The Pun-Pun Fallacy (Converse of the Suck-Like-Me Fallacy)

[X-Codes]

I believe converse is the appropriate term here, feel free to correct it if you like.  This fallacy has been seen enough by me to finally push me over the edge and get me to vent about it in my own, new thread. 

The crux of the fallacy is this:
There exists the ability for any character to evolve into the ultimate cosmic power in D&D 3.5e, which is fully capable of solving any problem before the problem even begins.  Therefore, it follows that if you are not the ultimate cosmic power, you are somehow either handicapping yourself or are not capable of solving problems.

The proof of the falseness of this statement is obvious to anyone who plays the game of 3.5e, since every single game that doesn't possess a character playing the ultimate cosmic power is a counter-example.  This is essentially the converse of the Suck-Like-Me fallacy, because you are fully capable of being awesome without being an ass.

If a specific counter-example is desired, then consider the following situation:  The party is a 7th-level group consisting of a Dungeoncrasher Fighter, TWF Rogue, Non-Rainbow Warmage, and DMM:Persist Cleric.  Obviously, the DMM:Persist Cleric can make each of these individual characters obsolete through selection of Personal-Range damage buffs, BC spells, etc.  On the other hand, he can also persist Mass Lesser Vigor, Lesser Holy Transformation, and Recitation, three top-end spells from the Cleric list, and follow it up with other high-end spells like Rod-Extended Mass Conviction and/or Mass Resist Energy, spells which, for the most part, benefit the whole party.

More explicitly, the Cleric is in no way required to prepare Lagozed's Breath, Divine Favor, Divine Power, Righteous Might, Divine Insight, Find Traps, etc. in order to perform at his maximum capacity, both because there are other party members that are perfectly capable of filling these roles themselves (especially with the aid of the mass buffs described above), and because these spells are in no way irreplaceable.  There's a dozen great spells at any given level on the Cleric spell list, you don't need to pick out the few spells that trample the toes of your fellow party members in order to have a full allotment of great spells in a given day.

[wotmaniac]

Unfortunately, the Pun-Pun Fallacy is so pervasive as to have become a staple in CharOp culture.  Further, those that fall prey to it are oftentimes so entrenched in that mindset, that you simply can't argue them out of it.
On a more fundamental level, I see this as emotional immaturity/insecurity manifesting in the form of some wish-fulfillment wankery.

/twocents

[veekie]

Lets not forget the "time to bypass the GM's plot" and "I will be god of the new world" suite of Divinations, Mental Control and Planar Binding/Ally. Or even the battle administration clusterfuck of bringing a small army of minions obtained via whatever means.

[InnaBinder]

Lets not forget the "time to bypass the GM's plot" and "I will be god of the new world" suite of Divinations, Mental Control and Planar Binding/Ally. Or even the battle administration clusterfuck of bringing a small army of minions obtained via whatever means.

You can bypass plot without Divinations and Minionmance at Tier 3 (DN); I agree with the other points you make.

[veekie]

Well, it doesn't really matter what tier(besides, you could ascend a Pun-Pun from any tier ), its more towards criticizing grandstanding, group-unfriendly play. Anyone could do that, including the archetypical rogue who stealths up, scouts ahead, and steals all the loot before the party gets there.

[Maat Mons]

I believe converse is the appropriate term here, feel free to correct it if you like.

If the Suck Like Me Fallacy is defined as “all optimizers are bad team players,” then the converse would be “all bad team players are optimizers.” 

[wotmaniac]

perhaps "inverse" would be better, then?

[Maat Mons]

I think the inverse would be “good team players are non-optimizers.” 

The contrary is “no optimizer is a bad team player.”  That seems to be about what this thread is shooting for, in a sense. 

[CaptRory]

Ultimately it comes back to intent. Like has been said, having power does not mean marginalizing your group, or being uncreative. Having power means you have power. It is what you do with it that matters.

Wanting your character to be powerful, or as another thread put it "The Pro from Dover" where he's the best at his niche, isn't a bad thing inherently. Wanting your character to be effective, is not bad. Everyone wants to be a hero sometimes or at least to be able to fill their role in the group. Believing that your character has to be some phenomenal cosmic force is bad. Persuing it to the detriment of your teammates and beating them over the head if they don't also pursue the same goal with their character is wrong.



The last D&D character I made was a cleric. I did a ton of research. Learned about Divine Metamagic and all. I set out to make the best cleric I could, because I was playing the group cleric and I wanted the group to succeed. And as one of the strongest classes I was in a good position to help everyone more than just throwing out heals. We didn't get that far in the campaign but I never had any intention of trying to break the game or making the other members obsolete. I think the first spell I cast was invisibility on the party rogue so she could follow someone over a more or less open plane.

Anyhow, yeah, I'm basicly just agreeing with X-Codes.

[Whisper]

One of the greatest problems with "charop culture" is that there is no distinction drawn between optimization on features, and bug exploitation.

