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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2598 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 5, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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If purchasing an expansion pack actually removed hours of gameplay from the base game, I would concede the point that this can no longer be called an expansion pack, but to the best of my knowledge this has never happened.

Lots of games have DLCs explicitly meant to make the game easier and therefore faster to complete.

If they are different difficulty modes, then these expansion packs give the player the option of making the game easier and faster to complete. I'm talking about a hypothetical expansion pack which, upon installation, immediately removes five missions from the base campaign.

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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