Galetinous Rube Lives Up To His Name In More Ways Than One
The Brosr are a gaggle of pretentious hobby tourists that consider elf-games to be some sort of lifestyle brand that you can "win" at. They also like to accuse people of playing 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons incorrectly, all because an attention-starved narcissist misread a recommendation, declared that obviously no one else in gaming history was even aware of it, and his simpleminded sycophants couldn't be bothered to pull his dick out of their mouth long enough to double check that he wasn't making it all up.
Gelatinous Rube is one such "bro".
The name works on multiple levels: see, a gelatinous cube lurks in dungeons, feeding off waste and other scraps. It's only particularly dangerous if it catches you by surprise, but if you notice it it's pretty easy to deal with due to its slow speed, ponderous size and unsophisticated hunting strategy. Rube speaks for itself, especially given that gelatinous cubes have an intelligence of 0. Of course, for Mr. Rube that's still quite generous.
Rube published a video some eight months ago, in a strange and pathetic attempt to justify what the discerning gamer knows is bullshit (you can watch it here, if only to confirm that he actually said the stupid shit I'm about to respond to). I'd already tried watching it awhile back, but only got a minute or two in before I realized that he's some combination of a liar and dumbass, after which I just disliked and forgot about it.
I had no plans to respond do it, but a few months ago someone on Twitter brought up kinda-sorta-arbitrary 1:1 timekeeping, and Rube shuffled in and, in a flagrant disregard for anything resembling intelligence bothered to link the video, suffering from the woefully misguided delusion that it would in any way serve to support his misguided belief that only he and the rest of the Brosr tourists are playing a nearly 50-year old game, not the way Gary intended, but ostensibly by the rules as written.
It would be accurate to say they are playing the game in a specific manner that they think is the one true way, and will condescendingly tell you that, yeah, you can keep playing the game "wrong" if you want, even though based on Rube's statements they aren't necessarily playing it "right". At least, no more correctly than most anyone else out there.
I should note that the video is 18 minutes longer than it has any right to be, and listening to and typing it up was a pain so I didn't do all of it. Enjoy.
“Howdy folks, I'm here to tell you all the way time works in your tabletop campaigns is wrong.”
What Rube means to say is that he thinks that the way you play is wrong, based on his misinterpretation of a mere recommendation in a rulebook for a game that you not only probably no longer play, but in many cases never did.
“I'm not talking about calendars or short and long rests.”
Except he is talking about calendars, albeit in a roundabout way.
“I'm talking about the way it progresses in your game. The way you decide time moves forward in your game is wrong.”
Again, based entirely off of his misinterpretation of a recommendation in a game that you probably don’t play, if you ever did.
“Y'all are gonna bristle at that, but first I'm gonna give you all a rule, tell you about its benefits, and then we'll get to objections at the end.”
Rube is going to tell you a recommendation and pretend that it's a rule.
“The rule has two parts. The actual rule published by Gary Gygax on page 37 of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide…”
What Rube is disingenuously pretending is a rule in order to support his misinformed and flawed premise, is this bit right here:
This is not a rule. It is, at best, merely a recommendation, something I and at the least The Dying Breed have tried to explain to Rube and other Brosr buffoons. This flimsy statement is what these tourists are hinging their entire absurd and arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 timekeeping doctrine around.
In fact, the entire section on Time in the Campaign isn’t even a rule, but a series of paragraphs explaining why time should matter, given how it relates to various in-game activities such as training to level up (which is an incredibly retarded rule that was wisely relegated to optional status in 2nd Edition, and removed entirely in 3rd).
“...and a procedure used to enhance it."
The Brosr tourists, desperate for attention and authority, had to invent a procedure for a rule that doesn't exist, in order to reinforce their delusions.
“So first up we have the rule we call one-to-one time. It states that for each day that passes in real life, one day passes in-game.”
Again, this is not a rule but a recommendation. Nowhere does it say that you must do this or that. It specifically says that "it is best", but there isn't any explanation as to why it is even recommended. This would have been good to know, though from what I've heard Gary didn't even do this, so really it would have been interesting to know why the recommendation is even there in the first place.
