[quote=@LeeRoy] Examples[/quote] All of these examples sound like they have much of anything to do with quantifiable data. They all sound like they have to do with a difference in tier. That being said, even if it is based off of some use of numerical information, you're kind of blaming the wrong thing. This isn't an issue with the number, it's an issue with the person who used them. This is the difference between a mechanical error and a user error. If you have an equation that is "solve for X" and a person fucks it up, it's not the equation's fault. It's the person's. In the same way, if someone uses numerical data to be an asshole.. you don't blame the numbers, you blame the person. You don't blame the tool, you blame the hand holding it. It's the same thing with people who are intentionally vague in their profiles so that they can "bend" the stated limits of their abilities. It's not the abilities that are the issue, it's the user. [quote]Trying to equate strength is the most unassailable bastion of dumb logic I've ever seen though. Because we always wind up trying to calculate how much force a punch is going to have behind it. We always try to explain how hard a character who can lift 100 tons punches. And always wind up in these calculations that literally require a calculator to do.[/quote] I kind of feel like you didn't read my post, because I explained when numbers are useful and when they aren't, and one of the explicit examples I used as being unnecessary numerical minutiae is "calculating the PSI of a punch." It sounds like you had a bad experience with someone's playstyle, and now you've decided that using numbers is somehow "bad" in all situations, despite the fact that this is demonstrably false. Which, I mean, I can understand why dealing with someone's bullshit can make someone feel sketchy about certain things, but there's a point where it's not really reasonable. Going "No one should ever use numbers" is unreasonable when there are clear situations where numbers are provide important context clues for players from both a fighting and a balancing perspective. For every instance where you've had a bad experience with someone who used numbers, I'm sure other people have had bad experiences with people who were purposefully vague. That doesn't mean that either practice -- utilizing qualitative or quantitative information -- is bad. It means that a) there are people who will misuse these things to their advantage and b) they are useful in different contexts. Numerical data is more useful in some contexts, and less so in others. There's nothing wrong with that; the data itself is purely neutral. What's good or bad will always come down to someone's use or abuse of it. [quote]There's a reason why I reserve my more unpleasant characters for tournaments, it's because it's going to force you into a situation where you aren't going to trust the person you're roleplaying. (Eventually.)[/quote] I trust every person I fight, even in tournaments. It's why my character profile is always readily available on public display when I fight -- I don't really worry about metagaming. I don't see any reason why a tournament would make me trust someone less, or why I would play anything other than the character that I want to play -- and I've fought almost exclusively in tournaments, including a 3 year run of being in the finals for a big, annual tournament and winning 2/3 of those finals. I've fought, or been involved in various fighting communities, for nearly ten years. I have had two -- and only two -- fights that became negative where my opponent and I bickered. All my other fights have been more or less smooth sailing, despite the fact that I use the dreaded, abominable, crimes-against-nature tool that is quantifiable data for specific aspects of my character (namely his athletic stats). [quote]Arena Roleplay is about Rule of Cool. Math isn't fucking cool. [/quote] Au contraire, mon frère: the Arena is about the Rule of Logic. You can do what you want - whether it's "realistic" or "cool" John Woo/Matrix style stuff -- as long as it adheres to an internal logic. You do what works and what's authentic for your character from their perspective, whether or not it's necessarily cool or interesting. And, as it stands, if my character can overhead press 405 pounds, then I consider the idea of him caber-tossing a washing machine at someone to be pretty fucking neat-o. (I actually hate math. I legitimately have [i]maybe[/i] a 10th grader's understanding of math. I don't know how I passed college algebra.)