Fantasy Tropes/Cliches that Annoy You

[Frozen_Feet]

You have two incompatible ideas:

1. The rain is random and has no meaning.
2. The rain symbolizes grief.

Yeah, they are incompatible, as in they cannot be true of the same message. We know 1 is true of my games, so we can show that 2 is not. This does not preclude 2 from being true of some other message. Third time or so I've explained this exact thing.

Your position is that it necessarily must be that 2 is incorrect. The alternative is that 1 is incorrect, and our random tables should not include "rain" because it has a specific meaning.

Your understanding of "my position" continues to be wrong; see above.

Now, the underlined part is actually interesting, but only for how absurd it is. First, is =/= ought; we can correctly determine 1 is true of my games regardless of whether you think I should be doing that. Second, come on, let's hear it: why'd you jump to that as an alternative, when the much simpler alternative is that rain is a symbol in some messages and not in others?

This is the problem you (and more broadly the "nothing ever means anything") side keeps missing -- once you abandon the prospect that messages are fixed by authors, you have to actually defend the message you believe in, which none of you ever do.

I've quite aptly defended what I think "it's raining" means in my games and what it does not. It's your fault that you keep thinking that I have an ulterior motive, as opposed to me using a simple example to get across a basic point about information theory and interpreting messages.

Also, since you seem unable to grasp this: no-one needs to have an interpretation nor defense of such to show that someone else's interpretation or defense of such is full of crap.

I'm not even saying that the claim I'm making is right. I'm saying that as long is your position isn't "it is impossible for that to be right", you have to give an actual reason why it is wrong.

I've explained several times now why "rain is symbol for grief" cannot be true of my games. I've also explained boundary conditions for what it'd take for "rain is symbol for grief" to be right, and some ways how to check if it right.

Your problem, time and again, is that you think I'm arguing for something else than what I am, and refusing to admit I'm correct on the most trivial of points.

Then why do I care what your point is? No one has ever defended "all messages are valid". If your position is just "not all messages are valid", you are not adding anything to the conversation (which seems to be a theme of yours).

My point, targeted at Xuc Xac, VitruvianSquid and some others, was that though all pieces of intelligible fiction are messages, not all messages make a big damn point of the outside world. Additional to that point was that not all "whys" and other things you can infer from a message are part of the message, and where to draw the line.

I've entertained your questions insofar as they've been good questions about how that works in the context of the example, "why does it rain in Frozen_Feet's games?" For example, "why use just English, instead of English plus added symbolism?" was a good question, and I hope the answer was interesting to other participants in this thread.

So why do you care? Hell I know and based on all proof you do not, as you seem more interested in making feeble ad hominem accusations than reading what I write.