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Well, at least elves also got to be associated with beautiful yet badass Tolkien/DnD style characters. Legolas, anyone? 

It seems that with most folklore creatures, like dragons, trolls, vampires, and ghosts, you have bowdlerized defanged kiddie versions,
but you also still have serious high fantasy depictions of them in lots of media, whereas with unicorns, it's like someone in the
the late 80s saw the legends saying that they could only be bested and tamed by maidens and decided "EeeeEwww Cooties!" and that
unicorns should be exclusively relegated to baby girl stuff ever since.

There are still plenty of depictions of proper majestic unicorns. Googling "Unicorn Statue" gives me nothing but results for the majestic kind. And this is from someone whose search history should give him Twilight Sparkle. 
Take a look for yourself if you don't believe me. I don't get a cutesy unicorn until the 49th image. (Yes, I counted.)

The problem isn't that cutesy unicorns have completely replaced majestic unicorns, but that they're way more popular. If you say "unicorn" people are going to think of the cutesy one first.
And I completely understand why that grinds your gears. I remember when fast zombies had practically replaced slow zombies in the same way. But thankfully the success of The Walking Dead managed to revert that.



Also CW is right about how it's a global trend that spreads everywhere. For example, just look at Kobold... then look up Cutebold. The latter is a fan-depiction based on Dwarf Fortress. A game with terrifying unicorns by the way. Even in an environment like that, people can't help but make things look cute!

There's a few sayings that spring to mind "A fair day's wage, for a fair day's work.", "You don't get ought for nought." and the most popular one "Nothing's free."

The reason why some people aren't polite and don't simply say "I don't work for free." is because of the amount of harassment they've gotten from people who want stuff for free, not to mention the amount of people who want things done for dirt cheap. Anyone who provides any kind of service has had to deal with this. My father has a gardening side-business, and he complains non-stop about people wanting their gardens done for practically nothing. And the thing is, he is cheap! (Personally I think he should raise his prices, he's way too cheap.)

That all being said, you've got to be polite to your customers, no matter how annoyed you may get. That's one of the first rules for any business. So while I agree with you about them needing to be polite, I also agree with Blondbraid about them having every right to not be polite.

Local worry: In schools during the Covid-19 pandemic - keep a meter or two of distance. On school buses - sit right next to each other.

As we all know, you can't get infected when you're sitting down. 

Here's something that's been grinding my gears recently.
Shops: "We want you to social distance and keep 2m apart. We've all got to do our part."
Also shops: "We've reorganized all of the shelves so the only way out is either to walk against traffic in a long winded zig-zag pattern, or squeeze past everyone waiting in the queue. This is what you get for not buying anything!"

What grinds my gears is when people say "Professional Wrestling is fake!" when it isn't its scripted but yet they dont realize that TV Shows & Movies are scripted as well...

_

I know right, that grinds my gears too.
I'm not a fan of wrestling (I don't even like it), but saying "wrestling is fake" is like saying "operas are fake".
Congratulations, you've pointed out the obvious. Here's your redundancy trophy! It's annoying to say the least. 
Besides, you've got to give wrestling credit for all of those stunts. Some of which are anything but fake.

Dirk Gently? (I'm asking for both versions.)

I'm gonna say it:

It grinds my gears immensely that so many people still think Dimetrodon was a dinosaur.

Well at least now there's at least one less person who thinks that. 
(That person being me by the way.)

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

Must be sleep deprivation because for a second I thought you were asking me a genuine question

Where is she??!

She's at home self-isolating. Where do you think she is? 

Danvzare, your definition excludes games of chance. So, fair enough, by your definition, Snakes & Ladders isn't a game.

Does it actually exclude games of chance? Poker is a game of chance, yet choosing which cards to keep and which to not, is a meaningful decision. Based on what Snarky said, it does seem to though.

One cannot really argue against a definition, one can only say whether or not it serves the purpose. If you want to make a divide between board games and board competitions (which Snakes & Ladders must be, as you can win or lose), then fine. But this isn't how stores and most people will define a game. They will probably think it's something along the lines of "a competition on a board where you can win or lose by following set rules". (Board game, there. Card game...almost the same.)

Fair point. Then the purpose of this definition is to include everything this is normally considered a game, without including circular reasoning. In other words, the definition "It's a game, because it's a game." won't fly here.

I'm not sure where I would draw the line. I'd say Bingo is a game, but I'm not so sure about a lottery or a bet. They would probably be games in the English language, though.

