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

[Quertus]

The following is, despite the title, designed for a largely system-agnostic discussion about game balance and roles.

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Let's say you have a game with three roles: striker, tank, and healer. Then you build characters to cover each of these roles.

The Striker deals 1d6+6 damage on a hit.

The Tank deals 1d6 damage on a hit, and causes foes he attacks to suffer a 6-point penalty when attacking anyone else.

The Healer deals 1d6 damage on a hit, and heals someone for 6.

Let's say you've done the math, play tested the game, and these roles feel balanced. A team of 3 of the same character struggles a lot more than a balanced party, but, with luck and skill, technically can overcome most challenges. Playing with such an unbalanced team becomes known as Hard Mode.

Adding in a 4th character of any given role to a balanced team greatly improves the group performance. However, scaling encounters becomes a bit tricky, as, depending on what the 4th character is affects how easily they can handle what types of challenges.

You really want everyone to have the option to play a different character, but your game only has 3 roles. Eventually, you build a new character, the gish.

The Gish deals 1d6+2 damage on a hit, causes foes he attacks to suffer a 2-point penalty when attacking anyone else, and heals someone for 2.

The gish gently improves the party's ability to handle all encounters, making scaling encounters from a team of 3 to a team of 4 easy.

The gish is also popular among those who want to try out different roles, or who really want to pay one role, but realize that the group needs a different role filled, and don't want to go full Hard Mode of ignoring that role.

Interestingly, the all-gish party is not Hard Mode.

Because of the popularity of the gish, you decide to build 3 new characters: the dedicated tank, the dedicated healer, and the toolkit.

The Dedicated Tank deals no damage on a hit, but causes foes he attacks to suffer a 12-point penalty when attacking anyone else.

The Dedicated Healer deals no damage on a hit, but heals someone for 12.

The Toolkit has 3 strikes, which he must choose from each turn: the first deals 1d6+5 damage on a hit; the second deals 1d6 damage on a hit, and causes foes he attacks to suffer a 5-point penalty when attacking anyone else; the third deals 1d6 damage on a hit, and heals someone for 5.

When played by someone who really just wants to play one role, the toolkit slightly under performs, but it really shines in the hands of someone who can modify their strategy based on the group and the opposition.

The all toolkit team is also viable, although, not surprisingly, it performs well in scenarios that favor one role, and under performs where the balanced team or all gish team are strongest.

The two dedicated characters receive mixed reviews. Sometimes, they feel like they're performing the work of two characters; other times, you'd really much rather have the extra damage. And the all dedicated team is a complete failure. It is quite literally impossible for them to succeed.

Then someone jokingly builds a character who quickly becomes known as the solo.

The Solo deals 1d6+6 damage on a hit, causes foes he attacks to suffer a 6-point penalty when attacking anyone else, and heals someone for 6.

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So, what does all that have to do with tiers? I'm getting to that, but, first, one more tangent.

Video games often have difficulty levels. This is because, due to mood, experience, personality, etc, people don't always desire the same level of challenge. This is a feature, not a bug.

The same is true in RPGs. Sometimes, people want to play BDHs; other times, people want to play the underdog. Sometimes, people want a balanced party that can cover all the bases; other times, people want the challenge of getting square pegs to fit in round holes.

What characters you pick communicates which type of game you want.

The problem is, this communication often goes unnoticed. Worse, the selection of difficulty mode is often entirely unintentional.

People think when they're taking a Fighter that they're going to be BDHs. Really, by choosing a character of limited breadth, they're selecting to potentially play Hard Mode.

"Tier 1", defined by being able to do anything, is not the problem. It's actually one path to making BDHs: build characters with more breadth. The other path to BDHs is to throw balance out the window, and make characters grossly overpowered.

Which of these is a better solution?

[ImNotTrevor]

Neither, in my opinion. At least, not as a remedy.

The two problems with systems that have Tiers in the way D&D does are the following:
1. The Tiers were not made on purpose, and are not part of the design goals of the game. They are a result of a failure of the design goal of having balanced options. (D&D wants you to believe that a Monk and a Wizard are equally viable choices.)
2. People generally are unaware of what tiers different classes fall into, because this is not written into the rules. It's a thing some forum guys set up later.

If a game were to state outright that certain classes/playstyles fall into different power levels, and that it is best not to mix them, I would first be surprised that they decided to go this route instead of much more elegant methods like Point-based classless systems. Secondly, I would be OK with it because at lease they acknowledge and inform the player about the tier.

A system that does not acknowledge the tiers, produced them on accident, and tries to sell all options as equally viable, is a system with an inherent and crucial design flaw.

Build a game where the tiers are a named and talked-about part of the system, and all is well.

The other option is to make sure each character occupies a specific niche and stays within that niche but can branch out in a pinch. (See Apocalypse World Playbooks for a good application of this principal)

(Edit: to put it simply, my problem is not that Tier 1 exists. It os that Tier 1 and 4 are being sold to us by the system as being equal, and are expected to adventure together by the same.)

[Quertus]

Neither, in my opinion. At least, not as a remedy.

The two problems with systems that have Tiers in the way D&D does are the following:
1. The Tiers were not made on purpose, and are not part of the design goals of the game. They are a result of a failure of the design goal of having balanced options. (D&D wants you to believe that a Monk and a Wizard are equally viable choices.)
2. People generally are unaware of what tiers different classes fall into, because this is not written into the rules. It's a thing some forum guys set up later.

If a game were to state outright that certain classes/playstyles fall into different power levels, and that it is best not to mix them, I would first be surprised that they decided to go this route instead of much more elegant methods like Point-based classless systems. Secondly, I would be OK with it because at lease they acknowledge and inform the player about the tier.

A system that does not acknowledge the tiers, produced them on accident, and tries to sell all options as equally viable, is a system with an inherent and crucial design flaw.

Build a game where the tiers are a named and talked-about part of the system, and all is well.

The other option is to make sure each character occupies a specific niche and stays within that niche but can branch out in a pinch. (See Apocalypse World Playbooks for a good application of this principal)

(Edit: to put it simply, my problem is not that Tier 1 exists. It os that Tier 1 and 4 are being sold to us by the system as being equal, and are expected to adventure together by the same.)

"Best not to mix them" if you desire balance within the party. As some of my most fun gaming experiences involve a severe lack of balance within the party, I personally find it best to mix them.

However, I think, aside from my previous statement, we're talking about different things, because you brought up "power level". Which is part of why I made this thread.

Now, I could be wrong, but as I understand it, "Tier 1" is defined by its breadth of options. It's the Toolkit in my example. That the implementation in 3e involves, at times, completely different levels of power floor or ceiling is a separate discussion. The question is merely whether "Tier 1" is inherently conceptually unbalanced.

Yes, you can completely mess up balance, and have both an instajib charger and a pathetic blaster mage as possible characters. Just like you could have messed up balance, and given the Striker 1d6+99 damage, or felt that healing was a thankless job, and given the Healer 1d6+5 damage. But that's not the point of this conversation.

The point is whether being able to do anything is inherently unbalanced. My claim is that it is not. Being able to do everything, simultaneously, like the Solo, OTOH, is.

However, you hit the nail on the head regarding the obfuscation of tiering and its effects on the game. I think there would be far less discontent if a) everyone knew what they were getting into when they picked a class, and b) each class had options to exist at each tier, and each power level. EDIT: so, if I want to play a lower tier Wizard, I play a War Mage or a Beguiler. If I want to play a Tier 1 Fighter, I play... ? If I want to play a powerful Fighter, I play an ubercharger or pouncing TWF SA variant or 3.0 Vorpal build. Etc.

Role protection is a more difficult topic. Fortunately, my example facilitates that discussion, too.

Let's say you've got a 4-person team of a Striker, a Tank, a Healer, and a Toolkit. If there's only one person who needs healed, and the Toolkit heals them, stealing the Healer's thunder, that's not only a violation of role protection, that's just bad tactics. It's dumb. They should get chewed out by their fellow players for being an idiot. The problem should be self correcting.

It's the same thing - or should be - for the D&D Wizard (of any edition I've played) with idiotic use of their limited spell slots to steal the spotlight from characters who already have that role covered.

