>From one reading, Trotsky, one could believe that you feel that I'm
equivocating. If accused of such, I'd have to respond in kind, and say that
I think that you're creating straw men just to be beligerent. But let's just
assume that we're both being intellectually honest here, shall we? I'm
probably miscommunicating somewhat, and you're reacting to arguments that I
didn't intend.
Just to clarify what seem to be the misconceptions: 1. It seems to me that you think my solution is to always adhere to the rules as written. It's not. I myself am about as big a tinkerer as you can imagine. I like HQ, however, because as it happens, it supports my prefered mode of play without much modification (note, not none).
2. My solution is not to simply ignore the problem. It's to eliminate the problem before it starts by having everyone play like the player who likes the rule unchanged. The reason the rule then has to remain unchanged is so that the players won't go back to playing different ways, supported by the change. I wasn't advocating leaving the rule alone just to make it match the text, but because it happens to match the overall agenda in question. If, in fact the rule did not, then I'd be showing people how to alter it so that it would (for any interested in my solution).
3. My solution is not neccessary where there is no problem. That is, if changing the rule works for Rob's group, then my solution isn't neccessary. It's an alternative, however, and one that I think has some advantages in terms of other potential problems.
4. Some rules create a single agenda, but that doesn't mean that I think that everyone will like that agenda. But for those who do, why would you change the rules that support it? If you can get everyone playing to that agenda, why mess with what's causing it?
5. I haven't said that everyone will always enjoy every agenda. In fact, I've been very careful not to say that. I included the word "potentially" in the quote you gave precisely because not all agendas are fun to all people. If I thought they were, I'd have said, "All agendas are fun." What I'm saying by potentially fun is that I don't think that there's any reason to assume that a particular agenda can't be fun for somebody.
Or, IOW, it's my experience that people can be quite open-minded, if something is well-presented to them. I think catering often occurs because people believe that others just won't be open-minded to something new. I present games the way I do and few (not none, few) people fail to have fun with it. Even people who at first tell me that they can't possibly have fun in the mode that I'm proposing (ask me sometime about this guy named Dan...).
Yes, some people will have tried and rejected certain agendas. My method won't work for them. I've never said it was some universal solution. Just an alternative to try. I will say that the number who cannot be "converted" to enjoying other agendas is pretty small from what I've seen.
6. You seem to think that by agenda, I mean set of rules. That they are the same. They are not. Just because all players are currently agreeing to play by a particular set of rules, does not mean that they're playing with the same agenda. It's precisely that some rule sets suggest multiple agendas, that the problem of multiple agendas occurs.
When Rob created his fix, he precisely was attempting to facilitate more than one agenda at once. Which, again, if he can make it work, great. Others like myself find it easier to get everyone playing in the same agenda instead.
Now, I could be wrong on what Rob is doing, and you might be right (these things are pretty subjective) - maybe it does create a more coherent agenda, and isn't an attempt to try to support more than one. But he specifically pointed out how it simply enabled players playing two different ways to get along in this specific circumstance. I wasn't even saying that this was bad. Just that there's another way to deal with the sort of problem that he'd identified than his solution.
Mike
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