But I like your argument. Indeed, we use it a bit when we play games with the kids. I can participate while making dinner, if someone can just make the roll for me and move my piece. 

Yeah, I'm not sure where I draw the line either. That's kind of what set me on this path of thinking to begin with. 

No, definitions of natural-language words are after-the-fact attempts to describe what they tend to mean. Many words (and not just homonyms) cover a number of similar/related concepts, but not in a clean way where you can sum it up in a formula. I think "game" is one of those.

Fair point about definitions there. So correct me if I'm wrong, what you're saying is that Snake and Ladders is a game, but not in the same way as say, Monkey Island. It's the same word, but different meaning, and I'm trying lump them all together? I bit like how "love" has four meanings, that the English language has lumped all into one word. I'd be willing to accept that.

Oh get bent.

If you insist, for the type of game under discussion, I'd go with something like "a structured activity undertaken for fun" as a definition. This would not cover unstructured children's play, or indeed everything we call "computer games" (including most adventure games)â€"because I think those are genuinely slightly different things that just happen to be called by the same name. Similarly, I think there are mostly good reasons for what it includes (e.g. square dancing) and excludes (e.g. professional competitions).

Ah, so I did understand you correctly. Then I agree. 

If it's completely random then it is not meaningful. You have no more control over the outcome than you do when you roll dice. You have no real agency.

We can demonstrate this by a small alteration of the Snakes and Ladders rules. Let's say that before you throw the die, you have to pick a number A between 1 and 6, and then this number is added to the result of your throw, D. The spaces you move is then calculated as (A+D-1)%6 + 1; or to put it more simply, if the number is greater than 6, subtract 6, giving a result between 1 and 6. By this alteration, S&L is now a game according to your criteria (you have to make a choice each turn, and that choice affects the outcome)â€"indeed, very similar to rouletteâ€"but it's obvious that the change makes no meaningful difference, since the randomness of the roll means you have no control of the outcome, and so your choice is meaninglessly arbitrary.

Or take traditional Bingo (with pre-filled cards). There is no agency: you're at the mercy of the card you get and the numbers that are randomly drawn. The interactive, challenging element is to listen, pay attention, spot the numbers that are called on your card (or, more often, cards), and recognizing when you have completed a line. In other words, tasks that a computer could easily do automatically without your input in a computer version, and that amount to following the rules of the game. Those things are appropriately challenging for the audience, just as S&L is for its audience.

Good point. I agree completely. That's a potential hole in my definition.

If anything, you've only showed that a fully computerized version of S&L would not be a game. It does not follow that the non-computerized boardgame is not a game.

THANK YOU!
You're the first person to finally make the argument that maybe it's only a game if it isn't computerized. That the act of doing something, is what makes it a game.
I disagree of course, because that would make changing the calendar on your fridge, a game. But that doesn't matter, since I've already agreed with you about there being multiple definitions. and yours being completely valid in this case.


Also, because I need to say this. Sorry for saying you hadn't thought about it. Clearly you have. I apologize.

You clearly have never considered the definition of a game.

I have. I don't agree either with your definition or with your analysis.

And you're working from the assumption that there is one definition that will cleanly separate games from non-games. This strikes me as an unreasonable assumption.

We have words for a reason. There clearly is a definition. That's what language is about. 
And what you have just stated clearly means you don't have a definition for "game", meaning you should have no opinion on the matter. Which means you're not allowed to discuss why a definition for "game" is wrong, as you yourself don't have a definition for it yourself. It is essentially a word that isn't in your vocabulary. Because as you clearly stated, you think it is unreasonable to assume that there is a definition for "game".

In other words. Shoo.

[nearly]

-snip-

You clearly have never considered the definition of a game.
I've thought a long time about it. I've read academic papers on the subject by people with PHDs, and I can easily argue why Walking Simulators are games, why Sim City is a game, why Visual Novels are games. Then I can go into much more older games such as Naughts and Crosses, Poker, and even Chess, and argue why they are all indeed games.
But Snakes and Ladders doesn't fit in with it. Because as I said before, to call it a game, you would have to call a lot of other things a game which are not.
I don't always get my words out right, so you'll have to bear with me, and actually use that brain of yours to come up with some suitable comebacks to your questions, rather than instantly going "AH HA! He left out one crucial detail! I've got him now... oh, he countered it easily. AH HA! He left out yet another crucial detail! I've got him now... oh, he countered it easily again." Seriously, it's annoying when people think they've won an argument by pointing out one teeny tiny slight flaw in your logic, just because they're incapable of figuring out what was clearly implied. 
I'll try my best to spell everything out, but this isn't an academic paper, so like I said, you'll have to bear with me.