But of course, Rube conflates the two because he wants you to think that you’re playing a specific version of a specific game incorrectly and that he or Jeffro or any of the other tourists are any sort of authority on the matter.
“The in-game calendar moves forward one day for each day that passes in real life.”
It can if you decide to abide by the recommendation, sure. You don't have to have it pass at a 1:1 rate, or even at all. There is no rule telling you that you must do any of this.
“If y'all play on Monday, y'all don't play again until next Monday, seven days will have elapsed, progressed in your game.”
If you play 1st Edition AD&D and you decide to stick with the recommendation. You can use any ratio at all, or none, as there isn’t even a rule saying that you must advance the in-game calendar when you aren’t playing (which doesn't make sense, anyway).
“Next up is a procedure that we commonly refer to as time jail.”
"We" as in the Brosr tourists, so this isn't an official rule by any stretch. Just something they made up, along with the lie that arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 time is an actual rule.
“It states that your characters are inaccessible until the real-life calendar catches up to them. If your character spends about four weeks training to level up you've got four weeks to play another character until they're available again.”
Nowhere is this even remotely implied as the standard procedure in the Dungeon Master's Guide, and this is partly where it gets arbitrary: Rube is saying that you need to "time jail" your character when training, but not when traveling. Also not when resting for the night. Also not when waiting a turn (10 minutes) after you've been adventuring for 50 minutes.
It's funny because the recommendation is to only advance game time only when no one is playing for some reason, but here he is saying that you need to arbitrarily slow game time down when characters are training.
"The procedure of time jail prevents characters from advancing too far ahead in the in-game calendar."
Except, presumably when spending one or more days traveling to a dungeon locale, or when resting for a few days to recover hit points.
Unless you're pretending that the way Gary intended you to play the game was to state that you were traveling to a dungeon location, but since it takes a week to stop, roll up new characters and do something else for an entire week.
And then by that logic, when you finally get to the dungeon (hopefully you made it back in a real-time week otherwise you just died), explore a few rooms, fight some monsters, and then say you're going back to town. Or, should you dare to rest outside the dungeon, wait an entire day to resume play so that the "real world calendar can catch up".
Imagine saying that you want to search a room for hidden doors, traps, and such. The process takes 10 minutes, so you all have to just sit there and do fuckall for 10 minutes. And then imagine that you're insane enough to believe this is how Gary intended the game to be played, he just happened to omit all that from OD&D and 1st Edition.
And then imagine that you're dumb enough to believe all this shit, simply because some moronic grifter hack who doesn't even know how wizards normally acquired spells back in the day said so.
"They can only get as far ahead as the single session will take them."
This statement means nothing, as session duration varies not only from group to group, but even a given group can and will have sessions of different lengths. DMs and players will also handle things differently and at different speeds. Sometimes shit happens to disrupt a game, too.
"This combination of Gary's one-to-one time Rule..."
It's not a rule.
"...and the time jail procedure is known as Jeffrogygaxian time keeping."
No, it's not. You guys made up the term and no one else has heard of it. Jeffro is trying to pathetically attach his name to the legacy of someone who actually did something meaningful with his life. He didn't discover anything: he jumped to a conclusion and then doubled down when people point out that he was full of shit.
"I'd be remiss not to credit a fellow named Jeffro Johnson he's the author of a book called Appendix N."
This was the first time I can recall ever hearing about Jeffro. I tried reading the book, and got less than 12 pages in before regretting it.
"He committed himself..."
Good on him for admitting he has a problem and seeking the help he needs.
"...to running AD&D..."
Nevermind.
"...as close to as written as he could possibly get."
Maybe, except for the part where he imagined a rule where no rule exists. I'm curious about what other rules Jeffro imagined. That aside it sounds like he's running AD&D as close to as written as pretty much everyone else does, so he's not doing anything particularly meaningful or special.
But it's amusing that he thinks he is.
Also, at this point we're just under two minutes into the video.
"I want to make this perfectly clear. Wet your tongue for the history video: this rule would have remained buried and forgotten by conventional RPG designers, even the ones who were present from the very beginning without Jeffro."
How kind of you to quit riding his dick long enough to churn out this inane video.