[JAL_1138]

Tier 1 isn't simply a breadth of options. Tier 3 can pull that off too. Tier 1, at least in the JaronK system, is defined largely by gamebreaking ability.


Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played well, can break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party. (Emphasis added).

Your "Solo" example is stronger than all the other classes, but doesn't have the degree of "I win" buttons that a Tier 1 has—none of those classes do. Use enemies that hit harder, or use more enemies, and the problem is largely solved. Whereas a Tier 1 can do things [edit: has multiple easy ways to do things] like "end the encounter before anyone else can act," "avoid/circumvent a challenge altogether," or in egregious cases, "blow up the campaign setting entirely with a little bit of prep time."

EDIT: point being that power level is a key component of tiering; the difference between a Tier 3 (does one thing really well, or does everything pretty well) and a Tier 2 (same raw gamebreaking power as a Tier 1, can actually be more restricted in options than a generalist Tier 3 but can do vastly more powerful/world-altering things) is in power rather than options.


Note that the Tier 2 classes are often less flexible than Tier 3 classes... it's just that their incredible potential power overwhelms their lack in flexibility.

[Frozen_Feet]

Well this is a rare case of all posters so far being right, more or less.

Quertus is right that the problem is not existence of different character tiers or mixing of characters of different tiers in the same game. It is perfectly fine to play the game on Hard Mode, either individually or as a group.

ImNotTrevor is right that accidental power differences combined with pretension of all character types being equal is the problem.

And JAL is right that JaronK's tier system includes a clause about game-breaking power. In that, the definitions given by JaronK and Quertus differ. Quertus's definition is more neutral - I don't think anyone could argue that breadth of ability is automatically bad. JaronK's is less so. I'd find it hard to justify, if designing a new game, why exactly I'd give any character "campaign breaking" power or abilities which mechanically solve encounters with "little thought from the player".

I want my games to engage my players and that implies making them think about what's actually happening in it. For that, JaronK's Tier 1s would be counter-productive. Quertus's Tier 1s wouldn't be.

[JeenLeen]

If I want to play a Tier 1 Fighter, I play... ? If I want to play a powerful Fighter, I play an ubercharger or pouncing TWF SA variant or 3.0 Vorpal build. Etc.

Role protection is a more difficult topic. Fortunately, my example facilitates that discussion, too.

Let's say you've got a 4-person team of a Striker, a Tank, a Healer, and a Toolkit. If there's only one person who needs healed, and the Toolkit heals them, stealing the Healer's thunder, that's not only a violation of role protection, that's just bad tactics. It's dumb. They should get chewed out by their fellow players for being an idiot. The problem should be self correcting.

It's the same thing - or should be - for the D&D Wizard (of any edition I've played) with idiotic use of their limited spell slots to steal the spotlight from characters who already have that role covered.
About the role protection with D&D (at least in 3.5, may differ for other editions):

I think the biggest issue is that a Tier 1 class can generally be better at any role than another class. For example, if I want a skillmonkey, a human rogue 1/wizard x with the Able Learner feat (to make all rogue skills stay class skills) is probably a better build than a traditional skillmonkey: get rogue skills, great reason to pump Int for more points, and can choose spells to facilitate your skill use. Cleric- or druidzilla builds are generally better fighters than the fighter/striker (spellcaster buffs + whatever feats you want for ubercharger). Although barbarians or fighters might seem better tanks, a buffed-up spellcaster is probably better. (Can't really write a parallel for healer, since in-combat healing isn't a big thing in 3.5 and cleric and druid are tier 1s.)

I do admit that a wizard/cleric/druid can be a better 'wizard' than it can be a fighter. But my point is that, if I wanted to be the best skillmonkey or best fighter I could do, at least in D&D 3.5 I would choose a tier 1 caster and 'optimize' for my role instead of being the world-breaking caster.

Thus, I think role protection is a weak concept with the tiers going around. Instead of being mad at the wizard for wasting its power outshining the skillmonkey, the party might be mad at the skillmonkey for making a bad skillmonkey. (assuming players are getting bad about sub-optimal choices at all)

[Frozen_Feet]

From a game design perspective, though, why I'd make the magic class better at skills than the skill class?

That's the state as it is in d20 D&D, but one could argue it's really a design error.

[Quertus]

Tier 1 isn't simply a breadth of options. Tier 3 can pull that off too. Tier 1, at least in the JaronK system, is defined largely by gamebreaking ability.

(Emphasis added).

Your "Solo" example is stronger than all the other classes, but doesn't have the degree of "I win" buttons that a Tier 1 has—none of those classes do. Use enemies that hit harder, or use more enemies, and the problem is largely solved. Whereas a Tier 1 can do things [edit: has multiple easy ways to do things] like "end the encounter before anyone else can act," "avoid/circumvent a challenge altogether," or in egregious cases, "blow up the campaign setting entirely with a little bit of prep time."

EDIT: point being that power level is a key component of tiering; the difference between a Tier 3 (does one thing really well, or does everything pretty well) and a Tier 2 (same raw gamebreaking power as a Tier 1, can actually be more restricted in options than a generalist Tier 3 but can do vastly more powerful/world-altering things) is in power rather than options.

I have tried to design the simplest system possible to discuss the tiers.

The characters I built have "I Win" buttons: the Healer wins against sufficiently low damage encounters, the Striker wins against sufficiently low health opposition, and the Toolkit wins against both. So my example still works fine for a discussion of that part of the definition of Tiers. So, from the sounds of it, my Gestalt and both "Dedicated" builds are Tier 3; my Striker and Healer are Tier 2, and my Toolkit is Tier 1.

That Tier 1 is defined by game breaking ability sounds like a fault in the tier system. That sounds like it should be an entirely separate discussion. :smallannoyed

The Angry Immortal can break the campaign setting by literally breaking the campaign world, and can do this on a Commoner chassis. Thus, this should be divorced from any discussions of focus, flexibility, or ability to solo encounters, IMO.

[JeenLeen]

I think I agree with you and ImNotTrevor in that there could be a system built with unbalanced classes, but the classes are linked to tiers so that you can play on 'hard' to 'easy' mode, as you wish. Such would be a strange game design to me, but a cool one. Almost like Exalted 2e, with Solars and their equivalents at the top, then Sidereals and Lunars, then Dragonblooded.

I think it would be interesting to see if, in a supposedly balanced system like that, some builds tended to jump tiers. Like something designed as tier 1 not holding up, or a tier 2 really being tier 3 usefulness.



The characters I built have "I Win" buttons: the Healer wins against sufficiently low damage encounters, the Striker wins against sufficiently low health opposition, and the Toolkit wins against both. So my example still works fine for a discussion of that part of the definition of Tiers. So, from the sounds of it, my Gestalt and both "Dedicated" builds are Tier 3; my Striker and Healer are Tier 2, and my Toolkit is Tier 1.

Some of your enemy concepts seem... strawman-esque (might not be using the term right.) What sort of enemy would be an effective enemy but also deal low damage? (In your theoretical system, status ailments and one-shot-kills don't seem to be a thing yet, so I'm leaving those options out.) I was thinking it might be something like healer-types weak to strikers, striker-types weak to tanks, and tank-types weak to healers--but upon thinking about it more, it doesn't really work. (I am tired and might not be doing the thinking right.)

I guess I'm arguing that the 'I Win' buttons would only work against weak foes, which really anyone could beat.

However, I reckon I'm envisioning the system different than you are, so I reckon you have a good counter-argument.

[Frozen_Feet]

I think it would be interesting to see if, in a supposedly balanced system like that, some builds tended to jump tiers. Like something designed as tier 1 not holding up, or a tier 2 really being tier 3 usefulness.

Oh, you would almost certainly see that in the playtesting phase of a new system. Foolproof design in complex games is damn-near impossible, because fools are so ingenious. That's why most games lack in-built tiers and like JaronK's system, the tiers are come up by the players after extended play and tied to some specific metagame. Outside tabletop games, Pokemon is an easily-studied example.

It is also typical that characters move up or down a tier as the metagame changes.

The takeaway is that the more complex a game becomes, the more playtesting is required to see if tiers hold up.

