Game Balance theory - Why I feel Tier 1 is not the problem

[Max_Killjoy]

I disagree; In D&D's case, all it takes is the existence of some of this stuff and a lot of the setting elements people use become more or less auto-invalidated. The things that wizards can canonically do make a number of the tropes and setting elements D&D purports to emulate not work if you actually examine them. Not if you "examine them looking for rules loopholes" just "If you stop and think - huh. So what does the existence of Rock To Mud mean for castles?"

The system does not stabilize unless you don't think about it at all. And that's not fundamentally a system I want to (not) engage with.


Indeed -- how many instances of flying monsters and flight spells does it take before mundane castles with "traditional" designs are just stupid wastes of time and resources?

Now, I'm sure that someone will come along and proclaim that exactly the right application of some counter will make "traditional" castles just fine, some counter-application of counter-magic to counter the counters...

[Mechalich]

D&D-like rules don't even point in the intended direction. Instead, they point toward the Tippyverse, or the World of Tier 1 Casters, or something else, that's not the quasi-medieval-mashup settings we're almost always presented with.

D&D 3rd Edition rules don't even point in the right direction, 1e and 2e AD&D rules are a rather different beast.

The amount by which the designers and writers for 3e completely failed to understand just how much they had changed the game is pretty much impossible to overestimate. That's in large part because no one single change was responsible, but it was hundreds of little adjustments that had the emergent property of totally re-balancing everything within the system and producing something that played out completely differently even at low levels (and just didn't play at high levels). Somehow nobody figured this out until way too late. It's possibly to see the attempted fixes that are out there: Tome of Battle, Magic of Incarnum, and the introduction of all the Tier 3 partial caster classes represent an attempt to alter the game back to something more in line with expectations, unfortunately that ship had sailed because actual gaming groups commit hard to first party 'core' material and tend to reject out of hands 'alternate' rules systems as being a pain to learn.

At some point WotC's D&D design team realized that actually playing 3e had gotten weird - people recommending evocation as a banned school and such made it pretty obvious - but by that point they were committed and they chose basically to go with blatant denial (they were not alone, Paizo actually made the T1s arguably stronger and still pretended that Golarion would function as a standard quasi-medieval fantasy) and recognized that they could maintain market share simply by churning out endless books with shiny art rather than address the problem. Pathfinder's Bestiary 6 came out this year. It has actual stats for almost 40 monsters with a CR of 20 or above, meaning complete and total wastes of space, but it'll probably be one of the best-selling books they release this year.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I disagree; In D&D's case, all it takes is the existence of some of this stuff and a lot of the setting elements people use become more or less auto-invalidated. The things that wizards can canonically do make a number of the tropes and setting elements D&D purports to emulate not work if you actually examine them. Not if you "examine them looking for rules loopholes" just "If you stop and think - huh. So what does the existence of Rock To Mud mean for castles?"

The system does not stabilize unless you don't think about it at all. And that's not fundamentally a system I want to (not) engage with.

To that specific point (Rock to Mud), the SRD states:



Castles and large stone buildings are generally immune to the effect of the spell, since transmute rock to mud can’t affect worked stone and doesn’t reach deep enough to undermine such buildings’ foundations. However, small buildings or structures often rest upon foundations shallow enough to be damaged or even partially toppled by this spell.


so that's a bad example. To the further point, D&D does not purport to emulate tropes. It is what it is. A toolkit for building and playing adventure campaigns in vaguely fantasy worlds. If you choose to import tropes and setting elements, that's on you. If you demand complete internal consistency, too bad. You're out of luck with any game. It's not something humans are good at, after all. I'd bet that any system that isn't tied to a specific setting falls apart if you look too hard at it. So do movie settings, book settings, any setting dreamed up by humans. The result is you can either a) write a setting-specific rule set and still have inconsistency because of the whole map/territory distinction, or b) stop pushing beyond the point when it stops making sense. Up to you.


Indeed -- how many instances of flying monsters and flight spells does it take before mundane castles with "traditional" designs are just stupid wastes of time and resources?

Now, I'm sure that someone will come along and proclaim that exactly the right application of some counter will make "traditional" castles just fine, some counter-application of counter-magic to counter the counters...

Are we sure that the castles described are in areas with significant numbers of flying hostile creatures and/or higher-level spell-casters? Are we sure they're "traditional"? Those are largely assumptions. If flying creatures are locally rare and spell-casters that can cast fly are not super common (and usually have better things to do than attack castles, especially alone or with a small party), then there's no trouble. Traditional designs are not bad against common soldiers and siege equipment.

If you assume that high-powered casters are common and meddlesome in a setting, you're operating outside the default parameters. Levels above 6 aren't supposed to be super common (less than 1% of the population, distributed across all classes. Most of those would be NPC classes anyway). Level 10+ are vanishing. Adventurers encounter them frequently, but that's because they are outliers themselves and deal in the unusual. Not to mention all the higher-powered beings who have a vested interest in keeping things stable (outsiders, etc).

Note: I'm not defending the screwy design of most of 3.X. It's bad, especially a lot of the spells. They should go. But it's not as bad as it's made out to be, and in practice at the table it works pretty well unless you dig too deep (like the dwarves of Moria).

[Max_Killjoy]

Are we sure that the castles described are in areas with significant numbers of flying hostile creatures and/or higher-level spell-casters? Are we sure they're "traditional"? Those are largely assumptions. If flying creatures are locally rare and spell-casters that can cast fly are not super common (and usually have better things to do than attack castles, especially alone or with a small party), then there's no trouble. Traditional designs are not bad against common soldiers and siege equipment.

If you assume that high-powered casters are common and meddlesome in a setting, you're operating outside the default parameters. Levels above 6 aren't supposed to be super common (less than 1% of the population, distributed across all classes. Most of those would be NPC classes anyway). Level 10+ are vanishing. Adventurers encounter them frequently, but that's because they are outliers themselves and deal in the unusual. Not to mention all the higher-powered beings who have a vested interest in keeping things stable (outsiders, etc).

Note: I'm not defending the screwy design of most of 3.X. It's bad, especially a lot of the spells. They should go. But it's not as bad as it's made out to be, and in practice at the table it works pretty well unless you dig too deep (like the dwarves of Moria).


And thus we just go in another wonky direction, a half-explicit / half-implicit claim that the PCs live in a sort quasi-parallel world where they encounter the fantastic, the deadly, the bizarre, the godlike, the epic, as a matter of course, but somehow, these things never seem to affect the broader world unless it's in a way that serves the ongoing story of the PCs... and in that setting the safest thing to do is to flee as far as you can as fast as you can the moment there's even word of "adventurers" in the area, for they evidently warp the very fabric of fate around them and turn the world from mundane to a clash of the titans by their very presence...

[Lord Raziere]

And thus we just go in another wonky direction, a half-explicit / half-implicit claim that the PCs live in a sort quasi-parallel world where they encounter the fantastic, the deadly, the bizarre, the godlike, the epic, as a matter of course, but somehow, these things never seem to affect the broader world unless it's in a way that serves the ongoing story of the PCs... and in that setting the safest thing to do is to flee as far as you can as fast as you can the moment there's even word of "adventurers" in the area, for they evidently warp the very fabric of fate around them and turn the world from mundane to a clash of the titans by their very presence...

Better than the alternative, I myself am fine with this setting because adventurers are pretty much the destined 1% which can be explained by fate and destiny deciding that these things happen to them, much like how the most powerful people in our world live lives that are completely different from the ones normal people do. Its not inconsistent for nobles to have completely different lives than peasants after all, so why should adventurers have normal lives either?

[Mechalich]

Are we sure that the castles described are in areas with significant numbers of flying hostile creatures and/or higher-level spell-casters? Are we sure they're "traditional"? Those are largely assumptions.

Come on now, there's art for a number of iconic D&D fortresses in various setting books and they are pretty darned traditional looking - to the point that something like the High Clerist's Tower in Dragonlance - which actually is designed to deal with an airborne assault in a very specific way - stands out as an anomaly.


Note: I'm not defending the screwy design of most of 3.X. It's bad, especially a lot of the spells. They should go. But it's not as bad as it's made out to be, and in practice at the table it works pretty well unless you dig too deep (like the dwarves of Moria).

If you define 'dig too deep' as going beyond level 8, then okay, yes, but otherwise no. First off the game breaks outright once Planar Binding comes online at level 11, because now the party wizard can replace all contribution by martial characters with a Glabrezu in any difficult encounter, so even the basic dungeon crawl scenario falls apart (and there are plenty of other game-breakers that his around this point). So even in the best-case scenario D&D only really works for around 60% of the material it claims to present. Pathfinder Society - with its level 12 limit - acknowledges this explicitly.

I grant that it is very much not really fair to blame the extant settings on the problems 3e (and also the existence of the internet, which allowed information sharing between tables in a way that had not been possible before) generated. Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms were created in the 1980s, even Dark Sun managed to come into existence by 1991. The later-era TSR settings were either deliberately low magic (Birthright) or wild and crazy (Planescape) and served to elide the issues of high magic in 2e. There was no good way for WotC to change the settings that already existed into something else. IMO, fans are far more wedded to setting elements they like than rules elements that support them. That's why WW could change the rules for Vampire in literally every single splatbook but couldn't effectively kill off even the smallest side faction without a huge uproar. A huge part of 4e's failure was that they came out and said they were going to blow up the Forgotten Realms - which meant blowing up a significant percentage of all ongoing campaigns, and many players simply tuned out at that point.

Now, Eberron and Golarion...that's a different story.

[Airk]

To that specific point (Rock to Mud), the SRD states:

Not to nitpick, but how on earth does a range 100ft+10ft per level not real far enough to f-up a foundation? Seriously, WTF?


To the further point, D&D does not purport to emulate tropes. It is what it is.

Then I guess every piece of D&D art basically EVER is a misrepresentation?


If you choose to import tropes and setting elements, that's on you. If you demand complete internal consistency, too bad.

Is it still my fault if I play with published materials? Because I bet we can name a few castles in D&D...

I think all this weaseling is exactly the point Max_Killjoy has been trying to make. How much "digging" did it take to send this discussion completely off the rails into crazy speculative "how can we make all this hold together?" land? Less than 10 seconds.

[awa]

Planner binding is to vague to make statements about Whether its broken, because what is unreasonable?

If some stranger demanded I drive them to work going 10 minutes out of my way, with no reward I would certainly consider it unreasonable, killing someone for them would be so far beyond that I cant even express it in words.

The problem comes with angels and stuff who should be reasonably willing to help good pcs.

[Nifft]

Planner binding is to vague to make statements about Whether its broken, because what is unreasonable?

If some stranger demanded I drive them to work going 10 minutes out of my way, with no reward I would certainly consider it unreasonable, killing someone for them would be so far beyond that I cant even express it in words.

The problem comes with angels and stuff who should be reasonably willing to help good pcs.

Yeah, and Fiends for whom murder might be just another Tuesday.

I love the open-world trope-friendly stuff that Planar Binding allows me to put in a game.

I hate the theoretical optimization mindset that takes all that danger and flavor and tries to reduce it to risk-free grinding.

[Max_Killjoy]

Yeah, and Fiends for whom murder might be just another Tuesday.

I love the open-world trope-friendly stuff that Planar Binding allows me to put in a game.

I hate the theoretical optimization mindset that takes all that danger and flavor and tries to reduce it to risk-free grinding.

And if a real person, instead of a stack of tropes, were to get their hands on that kind of spell in that kind of setting, what would you expect them to do? Faithfully enact tropes, or get the biggest bang for their buck?

[Lord Raziere]

And if a real person, instead of a stack of tropes, were to get their hands on that kind of spell in that kind of setting, what would you expect them to do? Faithfully enact tropes, or get the biggest bang for their buck?

Well, that doesn't inherently mean biggest bang for their buck is a good thing. no one says that the Angel is going to agree with your request or your orders.

a selfish man who summons and angel who demands immortality is just gonna get a no, because Angels don't do that. the same man who summons a demon will at least get a yes. and real people are often selfish, jerkish creatures who care less about morality and more about what benefits them. you say alignment, I say alignment doesn't exist we're talking about real people. a real person would hear that an Angel is too good to give you any magical powers or anything because they have all these righteous causes to do that are more important than whatever selfish desire you have. So why not summon the demon?

[Keltest]

Planner binding is to vague to make statements about Whether its broken, because what is unreasonable?

If some stranger demanded I drive them to work going 10 minutes out of my way, with no reward I would certainly consider it unreasonable, killing someone for them would be so far beyond that I cant even express it in words.

The problem comes with angels and stuff who should be reasonably willing to help good pcs.

Based on the context of the spell description, unreasonable is being used to mean a task which the creature can technically attempt, but would realistically not be able to complete due to the circumstances involved. For example, asking a demon to storm one of the upper planes single handedly. Yes, it can technically attempt to do so, but it wont ever actually succeed. Its being used in a similar sense as something that is outright impossible.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Not to nitpick, but how on earth does a range 100ft+10ft per level not real far enough to f-up a foundation? Seriously, WTF?


Because the maximum mud depth (as stated in the spell) is 5 feet. That is, you can only dig 5 feet straight down without removing the mud first. It's an easier way of undermining a fortification, but vulnerable to all the same things regular undermining is plus some (dispel magic reverts it, for example).



Then I guess every piece of D&D art basically EVER is a misrepresentation?


The art is a) not canon, b) not drawn by the same individuals who made the rules (or even drawn by people who understand the rules), and c) not representative of tropes other than "looks like a castle so people know what it is." They're not really evidence of anything. Not to mention that castles are built to deal with the 90% which by the standards of 3.5 does not include high level spell casters. Being able to cast 5th level spells (especially more than once per day) implies that you're level 9+. That's rare. Something like 1/1000 are level 9, and most of those are not casters of the appropriate class. Rough estimate: a majority of all people only have NPC levels. Only a small fraction of those have caster levels. Only a tiny fraction of those have the right class to even learn that (or similar) spells. Adepts don't get 5th level spells until they're level 17, at which they have 1/day. They don't even get that spell (or many of the breaking spells).

PCs (and NPCs with PC class levels) are rare by design. Ignoring this creates screwy worlds. So don't ignore it. PCs inherently deal with things that are beyond the norm. If there's a bell curve of "strange things encountered," PCs are hanging way off in +6 sigma land. Don't take those things (just like the economy) as being how everyone lives. They don't. It wasn't designed that way and breaks if you do. The fault is not the rules's, its the world-builder's.



I think all this weaseling is exactly the point Max_Killjoy has been trying to make. How much "digging" did it take to send this discussion completely off the rails into crazy speculative "how can we make all this hold together?" land? Less than 10 seconds.

Weaseling? This ain't weaseling. Y'all made a point and then cried foul when confronted on it. That's not kosher. None of this is even the "find a specific spell that can counter it" (which is what he was decrying anyway). It's the simple point that the standard forumite's perception is not reality. That is, I'm contesting the premise that the rules point in a completely different direction than the fiction. That is only true if you take them way out of their intended bounds and make them into something they're not, nor were intended to be. The rest is just fluff.

Standard disclaimer: D&D 3.5 (and by extension Pathfinder) are not my native games. I don't even like them very much, and try to avoid playing them. My preferred game (5e D&D) has many fewer of these particular perversions (but several new ones). JaronK's tier system doesn't apply--all classes/subclasses are ~T3/T4 and play together nicely. Many if not all of the broken spells have been removed. It's not to everyone's taste but this particular perversion along with its roots and its (bad) assumptions does not exist there. It irks me that everyone considers "D&D" synonymous with "D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder." Those are only a legacy fragment that poisons most of the rest of the franchise. We would be better off if people stopped trying to import the nonsense ways of thinking (chief among them hyper-literalism and denial of DM agency) so common to those games to other games.

[Nifft]

And if a real person, instead of a stack of tropes, were to get their hands on that kind of spell in that kind of setting, what would you expect them to do? Faithfully enact tropes, or get the biggest bang for their buck?

Hah, you think that your character is the first real person to exist in the setting?

That's just you as a player being "a sack of tropes", and denying the validity of the game.

The one trope you're trying to be is specifically: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodModeSue

Your trope is boring. My preference is to have a wide palette of narrative devices, personality types, character roles, and other more interesting tropes.


Well, that doesn't inherently mean biggest bang for their buck is a good thing. no one says that the Angel is going to agree with your request or your orders.

a selfish man who summons and angel who demands immortality is just gonna get a no, because Angels don't do that. the same man who summons a demon will at least get a yes. and real people are often selfish, jerkish creatures who care less about morality and more about what benefits them. you say alignment, I say alignment doesn't exist we're talking about real people. a real person would hear that an Angel is too good to give you any magical powers or anything because they have all these righteous causes to do that are more important than whatever selfish desire you have. So why not summon the demon?

Yes, this.

It would be toxic to my game if everyone embraced the idea that angels & demons have no agency just because it's more convenient for them to be "a sack of SLAs".

[Max_Killjoy]

Hah, you think that your character is the first real person to exist in the setting?

That's just you as a player being "a sack of tropes", and denying the validity of the game.

The one trope you're trying to be is specifically: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodModeSue

Your trope is boring. My preference is to have a wide palette of narrative devices, personality types, character roles, and other more interesting tropes..

Wow, so you just immediately went for the cheapest ad hom attacks you could "think" of, huh? Did you really just fall back on the Sue Fallacy... and refer to an actual person as a "sack of tropes"?


Anyway, here's the exact exchange:



Yeah, and Fiends for whom murder might be just another Tuesday.

I love the open-world trope-friendly stuff that Planar Binding allows me to put in a game.

I hate the theoretical optimization mindset that takes all that danger and flavor and tries to reduce it to risk-free grinding.



And if a real person, instead of a stack of tropes, were to get their hands on that kind of spell in that kind of setting, what would you expect them to do? Faithfully enact tropes, or get the biggest bang for their buck?


If they can summon and bind a demon that would kill their enemies casually (because hey, it's just another Tuesday), with little risk, why should, or would, they do something else? For the sake of "flavor" and "story"?

A real person -- which should be the goal for all characters, to seem like a real person and not a 2-dimesional template for enacting narrative elements -- typically wouldn't care about "flavor", or what would make the "best story", and would usually avoid danger if they can get what they want without risking their own life in the process.

Example -- movie soldiers charge across open ground into a hail of enemy fire like idiots, "for the drama". Real soldiers use cover, wait for reinforcements, and call in artillery strikes whenever they can... and don't care if their "story" "entertains" someone. Buddy of mine who served in combat once told me that the guys he served with all hated the few soldiers who actively wanted to be "heroes" because those guys just get themselves and those around them killed.

And yet I often get the feeling that if a PC acted like those real soldiers instead of a movie soldier, they'd be called a "sue" or a "powergamer" or a "minmaxer".

An RPG isn't a work of fiction... don't expect the PCs to do things for the sake of "story" if there's an in-character and more-effective road right there in front of them.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If they can summon and bind a demon that would kill their enemies casually (because hey, it's just another Tuesday), with little risk, why should, or would, they do something else? For the sake of "flavor" and "story"?



Do note that summoning and binding demons is an evil act. Most people aren't evil. Doing this for personal power is double evil. That rules out a whole chunk of the population. Also note that demons won't serve a master willingly--they hate being constrained by their very nature. I would expect a "real" demon (meaning in such a setting) to do everything in its power to make summoning them an expensive and dangerous task. Interpreting commands in the most jerk-like fashion, casually forgetting to mention threats, expending the minimum effort to do anything not explicitly commanded, demanding very expensive deals (starting with a soul, now), etc.

In fact, I would expect that someone who habitually summons demons for "trivial" tasks is going to come home one day and find his house full of angry unbound demon. And their friends. Same goes for devils or angels. Compelling such creatures to work for you is generally considered to be a bad idea.

[Nifft]

Wow, so you just immediately went for the cheapest ad hom attacks you could "think" of, huh? Did you really just fall back on the Sue Fallacy... and refer to an actual person as a "sack of tropes"?

If you think you're the first real person in a setting, and the setting should bend its history & future to your perception of things that should be obvious to anyone in the setting, but nobody else ever saw them before because you're special -- you're playing a Sue.

If the Sue fits, wear it.



If they can summon and bind a demon that would kill their enemies casually (because hey, it's just another Tuesday), with little risk, why should, or would, they do something else? For the sake of "flavor" and "story"?
Because, again, you're trying to throw away a key element: the agency of everyone else in the setting.

I say, "A demon might..." and you hear, "I can totally predict demons, and this one will do exactly..."

That's wrong, because it removes risk, it removes any sense of mystery, and it tries to turn NPCs into dull, predictable, formulaic machines.



A real person -- which should be the goal for all characters, to seem like a real person and not a 2-dimesional template for enacting narrative elements -- typically wouldn't care about "flavor", or what would make the "best story", and would usually avoid danger if they can get what they want without risking their own life in the process.

Those people who avoid risk are called "NPCs". They don't slay dragons. They don't save the world.

Cowardice is not the same as "real".



Example -- movie soldiers charge across open ground into a hail of enemy fire like idiots, "for the drama". Real soldiers use cover, wait for reinforcements, and call in artillery strikes whenever they can... and don't care if their "story" "entertains" someone. Buddy of mine who served in combat once told me that the guys he served with all hated the few soldiers who actively wanted to be "heroes" because those guys just get themselves and those around them killed.

And yet I often get the feeling that if a PC acted like those real soldiers instead of a movie soldier, they'd be called a "sue" or a "powergamer" or a "minmaxer".

An RPG isn't a work of fiction... don't expect the PCs to do things for the sake of "story" if there's an in-character and more-effective road right there in front of them.

An RPG absolutely can work as a form of collaborative fiction.

It can also work as a minis skirmish war-game -- even with no fiction, just nameless, disposable pieces.

Most importantly, it can work as both at the same time -- and to me, that's the most fun, when people are role-playing and making good in-character decisions, which are not always the same as good meta-game decisions, since the character's goals may not be the same as the player's goals.

I prefer when neither of those is exclusive -- removing the fiction aspect of RPGs would make for an inferior gaming experience, in my opinion.


Finally, you're making a categorical mistake. Playing smart is not being a Sue. Playing as if you can force the rest of the universe to be stupid -- that's being a Sue.

[Max_Killjoy]

Finally, you're making a categorical mistake. Playing smart is not being a Sue. Playing as if you can force the rest of the universe to be stupid -- that's being a Sue.

You're putting words in my mouth and arguing against a caricature of my position, and then using that as an excuse to resort to insults.

Not once will you find me claiming to actually be a person in the setting, or that my character is the first real person in the setting, or that every other character is stupid. In fact, if you actually read my posts there, you'll see that I never refer to "my character" at all, but rather to characters in general -- and asserting that they should all be as real as possible, which is the opposite of how you're attempting to misrepresent my position.

And the only person who said anything about any connection or lack of connection between "playing smart" and "Sueness" was you.


Your responses are based on false conclusions that you've leapt to in your apparent eagerness to misrepresent my position and paint it and me in the most unflattering light possible.

[Max_Killjoy]

Do note that summoning and binding demons is an evil act. Most people aren't evil. Doing this for personal power is double evil. That rules out a whole chunk of the population. Also note that demons won't serve a master willingly--they hate being constrained by their very nature. I would expect a "real" demon (meaning in such a setting) to do everything in its power to make summoning them an expensive and dangerous task. Interpreting commands in the most jerk-like fashion, casually forgetting to mention threats, expending the minimum effort to do anything not explicitly commanded, demanding very expensive deals (starting with a soul, now), etc.

In fact, I would expect that someone who habitually summons demons for "trivial" tasks is going to come home one day and find his house full of angry unbound demon. And their friends. Same goes for devils or angels. Compelling such creatures to work for you is generally considered to be a bad idea.

Then why was Planar Binding presented as a go-to "tier 1" power?

Or are you assuming facts not in evidence?

It seems like this was presented as a simple thing, and then when I reacted as if it were a simple thing, people said "AH HA! See! You were wrong! It's complicated in all these ways!"

[Lord Raziere]

Well at the same time, summoning a demon generally isn't socially acceptable. I mean, your summoning a literal incarnation of bad, wrong and evil. Of negative things. sure you can summon them for whatever you want, but if someone sees you, and you don't kill them in time, the jig is up. and even if you do kill them you've got to cover it up because people investigate murders, because people figure "if someone is going around killing people, that might happen to me and I don't want that to happen to me." People really underestimate how much of our actions are determined by the environments and circumstances around us in these kinds of discussions, and thus while a selfish person will try to summon a demon, a smart selfish one would have to limit themselves and be discrete about it, to do it when no one can see, or might not even take the chance if the situation is not right.

its all about recognizing that logically, there is a risk to everything and if your believable and realistic about it, demon summoning is a risk socially and physically- not only can the people around you reject it and try to kill you so that a demon doesn't come here, but the demon themselves might decide to kill you and do their own thing. thus there are risks to summoning any extraplanar being: an Angel probably won't kill you unless your being obviously evil, but its unlikely they will just take your orders if they're not for the right causes for the right reasons. A demon will probably do whatever you want- or at least pretend to do so until they can kill you to do whatever they want, or sneak in something that could corrupt you, or any number of things because they are demons.

the tendency for people to dismiss these possibilities, these risks for some result that happens consistently 100% of the time is just unrealistic. reality does not have 100% consistency when it comes to behavior or risk assessment. if your looking to hammer down how any being will act 100% of the time, sorry your barking up the wrong tree, psychology has been trying to do that for over a hundred years and still hasn't given us any hard answers. nor has it been able to provide an explanation for stupidity. everyone hates stupidity, so why does it exist? everyone hates evil, so why does it exist? eternal questions with no real answers.

realistically, some people just do stupid things, and everyone wonders why. realistically there is no answer to why that happens. but there is always more ways of thinking and diversity than you will ever know, with varying degrees of risk assessment, rationality, motivation and tendency towards stupidity within that diversity. On the other hand, common tools like shovels and knives and such and so on are just left laying around and could be used as weapons to kill people we hate, but have you heard of people picking those up and just killing whoever randomly? Not really.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Then why was Planar Binding presented as a go-to "tier 1" power?

Or are you assuming facts not in evidence?

It seems like this was presented as a simple thing, and then when I reacted as if it were a simple thing, people said "AH HA! See! You were wrong! It's complicated in all these ways!"

I wasn't the one that brought up Planar Binding. From what I can tell, it's only game breaking if you have loose restrictions and build for it. There are many other ways the system is broken. My point was that it doesn't affect settings much because it's so stinking dangerous. You can't assume that "the logical thing to do" would be to go for it, because it isn't. Especially not for NPCs.

[Nifft]

You're putting words in my mouth and arguing against a caricature of my position, and then using that as an excuse to resort to insults. Wait, hold up.

I said that I loved the freedom that Planar Binding gave me, and how it opened up a broader palette of tropes, and you responded with this:


And if a real person, instead of a stack of tropes, were to get their hands on that kind of spell in that kind of setting, what would you expect them to do? Faithfully enact tropes, or get the biggest bang for their buck?
... which tried to characterize my enjoyment of freedom as if it were a form of slavery.

If you don't want to have a conversation in which you are forced to confront your willful misrepresentations, maybe don't start the conversation with such a blatant willful misrepresentation.


For the rest of it, you're not getting words stuffed in your mouth, you're just getting the obvious consequences of your choices:

- If you think Planar Binding could easily break the game, then assume the game was already broken back when Mordenkeinen's grandmother first wrote the spell down. You're playing in the post-apocalyptic wasteland that resulted from your proposed tactic.

- Or, you're just plain wrong, and Planar Binding can't easily break the game, therefore the game isn't broken, and it won't be broken by you. There may be more risk & costs than you have assumed, or something else outside your experience invalidates your tactic.

- Or, you demand that the world be made too stupid to see the obvious use of that spell, which only your character is allowed to see, because you're special. That would be warping the world around your character's specialness, and that would be the central character trait of ... you-know-sue.

One of those three must be true.

[Max_Killjoy]

Wait, hold up.

I said that I loved the freedom that Planar Binding gave me, and how it opened up a broader palette of tropes, and you responded with this:


... which tried to characterize my enjoyment of freedom as if it were a form of slavery.

If you don't want to have a conversation in which you are forced to confront your willful misrepresentations, maybe don't start the conversation with such a blatant willful misrepresentation.


If anything, I characterized your characters as slaves to your desire to inflict tropes upon the game. Your freedom certainly isn't impacted by it, nor could my post accurately be depicted as stating that it would be. And yes, I use the word "inflict" intentionally there.

When I speak of your characters, I am not speaking of you. When I speak of you, I am not speaking of your characters.




For the rest of it, you're not getting words stuffed in your mouth, you're just getting the obvious consequences of your choices:

- If you think Planar Binding could easily break the game, then assume the game was already broken back when Mordenkeinen's grandmother first wrote the spell down. You're playing in the post-apocalyptic wasteland that resulted from your proposed tactic.

- Or, you're just plain wrong, and Planar Binding can't easily break the game, therefore the game isn't broken, and it won't be broken by you. There may be more risk & costs than you have assumed, or something else outside your experience invalidates your tactic.

- Or, you demand that the world be made too stupid to see the obvious use of that spell, which only your character is allowed to see, because you're special. That would be warping the world around your character's specialness, and that would be the central character trait of ... you-know-sue.

One of those three must be true.

AGAIN, I never said anything about "my character". That's one of the mistakes you keep making, you assume this is somehow about making "my character" special. IF Planar Binding breaks the setting, then I DO expect it to already be broken "when I get there" if someone had already invented Planar Binding in the past of that setting. That is, your first option -- "If you think Planar Binding could easily break the game, then assume the game was already broken back when Mordenkeinen's grandmother first wrote the spell down. You're playing in the post-apocalyptic wasteland that resulted from your proposed tactic." -- is exactly what I've been saying about the D&D settings not being what would derive from D&D-like rules. If Planar Binding doesn't break it, then pick one of the other multitude of spells and abilities and so on that would, the particular choice is entirely beside the point.

That's a big chunk of the point -- the rules of the game make the setting of the game impossible, unless you come up with all these convoluted contrivances for why they don't. The rules of the game are part of what tells us what characters in that game and in that setting are capable of. If characters, as people in that setting, are capable of something, one of them is going to do it.

I reject, in total, the notion that the rules don't tell us about the setting.

The character is a person/being within the setting.
The rules tell us that the character is capable of X
Therefore, X is a thing that some beings in that setting can do.


The argument "that's not how this setting works" has no basis in fact once it has been established that for some beings within that setting, that is EXACTLY how the setting works. If your setting can't stand in the face of the rules, then you need new rules, not players who are willing to ignore the facts right in front of them to retain some sort of "genre purity".

[Lord Raziere]

The argument "that's not how this setting works" has no basis in fact once it has been established that for some beings within that setting, that is EXACTLY how the setting works. If your setting can't stand in the face of the rules, then you need new rules, not players who are willing to ignore the facts right in front of them to retain some sort of "genre purity".

Hey don't lump me in with the people who play 3.5, they don't care about genre, they just want their Wizards and Cheese playstyle, I've talked with them, they don't care about genre dude. they are tone-deaf to setting the proper mood and atmosphere for this sort of thing, Exhibit A: Quertus's version of Mount Doom. Uuuuuuuuuuugh.

though I do agree this needs new rules. problem is, those new rules already happened. and people hated them. and hate the new new rules only a little less. and even then there are people determined to break 5e as well. ugh.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That's a big chunk of the point -- the rules of the game make the setting of the game impossible, unless you come up with all these convoluted contrivances for why they don't. The rules of the game are part of what tells us what characters in that game and in that setting are capable of. If characters, as people in that setting, are capable of something, one of them is going to do it.



I understand that further replies are pointless. No opinions will be changed. I do have to take askance at this statement--

"convoluted contrivances"? Like--that's an evil act that most people wouldn't even think of doing? Or maybe--those that do get eaten by demons the first time they try? Or, not all spells are necessarily present in all settings? Or just because the words of the rules say X that doesn't mean that (in-universe) that's all that there is to it? Or that something that can be done doesn't mean it will be done? There are lots of possible but very low probability events in our universe. To the best of our knowledge, spontaneous reversal of entropy (a shattered cup reassembling itself spontaneously) is possible, but hasn't happened and will likely never happen.

Most of the "the setting is broken" claims rely on most (if not all) of the following:

Tendentious readings of the rules. Parsings that require the complete absence of common sense. Sophistry that would make the sleaziest politician think you've gone too far.
Strange assumptions about the distribution of class levels, especially PC class levels.
An assumption that spellcasters know of the existence of (and have access to if desired) every spell, feat, and template in all the published books.
The assumption that no powerful outsiders would intervene well before things were changed, even though they have a mandate by-the-book to do exactly that, and a history of doing exactly that in-setting.
A willingness to ignore so-called fluff restrictions on PRCs and spells.
A desire for power at the cost of all else (which is a chaotic evil trait shared by very few people in-setting).


All of these are implausible at best. Most are stupid things that require ignoring the designer's stated intent (both in person and as evidenced through their writing).

You still refuse to give an example of a game that does this well while still being general enough to have more than one setting. If they're all broken, maybe it's your expectations that are wrong? In fact, the most implausible setting I can think of is real life. The craziest things happen commonly, and things that would "make perfect sense" don't happen at all. If real life were a movie, it would get panned for destroying the suspension of disbelief.

Edit: and don't get me wrong. I don't like 3.X. I just don't think it's as bad as its detractors (and those of D&D in general who confuse all of D&D for the worst versions of 3.5) think it is.

[RazorChain]

Do note that summoning and binding demons is an evil act. Most people aren't evil. Doing this for personal power is double evil. That rules out a whole chunk of the population. Also note that demons won't serve a master willingly--they hate being constrained by their very nature. I would expect a "real" demon (meaning in such a setting) to do everything in its power to make summoning them an expensive and dangerous task. Interpreting commands in the most jerk-like fashion, casually forgetting to mention threats, expending the minimum effort to do anything not explicitly commanded, demanding very expensive deals (starting with a soul, now), etc.

In fact, I would expect that someone who habitually summons demons for "trivial" tasks is going to come home one day and find his house full of angry unbound demon. And their friends. Same goes for devils or angels. Compelling such creatures to work for you is generally considered to be a bad idea.

I would think the contrary, that demons love being summoned to do evil acts and corrupt the summoners soul even further. A demon summoned to sweep the floor would not be so happy. There are plenty of people that already do horrible things to other human beings for money and power.

[Lord Raziere]

I would think the contrary, that demons love being summoned to do evil acts and corrupt the summoners soul even further. A demon summoned to sweep the floor would not be so happy. There are plenty of people that already do horrible things to other human beings for money and power.

Well yeah.

"you mean I get to kick that jerk I find annoying repeatedly in the face AND get paid for it!? where do I sign up?" thats evil in a nutshell. its lurks in everyone, and only with vigilance and willingness to say no that opportunity makes you better than that. a demon would just be a big over the top version of that: "You mean I get to slaughter those annoying villagers AND get paid in their souls!? Yay! I can afford a new Hell TV."

[Max_Killjoy]

Hey don't lump me in with the people who play 3.5, they don't care about genre, they just want their Wizards and Cheese playstyle, I've talked with them, they don't care about genre dude. they are tone-deaf to setting the proper mood and atmosphere for this sort of thing, Exhibit A: Quertus's version of Mount Doom. Uuuuuuuuuuugh.


I'm not lumping you in with them at all. My argument with them, and that game, is separate from any disagreement I might have with you.

Setting details... atmosphere and mood... I'm all for those.

But "genre"...

Well suppose there's an episodic show about a team of kids with powers, who can combine their attacks into one massive attack, and that attack always stops the monster trying to destroy their town. Well, for some reason... they always wait until they're about to lose, until near the end of every episode, to use that combined attack... always. They have this ultimate winning move and it ends every fight they use it in. But they always wait. Why? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to use it as soon as the monster shows itself? Why do they always risk losing and get themselves beat up before using it?

It becomes pretty transparent that their delay using it, every time, over and over, is purely because of the structure of the weekly narrative. And this isn't the only show there this happens, there's on ongoing tradition of shows a lot like it.

And now someone wants their RPG to be like that show... the word I've so often seen used to defend building games around that sort of structure is "genre enforcement".

Sorry, but I'm not going to ask my players to go through an entire game session waiting to do what they could have done immediately. If I want them to have to work to beat the monster-of-the-week, then I'm not going to include/allow that sort of "kill shot" power in the game to begin with.

That inexplicable every-episode wait for the climactic moment, instead of using the fight-ending power immediately, is exactly the sort of contrivance that I've been talking about. It relies on everyone sort of agreeing to mutually ignore the elephant in the room.




though I do agree this needs new rules. problem is, those new rules already happened. and people hated them. and hate the new new rules only a little less. and even then there are people determined to break 5e as well. ugh.


I wasn't a fan of the 4e rules, they pretty much kept a lot of stuff I didn't like about D&D-likes, and combined it with a very MMO-like structure where each class just gets a reskinned set of what are largely the same powers, built around a contrived "schedule" of usage.

5e I haven't looked at in detail. But I've seen the "immortal mirror" thread on the 5e subforum, which kinda tells me that the "break the world" powers are there still if players are looking... or at least that the players are looking for them.

[Max_Killjoy]

I understand that further replies are pointless. No opinions will be changed. I do have to take askance at this statement--

"convoluted contrivances"? Like--that's an evil act that most people wouldn't even think of doing? Or maybe--those that do get eaten by demons the first time they try? Or, not all spells are necessarily present in all settings? Or just because the words of the rules say X that doesn't mean that (in-universe) that's all that there is to it? Or that something that can be done doesn't mean it will be done? There are lots of possible but very low probability events in our universe. To the best of our knowledge, spontaneous reversal of entropy (a shattered cup reassembling itself spontaneously) is possible, but hasn't happened and will likely never happen.

Most of the "the setting is broken" claims rely on most (if not all) of the following:

Tendentious readings of the rules. Parsings that require the complete absence of common sense. Sophistry that would make the sleaziest politician think you've gone too far.





Most of the readings of the rules behind these world-breakers appear to be completely within the possible meanings of the words as written. From what I've seen, it's usually a case of "the rules could have been written more clearly". Can you provide some examples of this sophistry?



Strange assumptions about the distribution of class levels, especially PC class levels.





PC "snowflakeness" is a contrivance. If the PCs can do something, then NPCs can do it. (And no, this isn't a claim that all NPCs will do it, only that they can and some will.) In most settings, there were people with "levels" and "classes" before the PCs came along, there are those who also have them while the PCs are alive, and there will be those who have them after the PCs are gone. There's nothing inherently special about the PCs.



An assumption that spellcasters know of the existence of (and have access to if desired) every spell, feat, and template in all the published books.





To break the world doesn't take take all spellcasters having knowledge and access, just some (or even one). And it doesn't take every spell, feat, or template, just the right combinations.



The assumption that no powerful outsiders would intervene well before things were changed, even though they have a mandate by-the-book to do exactly that, and a history of doing exactly that in-setting.





And there's nothing contrived about "the gods stop you"? Deus ex machina, anyone? How often in the same campaign are players going to tolerate "god says no" from the DM?



A willingness to ignore so-called fluff restrictions on PRCs and spells.





What exactly is meant by a "fluff restriction"?



A desire for power at the cost of all else (which is a chaotic evil trait shared by very few people in-setting).





Yeah, because people never demonstrate that failing in real life... :smallconfused:



All of these are implausible at best. Most are stupid things that require ignoring the designer's stated intent (both in person and as evidenced through their writing).


1. we can't presume every group has knowledge of the designer's intent.
2. if the rules run counter to the designer's intent, then the designer should have done a better job.



You still refuse to give an example of a game that does this well while still being general enough to have more than one setting.


When did "handles lots of settings without needing any adjustments" become a requirement?



Edit: and don't get me wrong. I don't like 3.X. I just don't think it's as bad as its detractors (and those of D&D in general who confuse all of D&D for the worst versions of 3.5) think it is.