But, again, it's not a rule. Jeffro didn't "discover" anything. He read a recommendation and was either so stupid that he confused it for a rule, too stubborn to admit that he fucked up, and/or finally found something he could grasp onto and convince a bunch of other dumbasses that he discovered what he believed/claimed was some long-lost secret.
My guess is that people that bothered to read the book saw that, maybe even tried it, but then realized that they have lives and other shit to do and just stopped running it that way since it's not a rule. Besides, it doesn't provide any benefit and doesn't even make any sense. But, no, keep praising Jeffro for confusing/pretending that a recommendation is a rule. You guys are doing great.
"Now, there's a lot of misconceptions about one-to-one time."
Like it being a rule in the first place.
“One-to-one time is universally fair.”
No, it’s not. It’s most beneficial for players with the most free time, assuming that the DM is also available.
“You see time must advance forward in your game.”
Only if something is going on, or if the DM is fast-fowarding past the tedium.
“Events must take place, the campaign must progress to feel real.”
And they can advance when people are actually playing. Or when the DM is fast-forwarding past the tedium.
Events don't feel more real when game time advances despite no one playing. In fact, it can only make things feel less real because events can happen to the characters, to other people, places and things, that might not have happened had the players been present to experience and interact with them.
For example, one thing Brosr tourists have said multiple times is that if you end session in a dungeon that the party just dies. I've heard that they just die outright, and I've heard one tourist state that he would roll random encounters and presumably resolve them without the players present.
This makes the game less real because the characters wouldn't just remain in one spot and do nothing at all until monsters show up to kill them. They would continue exploring, and at a certain point attempt to leave the dungeon to rest.
If outside the dungeon they wouldn't just sit around doing nothing for a week or two or three, they would only remain long enough to recover hit points and spells to the controlling players' content, and then return to the dungeon. Such a process would only take a couple days should a cleric be present, which one pretty much always is.
But with arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 time the characters don't behave like they normally would, or even like normal people. They just stand there and do nothing until slain or the players come back. What would happen if they were in a supposedly safe haven and orcs attack? Well, they'd probably die, even if they were more than capable of handling the threat.
Maybe the DM has the orcs instead ransack the village, even though if the players were present they'd have been able to prevent such a catastrophe.
I wouldn't want to play in a game where the DM tells me that an in-game week passed, and my character just did nothing at all, even though he could and would have, especially if it could have averted a disaster or reaped a fortune.
“There's no way to move the campaign forward without a feeling arbitrary if you just leave it up to DM fiat.”
It’s not arbitrary for the players to tell the DM that they want to rest for a week to recover hit points, and then for the DM to perhaps roll for random events or somesuch, and/or to just declare that a week passes. This is because events in-game already pass at a slower or faster rate than actual time.
It IS arbitrary to have in-game time progress faster than actual time sometimes (such as, presumably, when resting one turn out of six), slower at others (such as during combat), but to then declare that ONLY when NO ONE IS PLAYING that that is when in-game time passes at exactly the same rate.
Even though the rules don’t tell you to do this.
“Group A moves forward 10 days, group b moves forward 20 days, group C moves toward 100 days. If you move the game forward 100 days so folks can catch up to group C, group A and B are going to be pissed off they were hoping to get stuff accomplished in the next 90 days."
Yet players who can only play once every two weeks are perfectly fine when their characters do nothing for two in-game weeks, even though they obviously would have. I'm sure they are also fine if they happen to end session in a dungeon and just arbitrarily die for no discernible reason.
"The DM can make a different decision in this scenario..."
This is permitted even in the rules, because no rule exists that instructs you as to how you must keep and maintain time records. Not that strict time records is even a rule. It only tells you that, if you want things to matter (according to Gary, at any rate), that you must keep them.
"...but it's not going to make a difference."
Sure it can. The DM can keep and maintain his time records, and then run the game in a way where things actually make sense. Where characters don't just stand around idly while the world passes them by, simply because the DM declares it so based entirely on a mere recommendation.
He could also run things such that characters don't arbitrarily die because they are in a dungeon or wilderness environment, something which isn't even hinted at in the rules.
"No matter what they decide the outcome is artificial and unfair."
Telling you that your character sat around and starved to death because you couldn't game for a month is artificial and unfair.