[Quertus]

Well this is a rare case of all posters so far being right, more or less.

:smallwink:


And JAL is right that JaronK's tier system includes a clause about game-breaking power. In that, the definitions given by JaronK and Quertus differ. Quertus's definition is more neutral - I don't think anyone could argue that breadth of ability is automatically bad. JaronK's is less so. I'd find it hard to justify, if designing a new game, why exactly I'd give any character "campaign breaking" power or abilities which mechanically solve encounters with "little thought from the player".

I want my games to engage my players and that implies making them think about what's actually happening in it. For that, JaronK's Tier 1s would be counter-productive. Quertus's Tier 1s wouldn't be.

Yeah, I'm not seeing the value in conflating those ideas.


About the role protection with D&D (at least in 3.5, may differ for other editions):

I think the biggest issue is that a Tier 1 class can generally be better at any role than another class.

This may be an issue of the specific implementation of the tiers as they exist in 3e. I am attempting to divorce the conversation from such specific implementations, in order to ask such questions as, "is avoiding 'Tier 1' a good design goal?". I have held, and continue to hold, that Tier 1 is the solution, not the problem. But I could be wrong. So is like to discuss the tiers with the simplest implementation I could think of, so as to better see and define the problem, and develop successful solutions, rather than talking in circles about S's Wizards.


From a game design perspective, though, why I'd make the magic class better at skills than the skill class?

That's the state as it is in d20 D&D, but one could argue it's really a design error.

I'm not convinced that it is.

Now, why the Striker class (rogue) is better at skills than the nominal Toolkit combatant (Fighter) or most any other class in the game is a bit puzzling...


Some of your enemy concepts seem... strawman-esque (might not be using the term right.) What sort of enemy would be an effective enemy but also deal low damage? (In your theoretical system, status ailments and one-shot-kills don't seem to be a thing yet, so I'm leaving those options out.) I was thinking it might be something like healer-types weak to strikers, striker-types weak to tanks, and tank-types weak to healers--but upon thinking about it more, it doesn't really work. (I am tired and might not be doing the thinking right.)

I guess I'm arguing that the 'I Win' buttons would only work against weak foes, which really anyone could beat.

However, I reckon I'm envisioning the system different than you are, so I reckon you have a good counter-argument.

If you play my game "as intended", 100 kobalds* is a challenge. If you do the math, and have your Healer hold a choke point, you just win.

* or rabid puppies, or angry birds, or whatever.


Oh, you would almost certainly see that in the playtesting phase of a new system. Foolproof design in complex games is damn-near impossible, because fools are so ingenious. That's why most games lack in-built tiers and like JaronK's system, the tiers are come up by the players after extended play and tied to some specific metagame. Outside tabletop games, Pokemon is an easily-studied example.

It is also typical that characters move up or down a tier as the metagame changes.

The takeaway is that the more complex a game becomes, the more playtesting is required to see if tiers hold up.

MTG?

[ImNotTrevor]

I find the idea of a single class able to do anything to cause me to have the following question:
Why would I play anything else?

If my Gish can optimize into tanking without the losses associated with being a Tank... why play a tank unless I'm really just that into the tank thing?

I'm fine with playing a Slightly Worse At Tanking But Better At Everything Else Offtank class moreso than I Only Tank. Keeps me from being pidgeonholed. I do the stuff I'm good at but nothing stops me from dabbling. So if our Striker goes down we're not up Chocolate Creek without a paddle. Me and the other Gish can Sorta-Striker our way through the encounter.

The Do Anything Guy is the most efficient choice every time. So why bother having other classes at all?

At least, the way most classes in D&D function works like that or worse, they're just flat better at everything.

I think the best way to word my ideal class is that it has a NARRARIVE Niche that it fulfills. Difficult in more strictly mechanical games, but still possible.

My Faceless in Apocalypse World is a violent, crazy ragemonster. All of his moves(abilities) point to this.
When I'm being violent and psycho, I get more armor.
I deal more harm than others because I'm bloodthirsty.
I can consult the mask I wear, and if I do what it says I get XP.
If someone greivously injures me, I can vow revenge and forever have bonuses to hurt them.
I can explode through terrain to reach my victims.

Everything about these abilities screams "This person is crazy and will beat you to death with your own arms." Mechanically and narratively, they line up.

There is a class that is a disciplined military type.
Their moves include seeing the strength in others, mitigating the damage they deal through restraint and precision, keeping their cool under fire, and seeing things as they really are. As mechanical things.

There is a class that owns an establishment (like a restaurant or brothel). It details the establishment, gives you moves to use your establishment as leverage, poison your enemies when they are within your place, and even use your dedicated patrons as your eyes and ears.

I want my class to do the sorts of things I imagine this person doing Narratively. If I have a Knight, he better inspire people. He better be able to stand tall against evil. He better have a quest that motivates him.

If I'm playing a mage, I want to do magic but without being able to brush off all cost. I want to be strange, mysterious, esoteric. I want to be the pressure valve in front of phenomenal cosmic power who has to let out his power a little bit at a time or risk being consumed and destroyed by the very power he weilds. And that should be MECHANISED!

So my niches aren't of the sort where "this person does damage, this person soaks damage." That doesn't interest me. I'm more interested in "This person communes with nature, this person is a knight on a holy quest."

Probably why I like PbtA systems more than D20 systems.

[Quertus]

I find the idea of a single class able to do anything to cause me to have the following question:
Why would I play anything else?

If my Gish can optimize into tanking without the losses associated with being a Tank... why play a tank unless I'm really just that into the tank thing?

I'm fine with playing a Slightly Worse At Tanking But Better At Everything Else Offtank class moreso than I Only Tank. Keeps me from being pidgeonholed. I do the stuff I'm good at but nothing stops me from dabbling. So if our Striker goes down we're not up Chocolate Creek without a paddle. Me and the other Gish can Sorta-Striker our way through the encounter.

The Do Anything Guy is the most efficient choice every time. So why bother having other classes at all?

At least, the way most classes in D&D function works like that or worse, they're just flat better at everything.

I think the best way to word my ideal class is that it has a NARRARIVE Niche that it fulfills. Difficult in more strictly mechanical games, but still possible.

My Faceless in Apocalypse World is a violent, crazy ragemonster. All of his moves(abilities) point to this.
When I'm being violent and psycho, I get more armor.
I deal more harm than others because I'm bloodthirsty.
I can consult the mask I wear, and if I do what it says I get XP.
If someone greivously injures me, I can vow revenge and forever have bonuses to hurt them.
I can explode through terrain to reach my victims.

Everything about these abilities screams "This person is crazy and will beat you to death with your own arms." Mechanically and narratively, they line up.

There is a class that is a disciplined military type.
Their moves include seeing the strength in others, mitigating the damage they deal through restraint and precision, keeping their cool under fire, and seeing things as they really are. As mechanical things.

There is a class that owns an establishment (like a restaurant or brothel). It details the establishment, gives you moves to use your establishment as leverage, poison your enemies when they are within your place, and even use your dedicated patrons as your eyes and ears.

I want my class to do the sorts of things I imagine this person doing Narratively. If I have a Knight, he better inspire people. He better be able to stand tall against evil. He better have a quest that motivates him.

If I'm playing a mage, I want to do magic but without being able to brush off all cost. I want to be strange, mysterious, esoteric. I want to be the pressure valve in front of phenomenal cosmic power who has to let out his power a little bit at a time or risk being consumed and destroyed by the very power he weilds. And that should be MECHANISED!

So my niches aren't of the sort where "this person does damage, this person soaks damage." That doesn't interest me. I'm more interested in "This person communes with nature, this person is a knight on a holy quest."

Probably why I like PbtA systems more than D20 systems.

Very off topic, but how well can a mage run a hotel? How well can the brothel owner see things as they really are, or deal and mitigate damage? What tier are these characters?

[Vitruviansquid]

I find the idea of a single class able to do anything to cause me to have the following question:
Why would I play anything else?

If my Gish can optimize into tanking without the losses associated with being a Tank... why play a tank unless I'm really just that into the tank thing?