I played D&D long before 3e or 3.5 or Pathfinder. Many of the problems are universal (see, the mysterious mysteries of characters who can evidently walk around full of arrows and covered in burn wounds that would have all individually killed them a few levels earlier). 3e or so is where I just gave up on D&D-like rules completely... levels, classes, escalating hit points, Vancian casting, etc.

[Lord Raziere]

@ Max Killjoy: I understand, there is some tropes I don't like either. Some of them are just stupid and need to go, and I don't really hold to a strict narrative structure like that, I just do whatever narratively makes sense for the character to be that character, if that makes any sense.

I imagine you'd hate something like Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. that world isn't consistent at all, and is in fact of kind of about everyone in some way being in character narrative reality warpers because the world is mutable to the point where someone can have a trait like say....."I can't let any child get hurt" and that is an actual power, because you might wake up from a coma or even from death to protect a child if they are in danger in getting hurt and that this is a cosmic truth specifically about the character that is controlled by the GM. not even a fan interpretation, this is explicitly said in the text, though a different example is used. and technically such a power is a WEAKNESS as you CANNOT let a child a get hurt, see? the character is driven to act to protect them whether it would be beneficial or not, as an Affliction. Not that I really play Chuubos or understand it all that well, because I don't I just have the pdf. but its pretty narrative, even more so than Fate- Fate is easy to understand in comparison.

now you say, "but Raziere, can't you just make the trait "I always win." or "I must always win" in Chuubos as bond/Affliction?" and yes. yes you can. but that doesn't mean winning always has a positive effect. It just means that you always do that. If someone say wants to win against anyone to prove that they're not a loser you just happen to be first person they see and challenge you to say, a card game they've been playing for years to try and prove they are not a loser at it and you win-
well. they become sad. they wanted to prove it and your need to always win stomped all over that, and now you have to face the truth that for winner that there must be loser who dream is crushed in response to a victory, and now you must figure out how to make them feel better despite having this cosmic truth-like trait about you that allows you to win at everything. how to solve the problem of making others feel inadequate compared to your eternal awesome that is Always Winning... you didn't optimize yourself, you just changed the story being told and the challenges you have to face. instead of struggling through battles, you have to deal with people being jealous of your skill at winning them. There is even an entire Arc for people who just plain Win, the Aces. but why tell that story when you can do Mystic or Otherworldly Arcs instead?

Hm. maybe I should I try to understand Chuubos and Nobilis more.....they seem awesome once you figure them out. unlike DnD which seems simple and intuitive to play and understand at first, but as you delve more deeply it makes less sense.

[Max_Killjoy]

@ Max Killjoy: I understand, there is some tropes I don't like either. Some of them are just stupid and need to go, and I don't really hold to a strict narrative structure like that, I just do whatever narratively makes sense for the character to be that character, if that makes any sense.

I imagine you'd hate something like Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. that world isn't consistent at all, and is in fact of kind of about everyone in some way being in character narrative reality warpers because the world is mutable to the point where someone can have a trait like say....."I can't let any child get hurt" and that is an actual power, because you might wake up from a coma or even from death to protect a child if they are in danger in getting hurt and that this is a cosmic truth specifically about the character that is controlled by the GM. not even a fan interpretation, this is explicitly said in the text, though a different example is used. and technically such a power is a WEAKNESS as you CANNOT let a child a get hurt, see? the character is driven to act to protect them whether it would be beneficial or not, as an Affliction. Not that I really play Chuubos or understand it all that well, because I don't I just have the pdf. but its pretty narrative, even more so than Fate- Fate is easy to understand in comparison.

now you say, "but Raziere, can't you just make the trait "I always win." or "I must always win" in Chuubos as bond/Affliction?" and yes. yes you can. but that doesn't mean winning always has a positive effect. It just means that you always do that. If someone say wants to win against anyone to prove that they're not a loser you just happen to be first person they see and challenge you to say, a card game they've been playing for years to try and prove they are not a loser at it and you win-
well. they become sad. they wanted to prove it and your need to always win stomped all over that, and now you have to face the truth that for winner that there must be loser who dream is crushed in response to a victory, and now you must figure out how to make them feel better despite having this cosmic truth-like trait about you that allows you to win at everything. how to solve the problem of making others feel inadequate compared to your eternal awesome that is Always Winning... you didn't optimize yourself, you just changed the story being told and the challenges you have to face. instead of struggling through battles, you have to deal with people being jealous of your skill at winning them. There is even an entire Arc for people who just plain Win, the Aces. but why tell that story when you can do Mystic or Otherworldly Arcs instead?

Hm. maybe I should I try to understand Chuubos and Nobilis more.....they seem awesome once you figure them out. unlike DnD which seems simple and intuitive to play and understand at first, but as you delve more deeply it makes less sense.

It doesn't appear to be to my tastes, but I doubt I would hate it. Can't see the system in the online previews, but it appears well crafted from that viewpoint. It also appears to be honest about what it is and what it isn't, and at least skimming it I didn't see any "attitude" that would tick me off.

I tend reserve hate or otherwise deeply negative reactions for when games are poorly crafted, pretend to be something they're not, or cop an attitude about other games, or about gamers who have "badwrongfun" with the game.

Admittedly, I struggle to be fair to a game system when the writers or the fans of that system are bad ambassadors.

I had a lot of fun with (oWoD) Vampire and Werewolf, but that had a lot to do with the group, and was sometimes in spite of the system, and was definitely in spite of the White Wolf's love affair with the smell of their own stink.

A couple of systems that get a lot of push here, I'm probably more negative about because of that push than I would be. They're not for me, and they're not what I'm looking for, but they're what gets pushed whenever I'm looking for a system or ideas, even when it's quite clear that they don't fit the criteria. One of them in particular combines concepts that I don't care for with being written by someone I find deeply unlikeable.

But D&D... D&D is the original culprit. It combines core system elements that I find inherently and irrevocably problematic, with a false claim to universality that runs so deep that I think even the people saying it believe it's true, with an utter mismatch between system and settings (system neither feels like not results in the settings), and a fanbase that doesn't just push the game, they assume that you're talking about the game even when you explicitly are not talking about the game. D&D-like assumptions seem to dominate the industry, as games appear to gravitate towards either emulation or deliberate rejection.

In many venues of online discussion about RPGs, I end up caught in the middle, attuned neither to the rules-first preferences nor to the story-first preferences. I'm a setting and character junkie (worldbuilding is my drug), and if I had to describe myself it would be as setting-first / character-first. Which means I want rules to follow setting, and I won't easily compromise setting and character (consistency, coherence, verisimilitude, etc) for the sake of "story". But that seems to be a minority position, and each of the "sides" seems to think I'm part of the other side.

Part of the frustration that comes through in my posts is because the industry itself appears dominated by the rules-first vs story-first divide, with the games themselves reflecting.

[kyoryu]

But D&D... D&D is the original culprit. It combines core system elements that I find inherently and irrevocably problematic, with a false claim to universality that runs so deep that I think even the people saying it believe it's true, with an utter mismatch between system and settings (system neither feels like not results in the settings), and a fanbase that doesn't just push the game, they assume that you're talking about the game even when you explicitly are not talking about the game. D&D-like assumptions seem to dominate the industry, as games appear to gravitate towards either emulation or deliberate rejection.

Depending on what version you're talking about, I *like* D&D. But the original games of D&D (as Gary ran them, etc.), are not how most people run RPGs, and some of the rules that worked well in that setting work less well at "typical" tables.


In many venues of online discussion about RPGs, I end up caught in the middle, attuned neither to the rules-first preferences nor to the story-first preferences. I'm a setting and character junkie (worldbuilding is my drug), and if I had to describe myself it would be as setting-first / character-first. Which means I want rules to follow setting, and I won't easily compromise setting and character (consistency, coherence, verisimilitude, etc) for the sake of "story". But that seems to be a minority position, and each of the "sides" seems to think I'm part of the other side.

Eh, I don't like either of those, to be clear. I prefer "fiction first", meaning "hey, what we're imagining in our heads drives everything else". Mechanics-first tends to be too clinical and often illogical for me, and story-first (pushing things to stay in line with "the story") bothers me to no end.

[Max_Killjoy]

Eh, I don't like either of those, to be clear. I prefer "fiction first", meaning "hey, what we're imagining in our heads drives everything else". Mechanics-first tends to be too clinical and often illogical for me, and story-first (pushing things to stay in line with "the story") bothers me to no end.


And here we get into terminology stuff again... I've seen "fiction first" used conflictingly to mean "character and setting first" or "story first" depending on the person using it. And then there's the question of those (not you) who assume that character, setting, story, etc, are all one and the same in terms of being a single interconnected RPG design and play priority.

[kyoryu]

And here we get into terminology stuff again... I've seen "fiction first" used conflictingly to mean "character and setting first" or "story first" depending on the person using it. And then there's the question of those (not you) who assume that character, setting, story, etc, are all one and the same in terms of being a single interconnected RPG design and play priority.

Honestly, I think that's mostly terminology drift - the primary sources I've seen using "fiction first" are pretty consistent in what they mean by it. It's the other people repeating them that have forced the "story first" definition on top of it.

But really, I couldn't care less about the terms. It's the idea that's important.

[Lord Raziere]

And here we get into terminology stuff again... I've seen "fiction first" used conflictingly to mean "character and setting first" or "story first" depending on the person using it. And then there's the question of those (not you) who assume that character, setting, story, etc, are all one and the same in terms of being a single interconnected RPG design and play priority.

......*sees other post* I think I like you Max. we believe different things but your honest about it and I can respect you for the position you hold.

Well yeah, it can be confusing. we're still trying to figure out how this all works and what makes rpgs fun.

people seem to genuinely find 3.5 fun for this mechanical optimization game that it is and vehemently start stating "Stormwind fallacy!" whenever you say that its not a part of roleplaying or that your a bad roleplayer for focusing on that, meaning they think optimization is apart of the roleplaying experience.

however there are people who don't find optimization fun at all and just want to make whatever character they want without worrying about the numbers. this is what arguably led to the rise of Fate- in Fate you basically fill in some aspects and determine a few skills and stunts and your ready to go while also playing the exact character you want. sure its a narrative system but hey, you've made your half-angel half-demon axe wielder in less time than any DnD game without being anymore powerful than anyone else. now some people claim that there is a optimization strategy for Fate as well in where you like, make all the aspects double-edged to earn more fate points and spend them all in one go for a big bonus, but its pretty obvious when you do that, and kind of half-intended by the system sometimes.

however there are people who find Fate TOO RULES HEAVY, call Fate a medium system and go for even lighter systems for what they want, and really focus on "less is more".

then there are people who don't enjoy combat and thus get into games about slice of life (Chuubos is actually a pastoral game that can just be done differently) or investigation games like gumshoe, or exploration games like Ryuutama, things like that where there is little to no combat.

and then there are the people who play things like Call of Cthulhu and its many variants. I personally don't know how people find being a bunch of normal investigators getting killed by eldritch space squid gods fun but apparently they do.

at the same time, you find people who play Shadowrun. and I've looked into Shadowrun, and trust when I say its more mechanically overworked than DnD. its not as mechanically janky and broken sure, but it is more complex and rules heavy. I've tried building a character in it, oh boy....so much to keep track of, so many things to choose, so many points and nuyen to spend, the amount of equipment any given starting Shadowrun character has on them puts anything but high level DnD equipment or Eclipse Phase to shame. Yet its one of the more popular long running games out there, when I can barely get passed the character creation stage because of how much calculating you have to do.

so yeah there is a lot of rpgs out there catering for different folks, and they all have an appeal. and I think your right that their appeal isn't and shouldn't be a binary "story vs. game" thing that many people make it out to be. like many things in life, this seems to be something more wider with a certain spectrum of things and desires. because even if you want to play narrative, that doesn't everyone wants to play the same world or the same narrative structure, while being gamist or whatever doesn't mean everyone wants to play the same type of game.

[Max_Killjoy]

Honestly, I think that's mostly terminology drift - the primary sources I've seen using "fiction first" are pretty consistent in what they mean by it. It's the other people repeating them that have forced the "story first" definition on top of it.

But really, I couldn't care less about the terms. It's the idea that's important.


While I agree in spirit, the terminology issue does sometimes complicate communication and lead to misunderstandings.

[kyoryu]

While I agree in spirit, the terminology issue does sometimes complicate communication and lead to misunderstandings.

But, given that you seem to understand what I'm saying, and so we're discussing the same thing, and we were talking about approaches to games and specifically the limitations of the "mechanics first" vs "story first" false dichotomy, the fact that the term can be misunderstood, while true, is at best a tangent.

[Max_Killjoy]

But, given that you seem to understand what I'm saying, and so we're discussing the same thing, and we were talking about approaches to games and specifically the limitations of the "mechanics first" vs "story first" false dichotomy, the fact that the term can be misunderstood, while true, is at best a tangent.

Yeah, I'll give you that. It just ties into my frustration about how much of a struggle it can be to even get that "fiction first" viewpoint into the discussion and not have the two "big sides" each assume you're either with them or against them.





......*sees other post* I think I like you Max. we believe different things but your honest about it and I can respect you for the position you hold.

Well yeah, it can be confusing. we're still trying to figure out how this all works and what makes rpgs fun.

people seem to genuinely find 3.5 fun for this mechanical optimization game that it is and vehemently start stating "Stormwind fallacy!" whenever you say that its not a part of roleplaying or that your a bad roleplayer for focusing on that, meaning they think optimization is apart of the roleplaying experience.


I think optimization is a different axis from roleplaying -- it is neither an inherent part of RP nor does it stand in inherent opposition to RP -- and also has a lot of "fuzziness" that comes from intent. "Find room to make the character I want" can be a motive for optimization just as easily as "I want to make the strongest playing piece possible for this game". Optimizing a character doesn't make someone a bad roleplayer (or a good one), and intentionally ignoring it or even anti-optimizing doesn't make someone a good roleplayer.

The "stormwind fallacy" is being poorly referenced if it's used in an attempt to link optimization to roleplaying positively or negatively -- that's kinda the opposite of what it says, isn't it?

Of course, it also depends on what you mean by "optimization" -- I've seen it used to mean "any playing with the numbers", in a very very broad sense, and I've seen it used to mean "squeezing every last efficiency into a character build" in a very narrow sense. Sometimes the difference in usage is driven by agenda rather than objective utility.




however there are people who don't find optimization fun at all and just want to make whatever character they want without worrying about the numbers. this is what arguably led to the rise of Fate- in Fate you basically fill in some aspects and determine a few skills and stunts and your ready to go while also playing the exact character you want. sure its a narrative system but hey, you've made your half-angel half-demon axe wielder in less time than any DnD game without being anymore powerful than anyone else. now some people claim that there is a optimization strategy for Fate as well in where you like, make all the aspects double-edged to earn more fate points and spend them all in one go for a big bonus, but its pretty obvious when you do that, and kind of half-intended by the system sometimes.


I get the appeal of something like FATE in that regard -- in the intent to focus on concept, on who the character is, rather than numerical abstraction. Where I end up pumping the brakes hard is when someone then tries to subsume the idea of who the character is into their "story role" or "trope". To me at least, "he's strong like a bull" is very different from "he's the Strong Guy Protagonist in the Team of Five!"




however there are people who find Fate TOO RULES HEAVY, call Fate a medium system and go for even lighter systems for what they want, and really focus on "less is more".


I come from background of playing the HERO system a lot... not to mention oWoD where no two things work the same... I have no idea how FATE could be considered "rules heavy" on an objective scale.




then there are people who don't enjoy combat and thus get into games about slice of life (Chuubos is actually a pastoral game that can just be done differently) or investigation games like gumshoe, or exploration games like Ryuutama, things like that where there is little to no combat.

and then there are the people who play things like Call of Cthulhu and its many variants. I personally don't know how people find being a bunch of normal investigators getting killed by eldritch space squid gods fun but apparently they do.

at the same time, you find people who play Shadowrun. and I've looked into Shadowrun, and trust when I say its more mechanically overworked than DnD. its not as mechanically janky and broken sure, but it is more complex and rules heavy. I've tried building a character in it, oh boy....so much to keep track of, so many things to choose, so many points and nuyen to spend, the amount of equipment any given starting Shadowrun character has on them puts anything but high level DnD equipment or Eclipse Phase to shame. Yet its one of the more popular long running games out there, when I can barely get passed the character creation stage because of how much calculating you have to do.

so yeah there is a lot of rpgs out there catering for different folks, and they all have an appeal. and I think your right that their appeal isn't and shouldn't be a binary "story vs. game" thing that many people make it out to be. like many things in life, this seems to be something more wider with a certain spectrum of things and desires. because even if you want to play narrative, that doesn't everyone wants to play the same world or the same narrative structure, while being gamist or whatever doesn't mean everyone wants to play the same type of game.


I'd probably get bored in an RPG with no combat, but I'm also want a lot of things other than combat too.

This is where I get irked by the "purity of one thing" approach that The Forge promoted. I want a mix, and that doesn't make my gaming badwrongfun.

[kyoryu]

Yeah, I'll give you that. It just ties into my frustration about how much of a struggle it can be to even get that "fiction first" viewpoint into the discussion and not have the two "big sides" each assume you're either with them or against them.

Oh, I get it.

As a Fate fan, I have many people presume that the "fiction-first" nature of Fate is automatically equivalent to "you should be thinking about what your character would do from the standpoint of making a good story."

Which are two entirely separate things.

[Max_Killjoy]

Oh, I get it.

As a Fate fan, I have many people presume that the "fiction-first" nature of Fate is automatically equivalent to "you should be thinking about what your character would do from the standpoint of making a good story."

Which are two entirely separate things.

Oh yeah.

I probably didn't give FATE a fair shake at first -- I had run into plenty of people who promoted it as a "narrative causality" game, and because of that I had misunderstood what the game was about. (See above in my added response, as well.)


E: since we're on FATE, and to bring the discussion back around to the thread topic... in a system like FATE, where character "attributes" are often qualitative rather than quantitative, how big of a concern is balance within the system itself, and how is balance promoted / achieved?

[Actana]

Oh yeah.

I probably didn't give FATE a fair shake at first -- I had run into plenty of people who promoted it as a "narrative causality" game, and because of that I had misunderstood what the game was about. (See above in my added response, as well.)


E: since we're on FATE, and to bring the discussion back around to the thread topic... in a system like FATE, where character "attributes" are often qualitative rather than quantitative, how big of a concern is balance within the system itself, and how is balance promoted / achieved?

Aside from balance concerns, even in Fate (it's actually not all caps anymore, but I digress), the qualitative aspects are only one part of a character's mechanics. Every character still has skills which are measured by numbers. And in every Fate game I've seen, every character is created with the same amount of numbers. By default with one +4, two +3, three +2 and four +1, assuming the standard skill list. So skill-wise, every character has the capacity to be as powerful as others.

Balancing PCs with each other is still something that needs to be addressed. A lot depends on what skills are going to be useful in a campaign. Despite all skills being treated as equal, a campaign that focuses a lot around fighting rewards characters to take fighting skills. There's a lot to say about setting expectations and modifying the rules to maintain balance while keeping characters mechanically distinct (separating skills when it comes to the game's focus. For example, in a game focusing heavily around, say, boxing as a sport you'd need lots of different skills related to boxing: hitting, endurance, taking hits, feinting, personal gravitas, etc. A game about boxing with the default skill list is a terrible idea). But mostly it comes down to players coming together to create characters that fit together and compliment each other. Assuming a solid skill list where every skill is useful, players often find themselves being useful in various situations, everyone having their own niche in either skills, aspects or both. Superman might be an unkillable combat machine, but Jimmy Olsen can do things that Superman can't (please don't make me name them, I'm not a comics buff and this is just an example). And Superman faces different threats than the random person. He might not be defeated in combat, but he can still suffer consequences. (http://ryanmdanks.com/making-superman-truly-invulnerable-in-fate-core) All in all, it comes down to collaborative character creation during a session zero to make sure that nobody is creating a useless character for the campaign. But theoretically, all aspects are equally powerful but just in different ways, and all skills are equally valid. So as long as everyone creates characters with the same parameters, PCs should be balanced against each other.

Balancing PCs versus enemies, on the other hand, is rarely of any concern. When losing is no longer considered as a failure state of the game and simply as the characters failing at doing something, there's no need to make encounters balanced. Characters can always run or have the means to survive encounters if they really wish to (at the cost of success, ie using the Concede rules). Failing at overcoming an obstacle, be it a monster or anything, simply drives the game into a different direction.

Edit: I forgot to mention Stunts, which of course add another layer of customizable mechanics. More often than not it's this that will create more egregious balance issues as some published Fate games don't balance stunts too well (looking at you Dresden Files RPG). But stunts too are the sort which allow different kinds of power down different paths, making them an interesting way to differentiate characters.

[Lord Raziere]

I come from background of playing the HERO system a lot... not to mention oWoD where no two things work the same... I have no idea how FATE could be considered "rules heavy" on an objective scale.


I'd probably get bored in an RPG with no combat, but I'm also want a lot of things other than combat too.

This is where I get irked by the "purity of one thing" approach that The Forge promoted. I want a mix, and that doesn't make my gaming badwrongfun.

1. Its not, its considered rules medium, simply because of the fact that it has supplements and more than 100 pages. some people want rules and setting that need only book and the least number of pages to read as possible, seeing a lot of it as flack, and therefore go for things with less than 100 pages. For example: Behold the one page RPGs! (http://imgur.com/a/xRdx5).

2. And thats ok, some people want this and some people want that. More diversity, more options.

well yeah, fate requires you to be clear on the setting you play in and such, but thats kind of the usual communication stuff your SUPPOSED to do in roleplaying groups anyways.

[RazorChain]

And here we get into terminology stuff again... I've seen "fiction first" used conflictingly to mean "character and setting first" or "story first" depending on the person using it. And then there's the question of those (not you) who assume that character, setting, story, etc, are all one and the same in terms of being a single interconnected RPG design and play priority.

Well terminology can be hard, especially when not everyone on these forums are native english speakers and nobody has agreed on what things mean and what is what.


It's like sandbox, I don't put the same meaning into it as most people because for me every game that has an extensive settings and isn't on tight rails must be a sandbox. The setting is a sandbox and the PC's in most games have the freedom to stop what they are doing, go somewhere else and so something else and interact with the setting as they see fit.

Same as I like to run Character Driven Campaings. What meaning do people put in that? My meaning is that players make characters with backstories and background npcs that become the main part of the adventure. The main villain henchman is maybe one of the PC's nemesis, one PC's is adventuring to gain wealth and rank to marry his love which is of noble birth etc. It makes the emergent story much more personal to the players as it revolves around their characters not just the Dark Lord has risen and now you must defeat him.

One thing that irks me also is when the system doesn't support the setting and I've found out that is that I like systems that play to my realistic expectations. I guess that is the biggest factor I moved away from D&D after I started experimenting with other systems. It always irked me when I couldn't do something because the system didn't allow it.

No you can't sneak up to that guard and kill him in a single blow because you are not the rogue and you don't have sneak attack. That guard has 30 HP and there is no way you can down him in a suprise attack even if you managed to sneak up to him. After your attack he will have a full minute to scream his lungs out for help because some idiot decided the combat round is 1 minute.

Sorry but the rules for grappling or trying to knock somebody out are a total mess so your best bet is just to kill everything.

Sorry your character is an idiot and doesn't know anything because we decided not to incorporate any kind of skill system because our game is about killing things, now pick your 3 proficiencies and it doesn't really matter which you pick because most of them are useless anyway

This was according to the rules when I was playing 2nd edition and every wall I walked into made me like the system less.

The other thing I dislike is gaping plot holes, stupid adventures, stupid premises and stupid settings that break verisimilitude and playing as a teenager I found out that D&D had all of these in abundance. Don't get me wrong other systems have this as well but in D&D this combined with how the system was incompatible with the setting just made it easier to move away from D&D.

I see so many bad adventure ideas and illogical premises stem from D&D that it makes me cringe and sometimes I wonder if I'm on a forum full children or early teens. It's something I would run for my 9 year old son who is very enamored of power fantasy: Here is a bad guy, he's evil, now go take care of him and his minions and get some treasure. Roleplaying can be sooo much more.

[digiman619]

Quertus:

Even ignoring the "tier 1" part of this conversation, there's a fundamental disconnect with your idea of "hard mode", because that simply doesn't work in the RPG medium. People do Megabuster-only run of Mega Man 2, or get to the final dungeon of the original Legend of Zelda without the sword, or any other number of Self-Imposed Challenges (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SelfImposedChallenge). But you know what they pretty much all have in common?

They're all single-player games. You imposing the challenge to get "hard mode" doesn't affect anyone else. Also, outside of Nuzlockes, dying doesn't end the game; you can throw yourself on a given stage or boss over and over until you manage to complete it with your chosen limitation. And then there's there's the related concept of speed runs, where exploiting blatant glitches is totally par for the course.

You see why this doesn't translate to an RPG? Your "hard mode" is actively screwing around with the other players. you can't retry if you fail and die, and exploiting RAW loopholes is generally frowned on in actual play. It's just not going to work.

[kyoryu]

E: since we're on FATE, and to bring the discussion back around to the thread topic... in a system like FATE, where character "attributes" are often qualitative rather than quantitative, how big of a concern is balance within the system itself, and how is balance promoted / achieved?

2/3s of Fate mechanics are, basically quantitative - Skills and Stunts. The only thing that's not are aspects (which, contrary to popular belief are not the sum total of mechanics in Fate). Aspects are really less about "what can you do?" and more about "what's your story about?"

The heavy lifting in terms of what you can do, at least in measurable ways, are handled mostly by skills and stunts. Aspects most often give you permission (if you're a mage, you can cast spells), but the actual effectiveness of that will be determined by the skills/stunts you have available.

Fate handles balance in its default configuration by having a set array of skills that everyone gets - 1 at +4, 2 at +3, 3 at +2 and 4 at +1. This means that everyone is working with, basically, the same level of competency. Stunts are less "constant bonus" than feats are in D&D (or Advantages in HERO/etc.), and stacking them is softly discouraged.


1. Its not, its considered rules medium, simply because of the fact that it has supplements and more than 100 pages. some people want rules and setting that need only book and the least number of pages to read as possible, seeing a lot of it as flack, and therefore go for things with less than 100 pages. For example: Behold the one page RPGs! (http://imgur.com/a/xRdx5).

Fate can be put into a single page.

The vast majority of its (small form, large print) book is examples and explanation, not rules. It's pretty light, once you grok it.

[Lord Raziere]

You see why this doesn't translate to an RPG? Your "hard mode" is actively screwing around with the other players. you can't retry if you fail and die, and exploiting RAW loopholes is generally frowned on in actual play. It's just not going to work.

Yeah and even Dark Souls- which is Hard Mode: The RPG- has the fact that you respawn as an in-character fact. You ask how can a game be so hard if you respawn without limit and get all the tries you want? I say go play Dark Souls games and feel my pain by playing a Deprived and see how well you do, Mr. Hypothetical Question-Asker after seeing "YOU DIED." show up on your screen a few dozen times while battling back to your corpse to get back your souls through various legions of undead every five steps. Point is, a hard mode is about constantly failing and then getting up to try again- that you keep trying and honing your technique at the game until you win, much like in Dark Souls where leveling up gives you only a slight improvement in anything, so you have to focus on your actual skill of dodging the attacks to make any progress against a significant foe like a boss anywhere fast. you can't do that in a tabletop RPG! its all in the dice, so there is no actual skill involved in dodging attacks- whether your hard mode character lives or dies is entirely up to chance and there is nothing you can do about it other than make choices you HOPE are smart, and god help you if your wrong or if the GM decides to not play along.

thing is, even if your an easy mode character.....that is only true if the GM decides to play along. If the GM decides not to play along, it doesn't matter how much you mechanically optimize if they won't accept any of your justifications and loopholes and says "cut that out, I don't like that or want that in my game."

in short there is no static "hard mode" or "easy mode" that can you can truly say exists in an RPG, because GMs are not computers that implement that perfectly or feel like implementing it at all if they want something else, while dice do not change based on how good you get at anything, while the number bonuses are just abstractions of skill that are really just apart of the luck game.

to truly have any mode at all with an actual difficulty, actual skill has to be involved in play. dice does not give you that. so what tabletop thing does? I guess you could replace dice rolls with flash cards that have trivia questions on them that you have to answer, and if you draw a card that you can't answer tough luck, but I don't see that catching on.

[digiman619]

Actually, now I think of it, Pathfinder has a "hard mode": The Medium and Slow XP tables. Paizo's (post-3.5) AP's all suggest you use the Fast XP table and are balanced with that in mind.

[Elderand]

Actually, now I think of it, Pathfinder has a "hard mode": The Medium and Slow XP tables. Paizo's (post-3.5) AP's all suggest you use the Fast XP table and are balanced with that in mind.

That's not a hard mode at all.

I mean, I guess it can make things a little more difficult when playing AP since you'll be lower level than expected, but if you're not playing AP being on a slow xp track doesn't change anything since the dm calibrate the encounters to your level anyway. All it changes is how quickly you'll meet stronger monsters.

[Cluedrew]

You know what, I'm going to go one further: Does the concept of difficult even apply in a role-playing game?

I mean, obviously it can (and so it does) as you have chances of success and a player's ability to set things up so they are more likely to come up well. Although the only skill on a roll-by-roll level is cheating. But rather... why bother? What does that mean in a role-playing game that is mostly about role-playing?

I would argue that difficulty as the impedance gap between having a character idea and being able to make that character is a better measure. You want that to be as low as possible, although it is often worth increasing to improve other things in the system, I can't think of a single reason it should be big for its own sake. But lets just call that a system's gap and use it to describe why I think the regular difficulty is not as meaningful. Any that is because your character's ability in a certain area is also something you want to express and that is what determines the classic "difficulty", but why should building the best swords(wo)man in the world be harder than creating an average one? Keeping the overall power level of a character in check is one think, but why should certain combinations be harder or easier to achieve?

[Quertus]

Sorry, I've been lurking in my own thread, enjoying all the side conversations. :smallwink: :smallredface:


Quertus:

Even ignoring the "tier 1" part of this conversation, there's a fundamental disconnect with your idea of "hard mode", because that simply doesn't work in the RPG medium. People do Megabuster-only run of Mega Man 2, or get to the final dungeon of the original Legend of Zelda without the sword, or any other number of Self-Imposed Challenges (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SelfImposedChallenge). But you know what they pretty much all have in common?

They're all single-player games. You imposing the challenge to get "hard mode" doesn't affect anyone else. Also, outside of Nuzlockes, dying doesn't end the game; you can throw yourself on a given stage or boss over and over until you manage to complete it with your chosen limitation. And then there's there's the related concept of speed runs, where exploiting blatant glitches is totally par for the course.

You see why this doesn't translate to an RPG? Your "hard mode" is actively screwing around with the other players. you can't retry if you fail and die, and exploiting RAW loopholes is generally frowned on in actual play. It's just not going to work.


Yeah and even Dark Souls- which is Hard Mode: The RPG- has the fact that you respawn as an in-character fact. You ask how can a game be so hard if you respawn without limit and get all the tries you want? I say go play Dark Souls games and feel my pain by playing a Deprived and see how well you do, Mr. Hypothetical Question-Asker after seeing "YOU DIED." show up on your screen a few dozen times while battling back to your corpse to get back your souls through various legions of undead every five steps. Point is, a hard mode is about constantly failing and then getting up to try again- that you keep trying and honing your technique at the game until you win, much like in Dark Souls where leveling up gives you only a slight improvement in anything, so you have to focus on your actual skill of dodging the attacks to make any progress against a significant foe like a boss anywhere fast. you can't do that in a tabletop RPG! its all in the dice, so there is no actual skill involved in dodging attacks- whether your hard mode character lives or dies is entirely up to chance and there is nothing you can do about it other than make choices you HOPE are smart, and god help you if your wrong or if the GM decides to not play along.

thing is, even if your an easy mode character.....that is only true if the GM decides to play along. If the GM decides not to play along, it doesn't matter how much you mechanically optimize if they won't accept any of your justifications and loopholes and says "cut that out, I don't like that or want that in my game."

in short there is no static "hard mode" or "easy mode" that can you can truly say exists in an RPG, because GMs are not computers that implement that perfectly or feel like implementing it at all if they want something else, while dice do not change based on how good you get at anything, while the number bonuses are just abstractions of skill that are really just apart of the luck game.

to truly have any mode at all with an actual difficulty, actual skill has to be involved in play. dice does not give you that. so what tabletop thing does? I guess you could replace dice rolls with flash cards that have trivia questions on them that you have to answer, and if you draw a card that you can't answer tough luck, but I don't see that catching on.

Well, it has worked for me many times in the past, so, clearly, I just need to explain my idea better. :smallwink:

Much like a video game, Hard Mode is about player skills. The easiest way to explain it is as a handicap for when one player's player skills are notably beyond those of his team mates.

Imagine trained soldiers who charge across open terrain, vs a civilian who shoots from cover.

Imagine Spider-Man who punches a foe vs Average Joe who interacts with the environment, and grabs nitroglycerin / the n-ray McGuffin of Doom.

Imagine a druid who focuses on duel-wielding keen scimitars vs an actually competently built... True Namer?

One way to look at Hard Mode is, it's for when one player would dominate the game / the spotlight / whatever, unless they intentionally nerfed themselves to be at the level that the other players (lack of) skill has placed them.

Perhaps slightly harder to grok is the idea that a player's skills can be that good, that even in a competent party, he would still want to play Hard Mode.

Consider the player skill "in sync with the GM". If you know the GMs style, how he thinks, etc, it's a huge advantage. There are GMs where I could play Average Joe and likely compete in contribution to most anyone else playing Spider-Man. And there are GMs where I could play anything short of God and struggle to compete against in-sync players playing competent normals.

So, yeah, I'm suggesting that it's better to be able to identify the GMs best friend / SO by them playing Hard Mode, than by them playing some OP BS that should be and likely is a trope.

[Lord Raziere]

Much like a video game, Hard Mode is about player skills. The easiest way to explain it is as a handicap for when one player's player skills are notably beyond those of his team mates.

Imagine trained soldiers who charge across open terrain, vs a civilian who shoots from cover.

Imagine Spider-Man who punches a foe vs Average Joe who interacts with the environment, and grabs nitroglycerin / the n-ray McGuffin of Doom.

Imagine a druid who focuses on duel-wielding keen scimitars vs an actually competently built... True Namer?

One way to look at Hard Mode is, it's for when one player would dominate the game / the spotlight / whatever, unless they intentionally nerfed themselves to be at the level that the other players (lack of) skill has placed them.

Perhaps slightly harder to grok is the idea that a player's skills can be that good, that even in a competent party, he would still want to play Hard Mode.

Consider the player skill "in sync with the GM". If you know the GMs style, how he thinks, etc, it's a huge advantage. There are GMs where I could play Average Joe and likely compete in contribution to most anyone else playing Spider-Man. And there are GMs where I could play anything short of God and struggle to compete against in-sync players playing competent normals.

So, yeah, I'm suggesting that it's better to be able to identify the GMs best friend / SO by them playing Hard Mode, than by them playing some OP BS that should be and likely is a trope.

Is that actually player SKILL or just player KNOWLEDGE of the system?

because a roleplaying game is oddly enough, closer to gambling games than to videogames. the only skill really there is risk assessment, the difference being are the mechanics to tilt the odds in your favor, while a gambling game such as poker, blackjack or whatever has a fair chance for everyone.

So all you really know is all the ways to make your percentages go up really. your just avoiding all the ones that give you 100% because you know which things will lead to the biggest numbers. your taking longshots because your tired of taking safe bets. When everyone else avoids safe bets by default because the game isn't about those, its about being an adventurer crazy enough to go forth and risk their lives for treasure everyday. There is a reason why many rpgs outside 3.5 make sure you can't succeed without risk and do much more playtesting to make sure the odds are right.

because in a videogame, there isn't really any gambling, its about how hard your willing to work with reflexes. There is no work in ttrpgs. Its all the dice and what bets your willing to take. its all luck and the position you've put yourself in to gamble something, and the worst thing a gambling game can do is give you a way out with no risk. because the option is obvious every time. when you boil down to it, all your saying is that your playing a lower chance of success since you don't care about the story, that your rolling a 60% success rate rather than 100%. Your not actually doing "hard mode" your trusting the dice to to give you that, when you don't actually know what the dice will roll.

which is kind of why roleplaying games started out as randomly rolled stuff to begin with- the characters were your hand and you played with the hand you were dealt. thing is, there is no point to playing the game if your just going to make a hand of all kings then proclaim it boring and play a hand of all sixes. wheres your risk taking spirit?

[digiman619]

Well, it has worked for me many times in the past, so, clearly, I just need to explain my idea better. :smallwink:

Much like a video game, Hard Mode is about player skills. The easiest way to explain it is as a handicap for when one player's player skills are notably beyond those of his team mates.

Imagine trained soldiers who charge across open terrain, vs a civilian who shoots from cover.

Imagine Spider-Man who punches a foe vs Average Joe who interacts with the environment, and grabs nitroglycerin / the n-ray McGuffin of Doom.

Imagine a druid who focuses on duel-wielding keen scimitars vs an actually competently built... True Namer?

One way to look at Hard Mode is, it's for when one player would dominate the game / the spotlight / whatever, unless they intentionally nerfed themselves to be at the level that the other players (lack of) skill has placed them.

Perhaps slightly harder to grok is the idea that a player's skills can be that good, that even in a competent party, he would still want to play Hard Mode.

Consider the player skill "in sync with the GM". If you know the GMs style, how he thinks, etc, it's a huge advantage. There are GMs where I could play Average Joe and likely compete in contribution to most anyone else playing Spider-Man. And there are GMs where I could play anything short of God and struggle to compete against in-sync players playing competent normals.

So, yeah, I'm suggesting that it's better to be able to identify the GMs best friend / SO by them playing Hard Mode, than by them playing some OP BS that should be and likely is a trope.

With respect, there is a huge difference between "player skill" in video games and this circumstance; video game "player skill" is much more amazing relfexes and reading their opponent than your suggested RPG "player skill" which is system mastery/optimazation level/yomi vs DM, which is a totally different beast.

Yes, people with high system mastery can pick sub-optimal choices during character creation and level up to make more of a challenge for themsleves. They can also jump off a cliff without a parachute (literal or metaphorical), what's your point? Your examples above about how "hard mode" could work have one gaping flaw: THere's nothing stopping non-"hard mode" characters from also using those tactics. Spider-Man can use use the environment as well as having his Spidey Sense. There's nothing stopping the soldiers from firing from cover either, and they can likely do it better than the civilian, too. The problems with the "super-unoptimized Druid vs super-optimized Truenamer" is that the druid can change his mind at any second and then the supposed balance dissappears in a puff of smoke.

And yes, "knowing what your DM will or will not do" is a skill. There's a reason why there's more than a few Magic: The Gathering players did well when they tried their hand at professional poker. The thing is, knowing how your DM runs their game and planning around that is a skill you will or will not have regardless of what's on your character sheet, so having a "hard mode" with that in mind is impossible, so it's useless to this conversation.

Then there's the question of if I want to play an RPG on "hard mode", and everything that entails, why would I need a hard mode class when I can purposly sabotage my character if I want things more difficult for myself, like actual Self-Imposed Challenges do? 3.5 and Pathfinder are the games I have the most knowledge of, so I'm gonig to use them as a base for your perfect game with your "Tier 1" characters that are power + versatility without breaking the game. Why not put skill points in skill I don't intend to use, or take feats for things that aren't the focus of the character, or limit my spell selection to a theme or anything else? Why do I need a purposely gimped class in the game when I can alter my character to meet the challenge in a way I see fit, not you?

