View Single Post
Old 09-03-2007, 01:51 PM   #22
Atyreus
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Home MUD: The Dreaming City
Posts: 60
Atyreus is on a distinguished road
Re: What Does "Fair" Mean?

This example is the orange among the apples of the previous four examples. Using this reasoning to determine "fairness," you should also be asking:

6. Is it fair that Player Y can acquire 'the Sword of Uber Slaying' through extended grinding and camping and kick Player X's behind in a PvP fight, even though Player X is a much better player (she is a better problem-solver, she is better at fighting npcs/players within her level range, she is more efficient at locating gear) and lags behind solely because she hasn't been able to put in geologic amounts of time into the game like Player Y?

Note that this question isn't about the "fairness" of Player Y having more time than Player X. I agree with you that this is just a part of the general unfairness of life. The question here is the "fairness" of Player X being rewarded in game for this. If #5 is unfair, wouldn't #6 be unfair as well? In both cases the game is rewarding someone for having more of a particular out-of-game asset.

Of course, as I've stated before, I don't think either situation is unfair. In both cases we have game rules which are applied evenly to all involved. In situation #5, the game rules state that you can gain advantages by spending real world money. In situation #6, the game rules state that you can gain advantages by spending real world time. It doesn't matter that these rules aren't necessarily written down somewhere (in the case of #6, especially, they almost never are). They are understood by the players that participate in these games.

You obviously don't like the game rules for example #5. You clearly wouldn't play a game that incorporates such rules, and it would make little sense for someone to argue that you should do otherwise. After all, if you don't like cabbage, you don't like cabbage. In what way, however, does that make the rules in question unfair? These are rules which people volunteer to play by. And assuming they are applied impartially to all who volunteer to play by them, then they are, by definition, fair.
Atyreus is offline   Reply With Quote