I'm fine with playing a Slightly Worse At Tanking But Better At Everything Else Offtank class moreso than I Only Tank. Keeps me from being pidgeonholed. I do the stuff I'm good at but nothing stops me from dabbling. So if our Striker goes down we're not up Chocolate Creek without a paddle. Me and the other Gish can Sorta-Striker our way through the encounter.

The Do Anything Guy is the most efficient choice every time. So why bother having other classes at all?

At least, the way most classes in D&D function works like that or worse, they're just flat better at everything.


The point of a class system isn't to FORCE a group of players to choose all different classes.

The point of a class system is to ALLOW players within the group to play in different styles that they like.

The problem with D&D is that it has a bunch of classes Quertus would label "The Solo," but in theory, the existence of what Quertus labels "the Gish" doesn't actually compare to or excel over the other classes and is not the most efficient choice all the time.

[Frozen_Feet]

Well when you consider how good design tiers are, you might consider few particular types of player:

The "Stop having fun, guys!" player and "Your fun is ruining my fun!" player.

The former will insist that everyone has to play the game at the edge of optimization. Anyone who shows up at the table without Tier 1 character is doing something wrong in their opinion.

The latter is offended by another player having a different tier character than them. If another player has a higher tier character, they will complain how "they're putting power over flavor" or "they're stealing the spotlight". If another player has a lower tier character, they will complain about how "they're not pulling their weight" or how "they're forcing everyone to play on a lower level!"

The nonsense in this, as pertains to roleplaying games, is the failure to appreciate the player-character-distinction. That is: a player might be able to choose whatever arbitrary character they want, but this is not reflective of an in-game reality where any arbitrary character another player might want is accessible. That is: if three players create Tier 1s and a fourth makes a Tier 3, it often makes no sense to complain about this from an in-game perspective, because in the game there might not be fourth Tier 1. The characters don't have option of four Tier 1s... it's either three Tier 1s, or them plus a Tier 3.

Tl;dr: for mixed tier gaming where you want each individual player to have maximal freedom of character selection, you need to preface it with "all of you are going to make your characters individually and deal with how to work as a group after-the-fact; if you have objections, speak now or be forever silent". And then stomp out any notion that deliberately playing a weaker character is synonymous with being a bad player, in any sense of the word.

---

EDIT:

@ImNotTrevor:

The most trivial answer to "why play anything else?" is always "For the challenge." A low tier plays differently than a high tier, and a group of low or mixed tiers even more so.

The next most trivial, in the context of roleplaying games, is "because the role I want to play only has these abilities, not those". The choice to play deliberately suboptimal characters is something that should exist and be preserved, even against group pressure.

[Max_Killjoy]

Some people want their characters to have defined Game roles, with mechanical support.

Some people want their characters to have defined Narrative roles, with mechanical support.

...

Then there's me... I hate roles. I hate archetypes. I hate character-tropes. I hate being shown a set of boxes and told "your character must fit in one of these". As I look at it, people are not roles or archetypes or tropes, they don't exist to play a part in a story or a game -- they're individuals. I want the mechanics to represent what character as a specific individual person can do.

( This is related to why I also hate those stupid "personality archetype" tests that snakeoil salespeople sell to companies, convincing them it helps them understand their employees. Pigeonholes are stupid. "Oh, you're an X, that means you like X things and do X things and are good in X roles." )

[Frozen_Feet]

For a roleplaying game, a role really just means an individual character and their personality. It can be constructed from genre tropes, from game tropes, or to emulate a real person, or to a degree even all of those.

But even if a game treats roles as individuals, that doesn't prevent players from coming up with categories and tiers after-the-fact. For example, in a point-buy system, some skills may be more usefull than others, and some methods of point-allocation more optimal than others. So even of the game itself does not have character classes or tiers, you can quickly get player saying "if you want to play this kind of character, you should totally put your points like so".

[icefractal]

I think that while versatility is beyond doubt an important factor, most Tier discussions overstate its primacy. Yes, versatility can make up for less raw power - to an extent. And characters with no versatility can often be stymied in fairly simple ways. But at the end of the day, power is still the factor that wins you fights, and the factor that most often leads to people feeling overshadowed.

A Mailman Sorcerer is technically lower tier than a non-early-entry Mystic Theurge, and is indeed less versatile, but in most campaigns the former is going to be way more dominating of screen-time than the latter.

[ImNotTrevor]

Very off topic, but how well can a mage run a hotel? How well can the brothel owner see things as they really are, or deal and mitigate damage? What tier are these characters?

If you want a run a hotel, a mage is probably not the thing you want. Though I see no problem wanting to make a thing that blends the two, or using the narrative freedom within the system to say that some of your Hotel Skills have a root in magic. But at that point I have to ask if you're playing a Mage who just happens to own a hotel or a hotel owner who happens to be magical. That would be a very difficult line to straddle. Possible in most PbtA systems, sure.

I suppose saying "sees things as they really are" is inaccurate. Better to say they gain additional insight through their military training that others might not see. The brothel owner can still fight people, and can still use armor. They just don't (normally) gain additional damage resistance from being a raging psychopath (who, fictionally, is still getting injured. It just doesn't matter to them.)


Where I imagine this will go is back to the "niches are just stuff you're good at." Though my response to this is that the Gunlugger also deals lots of damage (More than the Faceless, even) and has lots of armor as well. But their power comes from being loaded with guns, and lots of them, not from raging. (And yes, there is a mechanical/narrative distinction there)

So the narrative niches are protected, even when skills are similar. Both the mayoresque character and the gang leader character have leadership skills and can direct gangs around. But their approaches are wildly different. Both a Savvyhead and a Hocus can access the Augury ability, but the former does so through esoteric machines and the latter through communion with her worshippers.

Some abilities are distinct and unique, but most are a difference of approach and the particulars of likely outcomes. There is a difference between being leader because you're inately in charge by rank, and being in charge because you're strongest. Apocalypse World has mechanised that difference.



The point of a class system isn't to FORCE a group of players to choose all different classes.

The point of a class system is to ALLOW players within the group to play in different styles that they like.

The problem with D&D is that it has a bunch of classes Quertus would label "The Solo," but in theory, the existence of what Quertus labels "the Gish" doesn't actually compare to or excel over the other classes and is not the most efficient choice all the time.

My issue is more in line with your last paragraph than the others. Again, I have no problem with many different classes and abilities. I really like them, actually. I also like classless systems. If it's well designed and more on the narrative focus end of things, I will probably like it.

I guess Gish was the wrong term, but we're pretty much agreed here.




@ImNotTrevor:

The most trivial answer to "why play anything else?" is always "For the challenge." A low tier plays differently than a high tier, and a group of low or mixed tiers even more so.

The next most trivial, in the context of roleplaying games, is "because the role I want to play only has these abilities, not those". The choice to play deliberately suboptimal characters is something that should exist and be preserved, even against group pressure.

I'll make two points:
I'm in favor of having multiple possibilities as far as classes go. Since I have no narrative frame of reference for these hypothetical classes, I can't make assumptions about what sorts of characters do and don't fit them. So I'm not really going to touch on that point.

If you wanna play for challenge, sure. But I'm thinking that's a deliberate GROUP choice, and shouldn't be made solo for the same reasons why you shouldn't bring steak to the vegetarian cookout without asking.

TRPGs are a GROUP activity. If you're faced with an entire group saying "we're not certain you're on the same page with us" it is probably unwise to both outright ignore them and insist on staying in the group at the same time. As a GM I would dismiss such players from my table out-of-hand to prevent further problems. If everyone else is OK with having one oddball underdog, that's one thing. If the entire group is saying "but we wanted a tale of epic heroes" to which one individual is saying "screw you, I'm playing a crippled orphan," that's a problem. So is the exact inverse. If the group is saying "but we want to be crippled orphans" and one person is saying "screw you I'm an epic hero" I will have exactly as much problem. Because the specifics of the character aren't the problem. It's a player belligerance issue at that point. (And really, if the group and you want wildly different game experiences... why are you playing with them in the first place? At this point I'm doing this player a favor.)