Any RPG ruleset essentially reduces to a programming language. As such, it has both features and bugs. Pun-Pun is clearly a bug.

Now, D&D makes it especially difficult to distinguish between features and bugs, because instead of hiring Math or CS majors, WoTC hires English and History majors (a class of person distinguished solely by utter uselessness), creating a situation where the authors' utter unawareness of even the most basic consequences of their featureset makes the distinction between "feature" and "bug" largely a philosophical one.

D&D tends to break any time two rules are used synergistically. Nonetheless, in a system that didn't utterly suck, optimization would be restricted to using features, rather than exploiting bugs, and the bugs in the system would be few enough that a smart GM could manually block exploits of them from his game.

If it is possible to break the game entirely, so that it is no longer fun, or playable, or even recognizable as a narrative, via optimization, then optimization becomes not merely a matter of cleverness or knowledge, but also a matter of willingness to break shit.

In other words, the degree to which an optimizer is not Pun-Pun has almost nothing to do with his cleverness, and everything to do with his reluctance to outshine others and spoil plots. This is the fault of the game designers, saddling people who just want to play cleverly with the task of fixing a broken game, or, even worse, with the task of deciding what is broken and what isn't, and how far to go.

In other words, the Pun-Pun fallacy is a fallacy because "not being Pun-Pun" isn't so much a failure at optimization as it is a judgement call on where to draw the line between "too much self-gimping" and "being a douchenozzle who fucks up the game for everyone".

[ariasderros]

X-codes, I am printing this out. Just your first post. I am writing on the top "A better explanation of 'just because you can, doesn't meant you should'". I am stapling it to the back of my The Gentleman's Agreement printout. It is now a new part of my mandatory reading folder for players.

Thank you.

I wish this had been written a long time ago. It may have saved me some headaches with certain players.

Thank you.

[Hallack]

Well said X-Codes.  I never understood the line of thought that drives some to always take the best mechanical choices and think others suck for not.  That is not to say I encourage making and playing gimps but if that is what the other players and DM want to do then it is workable and can be fun.

[Unbeliever]

I'm happy that the gentleman's agreement is getting some more attention, especially in light of some previous threads.  As my little tagline indicates, I'm very much on board with this.

But, isn't this very old news?  I mean, I can't conceive of playing any RPG without something along those lines, with various levels of explicitness.  That was true back in AD&D that I was playing ... well, let's just say a long time ago. 

In a lot of ways I think the linked page is a bit tl;dr, since it can mostly be summarized by the first bolded statement.  That, and it's got some typos (breech v. breach). 

For the record, I think GAs are far better than banning anything or relying on the tiers, the latter of which I think of as at best a heuristic for unfamiliar classes.  I also think such things are decided on by everyone at the table, it's not mandated by the DM.  I have been gaming with good friends for a long time, so we have an excellent sense of what's fair game or not.  And, when we misstep we adjust.  In practice, I find using exemplar builds, i.e., "I think a character of roughly this kind of ability fits in this game" is very handy. 

[ariasderros]

But, isn't this very old news?  I mean, I can't conceive of playing any RPG without something along those lines, with various levels of explicitness.  That was true back in AD&D that I was playing ... well, let's just say a long time ago. 

One would think. Then one would go through my post history and find all of the times I've linked that as an answer to a problem. Because it would be the answer to the problem. If people would follow the basic tenants: that no one should outshine another player (too noticeably, anyway); that everyone is there to have fun, don't disrupt it; don't do anything you wouldn't want the DM to do; etc. then the entire community of the game would be much better.

If people in the world would follow the Golden and Platinum Rules, then life wouldn't be a never-ending series of cluster-fucks.

Same thing, really.

[Jackinthegreen]

In my experience, old news doesn't necessarily mean people have heard it.  Nor does it mean those who have heard it take it to heart.  Hell, sometimes even people who have heard it and taken it to heart in their usual activities will go Munchkin for whatever odd reason.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

I believe converse is the appropriate term here, feel free to correct it if you like.

If the Suck Like Me Fallacy is defined as “all optimizers are bad team players,” then the converse would be “all bad team players are optimizers.”

I think the inverse would be “good team players are non-optimizers.” 

The contrary is “no optimizer is a bad team player.”  That seems to be about what this thread is shooting for, in a sense.

Let's see ...
Pun-pun Minus X = Pun-pun
1 / Pun-pun = iZero
(Real Life + X) / Pun-pun = I need a tylenol.
 

[X-Codes]

I think the inverse would be “good team players are non-optimizers.” 

The contrary is “no optimizer is a bad team player.”  That seems to be about what this thread is shooting for, in a sense.

Neither of those is entirely true.  I'm going more for "just because you're not the ultimate cosmic power doesn't mean you're weak."  In any game where the Gentleman's Agreement is in effect, it's not even remotely self-nerfing, either.