The Culture: The Cultist Worships Victory Without Effort

(Following from yesterday's post.)

The very idea that the hobby is not all about fantastic adventure wargaming provokes strong reactions out of Cargo Cultists.

The very idea that these people would better served by doing something else that aligned with their Revealed Preferences freaks them out.

• They want a defined fantasy experience that looks like a TV series or a feature film, where they are inherently more important than others (if not everyone else) That's fan fiction, complete with That Damned Trope. They would be better off writing, and if they think they're good enough publishing it.
• They want a defined path with the illusion of agency without the risks. That's a walking simulator, maybe with gimmicks. Steam has plenty of those. Unity is free.
• They want a fantasy experience where no matter what happens they succeed; failure is impossible in practice, no matter what is claimed. That's bowling with bumpers.

Might I suggest a more suitable option?

No, that's a bit too cruel. Maybe this would work instead.

You're not Games Journalists, right?

The Revealed Preference of the Cargo Cult crowd shows that they don't believe that "gameplay" means putting in effort to achieve an objective, that managing risk matters, or sees the connection between entertainment and reality.

The Revealed Preference of the Cargo Cult crowd shows that they don't believe in objective reality ("just bend the rules"), in the agency of individuals ("the GM has to bend the rules to keep the players on track"), or that they have risk anything to achieve something ("my literal demonspawn shouldn't have to worry about her safety; all she needs to do is show up and she is enough to win as she is").

Yes, they object to this characterization, showing that they willfully disconnect talk from action and get offended when you point out that dissonance.

A hobby born out of teaching the lessons of the Napoleonic Wars cannot help but to be a competitive pursuit, and competitive pursuits require objective rulesets and disinterested arbiters due to having conflicting players seeking conclusive results that both parties accept as valid.

If a player fails to win this time, then he analyzes what happened to find what went wrong and how, and then he improves himself--upgrades his capacities--so that he performs better when he goes for the win next time.

The hobbyist that wins learns how to win by mastering the game and the skill at playing it, just as the athlete and the professional (and they may all be the same thing) learns how to succeed by mastering their game/art or profession and the skills at working it, because the beliefs, habits, and mindset ARE THE SAME. How you play is how you train is how you fight.

All proper hobby games conform to that standard. Cultists cannot conform, and neither do their products. Therefore Cultists are not hobby gamers, and their products are trash.

Simple as.