Long story short, TRPGs are group things. Ignoring "group pressure" (AKA what the other human beings playing the game would like to see in the game) is probably a bad idea in such a group environment.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Re: the tier system

Has anyone actually been arguing that the tier 1/2 classes being game breaking is a feature (or even desirable)? I think we can all agree that no system should intentionally make certain classes able to break campaigns over their knee

[Vitruviansquid]

Re: the tier system

Has anyone actually been arguing that the tier 1/2 classes being game breaking is a feature (or even desirable)? I think we can all agree that no system should intentionally make certain classes able to break campaigns over their knee

I have seen these arguments, and I think the people who make them would tell you it's your own fault for playing with a GM who is not an all-knowing god of system mastery and who is unwilling to make the setting equally ridiculous to counter to the ridiculous shenanigans your tier 1 class pulls.

[Quertus]

If you wanna play for challenge, sure. But I'm thinking that's a deliberate GROUP choice, and shouldn't be made solo for the same reasons why you shouldn't bring steak to the vegetarian cookout without asking.

TRPGs are a GROUP activity. If you're faced with an entire group saying "we're not certain you're on the same page with us" it is probably unwise to both outright ignore them and insist on staying in the group at the same time. As a GM I would dismiss such players from my table out-of-hand to prevent further problems. If everyone else is OK with having one oddball underdog, that's one thing. If the entire group is saying "but we wanted a tale of epic heroes" to which one individual is saying "screw you, I'm playing a crippled orphan," that's a problem. So is the exact inverse. If the group is saying "but we want to be crippled orphans" and one person is saying "screw you I'm an epic hero" I will have exactly as much problem. Because the specifics of the character aren't the problem. It's a player belligerance issue at that point. (And really, if the group and you want wildly different game experiences... why are you playing with them in the first place? At this point I'm doing this player a favor.)

Long story short, TRPGs are group things. Ignoring "group pressure" (AKA what the other human beings playing the game would like to see in the game) is probably a bad idea in such a group environment.

Yes and no.

How does me being crippled affect whether or not you are playing Hercules?

There is a difference between wanting control over your character, and wanting to have control over what type of story is being told. I'm firmly against all forms of the latter, including on the GM side, where it is often referred to as "Railroading", because it is harmful to the former. The exception being if the group comes to a consensus on the style of game beforehand.


Re: the tier system

Has anyone actually been arguing that the tier 1/2 classes being game breaking is a feature (or even desirable)? I think we can all agree that no system should intentionally make certain classes able to break campaigns over their knee

No, I've just been arguing that statements about ability to destroy the campaign have no place in any measure of a character, including the tier system.

[goto124]

How does me being crippled affect whether or not you are playing Hercules?

If there's a crippled 100% regular human in the same team as Hercules, how does the GM consistently create encounters (not necessarily combat) such that the Hercules does not keep overshadowing the human?

The human could be good at social skills... I feel I've seen this somewhere before...

[Cluedrew]

No, I've just been arguing that statements about ability to destroy the campaign have no place in any measure of a character, including the tier system.But isn't that what tier 1 (and tier 2 to a lesser extent) means in the tier system?

If you want to talk about tier 1 characters in a different context: What exactly is that context? What are your tiers? What is a tier 2? 3?

On Cripples: I think it is a matter of tone and balance as well.

[ImNotTrevor]

Yes and no.

How does me being crippled affect whether or not you are playing Hercules?

As someone already said, it doesn't affect the characters. But it will play hell with the GMs job unless this crippled orphan is at least somewhat as skilled as Hercules is strong. I'm not asking for percect balance (What exactly does it even mean to be as good at talking to people as Herculese is strong? But trying is prefered). We're all here to play a game. If Herculese is the only one who actually has to engage with the rules because the crippled orphan doesn't do anything that engages the "game" part of the RPG, there's something wonky going on that NEEDS to have been agreed to beforehand to avoid causing displeasure from/between the two parties



There is a difference between wanting control over your character, and wanting to have control over what type of story is being told. I'm firmly against all forms of the latter, including on the GM side, where it is often referred to as "Railroading", because it is harmful to the former. The exception being if the group comes to a consensus on the style of game beforehand

Honestly, having a discussion that gets to a consensus on the style of game everyone wants to play is important enough that it should really be the norm. So many problems in TRPGs could be mitigated if this conversation happened and then character creation took place together.



No, I've just been arguing that statements about ability to destroy the campaign have no place in any measure of a character, including the tier system.

As in... game breaking characters shouldn't be included in a Tier or we should pretend they don't exist?

[Quertus]

But isn't that what tier 1 (and tier 2 to a lesser extent) means in the tier system?

If you want to talk about tier 1 characters in a different context: What exactly is that context? What are your tiers? What is a tier 2? 3?

Perhaps I have simply misunderstood the tier system, but, my understanding is, even if you remove all the "world-breaking" spells, a Wizard is still Tier 1, by virtue of a combination of power and versatility.


On Cripples: I think it is a matter of tone and balance as well.

Well, as I've said many times, I'm a proponent of the largest possible range of capabilities in a game. Balance =/= fun.

Tone... Sure. But who sets that? IMO, unless agreed upon beforehand, the answer to that question, just like with what the story is, is up to everyone to create with what they have.


As someone already said, it doesn't affect the characters. But it will play hell with the GMs job unless this crippled orphan is at least somewhat as skilled as Hercules is strong. I'm not asking for percect balance (What exactly does it even mean to be as good at talking to people as Herculese is strong? But trying is prefered). We're all here to play a game. If Herculese is the only one who actually has to engage with the rules because the crippled orphan doesn't do anything that engages the "game" part of the RPG, there's something wonky going on that NEEDS to have been agreed to beforehand to avoid causing displeasure from/between the two parties

Honestly, having a discussion that gets to a consensus on the style of game everyone wants to play is important enough that it should really be the norm. So many problems in TRPGs could be mitigated if this conversation happened and then character creation took place together.

I'm biased, as I can never seem to get my groups to want to talk about the game. So, while I may agree in theory, in practice, it doesn't happen. So, understand that that's where I'm coming from.

Now, Armus, for example, nominally engaged the rules. But he was horrible compared to the rest of the party from a statistical standpoint.

What he did, however, was make brilliant tactical choices. And brilliant deceptions, like consistently moving to protect someone who was more durable than himself.

Despite being a liability on paper, Armus was many times over the MVP - and that's even before you consider his out of combat contribution.

But, because he always seemed terrible, no one ever felt that Armus was overshadowing them in combat.


As in... game breaking characters shouldn't be included in a Tier or we should pretend they don't exist?

As in, neither how well role-played the character is, nor how tall or is, nor how much 3rd party material it requires, nor how many ways it breaks the game (literally or figuratively) and "needs to be fixed" should figure into a discussion of the character's relative capacity to contribute meaningfully.

Yes, there are broken things. That's a completely independent conversation. Unless, of course, you're playing a comedic game where breaking the game is a/the way to contribute meaningfully to the game.

[ImNotTrevor]

I'm biased, as I can never seem to get my groups to want to talk about the game. So, while I may agree in theory, in practice, it doesn't happen. So, understand that that's where I'm coming from.
It may be because this runs counter to D&D culture, which has extended its feelers through the hobby with decidedly negative effects. D&D does a very poor job of showing the HOW of the hobby.



Now, Armus, for example, nominally engaged the rules. But he was horrible compared to the rest of the party from a statistical standpoint.

What he did, however, was make brilliant tactical choices. And brilliant deceptions, like consistently moving to protect someone who was more durable than himself.

Despite being a liability on paper, Armus was many times over the MVP - and that's even before you consider his out of combat contribution.

But, because he always seemed terrible, no one ever felt that Armus was overshadowing them in combat.


The thing I find to be worth noting here is that in order to have a wizard be a non-issue, you had to actively try to be useless. And were still useful.

That you can choose to not use an overpowered class in an overpowered way does not make them cease to be such, nor is it an argument that therefore there is no inherent problem with the class. The fact of the matter remains that at any moment beyond a certain level, Armus could just say "screw it" and tear holes in the fabric of reality.



As in, neither how well role-played the character is, nor how tall or is, nor how much 3rd party material it requires, nor how many ways it breaks the game (literally or figuratively) and "needs to be fixed" should figure into a discussion of the character's relative capacity to contribute meaningfully.
Shouldn't the capability of causing major play disruption with a thumbs-up from the rules be a major part of the equation of contribution? If you can instantly make problems go away or instantly revise reality, that's a major contribution. And way broken.

