Logic that is obvious to gamers

The Game Room
101

You may have heard, regarding firearms, to aim at “the center of mass”. Gamers know that this is pernicious nonsense. In most cases, gamers aim for the head. If the target has no obvious head, they aim at the glowing bits of anatomy or the bits that flash when hit. In extreme cases, it is best practice to run up to your enemy like a doughboy going over the top, fire an entire clip directly into his face at point blank range, run away, and circle back after reloading. In any event, rest assured that 99.9% of enemies have a weak point somewhere, and it isn’t center mass.

Guns require no maintenance beyond reloading. Jamming and overheating are myths to be ignored.

Every culture throughout history has fielded at least one special type of military unit that has advantages (greater attack strength, higher defense, cheaper to produce, etc.) over other units of that type. These special units will be chosen based on what a 14 year old thinks sounds bad ass, not actual historical performance. Therefore, if Romans are present, the special unit will be the Praetorian Guard, nevermind that they were imperial bodyguards who rarely participated in war and mostly notable for their political influence.

There are few practical differences between genders, except breasts. Breasts are the source of a woman’s power. That’s why woman’s chest armor requires special tit compartments. These compartments disappear if a man puts on the armor. This also explains why breasts are heavily armored. Unimportant bits like women’s limbs, heads, and throats require no protection.

The better the armor, the more unlikely and decorative it is. Unadorned armor seems practical as it would be lighter and more likely to deflect blows, but no. Ditch that junk and get something made of unlikely sounding material and covered in filigree, points, and ornamental statuary. The more unlikely the material, the more effective the armor. Gold is good. Demon organs are better.

Waterfalls are the most common geographical feature. The average river has a waterfall every 100 meters. It will also, at some point, flow completely underground through a system of caves or tunnels. The underground portion of a river’s channel begins and ends with a waterfall and has waterfalls every 50 meters on average.

102

And if the waterfall is taller than you are, the odds are excellent that there’s a hidden nook behind it with something valuable.

103

Everyone runs faster with a knife.

104

Guns do more damage if you are stronger. It doesn’t matter if its a pistol or an uzi, the more strength you have, the more damage it does.

Where men and women differ, it is always thus: Men are stronger but slower, women are weaker but faster. Usain Bolt would be a woman if he were in a game

It is useless to try and get a big lead in a racing game. On the last lap, no matter how far ahead you are, you will only win barely because the 2nd place racer will get an inexplicable speed boost, or you’ll be hit with a blue shell

No switch is extraneous. Every single one of them does opens a door or a wall that helps you to get further in the game. Move every single one.

No matter how world-destroyingly powerful the main villain is, there will also be something even stronger. But strangely, this super badass wants nothing to do with the world, preferring to slumber in some remote corner of the world away from prying eyes even though he could annihilate any threat to the world in a few hits

105

Yes, I forgot about the obvious storage advantages of waterfalls. But that reminds me…

Items that you find in a dungeon may appear to be ancient and have lain there undisturbed for many decades. However, if you try to store your crap in a dungeon, say, all those brooms you’ve been collecting, it’s likely that whatever you placed in your cache will disappear by the time you return. The reason is as obvious as it is simple: dungeons are actually enormous living creatures, which have a parasitic relationship not only with their monstrous inhabitants but with the very adventurers who are tempted within the creature by gold and shiny objects. The dungeon provides a habitat for monsters, the adventurers kill the monsters, the dungeon digests the corpses and foreign objects left laying about, and, over time, converts the mass into gold and magic swords, which attract more adventurers. Most species of dungeons have evolved to light their own innards with biologically-produced torches and lamps, which explains why adventurers never find stocks of torches and lamps within dungeons, no matter how well-lit.

106

Well, in some games, men are physical fighters and sometimes magicians, whereas women are mostly healers, and sometimes magicians as well.

107

This remind me of an old CRPG (from the 90s, I think) where no light was provided in dungeons (so running out of torchs was a bad idea), but I can’t remember its name.

In this game, you started on a spaceship that crashed on a Med Fan world, where you would first encounter a village of humanoids with big cats features. Does someone remember which game it was?

108

Again in my old favourite, MM6, this did not apply to PCs. Monsters, however, could throw around all the fireballs and breath weapons they liked without harming innocent bystanders or each other. Also, you could catch yourself in your own blast radius; they never did, even if they were right in your face when they fireballed you.

109

Albion.

110

i don’t really have any new observations to add to the thread, but watching my girlfriend play skyrim made me wince constantly. i didn’t realize there’s so many innate things you know how to do in a video game just because you have years of experience.

111

I only encountered this for the first time this week, but apparently it is possible to sneak while mounted. The clop, clop of the horse’s hooves doesn’t give you away at all.

112

All humanoids have maneuvering thrusters, such that we can jump and significantly change our velocity in mid air.

If a wall or door opens by rising up into the ceiling, stay back! If you get impatient and try to run underneath you can get crushed, even though the opening is widening.

Speaking of crushing, if the world is scrolling, don’t forget you can get crushed between objects and side of the screen (thereby suffering a breaking the fourth wall reality-combination death).

113

I used to have a pinback that said “When the DM is smiling, it’s already too late”.

114

Scuttling from side to side like a giant crab or a Gene Kelly tap dance routine is an effective way to avoid bullets, rockets, arrows and fireballs.

115

The most fun part of DMing is making random dice rolls and chuckling. There doesn’t even have to be anything around that warrants a dice roll, just pick up a D20, roll behind the screen, and go “heh.” Makes it even better when you tell people to make spot/perception checks randomly.

116

Reminds me of the old school concept of the 10’ pole. The 10’ pole is the most useful item for any adventurer: handy for getting into and out of pits, opening doors or propping them closed, useful for triggering traps or as torch extensions for dangerous situations.

The party I DMed for had every member carry one and they could all be attached to each other like tent poles. I was constantly amazed at how many stock dungeon problems they could fix.

117

Where do they keep them?

Most people don’t build dungeons to have 10’ ceilings, so the z-axis is out. And if you hold them along the x or y-axes, movement becomes difficult. So I guess you can try to store them at an angle through 2 or more of these axes, but you’re still creating personal space issues.

Barring extradimensional space, there’s no good way to have an entire party carrying 10-ft poles. It’s hard enough with just one.

118

Collapsible 10ft poles. The gnomes make them.

119

I like the solution I’ve been using in my current game. The DM lets us have cantrips for free, so whenever my bard needs a 10’ pole, she uses Summon Instrument to get herself a didgeridoo (which I amazingly seem to have spelled correctly on the first try).

120

They don’t? But, but…How do the ogres get down there then?