Fourteen years after abandoning the Dark Sun line of products, Wizards of the Coast released a new campaign setting based on the current 4E ruleset this August.  I recently picked up the brand new books and spent a very good while reading them and rereading bits of them.  Before I get into my impressions, I feel like I should put my opinion in context by writing about my thoughts of both the original Dark Sun world and the new 4E rules in general.

4E Dungeons & Dragons

In 1996, TSR went under and so did Dark Sun.  When Wizards of the Coast restarted D&D with 3rd Edition, they did not republish all the myriad campaign settings that TSR had in their stable.  Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Planescape, and Dark Sun were left behind.  This version of the game reached its pinnacle with v3.5 of the rules in 2003.  In the main, it was a popular edition.  I had been a student of the game, and collected the books, though I had no avenue of play.  Indeed, I had not played D&D of any kind since my Dark Sun based game back in 1997-8.

Fast forward to 2008, where two events shaped my experience of D&D.  The first was profound.  Gary Gygax (the creator of D&D) died, and a group of us decided to commemorate his memory with a session of v3.5 that led to a semi-regular game.  Second, a 4E version of the rules was announced by WotC later in the year.

Again, being a student of the game, I looked forward to the new edition.  I had enjoyed each successive version of the game these many years and felt that each revision both streamlined the rules and made them more flexible.  Rumors began to swirl concerning game concepts which were being removed from 4E, but I ignored them.  I did as I always do, ignored the early critics and resolved to make up my own mind in my own time.

I was able to do that after the official release and I read the new Player’s Handbook.

One of their goals was to make the game more accessible.  Easy to jump into and start playing right away without all of that messy character creation.  They succeeded because each character has been reduced to bland similarity.  The new Player’s Handbook is a testament to mindless hack and slash gaming.

You see, the old way of building a character made you think about your background as you were selecting skills and feats.  Where did the bard Rufo learn history?  How did he happen to be pick up ranks in Perform (oratory)?  Why does he speak Elven and Dwarven?  What was he doing when he picked up the Investigator feat?  These are all relevant questions and help you build a back story for the good bard.

In 4E they don’t even have bards, damn them.  What’s more a 3rd level fighter has the same skills as any other 3rd level fighter with only variations in ability scores to allow for the skill check to be more or less probable between the two.  What’s the point of arguing over who gets to intimidate the kobold prisoner if both fighters have exactly the same chance of success?

And, hey, you remember spells?  That’s all you’ll do is remember.  Now everything is a power or ritual.  And where’s the art of it when a 5th level rogue and a 5th level wizard both have the same number of powers (which are now called at-will, encounter, daily, and utility)?  Sure, they have different flavors, each can do a different thing, but the point is... rogues and wizards (and everyone else, don’t get caught up on the details!) use exactly the same mechanic for doing their stuff in combat and out.

If all you want to do is min/max your character and see how many goblins you can kill in an encounter I’m sure 4E is your favorite wet dream.  But it isn’t mine.  Oh, and every character gets healing surges?  How’s that work?  Where is the underlying logic that says a ranger can just heal himself by wanting it?  This is crap storytelling and worse roleplaying.  It tells me that they decided all the cool kids are playing World of Warcraft and they ought to make Dungeons & Dragons a little bit like it.  And then they made it a lot like it.

And so D&D has come full circle.  First it influenced countless pen and paper games and they in turn shaped a host of computer games which evolved and became inspiration to D&D.  It’s a sad cycle, if you ask me.  Predictable and soulless.

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Fourteen years after abandoning the Dark Sun line of products, Wizards of the Coast released a new campaign setting based on the current 4E ruleset this August.  I recently picked up the brand new books and spent a very good while reading them and rereading bits of them.  Before I get into my impressions, I feel like I should put my opinion in context by writing about my thoughts of both the original Dark Sun world and the new 4E rules in general.