The capacity to be so powerful that the game's rules break down should definitely be part of the equation of whether or not a class is appropriate. (As you say below, unless it's a comedic game... such classes need to be fixed. Quickly.)



Yes, there are broken things. That's a completely independent conversation. Unless, of course, you're playing a comedic game where breaking the game is a/the way to contribute meaningfully to the game.

I don't understand how a class being able to completely break down the rules due to its powerlevel has no bearing on a discussion of its powerlevel.

[Nifft]

As in, neither how well role-played the character is, nor how tall or is, nor how much 3rd party material it requires, nor how many ways it breaks the game (literally or figuratively) and "needs to be fixed" should figure into a discussion of the character's relative capacity to contribute meaningfully.

Yes, there are broken things. That's a completely independent conversation. Unless, of course, you're playing a comedic game where breaking the game is a/the way to contribute meaningfully to the game.

You're claiming that tier 1 is not a problem -- it's literally in the thread's title -- but you feel that the primary characteristic of tier 1 classes ("able to break the game in a variety of ways") is not relevant to this conversation.

I'm not sure how you can hold those two views simultaneously.

[Quertus]

The thing I find to be worth noting here is that in order to have a wizard be a non-issue, you had to actively try to be useless. And were still useful.

That you can choose to not use an overpowered class in an overpowered way does not make them cease to be such, nor is it an argument that therefore there is no inherent problem with the class. The fact of the matter remains that at any moment beyond a certain level, Armus could just say "screw it" and tear holes in the fabric of reality.

I never said Armus was a Wizard...

Ok, I've said many times, "I play wizards", but I've also said that I occasionally play non-wizards so that I know what it's like from the other side, so that I can play wizards better.


Shouldn't the capability of causing major play disruption with a thumbs-up from the rules be a major part of the equation of contribution? If you can instantly make problems go away or instantly revise reality, that's a major contribution. And way broken.

The capacity to be so powerful that the game's rules break down should definitely be part of the equation of whether or not a class is appropriate. (As you say below, unless it's a comedic game... such classes need to be fixed. Quickly.)

I don't understand how a class being able to completely break down the rules due to its powerlevel has no bearing on a discussion of its powerlevel.

If it's broken and needs to be fixed, it's broken and needs to be fixed. So, no, the broken state has no bearing on the character you'll actually be playing, unless you're actually playing that broken character.

If my incorrect bank statement figured into my wealth, I'd be tier 1 financially. Unfortunately, since it was a bug, I'm relegated to a lower tier, with less spending power than a small country. (OK, it wasn't off that much, but the point still stands.)

RAW, the 2e Daern's Instant Fortress deals 10d10 points of dawizard. That is irrelevant to the power is a DIF, if no-one is ever going to rule it that way.

EDIT:

You're claiming that tier 1 is not a problem -- it's literally in the thread's title -- but you feel that the primary characteristic of tier 1 classes ("able to break the game in a variety of ways") is not relevant to this conversation.

I'm not sure how you can hold those two views simultaneously.

Again, maybe I've misunderstood the tier system, but, if you take away all the "broken" abilities, is not a Wizard still Tier 1 by virtue of the combination of power and flexibility? Therefore, isn't it fair to say that "broken" should be fixed before tier is calculated, and talk of broken should be separate from tier discussions?

[Vitruviansquid]

In the JaronK tier system that people tend to use, tier 1 is broken by definition. If you take away the things a Wizard could do to break the game, that class ceases to become Tier 1.

edit:

Since you are against things that are broken, what you really mean in the thread's title is to say is something like,

"Game balance theory: Why I feel Tier 3 is not the problem"

[Nifft]

Again, maybe I've misunderstood the tier system, but, if you take away all the "broken" abilities, is not a Wizard still Tier 1 by virtue of the combination of power and flexibility? Therefore, isn't it fair to say that "broken" should be fixed before tier is calculated, and talk of broken should be separate from tier discussions?

If you take away all the "broken" abilities, then spellcasting is gone, replaced with something different and possibly unrecognizable.

So, what you're saying is really: "If we change the game totally into a different game, then the currently imbalanced parts of this game won't be problems."

And that might be true.

But... to put it in math terms, that result is kinda trivial.

[Lord Raziere]

If you take away all the "broken" abilities, then spellcasting is gone, replaced with something different and possibly unrecognizable.

So, what you're saying is really: "If we change the game totally into a different game, then the currently imbalanced parts of this game won't be problems."

And that might be true.


Yeah that already came and went. It was called DnD 4e. Wizards still even had more flexibility than other classes, because you could select two daily and utility powers per level up rather than one and choose to prepare one or other on any given day and thus keep their signature flexible preparation style to a degree, right out of the corebook.

Its only real problem was that it was called DnD in the first place really.

[Quertus]

In the JaronK tier system that people tend to use, tier 1 is broken by definition. If you take away the things a Wizard could do to break the game, that class ceases to become Tier 1.

edit:

Since you are against things that are broken, what you really mean in the thread's title is to say is something like,

"Game balance theory: Why I feel Tier 3 is not the problem"


If you take away all the "broken" abilities, then spellcasting is gone, replaced with something different and possibly unrecognizable.

So, what you're saying is really: "If we change the game totally into a different game, then the currently imbalanced parts of this game won't be problems."

And that might be true.

But... to put it in math terms, that result is kinda trivial.


Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played well, can break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.

The most neural reading I can divine is that Tier 1 is supposed to excel at everything. Power, and versatility. And spellcasting can certainly conceptually achieve that, even without game-breaking abilities. (And skill should also be able to achieve what I'm reading tier 1 to represent. That the current implementation in most editions of D&D fail both in the existence of the broken, and the uneven distribution of classes among tiers, is, IMO, independent of whether Tier 1 combination of power and flexibility is a reasonable design goal.)

My understanding was that Tier 3 represented power or versatility: the ability to do one thing well, or many / all things poorly.

And lower tiers included such capacities as the ability to do one thing poorly.

The results being trivial is the entire point! There's too much going on in existing editions and games to discuss the merits of the tier system without everyone's baggage cluttering up the discussion. Thus, I'm attempting to get to the most basic core of tiering, and evaluate that.

But, even I find it hard to check my bags at the door. So the thread continues to be cluttered with preconceived notions grounded in existing games, rather than the purely academic view of tiering and gameplay I'm attempting to facilitate.


Yeah that already came and went. It was called DnD 4e. Wizards still even had more flexibility than other classes, because you could select two daily and utility powers per level up rather than one and choose to prepare one or other on any given day and thus keep their signature flexible preparation style to a degree, right out of the corebook.

Its only real problem was that it was called DnD in the first place really.

Well, I suppose my example system was most similar to 4e...

[Nifft]

The most neural reading I can divine is that Tier 1 is supposed to excel at everything. Power, and versatility. And spellcasting can certainly conceptually achieve that, even without game-breaking abilities. (And skill should also be able to achieve what I'm reading tier 1 to represent. That the current implementation in most editions of D&D fail both in the existence of the broken, and the uneven distribution of classes among tiers, is, IMO, independent of whether Tier 1 combination of power and flexibility is a reasonable design goal.) Ah, I think this is the kernel of miscommunication.

You seem to think Tier 1 classes were intended to be Tier 1, as distinct from the classes in the other tiers.

They were not.

The original designers intended that all classes were roughly equal in power. They failed. Classes were not equal in power, nor in versatility.

The tier system is not a design guide. It's an illustration and codification of design failures.


The results being trivial is the entire point! There's too much going on in existing editions and games to discuss the merits of the tier system without everyone's baggage cluttering up the discussion. Thus, I'm attempting to get to the most basic core of tiering, and evaluate that.

But, even I find it hard to check my bags at the door. So the thread continues to be cluttered with preconceived notions grounded in existing games, rather than the purely academic view of tiering and gameplay I'm attempting to facilitate.

