that sound reasonable until someone realises that they don't actually relate to what the review is saying.
Now I am not going for "easy-win" arguments here. I'm the one who is providing an analysis of why your arguments are specious and why they are not relevant to the discussion. I've also gone through and explained where the flaws lie in your claims. There is no easy win language here - I don't just say "your arguments are specious that's why you fail." I have backed it up by explaining
why. That is what a good counter-argument does.
I'd recommend that you go back and read what I have said in my posts - you ought to find that I have been reasonable and fair minded. I have also backed up most of my claims. (I probably didn't do all of them because this is a more casual situation than a formal debate. Sometimes things get missed.
)
Conan