KnowWhenToFoldEm vs RageQuit

They can be misleading, but to paraphrase Mark Twain, "To pay attention to the cosmetics is to be misinformed, if you don't you'll be un-informed."

The OP seems more confused by "they both quit" than the actual cosmetics of the two tropes, anyway. They removed a fanfic example because the winner was upset the loser Knew When to Fold Em (restored already).

We've done several theoretical examples where the "inside view" shows a Know When to Fold 'Em, and the "outside view" shows Rage Quit, I feel the need to describe a reversed example. Here, the "inside view" was needed to see that the player was rage quitting, instead of playing. I meant to come up with a theoretical of the "inside view" for Rage Quit and "outside view" of Know When to Fold 'Em, but I got distracted...

• In Ender's Game, the titular character is known for inventing creative solutions to impossible odds. During the final exam for Command School, he faces an insurmountable number of opponents around a planet. Everyone waits for his first move, until a classmate reminds him of his own words, "The Enemy's gate is down", which is the trigger for action in Ender. For the test, Ender blows up the planet and everyone else in the area. This a rage quit from Ender because he's given up on strategy and is just trying to end the tests and go home as fast as possible.

Doesn't sound like the trope, though, unless that makes him instantly lose, but the example doesn't say that.

edited 25th Jan '15 8:14:01 PM by AnotherDuck

Samaritan, that sounds like you're saying that all instances of quitting have to be either a Rage Quit or a Know When to Fold 'Em situation. That's not true, these two tropes are the extreme ends of a spectrum. In between are any instances where there was no good, rational reason to quit, but neither was the quit an impulsive action based on anger.

I agree with Duck; the Ender example you gave doesn't sound like a Rage Quit. He didn't quit; he went through the test, he just used a very unexpected — and impractical — way to do it, expecting to fail because of it. A rage quit would have involved him, well, quitting the test, say by refusing to do anything, or by storming out of the room..

edited 25th Jan '15 11:50:57 PM by Madrugada

Samaritan, for the fanfic example you restored, I got confused because it didn't really have much context to it other than "the loser quit, and the winner was upset by it." If a bot more context was added, it would've been fine. But thanks for clearing that up.

On another note, that example also pertained to chess, a not-life-threatening board game. That's where it can get kind of hard to distinguish due to lack of context; if you're about to lose, especially in a fucking board game, just take the loss like a man rather than just pussing out at the last moment.

The Ender's Game example is neither of those tropes. Bad shoehorn is bad shoehorn.

Generation: It doesn't matter whether the situation is life-threatening or not. A chessplayer who yields a match because he thinks that he's not going to be able to win by tipping his king and resigning rather than insisting on playing it out to the last move is Know When To Fold 'Em. One that quits by flipping the board because his opponent just took his third pawn is a Rage Quit.

You're making these far more complicated than they really are.

Also, in chess, if you are in an unwinnable situation tipping your king in surrender is "taking the loss like a man". (Because women are all sore losers??) It shows that you recognize and accept that you have lost the game. It can actually come off as rude and childish to force your opponent to go through the potentially dozens of moves left to mate your king when everyone knows it is a foregone conclusion.

Not only rude, but insulting to your opponent, because refusing to concede is essentially saying that you're going to bet your chance at winning on him making a stupid mistake and messing up the mate.

That said, the latter can be a viable tactic in some games, like Hearthstone, where conceding too early can sometimes backfire spectacularly as bad RNG or simple misplays bring your opponent down.

I get it now. The main point of this thread was trying to point out that there are misuses of the tropes on both pages.

The examples on Know When to Fold 'Em that I could identify as Rage Quits have been removed. I don't know if anyone has cleaned up Rage Quit.