Also, to be blunt, you still haven't responded to how "hard mode" effects dying. You know, that thing that's supposed to be a big deal in a story and not something that is skipped over like a video game. Other than Dark Souls and its ilk, when you die on a boss, the story repeats as the game loads a previous save. Are you going to do that in an RPG? What's the point of that? That's the reason Taking 20 was invented. If you get the chance to beat the boss over and over because your limitation is getting you killed (which is going to hapen in your "hard mode" plan with any but the most leinient of GMs), what's the point of making the limitation and wasting everyone's time as the GM and other players have to redo the encounter so you get bragging rights.

Or maybe you've not talked about dying on "hard mode" becasue you're playing a RPG Nuzlocke, and once your limitation kills you, you're dead. Well, guess what? There's a new reason why "hard mode" won't work, because you're supposed to be roleplaying this person. When your desire for bragging rights gets them killed (and it will), you have to make a new character. And if you're going through characters (which you will unless the dice love you a lot), each will have less and less characterization. Not to Stormwind Fallacy, but you're clearly only caring about the mechainics in this case because you want "hard mode" and aren't playing the character like you are supposed to be doing.

In closing, the "everyone should have power and versatility" is something everyone agrees with, and the "there should be classes that don't have power and/or versatility you can take to make it harder on yourself" thing no one agrees with you on. Maybe you should consider that you might be mistaken on the second front, because eveyone else is convinced of that and this conversation has probably gone on long enough.

[Lord Raziere]

Or maybe you've not talked about dying on "hard mode" because you're playing a RPG Nuzlocke, and once your limitation kills you, you're dead. Well, guess what? There's a new reason why "hard mode" won't work, because you're supposed to be roleplaying this person. When your desire for bragging rights gets them killed (and it will), you have to make a new character. And if you're going through characters (which you will unless the dice love you a lot), each will have less and less characterization. Not to Stormwind Fallacy, but you're clearly only caring about the mechanics in this case because you want "hard mode" and aren't playing the character like you are supposed to be doing.


and at that point, you might as well go really old school and just random roll your new character up, class, race and all. At least then you'll be experiencing a change of pace and having to constantly adapt to different tactics while being creative with a pure rolls character on every level.

[Max_Killjoy]

While I have quite a bit of disagreement with Quertus on this topic, I also don't think it's fair to paint this as just and simply a matter of power gaming on his part.

[Mike_G]

I don't think it's a question of power gaming.

And, with the caveat that everybody's playstyle can be different, and if it works for you, that's great, my issue, as both a player and DM is trying to challenge a totally unbalanced party.

Not unbalanced for the campaign, that you can always adjust, but unbalanced to one another.

We were all old 1e players who started 3e when it came out. We made up a party of new 1st level characters, filling the old roles. At low level, the system woks fine, and the skill system means yeah, your fighter can hide if you want to try it, so that fixed a big issue I had in 1e.

But as we got into the higher levels, we noticed that the casters far, far outshone the non casters. We weren't trying to break the game, we probably would have seen the power gap sooner if we we trying to push it, but by the time people hit the mid teens in level, the Fighters and Rogues felt like they were sitting at the kiddie table watching the Wizards and Clerics curb stomp the encounter that would have been tough if not impossible for the non casters.

And it's just as bad, if not worse for a DM, trying to design an encounter that will challenge the Tier 1 characters but still allow the Tier 3 characters to participate in any meaningful way. You throw some mooks in for the fighter to shine, and the Wizard wipes them out or neutralizes them with one spell, or bypasses the fiendishly cunning traps and locks that would let the Rogue look impressive as hell.

At one point, I rolled a Move Silently to get behind an important enemy, then waited what felt like about three days for the Shapechanged Wizard, his Shapechanged familiar (share spell) and all his Summoned creatures to trash the encounter before my action rolled around again. That kind of thing happens pretty often in 3rd Edition D&D.

And yes, sure you CAN work around this, you CAN design a campaign that addresses the issues, but the theory of the system has always been that a 10th level party can handle a 10th level adventure. I'm sure a bunch of people will tell me in detail how this is only a problem because I'm just not playing right.

But I feel that a system that only works if you add in a bunch of kludgey workarounds and gentleman's agreements doesn't really work.

[Quertus]

I don't think it's a question of power gaming.

And, with the caveat that everybody's playstyle can be different, and if it works for you, that's great, my issue, as both a player and DM is trying to challenge a totally unbalanced party.

Not unbalanced for the campaign, that you can always adjust, but unbalanced to one another.

Well, happily, when I talk about Hard Mode, I'm talking about making your job as GM easier. Yes, easier.

About the worst balance I've ever seen in a party was when one player had it all: system mastery, good tactics, and a well-built character. Most of the rest of the party had, well, none of that. Utterly impossible for the poor GM to create a balanced encounter to an unbalanced party.

Sometimes, I'm kind to the poor GM. Sometimes, when I have system mastery, tactics, and GM lore, I'll intentionally build a Hard Mode character, so that I'm roughly equivalent to the rest of the party.


Your examples above about how "hard mode" could work have one gaping flaw: THere's nothing stopping non-"hard mode" characters from also using those tactics. Spider-Man can use use the environment as well as having his Spidey Sense. There's nothing stopping the soldiers from firing from cover either, and they can likely do it better than the civilian, too. The problems with the "super-unoptimized Druid vs super-optimized Truenamer" is that the druid can change his mind at any second and then the supposed balance dissappears in a puff of smoke.

Well, the crux of this particular path to try to get people to understand what I mean when I talk about Hard Mode, and how I and others have used it in the past, is that, for whatever reason, the players in question either can't or won't.

Yes, the guy who play tested the druid for WotC could actually learn the game, and then he'd have a tier 1 character, not just a fighter with a bad chassis. Yes, the Spider-Man in question could interact with the environment, but what if that's just not something his player does? Yes, the guys playing the marines could learn to take cover; until then, I'll likely out perform them with a civilian playing smart.

The entire point is, there are people (I've gamed with plenty) who just don't get it. People who most of us would out perform without even trying. Some are noobs; others are people who just never seem to learn. Heck, my signature character, Quertus, for whom this account is named, is based in no small part on my observations that some people just never learn how to play the bloody game with any level of competence, even after years (or even decades!) of play.

So, it is when gaming with such people that I am currently attempting to discuss the merits of Hard Mode.


Is that actually player SKILL or just player KNOWLEDGE of the system?

because a roleplaying game is oddly enough, closer to gambling games than to videogames. the only skill really there is risk assessment

Um, no. For example, the guys who made Warhammer - who really ought to have system knowledge - are notoriously bad at actually playing the game.

I've known plenty of people whose level of system knowledge and level of tactical skill and level of "play the game" skill were vastly divergent.


With respect, there is a huge difference between "player skill" in video games and this circumstance; video game "player skill" is much more amazing relfexes and reading their opponent than your suggested RPG "player skill" which is system mastery/optimazation level/yomi vs DM, which is a totally different beast.

That's not the skills I'm talking about.

Under some GMs, if they say that we're in a lab, I'll know that I can find and use a bottle of nitroglycerin, because of course that's present in any lab. Under other GMs, I know I'll need to spend a hero point / make a luck roll / whatever. Whereas under yet other GMs, I know that there's no chance of success. Because I know what they consider "realistic", how much that matters to them compared to balance and gameplay, and what those words mean to them.

Put me under such a GM that I know, and, playing Average Joe, I'll out perform someone playing Spider-Man who is just playing the game, not the GM.


Also, to be blunt, you still haven't responded to how "hard mode" effects dying. You know, that thing that's supposed to be a big deal in a story and not something that is skipped over like a video game. Other than Dark Souls and its ilk, when you die on a boss, the story repeats as the game loads a previous save. Are you going to do that in an RPG? What's the point of that? That's the reason Taking 20 was invented. If you get the chance to beat the boss over and over because your limitation is getting you killed (which is going to hapen in your "hard mode" plan with any but the most leinient of GMs), what's the point of making the limitation and wasting everyone's time as the GM and other players have to redo the encounter so you get bragging rights.

Or maybe you've not talked about dying on "hard mode" becasue you're playing a RPG Nuzlocke, and once your limitation kills you, you're dead. Well, guess what? There's a new reason why "hard mode" won't work, because you're supposed to be roleplaying this person. When your desire for bragging rights gets them killed (and it will), you have to make a new character. And if you're going through characters (which you will unless the dice love you a lot), each will have less and less characterization. Not to Stormwind Fallacy, but you're clearly only caring about the mechainics in this case because you want "hard mode" and aren't playing the character like you are supposed to be doing.

Ouch. Yes, my preferred form of play is Combat as War. And I've never had a character resurrected. So, arguably, playing on Hard Mode is simply me putting the threat of death back on the table.

But as for role-playing? I hate to admit it, but a disproportionate large percentage of my best personalities came out of me playing Hard Mode. It's probably not causal, though - it's probably caused by system knowledge + GM knowledge not getting in the way of me focusing on my character, instead of the rules, or fighting with the system / fighting with the GM.


In closing, the "everyone should have power and versatility" is something everyone agrees with, and the "there should be classes that don't have power and/or versatility you can take to make it harder on yourself" thing no one agrees with you on. Maybe you should consider that you might be mistaken on the second front, because eveyone else is convinced of that and this conversation has probably gone on long enough.

Cool on the first part. I'm working on the second part.


While I have quite a bit of disagreement with Quertus on this topic, I also don't think it's fair to paint this as just and simply a matter of power gaming on his part.

Well, it's not surprising if we disagree - we usually do. :smallwink:

Do you also disagree on my notion of this particular concept of a valid use of Hard Mode? If so, please elaborate.

[Mechalich]

It's pointless to talk about 'difficult modes' for a tabletop rpg game, since there is no preset context. The game is as difficult as the GM chooses to make it for any given group of players and their characters.

It is, however, relevant to talk about 'difficulty mode' for specific campaigns, in particular pre-fabricated campaigns released by a publisher for use with a system. Many systems, of course, simply don't do this, because they accept that the game needs sufficient active management that static modules are impossible (or they simply don't have the money). Of the games that do, d20 game systems do it way more often than most others. In those cases, there absolutely are conscious choices to be made during character creation about how hard the module is going to be (assuming the GM isn't going to actively adjust it, otherwise its mostly a consideration of how much extra work the GM is going to have to do). In such cases it is quite important to have guidelines regarding how powerful the characters are intended to be to take on the module. In d20 games this is almost always by level, with the assumption that characters are playing a fairly standard mix of archetypes (in D&D from 3.0 onward this has been cleric/fighter/rogue/wizard), and this has proven, over time, to be woefully insufficient to measure the difficult of a module.

Adding tier labeling to the level range for modules would be a useful guideline, with most 3.X and PF modules probably being balanced for Tier 3-4, but that would mean publishers explicitly acknowledge the tiers, which they are loathe to do for a number of reasons - most notably because the non-standard tier classes would quickly be neglected and it would be harder to sell material for them.

[Quertus]

It's pointless to talk about 'difficult modes' for a tabletop rpg game, since there is no preset context. The game is as difficult as the GM chooses to make it for any given group of players and their characters.

Yeah, I'm not following you. Unless you're assuming things I consider bad GMing practices, I'm not sure what you're saying here.

When one character has a good build, good system mastery, and good tactics, how is that not easy mode compared to someone with none of the above?

Or, more to the point I'm trying to make, I find the game more balanced when good system mastery and good tactics are combined with a bad build (Hard Mode), or good system mastery and a good build are combined with bad tactics (Quertus). Or, I suppose, poor system mastery could be combined with a good build and good tactics?


It is, however, relevant to talk about 'difficulty mode' for specific campaigns, in particular pre-fabricated campaigns released by a publisher for use with a system. Many systems, of course, simply don't do this, because they accept that the game needs sufficient active management that static modules are impossible (or they simply don't have the money). Of the games that do, d20 game systems do it way more often than most others. In those cases, there absolutely are conscious choices to be made during character creation about how hard the module is going to be (assuming the GM isn't going to actively adjust it, otherwise its mostly a consideration of how much extra work the GM is going to have to do). In such cases it is quite important to have guidelines regarding how powerful the characters are intended to be to take on the module. In d20 games this is almost always by level, with the assumption that characters are playing a fairly standard mix of archetypes (in D&D from 3.0 onward this has been cleric/fighter/rogue/wizard), and this has proven, over time, to be woefully insufficient to measure the difficult of a module.

Adding tier labeling to the level range for modules would be a useful guideline, with most 3.X and PF modules probably being balanced for Tier 3-4, but that would mean publishers explicitly acknowledge the tiers, which they are loathe to do for a number of reasons - most notably because the non-standard tier classes would quickly be neglected and it would be harder to sell material for them.

When I run a one-shot, it's not generally intended to be terribly sandbox-y. Mind you, that hasn't stopped my players from hopping the rails, but let's ignore that for the moment.

Under such a closed system, I generally run at least one sample party through the module before I run it for a real party, to get a feel for what level / power range would be appropriate.

So, while I think I understand the concept, I'm not sure how it relates to the concept of Hard Mode as I'm trying to discuss it, beyond a tangential, antithetical notion of being able to judge character contribution solely from the character sheet, under the false assumption of the irrelevance of the player component. Not all players are equal.

Ah, yes, I think I get it now: if a player brought something obviously sub par, I could explicitly ask them if they're trying to play Hard Mode. Or if they brought something notably above par, I could ask if they're intending to play easy mode / BDHs. Fair enough.

[digiman619]

Well, the crux of this particular path to try to get people to understand what I mean when I talk about Hard Mode, and how I and others have used it in the past, is that, for whatever reason, the players in question either can't or won't.

Yes, the guy who playtested the druid for WotC could actually learn the game, and then he'd have a tier 1 character, not just a fighter with a bad chassis. Yes, the Spider-Man in question could interact with the environment, but what if that's just not something his player does? Yes, the guys playing the marines could learn to take cover; until then, I'll likely out perform them with a civilian playing smart.

The entire point is, there are people (I've gamed with plenty) who just don't get it. People who most of us would out perform without even trying. Some are noobs; others are people who just never seem to learn. Heck, my signature character, Quertus, for whom this account is named, is based in no small part on my observations that some people just never learn how to play the bloody game with any level of competence, even after years (or even decades!) of play.

So, it is when gaming with such people that I am currently attempting to discuss the merits of Hard Mode.
Yes. Some players struggle with the tactics of a D&D game to the point that someone with greater system knowledge can play a far weaker character than them but still outperform them. Similarly, someone who is amazing at fighting games can pick a joke character, like say, Pichu in Suber Smash Bros, and still beat newbies. What's your point? There is skill involved in playing an RPG. Is that what you want me to admit?


That's not the skills I'm talking about.

Under some GMs, if they say that we're in a lab, I'll know that I can find and use a bottle of nitroglycerin, because of course that's present in any lab. Under other GMs, I know I'll need to spend a hero point / make a luck roll / whatever. Whereas under yet other GMs, I know that there's no chance of success. Because I know what they consider "realistic", how much that matters to them compared to balance and gameplay, and what those words mean to them.

Put me under such a GM that I know, and, playing Average Joe, I'll out perform someone playing Spider-Man who is just playing the game, not the GM.
Yes, "knowing your DM" is a skill you can have that will vastly improve your game. The thing you refuse to admit, though, is that you will have that knowledge either way; and you knowing this DM doesn't mean the guy playing Spider-Man doesn't, and you would be just as knowledgeable about your DM's ways if you played a superhero yourself. Because this skill is completely divorced for class selection, it has no bearing on this discussion.


Ouch. Yes, my preferred form of play is Combat as War. And I've never had a character resurrected. So, arguably, playing on Hard Mode is simply me putting the threat of death back on the table.

But as for role-playing? I hate to admit it, but a disproportionate large percentage of my best personalities came out of me playing Hard Mode. It's probably not causal, though - it's probably caused by system knowledge + GM knowledge not getting in the way of me focusing on my character, instead of the rules, or fighting with the system / fighting with the GM.
Good for you. This again falls into knowing your GM, as my experience has had GMs that were extremely lethal (Ghouls + Coup-de-grace vs level 2 party = bad time), and ones that were much softer. However, the longer a person plays on "hard mode", the chances that they will die to a foe that they would have survived against on "regular mode" (if you will) approaches 100%. If and when that happens, what is a "hard mode" player supposed to do?

[Quertus]

Yes. Some players struggle with the tactics of a D&D game to the point that someone with greater system knowledge can play a far weaker character than them but still outperform them. Similarly, someone who is amazing at fighting games can pick a joke character, like say, Pichu in Suber Smash Bros, and still beat newbies. What's your point? There is skill involved in playing an RPG. Is that what you want me to admit?

That's half of it, thanks. :smallwink:

The other half is, do you think it's good that they included at least one Hard Mode Pichu in Super Smash Brothers, to let the player with superior skill still be able to play to the fullest of his ability, yet still struggle to compete against an inferior opponent? Me, I like that kind of thing, and am calling it good design.


Yes, "knowing your DM" is a skill you can have that will vastly improve your game. The thing you refuse to admit, though, is that you will have that knowledge either way; and you knowing this DM doesn't mean the guy playing Spider-Man doesn't, and you would be just as knowledgeable about your DM's ways if you played a superhero yourself. Because this skill is completely divorced for class selection, it has no bearing on this discussion.

Oh, sorry, wasn't intending to come off as refusing to admit it. Yes, if I play a powerful (or, rather, for this discussion, "equal") character under that GM, I'll still have that knowledge. If Spider-Man also knows / groks the GMs style, good times. I wholeheartedly agree with you.

I'm just adding that, if he doesn't grok the GMs style, one lever I can adjust is my character's inherent capabilities, so that we can contribute more equally to the game.

... So, to those discussing Fate earlier, with its almost mandated statistical game balance, what do y'all do when there's an obvious disparity in player skills? is there any way to salvage functional game balance at that point?


Good for you. This again falls into knowing your GM, as my experience has had GMs that were extremely lethal (Ghouls + Coup-de-grace vs level 2 party = bad time), and ones that were much softer. However, the longer a person plays on "hard mode", the chances that they will die to a foe that they would have survived against on "regular mode" (if you will) approaches 100%. If and when that happens, what is a "hard mode" player supposed to do?

Um, die? Well, their character, at least.

I'm quite confident that I'm missing your point.

If I have superior tactics, system mastery, GM lore, etc...

There are GMs who aren't happy unless at least one character dies each session. Under those GMs, I'm unlikely to build a character, and instead well just build a statistical pawn with which to play the Game portion of the RPG.

There are GMs who aren't happy unless they feel like the threat of death is very real for your character. Interestingly, being threatened is much easier for the seemingly weak Hard Mode character, so they, being functionally equal to the other characters, are actually safest, as the GM feels that they need to put less effort into threatening them.

Then there's GMs who play it fair. Yes, I could reduce my personal risk of death, and risk overshadowing the other pc's, by bringing their statistical equal. Or I could try to bring a character who, by virtue of being statistically weaker, is functionally balanced with the rest of the party. Why is one choice inherently better than the other?

[Lord Raziere]

... So, to those discussing Fate earlier, with its almost mandated statistical game balance, what do y'all do when there's an obvious disparity in player skills? is there any way to salvage functional game balance at that point?


It doesn't matter.

Its not about winning. you simply y'know, give them advice. help them. the GM is not your enemy, you are not competing against the players, your all just here to tell the story and if the person wants to tell their story, you don't prove that you can tell stories better than them you simply steer them in the direction of that story being better told. there is no need to compete.

Player skill only matters so much to you because a game like 3.5 can't handle failure very well. Fate is designed to account for failures and make them apart of the story like anything else so that things keep going and so that when something bad happens the result isn't "we need to win now or complete TPK." the entire point of such narrative adventures is going "ok but what about possibilities that aren't a binary win/lose situation?" so that when your character does something it can lead to new possibilities down that line that would never happen in a game where the only possibilities are "win or your party dies." or "get this lock right or you can't progress."

its the concept of "fail forward." where instead of failure just being an end to game, it just leads to new possibilities how that game plays out. in this light, why would anyone care how "competent" you are at playing a character?

[Mechalich]

Yeah, I'm not following you. Unless you're assuming things I consider bad GMing practices, I'm not sure what you're saying here.

There are no static encounters. As the GM, I have the power to make encounters any degree of difficulty I wish, regardless of how power or how weak the characters happen to be. All things are dynamic. If the players desire a game where their characters feel like BDHs I can make that happen regardless of what is written on the character sheet. It's possible to make a party of nothing but fighters be the 20th level saviors of the world who took down the lich-lord. It will require some suspension of disbelief regarding the mechanics if you do the in 3.5 D&D, but it's totally possible. In the same vein, players can build characters of galaxy crushing power and the GM can make them seem small and powerless with ease.

Now the GM should only do these things if the players want them, but ultimately the type of game that is presented is completely divorced from how powerful the PCs happen to be and is entirely up to what the gaming group says they want to do. The rules are an aid to produce the intended experience, they do not control it.


When one character has a good build, good system mastery, and good tactics, how is that not easy mode compared to someone with none of the above?

Or, more to the point I'm trying to make, I find the game more balanced when good system mastery and good tactics are combined with a bad build (Hard Mode), or good system mastery and a good build are combined with bad tactics (Quertus). Or, I suppose, poor system mastery could be combined with a good build and good tactics?

You are describing in-play adaptations to design failure states while continuing to fail to recognize them as such. The ability for a given table and players to adapt to a design failure does not eliminate those flaws or make them desirable design features.

Differences in system mastery between players should have minimal influence on in-game outputs (it is impossible to reduce such variance to zero, but keeping it as low as possible is the goal). How you do this will obviously vary from one system to the next depending on which outputs are valued in those systems.

Differences in tactics should also be minimized - usually by allowing the party to share data such that the most tactically minded player is allowed to help inexperienced or clueless players along out-of-character even in circumstances when they are playing a character with a poor tactical mindset. Since having a squad where tactical ability varies widely imperils all members, this only increases verisimilitude and is desirable. It also increases party cohesion, which is also a goal.

Differences in build capability should also, generally, be either minimized: if relatively equal contributions or some minimal competency in core capabilities are part of the game, or transparent: if the game prizes character concepts and personalities above all. Again, it is impossible to eliminate variance in capability between build, and going so far as to effectively turn characters into different colored versions of the same thing is a problem (one that 4e illustrates) but mitigation is important.

Table-top RPGs are a cooperative storytelling game. A group of people get together and play parts in an ongoing tale, open to vast variation. The rules need to enhance storytelling - by serving as a means to produce dramatic tension and other plot elements - and cooperation - by serving to allow each player and the GM to feel like an active participant and to have fun. Attempting to equalize character capabilities while keeping character concepts unique is important because the design cannot reasonable assume any sort of high-level of self-awareness on the part of the players or that any given group of players will understand that everyone should have fun (many RPG tables struggle with a significant amount of OOC jockeying and bullying and the game should not serve to enable this).


Ah, yes, I think I get it now: if a player brought something obviously sub par, I could explicitly ask them if they're trying to play Hard Mode. Or if they brought something notably above par, I could ask if they're intending to play easy mode / BDHs. Fair enough.

No. If a player bought something obviously sub-par compared to the other party members the GM needs to either 1. make certain the other party members are okay with that or 2. make that player bring their build up to par. The reverse is true if they build something clearly overpowered. It is essential that the GM ensure the party is balanced against itself so that everyone gets to contribute in a fair measure.

Again, it is almost totally irrelevant how the party is balanced against a static measure, because the GM can change those measures completely at any time (not that, if using published modules or a system that has a bestiary of some kind with preset difficulties it is useful to try and stay within designer benchmarks for the purpose of minimizing bookkeeping, but this is a matter of convenience).


The other half is, do you think it's good that they included at least one Hard Mode Pichu in Super Smash Brothers, to let the player with superior skill still be able to play to the fullest of his ability, yet still struggle to compete against an inferior opponent? Me, I like that kind of thing, and am calling it good design.

It's good design for a non-cooperative video game. The design principles of video games - even co-operative games like MMORPGs - are not the same as those for tabletop. Though even in MMOs if you bring an obviously inferior build (and inferior play skill) into a raid with a group that has certain expectations and made those expectations clear (which they should have done during recruitment) then you should not be surprised if they kick you out. Conversely, if you discover some massively overpowered combo within the game or a loophole that you can exploit, the developers will kill it in short order to preserve competitive balance. MMOs tend to divorce character capability from story entirely and be utterly on rails because they have to be, tabletop need not do this. Character abilities should inform their storytelling contributions and be different but similar in overall output to allow organic storytelling.

[Max_Killjoy]

(TT)RPGs are not video games any more than they are works of authorial fiction.

Designing or analyzing RPGs as if they were video games is no more functional or productive than designing or analyzing RPGs as if they were novels, movies, comic books, etc.

Just because something works in a video game or a novel or a movie, it does not follow that it will also work in an RPG system or as a campaign structure.

[RazorChain]

Well, happily, when I talk about Hard Mode, I'm talking about making your job as GM easier. Yes, easier.

About the worst balance I've ever seen in a party was when one player had it all: system mastery, good tactics, and a well-built character. Most of the rest of the party had, well, none of that. Utterly impossible for the poor GM to create a balanced encounter to an unbalanced party.

Sometimes, I'm kind to the poor GM. Sometimes, when I have system mastery, tactics, and GM lore, I'll intentionally build a Hard Mode character, so that I'm roughly equivalent to the rest of the party.


You see though we are both roleplaying we are not playing the same game. To me a well built character is a character that works well the group. For all I care he could be a pacifist so long as he contributes in other way, by that I mean he could be the most useless character EVER so long as the player and his character are contributing to the FUN. So I guess there is Nightmare mode for you, make a useless pacifist and yes I've had players show up with character that were virtually useless.

All the groups I have played with discuss tactics both before and after fights, if one player is a good tactician he'll usually come up with good group tactics and give pointers to others. System mastery is mostly relevant to the GM so he can explain your options, that is his job. I fail to see how squeezing the most juice out of your build is relevant to roleplaying at all? It's like that farmboy who picked up his father sword and is going to make a name for himself has already decided he's going to take 2 levels of fighter for action surge and then he's going to branch into a Paladin for that sweet smite ability before he's going full druid. I'm going to participate in my first D&D game for a long time now in 2 weeks.

You know what I'm playing? A minor nobleman whose childhood love married the Duke's son against their wishes. The Duke's son is the jealous type and wrecked his life, framed him and had him locked up in prison for many years. In prison he shared a cell with this blind minstrel who taught him that with the proper instrument he could do magic, he taught him everything about music and entertaining except to play instrument. When finally he manage to escape prison he picked up a guitar and when he did he played for the storm, the fire, the water and the earth, he strung his guitar with hair wet in tears from a heartbroken maiden, he played for the trees and the flowers, he strung his guitar with a strand of web wet from the blood of a dying hero who had given his life protecting the innocent. Being on the run he is plotting his revenge and while fleeing the Duke's men he got wounded. While he sat there under a tree, his life ebbing away, he played for Death. Death distracted by his music bowed down to give him his final kiss but he managed to put his guitar between himself and Death so Death kissed his guitar instead and he escaped with his life. That's how he can do magic with his guitar, that's the tale he tells at least. In short he is a cross between Kubo, El Mariachi and the count of Monte Cristo. The system dictates that he's a bard and I don't really care what Tier bard is.




Well, the crux of this particular path to try to get people to understand what I mean when I talk about Hard Mode, and how I and others have used it in the past, is that, for whatever reason, the players in question either can't or won't.

Yes, the guy who play tested the druid for WotC could actually learn the game, and then he'd have a tier 1 character, not just a fighter with a bad chassis. Yes, the Spider-Man in question could interact with the environment, but what if that's just not something his player does? Yes, the guys playing the marines could learn to take cover; until then, I'll likely out perform them with a civilian playing smart.

The entire point is, there are people (I've gamed with plenty) who just don't get it. People who most of us would out perform without even trying. Some are noobs; others are people who just never seem to learn. Heck, my signature character, Quertus, for whom this account is named, is based in no small part on my observations that some people just never learn how to play the bloody game with any level of competence, even after years (or even decades!) of play.

So, it is when gaming with such people that I am currently attempting to discuss the merits of Hard Mode.

There is no Hard Mode. Making a "subpar" charcater and playing him/her is not hard mode, that's just roleplaying. Competence in roleplaying is highly subjective. I enjoy game mastering for new beginners because their reactions are not dictated by the rules. They approach situation in completely different manner than "skilled, competent roleplaying tacticians". The most skilled roleplayers I've played with are those that don't play a game of stats, it doesn't mean they don't know the system, they just try to play their characters despite the system. I don't even know who we are supposed to outperform? Our fellow players? The GM? I can easily run a super deadly campaign and tell my players "MinMax you biatches because you'll be dropping like flies". In fact I have done so as a filler campaign and them MinMaxing didn't help them much, they just lived a little bit longer, there was usually a death in every session.






Under some GMs, if they say that we're in a lab, I'll know that I can find and use a bottle of nitroglycerin, because of course that's present in any lab. Under other GMs, I know I'll need to spend a hero point / make a luck roll / whatever. Whereas under yet other GMs, I know that there's no chance of success. Because I know what they consider "realistic", how much that matters to them compared to balance and gameplay, and what those words mean to them.

Put me under such a GM that I know, and, playing Average Joe, I'll out perform someone playing Spider-Man who is just playing the game, not the GM.

So what are you suggesting? That the guy playing Spiderman should inject himself with the supersoldier serum (Captain America) and then knock out Tony Stark and steal his Iron Man armor? Have you ever considered the guy playing Spiderman wanted to play a webslinging teenager bitten by a radioactive spider? If he wants to be more effective all he has to do is pick up a gun or as an inventor make something better. He's not trying to outperform anybody...this isn't a competition. He's not competing, he's partaking in collaborative game.




Ouch. Yes, my preferred form of play is Combat as War. And I've never had a character resurrected. So, arguably, playing on Hard Mode is simply me putting the threat of death back on the table.

But as for role-playing? I hate to admit it, but a disproportionate large percentage of my best personalities came out of me playing Hard Mode. It's probably not causal, though - it's probably caused by system knowledge + GM knowledge not getting in the way of me focusing on my character, instead of the rules, or fighting with the system / fighting with the GM.


Most system have no way of resurrection. I think you are looking at this through some D&D tinted glasses. You see in a lot of systems combat is much more deadly than in D&D, you have no nice cushy HP shield to hide behind, maybe no contingency spells to get you out of trouble. Try to play something like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (2.ed.) where you'll probably either die, get diseased, mutated (in a bad way mostly) or go insane or maybe Call of Cthulhu where you'll either die or go insane. Are these "Hardcore" games, not for the faint of heart? Are those Nightmare mode? The funny thing is in both of these games there is very little leeway to MinMax or play the system.

[Cluedrew]

I'm going to again throw my support behind: I think the question getting asked shows a problem. Really "system master" shouldn't be a matter of increasing power, but increasing accuracy and precision about how the mechanics represent the concept. In this case your character concept. Being able to create massively more powerful character with practice kind of leads to the issue: What if a new played wants to play a powerful character? Do you have to wait? Go to the groups old master to create the character for you? Just ask everyone to pretend that the higher levels don't exist?

I think that skill should go towards making better and more interesting characters, not more powerful and game breaking ones. Its not whether you win or loose, it is if you have a cool story to tell about it after.

[ImNotTrevor]

(TT)RPGs are not video games any more than they are works of authorial fiction.

Designing or analyzing RPGs as if they were video games is no more functional or productive than designing or analyzing RPGs as if they were novels, movies, comic books, etc.

Just because something works in a video game or a novel or a movie, it does not follow that it will also work in an RPG system or as a campaign structure.

There are principles of game design that are fairly universal, and there are places where videogame design and TRPG design overlap. (Especially since RPG video games originally took lots of inspiration from TRPGs)

Comparing and contrasting an MMORPG and a TRPG isn't a ridiculous stretch since, at their core, they share similarities as well as contrasts.

Also, there is just as much contrasting as comparing going on in this thread. I think we're fairly safe from this road you seem worried about traveling.

[Quertus]

I'm going to again throw my support behind: I think the question getting asked shows a problem. Really "system master" shouldn't be a matter of increasing power, but increasing accuracy and precision about how the mechanics represent the concept. In this case your character concept. Being able to create massively more powerful character with practice kind of leads to the issue: What if a new played wants to play a powerful character? Do you have to wait? Go to the groups old master to create the character for you? Just ask everyone to pretend that the higher levels don't exist?

I think that skill should go towards making better and more interesting characters, not more powerful and game breaking ones. Its not whether you win or loose, it is if you have a cool story to tell about it after.

Eh, no, that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about taking cover vs gunfire, and knowing what effect that will have in the system.

I'm talking about knowing how auto fire and covering fire and firing from prone and being on fire work in the system, and being able to make intelligent decisions about the rules of the game.

I'm talking about holding an action to disrupt or counter a mage's spell.

I'm talking about knowing when to cast a creature after your attack phase / save mana for a combat spell, vs when to spam effects early.

I'm talking about the ability to play the game, not the ability to build a character. My harassment of the Druid play tester was intended to convey that, but may have instead obfuscated my intent.


It doesn't matter.

Its not about winning. you simply y'know, give them advice. help them. the GM is not your enemy, you are not competing against the players, your all just here to tell the story and if the person wants to tell their story, you don't prove that you can tell stories better than them you simply steer them in the direction of that story being better told. there is no need to compete.

Player skill only matters so much to you because a game like 3.5 can't handle failure very well. Fate is designed to account for failures and make them apart of the story like anything else so that things keep going and so that when something bad happens the result isn't "we need to win now or complete TPK." the entire point of such narrative adventures is going "ok but what about possibilities that aren't a binary win/lose situation?" so that when your character does something it can lead to new possibilities down that line that would never happen in a game where the only possibilities are "win or your party dies." or "get this lock right or you can't progress."

its the concept of "fail forward." where instead of failure just being an end to game, it just leads to new possibilities how that game plays out. in this light, why would anyone care how "competent" you are at playing a character?

That's Fate's good, then. That's the way I try to play most all RPGs - it's nice to know that Fate makes my preferred play style easy.


There are no static encounters. As the GM, I have the power to make encounters any degree of difficulty I wish, regardless of how power or how weak the characters happen to be. All things are dynamic. If the players desire a game where their characters feel like BDHs I can make that happen regardless of what is written on the character sheet. It's possible to make a party of nothing but fighters be the 20th level saviors of the world who took down the lich-lord. It will require some suspension of disbelief regarding the mechanics if you do the in 3.5 D&D, but it's totally possible. In the same vein, players can build characters of galaxy crushing power and the GM can make them seem small and powerless with ease.

Now the GM should only do these things if the players want them, but ultimately the type of game that is presented is completely divorced from how powerful the PCs happen to be and is entirely up to what the gaming group says they want to do. The rules are an aid to produce the intended experience, they do not control it.

Gotcha. I was currently discussing Hard Mode as a self-imposed handicap to level the playing field between players, which is why I didn't catch your meaning the first time.


You are describing in-play adaptations to design failure states while continuing to fail to recognize them as such. The ability for a given table and players to adapt to a design failure does not eliminate those flaws or make them desirable design features.

Differences in system mastery between players should have minimal influence on in-game outputs (it is impossible to reduce such variance to zero, but keeping it as low as possible is the goal). How you do this will obviously vary from one system to the next depending on which outputs are valued in those systems.

Differences in tactics should also be minimized - usually by allowing the party to share data such that the most tactically minded player is allowed to help inexperienced or clueless players along out-of-character even in circumstances when they are playing a character with a poor tactical mindset. Since having a squad where tactical ability varies widely imperils all members, this only increases verisimilitude and is desirable. It also increases party cohesion, which is also a goal.

Differences in build capability should also, generally, be either minimized: if relatively equal contributions or some minimal competency in core capabilities are part of the game, or transparent: if the game prizes character concepts and personalities above all. Again, it is impossible to eliminate variance in capability between build, and going so far as to effectively turn characters into different colored versions of the same thing is a problem (one that 4e illustrates) but mitigation is important.

Table-top RPGs are a cooperative storytelling game. A group of people get together and play parts in an ongoing tale, open to vast variation. The rules need to enhance storytelling - by serving as a means to produce dramatic tension and other plot elements - and cooperation - by serving to allow each player and the GM to feel like an active participant and to have fun. Attempting to equalize character capabilities while keeping character concepts unique is important because the design cannot reasonable assume any sort of high-level of self-awareness on the part of the players or that any given group of players will understand that everyone should have fun (many RPG tables struggle with a significant amount of OOC jockeying and bullying and the game should not serve to enable this).

I'm a grognard war gamer at heart. Telling me that tactics have no place in an RPG is a hard sell.

But, more than that, if you're trying to create the minimalist, Platonic Ideal of an RPG, I'll argue that thinking - tactics, making choices - should be at the heart of that RPG. Try and tell me that the decisions the character makes should have no impact, well, that's the bloody definition of railroading. So, no I'm not buying it.

I'm arguing from the opposite end of the spectrum, saying that the choices and tactics of the players/characters should be the most important things in an RPG. And that not all players are equally good at making good choices. Give the same Magic deck, the same video game character, or the same RPG character to three different people, and you can see dramatically different results. These are games of skill, and it's a fundamental truth of this reality that not everyone is at the same level.

So I can play a Cosmic Larva deck to balance the playing field. You can take Pichu to balance the playing field. And we can play Hard Mode to balance the playing field.


No. If a player bought something obviously sub-par compared to the other party members the GM needs to either 1. make certain the other party members are okay with that or 2. make that player bring their build up to par. The reverse is true if they build something clearly overpowered. It is essential that the GM ensure the party is balanced against itself so that everyone gets to contribute in a fair measure.

Again, it is almost totally irrelevant how the party is balanced against a static measure, because the GM can change those measures completely at any time (not that, if using published modules or a system that has a bestiary of some kind with preset difficulties it is useful to try and stay within designer benchmarks for the purpose of minimizing bookkeeping, but this is a matter of convenience).

Well, if I'm playing Super Smash Brothers with you against some AI opponents, if you don't take Pichu, you're gonna dominate the game, and I'll just be... watching, effectively. I don't see where you should need my consent to play Pichu.


It's good design for a non-cooperative video game. The design principles of video games - even co-operative games like MMORPGs - are not the same as those for tabletop. Though even in MMOs if you bring an obviously inferior build (and inferior play skill) into a raid with a group that has certain expectations and made those expectations clear (which they should have done during recruitment) then you should not be surprised if they kick you out. Conversely, if you discover some massively overpowered combo within the game or a loophole that you can exploit, the developers will kill it in short order to preserve competitive balance. MMOs tend to divorce character capability from story entirely and be utterly on rails because they have to be, tabletop need not do this. Character abilities should inform their storytelling contributions and be different but similar in overall output to allow organic storytelling.


(TT)RPGs are not video games any more than they are works of authorial fiction.

Designing or analyzing RPGs as if they were video games is no more functional or productive than designing or analyzing RPGs as if they were novels, movies, comic books, etc.

Just because something works in a video game or a novel or a movie, it does not follow that it will also work in an RPG system or as a campaign structure.

Well, ok, cooperative RPGs have a different balance to consider than competitive videogames. Fine. But I'll argue that cooperative videogames are a much more similar situation.

Super Smash Brothers has a mode where some players can play on a team against some AI opponents, right? Put me in that game allied with someone who actually plays the game, give us equal characters, and they'll steal the spotlight. In order to make a more balanced experience / to evoke more balanced contributions, they will need to make their character noticeably weaker than mine.

My experience tells me that this is true both in video games, and in RPGs.


You see though we are both roleplaying we are not playing the same game. To me a well built character is a character that works well the group. For all I care he could be a pacifist so long as he contributes in other way, by that I mean he could be the most useless character EVER so long as the player and his character are contributing to the FUN. So I guess there is Nightmare mode for you, make a useless pacifist and yes I've had players show up with character that were virtually useless.