"You can only avoid this by using a rule."
What Rube means here is a rule conjured up by Brosr tourists due to their (deliberate?) misinterpretation of a recommendation.
"It has to be universal."
No, it doesn't.
"It can't change from group to group..."
Sure it can. Some groups have different factors that could necessitate altering, adding, or removing certain rules. Such as if a group is too small, or can only play for an hour or two.
Now if you're running multiple groups in the same world and there's a meaningful chance that they could interact, or their actions could affect parts of the world that other groups will travel to and/or interact with, I could see this being an issue.
But if you're not running a competitive wargame under the pretense of being a roleplaying game (though even in a wargame people don't just let one army keep taking actions non-stop), or a shared world, or groups in your shared world are sufficiently isolated that it won't even matter? Eh.
"...or on a whim."
Here Rube is trying to setup a strawman against a DM advancing time.
"The players need to know how time will advance in advance..."
Easy:
First, when nothing of note happens we'll just fast-forward through it. This means no waiting for eight actual hours when resting for the night, or however many hours whichever edition of elf-game you're playing requires you to prepare/memorize/pray for spells.
It also means that when you have to rest for 10 minutes after doing shit for 50 we won't twiddle our thumbs for 10 minutes. It also means that when traveling to and from the dungeon, we won't stop for the day and pickup however many days later when the DM rolls a random encounter.
Second, when we aren't playing time will simply pause. We'll try to avoid this happening during combat, but if necessary we will pause and pick up next time. This way your character won't just stand there and do nothing for however many days we aren't gaming, because it's a game and not a lifestyle, and there are more important things to do, anyway.
In other words: time advances logically, without wasting anyone's time--or at least wasting as little as possible--since it's a hobby and not a job or lifestyle.
"...so they can set plans that expand resources accordingly."
You can still plan without using arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 timekeeping. Even better, the characters don't behave irrationally.
"Time is their most important resource in a grand campaign."
Don't know what a "grand" campaign is, so as with Jeffrogygaxian bullshit I'm just going to assume it's another made-up term in order to sound important.
"Other players are flying for the same dungeons."
Sounds more like a competitive board game. Also, this system rewards players able to commit the most time. Why would I want to partake in a game when other players can commit far more time than I, especially when it means my character will end up wasting far more time even though thtat's not what he would be doing?
"Patrons and NPCs are wiping out potential safe havens or places to train as they war with one another."
Sure, if you opt to run a campaign where "patrons" and NPCs attack trainers in a bizarrely gamist manner so the party can't level up. Sounds utterly fucking alien to the actual intent of the game (ie, going on adventures and gradually exploring the world), but then these tourists think that arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 timekeeping is a rule so I'm not surprised.
"Regions are rendered uninhabitable or even too unsafe to travel through as war and magic rip up the campaign map."
Again, if you opt to go that route. The implication is that Rube's campaigns, assuming they even run this long, will always end in campaign-scale war between player groups. Sounds...bizarre and artificial, like only being able to build a castle and attract followers at 9th-level, regardless of what you've been doing the entire time.
"That brings us to campaign scale. You see the more game elements are exposed to the ravages of time the more incentives players have to fortify their position in the campaign."
This doesn't follow. First off, by tracking time normally things are still "exposed to the ravages of time". In fact, when you don't rely on arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 timekeeping time can advance faster, meaning things will matter more, and are more likely to crop up in the first place (like, say, aging modifiers and death from old age).
This has nothing to do with fortifying a position. NPCs and monsters can still move against the PCs, or other people and places since the game's scope doesn't have to be reduced to a bubble that only follows the characters and what they are doing.
"If towns and keeps will fall according to campaign events the players must erect towns and keeps of their own if they wish to secure access to markets and trainers of their own."
More gamist wargame crap? Maybe Rube is referring to another game entirely? Maybe he thinks that AD&D is a wargame? You gotta build a town so that you have access to "markets". As if equipment and supplies just spring up in a town, as opposed to goods and/or materials coming from somewhere else. Also, trainers, because in AD&D you go out and adventure, doing stuff your class does, but then have to pay an NPC to train you to do what your class does in order to level up.