Dark Sun:  The Original

In 1991 TSR, Inc. released the original Dark Sun campaign setting, and I didn’t take any notice of it.  My first exposure was two or three years later after the setting had several supplements and a small line of strong novels written by Troy Denning.  It was a fantasy world gone wrong, incorporating all the worst elements from post-apocalyptic fiction and gritty genre bending fantasy.  By which I mean I was hooked instantly.

Dark Sun, for the uninitiated, is a violent campaign setting for the roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons.  The entire flavor of the game turns traditional fantasy conventions on its ear and does its own thing without regard to likes of J.R.R. Tolkein, Gary Gygax, or the medieval tone of every other RPG out there.

The world of Dark Sun is called Athas.  It is a desert planet, and most of it goes generations without a single rainfall.  There are no oceans, rivers, or lakes.  Water, scarce as it is, is not quite the rarest commodity around.  Metal is gone from the world.  Only the very wealthy can afford anything made from metal.  All tools, weapons, and armor are crafted from bone, wood, and obsidian.  Ceramic pieces are traded instead of copper pieces.

It is, literally, a place of fire and sand.  The sun is huge and swollen and red, the sky is crimson and much of the surface is covered in yellow sand.  Here is the first roleplaying game where the environment was the first, last, and best enemy the player characters had to defeat.  In so many games, its easy to assume your characters are doing the sensible thing and eating and drinking enough water each day that you really don’t have to keep track of it.  In Dark Sun, there are consequences to not having enough daily rations marked on your character sheet.  A journy from one city-state to another had to be carefully planned simply because an average party couldn’t carry enough water with them to make the journey safely.  They would have to forage on the way.  This made for all manner of dastardly scenarios the DM could spring on the players.  Good times.

But not everything is as fun for the DM.  Player characters have unique advantages here that can give even a seasoned DM fits.  Observe the character creation process... roll 5d4 for the six attributes.  This allows for a character with abilities ranging from 5 to 20 points.  Additionally, there were several races that allowed for a bonus to Strength (half-giants famously gave +4 bonus).  I ran a campaign where my strongest character had a STR 22.  D&D, especially the old AD&D was so skewed in giving bonuses to Strength that this particular character threw my game balance way off.  I had to learn quickly to adjust encounters that had to be solved in ways other than combat, or if combat was the only course then it would be equally challenging to all players.  My first few combat encounters consisted of nothing more than the half-giant defeating everything while the other players simply had to stay out of the way.  I view this experience as a positive, since it forced me to be a better DM, it forced me to look at things other than just hack and slash, and the lessons I learned in that Dark Sun campaign are still useful to this day.

I loved every inch of that game.  It was so new, so different.  It was the ultimate fantasy world, in a way.  Not only was it a place I couldn’t visit, it was a place I would never want to.  But I could enjoy making characters be as wicked as I wanted them to be.  See, the whole notion of doing good for good’s sake is so alien on Athas that Paladins didn’t exist because no one, not one single person on the planet, had even the faintest concept of chivalry.  And that’s pretty wow for a fantasy roleplaying game.

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Album released August 17, 2010.  These are my thoughts of the album, track by track, as they occur to me.

“Satellite 15… The Final Frontier”
I’ve never heard Maiden sound like this.  This is a nice growl through here and the buildup is as heavy, maybe heavier, than anything they’ve done.  That growl in the background is ever present through the intro and the three guitars really layer on each other to such an extent that it is almost a disappointment when Bruce’s vocals come on.  I want to hear more of this new sound.

Hey, here’s a bit of trivia… Nicko McBrain is credited for drums and keyboards on this.  Maiden has never really been a keyboard heavy band, they’ve used a bit, notably on their “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son Album” but it’s not a focus.  It’s nice here that Nicko does double duty, its more effect than music.  Good.

Hey, nice callback to “The Flight of Icarus” there.

This is more straightforward maiden now.  Solid work.  I like that I can imagine I can pick out which guitarist is handling each spot.  Adrian on lead, I think.