I am focusing on combat because it is easier to discuss. The equivalent here would be a character who struggles to contribute, even outside of combat. But that struggle can be fun, and, in the hands of someone with enough system mastery / GM lore / etc, they may even be able to out perform the other characters, on average.


All the groups I have played with discuss tactics both before and after fights, if one player is a good tactician he'll usually come up with good group tactics and give pointers to others.

That would be... bad form at many of my tables. Different play styles.


I fail to see how squeezing the most juice out of your build is relevant to roleplaying at all?

Um, it's not.


There is no Hard Mode. Making a "subpar" charcater and playing him/her is not hard mode, that's just roleplaying. Competence in roleplaying is highly subjective. I enjoy game mastering for new beginners because their reactions are not dictated by the rules. They approach situation in completely different manner than "skilled, competent roleplaying tacticians". The most skilled roleplayers I've played with are those that don't play a game of stats, it doesn't mean they don't know the system, they just try to play their characters despite the system. I don't even know who we are supposed to outperform? Our fellow players? The GM? I can easily run a super deadly campaign and tell my players "MinMax you biatches because you'll be dropping like flies". In fact I have done so as a filler campaign and them MinMaxing didn't help them much, they just lived a little bit longer, there was usually a death in every session.

I don't think we're Supposed to out perform anyone. But it happens. Then, IME, the 3e Fighter players and the bad tactician and the noobs all get grouchy about not getting the spotlight / not being able to perform.


So what are you suggesting? That the guy playing Spiderman should inject himself with the supersoldier serum (Captain America) and then knock out Tony Stark and steal his Iron Man armor? Have you ever considered the guy playing Spiderman wanted to play a webslinging teenager bitten by a radioactive spider? If he wants to be more effective all he has to do is pick up a gun or as an inventor make something better. He's not trying to outperform anybody...this isn't a competition. He's not competing, he's partaking in collaborative game.

Um... All the fighters whining about how OP the Wizard is in 3e seem to differ. People seem to care if they never get the spotlight, because someone else is hogging it. I'm suggesting letting the guy who wants to play Spider-Man, well, play Spider-Man, and I'll play someone who can contribute equally. Under some GMs, in some systems, that's Average Joe. Under other GMs, in other systems, that might be a Thanos / Magneto hybrid complete with NI funds worth of ships, robots, and miscellaneous devices.

Some people seem too caught up on mechanical balance to get the concept of balance of contribution; me, I'm too focused on balance of contribution to care about something as irrelevant to play experience as mechanical balance.


Most system have no way of resurrection. I think you are looking at this through some D&D tinted glasses. You see in a lot of systems combat is much more deadly than in D&D, you have no nice cushy HP shield to hide behind, maybe no contingency spells to get you out of trouble. Try to play something like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (2.ed.) where you'll probably either die, get diseased, mutated (in a bad way mostly) or go insane or maybe Call of Cthulhu where you'll either die or go insane. Are these "Hardcore" games, not for the faint of heart? Are those Nightmare mode? The funny thing is in both of these games there is very little leeway to MinMax or play the system.

I like playing Wizards. So, most systems I play have magic, and have the potential for resurrection magic. Warhammer... I've never delved into the rules deeply enough to know if the system contains any resurrection magic, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did. That Warhammer is hard and high fatality (before fate points) is irrelevant to the concept of Hard Mode characters as a handicap / self nerf to enable more balanced gameplay, though.

[Cluedrew]

Eh, no, that's not what I'm talking about.Exactly, perhaps it is what we should be talking about. But let me back up and check some points before I press that.


I'm talking about the ability to play the game, not the ability to build a character. My harassment of the Druid play tester was intended to convey that, but may have instead obfuscated my intent.What does it mean to play the game? To win combats? To get successes? To react in character? To play out a story? To create a story? This a bit philosophic, but there is a more direct question under it. What does that have to do with tiers if not character creation?

I think to play the game means to tell a story, a story you don't entirely control because other forces, the rules, the dice and the other players, control it as well. Usually, you do this through a character, who has abilities strengths and weaknesses. What does... shoot I'm sliding back into my other point. OK, I'll run with it, although depending on your answers to the above it may be meaningless. What does hard mode mean here? The inability or lesser ability to shape that story? How would then be fun? Besides, shaping the story more is not doing "better", getting a more interesting story (and having more fun shaping it) is. By that measure hard mode makes thing harder in the same way a bad control scheme does. It make you work harder to reach the same level of competence at the game, not demanding a higher level of competence.

[RazorChain]

I am focusing on combat because it is easier to discuss. The equivalent here would be a character who struggles to contribute, even outside of combat. But that struggle can be fun, and, in the hands of someone with enough system mastery / GM lore / etc, they may even be able to out perform the other characters, on average.

I don't think we're Supposed to out perform anyone. But it happens. Then, IME, the 3e Fighter players and the bad tactician and the noobs all get grouchy about not getting the spotlight / not being able to perform.

Um... All the fighters whining about how OP the Wizard is in 3e seem to differ. People seem to care if they never get the spotlight, because someone else is hogging it. I'm suggesting letting the guy who wants to play Spider-Man, well, play Spider-Man, and I'll play someone who can contribute equally. Under some GMs, in some systems, that's Average Joe. Under other GMs, in other systems, that might be a Thanos / Magneto hybrid complete with NI funds worth of ships, robots, and miscellaneous devices.

Some people seem too caught up on mechanical balance to get the concept of balance of contribution; me, I'm too focused on balance of contribution to care about something as irrelevant to play experience as mechanical balance.

I like playing Wizards. So, most systems I play have magic, and have the potential for resurrection magic. Warhammer... I've never delved into the rules deeply enough to know if the system contains any resurrection magic, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did. That Warhammer is hard and high fatality (before fate points) is irrelevant to the concept of Hard Mode characters as a handicap / self nerf to enable more balanced gameplay, though.


I play variety of systems, the systems I have tried are in the dozens. In many of these systems you will have charaters with power disparity because of random rolls during character generation or just because somebody creates a "weak" character through point buy system. In D&D we have classes and in theory these classes should be balanced with each other. Within your choice of class you have options how you distribute your stat points, choice of feats, choice of weapons, choice of skills. So in essence you can try to maximize your character combat effectiveness within the scope of your class or you might choose to make a fighter that only fights with one knife because that's your concept.

The problem here stems from that the class balance is wildly off. Now as you are fond of Computer game analogy; What would happen in World of Warcraft if the Priest and Mage were wildy superior to the other classes? Now you step in and tell the angry crowd that their beloved warrior or rogue are just "hard mode"....it's not a bug, it's a feature. Some systems don't try to tout any kind of balance, in a point buy system like Gurps that balance is up to the GM

If somebody wants "hard mode" they can just make their chosen class "suboptimal" through stat allocation, or how they choose their feats or weapons of choice. I'm perfectly capable of optimizing characters to the brink of absurdity in variety of systems, I don't consider myself playing "hard mode" when I make a character that sucks in combat, I don't either have to use my knowledge of the system to make that character contribute more in combat. If I'm playing a stupid character that charges into battle and tries to smash his foes then that's his tactic, I don't need to game the system or use tactics that the character does not know of to make him more effective in combat.

There is no hard mode in RPG's. You can play deadly campaigns with challenging combat encounters, you can play campaigns that challenge your morality or you can make a character to challenge yourself as a player. Challenging yourself as a player is not hard mode, it's something you might do to be a better roleplayer. I hate playing goody two shoes characters but still I played a Paladin once just to challenge myself as a roleplayer. I'm not fond of playing helpless characters but I've done so to challenge myself as roleplayer. A lot of people I know and have played with like the idea of taking a "suboptimal" concept and try to optimize it. One player I've played with he loves minmaxing in combat to the point of breaking all balance, so to keep himself in check he minmaxes suboptimal combat concepts.


I don't get one thing, how is sharing tactics with other players bad form? You can do this IC if you want but lot of games (that are not D&D) rely on planning, Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun rely on heavy planning if you are undertaking a difficult op. Military games where you are playing a Spec. Op or a Black op. also rely on a lot of planning. In those kind of games a lack of planning will result in TPK. Also sharing tactics means those are bad at tactics will actually improve!!! In a combat situation it's almost universally considered bad form to suggest to other players what actions they should take but beofore and after combat? It's like telling your players that they aren't allowed to discuss their characters, the game system or the campaign when they aren't gaming....and not even when they are gaming. When fighting in the fight club, don't talk about the fight club.

[Quertus]

Exactly, perhaps it is what we should be talking about. But let me back up and check some points before I press that.

What does it mean to play the game? To win combats? To get successes? To react in character? To play out a story? To create a story? This a bit philosophic, but there is a more direct question under it. What does that have to do with tiers if not character creation?

I think to play the game means to tell a story, a story you don't entirely control because other forces, the rules, the dice and the other players, control it as well. Usually, you do this through a character, who has abilities strengths and weaknesses. What does... shoot I'm sliding back into my other point. OK, I'll run with it, although depending on your answers to the above it may be meaningless. What does hard mode mean here? The inability or lesser ability to shape that story? How would then be fun? Besides, shaping the story more is not doing "better", getting a more interesting story (and having more fun shaping it) is. By that measure hard mode makes thing harder in the same way a bad control scheme does. It make you work harder to reach the same level of competence at the game, not demanding a higher level of competence.

Hmmm... This is tricky.

Hard Mode means contributing equally to the story, by leveling the playing field. Feel free to ignore the rest of my post.

So, I'm personally not interested in "telling a story" - stories are what you tell about the game, and they can be, um, emergent properties of games, but "the needs of the story" can go <finish this sentence however you think makes for a good story>.

To play Magic the Gathering CCG means knowing the basics - phases, the stack, casting costs, tapping things, etc. It also means more advanced tactical considerations - knowing when to cast which spells, knowing when to sacrifice which creatures, etc. And there's more levels beyond that.

So, when I talk about player skills, I am primarily talking about the easy to discuss ones, like knowing when to rush in vs. when to hold an action to disrupt or counter a mage's spells. Yes, many other player skills, like acting and role-playing skill, can grant the player extra spotlight time. Or GM knowledge can grant many edges.

The point is, there are a lot of levers that affect a character's effectiveness. I'm simply contending that, making obvious Hard Mode characters allows someone who might otherwise dominate the spotlight / the story a chance not to shine so bright that they blind everyone at the table.

Now, sure, it might be even easier to discuss how potent of a playing piece someone with system mastery can build with a weak chassis, vs how powerful of a playing piece someone whose skills are weak can build off of a good chassis... but that's technically the opposite of what I'm talking about when I discuss Hard Mode.

[Quertus]

What would happen in World of Warcraft if the Priest and Mage were wildy superior to the other classes? Now you step in and tell the angry crowd that their beloved warrior or rogue are just "hard mode"....it's not a bug, it's a feature.

Oh, no, no, no! This is why I a) want all archetypes covered by good characters / chassis; b) want explicitly labeled Hard Mode duplicates (Warrior for Fighter, for example), for those who want (or need) the challenge. I've been discussing the "need" part, the playing with a handicap concept, but it's not the only use for Hard Mode.


you can make a character to challenge yourself as a player.

This is closer to what I mean by Hard Mode. Can you play a Warrior / Average Joe / whatever, and still contribute equally to the story / have a good time / contribute to the group's fun / etc?

[Lord Raziere]

Hmmm... This is tricky.

Hard Mode means contributing equally to the story, by leveling the playing field. Feel free to ignore the rest of my post.

So, I'm personally not interested in "telling a story" - stories are what you tell about the game, and they can be, um, emergent properties of games, but "the needs of the story" can go <finish this sentence however you think makes for a good story>.

Classy.


To play Magic the Gathering CCG means knowing the basics - phases, the stack, casting costs, tapping things, etc. It also means more advanced tactical considerations - knowing when to cast which spells, knowing when to sacrifice which creatures, etc. And there's more levels beyond that.

Good for you. That has nothing to do with roleplaying games.


So, when I talk about player skills, I am primarily talking about the easy to discuss ones, like knowing when to rush in vs. when to hold an action to disrupt or counter a mage's spells. Yes, many other player skills, like acting and role-playing skill, can grant the player extra spotlight time. Or GM knowledge can grant many edges.


The point is, there are a lot of levers that affect a character's effectiveness. I'm simply contending that, making obvious Hard Mode characters allows someone who might otherwise dominate the spotlight / the story a chance not to shine so bright that they blind everyone at the table.

problem is, you can't really use the system to "balance" that. someone who has good system mastery and good roleplaying and acting will take the spotlight anyways. and thing is, "easy mode" and "hard mode" aren't really viable because, say that you have a wizard and a normal dude. if a wizard fireballs a group of enemies, its no big deal because that is what a wizard is meant to do. while the normal dude, if they are brave and prepared, can call and lure an entire orc horde into an abandoned town filled with lantern oil and other things and set fire to the entire town and cause the orcs to all burn from his trap while he does his best to run out from his own trap. Suddenly, the normal dude is awesome! more awesome than the wizard, because the normal dude had the guts, the courage to kill far more dudes without using any magic at all, at great personal risk to himself. by having more challenge yet figuring out a way to do more with less, the guy receives more spotlight that if he was just another wizard fireballing it.

it doesn't solve the spotlight problem, it just transfers the source from being "My magic solves everything" to batman style "I don't need all your fancy tricks to succeed or surpass you, therefore your lame for needing them and yet doing less." your just moving the spotlight to a different focus.

the only real way to solve this sort of thing is with communication, not relying on the system. the system can only solve problems within the system. communication solves far more than a system ever could.


Now, sure, it might be even easier to discuss how potent of a playing piece someone with system mastery can build with a weak chassis, vs how powerful of a playing piece someone whose skills are weak can build off of a good chassis... but that's technically the opposite of what I'm talking about when I discuss Hard Mode.

We discuss it because its a counter example to your own. its relevant to this discussion, because your ignoring the fact that it can happen and that your example will not always happen.

[goto124]

The Batman solution isn't covered by the rules, and can be easily noped by the GM for a variety of reasons without breaking any rules.

The rules describe the Fireball spell down to the little details, so the Wizard player can just point at the rules and say 'this is why I should be allowed to just Fireball'.

[Cluedrew]

Hard Mode means contributing equally to the story, by leveling the playing field. Feel free to ignore the rest of my post.OK, a handicap is not leveling the field, it is actually making it less level to make everyone's height closer (best way I can think to continue that metaphor).

[Lord Raziere]

The Batman solution isn't covered by the rules, and can be easily noped by the GM for a variety of reasons without breaking any rules.

The rules describe the Fireball spell down to the little details, so the Wizard player can just point at the rules and say 'this is why I should be allowed to just Fireball'.

So you admit that communication solves the problem of the normal dude, but that the rules cause the problem of the 3.5 wizard and thus getting in the way of a GM communicating that they don't want the wizard to outshine people?

[Quertus]

We discuss it because its a counter example to your own. its relevant to this discussion, because your ignoring the fact that it can happen and that your example will not always happen.

... Well, this seems most relevant, so I'll address it first: I have no idea what you mean.

Lots of things can happen, sure. The GM can give his SO a totally overpowered character. Someone can play a Tier 1 and intentionally attempt to obsolete other party members. A GM can give Quertus godlike shape shifting power, and he can accidentally obsolete the whole party. Lots of things can happen. What does that have to do with whether this particular thing I'm discussing is a good thing or not? :smallconfused:


Classy.

Well, I knew what I meant, but I see that there's more than one way to end that sentence. So, if anyone happens to be hung up on one particular story...


Good for you. That has nothing to do with roleplaying games.

If you can't see the connection between player skills in an RPG, and player skills in MtG, then it's not a good example for you. It happens to be a brilliant example to explain it to me.


problem is, you can't really use the system to "balance" that. someone who has good system mastery and good roleplaying and acting will take the spotlight anyways. and thing is, "easy mode" and "hard mode" aren't really viable because, say that you have a wizard and a normal dude. if a wizard fireballs a group of enemies, its no big deal because that is what a wizard is meant to do. while the normal dude, if they are brave and prepared, can call and lure an entire orc horde into an abandoned town filled with lantern oil and other things and set fire to the entire town and cause the orcs to all burn from his trap while he does his best to run out from his own trap. Suddenly, the normal dude is awesome! more awesome than the wizard, because the normal dude had the guts, the courage to kill far more dudes without using any magic at all, at great personal risk to himself. by having more challenge yet figuring out a way to do more with less, the guy receives more spotlight that if he was just another wizard fireballing it.

it doesn't solve the spotlight problem, it just transfers the source from being "My magic solves everything" to batman style "I don't need all your fancy tricks to succeed or surpass you, therefore your lame for needing them and yet doing less." your just moving the spotlight to a different focus.

the only real way to solve this sort of thing is with communication, not relying on the system. the system can only solve problems within the system. communication solves far more than a system ever could.

Well, that's possible. I happen to be a big fan of communication, but many of the people I play with aren't.

Also, many of the people I play with would be unable to comprehend my complaint if I had a statistically superior character, yet had an inferior share of the spotlight / inferior ability to affect the story.

So... I'm trying to detail a communication-free solution to the problem at hand. Because communication is hard (often in my groups unwanted), and gamers aren't known for their communication skills.

But, I agree, if communication is an option, it is generally the better choice.

EDIT:
OK, a handicap is not leveling the field, it is actually making it less level to make everyone's height closer (best way I can think to continue that metaphor).

Hahaha, point. Leveling... the field / plane that is the tops of their heads, then?


The Batman solution isn't covered by the rules, and can be easily noped by the GM for a variety of reasons without breaking any rules.

The rules describe the Fireball spell down to the little details, so the Wizard player can just point at the rules and say 'this is why I should be allowed to just Fireball'.


So you admit that communication solves the problem of the normal dude, but that the rules cause the problem of the 3.5 wizard and thus getting in the way of a GM communicating that they don't want the wizard to outshine people?

The performance of the wizard should be consistent across GMs, the performance of the clever civilian is not.

[Max_Killjoy]

Hrm...

Character creation should not be a mini-game, the outcome of which permanently affects the character's ability to affect the "fictional world" or its chances of success, and should not be about taxing the player's character-creation-game "skill".

The point of character creation is to map the character into the system so that it can interact with the setting and other characters in a framework of as-objective-as-possible rules and mechanics.

The mechanics and rules of character building should be as straightforward, as transparent, and as equitable as possible.





If you can't see the connection between player skills in an RPG, and player skills in MtG, then it's not a good example for you. It happens to be a brilliant example to explain it to me.


MtG is not an RPG.

The skills required for the objective goal of winning in a CCG are not the same as the skills required for the "soft goals" of an RPG.

[Talakeal]

Um... All the fighters whining about how OP the Wizard is in 3e seem to differ.

Out of curiosity, is this actually someting at you perceive happening?

[Quertus]

Hrm...

Character creation should not be a mini-game, the outcome of which permanently affects the character's ability to affect the "fictional world" or its chances of success, and should not be about taxing the player's character-creation-game "skill".

The point of character creation is to map the character into the system so that it can interact with the setting and other characters in a framework of as-objective-as-possible rules and mechanics.

The mechanics and rules of character building should be as straightforward, as transparent, and as equitable as possible.

Well, this is why I suggested balancing all the characters around the same balance point. So that, in normal play, everyone can focus on their character, and expect rough balance. Then adding some explicitly labeled Hard Mode characters, to allow for, among other things, a handicap, if needed.

Personally, I hate both the complexity of most character creation minigames, and the concept of inadvertently losing capacity to participate.


MtG is not an RPG.

The skills required for the objective goal of winning in a CCG are not the same as the skills required for the "soft goals" of an RPG.

The skills required to play the game "competently", however, look quite similar to me, in that they both involve rules knowledge and strategy / tactics / applying that knowledge.

Sure, there's things like Role Playing in an RPG, but there's also Game in an RPG. :smallwink:

[Lord Raziere]

The skills required to play the game "competently", however, look quite similar to me, in that they both involve rules knowledge and strategy / tactics / applying that knowledge.

Sure, there's things like Role Playing in an RPG, but there's also Game in an RPG.

Yes, Mt:G is played so that where one player is facing five other players each with their own decks and they have to use their decks together to defeat the other one player's super deck who can draw whatever they want, whenever they want and play it without cost.

So similar.

[ImNotTrevor]

The skills required to play the game "competently", however, look quite similar to me, in that they both involve rules knowledge and strategy / tactics / applying that knowledge.

Sure, there's things like Role Playing in an RPG, but there's also Game in an RPG. :smallwink:

This assumes all rpgs require tactics as the skill best suited to fostering success.

This is a false premise to begin with, and applies to only a small portion of games overall.

Yes yes, you'll now use some pointing to your personal experience to attempt to make an exception but, here's the issue:

Tactics being the only way to success, ever, is a Quertus problem more than a Hobby problem.

Having non-communicative fellow players is a Quertus problem more than a Hobby problem.

You're telling us a lot about your specific problems from, and you admitted this earlier, your specific Grognard point of view. What is happening is a lot of other people saying a combo of "You don't understand the problem" and "this solution you're proposing is not good for most tables."
Sure. It's good for your table. So use it at your table. But it's not good at my table. Or Lord Razier's table. Or several other posters' tables that I can't recall currently. Discounting their feedback with your own personal experience only shows that you have specific problems most others don't appear to have.

My players communicate. So did the ones before that. My next players are already communicating. When someone is less skilled, the others (shocker incoming,) teach them how to play. So do I. Then within 2 or 3 sessions they're doing as well as everyone else. I play systems where mastery means something totally different than "I am now a tactical genius." And one where the most straightforward and obvious path is often the best one.

Your experiences count. For you. Use the solutions you think will work for you. But people bristle when you use winkyfaces and a smug typing voice (unintentionally or not) to indicate the solution for your table being the obvious BEST solution and people who don't see it aren't yet on your level. Which looks like the issue currently.

[Max_Killjoy]

Well, this is why I suggested balancing all the characters around the same balance point. So that, in normal play, everyone can focus on their character, and expect rough balance. Then adding some explicitly labeled Hard Mode characters, to allow for, among other things, a handicap, if needed.


You can't actually balance around characters that can break the setting and campaign with ease (JaronK tier 1 and tier 2), and then refer to characters who can't do that (JaronK tier 3 etc) as "hard mode".

There's also no need for a supposed "hard mode", as explained at length by other posters.




Personally, I hate both the complexity of most character creation minigames, and the concept of inadvertently losing capacity to participate.


And yet the concepts you're pushing here -- inadvertently or not -- create exactly that sort of structure for a game system.




The skills required to play the game "competently", however, look quite similar to me, in that they both involve rules knowledge and strategy / tactics / applying that knowledge.


Which entirely misses all the ways in which an RPG is not a board game or collectable card game.

The rules set for an RPG should not be so arcane and byzantine and baroque and labyrinthine that it creates that sort of division between players. You're praising system mastery as a skill, when in fact it's a symptom of the flaws in a system like D&D (more specifically, as it gets into 3e and later).




Sure, there's things like Role Playing in an RPG, but there's also Game in an RPG. :smallwink:


The rules of an RPG don't exist to be mastered by "elite gamers" -- they exist to be form a shared framework for characters to interact with each other and the setting, to foster and reinforce the atmosphere and feeling of the setting and the emergent stories, and to serve as an aide to neutral resolution.

The realization that other players don't understand the rules shouldn't lead the player who does to condescendingly "Harrison Bergeron" his character in a misguided attempt to level the playing field. It should lead that player to help the other players understand the rules.

[Anymage]

I want to add something incidental that I found on a quick google search, since the original BG post isn't available. The definition of T3:

"Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Can be game breaking only with specific intent to do so. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time."

So I get the feeling that Quertus T1 fits comfortably within JaronK T3. This whole thing feels silly and semantic.

And while I'm not intrinsically opposed to official "hardmode" characters if a less powerful type makes sense in the setting (E.G: NPC classes in 3e, or different exalt types in Exalted), handicapping oneself doesn't normally require developer resources or page count. Simply not using all your build resources, anti-optimizing, or other handicaps like self-inflicted LA can do the job just as well. You'll still want to check with the other players to ensure that everyone's on the same page (Spiderman may feel morally compelled to save Average Joe, but Spidey's player will get frustrated if he has to stop doing cool stuff every time your character sticks his bacon in the fire), but it's not something you need extra rules for.

[Max_Killjoy]

I want to add something incidental that I found on a quick google search, since the original BG post isn't available. The definition of T3:

"Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Can be game breaking only with specific intent to do so. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time."

So I get the feeling that Quertus T1 fits comfortably within JaronK T3. This whole thing feels silly and semantic.


Yes and no... one also gets the sense that "game breaking" doesn't mean the same thing to Quertus as it does to most of us, his comments give the impression that in his estimation having the ability to break the game doesn't mean anything as long as the player never actually goes ahead and breaks the game.

So taking all comments into consideration, it's very hard to tell if Quertus Tier 1 is JaronK Tier 3, or if Quertus considers JaronK Tier 1 to be a workable balance point... or if he simply disagrees that D&D-like wizards etc are capable of easily breaking settings, games, campaigns, challenges, etc.

Based on the "rules mastery" sub-discussion, actually, it's also possible that he considers 5D chess between players with exceptional knowledge of a set of labyrinthine and often counter-intuitive rules, engaged in a baroque duel of game-breaking/setting-breaking powers that end up nullifying each other and "saving" the game and setting to be a feature, rather than a bug.




And while I'm not intrinsically opposed to official "hardmode" characters if a less powerful type makes sense in the setting (E.G: NPC classes in 3e, or different exalt types in Exalted), handicapping oneself doesn't normally require developer resources or page count. Simply not using all your build resources, anti-optimizing, or other handicaps like self-inflicted LA can do the job just as well. You'll still want to check with the other players to ensure that everyone's on the same page (Spiderman may feel morally compelled to save Average Joe, but Spidey's player will get frustrated if he has to stop doing cool stuff every time your character sticks his bacon in the fire), but it's not something you need extra rules for.


Regarding the idea of deliberately playing "Average Joe" in a superhero campaign, or the like in other setting/campaign setups... I've brought that general subject up in other discussions as something to be avoided, for exactly the reason you state, that "Average Joe" just ends up being a character that needs saving all the time, thus putting the other characters at risk and making "solving the problem at hand" more difficult for no reason.

And you're right that it needs ZERO extra rules for someone to deliberately hamstring their own character.

[Quertus]

And while I'm not intrinsically opposed to official "hardmode" characters if a less powerful type makes sense in the setting (E.G: NPC classes in 3e, or different exalt types in Exalted), handicapping oneself doesn't normally require developer resources or page count. Simply not using all your build resources, anti-optimizing, or other handicaps like self-inflicted LA can do the job just as well. You'll still want to check with the other players to ensure that everyone's on the same page (Spiderman may feel morally compelled to save Average Joe, but Spidey's player will get frustrated if he has to stop doing cool stuff every time your character sticks his bacon in the fire), but it's not something you need extra rules for.

Why do people keep talking about Spider-Man saving Average Joe, when the point of Hard Mode that I am currently discussing is that Average Joe is more likely to be saving Spider-Man, due to superior player skills? Why is this so hard for people to grok?

The question is more, should the player with inferior player skills be allowed to play Spider-Man, and not forced to play someone more powerful, so that he isn't pulling down the team? And I'm answering, let him play what he wants, and let the player(s) with superior system knowledge balance their characters around that.

Which can only work when the system allows it, through different exalt types, NPC classes, complex build options :smallyuk:, trap options :smallyuk:, or other similar mechanics.

I'm suggesting that it is good design to explicitly allow Hard Mode - and certainly better design than to have obfuscated trap options.


Out of curiosity, is this actually someting at you perceive happening?

Eh, mostly on forums. Not just Fighter vs. Wizard, but there's been plenty of threads that boil down to complaining about contribution inequality just on GitP. IRL, playing 3e, a) I usually play Wizards; b) I usually aim for party balance, so I'll usually run characters like my tactically inept signature wizard Quertus; c) I'm usually adventuring with builds like improved crit keen vorpal death, überchargers, and the like, so d) put all together, the Wizard is usually under performing. But when I try to actually stretch my creative legs, yes, I usually get some pushback. :smallfrown:


This assumes all rpgs require tactics as the skill best suited to fostering success.

This is a false premise to begin with, and applies to only a small portion of games overall.

Yes yes, you'll now use some pointing to your personal experience to attempt to make an exception but, here's the issue:

Tactics being the only way to success, ever, is a Quertus problem more than a Hobby problem.

Having non-communicative fellow players is a Quertus problem more than a Hobby problem.

You're telling us a lot about your specific problems from, and you admitted this earlier, your specific Grognard point of view. What is happening is a lot of other people saying a combo of "You don't understand the problem" and "this solution you're proposing is not good for most tables."
Sure. It's good for your table. So use it at your table. But it's not good at my table. Or Lord Razier's table. Or several other posters' tables that I can't recall currently. Discounting their feedback with your own personal experience only shows that you have specific problems most others don't appear to have.

You've got some good points, and some misunderstandings here. Let me see if I can tease this apart.

I'm not sure about everyone else, but, personally, I find combat easier to talk about, in part because the Playgrounder fallacy-inducing 3e has much more grounded rules for combat. So most of my examples revolve around combat, in the hopes that that will facilitate communication.

But tactics aren't limited to combat. Attempting to intimidate the king rather than attempting a more diplomatic course of action, attempting to kill a vegetarian with a poisoned steak, sending a fem fatale to seduce a gay man - these are all horrible tactics by people who clearly lack certain skills. Skills which might be harder to pin down and discuss than knowing that going full auto gives a +30 to hit.

In any game which isn't a railroad, the choices that the players make can affect the outcome. Surely you're not going to call that a false premise, are you?

I'm calling the ability to make good choices tactical skill. Easy to follow for combat choices, but no less true for non-combat choices.

So I don't think it's fair to claim that tactics being the only way to succeed, ever, is a Quertus problem. In any non-railroad, it should be the primary way to succeed. And, as I've already said, it isn't the only way to succeed: when I just don't get the system / GM, I'm all about cranking up my power level until I'm at the point where I can contribute equally (pity is, IME, most gamers just don't get it, and only see mechanical power, not narrative contribution). So, no, I'm actually arguing the exact opposite of the stance you've assigned to me.

Now, yes, the issue of players who abhor wasting time talking about things, and want to get on with the game is, if not unique to me, certainly such an outlier as to not be worth writing a system around. That's fair.

But, still, communication is hard, and gamers aren't exactly known for their communication skills. I don't see how minimizing the need for communication in the hobby can be viewed as a bad thing.

As to the comments of table universality... I've played at a lot of different tables. It was once my goal to play at every table within driving distance, and play every system I could, to maximize my breadth of experience. My record was 6 gaming sessions per week. Now, maybe, like the captain of the titanic, my decades of experience are working against me. But I've experienced a lot of tables where Hard Mode was a valuable tool. That it isn't required at all tables... well, the bard class isn't required at all tables, but it's still in the books. I've seen more tables utilize Hard Mode than I have tables that play with bards.

Now, am I unfairly discounting the feedback of others? Arguably, yes. I'm taking them to say, "this isn't useful, ever", and responding with, "no, I've seen it be useful at many tables". So it's entirely possible that I'm not understanding their stance correctly, and thus unfairly discounting their feedback.

Thank you for pointing that out to me; I'll try to evaluate the responses more carefully. Perhaps I'll read back through the thread at some point with that in mind.


My players communicate. So did the ones before that. My next players are already communicating. When someone is less skilled, the others (shocker incoming,) teach them how to play. So do I. Then within 2 or 3 sessions they're doing as well as everyone else. I play systems where mastery means something totally different than "I am now a tactical genius." And one where the most straightforward and obvious path is often the best one.

Your experiences count. For you. Use the solutions you think will work for you. But people bristle when you use winkyfaces and a smug typing voice (unintentionally or not) to indicate the solution for your table being the obvious BEST solution and people who don't see it aren't yet on your level. Which looks like the issue currently.

Entirely unintentional tone. Sorry about that.

Look, we all have our skills, and communication is not one of mine. Playing some systems and some GMs is. But, other systems and other GMs, not so much. As I've mentioned before, yes, I've played Hard Mode for balance purposes, but I've also been the one trying to balance the narrative contribution by trying to play super cheese god mode power character - and still not managing to match the contribution of others. I'm not smug about my skills. If I come off that way, it is entirely a product of my lack of communication skills + internet delivery.

I'm so happy for you that you have players who learn. I've played with plenty of grown adults who, after years of play, still don't understand the basics, like what die to roll. In the same party as people who, uh, tend to win MtG tournaments. In other words, the player skills and tactical abilities are vastly divergent.

Now, I don't know what magic you have, but I can't take someone of the streets, and turn them into a world-class MtG tournament champion in just 2 or 3 sessions. Similarly, even if I can get them to play the RPG with minimal "not a noob" competence, that's not the same as being in the Big Leagues that some of the other people I play with are. If you can, bloody teach me!

But, until I have such teaching skills, what, other than Hard Mode, do you recommend to provide an enjoyable experience for all, in such a diverse environment?


The rules set for an RPG should not be so arcane and byzantine and baroque and labyrinthine that it creates that sort of division between players. You're praising system mastery as a skill, when in fact it's a symptom of the flaws in a system like D&D (more specifically, as it gets into 3e and later).

The rules of an RPG don't exist to be mastered by "elite gamers" -- they exist to be form a shared framework for characters to interact with each other and the setting, to foster and reinforce the atmosphere and feeling of the setting and the emergent stories, and to serve as an aide to neutral resolution.

The realization that other players don't understand the rules shouldn't lead the player who does to condescendingly "Harrison Bergeron" his character in a misguided attempt to level the playing field. It should lead that player to help the other players understand the rules.

Grrrr... Why do people keep assigning such negative connotations to making an effort to make the game fun for everyone, and run smoothly with minimal GM effort? Is it truly better form to just trample all over the poor noobs in the classic "git gud" style of play than to pick Pichu while they train? :smallconfused:

As to the former... Isn't that a natural consequence of "rules heavy" systems? Are you just flat out implying that being rules heavy is a bug? That sounds to me more like a style preference than a statement of fact.

Still, I agree that unnecessary complexity is a bad thing. As the man said, "Everything should be as simple as it can be - and no simpler". 3e D&D is way easier to learn to play competently than earlier editions, from a mechanical standpoint, so I'm even more confused as to what you're trying to say. Unless you're focused on the character creation minigame, in which case I'm just completely lost.

EDIT:
Based on the "rules mastery" sub-discussion, actually, it's also possible that he considers 5D chess between players with exceptional knowledge of a set of labyrinthine and often counter-intuitive rules, engaged in a baroque duel of game-breaking/setting-breaking powers that end up nullifying each other and "saving" the game and setting to be a feature, rather than a bug.

Bingo! That is the game, just like the printed cards are MtG. If you don't want me playing 5D chess, don't hand me a 5D chess board.

Now, even MtG has multiple formats, each with their own banned and restricted lists. So the game can allow for different styles of play. So, sure, you can ban or gentleman's agreement your way to a different play style, and that's fine. But 5D chess is a feature. You nailed it.


Regarding the idea of deliberately playing "Average Joe" in a superhero campaign, or the like in other setting/campaign setups... I've brought that general subject up in other discussions as something to be avoided, for exactly the reason you state, that "Average Joe" just ends up being a character that needs saving all the time, thus putting the other characters at risk and making "solving the problem at hand" more difficult for no reason.

And you're right that it needs ZERO extra rules for someone to deliberately hamstring their own character.

Well, as I said, when used as a handicap, Average Joe is more likely to be the one saving Spider-Man. And, yes, you can also use the handicap to play "save the civilian", if that's the game y'all want to play. I agree that the latter may require explicit agreement in some groups.

How does one intentionally hamstring their character in a game with nothing but balanced options?

[Keltest]

Well, as I said, when used as a handicap, Average Joe is more likely to be the one saving Spider-Man. And, yes, you can also use the handicap to play "save the civilian", if that's the game y'all want to play. I agree that the latter may require explicit agreement in some groups.

How does one intentionally hamstring their character in a game with nothing but balanced options?

Here is the fundamental miscommunication. In a game balanced around Spider-Man, he doesn't need Average Joe's help. He needs Captain America's help. If Average joe somehow trips over the "release Spider-Man from the otherwise inescapable death trap" lever, that's great for Joe, but that doesn't mean Average Joe has any business being on the front lines of a Spider Man adventure. You aren't making it harder for the player of Joe, but for the player of Spider-Man, who is going into fights designed around him being teamed up with Captain America or Ant Man.

edit: For that matter, if you want it to be hard mode, the correct response is not to make your character weaker in disproportion to the party, but to try and fight stronger threats with a character equally scaled to your party. Don't fight Red Skull or Whiplash, fight Ultron.

[Talakeal]

One thing which I think is pertinent to this discussion; people HATE it when players RP character weaknesses.

We had several very long threads about this a few months back (my thread "I am just doing what the dice say my character would do," and the one about the cleric with a phobia of crowds) and the general consensus was that people who pick their own RP flaws are intentionally sabotaging their team mates and thus being anti-social.

Despite the fact that the cleric with a phobia of crowds still contributes more to the party than someone playing a monk at 100% tactical efficiency, people still would prefer the latter in their group as the drawbacks are mechanical rather than narrative.

I don't agree with the sentiment, but that does appear to be how the majority of players feel.


Eh, mostly on forums. Not just Fighter vs. Wizard, but there's been plenty of threads that boil down to complaining about contribution inequality just on GitP. IRL, playing 3e, a) I usually play Wizards; b) I usually aim for party balance, so I'll usually run characters like my tactically inept signature wizard Quertus; c) I'm usually adventuring with builds like improved crit keen vorpal death, überchargers, and the like, so d) put all together, the Wizard is usually under performing. But when I try to actually stretch my creative legs, yes, I usually get some pushback. :smallfrown:

Ok.

I think there is a general consensus (although by no means unanimous) that all of the T1 and T2 classes need a few nerfs and the T4-6 classes a few buffs, but I don't think it is specifically fighter players whining to nerf OP casters.



I may be a bit biased, but I seem to see more whining levied by caster players against competent "mundane" characters, talking about "Guy at the Gym fallacies" or "Guy with a pointy stick vs. someone who rewrites reality by will alone," as ruining their character concept of the all powerful caster.


I personally prefer badass normals who are significantly stronger than D&D fighters but still within the realm of possibility for a mundane character and casters who are more powerful and / or versatile than martials when they are allowed to nova but need to ration their power.
The only nerfs I want to see are those that remove the built in costs associated with spell casting (chain gating, shape-changing to gain more spells, thought bottles, nightsticks, rope trick, XP free SLAs, etc.) and a few ways to counters spells which are "no save, just lose" like shivering touch and force cage.

[Mike_G]

I think one of the issues I'm having with the idea of "hard mode" is that D&D Tiers don't implement it well.

If you have a strict point buy system like GURPS, then you can say "Build a 75 point character for this campaign. If you want to play on easy mode, use 100 point, if you want to pay on hard mode, go with 50." and that way, you could balance the novice players and the veterans. But you can make up a strong or a weak fighter type or a strong or a weak caster type.

D&D makes some classes weaker, or at least much harder to make strong than others. So a new player can't really play a fighter on Easy Mode, since he will be mechanically weaker than a new player building a spellcaster.

Wanting to play a given archetype shouldn't be what determines whether or not you are playing at a disadvantage. Especially given that the theory of D&D is that a 5th level character is the same power, regardless if he's a Monk or a Bard or a Wizard.

[Max_Killjoy]

Why do people keep talking about Spider-Man saving Average Joe, when the point of Hard Mode that I am currently discussing is that Average Joe is more likely to be saving Spider-Man, due to superior player skills? Why is this so hard for people to grok?


Because that's not actually how it works out. It's not that they don't "grok" what you're saying, it's that what you're saying doesn't match the reality of 99% of gamers' experiences.