This is one way that you know that Gygax never intended it to work this way. Imagine playing by Brosr tourist whims and somehow clawing your way to 9th-level. You don't arbitrarily get picked off in the wilds or dungeon, because you managed to avoid ending session there. You don't starve to death in town because you made sure you were lugging a month's supply of food and water at all times.
You finally did it: 9th-level. Time to build a castle, and cement your imaginary character's legacy in an imaginary world that doesn't even matter because it's just a fucking game. There are numerous systems and subsystems to determine underground construction, mining, clearing an area, chances of monsters showing up, etc, and I really don't care to read all that crap, but at the bottom of page 106 you get some estimates:
A small castle will not be done for, on average, over a year and a half. So you'll have to stay at it, in real-time, for about that long. Or mostly real-time, as the Brosr tourists aren't clear on if you can skip time during actual play.
So I have no fucking clue how in Rube's world you run a campaign going around "erecting towns and keeps", when you'll have to start that and it won't get done for years (if it gets done at all). Imagine pissing away years of your life, hoarding imaginary money and making imaginary towns and keeps, only to have an NPC show up out of nowhere and just wipe it all out.
While this can happen in a normal game, it won't feel as big a waste if the DM skips through months of imaginary castle construction time.
"Towns and keeps require carpenters, stone masons, miners, farmers and blacksmiths to build and maintain.
Sure.
"They require mages and men at arms to keep safe."
If every place in the world requires these specific things then how would anything function? How would farms not be completely overrun and wiped out, since they're not all clustered together within a wall, or have ready access to fighters and wizards? What specific powers does a mage possess that are necessary to overcome typical threats, as most monsters are vulnerable to normal weapons?
Makes more sense to assume that monsters aren't lurking everywhere and that in a presumably more dangerous world people are more prepared and capable of defending themselves (as opposed to having to pay God knows how much every week or month to have a bunch of wizards and warriors on tap).
"They require adventures to bring gold and prestige to their tiny slice of land."
This is even worse than the mages and men-at-arms line. In Brosr tourist world adventurers run the economy! If you don't adventure and bring back gold everything will collapse! So how did anything function before the adventurers cropped up? What happens when the adventurers are done, when all the dungeons are plundered? I guess everyone just starves and dies off because they're too retarded to have a functioning economy without dungeon gold keeping it moving.
"Which in turn attracts the attention of movers and shakers on the campaign map."
Without any context or examples, this doesn't sound quite as absurd. I imagine that if characters become noteworthy that someone may pay attention, but since Rube's games apparently take place in a purely gamist wargame world with perhaps a few fantasy roleplaying trappings layered on top I'm guessing that at tourist tables even with context it still wouldn't make any fucking sense.
"This accelerates our next benefit which is the concept of an always-on campaign."
Okay this is really what I was waiting for. I tried getting Rube to explain to me a single unique benefit of arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 timekeeping, so here we go!
"The game stops for no one baby..."
I find this amusing because it sounds precisely like the sort of empty catchphrase you'd hear from a lifestyle hustler trying to psyche you up. Don't stop playing bro, D&D isn't just a game: it's a way of life!
But, yeah, the game does stop. It stops when the group packs away the dice and goes home. People have lives and other hobbies and obligations, which can be of equal or (hopefully) greater importance.
"...it doesn't matter whether your usual DM, usual player group or usual characters are available."
Yeah, it does. If my usual DM isn't running, then I'm not playing. Like most gamers I don't just float around from group to group like a dice-whore looking for the next fix. I have a group (wife and kids), and we play when able.
"There's a game to be had right now with whoever you can get a hold of."
I'm sure there is a game going on right now, but I don't care to partake in it (only partially because neither me nor my wife are very social people). I'm not that desperate or even particularly interested. While this behavior might appeal to lonely addicts, I often have other, more important things to do.
"The clock is always ticking there's loot out there waiting for you."
More utterly transparent lifestyle hustler sloganeering. Rube sounds pretty desperate to get you on board with his cult, but can't even explain why it's good.
Rube: it's a game. The loot isn't real. The game isn't real. It's not a lifestyle. I know this is completely alien to you, but most people? They play the game for fun. We're not using it as a substitute for a failed career, lost opportunities, a lack of wife and kids, and/or to escape from a dreary reality.