“El Dorado”
Love the opening here.  Wow.  Just wow.  Steve may have just out-Steved himself.  So far, a real stand out performance by the lads.  End of song and I realized I’ve listened to it and not reviewed it.

“Mother of Mercy”
Echoes of Bruce’s solo album “Balls to Picasso.”  I loved that album simply because it was a departure from Maiden.  More of that here.  Seems a little eerie hearing Steve do something like this, though ever since “Brave New World” they’ve been flirting ever closer to a sound like this one.

“Coming Home”
Hey, classic riffs here.  This is Maiden like we remember.  Well, hang on.  Tricked me.  Slow it down and get a more lyrical Bruce.  I like Bruce’s tenor.  He’s got some age on him now, but that hasn’t stopped him from belting out some clear notes.  One of the nice things I’ve always liked about Maiden is they… I don’t know… elucidate each note.  They don’t throw vast amounts of feedback or distortion into what they do.  You hear those three guitars now?  One can go low and counterpoint the bass and the other two spin around Bruce’s voice.  Nice.  I think that’s Dave Murray doing rhythm on this bit.  Listen, you’ll see.

“The Alchemist”
Bruce’s solo album “The Chemical Wedding” had a song called “The Alchemist.”  I thought this might be a throw back to that.  I was wrong.  This is real Maiden through and through.  I think I’m going to listen to Janick on this one.

“Isle of Avalon”
That gallup is slower on this one.  More like… lapping waves on the shores of Avalon itself.  Lots of Celtic imagery.  Not sure I recall a previous Maiden tune steeped in quite this form of myth.  Classic sound once it gets going, but a lot heavier on lyrics.  More traditional storytelling and less emphasis on concise poetry.  Can we call Maiden’s lyrics poetry?  Sometimes.  Not here, though, but don’t take that as a negative.

“Starblind”
You know how I was just talking about storytelling?  More of it.  Previous Maiden albums have been full of short lines, strong chorus.  Very standard in the metal world.  Heck, Maiden practically invented it.  I feel a strong shift in styles, something they’ve done on the last two albums, but done better on this one.  It’s more prose like.  I sort of don’t even notice the chorus when it’s repeated.  Seems like it’s only done twice on this one.  Almost missed it.   I think this is mostly Bruce writing the lyrics.  A lot of similarities to his work on the album “Skunkworks” but with a heavy Steve Harris influence on the music.

“The Talisman”
Ironically, I think Blaze Bayley would do a better job on a song like this.  I never understood why fans of Maiden rejected Blaze on the two albums he did with the band.  He had solid vocals.  Sure as a baritone he sort of didn’t do the songs the same way Bruce did, and even a couple of standards he couldn’t do.  But this is offset by the fact that he could do others that Bruce couldn’t.  “The Name of the Rose” comes to mind, a strong song and better with Blaze on vocals.  That’s my opinion of this.

“The Man Who Would be King”
Sometimes it’s easy to overlook the technical achievement of the band.  Their sheer proficiency with each instrument.  They bring together a sound that seems effortless but incongruously can’t be.  Nice work by Janick and Adrian and Nicko.  I really notice how a good drummer can add excellent punctuation to guitars.

“When the Wild Wind Blows”
What can I say about this?  It’s an ode to sadness and even hope.  It’s a song of the end times and yet it isn’t gritty and dirty and doesn’t have the chaos of the opening track.  Indeed, it is a well constructed study in progressive rock, Maiden style.  Nice fade out.  We end with a poignant wind blowing.

Iron Maiden is Steve Harris (bass), Bruce Dickinson (vocals), Janick Gers (guitar), Dave Murray (guitar), Adrian Smith (guitar), Nicko McBrain (drums).

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This is a philosophical perspective to logical argument concerning common fallacies contained in the argument.

I have previously made clear the elements of an argument:  the premise, evidence, and conclusion.  Along with these I explored the necessary and sufficient conditions of the premise and how the evidence presented must be independent from and supportive of the conclusion.  I further presented some common fallacies of logical argument that used (or mis-used) these points.