The question is more, should the player with inferior player skills be allowed to play Spider-Man, and not forced to play someone more powerful, so that he isn't pulling down the team? And I'm answering, let him play what he wants, and let the player(s) with superior system knowledge balance their characters around that.


And that takes us directly to my commentary you quoted below.

You're conflating "superior system knowledge" with "player skill".
Why aren't players with "superior system knowledge" helping the other players build their characters?
Differences in "system knowledge" creating such a large gap in outcomes of character creation is highly indicative of problems with the system and/or a major deficit in communication and cooperation in the group.





Now, I don't know what magic you have, but I can't take someone of the streets, and turn them into a world-class MtG tournament champion in just 2 or 3 sessions. Similarly, even if I can get them to play the RPG with minimal "not a noob" competence, that's not the same as being in the Big Leagues that some of the other people I play with are. If you can, bloody teach me!




Grrrr... Why do people keep assigning such negative connotations to making an effort to make the game fun for everyone, and run smoothly with minimal GM effort?


We're not.

We're telling you that your proposed "solution" doesn't actually do that (make the game fun for everyone, or make it run smoothly with minimal GM effort).




Is it truly better form to just trample all over the poor noobs in the classic "git gud" style of play than to pick Pichu while they train? :smallconfused:


No one is suggesting trampling over "noobs".

And your position of "rules mastery = player skill" is, ironically, the one that pushes the "git gud, noob" attitude that permeates video games, CCGs, etc. See your above comment about "the big leagues" and the implication that players need to be some sort of rules guru in order to be "good players"... which I guess ties into the idea of having the "easy mode" equivalent of "minor leagues" or something for "noob" players.

The whole notion of "noobs" versus "big league players" seems to imply an approach of personal competition on the level of game rules, approaching the RPG as in the same way as a CCG or board game, with each player seeking to understand the rules and achieve the best individual outcome.




As to the former... Isn't that a natural consequence of "rules heavy" systems? Are you just flat out implying that being rules heavy is a bug? That sounds to me more like a style preference than a statement of fact.


A system can be rules-heavy without being the mess of labyrinthine obscurantism that some systems are -- and rules-heavy vs rules-light isn't even tied to focus or style... FFG's intensely "narrative" Star Wars system is also burdensome in its baroque complexity, for example... like may "gamist" systems, it needs an entire book of official rulings and clarifications for how its myriad of skills and powers and rules and mechanics overlap in a long list of specific situations.




Still, I agree that unnecessary complexity is a bad thing. As the man said, "Everything should be as simple as it can be - and no simpler". 3e D&D is way easier to learn to play competently than earlier editions, from a mechanical standpoint, so I'm even more confused as to what you're trying to say. Unless you're focused on the character creation minigame, in which case I'm just completely lost.


Many players don't appear to agree with you on the 3e front. My comment was based on that the related commentary. Either way hardly changes the point. "System mastery" being such a big deal is a sign of a system in need of work, and/or players focusing on personal "winning" and purely mechanical victory conditions.



EDIT:

Bingo! That is the game, just like the printed cards are MtG. If you don't want me playing 5D chess, don't hand me a 5D chess board.

Now, even MtG has multiple formats, each with their own banned and restricted lists. So the game can allow for different styles of play. So, sure, you can ban or gentleman's agreement your way to a different play style, and that's fine. But 5D chess is a feature. You nailed it.


That's the disconnect you're having with most of the people on this thread.

5D chess is not the game.

First, the rules don't intend to hand you a 5D chessboard, that's simply an emergent property of their poor design. And even then, it's not so much that they're handing you a 5D chessboard, as it is that your approach to the game turns the convolutions in the rules into a 5D chessboard.

Second, most people sitting down to play an RPG aren't interested in playing 5D chess. They're sitting down to actually play the RPG they were told they were sitting down to play. The rules are not the point, knowing what every spell in every book published for that edition does and how they all counter-punch and interact is not the point, being able to "outdo the rules mastery" of the other players is not the point.

And really, this monkey-goat-rodeo (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?530090-The-God-in-the-Mirror-Turning-your-Wizard-into-a-Pseudo-Deity) is what comes to mind for 90% of supposed "5D chess" anyway. Most of it isn't even half as clever as the people engaged in it think it is.




Well, as I said, when used as a handicap, Average Joe is more likely to be the one saving Spider-Man. And, yes, you can also use the handicap to play "save the civilian", if that's the game y'all want to play. I agree that the latter may require explicit agreement in some groups.


Except he's not. 99% of the time it will be Spider Man having to save Average Joe.

This is also central to the disconnect you're having with many of the people in this thread.




How does one intentionally hamstring their character in a game with nothing but balanced options?


You don't. You don't base "good player" or "bad player" on baroque system knowledge, and you do help the players who are learning the rules to learn the rules ( instead of condescendingly playing "hard mode" to come "down to their level" ) .

And for most of us, when we've seen someone intentionally hamstring their character, it's not because they're a self-appointed "elite rules master" attempting to back-engineer a mistaken form of "balance", it's because they have some version of the "stormwind fallacy" in their head and think that inept character = good roleplaying.

[ImNotTrevor]

Why do people keep talking about Spider-Man saving Average Joe, when the point of Hard Mode that I am currently discussing is that Average Joe is more likely to be saving Spider-Man, due to superior player skills? Why is this so hard for people to grok?
Because that's not solving the problem you want to solve. There is still unequal contribution. And it still portrays one player as a godly tactician and the other as an idiot. In fact, the Spiderman player probably feels even more stupid.



You've got some good points, and some misunderstandings here. Let me see if I can tease this apart.

I'm not sure about everyone else, but, personally, I find combat easier to talk about, in part because the Playgrounder fallacy-inducing 3e has much more grounded rules for combat. So most of my examples revolve around combat, in the hopes that that will facilitate communication.

But tactics aren't limited to combat. Attempting to intimidate the king rather than attempting a more diplomatic course of action, attempting to kill a vegetarian with a poisoned steak, sending a fem fatale to seduce a gay man - these are all horrible tactics by people who clearly lack certain skills. Skills which might be harder to pin down and discuss than knowing that going full auto gives a +30 to hit.

The things you are discussing cannot be fixed by rules. Those things would affect only idiots or those with incomplete knowledge. Neither of these are cured by rules.



In any game which isn't a railroad, the choices that the players make can affect the outcome. Surely you're not going to call that a false premise, are you?
I wouldn't. But my issue is not with the goal. I'm into world peace, too. But I'll take issue with someone who plans to dominate the world to make it happen.

The method being offered is to forego communication and force people to play nice. This will:
A) not work how you want.
B) will not fix the core problem, just make it look fixed.



I'm calling the ability to make good choices tactical skill. Easy to follow for combat choices, but no less true for non-combat choices.
You've now declared that these people are poor decisionmakers. Making you aware of what this sentence means.



So I don't think it's fair to claim that tactics being the only way to succeed, ever, is a Quertus problem. In any non-railroad, it should be the primary way to succeed. And, as I've already said, it isn't the only way to succeed: when I just don't get the system / GM, I'm all about cranking up my power level until I'm at the point where I can contribute equally (pity is, IME, most gamers just don't get it, and only see mechanical power, not narrative contribution). So, no, I'm actually arguing the exact opposite of the stance you've assigned to me.

If narrative contribution can't be measured, then how do you plan to measureably enforce it?
This doesn't pan out.



Now, yes, the issue of players who abhor wasting time talking about things, and want to get on with the game is, if not unique to me, certainly such an outlier as to not be worth writing a system around. That's fair.

But, still, communication is hard, and gamers aren't exactly known for their communication skills. I don't see how minimizing the need for communication in the hobby can be viewed as a bad thing.

Maneuvering in 0G is hard, and humans aren't known for their skill in moving in 0G. I dont see how stopping the space program is a bad thing.

Playing Chess is hard, and people aren't generally known for their chess skills. I don't see how minimizing chess play is a bad thing.

Communication is a skill as much as any other that you use in your games. You want to build people's skills but not their communication skills? In a SOCIAL game?

People in our hobby tend to communicate just fine so long as you treat them like grownups with respect and honesty. This has yet to fail me, even when dealing with players many decades my senior or junior.



As to the comments of table universality... I've played at a lot of different tables. It was once my goal to play at every table within driving distance, and play every system I could, to maximize my breadth of experience. My record was 6 gaming sessions per week. Now, maybe, like the captain of the titanic, my decades of experience are working against me. But I've experienced a lot of tables where Hard Mode was a valuable tool. That it isn't required at all tables... well, the bard class isn't required at all tables, but it's still in the books. I've seen more tables utilize Hard Mode than I have tables that play with bards.
Playing at many tables playing systems with the same problems is not a wide experience base from which to draw conclusions.
You also likely don't know for sure the motivations of another player choosing to play something that is purposefully limited. There may be 1000 reasons.



Now, am I unfairly discounting the feedback of others? Arguably, yes. I'm taking them to say, "this isn't useful, ever", and responding with, "no, I've seen it be useful at many tables". So it's entirely possible that I'm not understanding their stance correctly, and thus unfairly discounting their feedback.
What they are saying is that this solution is flimsy at best and better dealt with by putting on big boy pants and talking. Or being helpful to the new guys. Or both.



Entirely unintentional tone. Sorry about that.

Look, we all have our skills, and communication is not one of mine. Playing some systems and some GMs is. But, other systems and other GMs, not so much. As I've mentioned before, yes, I've played Hard Mode for balance purposes, but I've also been the one trying to balance the narrative contribution by trying to play super cheese god mode power character - and still not managing to match the contribution of others. I'm not smug about my skills. If I come off that way, it is entirely a product of my lack of communication skills + internet delivery.

I'm so happy for you that you have players who learn. I've played with plenty of grown adults who, after years of play, still don't understand the basics, like what die to roll. In the same party as people who, uh, tend to win MtG tournaments. In other words, the player skills and tactical abilities are vastly divergent.

That's unfortunate that you play with people that lazy. It might be time to talk to them about it like an adult.
"Hey man, I get the impression you don't care much about this game. I mean, 30 years of playing and you don't know some of the basics. Are you sure you even want to play?" Is a good place to start.

Maybe followed up with "Well if you want to play, sit down with the rules for a little while. We only have so much time per session, and once you know the rules you'll be so much more able to contribute, which i look forward to."



Now, I don't know what magic you have, but I can't take someone of the streets, and turn them into a world-class MtG tournament champion in just 2 or 3 sessions. Similarly, even if I can get them to play the RPG with minimal "not a noob" competence, that's not the same as being in the Big Leagues that some of the other people I play with are. If you can, bloody teach me!
I don't need to turn anyone into a tactical genius. Everyone has common sense. And Intend to play games that are fiction-first, so mechanics are secondary to everything else. Makes everyone contribute pretty equally without a ton of effort.



But, until I have such teaching skills, what, other than Hard Mode, do you recommend to provide an enjoyable experience for all, in such a diverse environment?

Play a new system, that is simple, where everyone is a noob. Done.



Grrrr... Why do people keep assigning such negative connotations to making an effort to make the game fun for everyone, and run smoothly with minimal GM effort? Is it truly better form to just trample all over the poor noobs in the classic "git gud" style of play than to pick Pichu while they train? :smallconfused:
Probably because they know how to gently guide someone towards being good. Beating the bajeebus out of rhe noob as the weakest character doesn't make them any better. It jusy makes them mad. So does outshining them in coop with such a character.

You're painting these new and inexperienced players as cow-eyed idiots who have to bang their head into the wall until they understand, when suddenly they transform as from a coccoon into a Competent Human Being!
As opposed to them being competent human beings to begin with who are learning a new skill and don't need to be coddled or treated like a wee baby until they find their legs. They don't need to be given The God of All while everyone else plays Pauper 1 through 3. That doesn't even model how the game is SUPPOSED to go. It sets bizaare expectations. Just drop them in. Council them, encourage their learning, let them make mistakes and learn from them. This is a GAME, not life. You can skip the milk and go straight to the potatoes.

Doing otherwise smacks of disrespect, IMHO.

[kyoryu]

To put it mathematically, I think what Quertus is trying to say is:

Total Character Effectiveness = Player Effectiveness * Character Mechanical Effectiveness.

Since Player Effectiveness varies, a possible way to keep Total Character Effectiveness roughly the same is to have the players with higher Player Effectiveness play characters with lower Character Mechanical Effectiveness.

20PE * 5CME = 100TCE
10 PE * 10 CME = 100 TCE
5 PE * 20 CME = 100 TCE

[Max_Killjoy]

One thing which I think is pertinent to this discussion; people HATE it when players RP character weaknesses.

We had several very long threads about this a few months back (my thread "I am just doing what the dice say my character would do," and the one about the cleric with a phobia of crowds) and the general consensus was that people who pick their own RP flaws are intentionally sabotaging their team mates and thus being anti-social.

Despite the fact that the cleric with a phobia of crowds still contributes more to the party than someone playing a monk at 100% tactical efficiency, people still would prefer the latter in their group as the drawbacks are mechanical rather than narrative.

I don't agree with the sentiment, but that does appear to be how the majority of players feel.


Personally, what I hate is when people mistake character weakness for "good character" and "good roleplaying" such that more/bigger weakness supposedly equals better character and better roleplaying. And when they further believe that the more consistently and blatantly they impose their overblown character weakness on the entire party, the more they're "playing their character".

There are some forms of weakness that are simply mismatched with the campaign being played. Don't be that guy who insists on playing a hardcore pacifist in a Navy SEALS black-book campaign -- save that character for a different game. Have some consideration for your fellow gamers.

And for appropriate weaknesses, there are ways to play those weaknesses that don't completely cripple a character and make them a liability and burden all the time. If your character is afraid of crowds, play it out in such a way that you show it, work around it somehow, and still contribute, don't just curl up in a ball or run away every time it comes up.

[Mike_G]

Personally, what I hate is when people mistake character weakness for "good character" and "good roleplaying" such that more/bigger weakness supposedly equals better character and better roleplaying. And when they further believe that the more consistently and blatantly they impose their overblown character weakness on the entire party, the more they're "playing their character".

There are some forms of weakness that are simply mismatched with the campaign being played. Don't be that guy who insists on playing a hardcore pacifist in a Navy SEALS black-book campaign -- save that character for a different game. Have some consideration for your fellow gamers.

And for appropriate weaknesses, there are ways to play those weaknesses that don't completely cripple a character and make them a liability and burden all the time. If your character is afraid of crowds, play it out in such a way that you show it, work around it somehow, and still contribute, don't just curl up in a ball or run away every time it comes up.

Start watching at 4:45

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-7UwvyVzG4

That is a good example of what happens a lot, and why lots of gamers just freaking hate the player who wants to play the "interesting" character with quirks and weaknesses.

[Anymage]

To put it mathematically, I think what Quertus is trying to say is:

Total Character Effectiveness = Player Effectiveness * Character Mechanical Effectiveness.

Since Player Effectiveness varies, a possible way to keep Total Character Effectiveness roughly the same is to have the players with higher Player Effectiveness play characters with lower Character Mechanical Effectiveness.

20PE * 5CME = 100TCE
10 PE * 10 CME = 100 TCE
5 PE * 20 CME = 100 TCE

Except that for one thing, it isn't so simply linear. For another, using D&D for an example, we don't need a hardmode lesser wizard class when the wizard can just self-apply a +3 LA. I can see the point where some players may want to challenge themselves, but we don't need extra rules towards that end.


One thing which I think is pertinent to this discussion; people HATE it when players RP character weaknesses.

We had several very long threads about this a few months back (my thread "I am just doing what the dice say my character would do," and the one about the cleric with a phobia of crowds) and the general consensus was that people who pick their own RP flaws are intentionally sabotaging their team mates and thus being anti-social.

Despite the fact that the cleric with a phobia of crowds still contributes more to the party than someone playing a monk at 100% tactical efficiency, people still would prefer the latter in their group as the drawbacks are mechanical rather than narrative.

I don't agree with the sentiment, but that does appear to be how the majority of players feel.

This is a largely D&D focused attitude. Most of us have had experiences with the guy whose idea of "role playing" was not being a team player, in a game that's all about working as a team towards a common goal. As it applies to this topic, it'd also apply to the guy who shows off in the sense of "I can beat you with one arm behind my back".


I think there is a general consensus (although by no means unanimous) that all of the T1 and T2 classes need a few nerfs and the T4-6 classes a few buffs, but I don't think it is specifically fighter players whining to nerf OP casters.



I may be a bit biased, but I seem to see more whining levied by caster players against competent "mundane" characters, talking about "Guy at the Gym fallacies" or "Guy with a pointy stick vs. someone who rewrites reality by will alone," as ruining their character concept of the all powerful caster.


I personally prefer badass normals who are significantly stronger than D&D fighters but still within the realm of possibility for a mundane character and casters who are more powerful and / or versatile than martials when they are allowed to nova but need to ration their power.
The only nerfs I want to see are those that remove the built in costs associated with spell casting (chain gating, shape-changing to gain more spells, thought bottles, nightsticks, rope trick, XP free SLAs, etc.) and a few ways to counters spells which are "no save, just lose" like shivering touch and force cage.

Let's not just think about how JaronK T1s can break combat. That's just one element of the problem.

A JaronKT1 character can make a wand of knock. This makes the rogue's investment in picking locks meaningless. By virtue of not requiring a roll it's mechanically better, and in character it makes you wonder if it'd be better to leave the rogue behind and split his share of the treasure among the people who are actually contributing.

A JaronK T1 character can make a magic item that will create food and water for everyone who says the command word over it. This doesn't change combat stats, but the mere potential existence of this item will massively change society. Millions of people who would have otherwise had to work as farmers can now do other things. Add in the ability to create portals linking two locations - again not necessarily something with impressive combat application - and you have the magitech urbanization tools that the basic tippyverse idea was founded on.

And as mentioned before, a JaronK T1 character can short-circuit whole plots with a single mechanical ability. Murder mysteries tend to fall apart when the investigator can read minds, and ask god a bunch of clear questions, and bring the victim back to life. Again, these all apply even if you don't necessarily have the combat strength to trivialize the assassin when you do catch him.

[Max_Killjoy]

Start watching at 4:45

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-7UwvyVzG4

That is a good example of what happens a lot, and why lots of gamers just freaking hate the player who wants to play the "interesting" character with quirks and weaknesses.

First "paralyzing fear of water" to the extent of "screaming in terror and refusing to even get near it" in a game involving a lot of cross-country travel in a quasi-medieval setting is probably in my above category of weaknesses that aren't appropriate to the campaign.

Second, that's exactly the sort of gaming group I fastidiously avoid. Sadly, they're not as much of a parody as the video might make them out to be.

[Mike_G]

First "paralyzing fear of water" to the extent of "screaming in terror and refusing to even get near it" in a game involving a lot of cross-country travel in a quasi-medieval setting is probably in my above category of weaknesses that aren't appropriate to the campaign.

Second, that's exactly the sort of gaming group I fastidiously avoid. Sadly, they're not as much of a parody as the video might make them out to be.

The whole movie is worth watching.

You will see every bad gaming group you've ever been in somewhere in there. It feel more like documentary than parody at times.

And yes, I agree completely with you that there are appropriate and inappropriate weaknesses.

[Cluedrew]

Hahaha, point. Leveling... the field / plane that is the tops of their heads, then?Probably, I suddenly had to run so I just left the joke. Glad it came across as such.

Yeah, I got nothing about the main topic might now. I have a few half formed ideas that might turn into something.

[Talakeal]

Let's not just think about how JaronK T1s can break combat. That's just one element of the problem.

A JaronKT1 character can make a wand of knock. This makes the rogue's investment in picking locks meaningless. By virtue of not requiring a roll it's mechanically better, and in character it makes you wonder if it'd be better to leave the rogue behind and split his share of the treasure among the people who are actually contributing.

A JaronK T1 character can make a magic item that will create food and water for everyone who says the command word over it. This doesn't change combat stats, but the mere potential existence of this item will massively change society. Millions of people who would have otherwise had to work as farmers can now do other things. Add in the ability to create portals linking two locations - again not necessarily something with impressive combat application - and you have the magitech urbanization tools that the basic tippyverse idea was founded on.

And as mentioned before, a JaronK T1 character can short-circuit whole plots with a single mechanical ability. Murder mysteries tend to fall apart when the investigator can read minds, and ask god a bunch of clear questions, and bring the victim back to life. Again, these all apply even if you don't necessarily have the combat strength to trivialize the assassin when you do catch him.

Plentiful and reliable magic items do kind of ruin a lot of aspects of the game, but that is more a problem with magic items than any one class. Artificers and IIRC warlocks are better at making magic items than full casters, and rogues and bards are better at using them, so I don't really think of that as a class balance issue.

[Mechalich]

Personally, what I hate is when people mistake character weakness for "good character" and "good roleplaying" such that more/bigger weakness supposedly equals better character and better roleplaying. And when they further believe that the more consistently and blatantly they impose their overblown character weakness on the entire party, the more they're "playing their character".

There are some forms of weakness that are simply mismatched with the campaign being played. Don't be that guy who insists on playing a hardcore pacifist in a Navy SEALS black-book campaign -- save that character for a different game. Have some consideration for your fellow gamers.

And for appropriate weaknesses, there are ways to play those weaknesses that don't completely cripple a character and make them a liability and burden all the time. If your character is afraid of crowds, play it out in such a way that you show it, work around it somehow, and still contribute, don't just curl up in a ball or run away every time it comes up.

Systems that are decently designed either impose weaknesses globally so that everyone is playing a character who is somehow equally damaged or provide compensation for weaknesses such that characters are at least theoretically balanced on the back end and provide proper mechanics for what common weaknesses that show up in a game actually do. This illustrates a huge key convention of TTRPGs: everyone pretends that all characters are created equal, even though this is manifestly untrue in the real world and even manifestly untrue in many fictional worlds. This is very different from the source material of many games and that creates lots of problems.

Simple example: if you're a group of characters in Middle Earth, and one of those characters is an elf and one is a human, the elf is just better at everything, by virtue of being an elf, because that's how Tolkien designed Middle Earth to be. That means, if you make a Middle Earth game you have two choices: force parties to be segregated by race to manage the power disparities, or make mechanics such that elves are no longer superior. Doing the former gives you Exalted, which has the problem that gamers have a strong tendency to only care about playing the strongest faction and also creates the problem that your single setting devolves into several different games which creates a cascade of new problems. Doing the latter means that the world your game creates isn't going to match the source material properly anymore.

This is actually one of the thornier problems of game design, because most of the narrative material that serves as inspiration for games includes wildly unequal characters (pick your comic book team of choice, it's there), but if you make a game based on such a universe the players want to be able to play all of the people in the original source material. Star Wars is a good example: in most incarnations having the Force is strictly better than not having the Force for all things, but since many of the characters in the movies don't have the Force, you have a fundamental problem. Boba Fett has to be able to fight Darth Vader in your game no matter how nonsensical it might be. This is certainly a problem D&D has possessed in spades from the beginning, 3e just made it much, much worse.

[Mike_G]

Systems that are decently designed either impose weaknesses globally so that everyone is playing a character who is somehow equally damaged or provide compensation for weaknesses such that characters are at least theoretically balanced on the back end and provide proper mechanics for what common weaknesses that show up in a game actually do. This illustrates a huge key convention of TTRPGs: everyone pretends that all characters are created equal, even though this is manifestly untrue in the real world and even manifestly untrue in many fictional worlds. This is very different from the source material of many games and that creates lots of problems.

Simple example: if you're a group of characters in Middle Earth, and one of those characters is an elf and one is a human, the elf is just better at everything, by virtue of being an elf, because that's how Tolkien designed Middle Earth to be. That means, if you make a Middle Earth game you have two choices: force parties to be segregated by race to manage the power disparities, or make mechanics such that elves are no longer superior. Doing the former gives you Exalted, which has the problem that gamers have a strong tendency to only care about playing the strongest faction and also creates the problem that your single setting devolves into several different games which creates a cascade of new problems. Doing the latter means that the world your game creates isn't going to match the source material properly anymore.

This is actually one of the thornier problems of game design, because most of the narrative material that serves as inspiration for games includes wildly unequal characters (pick your comic book team of choice, it's there), but if you make a game based on such a universe the players want to be able to play all of the people in the original source material. Star Wars is a good example: in most incarnations having the Force is strictly better than not having the Force for all things, but since many of the characters in the movies don't have the Force, you have a fundamental problem. Boba Fett has to be able to fight Darth Vader in your game no matter how nonsensical it might be. This is certainly a problem D&D has possessed in spades from the beginning, 3e just made it much, much worse.

But it doesn't have to be a problem.

Plenty of point-buy systems deal with this by having something like Force Use be an expensive power. So you could have two ranks in Use Force or ten ranks in Blaster as a similar powered character. Which works for Luke and Han in the original film. They can adventure together and nobody sits at the kiddie table while the other one steals the show.

Same thing with Elves in Middle earth. GURPS had racial packages, where they added up the point cost for the abilities and disadvantages of a race, so you may each have a 75 point character, but just getting the Elf package is, say 20 points, So your human party mates have more points for skills and spells than the Elf who has a bunch of racial bonuses.

Balanced systems aren't impossible. D&D is just really, really bad at it.

[Max_Killjoy]

Systems that are decently designed either impose weaknesses globally so that everyone is playing a character who is somehow equally damaged or provide compensation for weaknesses such that characters are at least theoretically balanced on the back end and provide proper mechanics for what common weaknesses that show up in a game actually do. This illustrates a huge key convention of TTRPGs: everyone pretends that all characters are created equal, even though this is manifestly untrue in the real world and even manifestly untrue in many fictional worlds. This is very different from the source material of many games and that creates lots of problems.

Simple example: if you're a group of characters in Middle Earth, and one of those characters is an elf and one is a human, the elf is just better at everything, by virtue of being an elf, because that's how Tolkien designed Middle Earth to be. That means, if you make a Middle Earth game you have two choices: force parties to be segregated by race to manage the power disparities, or make mechanics such that elves are no longer superior. Doing the former gives you Exalted, which has the problem that gamers have a strong tendency to only care about playing the strongest faction and also creates the problem that your single setting devolves into several different games which creates a cascade of new problems. Doing the latter means that the world your game creates isn't going to match the source material properly anymore.

This is actually one of the thornier problems of game design, because most of the narrative material that serves as inspiration for games includes wildly unequal characters (pick your comic book team of choice, it's there), but if you make a game based on such a universe the players want to be able to play all of the people in the original source material. Star Wars is a good example: in most incarnations having the Force is strictly better than not having the Force for all things, but since many of the characters in the movies don't have the Force, you have a fundamental problem. Boba Fett has to be able to fight Darth Vader in your game no matter how nonsensical it might be. This is certainly a problem D&D has possessed in spades from the beginning, 3e just made it much, much worse.


For me, this is where the group has to decide what it wants and can agree to.

1. They can agree that the humans are exceptional humans, and the elves are average elves, and get close in stats, or something like that. They can agree to play untrained force users and somewhat experienced others, or something along those lines.

2. They can decide that they're OK with the power disparity, because they want to emulate the fiction more closely. IMO, this usually works better if you're doing a more story-oriented or non-combat-oriented campaign, where people agree to share "spotlight" in ways other than raw combat power.

3. As you note, they can restrict what they're playing -- they all agree not to play a mortal in their Vampire campaign.

4. They can try to balance around point-buy setups, so that being an elf is more expensive than being a human, but has some added benefits the human doesn't get... which only violates the fiction if elves really are better at everything they try than humans are.


For me, when I played SWTOR, one of the funniest things was playing the Bounty Hunter story and running into Force-users who just assumed you'd be a pushover, only to stomp the floor with them before they could recover from shock. Such as an infamous incident where a Jedi attempts to use a mind trick on you...

Jedi -- "You will lay down your weapons and surrender peacefully." (including hand motion)
Hunter -- "You will realize what a complete idiot you are." (including hand motion)

[goto124]

I had not realised it was possible to make a Will save against a Jedi mind trick...

[Keltest]

I had not realised it was possible to make a Will save against a Jedi mind trick...

It tends to be an all or nothing deal. You are either strong enough to resist all of them, or youre weak enough to fall for all of them.

The Clone Wars shows that its possible for the jedi to press further into outright mind control, but that has a fairly high chance of just outright causing brain damage against targets that resist.

[Mechalich]

But it doesn't have to be a problem.

Plenty of point-buy systems deal with this by having something like Force Use be an expensive power. So you could have two ranks in Use Force or ten ranks in Blaster as a similar powered character. Which works for Luke and Han in the original film. They can adventure together and nobody sits at the kiddie table while the other one steals the show.

Same thing with Elves in Middle earth. GURPS had racial packages, where they added up the point cost for the abilities and disadvantages of a race, so you may each have a 75 point character, but just getting the Elf package is, say 20 points, So your human party mates have more points for skills and spells than the Elf who has a bunch of racial bonuses.

Balanced systems aren't impossible. D&D is just really, really bad at it.

Point buy has advantages, but it's not a perfect solution. First, it's very dependent upon the designers successfully assigning point values during the design stage. The more things you have in your game the more exploits occur. I'm no GURPS master, but I've heard some tales about rather ridiculous builds possible in that system, and other point buy systems (and pseudo-point buy like the storyteller system) definitely have their issues. VtM is a great example of a failure to properly balance certain capabilities - the backgrounds and the disciplines specifically - and how that can break the game.


For me, when I played SWTOR, one of the funniest things was playing the Bounty Hunter story and running into Force-users who just assumed you'd be a pushover, only to stomp the floor with them before they could recover from shock. Such as an infamous incident where a Jedi attempts to use a mind trick on you...

Well, that's a narrative incident, as are all the cut scenes in SWTOR. That game, being an MMO chooses the most brute-force balance approach and just makes all powers equivalent and matches the numbers up in order to balance things out. And of course, being an MMO it has active management, Sorcs were notoriously OP at launch (and they were, I spent a fair amount of time playing one) and got hit with the nerf stick pretty hard. Your character in SWTOR survives all sorts of horrible experiences, like being Force Choked for minutes at a time against certain bosses, or taking grenades to the face, being thoroughly roasted with lightning, or being smashed into the floor by a Rancor.

It is certainly possible to balance a game's combat component in MMO fashion - where powers all functionally do the same things and it's mostly a matter of labels. That's basically the approach 4e takes. the problem is that, at tabletop it's boring. MMOs survive the fact that their however many classes reduce down to a mere 3-4 actual roles (tank, heals, rdps, mdps) by invoking complex rotation management and other schemes to keep you engaged which you really can't do in a tabletop setting.

I'd waiting for someone to develop a good way of integrating the video game and tabletop experience such that you could have characters play out non-combat events at tabletop and then instantly transition into video game combat with their avatars as the best of both worlds, but that seems a long way off.

[Max_Killjoy]

Well, that's a narrative incident, as are all the cut scenes in SWTOR. That game, being an MMO chooses the most brute-force balance approach and just makes all powers equivalent and matches the numbers up in order to balance things out. And of course, being an MMO it has active management, Sorcs were notoriously OP at launch (and they were, I spent a fair amount of time playing one) and got hit with the nerf stick pretty hard. Your character in SWTOR survives all sorts of horrible experiences, like being Force Choked for minutes at a time against certain bosses, or taking grenades to the face, being thoroughly roasted with lightning, or being smashed into the floor by a Rancor.

It is certainly possible to balance a game's combat component in MMO fashion - where powers all functionally do the same things and it's mostly a matter of labels. That's basically the approach 4e takes. the problem is that, at tabletop it's boring. MMOs survive the fact that their however many classes reduce down to a mere 3-4 actual roles (tank, heals, rdps, mdps) by invoking complex rotation management and other schemes to keep you engaged which you really can't do in a tabletop setting.


All true -- I just can't help chuckling when I think of that cutscene.

And the first thing I thought after my first readthrough of 4e is exactly that -- this is an attempt at MMO-style "slap different labels on it" balance.




I'd waiting for someone to develop a good way of integrating the video game and tabletop experience such that you could have characters play out non-combat events at tabletop and then instantly transition into video game combat with their avatars as the best of both worlds, but that seems a long way off.


That would be interesting.

[RazorChain]

Point buy has advantages, but it's not a perfect solution. First, it's very dependent upon the designers successfully assigning point values during the design stage. The more things you have in your game the more exploits occur. I'm no GURPS master, but I've heard some tales about rather ridiculous builds possible in that system, and other point buy systems (and pseudo-point buy like the storyteller system) definitely have their issues. VtM is a great example of a failure to properly balance certain capabilities - the backgrounds and the disciplines specifically - and how that can break the game.



In a point buy system like Gurps where you can remake wolverines regenerative power or Magnetos ability to control metal the GM must be explicit in what is allowed or not. If you are playing four color supers with 1000 points then you can literally make a character that can kill all life on earth with a thought....except all the other supers. But when you are playing something more mundane then super powers are off limits. A player can take all the 200 points in a game where you are playing competent heroes and put it all into sword skill and show up a character who's completely normal except he has 60 in sword skill and doesn't know anything else. Of course that's not going to save him when somebody shoots him in the back with a crossbow but the player isn't at fault if the GM imposes no restrictions.

Gurps even states what power is superpowers, paranormal, mundane and what skills are cinematic or not. In Gurps your ability to show up with a ridiculous build hinges on your GM's incompetence to run the game, impose limits or familiarize himself with the system. If you show up in a 1930s pulp game in the spirit of Indiana Jones with a character who can regenerate like Wolverine and control metal like Magneto then either you or the GM have done something wrong.

[Cluedrew]

I'd waiting for someone to develop a good way of integrating the video game and tabletop experience such that you could have characters play out non-combat events at tabletop and then instantly transition into video game combat with their avatars as the best of both worlds, but that seems a long way off.I've actually looked at that a lot and the main issue is... you don't get the best of both worlds (not without a human level AI), you merely switch between them. Although I did not actually make a video game + table top role-playing game all of the theory crafting we did with it suggest one major issue: The divide between combat and non-combat.

You know the whole "role-playing doesn't stop when combat starts" thing? Suddenly it does, because the computer does not care for any impassioned speeches. I suppose eventually we, as humanity, could program one that does, but that should probably come after the computer that cures cancer. Also you can do "flavour text" level role-play still, but a lot of the more improvisational and often more meaningful options get closed off.

[Anymage]

4e came pretty close to "miniatures boardgame in combat, more freeform rp outside". Noncombat encounters wound up as a more freeform "explain how you apply your chosen trait to the encounter at hand, and roll with it". Things that didn't directly have encounter level impact had little to nothing in the way of mechanical support. Needless to say, we saw how that went over.

There is something to be said for what sells books vs. what gets praised/criticized in fan communities vs. what makes for a good session at the table. But that's a separate discussion as to why we'll never have a perfect game. And as we saw in the 90s, things that move product in the short term like power creep and heavy metaplot can kill the line's long term viability.

[kyoryu]

why we'll never have a perfect game.

We will never have "a perfect game" because your idea of a perfect game is not my idea of a perfect game.

[Vitruviansquid]

4e came pretty close to "miniatures boardgame in combat, more freeform rp outside". Noncombat encounters wound up as a more freeform "explain how you apply your chosen trait to the encounter at hand, and roll with it". Things that didn't directly have encounter level impact had little to nothing in the way of mechanical support. Needless to say, we saw how that went over.

There is something to be said for what sells books vs. what gets praised/criticized in fan communities vs. what makes for a good session at the table. But that's a separate discussion as to why we'll never have a perfect game. And as we saw in the 90s, things that move product in the short term like power creep and heavy metaplot can kill the line's long term viability.

People love to pick out very specific elements of 4e and say it didn't work because 4e wasn't popular.

But 4e changed so many things and so many people who've never played it purport to hate it.

[Anymage]

People love to pick out very specific elements of 4e and say it didn't work because 4e wasn't popular.

But 4e changed so many things and so many people who've never played it purport to hate it.

That was my point. 4e was an incredibly sound game. If it doesn't sell books because of people dragging their feet, however, I'm not going to expect WOTC to keep supporting it.

Again, it's the disconnect between what moves product and what makes for a positive table experience.

[Mechalich]

I've actually looked at that a lot and the main issue is... you don't get the best of both worlds (not without a human level AI), you merely switch between them. Although I did not actually make a video game + table top role-playing game all of the theory crafting we did with it suggest one major issue: The divide between combat and non-combat.

You know the whole "role-playing doesn't stop when combat starts" thing? Suddenly it does, because the computer does not care for any impassioned speeches. I suppose eventually we, as humanity, could program one that does, but that should probably come after the computer that cures cancer. Also you can do "flavour text" level role-play still, but a lot of the more improvisational and often more meaningful options get closed off.

Maybe so, though in all honesty I've found that a lot of meaningful roleplaying - as in PCs actually making decisions at anything beyond the immediate tactical level - tends to stop when combat starts purely in tabletop in any case. Obviously this isn't going to be true in every system, but there are certainly cases where there's limited integration. I mean, people already build video games that function like this - you average Tactical RPG has roleplaying elements that are completely segregated from the combat stages and this is an incredibly successful sub-genre - so I'd like to see if something could be done via integrating tabletop elements for the rest. The problem I've seen seems to be more that it's difficult to invent a system to digitally create encounters at speed to handle the kinds of combats the tabletop experience is likely to throw out.


There is something to be said for what sells books vs. what gets praised/criticized in fan communities vs. what makes for a good session at the table. But that's a separate discussion as to why we'll never have a perfect game. And as we saw in the 90s, things that move product in the short term like power creep and heavy metaplot can kill the line's long term viability.

This is of course true. The need to sell books tends to lead to ever-greater imbalances. 3e D&D has this problem too - while Wizards still mash Fighters to pulp in Core only, a lot of the really broken absurdities are only possible with stuff that circulated later on (ex. metamagic reducers) in various power creep books. And as the pool of available rules grows greater and greater the likelihood of some combination emerging that totally breaks the game grows almost exponentially (especially as it becomes increasingly difficult for the actual designers to have extremely high system mastery or to integrate everything when playtesting).


That was my point. 4e was an incredibly sound game. If it doesn't sell books because of people dragging their feet, however, I'm not going to expect WOTC to keep supporting it.

4e was a weird situation in that it actually went and slew some of the sacred cows of D&D and we got a chance to see how much they mattered to people. It turned out that the answer was "A whole d*** lot." Though I've always wondered how much of that had to do with the mechanics and how much with 4e taking an unnecessary axe to certain sacred pieces of fluff - the similar consequences of the oWoD/nWoD switch suggests to me that fluff matters more than the mechanics, but it's not really something that can be measured.

[Quertus]

I'm baffled at how much pushback I'm getting on the concept, "don't overshadow the other players".

Are people in my corner of the world an outlier, in willingly taking Pichu when playing with (or against) a new SSB player? Is such common courtesy not the norm? I mean, it's not universal in my experience, but choosing not to take a handicap, and instead just overshadowing the other players is notable for being the exception here. It's more common here, IME, for someone to take a handicap, even in an RPG, than to overshadow the other players. If others have not experienced that, then I'm glad I live where I do.


To put it mathematically, I think what Quertus is trying to say is:

Total Character Effectiveness = Player Effectiveness * Character Mechanical Effectiveness.

Since Player Effectiveness varies, a possible way to keep Total Character Effectiveness roughly the same is to have the players with higher Player Effectiveness play characters with lower Character Mechanical Effectiveness.

20PE * 5CME = 100TCE
10 PE * 10 CME = 100 TCE
5 PE * 20 CME = 100 TCE

Perhaps not that exact formula, but yes, that's exactly the concept, the feel, that I'm trying to get across.


Because that's not actually how it works out. It's not that they don't "grok" what you're saying, it's that what you're saying doesn't match the reality of 99% of gamers' experiences.

I didn't know anyone else was claiming to have gamed with 100+ different groups, to have a 99% experience to discuss.