So let's first come up with a wide reaching definition that counters all of your arguments, and doesn't include Snakes and Ladders.
A game involves meaningful player agency, and includes either a win and/or fail state (this state does not need to be enforced by the game).
So this doesn't include say, a stage play, since there's technically a "win" state, the end of the play, but no meaningful player agency. You can choose how to deliver the lines, but other than fudging them up, you can't really do anything. It does unfortunately include a purely improvised play, as a game, but then again it is, as that would basically be Dungeons and Dragons without the dice. (Also, it still includes open ended games like MMOs, as not only do they have fail states in that you can die, but most players make their own win state, so they usually have both states, despite only needing one to be a game)
It doesn't include Snakes and Ladders because even though there's a win state, you can't do anything meaningful other than how you roll the dice, which generally doesn't have any effect on the game.

So let's counter your points in turn. 
You have meaningful choices in a Walking Simulator. In LSD Dream Emulator, you can choose what to see, and what not to see. What to run into and interact with. With The Stanley Parable you can choose which option to choose. Even with the most boring of Walking Simulators, you can usually choose to inspect something and truly explore and take in your surroundings. This is all meaningful. It's what the genre is about. The fact that you would even bring up Walking Simulators, makes me think that you don't get the genre. Also they all have win states. Usually getting to the end, even LSD Dream Emulator has a win state, to get to the end of a dream, or the bigger goal of the end of the year.

Taking turns is not a meaningful choice. It's something you HAVE to do.
Throwing dice is not a meaningful choice, it's something you HAVE to do. Like pressing the shoot button on an FPS or the forward button on a Walking Simulator (inspecting the environment isn't something you have to do, but something you're expected to do to enjoy a Walking Simulator).
Counting the pips is not a meaningful choice, it's something you HAVE to do.
Moving the piece the correct number of spaces is not a meaningful choice, it's something you HAVE to do.

Using mental strain to change the outcome is not a meaningful choice. It's the illusion of choice.

Roulette has a meaningful choice. Sure, it's completely random. But despite the odds, it's going to land on one of those numbers. You can make a meaningful (albeit completely uninformed) choice.
You're confusing an uninformed nearly meaningless choice, with the complete lack of a choice. Choosing where to put your token on a roulette table isn't the equivalent to rolling the dice in Snake and Ladders. Spinning the roulette table is the equivalent to rolling the dice (you have to do it). There is no equivalent to choosing WHERE to put your token in roulette with Snake and Ladders because Snake and Ladders doesn't have any meaningful choices in it. But I suppose in theory, it could be argued that roulette isn't a game based on my definition. I'm not here to argue that though.

Yes, a computer could randomly click through everything in an adventure game. But in my example, I merely included what was considered good-design practices. Having something which clicks the entire screen for you on an adventure game, is neither a common nor good design practice. Having a boardgame video game automatically roll the dice for you when you can't do anything, and move you the correct number of places, is both a common and good design practice.
Having to manually roll the dice and move the piece on a boardgame video game, would be the equivalent of having to move the players limbs individually QWOP style on an adventure game to interact with everything.

To further add to this, if you have an adventure game click everything for you, you're not playing it. And a game must be played to be a game. If you made an adventure game click everything for you, it ceases to be a game for that person. To further prove this, we can play a game of Snakes and Ladders right now. Get out a board, since I'm not over there, you'll have to roll the dice and move my piece for me (I think that's fair). Now just get back to me when I need to do something or when one of us wins.



By the way, I can keep this up all day. There's a few people on this forum that will fight to the ends of the earth on what can only be called a petty subject. This is mine. I know what I'm talking about here. Heck, I even gave you my own personal definition for a game! One that I spent years perfecting! What do you have? A few gut feelings and a general ignorance on the whole subject?
Now you know why it grinds my gears! 

Also, if you decide to continue to argue with me. Do me a favour and give me your definition of a game, so that I can point out all of the holes in it. Because I'm telling you, if you manage to make a definition of "game" that includes Snake and Ladders, you're going to have to include real-life scripted stage plays as a game, as well as DVD menus. 
And then I'll get to laugh about how your definition is wrong. 
(By the way, my definition doesn't include DVD menus as games, because choosing one of those options isn't a meaningful choice. If you want to play the movie, you HAVE to press the "Play Movie" button. There is no choice. When and how you do it, doesn't effect it, so long as you press the button. Unlike say, a game where you have to stop a stopwatch on exactly the 1-minute mark, as even though pressing the button isn't a meaningful choice, when you press it, is a meaningful choice.)