Yep, there's imaginary loot in an imaginary world. And maybe I'll get to it at some point. Not like it's going anywhere. Got more important things to do most of the time.
"Why wait for game night?"
Like the overwhelming majority of normal people not pretending that it's some sort of lifestyle, because that's the time I set aside to enjoy a simple hobby.
None of what Rube said is a benefit. It really has all the detriments of an addiction.
"One-to-one time is a rule..."
A recommendation, but go on.
..."that generates what we call West March's style play, naturally."
Which isn't something everyone is interested in or would even enjoy.
"Speaking of West March's style play, having multiple groups, having multiple DMs, one-to-one time fixes a huge problem with having a bunch of different people run for you by cutting out the question of when certain events are more or less allowed to happen, or at least constraining them pretty heavily, coordinating between multiple referees becomes a comparative breeze."
Okay, so if you have multiple groups, multiple DMs, and everyone's fine just randomly showing up to play in random games and it all takes place in a shared, localized area, arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 timekeeping can makes things easier...just at the expense of characters behaving irrationally.
The upside is that almost no one plays this way, so it doesn't matter. What I am curious about is if a meaningful number of groups obsessively played this way, what superior alternatives would be devised that could avoid contradictory events and timelines, but not result in characters behaving irrationally, and/or a world that comes across as artificial?
But the Brosr tourists aren't interested in that. They're only interested in lying to you about how they are playing the right way, based on a recommendation, and how you're magically doing it wrong.
"Go online and ask folks about one-to-one time..."
As long as they aren't a Brosr tourist you can actually probably talk about it. The Brosr tourists are so up their own asses that they will refuse to engage in anything resembling a genuine conversation.
"...you'll hear from a corner of old school players..."
Ie, the people that actually play the game.
"...the rule only works with large groups..."
Not a rule. The recommendation technically works, but results in so much irrational behavior that it's not worth it.
"It doesn't benefit small groups."
It doesn't provide any benefits at all. At least, no unique benefits.
"Just wastes time and generally serves as an inconvenience."
It does waste time, as players will lose weeks or more of time due to time magically progressing whilst their characters stand around and do nothing. Their characters could also just outright die for no reason, so there's more time lost. This also doubles as an inconvenience.
"Making one day pass in the game for every day that passes in real life offers three benefits unique to smaller groups."
These benefits will not, however, be unique to arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 timekeeping.
"First on the docket is the unique fail state. The body has a unique fail state with regards to time sensitive goals. Just because the party isn't competing with other player characters doesn't mean the world takes pause(?)."
And no one said or even implied otherwise. Time in a normal game advances as the party does stuff, and if the DM has NPCs in the background doing stuff he can track their process if desired. This is pretty basic and in no way requires or is even benefited by arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 timekeeping.
Conversely, using arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 timekeeping doesn't mean that there will be NPCs with goals. All it does is make time constantly tick forward while the PCs stand there and do nothing for weeks on end, even though they would be doing stuff the entire time.
"Players are competing with NPCs. Somewhere out there is a big bad evil guy, waiting on the players to come kick his ass. Of course not, who would want to play in a campaign like that? He is out there in the world achieving his own time-sensitive goals, and the faster the players undercut him the easier the campaign will get. And if the players don't stop them in time, if they clear out one room or fight one combat per week well they lose the campaign."
The fact that Rube wrote this up, recorded it, and put it online without noticing the glaring flaw in all of this is a testament to his ooze-like stupidity. It is so retarded and unfair that I'm still only somewhat surprised other Brosr tourists haven't rebuked him for inadvertently pointing out such obvious defects in their deluded doctrine.
If a DM is going to run a game where there are big bads doing big bad things, and there are time-sensitive objectives, there is no fucking way in hell I am going to play in a game where, when we stop playing, time ticks forward anyway, giving the big bad free reign to act for weeks at a time whilst my character, who would be invested in thwarting his plans, must just sit there and do fuckall.
"If the bad guy gets to progress unimpeded because their players can't make decisions, they hedge too much in fights that never expend resources, then they lose and you kill off what is basically a dying campaign anyways."