If someone plays Pichu to give themselves a handicap, they rarely keep playing Pichu once the other player(s) notably exceed their contribution. So I find it odd that it isn't more like 99% gamer experience being similar to my own. So, apparently, some people are accustomed to only playing with jerks who never take a handicap, and others (a claimed 99%?) are accustomed to playing with people who over handicap themselves? I'm glad my corner of the world actually gets the idea of a handicap.


And that takes us directly to my commentary you quoted below.

You're conflating "superior system knowledge" with "player skill".

That's fair. And somewhat intentional. The exact formula of narrative contribution involves numerous factors, including mechanical, system knowledge, player skill, GM lore, etc. I was trying to (over) simplify matters, and lump everything that was not mechanical together. The confusion this has caused is my bad.



Why aren't players with "superior system knowledge" helping the other players build their characters?
Differences in "system knowledge" creating such a large gap in outcomes of character creation is highly indicative of problems with the system and/or a major deficit in communication and cooperation in the group.


If you're talking about building characters, you're not talking about the same thing I am. I want all character builds to be equal, where build skill isn't a thing.

But I then want a few intentionally labeled, not equal, Hard Mode characters, for when you need to take a handicap so as not to completely overshadow the other players.

The System Knowledge I'm talking about is during play, like holding actions or taking cover, not during character creation. Ever. Well, maybe in response to someone who asked if you couldn't just balance the game that way, but that's never what I meant by system knowledge in any conversation I started in this thread.


We're not.

We're telling you that your proposed "solution" doesn't actually do that (make the game fun for everyone, or make it run smoothly with minimal GM effort).

Well, then, this is where I can only respond that I speak from a bloody lot of experience, even just counting RPGs, but also from video games, CCGs, chess, board games, sports, etc etc, that says otherwise. I know golf has the concept of a handicap. Many multiplayer videogames have individually selectable difficulty / handicap levels. I'm drawing a blank, but I'm sure the concept exists as an official thing in other places, too.

I... really can't fathom how anyone could hold an opposing view here.


No one is suggesting trampling over "noobs".

And your position of "rules mastery = player skill" is, ironically, the one that pushes the "git gud, noob" attitude that permeates video games, CCGs, etc. See your above comment about "the big leagues" and the implication that players need to be some sort of rules guru in order to be "good players"... which I guess ties into the idea of having the "easy mode" equivalent of "minor leagues" or something for "noob" players.

The whole notion of "noobs" versus "big league players" seems to imply an approach of personal competition on the level of game rules, approaching the RPG as in the same way as a CCG or board game, with each player seeking to understand the rules and achieve the best individual outcome.

Erm, I'm lumping all non-mechanical contributions to one's ability to contribute together, for simplicity. And attempting to give various examples, from system mastery to tactical thinking to GM lore, of why one's contribution isn't limited to the mechanics of what's on the character sheet.

Now, mind you, I'm a fan of player skills, and was "raised" in the "git gud" school of RPGs, so that doubtless colors my language, but I'm trying to propose an alternative to saying, "**** you, you're not good enough to contribute". And having trouble understanding why people seem to either be saying, "no, don't be courteous and play down", or, "that thing that you've seen work many times in RPGs, and many more in other venues? You were hallucinating - it doesn't and can't possibly work".

I'm saying that, when I don't know the system, when the GM and I view each other as some incomprehensible alien race regarding gaming mindset, I may have a harder time contributing than when I'm in sync with the system & the GM. And that, despite my general desire for mechanically equivalent characters, it would be convenient, in such circumstances, to be able to play at an appropriate handicap.

So, completely off topic (maybe?), but what's wrong with having a "git gud, noob" attitude in a videogame or CCG? What's wrong with wanting to get better at the game? Perhaps if I can understand this, I'll understand your PoV better in general.


Many players don't appear to agree with you on the 3e front. My comment was based on that the related commentary. Either way hardly changes the point. "System mastery" being such a big deal is a sign of a system in need of work, and/or players focusing on personal "winning" and purely mechanical victory conditions.

Ah, I think I get where you're coming from now. This is what I get for conflating system mastery, tactics, GM lore, etc, in the interests of simplicity.

Yes, in a RPG, if system mastery were, say, the 80% nearly the only way to contribute to the narrative, it would be a bit heavy on the "game" end of RPG. I can see why you'd consider that a fail state.

And this is one place where you'd expect RPGs to diverge from other games. Really, there's a lot of different skill sets one can put to use in any game. I just had a conversation with a young teen about all the skills she'd personally witnessed in... Clue, I believe the game was. She actually caught a few I hadn't considered, including blatant cheating, and more subtle cheating involving mirror placement.


Except he's not. 99% of the time it will be Spider Man having to save Average Joe.

This is also central to the disconnect you're having with many of the people in this thread.

See "proper use of a handicap", above. If Spider-Man starts contributing more than Average Joe, and starts saving Average Joe more often than Average Joe saves Spider-Man, then, clearly, Spider-Man's player has learned, and it's time to up your game / lessen or remove your handicap.


You don't. You don't base "good player" or "bad player" on baroque system knowledge, and you do help the players who are learning the rules to learn the rules ( instead of condescendingly playing "hard mode" to come "down to their level" ) .

Hmmm... I'll have to re-read the context to figure out what the miscommunication is here.


And for most of us, when we've seen someone intentionally hamstring their character, it's not because they're a self-appointed "elite rules master" attempting to back-engineer a mistaken form of "balance", it's because they have some version of the "stormwind fallacy" in their head and think that inept character = good roleplaying.

... I'm sorry for y'all's bad luck. I've not seen things I would identify as the Stormwind Fallacy near as often as I've seen intentional handicaps. Thank you for reminding me how blessed I am in some ways.

Now, I must admit, in the interests of exploring the human psyche, I did make the inept Quertus, based in no small part on players who just didn't get it, even after years of experience. Now, I don't consider that Stormwind Fallacy worthy, as that character happens to be flawed, rather than me considering it good role-playing because it's flawed. If you disagree with my assessment, then you may suspect that my count is inaccurate.


Here is the fundamental miscommunication. In a game balanced around Spider-Man, he doesn't need Average Joe's help. He needs Captain America's help. If Average joe somehow trips over the "release Spider-Man from the otherwise inescapable death trap" lever, that's great for Joe, but that doesn't mean Average Joe has any business being on the front lines of a Spider Man adventure. You aren't making it harder for the player of Joe, but for the player of Spider-Man, who is going into fights designed around him being teamed up with Captain America or Ant Man.

edit: For that matter, if you want it to be hard mode, the correct response is not to make your character weaker in disproportion to the party, but to try and fight stronger threats with a character equally scaled to your party. Don't fight Red Skull or Whiplash, fight Ultron.

See correct use of a handicap, above. If Average Joe isn't contributing at least as much as Spider-Man, Average Joe probably has (is) too big of a handicap.


One thing which I think is pertinent to this discussion; people HATE it when players RP character weaknesses.

We had several very long threads about this a few months back (my thread "I am just doing what the dice say my character would do," and the one about the cleric with a phobia of crowds) and the general consensus was that people who pick their own RP flaws are intentionally sabotaging their team mates and thus being anti-social.

Despite the fact that the cleric with a phobia of crowds still contributes more to the party than someone playing a monk at 100% tactical efficiency, people still would prefer the latter in their group as the drawbacks are mechanical rather than narrative.

I don't agree with the sentiment, but that does appear to be how the majority of players feel.

And you suspect a similar sentiment is prevalent regarding playing statistically suboptimal characters?


Ok.

I think there is a general consensus (although by no means unanimous) that all of the T1 and T2 classes need a few nerfs and the T4-6 classes a few buffs, but I don't think it is specifically fighter players whining to nerf OP casters.

Well, sure. But it's a better talking point my way. :smallwink:


I may be a bit biased, but I seem to see more whining levied by caster players against competent "mundane" characters, talking about "Guy at the Gym fallacies" or "Guy with a pointy stick vs. someone who rewrites reality by will alone," as ruining their character concept of the all powerful caster.

I personally prefer badass normals who are significantly stronger than D&D fighters but still within the realm of possibility for a mundane character and casters who are more powerful and / or versatile than martials when they are allowed to nova but need to ration their power.
The only nerfs I want to see are those that remove the built in costs associated with spell casting (chain gating, shape-changing to gain more spells, thought bottles, nightsticks, rope trick, XP free SLAs, etc.) and a few ways to counters spells which are "no save, just lose" like shivering touch and force cage.

We're mostly on the same page here, then, I suspect.


I think one of the issues I'm having with the idea of "hard mode" is that D&D Tiers don't implement it well.

If you have a strict point buy system like GURPS, then you can say "Build a 75 point character for this campaign. If you want to play on easy mode, use 100 point, if you want to pay on hard mode, go with 50." and that way, you could balance the novice players and the veterans. But you can make up a strong or a weak fighter type or a strong or a weak caster type.

D&D makes some classes weaker, or at least much harder to make strong than others. So a new player can't really play a fighter on Easy Mode, since he will be mechanically weaker than a new player building a spellcaster.

Wanting to play a given archetype shouldn't be what determines whether or not you are playing at a disadvantage. Especially given that the theory of D&D is that a 5th level character is the same power, regardless if he's a Monk or a Bard or a Wizard.

Agreed. 3e does not implement what I want well, at all.


Because that's not solving the problem you want to solve. There is still unequal contribution. And it still portrays one player as a godly tactician and the other as an idiot. In fact, the Spiderman player probably feels even more stupid.

"Man, I can't even beat Pichu"? Yeah, I have seen that happen. But, usually, in the case of new players, IME, it makes the learning process more enjoyable, as it's not just pure losses. Similarly, in an RPG, it allows the player to contribute while they are learning. IME, in an RPG, those I have witnessed giving themselves a Hard Mode handicap have had much better luck / skill / whatever not eliciting such an undesirable response.

Still, I agree, it is what that technique's fail state looks like.


The things you are discussing cannot be fixed by rules. Those things would affect only idiots or those with incomplete knowledge. Neither of these are cured by rules.

Um, what part of my experiences are you attempting to invalidate, exactly?


I wouldn't. But my issue is not with the goal. I'm into world peace, too. But I'll take issue with someone who plans to dominate the world to make it happen.

The method being offered is to forego communication and force people to play nice. This will:
A) not work how you want.
B) will not fix the core problem, just make it look fixed.

I mean, it has worked the way I want it to many times. It has brought about much more equal narrative contribution. Maybe what I want and what you want are different, though.

So... what is the core problem, that this does not fix?


You've now declared that these people are poor decisionmakers. Making you aware of what this sentence means.

Ok. Not arguing the point.


If narrative contribution can't be measured, then how do you plan to measureably enforce it?
This doesn't pan out.

I'll need to re-read the context to determine where the disconnect lies.


Maneuvering in 0G is hard, and humans aren't known for their skill in moving in 0G. I dont see how stopping the space program is a bad thing.

Playing Chess is hard, and people aren't generally known for their chess skills. I don't see how minimizing chess play is a bad thing.

Communication is a skill as much as any other that you use in your games. You want to build people's skills but not their communication skills? In a SOCIAL game?

People in our hobby tend to communicate just fine so long as you treat them like grownups with respect and honesty. This has yet to fail me, even when dealing with players many decades my senior or junior.

Ouch. I probably deserved that burn.

I'll go home and rethink my life position.


Playing at many tables playing systems with the same problems is not a wide experience base from which to draw conclusions.
You also likely don't know for sure the motivations of another player choosing to play something that is purposefully limited. There may be 1000 reasons.

Um, I never said... oh, wait, yes, I have said that most of my groups aren't into communication. Well, good players who will take a handicap for the team, IME, even in my groups, will talk about things after the fact. So, yes, I actually can know what they did, and why. Especially if I was the one doing it. :smalltongue:


What they are saying is that this solution is flimsy at best and better dealt with by putting on big boy pants and talking. Or being helpful to the new guys. Or both.

I mean, my signature character, Quertus, for whom this account is named, was created in part for me to explore the concept I was witnessing in RPGs that, even after years of playing the game, no amount of experience, or talking, or training, seemed to make a difference with some players. They were still just as inept at playing the game as they were when they started. This idea that there were people who just never "saw the elephant" intrigued me, and I incorporated that personality aspect into the character Quertus.

IME, there are plenty of people for whom your recommended solution just doesn't work. But, sure, if you have a way to say, "dude, your tactics are terrible" or "you are a poor decision-maker" in a way that isn't offensive, I agree that it's worth a shot.

Given my luck communicating in this thread, and my lack of love for being punched in the face, perhaps I should make that my "plan b".


I don't need to turn anyone into a tactical genius. Everyone has common sense. And Intend to play games that are fiction-first, so mechanics are secondary to everything else. Makes everyone contribute pretty equally without a ton of effort.

Um... I'm not really sure that I agree that everyone has common sense.

I'm guessing they aren't my cup of tea, but can you give me a brief explanation of what "fiction-first" games are?


Play a new system, that is simple, where everyone is a noob. Done.

Although technically a valid answer to the question asked, it really deserves a burn like the one you gave me.

Given the very high correlation between systems I'm good at and a) me creating good characters, and b) me having fun, that solution is rather antithetical to many of my objectives.

"Don't play with them until they get good" would at least make sense, if inadvertently make me appear uncharacteristically snobby and anti-noob.


Probably because they know how to gently guide someone towards being good. Beating the bajeebus out of rhe noob as the weakest character doesn't make them any better. It jusy makes them mad. So does outshining them in coop with such a character.

You're painting these new and inexperienced players as cow-eyed idiots who have to bang their head into the wall until they understand, when suddenly they transform as from a coccoon into a Competent Human Being!
As opposed to them being competent human beings to begin with who are learning a new skill and don't need to be coddled or treated like a wee baby until they find their legs. They don't need to be given The God of All while everyone else plays Pauper 1 through 3. That doesn't even model how the game is SUPPOSED to go. It sets bizaare expectations. Just drop them in. Council them, encourage their learning, let them make mistakes and learn from them. This is a GAME, not life. You can skip the milk and go straight to the potatoes.

Doing otherwise smacks of disrespect, IMHO.

Where to begin? I've played with 7-year-olds. I've played with adults who were orders of magnitude less competent than said 7-year-olds - not just at the game, but, in some cases, at life in general. I've played with people who make many horror story subjects look sane and open-minded.

Of course, given the sheet number of groups I've played with, it should come as no surprise that I've seen quite a lot of "characters". :smalltongue:

Now, as I've said, in my corner of the world, when someone demonstrates a lack of skills, you play Pichu while you're training them. That's just what people do around here. It's quite a culture shock to me to try to imagine people for whom that not only isn't common courtesy, but it's actually considered rude. It's like you're telling me that, where you're from, it's considered courteous to slam the door in people's faces, especially when they have their hands full. It's so far removed from my experiences, I'm really not able to process it.


Except that for one thing, it isn't so simply linear. For another, using D&D for an example, we don't need a hardmode lesser wizard class when the wizard can just self-apply a +3 LA. I can see the point where some players may want to challenge themselves, but we don't need extra rules towards that end.

"We don't need Hard Mode, because we have Hard Mode"? Ok...


This is a largely D&D focused attitude. Most of us have had experiences with the guy whose idea of "role playing" was not being a team player, in a game that's all about working as a team towards a common goal. As it applies to this topic, it'd also apply to the guy who shows off in the sense of "I can beat you with one arm behind my back".

If all you've known are jerks who take a handicap just to show off, and not for more altruistic reasons, I am truly sorry that you don't have experiences with better people.


And as mentioned before, a JaronK T1 character can short-circuit whole plots with a single mechanical ability. Murder mysteries tend to fall apart when the investigator can read minds, and ask god a bunch of clear questions, and bring the victim back to life. Again, these all apply even if you don't necessarily have the combat strength to trivialize the assassin when you do catch him.

Capabilities define, in large part, what plots are valid. If you've got a chess board, and are complaining that it's not very good for playing Monopoly, that's on you.


Systems that are decently designed either impose weaknesses globally so that everyone is playing a character who is somehow equally damaged or provide compensation for weaknesses such that characters are at least theoretically balanced on the back end and provide proper mechanics for what common weaknesses that show up in a game actually do. This illustrates a huge key convention of TTRPGs: everyone pretends that all characters are created equal, even though this is manifestly untrue in the real world and even manifestly untrue in many fictional worlds. This is very different from the source material of many games and that creates lots of problems.

Simple example: if you're a group of characters in Middle Earth, and one of those characters is an elf and one is a human, the elf is just better at everything, by virtue of being an elf, because that's how Tolkien designed Middle Earth to be. That means, if you make a Middle Earth game you have two choices: force parties to be segregated by race to manage the power disparities, or make mechanics such that elves are no longer superior. Doing the former gives you Exalted, which has the problem that gamers have a strong tendency to only care about playing the strongest faction and also creates the problem that your single setting devolves into several different games which creates a cascade of new problems. Doing the latter means that the world your game creates isn't going to match the source material properly anymore.

This is actually one of the thornier problems of game design, because most of the narrative material that serves as inspiration for games includes wildly unequal characters (pick your comic book team of choice, it's there), but if you make a game based on such a universe the players want to be able to play all of the people in the original source material. Star Wars is a good example: in most incarnations having the Force is strictly better than not having the Force for all things, but since many of the characters in the movies don't have the Force, you have a fundamental problem. Boba Fett has to be able to fight Darth Vader in your game no matter how nonsensical it might be. This is certainly a problem D&D has possessed in spades from the beginning, 3e just made it much, much worse.

Interesting. I'm not sure if you just made everything easier or harder. When I get caught up with the thread, I guess I'll find out.


In a point buy system like Gurps where you can remake wolverines regenerative power or Magnetos ability to control metal the GM must be explicit in what is allowed or not. If you are playing four color supers with 1000 points then you can literally make a character that can kill all life on earth with a thought....except all the other supers. But when you are playing something more mundane then super powers are off limits. A player can take all the 200 points in a game where you are playing competent heroes and put it all into sword skill and show up a character who's completely normal except he has 60 in sword skill and doesn't know anything else. Of course that's not going to save him when somebody shoots him in the back with a crossbow but the player isn't at fault if the GM imposes no restrictions.

Gurps even states what power is superpowers, paranormal, mundane and what skills are cinematic or not. In Gurps your ability to show up with a ridiculous build hinges on your GM's incompetence to run the game, impose limits or familiarize himself with the system. If you show up in a 1930s pulp game in the spirit of Indiana Jones with a character who can regenerate like Wolverine and control metal like Magneto then either you or the GM have done something wrong.

Agreed. Out of curiosity, would Wolvernito, built off the correct number of points, be balanced despite being completely out of sync with the feel / theme of the world?


You know the whole "role-playing doesn't stop when combat starts" thing? Suddenly it does, because the computer does not care for any impassioned speeches. I suppose eventually we, as humanity, could program one that does, but that should probably come after the computer that cures cancer. Also you can do "flavour text" level role-play still, but a lot of the more improvisational and often more meaningful options get closed off.

I mean, I could have Quertus cast spells seemingly at random (or just sit there reading a book) during the computerized portion of the game. I could roleplay a vindictive character attacking whoever hit him instead of who it is tactically optimal to attack. Etc etc. I don't see why role-playing world need to stop. Being in real time, it would just be harder to pull off and harder to perceive.

[Vitruviansquid]

I think everybody knew this was going to be the Fight Quertus thread from page one.

But man, we have really reached peak Fight Quertus.

[Nifft]

We will never have "a perfect game" because your idea of a perfect game is not my idea of a perfect game.

*uses mind seed power*

Therefore we will have a perfect game when my taste and values have over-written your own.

[Mechalich]

I think everybody knew this was going to be the Fight Quertus thread from page one.

But man, we have really reached peak Fight Quertus.

I think it's the reverse, we've reached peak Quertus Fights Everyone, since their most recent post involves attempting to rebut a whole number of responses that weren't even directed at them at all.

[Lord Raziere]

I think it's the reverse, we've reached peak Quertus Fights Everyone, since their most recent post involves attempting to rebut a whole number of responses that weren't even directed at them at all.

Sigh, now just its being tiring since his post is so long, and he seems to think that we're all unlucky people who has had bad experiences, because clearly we don't have our own experiences about what works and what doesn't. and just because you've had what he considers better experiences and assume that we've had worse doesn't make his view more valid than ours.

I'm not even going to bother to answer him in detail, and just say "your experiences are not representative of gamers and roleplayers as a whole." because ones persons experiences generally isn't representative of the whole in most situations in life in general.

also the 7 year old worse many roleplayer thing? yeah ok Quertus your real tough and full of tolerance for nonsense, good for you, I don't care.

[Max_Killjoy]

Responding to days worth of discussion in a single massive response just makes it harder for people to bother responding in turn.

[georgie_leech]

I'm baffled at how much pushback I'm getting on the concept, "don't overshadow the other players".

Are people in my corner of the world an outlier, in willingly taking Pichu when playing with (or against) a new SSB player? Is such common courtesy not the norm? I mean, it's not universal in my experience, but choosing not to take a handicap, and instead just overshadowing the other players is notable for being the exception here. It's more common here, IME, for someone to take a handicap, even in an RPG, than to overshadow the other players. If others have not experienced that, then I'm glad I live where I do.


Just to address this for a moment, this is a mischaracterization of what we're saying. We're arguing that a good fighting game (in this analogy) shouldn't be designed with something as far in the other direction as Pichu is handicapped. You can give yourself a handicap by just not playing to your potential, or taking deliberately suboptimal choices and trying to make the most of them. Play Metaknight without ever pressing the A button, or a Mage that constantly loses their spellbook because they're not careful enough about protecting it. Don't have a game that pretends that Pichu and Metaknight++ are meant to be balanced choices.

[Lord Raziere]

that and smash bros already HAS handicaps built in, in the options menu where you increasing your starting damage, clearly labeled "handicap". that and Pichu was discarded as an actual character, Brawl and 3ds don't have Pichu as a playable character anymore so clearly they didn't want a hard mode pikachu, and thus not the game's intent.

archetypes such as classes are not meant to be used for general difficulty of play, but the style of which you play. All styles of play are equally valid, regardless of difficulty. preferring melee over ranged combat, is not a handicap. preferring fight your enemies head on rather than use traps and tactics, is not a handicap. a player should not be accused of playing badly or on hard mode just because they want to play a knight without any magic whatsoever. making archetypes indications of difficulty just creates tactical bias and discourages people from playing one archetype for another, cutting lots of potential, while ignoring that some players do not want the game to be harder just because of the style of which they play it in. that is why many videogames have classes and difficulty settings as two completely different things. like dragon age, where you have three classes, Rogue, Warrior and Mage- but you also have the difficulty setting of what you play the game with, which is different from those classes.

Thus we must call this misconception Style/Difficulty Confusion:
The tendency for someone to confuse a certain style of play with it being the intended easy or hard mode of the game.

[Vitruviansquid]

Don't have a game that pretends that Pichu and Metaknight++ are meant to be balanced choices.

I think this bears repeating.

Pichu is a low tier character because it's really just an unevolved, baby pikachu, so it makes sense.
Dan in Street Fighter is a low tier character because he's a goofy idiot in a pink karate outfit, so that makes sense.

If you wanted to convince me the D&D fighter is supposed to be a joke character, you'd have a pretty hard time given the way he's presented in the materials.

[Quertus]

Don't have a game that pretends that Pichu and Metaknight++ are meant to be balanced choices.

Agreed completely. I want everything not explicitly labeled otherwise to actually be approximately balanced.


that and smash bros already HAS handicaps built in, in the options menu where you increasing your starting damage, clearly labeled "handicap". that and Pichu was discarded as an actual character, Brawl and 3ds don't have Pichu as a playable character anymore so clearly they didn't want a hard mode pikachu, and thus not the game's intent.

Shows how little I know about SSB. :smallredface:


archetypes such as classes are not meant to be used for general difficulty of play, but the style of which you play. All styles of play are equally valid, regardless of difficulty. preferring melee over ranged combat, is not a handicap. preferring fight your enemies head on rather than use traps and tactics, is not a handicap. a player should not be accused of playing badly or on hard mode just because they want to play a knight without any magic whatsoever. making archetypes indications of difficulty just creates tactical bias and discourages people from playing one archetype for another, cutting lots of potential, while ignoring that some players do not want the game to be harder just because of the style of which they play it in. that is why many videogames have classes and difficulty settings as two completely different things. like dragon age, where you have three classes, Rogue, Warrior and Mage- but you also have the difficulty setting of what you play the game with, which is different from those classes.

Agreed completely. I want every archetype represented by a balanced playable character. I don't like didn't balance points with style of play determining your balance point. ok, I'm actually fine with the idea of fighters being stronger than wizards in D&D, but in general I prefer an equal balance point

Now, I have a hard time imagining, say, a videogame focused around buying gear, where a character who chooses not to buy any gear would be a balanced choice, rather than a self-inflicted handicap, but otherwise, I agree.


Thus we must call this misconception Style/Difficulty Confusion:
The tendency for someone to confuse a certain style of play with it being the intended easy or hard mode of the game.

Well, that's not what I'm talking about, so I'm not sure who is confused here. I'm contending 1) that having all archetypes represented by approximately balanced characters / having all normally creatable characters be approximately balanced is a good thing; 2) that said balance point should be power + versatility (which, contrary to the thread's title, apparently isn't the definition of Tier 1); 3) that there should also exist a way (duplicates of a few archetypes, other exalts, lower point buy, whatever) for a more experienced or otherwise overshadowing player to give themselves a handicap.

Now, as a related aside, I'm not sure that any 3e characters outside tier 1 can contribute at the level I am talking about. Fantasy - D&D - has so much potential. But how many characters can contribute to closing an underwater extradimensional portal guarded by invisible, incorporeal creatures? I'm not sure that I want "fixed" tier 1 - and I'm sure I don't want "unfixed" tier 1 - but I'm not sure how far down the tier tree you can go, and still have the reasonable expectation of contribution to the vast variety of scenarios imaginable.

[Max_Killjoy]

Well, that's not what I'm talking about, so I'm not sure who is confused here. I'm contending 1) that having all archetypes represented by approximately balanced characters / having all normally creatable characters be approximately balanced is a good thing; 2) that said balance point should be power + versatility (which, contrary to the thread's title, apparently isn't the definition of Tier 1); 3) that there should also exist a way (duplicates of a few archetypes, other exalts, lower point buy, whatever) for a more experienced or otherwise overshadowing player to give themselves a handicap.


Don't address mismatches in player "ability" or "personality" by dragging the "good" players down.

Address them by lifting the "lesser" players up.

(Scare quotes used intentionally, as I don't like a lot of the baggage or assumptions that might be attached to those terms.)

[Koo Rehtorb]

Address them by lifting the "lesser" players up.

I don't have overly much sympathy for Quertus' point, as I think the problem he is describing is only applicable in certain systems and under certain circumstances.

But this isn't always possible or desirable. In games like D&D 3.5 player skill is a real thing. Someone who's been playing Pathfinder for ten years is going to have a vast tactical advantage over a new player that will take a long time to make up for. You can compensate somewhat by helping them with builds and telling them what to do in fights. But that isn't always desirable. For some players being guided and told how to play is obnoxious. In those cases there is some value in more experienced players playing weaker characters to make contributions roughly equal.

I don't think this is a particularly useful insight that deserves 21 pages to discuss, though. Nor is it something that needs to be built into even that small subset of games where player skill is important enough to the game that it would allow some players to overshadow other players. Weak classes don't need to exist, people already have the ability to self-nerf to whatever degree they feel necessary through a great many different available options.

[Max_Killjoy]

I don't have overly much sympathy for Quertus' point, as I think the problem he is describing is only applicable in certain systems and under certain circumstances.

But this isn't always possible or desirable. In games like D&D 3.5 player skill is a real thing. Someone who's been playing Pathfinder for ten years is going to have a vast tactical advantage over a new player that will take a long time to make up for. You can compensate somewhat by helping them with builds and telling them what to do in fights. But that isn't always desirable. For some players being guided and told how to play is obnoxious. In those cases there is some value in more experienced players playing weaker characters to make contributions roughly equal.

I don't think this is a particularly useful insight that deserves 21 pages to discuss, though. Nor is it something that needs to be built into even that small subset of games where player skill is important enough to the game that it would allow some players to overshadow other players. Weak classes don't need to exist, people already have the ability to self-nerf to whatever degree they feel necessary through a great many different available options.

Valid points.

The "better" player can always be patient, and hold themselves back a bit in key moments where the other PCs could shine.

And I'd add that if someone simply cannot do that of their own volition, and has to have a special "handicap" character build in order to restrain them... maybe they're not the "elite gamer" they claim to be. But then, I do tend to take a broader view of what makes a "great gamer" than simply their ability to maximize the mechanical outputs of a character during play.

[Quertus]

Don't address mismatches in player "ability" or "personality" by dragging the "good" players down.

Address them by lifting the "lesser" players up.

(Scare quotes used intentionally, as I don't like a lot of the baggage or assumptions that might be attached to those terms.)


I don't have overly much sympathy for Quertus' point, as I think the problem he is describing is only applicable in certain systems and under certain circumstances.

But this isn't always possible or desirable. In games like D&D 3.5 player skill is a real thing. Someone who's been playing Pathfinder for ten years is going to have a vast tactical advantage over a new player that will take a long time to make up for. You can compensate somewhat by helping them with builds and telling them what to do in fights. But that isn't always desirable. For some players being guided and told how to play is obnoxious. In those cases there is some value in more experienced players playing weaker characters to make contributions roughly equal.

I don't think this is a particularly useful insight that deserves 21 pages to discuss, though. Nor is it something that needs to be built into even that small subset of games where player skill is important enough to the game that it would allow some players to overshadow other players. Weak classes don't need to exist, people already have the ability to self-nerf to whatever degree they feel necessary through a great many different available options.

What are "scare quotes"?

I agree that, when the players are amenable and capable, improving player skills is preferable. But, yes, this isn't always possible, and, even when it is, until training is successful, there is a period of overshadowing.

Now, I can't guarantee that I have the character creation skills to self nerf successfully in every system I could potentially overshadow other players in, but, even if I did, I'd prefer bad options to be obvious, over trap options prevalent in some systems, like 3e D&D.

[georgie_leech]

What are "scare quotes"?


https://media.giphy.com/media/ARb77MvJVd7Uc/giphy.gif

[ImNotTrevor]

What are "scare quotes"?

I agree that, when the players are amenable and capable, improving player skills is preferable. But, yes, this isn't always possible, and, even when it is, until training is successful, there is a period of overshadowing.

Now, I can't guarantee that I have the character creation skills to self nerf successfully in every system I could potentially overshadow other players in, but, even if I did, I'd prefer bad options to be obvious, over trap options prevalent in some systems, like 3e D&D.

The problem is the bad options being available at all, not their being unlabeled.

It's not exactly a good thing when a system has essentially univerally bad choices in it.

[Quertus]

Valid points.

The "better" player can always be patient, and hold themselves back a bit in key moments where the other PCs could shine.

And I'd add that if someone simply cannot do that of their own volition, and has to have a special "handicap" character build in order to restrain them... maybe they're not the "elite gamer" they claim to be. But then, I do tend to take a broader view of what makes a "great gamer" than simply their ability to maximize the mechanical outputs of a character during play.

See, this behavior usually causes problems, IME. Where I come from, "I could have done something, but I didn't, because, otherwise, wouldn't have contributed" is (generally) consisted very rude and insulting, whereas taking a handicap up front is considered polite. Different cultures, I suppose.

[ImNotTrevor]

See, this behavior usually causes problems, IME. Where I come from, "I could have done something, but I didn't, because, otherwise, wouldn't have contributed" is (generally) consisted very rude and insulting, whereas taking a handicap up front is considered polite. Different cultures, I suppose.

This is handled by stating upfront that you are doing it.

(And, obviously, by "it" I mean purposefully letting someone else handle something.)

It can range from the outright obvious of "I'm going to let Player X handle this since I've been doing too much this session" to the more subtle "I'm sure Player X has this covered."

[goto124]

The regular classes of the game system has to be balanced before thinking about handicaps, though.

How do systems intentionally designed to have very unbalanced classes ensure that every player gets to shine?

[Mechalich]

The regular classes of the game system has to be balanced before thinking about handicaps, though.

How do systems intentionally designed to have very unbalanced classes ensure that every player gets to shine?

Relatively few systems are intentionally designed to have unbalanced classes - I think that's pretty much limited to RIFTS and its associated games - because this is such a known problem. Unbalanced classes (or builds in a point buy system with variable powers) are more like to arise because the designers failed to properly consider how certain capabilities play out mechanically or as an emergent property of the game as additional materials are published or rules are revised. In any case, when this does happen the solution tends to be niche protection, with different classes dominating in different situations and it falling to the GM to make sure the game cycles through those situations with at least some regularity. It is also a common practice for GMs to impose house rules that prohibit certain overpowered capabilities from ever actually being played because they are cumbersome at tabletop. Minionmancy, for example, is incredibly powerful in numerous systems, ranging from summoning hordes to simply having the entire NYPD on your payroll, but it tends to be looked upon with disfavor because it does horrible things to the action economy and floods the game with mooks that clutter everything up.

[Lord Raziere]

3) that there should also exist a way (duplicates of a few archetypes, other exalts, lower point buy, whatever) for a more experienced or otherwise overshadowing player to give themselves a handicap.

Now, as a related aside, I'm not sure that any 3e characters outside tier 1 can contribute at the level I am talking about. Fantasy - D&D - has so much potential. But how many characters can contribute to closing an underwater extradimensional portal guarded by invisible, incorporeal creatures? I'm not sure that I want "fixed" tier 1 - and I'm sure I don't want "unfixed" tier 1 - but I'm not sure how far down the tier tree you can go, and still have the reasonable expectation of contribution to the vast variety of scenarios imaginable.

These are where we break down.

1. see, in the roleplays I've done, there was never a worry about this "handicap/player talent problem." The people I've played with just don't seem to care about you seem to care about. and the people I've talked to in other systems, they don't seem to care either. You'll never find someone in Exalted saying "I'm too good, let me play a Dragon-Blooded in a party of Solars." you'll never hear that. nor will you ever hear someone wanting to play something less powerful in a Mage game, because the Mage is too powerful in their hands. I've never heard anyone in those kinds of RPGs say that. when you hear someone want to play a Dragon-Blooded, its for the sake of being a Dragon-Blooded. As in the actual in setting thing of nobility and culture and whatnot and so on.

Nor have I heard any Fate players go "I'm too good, can you knock off my highest skill or cut off some of my fate points?" Nor have I heard any of this "I'm too good, can I have a handicap?" sentiment you speak of in freeform roleplaying. Which is strange, because someone in freeform roleplaying should be the most vulnerable to the talent outshining people that your claiming. The only time I've seen anything like this is is when someone just starting out roleplaying feels less able to roleplay compared to everyone else around them- and then its more of the weaker players problem to deal with at their own pace and its just a matter of them getting used to it and working on it themselves, there is no rush to improve the roleplaying as long as they mean well.

2. see, the portal example? thats not a scenario, thats just ridiculous. keep the portal part, and the creatures and you have a good scenario to start. maybe underwater if your group is okay with that- but underwater adventures? not popular for a reason. underwater screws with combat both in real life and in game so much that its just not worth it, especially since most people consider underwater anything boring. to be fair- I have hard time coming up with any adventure that takes place underwater very well.

now invisible and incorporeal being added onto that, gets into "DnD Mashup Nonsense That Nobody Else In The World Even Thinks About Or Bothers With." I've checked- there is no RPG other than DnD that can make that scenario or even cares about that scenario, and I don't really care about it either. I mean its so highly specific and sounding like some mashup nonsense scenario that some fresh out of the academy commander would come up with for his troops, but then a more experienced commander would slap upside the head and say "boy, our troops don't even go underwater, both on our side and the enemies, and most of us don't even have magic! we don't have the resources to be considering such abnormal obscure scenarios! its the likeliest scenarios that matter, which is facing armies with spears and cavalry on land and archers firing arrows at the back." its like a general being worried about their troops being able to do underwater basketweaving, its so outside the normal parameters of combat and the troops are expected to do, that the question is not "can troops actually do this?" and more like "why is this general thinking about this situation at all?" what meaning does the scenario even have? because it doesn't have meaning to any of the adventures I can think of.

I mean, its not even doing ridiculous mashup right- doing it right is just making a bunch of cyborg ninja-pirates attack you while on the ocean to get your gold so they can keep up their cybernetics maintenance costs, while they draw their chainsaw ninjatos, leap onto your ship and go
"Yaaaaaaar, we be assassinating ye and stealin' all yer gold because its our Ninja Way, meatbag landlubber!"
and then you fight and its awesome.

[RazorChain]

Agreed. Out of curiosity, would Wolvernito, built off the correct number of points, be balanced despite being completely out of sync with the feel / theme of the world?


Well the amount of points to build Wolvernito would allow the other players to show up with Batman or an equivalent "super normal" if they got the same amount of points.

In many Gurps games where you play competent heroes you'll get around 150-200 points, being unkillable costs 100 points but is a supernatural ability for example. But if the players get access to whatever they want in Gurps they might just buy themselves enough Damage Resistance that no conventional weapons can hurt them or a blasting power that will incinerate all normal people (and heroes). Gurps is balanced in the sense that when you are unkillable or you can still be knocked unconscious, captured, locked up in a stainless steel coffin and thrown into the ocean. You show up with massive damage resistance and somebody will grapple you and suffocate you. A blasting power that no one can withstand isn't going to save you when somebody sneaks behind you and bashes your brains out.

I once played a supers game where one player showed up with a character was nigh unkillable in any sense. He took vacuum support so he didn't have to breathe and could withstand no pressure. He took unaging so he wouldn't die of old age and couldn't be aged. He was immune to all types of energy, thermal, kinetic, radiation you name it and to top it all he had teleportation so he could escape captivity. But he was just a normal human with 10 (which is average human) in all stats and virtually no skills. His weakness was psychic attacks and mind control (but nobody cared because he couldn't do anything useful in fights anyway) We used him as a decoy for the bad guys to focus their attacks and the Strong Guy sometimes grabbed him and threw him at our enemies.

So in a sense Gurps balances itself out but like all system you can create a combat monster that overshadows the other players in a fight. Or you can do something like take a lifebane power that only does couple of points in damage but has a large enough radius to cover a whole continent and then you destroy all small insect life, small plants and bacteria on the continent and move to the other continents until you've killed them all off and destroyed the ecosystem of the planet. Then you laugh like an idiot because the GM didn't know what you were going to do with that power that only did couple of points of damage and you have destroyed the game for the rest of the group.

[Earthwalker]

To put it mathematically, I think what Quertus is trying to say is:
Total Character Effectiveness = Player Effectiveness * Character Mechanical Effectiveness.
Since Player Effectiveness varies, a possible way to keep Total Character Effectiveness roughly the same is to have the players with higher Player Effectiveness play characters with lower Character Mechanical Effectiveness.
20PE * 5CME = 100TCE
10 PE * 10 CME = 100 TCE
5 PE * 20 CME = 100 TCE



Perhaps not that exact formula, but yes, that's exactly the concept, the feel, that I'm trying to get across.


I have to say I am enjoying reading this thread. I wanted to point out something with this basic approach. While it solves one problem it will raise so many others. It will fall foul of one truism, stupid people don’t know their stupid.

If you try to codify “hard mode” into your game for expert players. A load of none expert players are going to play this “hard mode” because of course they are expert players. Trying to explain to them that while they have being playing for years they are still as dumb as a stop sign* is just going to cause more trouble.

So one question to ask is, does this cause more problems than it solves ?

* It was phrase like that for the sake of humour, of course you can phrase it better, not to cause offence to stop signs**

** some of my best friends are stop signs… “No you Stop”

[Quertus]

The regular classes of the game system has to be balanced before thinking about handicaps, though.

How do systems intentionally designed to have very unbalanced classes ensure that every player gets to shine?

I'm contending that, if you take an obviously labeled handicap, and fail to participate, that's on you. That's not the system's responsibility, nor the GM's. That's on the player.