Yep! Your go.

Surely he loses points for calling it a Sid Meiers game. It's a Peter Molyneux game.

The "Superman is a horrible concept to write for" idea.
The idea that a protagonist that is morally upright and invincible can't have good stories. To me, that just smells of excuses for not being skilled at writing, and I thought pop-culture as a whole had moved beyond that argument, but I saw it recommended to me as a video again recently.

Yeah, it's pretty annoying when people bring up the whole Mary-Sue (or in this case Gary-Stu) argument.
The argument goes that a character with zero flaws, is a boring and poorly written character. The problem is, it is impossible to make a character with zero flaws. If you look at some of the worst written fan-fiction ever, with protagonists that are clearly supposed to be Mary-Sues, then you will quickly find an overwhelming number of flaws (being selfish is usually the main one). The problem is, those same stories tend to completely ignore those flaws.
As such, there is no perfect character with no flaws, only stories which ignore those flaws. There is no character that can do anything, only stories that allow a character to do anything.
I can think of a whole bunch of stories for Superman, and clearly the creators could too. That's why his arch-nemesis is just an ordinary business man. You can be an invincible morally-upright superhero, but even that's no match for an ordinary scummy business man who doesn't technically do anything illegal.
So yeah, I agree. That is annoying, and just a showcase of poor writing abilities. The thing is, almost everyone seems to be a terrible writer. (Me included, but at least I recognize it.)



Here's something that grinds my gears. The fact that people consider Snakes and Ladders (or Chutes and Ladders to some) to be a board game.
Does it require a board? Yes. Is it a game? Not... at... all!
It would be easy to make Snakes and Ladders into an actual game, but with the default rules, it is not a game, and I can prove it.

First, imagine I made a video game adaptation of Snake and Ladders. At the start you get to choose how many players will play. Now most modern video game adaptations of board games will automatically roll the dice and move your piece the necessary number of spaces for you, and also automatically do the effect of the tile you land on. As such the only time you need to do something is when there's a choice, in Monopoly it's whether to buy or sell a property, on Cluedo it's where to move, and of course on those two games you can choose to do things before you roll the dice such as trade a property or make an accusation.
So now that this hypothetical Snakes and Ladders game has been made, you turn it on, set it to two players, and... it's just a screensaver. There is more interactivity on a DVD menu!
As such, Snakes and Ladders is a performance, and NOT a game. 
It's the equivalent of following a script for a stage-play.

It does not qualify in any shape or form under any definition as a game! If you did manage to shoehorn it into a definition of a game, that definition would have to be so loosely defined that it could include many things that no one in their right mind would ever consider as a game.

First time I've seen the box cover on this.
Um... Minesweeper?

Even without the new image I know what this show is now. I watched the pilot last night. I would have watched it sooner, but I didn't know of a place I had access to more than the first 2 episodes before.

So, I assume there are no Firefly fans...

I like Firefly. I wouldn't call myself a mega huge fan like someone else I know, but I definitely enjoyed it. I'm not sure how this is related to Firefly though, unless it's also made by Josh Whedon. Dollhouse perhaps?

Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Goosebumps?
I'm pretty sure one of those had a superhero themed episode.

I remember watching Alone in the Dark and really liking the movie. Many years later I learnt about Uwe Boll, and since I didn't remember anything about the movie, I was terrified of watching it again, in case I ended up hating it.   

I still haven't watched it again.

Actually, it's nothing nothing Candle.
Back to you.

Wait, does that mean the title was "Candle"? 

It grinds my gears that there are so many nature "documentaries" that are all about painting nature as some kind of giant gladiator arena that's all about animals killing each other,

It was only a few years ago that I learnt that documentaries aren't supposed to teach you stuff. They're just there to be entertaining. So with that in mind, things such as "facts" usually don't matter.
I know that I sound dumb for having not realized that sooner. But you can't blame me for not realizing that something as boring as documentaries, were being made as entertainment. 

What's going on in that picture? 

If I had to take a guess, there's a white wall with a smaller red wall protruding out of it at an angle, somewhere in real life. So someone took a photo and drew an outline around that red wall to make it look like when you're placing an object in an invalid position on a game.
But it looks photoshopped, so maybe not.