The tier system isn't anyone's baggage -- nobody thinks classes should be tiered. The advice we give using the tier system is: make sure all the PCs are in roughly similar tiers, so you can build a game that challenges everyone in a roughly similar way, and so you don't have one person feeling useless & unable to contribute.

The tier system is an illustration of one particular design failure, and a guideline for how to work around that failure.

Not sure what "baggage" you mean.

[Mechalich]

The original designers intended that all classes were roughly equal in power. They failed. Classes were not equal in power, nor in versatility.

The tier system is not a design guide. It's an illustration and codification of design failures.

Exactly.

Having power tiers in play is not a problem, but in a game that has levels, that's supposed to be represented by the levels (and for monsters, CR). The class tiers are illustrative of the problem that at equivalent levels, the classes do not produce characters, on average, that are anything close to equivalent in power.

A level 5 fighter is intended to always beat a level 1 wizard, and a level 10 wizard should never beat a level 20 fighter, but these things do not hold true.

[Lord Raziere]

Well, I suppose my example system was most similar to 4e...

Yet we all know how that song and dance went, now don't we? WotC actually addressed the complaints, actually did what was needed- completely overhaul the spell system and replace with something else- and got a bunch of hate, complaints that "everyone is a wizard now" and that "this isn't DnD" and so on....

and now we have 5e, with the developers too afraid to make any actual content afraid that they will tick someone off, so they make hypothetical content in their unearthed arcana while getting the fans to make and publish content for them through DM's Guild. while also selling all the past editions in digital format. at least no one can complain about their edition not being represented.

[Cluedrew]

The problem is under the hypothetical system laid out the wizard is not the solo.

The Wizard has three attacks they may choose between every turn. They may either kill an enemy, deal 1d6 damage and prevent their target from attacking or deal 1d6 damage and fully heal someone.

Or it can be, and I don't think you have to go full TO to reach that either. Save or dies completely trash the health system, their shut downs are often complete and absolute and... they are not actually good at healing people but obsoleting a mere 2/3 of characters seems to be understating the problem.

Of course due to never having gotten to the level 7+ where this is supposed to be a problem (never had a long running D&D campaign) I can only say this through theory crafting and second hand stories. But both of those line up pretty strongly with this result.

[Frozen_Feet]

@ImNotTrevor:

I agree roleplaying games are group endeavors. However, you are using this fact to leap to conclusions.

Namely, it's implicit throughout your argument that you think players acting as a group requires their characters to be equals in a group.

This need not be so.

Furthermore, you imply that when someone knowingly chooses to play a weaker character, the GM has to change their challenge design to make that character have equal share of the spotlight.

This need not be so either.

For example, in the game where there are heroes and crippled orphans, the game can be about those heroes protecting said orphan from harm. The challenge for the heroes is to keep the orphans alive and tackle the epic threat, the challenge for the orphans is to stay alive.

Who in such scenarios has more spotlight? Who knows? Whether the heroes or the orphans have more spotlight isn't decided by how they contribute against a single challenge, the challenge isn't even the same for all characters. It's decided by player activity and GM giving out turns. Furthermore, "having spotlight" and contributing to the game aren't the same as contributing against challenges. From an in-game perspective, the orphans can be entirely useless or even detrimental to the heroes yet at the same time be dear and important to the players, because the players wanted to play a game of heroes protecting crippled orphans. The players of the orphans can be fine with this. The players of the heroes can be fine with this.

The dynamic of a dysfunctional group can be the challenge, it can be the focal point of a game, and it doesn't have to imply a dysfunctional player dynamic nor a dysfunctional game. And you don't need unbroken before-the-fact consensus about this: As I suggested earlier, you could as well tell the players that they'll create their characters individually and have to deal with what comes out after-the-fact.

Tl;dr: When designing a new game, you can blow up any pre-existing metagame about the characters being equals and leave it on each player to decide how much they want to contribute against challenges and how central they want their characters to be, through how they design their character and how they play them.

[Quertus]

Ah, I think this is the kernel of miscommunication.

You seem to think Tier 1 classes were intended to be Tier 1, as distinct from the classes in the other tiers.

They were not.

The original designers intended that all classes were roughly equal in power. They failed. Classes were not equal in power, nor in versatility.

The tier system is not a design guide. It's an illustration and codification of design failures.

No, I don't think it is intentional. Nor do I believe it correctly identified what is a bug and what is a feature. As I keep saying, I think having the range of Tiers is a feature, allowing the game to be played anywhere from easy mode to hard mode. And, personally, I think they should intentionally make / should have intentionally made a Tier 1 Fighter.

Focus too much on balance, and you get 4e. :smallyuk: That was fun for what % of the gaming public?


Exactly.

Having power tiers in play is not a problem, but in a game that has levels, that's supposed to be represented by the levels (and for monsters, CR). The class tiers are illustrative of the problem that at equivalent levels, the classes do not produce characters, on average, that are anything close to equivalent in power.

A level 5 fighter is intended to always beat a level 1 wizard, and a level 10 wizard should never beat a level 20 fighter, but these things do not hold true.

Well, for one, their balance should be in how they fair fighting monsters, not each other. :smallannoyed:

But, yes, they have vastly different floors and ceilings. At the floor, a level 1 Wizard gets crushed by a level 1 Fighter, in contribution or even if compared fighting each other. At the ceiling, a level 20 Wizard neither needs nor notices a level 20 Fighter - he's too concerned with the level 201 commoner who just punched the planet in half.


The tier system isn't anyone's baggage -- nobody thinks classes should be tiered. The advice we give using the tier system is: make sure all the PCs are in roughly similar tiers, so you can build a game that challenges everyone in a roughly similar way, and so you don't have one person feeling useless & unable to contribute.

The tier system is an illustration of one particular design failure, and a guideline for how to work around that failure.

Not sure what "baggage" you mean.

Look at every "Fighter vs Wizard" thread ever for the tip of the iceberg to the answer to your question.

Or, Heck, look at everyone who has brought up 3e in this thread, where I made and labeled sample characters for discussion of Tiers.

People can't discuss the concept of Tiers without bringing their experiences with 3e with them. That's baggage.

[Max_Killjoy]

Well, for one, their balance should be in how they fair fighting monsters, not each other. :smallannoyed:


Does not compute.

If you're going to have levels signify "power" or "threat", then for the same PC, an NPC level 5 fighter, an NPC level 5 mage, and an NPC level 5 creature or monster, should all represent about the same threat / challenge.

(I am very much not a fan of using highly divergent mechanics for PCs and NPCs...)

[Quertus]

The problem is under the hypothetical system laid out the wizard is not the solo.

The Wizard has three attacks they may choose between every turn. They may either kill an enemy, deal 1d6 damage and prevent their target from attacking or deal 1d6 damage and fully heal someone.

Or it can be, and I don't think you have to go full TO to reach that either. Save or dies completely trash the health system, their shut downs are often complete and absolute and... they are not actually good at healing people but obsoleting a mere 2/3 of characters seems to be understating the problem.

Of course due to never having gotten to the level 7+ where this is supposed to be a problem (never had a long running D&D campaign) I can only say this through theory crafting and second hand stories. But both of those line up pretty strongly with this result.

While you're not wrong, that kinda misses the point.

I'm not trying to have a discussion about 3e. Well, I am, in many threads, but there seems to be a number of fundamental disconnects between myself and other posters. So, in this thread, I'm attempting to address those disconnects, independent of 3e baggage - and independent of J's baggage, too, which is tough.

At its uncorrupted core, the tier system is, if I'm reading it correctly, a measure of power and versatility.

Throw away all the baggage, and I believe that creating classes at all tiers is actually a good design goal.

I believe that my Striker, Tank, Healer, Gish, and Toolkit are all good, balanced classes in my hypothetical (and completely unrelated to any board games or programs I may have made decades ago) dungeon crawl game, and the two Dedicated classes may push the balance envelope a bit, but are still payable without breaking the game.

The Solo is clearly completely unbalanced. Also unbalanced would be a Striker who dealt 1d6+99 damage, or a Bug who dealt a single point of damage while giving the enemies a bonus.

So, my point was, yes, you can break the game at any tier, but you can have playable characters at tier 1-3 without wrecking game balance - look, I just did it!