If you try to codify “hard mode” into your game for expert players. A load of none expert players are going to play this “hard mode” because of course they are expert players. Trying to explain to them that while they have being playing for years they are still as dumb as a stop sign* is just going to cause more trouble.

So one question to ask is, does this cause more problems than it solves ?

See above. No problems caused. They will either explain it to themselves, or reveal themselves to be a Beholder in disguise. Either way, it's a win.

In case that wasn't clear, if I take a 20-point handicap in golf, and you beat me by 10 points, if I don't see that something's wrong, that's on me. (or, you know, adjust those numbers to whatever makes sense for golf)

Now, one thing I think would make this less of a problem is taking a page from MtG, or videogames, or sports, or really just about anything other than role-playing: make power gaming a virtue. If your baseline mindset is "try to do well", you don't have to worry so much about people being gung ho to handicap themselves, at least until they get that there is more to the game than winning. (Change the wording to match whatever activity you're in)


These are where we break down.

1. see, in the roleplays I've done, there was never a worry about this "handicap/player talent problem." The people I've played with just don't seem to care about you seem to care about. and the people I've talked to in other systems, they don't seem to care either. You'll never find someone in Exalted saying "I'm too good, let me play a Dragon-Blooded in a party of Solars." you'll never hear that. nor will you ever hear someone wanting to play something less powerful in a Mage game, because the Mage is too powerful in their hands. I've never heard anyone in those kinds of RPGs say that. when you hear someone want to play a Dragon-Blooded, its for the sake of being a Dragon-Blooded. As in the actual in setting thing of nobility and culture and whatnot and so on.

Point. That was a bad example. That's those players' good for carrying about the "feel", the fluff, the character of the different types of characters.

I'm not sure how well a "lesser solar" or "lesser euthanatos" would work in those systems, but that's the kind of thing that would be required to actually meet my criteria. Well, that, and for all the base exalts to be balanced.


Nor have I heard any Fate players go "I'm too good, can you knock off my highest skill or cut off some of my fate points?" Nor have I heard any of this "I'm too good, can I have a handicap?" sentiment you speak of in freeform roleplaying. Which is strange, because someone in freeform roleplaying should be the most vulnerable to the talent outshining people that your claiming. The only time I've seen anything like this is is when someone just starting out roleplaying feels less able to roleplay compared to everyone else around them- and then its more of the weaker players problem to deal with at their own pace and its just a matter of them getting used to it and working on it themselves, there is no rush to improve the roleplaying as long as they mean well.

... I'm struggling to remember a system where ability to correctly roleplay your character's personality translates directly into narrative contribution.


now invisible and incorporeal being added onto that, gets into "DnD Mashup Nonsense That Nobody Else In The World Even Thinks About Or Bothers With." I've checked- there is no RPG other than DnD that can make that scenario or even cares about that scenario,

Check harder. Off the top of my head, I can recreate that scenario in D&D, World of Darkness, Heroes/Champions, Mutants and Masterminds, many Marvel systems, somewhat in older versions of Shadowrun, and I'd be shocked if you couldn't make it in GURPS. I don't actually know Rifts or Fate well enough to know either way. I expect Exalted could pull it off, if a fey decided it was a narrative imperative. EDIT: oh, and Warhammer Fantasy.

That having been said, I'm of the opinion "can't pull off genre-appropriate scenario" to be a failure of the system. So, IMO, any games that can't actually pull that off had better have a valid in game reason why that's so. Shadowrun doesn't have teleport or other dimensional shenanigans, so it gets a pass if it can't have a portal to "the place you summon spirits from" if there is no such place, separate from the rest of reality.


I have to say I am enjoying reading this thread.

Of this I am glad.

[Lord Raziere]

Now, one thing I think would make this less of a problem is taking a page from MtG, or videogames, or sports, or really just about anything other than role-playing: make power gaming a virtue. If your baseline mindset is "try to do well", you don't have to worry so much about people being gung ho to handicap themselves, at least until they get that there is more to the game than winning. (Change the wording to match whatever activity you're in)


HELL NO.

HELL

FREAKING.

NO.

Screw that, double screw that, double dog screw that, "I don't want to yet again feel as if I'm an incompetent mechanics player and have to deal with the mechanics SCREWING OVER MY CHARACTER CONCEPT BECAUSE SOME JERK WANTS POWER OVER FLAVOR AND TO FEEL BETTER THAN ME JUST BECAUSE THEY CAN MANIPULATE THE STUPID MEANINGLESS NUMBERS BETTER THAN ME AND MAKE CHARACTER CREATION PLAYING ALL THIS INTO A STUPID PUZZLE THAT I DON'T HAVE TIME TO FIGURE OUT WHEN I COULD BE ROLEPLAYING." screw that!!

JUST.

NO.

JUST.

NO.

ALL MY NO.

PUT ALL THE NOS EVER NO'D INTO AN INFINITE NO BASKET AND SEND IT TO NO LAND!

I JUST WANT TO PLAY MY CHARACTERS AND BE EFFECTIVE WITHOUT GOING THROUGH A STUPID NUMBER PUZZLE THAT I DON'T CARE ABOUT AND TELL MY CHARACTERS STORY, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK!?

I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH.

NO. NO. NO!!!!!! :smallfurious:


Point. That was a bad example. That's those players' good for carrying about the "feel", the fluff, the character of the different types of characters.

I'm not sure how well a "lesser solar" or "lesser euthanatos" would work in those systems, but that's the kind of thing that would be required to actually meet my criteria. Well, that, and for all the base exalts to be balanced.

Too bad! Exalted developers? Don't care about what you want, they didn't care about what I want, deal with it!


... I'm struggling to remember a system where ability to correctly roleplay your character's personality translates directly into narrative contribution.

Then you know nothing about how I roleplay. In my experience, personality is everything and informs everything about a characters methods, their ways of thinking, their ability to effective in the situations they find themselves in. Personality is the heart and soul of a character, because it shows there is more to them than how they are useful or not useful.



Check harder. Off the top of my head, I can recreate that scenario in D&D, World of Darkness, Heroes/Champions, Mutants and Masterminds, many Marvel systems, somewhat in older versions of Shadowrun, and I'd be shocked if you couldn't make it in GURPS. I don't actually know Rifts or Fate well enough to know either way. I expect Exalted could pull it off, if a fey decided it was a narrative imperative. EDIT: oh, and Warhammer Fantasy.

That having been said, I'm of the opinion "can't pull off genre-appropriate scenario" to be a failure of the system. So, IMO, any games that can't actually pull that off had better have a valid in game reason why that's so. Shadowrun doesn't have teleport or other dimensional shenanigans, so it gets a pass if it can't have a portal to "the place you summon spirits from" if there is no such place, separate from the rest of reality.


I don't care anymore. If I want to make that scenario happen, I would not look into a system and start calculating, I would just imagine it, make it HAPPEN without the stupid system number puzzle middleman AND PLAY IT OUT WITHOUT NEEDING FOR SOME COMPLEX NONSENSE I DON'T CARE ABOUT!

I don't care what possibilities you have made from your number puzzles that you have figured out and finagled from the systems you list. What I care about is playing my character concept, and if a system arbitrarily designates some other concept better because of some numbers game I don't want to play, Screw. That. System. My character concept comes first, system last. Powergaming only gets in the way of that.

I get enough the competitive, optimization focused mindset from everything else you listed. I'll never accept it for roleplaying. :smallannoyed:

[goto124]

Does Lord Raziere have a Weapon of Legacy?

[Lord Raziere]

Does Lord Raziere have a Weapon of Legacy?

No but I have taken many feats in "Anime Rage Nerd." and one in "Karkatian Shouting.". Such rage is older than mere Greenhilt.

[RazorChain]

See above. No problems caused. They will either explain it to themselves, or reveal themselves to be a Beholder in disguise. Either way, it's a win.

In case that wasn't clear, if I take a 20-point handicap in golf, and you beat me by 10 points, if I don't see that something's wrong, that's on me. (or, you know, adjust those numbers to whatever makes sense for golf)

Now, one thing I think would make this less of a problem is taking a page from MtG, or videogames, or sports, or really just about anything other than role-playing: make power gaming a virtue. If your baseline mindset is "try to do well", you don't have to worry so much about people being gung ho to handicap themselves, at least until they get that there is more to the game than winning. (Change the wording to match whatever activity you're in)

See here you are trying to make roleplaying a competitive sport. I think this has been discussed to death but there is no winning in roleplaying games, the GM is not an adversary (and if he was then your character would be dead). The only time you can show your awesomeness is when you show up with a munchkin character at Adventure League or Pathfinder Society and most likely ruin the fun for everybody else. Most roleplayers understand from the start that roleplaying isn't about winning but cooperation and having fun.





... I'm struggling to remember a system where ability to correctly roleplay your character's personality translates directly into narrative contribution.

Wait? What? Are you a roleplayer? First the only person who knows how to roleplay your character's personality is you, so CORRECTLY is highly subjective here. So let's correct this sentence:



I'm struggling to remember a system where ability to roleplay your character's personality translates directly into narrative contribution.

This is kind of the heart of roleplaying, making decisions based on your character's personality. If I'm playing a callous character then I will make hard choices that I would never do in real life. If I'm playing a greedy character then I can be tempted by money. If I'm playing a honorable character then I might choose to die rather than suffer dishonor. This translates directly to the narrative contribution.

Let's take an example. In Warhammer Fantasy campaign I was playing Max, a stout Ulrican and Ulric is all about valor and bravery. The party had failed to stop a blood dragon vampire lord from rising again in a small hamlet. The group decided to leg it because we had fought one vampire already and that almost resulted in TPK and that was considered a weak vampire. My character refused to leave the people of the hamlet to their fate, stating that Ulricans don't run like cowards. One in the group said told Max that he was making a big mistake and Max retorted that the best teacher is a mistake that you survive. Then he strode out of the hamlet and challenged the approaching Vampire lord to a duel on the bridge leading to the hamlet.

If I hadn't been playing an insanely brave Ulrican I would have legged it with the party as it was the most logical thing to do. So in this case and myriad of other cases your character's personality influences the choices you make for your character and therefore translates into the narrative.

My group still remembers that insane Ulrican that, because of his convictions, went to face a blood dragon vampire lord on his own. They also remember that the fight was a slaughter because I rolled that one in a million critical hit and beheaded the vampire lord with my first blow. Max isn't only remembered by my group, he's a legend for all the insane stuff he pulled off, and that is all because of the choices I made for that character based on his personality.




Check harder. Off the top of my head, I can recreate that scenario in D&D, World of Darkness, Heroes/Champions, Mutants and Masterminds, many Marvel systems, somewhat in older versions of Shadowrun, and I'd be shocked if you couldn't make it in GURPS. I don't actually know Rifts or Fate well enough to know either way. I expect Exalted could pull it off, if a fey decided it was a narrative imperative. EDIT: oh, and Warhammer Fantasy.

That having been said, I'm of the opinion "can't pull off genre-appropriate scenario" to be a failure of the system. So, IMO, any games that can't actually pull that off had better have a valid in game reason why that's so. Shadowrun doesn't have teleport or other dimensional shenanigans, so it gets a pass if it can't have a portal to "the place you summon spirits from" if there is no such place, separate from the rest of reality.

This scenario isn't genre appropriate to to anything but the superhero genre. Warhammer Fantasy and WoD...I don't know what incorporeal, invisible being should invade through a underwater portal.

Yes you can recreate that scenario in a lot of systems but then again I can make a scenario where you are stopping deep lava translucent vampires from invading earth from the 5th dimension and you have to travel to the core of the Earth and fight them in their headquarters which are made from pure magma....yep..I said MAGMA...rolls of the tongue doesn't it. So not only you have to withstand the pressure but the scolding heat as well, sound like a job for the super wizard and the fighter gets left behind. It's just that this scenario doesn't interest most people, it has nothing to do with the systems ability to pull off the scenario.

[Quertus]

Then you know nothing about how I roleplay. In my experience, personality is everything and informs everything about a characters methods, their ways of thinking, their ability to effective in the situations they find themselves in. Personality is the heart and soul of a character, because it shows there is more to them than how they are useful or not useful.

Hmmm... I play Quertus, the tactically inept academia mage, as my signature character. I suspect we're closer than you think.

I believe most would agree, if I instead played him as The Determinator, paragon of perfect tactical decision making, he'd be more effective, and have more influence over the flow of the narrative.

But I don't want that.

I want the story to go however it is realistic for it to go when my character makes the decisions he makes, based on his personality, world view, biases, etc.

I'd much rather, narratively speaking, go a shorter distance in the right direction.

So why am I talking about attempting to maximize the distance of the vector, if that seems so antithetical to my stance? Well, there's a lot of reasons.

But let's start with, I'm talking about it as a starting point. As my sensei said, a black belt simply means that you are ready to learn. Once you understand the rules of the game, and how to think effectively, then you are ready for more advanced concepts, like how to think like your character, or how to factor in the fun of others with a handicap or via other techniques. Once you understand the game, you are better equipped to evaluate the effect on the game of making such changes.

Whereas, if not only what you start with, but all you care about, is personality, you are, by definition, That Guy.

I'm pretty sure conventional wisdom says, don't be That Guy.

[RazorChain]

Hmmm... I play Quertus, the tactically inept academia mage, as my signature character. I suspect we're closer than you think.

I believe most would agree, if I instead played him as The Determinator, paragon of perfect tactical decision making, he'd be more effective, and have more influence over the flow of the narrative.

But I don't want that.

I want the story to go however it is realistic for it to go when my character makes the decisions he makes, based on his personality, world view, biases, etc.

I'd much rather, narratively speaking, go a shorter distance in the right direction.

So why am I talking about attempting to maximize the distance of the vector, if that seems so antithetical to my stance? Well, there's a lot of reasons.

You playing tactically inept is your character and his way of influencing the narrative. The narrative doesn't have a goal, it doesn't care what direction it goes so there is no right direction or a wrong one, there isn't any distance either. The GM may have a goal, your character may have a goal, you as a player may have a goal but the narrative most certainly doesn't have one.


But let's start with, I'm talking about it as a starting point. As my sensei said, a black belt simply means that you are ready to learn.

Not to be disrespectful to your sensei but I would ask my sensei what the heck I had been doing until that point.



Once you understand the rules of the game, and how to think effectively, then you are ready for more advanced concepts, like how to think like your character, or how to factor in the fun of others with a handicap or via other techniques. Once you understand the game, you are better equipped to evaluate the effect on the game of making such changes.

Whereas, if not only what you start with, but all you care about, is personality, you are, by definition, That Guy.

I'm pretty sure conventional wisdom says, don't be That Guy.

Roleplaying has NOTHING to do with the system rules. I can roleplay and do roleplay with me wife...I'm the plumber and she's....well let's keep that private shall we. I can roleplay with my kids without any system. Often when children are playing they are roleplaying, they take on a role of a character, an action figure or pretend they are mom taking care of a baby doll. Roleplaying is taking the role of something you aren't and requires no system knowledge what so ever! I've done a lot of amateur acting and theater sports and there you invent personalities and act like them, I didn't have to learn any gaming system to do so. I would say that thinking like your character has nothing....NOTHING, I cannot stress this enough but it has nothing to do with making a personality for your character and setting yourself in that characters footsteps. Most people learn this partly instinctively it's called to empathize, to relate or putting yourself in other people shoes.

System knowledge is the Gaming aspect. When you realize that your character doesn't know the system then you are ready to learn, young padawan.

[Mike_G]

HELL NO.

HELL

FREAKING.

NO.

Screw that, double screw that, double dog screw that, "I don't want to yet again feel as if I'm an incompetent mechanics player and have to deal with the mechanics SCREWING OVER MY CHARACTER CONCEPT BECAUSE SOME JERK WANTS POWER OVER FLAVOR AND TO FEEL BETTER THAN ME JUST BECAUSE THEY CAN MANIPULATE THE STUPID MEANINGLESS NUMBERS BETTER THAN ME AND MAKE CHARACTER CREATION PLAYING ALL THIS INTO A STUPID PUZZLE THAT I DON'T HAVE TIME TO FIGURE OUT WHEN I COULD BE ROLEPLAYING." screw that!!

JUST.

NO.

JUST.

NO.

ALL MY NO.

PUT ALL THE NOS EVER NO'D INTO AN INFINITE NO BASKET AND SEND IT TO NO LAND!

I JUST WANT TO PLAY MY CHARACTERS AND BE EFFECTIVE WITHOUT GOING THROUGH A STUPID NUMBER PUZZLE THAT I DON'T CARE ABOUT AND TELL MY CHARACTERS STORY, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK!?

I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH.

NO. NO. NO!!!!!! :smallfurious:



Too bad! Exalted developers? Don't care about what you want, they didn't care about what I want, deal with it!



Then you know nothing about how I roleplay. In my experience, personality is everything and informs everything about a characters methods, their ways of thinking, their ability to effective in the situations they find themselves in. Personality is the heart and soul of a character, because it shows there is more to them than how they are useful or not useful.



I don't care anymore. If I want to make that scenario happen, I would not look into a system and start calculating, I would just imagine it, make it HAPPEN without the stupid system number puzzle middleman AND PLAY IT OUT WITHOUT NEEDING FOR SOME COMPLEX NONSENSE I DON'T CARE ABOUT!

I don't care what possibilities you have made from your number puzzles that you have figured out and finagled from the systems you list. What I care about is playing my character concept, and if a system arbitrarily designates some other concept better because of some numbers game I don't want to play, Screw. That. System. My character concept comes first, system last. Powergaming only gets in the way of that.

I get enough the competitive, optimization focused mindset from everything else you listed. I'll never accept it for roleplaying. :smallannoyed:

*Slow clap*

[Max_Killjoy]

... I'm struggling to remember a system where ability to correctly roleplay your character's personality translates directly into narrative contribution.


That might be because roleplaying your character and "narrative" contribution have a lot of system independence, and if you're focused on system, you're going to miss how character-driven decisions* drives emergent story.

* character as in the actual character, the "fictional person", not the system construct that maps said character into game mechanics.




See here you are trying to make roleplaying a competitive sport. I think this has been discussed to death but there is no winning in roleplaying games, the GM is not an adversary (and if he was then your character would be dead). The only time you can show your awesomeness is when you show up with a munchkin character at Adventure League or Pathfinder Society and most likely ruin the fun for everybody else. Most roleplayers understand from the start that roleplaying isn't about winning but cooperation and having fun.


You're right about that.

However, I wish I could say that I hadn't run into more than a few gamers who think it's about outright winning... and consider the RP part of RPG to be "pointless fluff".

[Quertus]

Roleplaying has NOTHING to do with the system rules. Most people learn this partly instinctively it's called to empathize, to relate or putting yourself in other people shoes.

System knowledge is the Gaming aspect.

Well, yes. Thus, in an RPG, since, as you say, RP comes instinctively, I'm saying focus your training on G.


See here you are trying to make roleplaying a competitive sport.

I really don't grok competition. To me, the only person worth competing against is yourself. So any reading of competitive anything into my words doesn't come from me. Which is probably on my communication skills, not on the reader. Yes, I'm comparing role-playing to more competitive venues, because they are where certain notions, like playing with a handicap for the mutual enjoyment of all are more prevalent. But, contrary to WoD Mage, I'm trying not to take the whole paradigm, I'm trying not to keep the bathwater with the baby. I am attempting, thus far unsuccessfully, to cherry pick certain notions from an experience I'm hoping will provide a common framework for discussion.


Wait? What? Are you a roleplayer? First the only person who knows how to roleplay your character's personality is you, so CORRECTLY is highly subjective here. So let's correct this sentence:

Eh, that's my inner perfectionist poking out. Even when I got to roleplay myself in a game, I didn't get the personality quite right. :smallredface: I'm busy competing against myself for a 100% accurate depiction of the character as it exists in my head. It's an unattainable goal, of course, but that's what I'm attempting nonetheless.


This is kind of the heart of roleplaying, making decisions based on your character's personality. This translates directly to the narrative contribution.


Let's take an example. My group still remembers that insane Ulrican that, because of his convictions, went to face a blood dragon vampire lord on his own. They also remember that the fight was a slaughter because I rolled that one in a million critical hit and beheaded the vampire lord with my first blow. Max isn't only remembered by my group, he's a legend for all the insane stuff he pulled off, and that is all because of the choices I made for that character based on his personality.

Taking actions translates into narrative contribution, as evidenced by some of the wargamers I've played with who have 0 interest in role-playing a personality.

On the other hand, correctly (see, my inner perfectionist just won't stop) role-playing a character does not translate into or guarantee a memorable story. How well roleplayed were the other characters (not) in your story? I've played plenty of characters where I displayed their personality well, but that didn't produce a good takeaway story.


This scenario isn't genre appropriate to to anything but the superhero genre.

Um... What? There are ghosts guarding the portal to the "land of the honored dead" (whichever plane is appropriate) in the ancient temple of (whichever deity is appropriate), which happens to have sunk and now be flooded. Sounds perfectly fantasy appropriate to me.


Warhammer Fantasy and WoD...I don't know what incorporeal, invisible being should invade through a underwater portal.

I said "guarded by", not "invading through".


You playing tactically inept is your character and his way of influencing the narrative. The narrative doesn't have a goal, it doesn't care what direction it goes so there is no right direction or a wrong one, there isn't any distance either. The GM may have a goal, your character may have a goal, you as a player may have a goal but the narrative most certainly doesn't have one.

Eh, my inner perfectionist and you clearly don't get along.

First off, I'm not talking about goals. Get that out of your head.

If I successfully roleplay Quertus as a tactically inept academic, and the GM forces Quertus' spells to have the amount and type of impact the spells he was expecting would have had, that's the wrong direction. Or, if a world which should know better starts praising his tactics, and bards spread his legend throughout the land, that's the wrong direction. Now, if one untrained peasant thinks Quertus' choice was just the bomb, and a bard picks up on that and spins a yarn which gets told around the world, giving Quertus an undue reputation, that's the right direction. Same result, different cause.

I am merely advocating logical consequences, and that the consequences of different actions should (generally) be different. Nothing too controversial, I hope.


Not to be disrespectful to your sensei but I would ask my sensei what the heck I had been doing until that point.

Unlearning.

There is a story I love (but will sadly likely mangle, as it's only half-remembered, and I'm not a good storyteller) about a man who went to learn from a master. He was rejected. But he was determined, and returned, day after day. Yet, every time, he was rejected.

Then, one day, the master offered him tea. The man accepted. The master set out a teacup in front of the man. The master tipped the teapot, and began pouring. The tea reached the top of the cup, yet the master did not stop. Soon, tea was pouring out of the cup, onto the table, yet the master did not stop. Undeterred, the master continued pouring, spilling tea onto the table until the man could bear it no longer. "master, the cup is already full - it can hold no more".

The master stopped pouring. "yes", the master replied. "Just like your mind is also full of ideas, and not ready to hear what I would teach. You must empty your mind of your preconceived notions before it can hold new ideas".

[woweedd]

OK, here's the thing: Any RPG ruleset, inherently, has to be limiting in some way. Rules, by definition, limit your actions. This is why i've always been suspicious of systems that "Let you get the rules out of the way and just roleplay." - If the main selling point of your rule is that they can be ignored, why should I even buy your game, when Freeform RP is still a thing?

[Lord Raziere]

@ Quertus: Ok, now your just acting like freaking martial arts sensei. Stop it. :smallmad: Your not a Sensei. Your way of playing is not an enlightened martial artis dojo's path to enlightenment or to fighting better. your not better than anyone just because you mastered the number puzzles. We're not Poor Roleplayers Who Never Knew The Right Way And Just Needs To Learn So They Can Be As Happy As Me. You can take that and get off your high horse, because that is patronizing and condescending. There is no One True Way, there is nothing special about mechanical proficiency, your just a roleplayer so used to his own style that he doesn't comprehend that someones experiences can be entirely different from yours- and just as valid.

You want a martial arts wisdom lesson? here:
A sensei, skilled in many years of martial arts saw a group of spearmen. They practiced their drills without pause. How sad of them! They did not know the way of fighting he did, all the spearmen did was thrust their spears. So he walked over to them and ask why they thrust spears, and they answered because its more practical than martial arts. The sensei denied that something so simple could be preferred over his martial arts and challenged them, try to prove martial arts was better.

He soon died to multiple spears impaled through him.

@Woweed: to roll dice. make sure the actions have an element of luck and uncertainty.

[Keltest]

@ Quertus: Ok, now your just acting like freaking martial arts sensei. Stop it. :smallmad: Your not a Sensei. Your way of playing is not an enlightened martial artis dojo's path to enlightenment or to fighting better. your not better than anyone just because you mastered the number puzzles. We're not Poor Roleplayers Who Never Knew The Right Way And Just Needs To Learn So They Can Be As Happy As Me. You can take that and get off your high horse, because that is patronizing and condescending. There is no One True Way, there is nothing special about mechanical proficiency, your just a roleplayer so used to his own style that he doesn't comprehend that someones experiences can be entirely different from yours- and just as valid.

You want a martial arts wisdom lesson? here:
A sensei, skilled in many years of martial arts saw a group of spearmen. They practiced their drills without pause. How sad of them! They did not know the way of fighting he did, all the spearmen did was thrust their spears. So he walked over to them and ask why they thrust spears, and they answered because its more practical than martial arts. The sensei denied that something so simple could be preferred over his martial arts and challenged them, try to prove martial arts was better.

He soon died to multiple spears impaled through him.

@Woweed: to roll dice. make sure the actions have an element of luck and uncertainty.

I'm reminded of a story I heard somewhere else on these boards.

A student goes up to his martial arts master one day and asks him what he would do if a man attempted to rob him at gunpoint. The master pauses, thinks for a moment, and then replies.

First, he says, you should assume this position. He then gets down on his knees and clasps his hands together. Then, you repeat the following: "Please don't hurt me, ill give you whatever you want! Just don't shoot me!"

Because reality doesn't care about philosophy, and fists wont stop a bullet, no matter how just they are.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'm reminded of a story I heard somewhere else on these boards.

A student goes up to his martial arts master one day and asks him what he would do if a man attempted to rob him at gunpoint. The master pauses, thinks for a moment, and then replies.

First, he says, you should assume this position. He then gets down on his knees and clasps his hands together. Then, you repeat the following: "Please don't hurt me, ill give you whatever you want! Just don't shoot me!"

Because reality doesn't care about philosophy, and fists wont stop a bullet, no matter how just they are.

The funny thing about those stories is...

My brother, back before he was himself a "special response officer", used to train cops in close combat scenarios. He has video of training with "non lethal training aids" where he would tell some average cop to hold him at gunpoint and shoot him if he "tried anything". And no matter what, IF the officer held the gun within my brother's reach, the cop could never get a shot off in time to hit my brother, and would end up disarmed or in a struggle for the weapon that the cop almost always lost. A firearm is only dangerous along a very narrow straight line, and human reaction time is only so fast... any combination of body movement and contact with the gun that results in it pointed at not-you by the time the person holding it can react, works.

But this does take specific training, and it's not something that any old dojo sensei will have any clue about.

[Talakeal]

The funny thing about those stories is...

My brother, back before he was himself a "special response officer", used to train cops in close combat scenarios. He has video of training with "non lethal training aids" where he would tell some average cop to hold him at gunpoint and shoot him if he "tried anything". And no matter what, IF the officer held the gun within my brother's reach, the cop could never get a shot off in time to hit my brother, and would end up disarmed or in a struggle for the weapon that the cop almost always lost. A firearm is only dangerous along a very narrow straight line, and human reaction time is only so fast... any combination of body movement and contact with the gun that results in it pointed at not-you by the time the person holding it can react, works.

But this does take specific training, and it's not something that any old dojo sensei will have any clue about.

But is it worth the risk? Even if you can avoid getting shot 99% of the time, are the contents of your wallet really worth a 1% chance of death?

[Max_Killjoy]

But is it worth the risk? Even if you can avoid getting shot 99% of the time, are the contents of your wallet really worth a 1% chance of death?

That presumes you should trust the mugger to not shoot you anyway, once they have your wallet.

Given that they're already robbing you at gunpoint, I see no reason to do so.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That presumes you should trust the mugger to not shoot you anyway, once they have your wallet.

Given that they're already robbing you at gunpoint, I see no reason to do so.

One reason: muggings are much less well followed up by police than murders. Thus the risk of being caught and the penalty are both much higher if you shoot.

[Vitruviansquid]

The underwater ghost portal scheme is a very 3.5 way of thinking - raise the difficulty by throwing more immunities and requirements at the player.

In a sane game, 4 ogres is a normal encounter, and the GM could add another ogre to make it a difficult one.

[Talakeal]

That presumes you should trust the mugger to not shoot you anyway, once they have your wallet.

Given that they're already robbing you at gunpoint, I see no reason to do so.

Why bother with the robbery at all then? Why not just shoot the person and go through their pockets after they are dead?

[Max_Killjoy]

One reason: muggings are much less well followed up by police than murders. Thus the risk of being caught and the penalty are both much higher if you shoot.

Why bother with the robbery at all then? Why not just shoot the person and go through their pockets after they are dead?

"If they were brain surgeons, they wouldn't be mugging people." -- my brother.

[Keltest]

The funny thing about those stories is...

My brother, back before he was himself a "special response officer", used to train cops in close combat scenarios. He has video of training with "non lethal training aids" where he would tell some average cop to hold him at gunpoint and shoot him if he "tried anything". And no matter what, IF the officer held the gun within my brother's reach, the cop could never get a shot off in time to hit my brother, and would end up disarmed or in a struggle for the weapon that the cop almost always lost. A firearm is only dangerous along a very narrow straight line, and human reaction time is only so fast... any combination of body movement and contact with the gun that results in it pointed at not-you by the time the person holding it can react, works.

But this does take specific training, and it's not something that any old dojo sensei will have any clue about.

Also, it requires the mugger to be standing within arm's reach, so theres that.

[kyoryu]

I JUST WANT TO PLAY MY CHARACTERS AND BE EFFECTIVE WITHOUT GOING THROUGH A STUPID NUMBER PUZZLE THAT I DON'T CARE ABOUT AND TELL MY CHARACTERS STORY, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK!?

I agree. That's why I've started avoiding systems that have heavy optimization games, *especially* ones where the optimization steps are often counter-intuitive.

This is, among other reasons, why I avoid D&D 3.x.

[Max_Killjoy]

I agree. That's why I've started avoiding systems that have heavy optimization games, *especially* ones where the optimization steps are often counter-intuitive.

This is, among other reasons, why I avoid D&D 3.x.

IMO, character creation doesn't have to be all that simple (or shallow, even) as long as it's transparent and honest. I'm OK doing a some math and some reading to make sure I get the character I want.

I'm not OK redoing the same math dozens of times while pouring over 5 hefty volumes of text... only to find out several sessions later that the rules included a bunch of dead ends and trap options and counter-intuitive choices.

Unfortunately, there are gamers out there who consider obscurantism in the character building rules a feature, and develop a sense of elitism over their ability to "win" the character-creation mini-game.

[Mechalich]

The underwater ghost portal scheme is a very 3.5 way of thinking - raise the difficulty by throwing more immunities and requirements at the player.

In a sane game, 4 ogres is a normal encounter, and the GM could add another ogre to make it a difficult one.

It also shows how storytelling-divorced even mid-level Tier I appropriate challenges quickly become. Closing an extradimensional portal with some guards is a perfectly reasonable quest. Innumerable fantasy and superhero characters have done that (these days it tends to involve a blue beam in the sky for some reason). The portal is underwater? Okay that's a bit weird and is going to be unconventional, but okay. The guards are invisible, oh and they're incorporeal? Now it's just stupid. Ordinary problem-solving solutions are no longer possible, only a solution based in magically rewriting the laws of physics to allow the encounter to play out will work - 'must have this many spells to play' essentially. That just drains the drama away in a hurry.

From a storytelling perspective increasing raw power - meaning doing the same thing with just bigger numbers - isn't a big deal. A character can hit things harder and harder on an exponential scale and still take part in mostly the same stories. The dragonball universe has been following this formula for decades. Shifts in fundamental capabilities on the other hand, change how the story must be told. An invisible opponent represents a challenge that's fundamentally different than a mundane one, and has to be met using variable means. That's okay if the opponent is just invisible, or flying, or incorporeal, or made of fire, or any number of possible capability changes. In fact that's the bread and butter of much fantasy and superhero fiction - Enemy X has ability Y, how will our hero overcome that.

D&D, and especially 3e onward, has the problem that as levels increase, due to the nature of the magic system, spellcasting characters and monsters, don't just have one game-changing ability, they have two, then three, then ten, then fifty. It quickly becomes totally divorced from human-scale storytelling convention and you end up with every story being about Dr. Strange in the bizarro dimension. That puts you in a weird place.

2e actually realized this. The high-level 2e setting was Planescape, in which the authors basically said 'conventional military accomplishments are pointless.' There was no territory to take, wealth was largely useless, everything was about attempting to impose some ideological framework upon the madness. And Planescape was wild and crazy and great, but it couldn't real do traditional stories like the kind you find in typical fantasy literature because it just didn't function at the human scale.

Tier I characters, from around level 10 onward, at a reasonable level of optimization, break the core assumptions of the game to the point that the ruleset largely becomes useless because you end up with infinite loops and weird arguments about spell-ability interactions and the setting has entered a strange alternate magical realism zone. At which point you might as well be playing a different game with a much less complex ruleset because none of the many pages of tactical minigame based rules and equipment capabilities and so forth are worth bothering with anymore.

[Lord Raziere]

Tier I characters, from around level 10 onward, at a reasonable level of optimization, break the core assumptions of the game to the point that the ruleset largely becomes useless because you end up with infinite loops and weird arguments about spell-ability interactions and the setting has entered a strange alternate magical realism zone. At which point you might as well be playing a different game with a much less complex ruleset because none of the many pages of tactical minigame based rules and equipment capabilities and so forth are worth bothering with anymore.

Exactly.

If things are going to be like that, I'd just play Nobilis. Less rules, more fun with semantics than arguing about the abilities. Because if your going to be a reality warper who uses semantics to accomplish everything in dimensions outside human comprehension and understanding, you might as well play the setting that is basically nothing but that. it doesn't even make you roll dice.

because if I recall correctly, high level, high optimization DnD is basically:
-pick the class that has the most magical options for answering everything ever
-avoid rolls in favor of solutions that are certain
-argue for these solutions tirelessly until everyone accepts these solutions
-go forth into the planes and defeat everything threatening reality

Nobilis:
-everyone is a reality warper by the simple fact that they have an Estate
-there are no rolls in the first place
-you don't need to argue semantics, because the entire game is about having properties of these Estates that can be interpreted literally or figuratively however you desire for the situation and its still valid, so the entire game is making the semantics fun
-the default setting is basically all the crazy unstable places of weird physics and spiritual stuff that aren't Earth and facing a foe that wants to destroy reality: The Excrucians, so thats covered.

[Quertus]

It also shows how storytelling-divorced even mid-level Tier I appropriate challenges quickly become. Closing an extradimensional portal with some guards is a perfectly reasonable quest. Innumerable fantasy and superhero characters have done that (these days it tends to involve a blue beam in the sky for some reason). The portal is underwater? Okay that's a bit weird and is going to be unconventional, but okay. The guards are invisible, oh and they're incorporeal? Now it's just stupid. Ordinary problem-solving solutions are no longer possible, only a solution based in magically rewriting the laws of physics to allow the encounter to play out will work - 'must have this many spells to play' essentially. That just drains the drama away in a hurry.

How are, say, ghosts "just stupid"? Or wind spirits? Or, given that it's underwater, water spirits in the water?

When something is interfering with the signal on your TV Crystal Ball, and you track it down to an ancient merfolk portal on the fritz, why would the area being invested by merfolk ghosts be unexpected? You need to shut that underwater extradimensional portal down so you can get back to watching... whatever it was you were watching.

I'm contending that, if in a rich fantasy world, or other setting where such a diverse variety of cool encounters is possible, if "guy with stick" can't contribute, maybe the archetype "guy with stick" is "just stupid", and doesn't fit the setting, or at least not the game.


Tier I characters, from around level 10 onward, at a reasonable level of optimization, break the core assumptions of the game to the point that the ruleset largely becomes useless because you end up with infinite loops and weird arguments about spell-ability interactions and the setting has entered a strange alternate magical realism zone. At which point you might as well be playing a different game with a much less complex ruleset because none of the many pages of tactical minigame based rules and equipment capabilities and so forth are worth bothering with anymore.

That sounds like what I was trying to solve. Why give people such limited capabilities that will be inapplicable in the majority of potential scenarios the world is rich enough to provide? Why force GMs to limit their imagination to things mundane enough for the characters to actually handle? Why not make sure everyone has broad enough capabilities to ensure that they will always be able to contribute?


Exactly.

If things are going to be like that, I'd just play Nobilis. Less rules, more fun with semantics than arguing about the abilities. Because if your going to be a reality warper who uses semantics to accomplish everything in dimensions outside human comprehension and understanding, you might as well play the setting that is basically nothing but that. it doesn't even make you roll dice.

because if I recall correctly, high level, high optimization DnD is basically:
-pick the class that has the most magical options for answering everything ever
-avoid rolls in favor of solutions that are certain
-argue for these solutions tirelessly until everyone accepts these solutions
-go forth into the planes and defeat everything threatening reality

Nobilis:
-everyone is a reality warper by the simple fact that they have an Estate
-there are no rolls in the first place
-you don't need to argue semantics, because the entire game is about having properties of these Estates that can be interpreted literally or figuratively however you desire for the situation and its still valid, so the entire game is making the semantics fun
-the default setting is basically all the crazy unstable places of weird physics and spiritual stuff that aren't Earth and facing a foe that wants to destroy reality: The Excrucians, so thats covered.

Not familiar with it, but sounds like a game where, mechanically, everyone should be able to contribute. Or is your ability to contribute as dependent on character creation skills as, say, 3e D&D is?

From your description... Would it be fair to call Nobilis "rules lawyering: the game"? I enjoy a good rules debate, and am a self-described rules lawyer, but arguing over arbitrary literal or figurative interpretations of arbitrary strings of text doesn't sound like my cup of tea.

[woweedd]

How are, say, ghosts "just stupid"? Or wind spirits? Or, given that it's underwater, water spirits in the water?

When something is interfering with the signal on your TV Crystal Ball, and you track it down to an ancient merfolk portal on the fritz, why would the area being invested by merfolk ghosts be unexpected? You need to shut that underwater extradimensional portal down so you can get back to watching... whatever it was you were watching.

I'm contending that, if in a rich fantasy world, or other setting where such a diverse variety of cool encounters is possible, if "guy with stick" can't contribute, maybe the archetype "guy with stick" is "just stupid", and doesn't fit the setting, or at least not the game.



That sounds like what I was trying to solve. Why give people such limited capabilities that will be inapplicable in the majority of potential scenarios the world is rich enough to provide? Why force GMs to limit their imagination to things mundane enough for the characters to actually handle? Why not make sure everyone has broad enough capabilities to ensure that they will always be able to contribute?



Not familiar with it, but sounds like a game where, mechanically, everyone should be able to contribute. Or is your ability to contribute as dependent on character creation skills as, say, 3e D&D is?

From your description... Would it be fair to call Nobilis "rules lawyering: the game"? I enjoy a good rules debate, and am a self-described rules lawyer, but arguing over arbitrary literal or figurative interpretations of arbitrary strings of text doesn't sound like my cup of tea.
Dude, let's make this clear. As has been stated before, what you are talking about is not making everyone Tier 1. What you're talking about is making everyone Tier 3. Tier 1s, by definition, break the system. They have such immense versatility that, even when played badly, they dominate. When played well? They are rulers of all they see. They're The reasons so many DMs have to give their villains what are basically the equivalent of "Everything-Proof Shields." Tier 3 is the one you're looking for. It's the Tier that has a reasonable mix of being able to do one particular thing but still remain useful when their thing is inappropriate. Or, conversely, do everything with an reasonable level of competence. Tier 1 not only does everything, they do everything so well, it rends non-Tier 1s redundant.