When creating an argument, it is very important that you explore and understand these fallacies so that you do not commit their mistakes.  However, there are as many fallacies in logical arguments as there are actual arguments.  In this paper, I shall concentrate on some of the lesser fallacies.  Lesser in this case meaning apart from those presented in Part 1 of this series . . .  they are just as fallacious as those presented in Part 1, but are somewhat less obvious to spot.

Black or white fallacy:  This fallacy occurs when one attempts to resolve an argument into only two choices (black or white; good or evil; true or false) when other choices may exist.  A good example of this is a debate on religion.  “If Wilhelm is not Christian then he must be atheist.”  If one resolves the argument to these two choices, then you have ignored other religions:  Buddhism, Muslim, Hindu, and hundreds of other religious philosophies that exist in the world.  There is often more than one alternative to any argument and care must be taken to include them all.  Note that the black or white fallacy can be committed any time the number of alternatives given are less than the actual number of alternatives that exist:  three instead of four, or nine instead of twelve.

Ad hominem:  Taken from Latin (which means “to the man”), ad hominem fallacies take attention away from the evidence and directs it to the source of the evidence (or the character of the person presenting it) in an attempt to discredit the validity of the evidence.  If Garth were to make a staement that refutes a portion of the Bible, an ad hominem fallacy would be committed if on were to say, “Garth is ignorant of the subject since he is not a Christian.”  This works only if all non-Christians are ignorant of the Bible, which is not a valid assumption.  When evidence is presented in any argument, we must disassociate the evidence from the source.  The evidence may be valid, even if the source is not.  If the evidence is invalid it should fail (or succeed) on its own merit.

Sometimes the background of a source can justify his evidence.  The opinion of a professor of physics, for example, can lend credence to an argument that supports Einstein’s special theory of relativity.  The professor of physics very likely has detailed knowledge on the subject and advertising his status as a professor of physics would help in furthering the argument in favor of special theory.  However, making claims on his character, (that he is a democrat or a non-Christian) which are irrelevant to the subject would be committing the ad hominem fallacy.

Fallacy of Origin:  Similar to the ad hominem fallacy, the fallacy of origin attempts to discredit the origin of a practice or belief without taking into consideration its current role.  “Soft Drink A was originally created as a ‘snake oil’ tonic by a charlatan.”  This could be evidence in support of Soft Drink B; however, it fails to take into account the evolution of Soft Drink A into a palatable beverage.  Similarly, some of our medical knowledge stems from the result of biological testing performed during the holocaust in Germany, yet in today’s role, it saves many thousands of lives each year.  When examining such arguments we must focus on its role now, not its origins.  Again, if the evidence is unsound, then it will fail of its own accord.

Fallacy by exaggeration:  Exaggeration may occur in an argument in one of two forms, the first exaggerates the premise of an argument; the second exaggerates the conclusion.  During an argument, an opponent may exaggerate the original conclusion so that in may more easily be attacked.  This is a fallacy more easily represented by example.  A candidate for political office could make a statement in favor of raising taxes on tobacco and alcohol.  His rival may then attack him with a counter statement, “My opponent is in favor of raising taxes.”  By raising the stakes from raising taxes on tobacco and alcohol to all taxes, he has committed an Exaggeration fallacy.

The second form of fallacy by exaggeration distorts the conclusion in such a way as to suggest that the consequences of a particular view or action will result in future negative actions.  “If we support Policy X, then Y will result.”  It should be understood here that Y is generally undesirable.  If one can offer evidence that Y will, in fact, occur, then we have avoided this type of fallacy by exaggeration.  The key point to remember here is that unsubstantiated allegations result in this type of exaggeration.

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This is a philosophical perspective to logical argument concerning the premise, evidence, and conclusion.

In logical argument a premise must exist.  A premise can be expressed as: “If A, then B.”  The premise expresses the logical relationship between the theory (A) and the assumption (B).  The philosopher is not concerned with the cause and effect so much as the logical chain of events between theory and assumption.  We call this logical chain of events, conditions.