Of course, the big bad gets to progress unimpeded anyway whenever no one is playing because only when the players aren't around their characters do nothing while the rest of the world progresses.
"So next up is multiple characters. The use of time jail like we talked about earlier preserves the incentive to make and use multiple characters. Which I'm now convinced is basically required for healthy tabletop RPG experience, especially when it comes to older games."
I'd ask why he thinks it is required for what he believes is a healthy experience, but I don't think Rube knows, or could even begin to explain why. He'd probably just parrot something stupid Jeffro said.
"Your players probably won't make multiple characters unless their main man is inaccessible."
And?
"It can be inconvenient to not have your favorite character on hand, we all get attached to whatever we've invested the most time in. But the trade-off offers you new mechanics or modes of play. New party compositions."
Which you could also get by rotating DMs from time to time. Also playing a game where character abilities and "math" aren't tied to something like Challenge Rating, so you can rope in new characters at lower levels without having to worry about something not working properly, or a character being completely useless.
"Last up on our list of benefits for one-to-one time in smaller groups is bigger rosters. One-to-one time offers up the opportunity to not have a smaller group."
This example also has nothing to do with arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 timekeeping, but it's pretty hilarious.
"Let's make up a hypothetical example here. Let's say that your party's characters have been rendered inaccessible for about two weeks."
In a normal game played by normal people that don't treat elf-games as a lifestyle you'd just say "okay two weeks pass so now we can keep playing", but go on.
"Two folks decide this is their chance to take a break for a week, but you have two other other potential players who never get to join the main group..."
I thought the imagined unique benefit of arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 timekeeping was to make it easier to run multiple groups? Why wait? Why not just run them whenever you feel like?
"...you play in the intervening week, everyone has a great time and they decide they want to come back for more. You repeat this process once or twice and you have a second play group. You have enough people for a second group of characters or a second crew, a second session time you could play more than once per week."
I have yet to meet a DM with the time and willingness to run more than one game, just decide not to even if he has available players wanting to play. You don't need arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 timekeeping to run multiple groups. Normal DMs do this all the time.
"All this makes one-to-one time an engine to produce a larger roster of the players."
No, it doesn't. If you have the players and even want to run more than one campaign a week, you just do that. Arbitrary kinda-sorta-but-not-really 1:1 timekeeping doesn't encourage this or even make it better.
The following quote isn't from Rube but by some other retard named John, who states:
“Time is the one resource that every player gets in equal measure.”
No it is not. Not all players can commit to the same amount of days, or even the same amount of hours. This might come as a shock, but some players might have a bunch of free time and not want to devote it to an elf-game. Some might have very little free time, and/or their free time may be sporadic due to actually important obligations.
Even using the internet there have been too many times to count where a player shows up half an hour late. Perhaps even an hour. And sometimes one or more players have to leave early due to real-life circumstances.
I'm going to skip ahead to the part where Rube claims he'll (begrudgingly) address the objections.
Spoiler alert: he doesn't.
“Now the discussion of one-to-one time has produced some of the most deranged conversations on social media I've ever had the displeasure of witnessing.”
Yep, and entirely courtesy of the Brosr tourists.
“If you're like me and you've only been playing for a decade or so…”
I'm shocked, so very shocked that these pretentious hobby tourist nobodies would crop up out of nowhere to lecture veteran gamers on how to play the right way, solely as interpreted by them.
“...you're unlikely to grow unpleasant on account of hearing some neat new rule to enjoy in your game…”
It's not a rule, it's not new, and it's certainly not neat. It's retarded, adds nothing, and just causes a slew of issues if you stop and actually think about it.
The irony is that they didn’t “discover” a rule. They read a recommendation that I’m sure most that played 1st Edition AD&D were keenly aware of. But since they didn’t run two or more groups in the same campaign with any regularity didn’t care, because it didn’t really affect anything.
“But apparently some more conventional RPG pundits and designers particularly the ones who've been at this for too long can't help themselves but to start wailing and gnashing their teeth…”
He means that people that disagree with him, and/or point out that it’s not a rule. And they don’t even get upset. We just tell him that they’re wrong, they flip out, and pretend they have some sort of moral high ground.
“I tell you this as a warning we might have accidentally stumbled onto a CIA activation phrase.”
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