[Lord Raziere]

Not familiar with it, but sounds like a game where, mechanically, everyone should be able to contribute. Or is your ability to contribute as dependent on character creation skills as, say, 3e D&D is?

From your description... Would it be fair to call Nobilis "rules lawyering: the game"? I enjoy a good rules debate, and am a self-described rules lawyer, but arguing over arbitrary literal or figurative interpretations of arbitrary strings of text doesn't sound like my cup of tea.

Not really rules lawyering, no.

What you do, is that you make an Estate, or godly domain, and list its properties. like lets use fire as an example

Properties of the Estate of Fire:
-Inspires others with its warming light
-burns everything it touches
-consumes anything with great hunger

so using Nobilis power, you can do things like inspire people with the warming light of your smile, or apply the property to yourself to so you burn everything you touch or consume anything you want without problems, or you can just be boring and conjure literal fire. this can of course, get real abstract and weird: consume someones sadness! burn away injustice with your touch! touch the planet, burn the planet. inspire someone to create anything you want, inspire reality itself to suddenly make a chair for you to sit on- since reality outside of Earth is alive in various senses of the word this can actually work!

an Estate can be used literally, metaphorically or figuratively and its all valid. its all about Semantic superpowers at its finest. it all depends on the properties- the properties have to be ACTIONS, a thing that HAPPENS, not just a passive trait. Also there are still numbers attached to the traits, so if you have like....Domain 2 and the other guy has Domain 5, your probably not winning, no matter what your Estate is, not in a straight up fight.

[Max_Killjoy]

Thought experiment -- how do you deal with a character who has even one potentially "game breaking" ability.

Say, teleportation.

Unless you want to keep throwing cheap-as-hell "your power doesn't work here" effects at them, can you force them into that many fights?

What's really a mortal threat to them when they can always just "pop" and be somewhere else?

How do you limit the power to make it effective but not a show-stopper?

[Vitruviansquid]

How are, say, ghosts "just stupid"? Or wind spirits? Or, given that it's underwater, water spirits in the water?

When something is interfering with the signal on your TV Crystal Ball, and you track it down to an ancient merfolk portal on the fritz, why would the area being invested by merfolk ghosts be unexpected? You need to shut that underwater extradimensional portal down so you can get back to watching... whatever it was you were watching.

I'm contending that, if in a rich fantasy world, or other setting where such a diverse variety of cool encounters is possible, if "guy with stick" can't contribute, maybe the archetype "guy with stick" is "just stupid", and doesn't fit the setting, or at least not the game.

You have not thought that, in a sane system, you can still have underwater ghosts (I maintain it would cause your players to raise an eyebrow, but okay), only the GM would be expected to provide a means for you to get underwater and then fight them. You would do a subquest to get the ability to breathe underwater, you'd have some way to get to harm ghosts, and so on.

It does require 3.5 mechanics in order to simply drop underwater ghosts on your player and say "there's your challenge, have fun solving it."

... and when your players solve this problem, you realize that by them having the tools to solve underwater ghosts, you've taken a small step toward breaking your campaign.

[Mike_G]

Thought experiment -- how do you deal with a character who has even one potentially "game breaking" ability.

Say, teleportation.

Unless you want to keep throwing cheap-as-hell "your power doesn't work here" effects at them, can you force them into that many fights?

What's really a mortal threat to them when they can always just "pop" and be somewhere else?

How do you limit the power to make it effective but not a show-stopper?

Depends what exactly you're asking.

In D&D, it's tough, going by straight rules. But if you are designing a system, it's easy to make Teleport take some period of time and concentration where you can be interrupted. And if Teleport magic is common, then Teleport blocks will be a thing, at least for really important places.

Technology doesn't exist in a vacuum, neither should magic. If a handful of powerful mages can threaten the most powerful empire, it makes sense that the empire will hire or train some mages and set up countermeasures.

Magic can be exactly as powerful the system designer wants it to be. It strains belief if a thrown knife has the same range as a crossbow, but a Magic Missile can be the same as either one, and nobody can really argue that it shouldn't work that way.

It's doable to make really powerful magic really hard to do. Require rituals, expensive components, sacrifices, pacts with demons, etc. That way, huge, epic spells can exist in the setting, but those will be rare, requiring resources beyond the average bunch of violent hobos. The common, utilitarian spells that are really useful but not game breaking can be cast with little cost. But the fighter type should be best at bashing heads, the skillmonkey should be best at locks and traps and stealth. The caster should be able to pull the supernatural solution out of their hat. When one class has a feature that makes another irrelevant, then you have problems.

[Lord Raziere]

Thought experiment -- how do you deal with a character who has even one potentially "game breaking" ability.

Say, teleportation.

Unless you want to keep throwing cheap-as-hell "your power doesn't work here" effects at them, can you force them into that many fights?

What's really a mortal threat to them when they can always just "pop" and be somewhere else?

How do you limit the power to make it effective but not a show-stopper?

Well I guess there are a few things I can think of.

One solution is to give someone else teleportation. this makes it so that if you teleport away and can't teleport you party along with you, and the BBEG teleports after you, all your really doing is cutting yourself off from your backup, but I imagine thats not always the best solution.

another solution I guess is to give the enemy sympathetic attacks. basically the laws of sympathetic magic are that distance is an illusion- as long as the enemy as something that relates to you, like a lock of hair, or some blood or even a photo, they can use that as a link to instantly attack you no matter how far away you are.

another method is to limit how fast you can cast it: namely make it long distance only and that you have to spend five minutes to cast teleportation even a single time, time you need to spend aiming and calculating EXACTLY where you want to end up so that don't hurt yourself or anything, and thus if you mess up, you end up in the middle of a mountain and die or your leg gets caught in a tree thus tears your leg off, things like that.

or if you want it fast, you limit the distance, keep it short so that you can't just teleport out of the room but you can dodge the attacks unless the BBEG gets clever and just sends out a shockwave that covers the entire area so that no matter where you are, you get hit.

and of course a BBEG who can see the future might've placed a trap at the location you teleported to, but thats kind of cheap.

another way is to make it so that you can only teleport to certain places- like say, in a world where magic draws upon leylines, you can only teleport to places where leylines cross. this makes where you can teleport kind of predictable so there could be any number of things that could be waiting ambush you there. or maybe you can only teleport to places with fireplaces because your teleportation is somehow linked to that, and maybe not all places that have a fireplace are good places to teleport to. or you can only teleport to major cities.

or perhaps, the teleportation requires you to build a "network" so to speak with many mages contributing to it over time. the upshot of this is that this network can be MONITORED, so any mage can know where you teleport TO and FROM as long as they know where to look, and the only way to get around undetected is not teleporting at all, the slow way. you can of course destroy parts of the network to deny others teleportation, but that can anger other people who use it.

Or teleportation requires you to announce your desired location at the top of your voice and there is a brief window of time where ANYONE can grab onto you to come along for the ride- friend or foe. so there is a risk of some enemy warrior grabbing onto you and coming along then stabbing you once your there.

or you simply need to state the price your willing to pay before you teleport- and the spell decides whether or not that is a good enough price to get you where you need to go, and if its not, you simply don't go as far as you intend.

[ijon]

or maybe you can only teleport to places with fireplaces because your teleportation is somehow linked to that, and maybe not all places that have a fireplace are good places to teleport to.

and you need a gigantic bowl to teleport between them?

personally, I think "more power = more time" is probably the best way to balance magic in a generic sense, although I kinda like the idea of "more power = more recoil" as well; that is, something like having every meteor fired from a meteor swarm scorch the caster with a fiery burst as the meteors come into existence, or plane shifting putting insane amounts of G-force on your body as you lurch between planes, whereas a fireball just kinda burns your hand a bit and dimension dooring upsets your stomach.

or maybe a combination of both - more powerful magic takes longer to cast, and while you can rush through it, you're going to hurt yourself in very permanent and unavoidable ways in the process. rushing through a fireball will burn you and that's probably not a huge deal, but rush through an implosion spell and you might just find your own body feeling the squeeze. and if you rush through a plane shift to get out of dodge, who says you won't get knocked out, potentially into a coma, as you get pulled through?

it'd certainly give sword dude the time to sword the problem to death. wouldn't that be nice?

[goto124]

Harry Potter had Splinching... wonder if anyone ever did that for teleportation.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

There's also the simple matter of a range limit. Dimension Door is powerful, but it doesn't cause nearly so many problems as Teleport in my experience.

[Anymage]

You have not thought that, in a sane system, you can still have underwater ghosts (I maintain it would cause your players to raise an eyebrow, but okay), only the GM would be expected to provide a means for you to get underwater and then fight them. You would do a subquest to get the ability to breathe underwater, you'd have some way to get to harm ghosts, and so on.

To look at the problem in the context of other game systems, I don't mind the PCs having an ability to grant them water breathing. That's going to be handy for pretty much any underwater adventuring, and underwater adventures are a popular fantasy trope.

The issue is when you have one clear mechanical ability that's clearly made to solve the "underwater" part of the problem, another to solve the "invisible" part of the problem, and a third to handle the "intangible" part. And that with a little bit of time to prepare, you can be sure to have these abilities all lined up.


Thought experiment -- how do you deal with a character who has even one potentially "game breaking" ability.

Say, teleportation.

Unless you want to keep throwing cheap-as-hell "your power doesn't work here" effects at them, can you force them into that many fights?

What's really a mortal threat to them when they can always just "pop" and be somewhere else?

How do you limit the power to make it effective but not a show-stopper?

If you're designing the system from the ground up, you don't make an ability as open-endedly flexible as Teleport Without Error.

Assuming you can't get around that - say, that the people around you only wanted to play 3.x but you at least managed to ban wizards and clerics in favor of sorcerers and sorcererlike divine casters - then at least you're playing in a superhero setting where you only have to plan around a smaller subset of powers. Magneto can be held in a plastic cell. A setting with Teleport Man means that anyone likely to come to blows with him has reason to plan around teleport abilities specifically. And that you as GM only have to keep one specific trick in mind instead of books full of them. Still annoying, but not quite as mentally exhausting.

[Quertus]

Dude, let's make this clear. As has been stated before, what you are talking about is not making everyone Tier 1. What you're talking about is making everyone Tier 3. Tier 1s, by definition, break the system. They have such immense versatility that, even when played badly, they dominate. When played well? They are rulers of all they see. They're The reasons so many DMs have to give their villains what are basically the equivalent of "Everything-Proof Shields." Tier 3 is the one you're looking for. It's the Tier that has a reasonable mix of being able to do one particular thing but still remain useful when their thing is inappropriate. Or, conversely, do everything with an reasonable level of competence. Tier 1 not only does everything, they do everything so well, it rends non-Tier 1s redundant.

I've already conceded that I don't want unfixed tier 1, and the point of my statement was to ask y'all just what tiers can actually, you know, contribute to the game.

So, outside tier 1, how far down can we go, and still have a reasonable expectation of contribution to arbitrary, not custom tailored to your capabilities, scenarios?


Thought experiment -- how do you deal with a character who has even one potentially "game breaking" ability.

Say, teleportation.

Unless you want to keep throwing cheap-as-hell "your power doesn't work here" effects at them, can you force them into that many fights?

What's really a mortal threat to them when they can always just "pop" and be somewhere else?

How do you limit the power to make it effective but not a show-stopper?

Um... Teleport does not break the game. I have no issues with any of what you described, so no changes are necessary. Done.

You don't railroad people into forced fights. You present scenarios, and let them respond accordingly.

Many systems, a single bullet to the brain is lethal, so unless teleport is combined with contingency, mortal peril is still on the table. Besides, if you can't threaten people with something besides just mortal peril...


You have not thought that, in a sane system, you can still have underwater ghosts (I maintain it would cause your players to raise an eyebrow, but okay), only the GM would be expected to provide a means for you to get underwater and then fight them. You would do a subquest to get the ability to breathe underwater, you'd have some way to get to harm ghosts, and so on.

It does require 3.5 mechanics in order to simply drop underwater ghosts on your player and say "there's your challenge, have fun solving it."

... and when your players solve this problem, you realize that by them having the tools to solve underwater ghosts, you've taken a small step toward breaking your campaign.

Well, that's a style thing. Personally, I prefer when it's on the players, not the GM, to provide solutions to encounters, but your way is still perfectly valid.

And, if the PCs all get Ghost Sight, implanted gills, and jade weapons - especially of their own volition rather than as a GM gimme - that doesn't break the campaign, that makes the campaign.

I really cannot abide all this railroading GM attitude of "players actually being able to do stuff breaks the game". PCs being equipped to deal with invisible, underwater, and intangible obstacles opens new doors for possible games.

[Max_Killjoy]

Um... Teleport does not break the game. I have no issues with any of what you described, so no changes are necessary. Done.

You don't railroad people into forced fights. You present scenarios, and let them respond accordingly.

Many systems, a single bullet to the brain is lethal, so unless teleport is combined with contingency, mortal peril is still on the table. Besides, if you can't threaten people with something besides just mortal peril...



No one said anything about railroading, or described anything even remotely like railroading -- that's entirely your inference.

[Lord Raziere]

I really cannot abide all this railroading GM attitude of "players actually being able to do stuff breaks the game". PCs being equipped to deal with invisible, underwater, and intangible obstacles opens new doors for possible games.

No.

thats not what we're saying.

If I make a knight in shining armor wielding spear and shield, I'd be looking at your crossly if your going to make have gills, and fight underwater? I'm a mounted land combatant, I don't do that, I don't care about it. jade weapon? and not me legendary weapon I wield? Screw that. ghost sight? do you want me to go insane from seeing the unquiet dead all the time? that sight only meant for those prepared for it! I'm going to ride away from this stupid scenario on my horse and find some goblins to run over while stabbing with my spear. I dealt with your scenario by completing ignoring it and doing something else. unless your a railroading GM like your protesting against.

[Max_Killjoy]

No.

thats not what we're saying.

If I make a knight in shining armor wielding spear and shield, I'd be looking at your crossly if your going to make have gills, and fight underwater? I'm a mounted land combatant, I don't do that, I don't care about it. jade weapon? and not me legendary weapon I wield? Screw that. ghost sight? do you want me to go insane from seeing the unquiet dead all the time? that sight only meant for those prepared for it! I'm going to ride away from this stupid scenario on my horse and find some goblins to run over while stabbing with my spear. I dealt with your scenario by completing ignoring it and doing something else. unless your a railroading GM like your protesting against.

Indeed, presenting a scenario that can only be engaged by having water breathing, underwater travel, the ability to see invisible things, the power to harm intangible enemies, and protection from phantom attacks, strikes me as the most railroady settup put forth so far in this thread.

[Quertus]

No one said anything about railroading, or described anything even remotely like railroading -- that's entirely your inference.

Um, you said,


Thought experiment -- how do you deal with a character who has even one potentially "game breaking" ability.

Say, teleportation.

Unless you want to keep throwing cheap-as-hell "your power doesn't work here" effects at them, can you force them into that many fights?

Emphasis added. That, to me, is railroading. On the other hand,


Indeed, presenting a scenario that can only be engaged by having water breathing, underwater travel, the ability to see invisible things, the power to harm intangible enemies, and protection from phantom attacks, strikes me as the most railroady settup put forth so far in this thread.

Presenting a scenario, and saying, "deal with it (or not) however you a see fit" is not.

Am I really defining railroading that differently than the norm? :smallconfused:


No.

thats not what we're saying.

If I make a knight in shining armor wielding spear and shield, I'd be looking at your crossly if your going to make have gills, and fight underwater? I'm a mounted land combatant, I don't do that, I don't care about it. jade weapon? and not me legendary weapon I wield? Screw that. ghost sight? do you want me to go insane from seeing the unquiet dead all the time? that sight only meant for those prepared for it! I'm going to ride away from this stupid scenario on my horse and find some goblins to run over while stabbing with my spear. I dealt with your scenario by completing ignoring it and doing something else. unless your a railroading GM like your protesting against.

Thank you for proving my point for me. If the GM forces one particular solution, that can be really railroading, and uncool, and not match your character.

If, OTOH, the PCs find a solution that works for them, that they like, that's way more fun. :smallcool:

[Lord Raziere]

Thank you for proving my point for me. If the GM forces one particular solution, that can be really railroading, and uncool, and not match your character.

If, OTOH, the PCs find a solution that works for them, that they like, that's way more fun. :smallcool:

So your happy with complete failure for the players and GM to cooperate and have a good time?

[Max_Killjoy]

Um, you said,

Emphasis added. That, to me, is railroading. On the other hand,


It's not railroading if it's the outcome of the player's choices, or the natural effect of established causes.

If the PCs try to raid a merchant's manor, and get caught between to groups of guards and have to fight their way out or surrender, that's not railroading.

If the PCs travel by wilderness road, and there's a bandit attack they have to repel, that's not railroading.

[flond]

No.

thats not what we're saying.

If I make a knight in shining armor wielding spear and shield, I'd be looking at your crossly if your going to make have gills, and fight underwater? I'm a mounted land combatant, I don't do that, I don't care about it. jade weapon? and not me legendary weapon I wield? Screw that. ghost sight? do you want me to go insane from seeing the unquiet dead all the time? that sight only meant for those prepared for it! I'm going to ride away from this stupid scenario on my horse and find some goblins to run over while stabbing with my spear. I dealt with your scenario by completing ignoring it and doing something else. unless your a railroading GM like your protesting against.

I admit to me that sounds more like a mismatch of your character to the scenario. And also a lack of flexibility. All sides need to have a clear idea of what's going on. And just because you're playing a knight doesn't mean that every rule of that genre holds true.

[Quertus]

So your happy with complete failure for the players and GM to cooperate and have a good time?

Correct. I don't want to have to read the module to them before we begin playing to make sure that their characters are appropriate. I want them to be able to have a good time without 50 sessions of undue Q&A.

Now, yes, I'm biased by the fact that most of my recent groups can't stand to waste time talking. Still, I'd like a party of 5 Fighters, or 5 cyberdocs, or 5 bounty hunters, or 5 bricks, or whatever, to just work, without having to hack the module, with a minimum of communication required.

For example, my character requirements for one scenario I've run repeatedly in different groups is "must be known to be in the city, must be findable, must be either noble of character or interested in money". Translation: a short time into the adventure, the powers that be want to hire you for a noble quest. It's a little into the game, so that the characters can get a feel for the place, make contacts, whatever, before they are hired.


It's not railroading if it's the outcome of the player's choices, or the natural effect of established causes.

If the PCs try to raid a merchant's manor, and get caught between to groups of guards and have to fight their way out or surrender, that's not railroading.

If the PCs travel by wilderness road, and there's a bandit attack they have to repel, that's not railroading.

Um... Maybe I'm just really sensitive to railroading, but any time you use the words "have to", I hear "railroad". You're saying I can't attempt diplomacy, I can't avoid the encounter, I can't etc etc. You've removed player agency. You're railroading.

[Keltest]

Um... Maybe I'm just really sensitive to railroading, but any time you use the words "have to", I hear "railroad". You're saying I can't attempt diplomacy, I can't avoid the encounter, I can't etc etc. You've removed player agency. You're railroading.

Player agency doesn't require that there be a thousand viable solutions to any problem. Sometimes you cant talk your way out of a situation. As long as its that way for a sensible reason (the guards are unlikely to just let you talk your way out of robbing a noble's manor, for example), its just the natural consequences of the group's actions.

[flond]

Um... Maybe I'm just really sensitive to railroading, but any time you use the words "have to", I hear "railroad". You're saying I can't attempt diplomacy, I can't avoid the encounter, I can't etc etc. You've removed player agency. You're railroading.

Its been established in the example the pcs had already attempted violence on them. That'd better be one heck of a diplomacy roll

[digiman619]

Um... Maybe I'm just really sensitive to railroading, but any time you use the words "have to", I hear "railroad". You're saying I can't attempt diplomacy, I can't avoid the encounter, I can't etc etc. You've removed player agency. You're railroading.
I think he's trying to say "Once teleport hits the table, how will you stop 'scry and die' tactics ad nauseum? How will prevent them from bypassing the dungeon that getting through is supposed to be a grand adventure if one of the players can get to a location without passing through the intervening space?" Because there's a reason why a lot of people on these boards hate "scry and die" tactics, and once teleport becomes an option, that's what the game boils down to (see:5th-dimensional chess).

[Talakeal]

You know what, I am going to side with Quertus and the chorus of pro-GM players out there:

If the DM spends the time making a scenario, refusing to go on the adventure simply because your character is out of their element / not optimized for it is kind of being a ****.

Now, I am normally on the other side of this argument where DMs expect the player to completely violate their alignment, but in this case, you can simply drink a couple of potions and be on track.

But yeah, a few potions is all it takes to contribute here. So why is it that this is a good example of an adventure where low tier characters are not allowed again?

[Anymage]

No.

thats not what we're saying.

If I make a knight in shining armor wielding spear and shield, I'd be looking at your crossly if your going to make have gills, and fight underwater? I'm a mounted land combatant, I don't do that, I don't care about it. jade weapon? and not me legendary weapon I wield? Screw that. ghost sight? do you want me to go insane from seeing the unquiet dead all the time? that sight only meant for those prepared for it! I'm going to ride away from this stupid scenario on my horse and find some goblins to run over while stabbing with my spear. I dealt with your scenario by completing ignoring it and doing something else. unless your a railroading GM like your protesting against.

You know, in 4e I could see most of this. Make them translucent instead of totally invisible (invisible creatures on a battle mat are a massive pain for everybody to deal with), use the 4e definition for "insubstantial", and all you need a caster for is a water breathing ritual. Having the occasional problem that needs a caster to solve it isn't intrinsically bad. It's just when every conceivable problem has a spell custom tailored to solving it that your campaign breaks.

Unfortunately, even if 5e did do a good job expanding both the level ranges where everybody could meaningfully contribute to encounters and the level range wherein you could have relatively "normal" adventures, wizards and clerics and druids will still be a problem. New books will continue to be published, People like crunch in their books, and new spells are one of the easiest forms of crunch to put out. (New magic items take a close second, and magic item abuse was also a popular way to break 3.x.) Wizards can easily fill their spellbooks with answers, and clerics have access to their full list simply by their nature.

There are only a few solutions. A hard Gygaxian turn back to the days when spells were carefully hoarded secrets, which is unlikely to sit well with modern gamers. Maybe forcing a sorcererlike casting on all caster types, so there's a real opportunity cost to what spells you're carrying around. Or notice that many systems do charge character resources for learning new powers (usually XP, in systems where XP is used to buy up traits instead of gaining levels), so again there's an opportunity cost.

Because IME, players do like clear, explicit powers. They spell out what your character can do in very clear terms, and give you an evocative image of the cool stuff your character can do. But too much access to cool powers leads to characters becoming defined by their spell lists more than anything else.

[Keltest]

You know what, I am going to side with Quertus and the chorus of pro-GM players out there:

If the DM spends the time making a scenario, refusing to go on the adventure simply because your character is out of their element / not optimized for it is kind of being a ****.

Now, I am normally on the other side of this argument where DMs expect the player to completely violate their alignment, but in this case, you can simply drink a couple of potions and be on track.

But yeah, a few potions is all it takes to contribute here. So why is it that this is a good example of an adventure where low tier characters are not allowed again?

First things first. Its not a case of low tier characters not being allowed. Its a case of jumping through a ton of hoops just to create a scenario where high tier characters are challenged by a basic "fetch the Macguffin" quest that lower tier characters would not need. You need to create a giant scenario just to prevent the wizard from casting two spells and moving on to the next quest.

Anyway, if your DM is presenting this scenario to a group of low/mid tier people who aren't remotely designed for it, then the DM has fundamentally failed in their job. Not every adventure needs to be custom tailored to meet the party's exact strengths, but putting forth a quest that a character basically cannot participate in any capacity is a waste of everybody's time, and the players are totally within rights to ask the DM for something they can actually do.

[Max_Killjoy]

Um... Maybe I'm just really sensitive to railroading, but any time you use the words "have to", I hear "railroad". You're saying I can't attempt diplomacy, I can't avoid the encounter, I can't etc etc. You've removed player agency. You're railroading.


If the PCs are already in combat with the guards at this point, how is it "railroading" if the guards don't want to stop and chat?

If the bandits attack from both sides of the road and refuse to parley, what is the party going to do? And how is that scenario "railroading"?

[Talakeal]

First things first. Its not a case of low tier characters not being allowed. Its a case of jumping through a ton of hoops just to create a scenario where high tier characters are challenged by a basic "fetch the Macguffin" quest that lower tier characters would not need. You need to create a giant scenario just to prevent the wizard from casting two spells and moving on to the next quest.

Anyway, if your DM is presenting this scenario to a group of low/mid tier people who aren't remotely designed for it, then the DM has fundamentally failed in their job. Not every adventure needs to be custom tailored to meet the party's exact strengths, but putting forth a quest that a character basically cannot participate in any capacity is a waste of everybody's time, and the players are totally within rights to ask the DM for something they can actually do.

But the scenario above isn't that; it isn't even that out of the ordinary. It merely requires that the players have magic weapons and drink a potion of water breathing and free action before hand, which is a trivial expense at the level where this sort of thing is going to happen.

[RazorChain]

Thought experiment -- how do you deal with a character who has even one potentially "game breaking" ability.

Say, teleportation.

Unless you want to keep throwing cheap-as-hell "your power doesn't work here" effects at them, can you force them into that many fights?

What's really a mortal threat to them when they can always just "pop" and be somewhere else?

How do you limit the power to make it effective but not a show-stopper?


I'm going to answer this in within the system and setting I'm running now. I'm running a Mythic Europe setting where all the superstitions are true, using Gurps and adapted Ars Magica magic system to Gurps.

Teleport is pretty high level spell which means that it isn't easily accessible. Also all magic is fueled by fatigue or Vis. Vis is the physical manifestation of magic and highly prized by all those who perform magic, it's used to make potions, magic items, magic experimentation and rituals. Spending Vis on spells means that the Magus is in dire situation, Magi will keep some Vis on themselves for life and death situations.

Players know how valuable Vis is and not spend it stupidly, it's hard to come by. This means that the PC Magus is limited by his fatigue so casting Teleport becomes a choice of spending resource. Teleporting the whole group requires a tremendously powerful Magus.

Range: The Laws of Magic limits spellcasting to sight, if the Magus can't see where he is teleporting then he can't cast the spell. The only way to bypass this is by arcane connection, this means that the Magus will make a permanent circle made of iron/silver in his Sanctum where he has a arcane connection and can therefore teleport. Someone called this by another name like the law of sympathy or somesuch but it's essentially the same. To affect something you can't see you need some connection to the target of the spell.

Warding: Magi usually ward their Sanctums and people of power often get Magi to ward their abodes so nobody can teleport in, scry, evil spirits/demons/fay can't enter etc. If you have a court wizard, which is the only political office the Church allows a Magus to have, then you'd better make a use of your Magus.

Specializations: Ars Magica (Art of Magic) consists of 5 Techniques and 10 Forms and to teleport you have to study 1 specific Techinique and 1 specific Form to a pretty high level. Maybe 1/5 of Magi specialize in these arts and some of them never learn to teleport.

Time: Casting a spell casts 1 round of concentration and the spell takes effect at the start of the Magus next round, to be able to do something in the round the Magus teleports he must roll a Body Sense skill roll else he'll be mentally stunned. Magic is not discreet so suddenly appearing behind somebody and stabbing him/spelling him without him noticing is pretty much out of the question, the magus arrives with a loud whomp followed by the smell of brimstone or whatever his sigil dictates. This also means that the Magus can be interrupted.

Skill: Magic is dangerous and the more powerful the spell is the more danger is involved. The Magus must roll a skill roll and can fail or worse critically fail and that's where bad things happen.


Magus doesn't have a huge HP pool so he can be taken down with one lucky blow, shot in the back so Teleporting from those who keep him safe in combat isn't wise unless he's making his escape. The Magus is magic against magic while his companions are the steel against steel. And system wise if the player has spent a lot of points making a good Magus then he probably will be bad in combat or if the player has made a combat Magus then he's sacrificing power for versatility.


This is why teleportation isn't a gamebreaking power, it's in fact not highly sought after as it's mostly separates the Magus from the rest of the group.

[Quertus]

Player agency doesn't require that there be a thousand viable solutions to any problem. Sometimes you cant talk your way out of a situation. As long as its that way for a sensible reason (the guards are unlikely to just let you talk your way out of robbing a noble's manor, for example), its just the natural consequences of the group's actions.

It does require that you haven't predetermined, "for the plot, you must do X, and do it Y way", though. That is, unless I'm mistaken, the definition of railroading.


Its been established in the example the pcs had already attempted violence on them. That'd better be one heck of a diplomacy roll


If the PCs are already in combat with the guards at this point, how is it "railroading" if the guards don't want to stop and chat?

If the bandits attack from both sides of the road and refuse to parley, what is the party going to do? And how is that scenario "railroading"?

Um...


It's not railroading if it's the outcome of the player's choices, or the natural effect of established causes.

If the PCs try to raid a merchant's manor, and get caught between to groups of guards and have to fight their way out or surrender, that's not railroading.

If the PCs travel by wilderness road, and there's a bandit attack they have to repel, that's not railroading.

I don't see where it was established that they are already in battle / already attempted violence on the guards. And I'll happily teleport out, or blow through the walls to escape, or attempt diplomacy / intimidation / illusion / mind control / any number of other possible solutions other than fighting my way out.

If you're saying that we have to fight the bandits, and cannot drop smoke bombs and escape into the forest, cannot use illusions or mind control or intimidation or any number of other tricks, but absolutely must respond to the totally legit scenario of a bandit attack with exactly one response: combat, then that's railroading.

Now, I usually play with trigger-happy war gamers (or act as one myself :smallredface:), so that'll likely be the end result anyway, but that's not the point. If you've already laid the rails of the only possible response you'll accept, then it's a railroad, plain and simple.


I think he's trying to say "Once teleport hits the table, how will you stop 'scry and die' tactics ad nauseum? How will prevent them from bypassing the dungeon that getting through is supposed to be a grand adventure if one of the players can get to a location without passing through the intervening space?" Because there's a reason why a lot of people on these boards hate "scry and die" tactics, and once teleport becomes an option, that's what the game boils down to (see:5th-dimensional chess).

Well, that's a more fair concern. I'm personally not a fan of "scry and die" from a game play perspective. Tactically, I'd much rather use my limited resources doing something useful. And, if you look at the scenarios I've listed, few of them really benefit from "scry and die". That tends to be true of most of what I come up with. So I'm not really sure why people have such a hard time with it.


You know what, I am going to side with Quertus and the chorus of pro-GM players out there:

If the DM spends the time making a scenario, refusing to go on the adventure simply because your character is out of their element / not optimized for it is kind of being a ****.

Now, I am normally on the other side of this argument where DMs expect the player to completely violate their alignment, but in this case, you can simply drink a couple of potions and be on track.

Thanks. Yeah, part of what I'm contending - that had almost gotten lost in the shuffle, thanks for highlighting it - is that over specialization seems like a problem to me, for just that reason.


But yeah, a few potions is all it takes to contribute here. So why is it that this is a good example of an adventure where low tier characters are not allowed again?

Um, it's a question, not an example. So, your answer is, my portal is a valid scenario for all tiers?


First things first. Its not a case of low tier characters not being allowed. Its a case of jumping through a ton of hoops just to create a scenario where high tier characters are challenged by a basic "fetch the Macguffin" quest that lower tier characters would not need. You need to create a giant scenario just to prevent the wizard from casting two spells and moving on to the next quest.

Anyway, if your DM is presenting this scenario to a group of low/mid tier people who aren't remotely designed for it, then the DM has fundamentally failed in their job. Not every adventure needs to be custom tailored to meet the party's exact strengths, but putting forth a quest that a character basically cannot participate in any capacity is a waste of everybody's time, and the players are totally within rights to ask the DM for something they can actually do.

Well, with me as GM, either a) that's the module, hope the intro set your expectations correctly, or b) it's a 1-shot, hopefully I described it well and you built something accordingly, or c) it's a sandbox, you can do what you want with the things I placed in the sandbox.

So, that sounds like one vote for "all tiers can participate", and one vote for, "no, most tiers aren't able to participate".

[Lord Raziere]

Correct. I don't want to have to read the module to them before we begin playing to make sure that their characters are appropriate. I want them to be able to have a good time without 50 sessions of undue Q&A.

Now, yes, I'm biased by the fact that most of my recent groups can't stand to waste time talking. Still, I'd like a party of 5 Fighters, or 5 cyberdocs, or 5 bounty hunters, or 5 bricks, or whatever, to just work, without having to hack the module, with a minimum of communication required.

For example, my character requirements for one scenario I've run repeatedly in different groups is "must be known to be in the city, must be findable, must be either noble of character or interested in money". Translation: a short time into the adventure, the powers that be want to hire you for a noble quest. It's a little into the game, so that the characters can get a feel for the place, make contacts, whatever, before they are hired.


Well to me no communication is rudeness and not engaging with me the player in a cooperative manner.

Guess what? Roleplaying is a social game. if you don't want to communicate, why are playing a game that requires it? if your players are not engaging in the scenario and you didn't prepare a good scenario for them, you failed as a GM! Thats not good GMing. because you didn't communicate. all because you want character creation to be a number puzzle that has nothing to do with anything else.

Guess what? I don't care about any of what you just said. I don't want character creation to be a number puzzle where I'm not sure whether the choices I'll be making are worth it or not. and 50 sessions? really? hyperbolic much?

because guess what, if the best solution is not engaging with the scenario, that is one step short of me just leaving the game entirely. thats not good.

[awa]

Thought experiment -- how do you deal with a character who has even one potentially "game breaking" ability.

Say, teleportation.

Unless you want to keep throwing cheap-as-hell "your power doesn't work here" effects at them, can you force them into that many fights?

What's really a mortal threat to them when they can always just "pop" and be somewhere else?

How do you limit the power to make it effective but not a show-stopper?

You can also solve it by altering the type of game your playing, for example in a mystery type game Teleportation might not be very useful, because the adventure is finding where to go it would not solve it outright.

[Koo Rehtorb]

You can also solve it by altering the type of game your playing, for example in a mystery type game Teleportation might not be very useful, because the adventure is finding where to go it would not solve it outright.

The issue isn't teleportation, though. The issue is there are dozens or hundreds of different game breaking abilities all on a level with teleportation and all breaking different things.

[Mechalich]

You can also solve it by altering the type of game your playing, for example in a mystery type game Teleportation might not be very useful, because the adventure is finding where to go it would not solve it outright.

While it's teleportation isn't necessarily useful for solving a location-based problem, it still has a considerable impact on such as scenario - because your mystery, whatever it is, has to account for the possibility of persons involved teleporting. For example, in a world where people can teleport, the pool of candidates who could be responsible for a murder turns into 'everyone on the planet who can teleport' because they can all bamph into a room, shiv someone in the back, and bamph out. The concept of the alibi disappears utterly, and that's just one first-level consequence. Really, if you've watched any significant amount of Star Trek over the years you can see them struggle with the issues of teleportation via constant transporter problems - how they have to almost constantly throw up impediments to transporter access to wherever the away team happens to be at the moment in order to sustain drama. This is a particularly good example because the transporter was inserted into Star Trek in order to save money on visual effects (it was much cheaper than doing shuttle craft shots) and everyone was stuck having to adjust.

[Talakeal]

Um, it's a question, not an example. So, your answer is, my portal is a valid scenario for all tiers?.

Sure. I mean, like everything, it is going to be trivially easy for T1 and painfully hard for T6, but I would imagine that a party of any class composition, even commoners, could handle it once they get to mid level.

[Quertus]

Well to me no communication is rudeness and not engaging with me the player in a cooperative manner.

Guess what? Roleplaying is a social game. if you don't want to communicate, why are playing a game that requires it? if your players are not engaging in the scenario and you didn't prepare a good scenario for them, you failed as a GM! Thats not good GMing. because you didn't communicate. all because you want character creation to be a number puzzle that has nothing to do with anything else.

Guess what? I don't care about any of what you just said. I don't want character creation to be a number puzzle where I'm not sure whether the choices I'll be making are worth it or not. and 50 sessions? really? hyperbolic much?

because guess what, if the best solution is not engaging with the scenario, that is one step short of me just leaving the game entirely. thats not good.

Wow. Where to start?

Personally, I consider not wanting to communicate about the rules of the game rudeness, but, somehow, most people don't find 3 hour rules debates in the middle of the game fun. Similarly, many of the people I play with don't find discussing things at all fun - they want to get straight to the good part of actually playing the game. No "Session 0" for them. :smallannoyed: Still, just because my gaming buddies often have a very different preferred style of play, that's no cause for you to label them as rude.

It's subtle, but the question of "whose responsibility is it..." is potentially important to this thread.

I personally prefer for the world to feel "real", like it existed before and exists without the PCs. Custom tailoring the adventures to the PCs can really ruin that. Therefore, I'm strongly in favor of PCs who are capable of interacting with enough of the world to be fun to play in whatever arbitrary subset of the world they find themselves.

That having been said, it is on the GM to build a sandbox with as much diversity and richness of content as possible. GMs are generally only human, and will have their biases, their blind spots, etc., so, often, they will fail at this task, and produce something unintentionally "same-y".

Similarly, when the GM presents the party of paladins with the quest to assassinate the lawful ruler of the land, he had best be prepared for the adventure of, "and then the paladins murder or arrest the quest giver".

Perhaps we have different ideas on how a sandbox should work. I'm of the mindset that it involves presenting the players with plenty of tools, scenarios, etc, and letting the players pick up whatever they want to build the adventures they want. So, to me, if they fail to pick up any given particular thread, that's just evidence of their freedom of expression, and quite the opposite of a fail case. In this thread, I'm expressing my concern with the idea that some objects in the sandbox could receive the response of, "that sounds interesting, but there is no way my character will ever be able to interact with that". That inability to interact with a scenario is what I am labeling as a fail state.

And I have no idea where you got the notion to assign me the stance of loving character creation to be a "number puzzle". Honestly, for the character sheet, I'd almost prefer character creation to involve writing, "Quertus, Wizard" on the sheet, and be done. Look at 2e D&D for my preferred level of complexity for character creation. For the character's personality and backstory, well, give me a few weeks...

[awa]

The issue isn't teleportation, though. The issue is there are dozens or hundreds of different game breaking abilities all on a level with teleportation and all breaking different things.

yes, but its also irreverent to the comment i was responding to

[Lord Raziere]

And I have no idea where you got the notion to assign me the stance of loving character creation to be a "number puzzle". Honestly, for the character sheet, I'd almost prefer character creation to involve writing, "Quertus, Wizard" on the sheet, and be done. Look at 2e D&D for my preferred level of complexity for character creation. For the character's personality and backstory, well, give me a few weeks...

Yet you play and have extensive knowledge of DnD 3.5 and have defended it and 3.5 wizards throughout this entire thread. One of the number puzzliest rpgs ever.

Not buying it. Doesn't match what I know from this thread.

[kyoryu]

You know what, I am going to side with Quertus and the chorus of pro-GM players out there:

If the DM spends the time making a scenario, refusing to go on the adventure simply because your character is out of their element / not optimized for it is kind of being a ****.

Now, I am normally on the other side of this argument where DMs expect the player to completely violate their alignment, but in this case, you can simply drink a couple of potions and be on track.

But yeah, a few potions is all it takes to contribute here. So why is it that this is a good example of an adventure where low tier characters are not allowed again?

Eh, sorta kinda depends.

If it's roughly in the area of what the game was pitched at, then yeah, go along with it.

But if a game was pitched as being like Game of Thrones and all of a sudden it's flying-wizard-planar-shenanigans? Yeah, you might have a point.