The two primary conditions that exist in philosophical argument are necessary conditions and sufficient conditions.  Let’s explore the differences between the two.

If the assumption relies on the theory, then the theory is a necessary condition.  In other words, if A must exist in order for B to exist, then A is a necessary condition.  For example:  If I have an orange, I must peel it before I can eat it.  Therefore, peeling the orange is a necessary condition for me to eat the orange.  However, just because you have a necessary condition, it does not follow that B must occur.  I have peeled the orange and supplied the necessary condition, but I do not have to eat the orange.

This takes us nicely into the sufficient condition.  If the assumption (B) must follow the theory (A), then A is said to be a sufficient condition.  For example:  If I strike a match, then (given the presence of oxygen) the match will burn.  We can see that striking the match is a sufficient condition.

It follows that a sufficient condition is also a necessary condition; however, necessary conditions (by themselves) are not sufficient conditions.

We have now established the elements of a premise.   We can now use this premise to offer evidence in support of a conclusion.  It is important that evidence given must be independent from and supportive of the conclusion.

Suppose one wants to argue in favor of capital punishment.  One could construct the premise, “If a person is convicted of murder, he should be executed.”  Evidence could be given as:  “Capital punishment would prevent future murders from the convicted criminal, and is an effective deterrent against would-be criminals.”  At this point, we are not as concerned with the validity of that claim as we are with it being independent from and supportive of the conclusion (in the case, the enactment of the death penalty).  In this argument, we have established premise, evidence and conclusion.

The evidence is independent from the conclusion; which is to say, the conclusion does not have to exist for the evidence to be true.  It would be quite another thing if we offered the evidence to be, “Executions are a deterrent because we have capital punishment laws.”

The evidence also supports the conclusion.  If we can accept the evidence as truth, then it would follow that we could accept the conclusion as truth.

Now, we can begin to look at some common logical fallacies in argument.

Circular argument:  A circular argument presents evidence that is not independent of the conclusion.  “Capital punishment should be required of all murderers because they should be executed.”  In this case the evidence is essentially the same as the conclusion, and there is no independence.

Consider the following, “Carl is telling the truth because James says he is, and James believes him because Carl told him the truth.”  The conclusion, “Carl is telling the truth,” depends on the evidence, “James says he is.”  The problem is that the evidence relies on a second premise, the conclusion of which requires Carl to be telling the truth, which is the original conclusion.  Again, the conclusion depends on itself and is a circular argument.

Begging the question:  When evidence is presented in support of a conclusion that rules out any other possibility, it is said to be begging the question.  Carl could make the claim, “all Americans believe in capital punishment.”  Wayne could present the argument that James, an American, does not support capital punishment.  Carl might claim, “Then James is clearly not an American.”  Carl has redefined “American” so that his original conclusion is true, and has committed the fallacy of begging the question.

Non Sequitur:  From the Latin, “does not follow,” the non sequitur is used to describe a premise whose evidence (while being independent from) does not support its conclusion.

Sometimes evidence does not support the conclusion because there is no relation between the two:  “Carl is telling the truth because he is a democrat.”  Being a democrat offers no relation to Carl’s honesty (despite what a republican may claim) and cannot be used to support that conclusion.

In other non sequiturs, the evidence may support the conclusion, but only secondarily or, in actuality, supports a slightly different conclusion.  “Lowering taxes would be beneficial to Americans because it would allow them to keep more of their income.”  The evidence would seem to support the conclusion (of lowering taxes); however, it makes no statement of other social concerns, which may arise as a result of lowering taxes (fewer prisons, lower wages in public schools, reduced maintenance on public roads, etc.).

Any time a sufficient condition is required for the evidence to support a conclusion, a non sequitur occurs when only a necessary condition is given.

Look for Part 2 (coming soon) in which we explore even more logical fallacies of argument.

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