@ImNotTrevor:

I agree roleplaying games are group endeavors. However, you are using this fact to leap to conclusions.

Namely, it's implicit throughout your argument that you think players acting as a group requires their characters to be equals in a group.

This need not be so.

Furthermore, you imply that when someone knowingly chooses to play a weaker character, the GM has to change their challenge design to make that character have equal share of the spotlight.

This need not be so either.

For example, in the game where there are heroes and crippled orphans, the game can be about those heroes protecting said orphan from harm. The challenge for the heroes is to keep the orphans alive and tackle the epic threat, the challenge for the orphans is to stay alive.

Who in such scenarios has more spotlight? Who knows? Whether the heroes or the orphans have more spotlight isn't decided by how they contribute against a single challenge, the challenge isn't even the same for all characters. It's decided by player activity and GM giving out turns. Furthermore, "having spotlight" and contributing to the game aren't the same as contributing against challenges. From an in-game perspective, the orphans can be entirely useless or even detrimental to the heroes yet at the same time be dear and important to the players, because the players wanted to play a game of heroes protecting crippled orphans. The players of the orphans can be fine with this. The players of the heroes can be fine with this.

The dynamic of a dysfunctional group can be the challenge, it can be the focal point of a game, and it doesn't have to imply a dysfunctional player dynamic nor a dysfunctional game. And you don't need unbroken before-the-fact consensus about this: As I suggested earlier, you could as well tell the players that they'll create their characters individually and have to deal with what comes out after-the-fact.

Tl;dr: When designing a new game, you can blow up any pre-existing metagame about the characters being equals and leave it on each player to decide how much they want to contribute against challenges and how central they want their characters to be, through how they design their character and how they play them.

Wow. Well said. Thank you. That's it exactly.

[Quertus]

Does not compute.

If you're going to have levels signify "power" or "threat", then for the same PC, an NPC level 5 fighter, an NPC level 5 mage, and an NPC level 5 creature or monster, should all represent about the same threat / challenge.

(I am very much not a fan of using highly divergent mechanics for PCs and NPCs...)

I don't know football, so this is going to be a (hopefully) hilariously inaccurate depiction of football.

Let's say I'm a runner ball catcher guy (oops, those don't have to break through the wall of flesh) break through and tackle the leader guy.

On my team is the perfect wall of flesh guy - nobody ever gets past him.

But I've trained with him since childhood, I know all his moves, and I get past him all the time. But no-one else in the whole world ever does.

Should someone complain if he gets MVP just because I can beat him all the time in practice? Or should I focus on our relative contributions against the other team?

-----

I completely agree that pc's and NPCs should be made using the same rules. I just feel that NPCs should constitute such a low % of the opposition, that how the classes fair against each other should be irrelevant noise compared to their actual measure of contribution and spotlight time.

[Cluedrew]

So, in this thread, I'm attempting to address those disconnects, independent of 3e baggage - and independent of J's baggage, too, which is tough.But J's baggage is the definition of the tier system. Without that it is just a series of numbers. The disconnect is now between the words and their meaning. If you don't want to use that it you don't have too, but you should probably define a new tier system then to get the point across. Because it isn't just a matter of connotation, it is baked into the system of tiers.

And sure a character at any tier can be playable, I think the point is that having characters from wildly different tiers (3 or more was the original cut off) can cause problems.

[Quertus]

But J's baggage is the definition of the tier system. Without that it is just a series of numbers. The disconnect is now between the words and their meaning. If you don't want to use that it you don't have too, but you should probably define a new tier system then to get the point across. Because it isn't just a matter of connotation, it is baked into the system of tiers.

And sure a character at any tier can be playable, I think the point is that having characters from wildly different tiers (3 or more was the original cut off) can cause problems.

The "foot" used to be measured by each individual's foot; the yard, IIRC, was measured by each individual's arm length.

Having a system of measurement is a good idea. If J's measurements are flawed, then perhaps what will come out of this thread is a fix for the tier system, if that's what out takes to get everyone on the same page. Just like they fixed and standardized the foot.

[Max_Killjoy]

I don't know football, so this is going to be a (hopefully) hilariously inaccurate depiction of football.

Let's say I'm a runner ball catcher guy (oops, those don't have to break through the wall of flesh) break through and tackle the leader guy.

On my team is the perfect wall of flesh guy - nobody ever gets past him.

But I've trained with him since childhood, I know all his moves, and I get past him all the time. But no-one else in the whole world ever does.

Should someone complain if he gets MVP just because I can beat him all the time in practice? Or should I focus on our relative contributions against the other team?

-----

I completely agree that pc's and NPCs should be made using the same rules. I just feel that NPCs should constitute such a low % of the opposition, that how the classes fair against each other should be irrelevant noise compared to their actual measure of contribution and spotlight time.

Combat is not football.

[Quertus]

Combat is not football.

But football is combat? :smallwink:

[ImNotTrevor]

I'm going to address this for the sake of getting it out of the way.


@ImNotTrevor:

Namely, it's implicit throughout your argument that you think players acting as a group requires their characters to be equals in a group.

This need not be so.

I said, explicitly, and multiple times, that they should be roughly equal UNLESS THE GROUP HAS AGREED OTHERWISE.
The assumption is general equality. Inequality should be agreed upon by all participants. Green Arrow's player and Superman's player need to agree to being in the same game despite wild power imbalance.



Furthermore, you imply that when someone knowingly chooses to play a weaker character, the GM has to change their challenge design to make that character have equal share of the spotlight.

This need not be so either.

In the context of D&D, this portion of my assertion is valid. There are options that leave the table. Save-or-die spell effects trivialize the killing of the orphan, for instance.



For example, in the game where there are heroes and crippled orphans, the game can be about those heroes protecting said orphan from harm. The challenge for the heroes is to keep the orphans alive and tackle the epic threat, the challenge for the orphans is to stay alive.
At the level of epic conflict in most systems with such conflict, the orphan would essentially need to not be seen at all, ever. It becomes Stealth Checks: The Game.
For D&D this relegates the Orphan to being a living McGuffin.

And again, if I had to do thos gimmick for an entire campaign, I would walk. For a session or two? Ok. An entire campaign? Pffft.



Tl;dr: When designing a new game, you can blow up any pre-existing metagame about the characters being equals and leave it on each player to decide how much they want to contribute against challenges and how central they want their characters to be, through how they design their character and how they play them.

Or, here's an idea, you can accomplish all of this by talking about it before play and create characters all together at the same time, INSTEAD of making a system that continues to encourage the sort of lone-wolf character creation that leads to so many dang problems to begin with.

[Anonymouswizard]

Okay, here's something I don't think I've seen mentioned enough, almost every game will have a tier system and a tier 1, but what tier 1 means will change. Here's a system agnostic definition:

Tier 1 includes the most powerful characters the system can build.

Here I'm saying that versatility is a type of per, to an extent, in the fact that anyone with it will feel more powerful than those who can reach the same raw power level but are less versatile.

Now I'd argue that the goal of game design is to make everyone tier 1 (I'm assuming of you want a tier 2 game you should play a system wherein chargers are weaker), or have everyone at the point where you can build a significantly more powerful character. This can fail in various ways and normally does so (in Victoriana 3e it costs 2 build points for a basic attack spell. For 2 more points you can get a Save or Lose days long coma spell with the licence to cast it, it's not more difficult and it's longer ranged).

The tiers will also change depending on the exact campaign. An investigator Chad might be near useless in a dungeon crawl.

[Cosi]

Obviously you can play a game that is unbalanced and still have fun. But "make the game unbalanced" is a stupid goal, and should not be a part of the conversation when deciding how to build the game. There are people who want to crash cars into buildings, but we don't design cars to facilitate that.


Tier 1 includes the most powerful characters the system can build.

Here I'm saying that versatility is a type of per, to an extent, in the fact that anyone with it will feel more powerful than those who can reach the same raw power level but are less versatile.

Now I'd argue that the goal of game design is to make everyone tier 1

I think this is mostly true, but only for balance. The game needs variety in the versatility (really, complexity) of characters, because not everyone wants to have the same level of complexity.

For the most part, I think the contribution of versatility to imbalance is dramatically overstated. Doing one of six different fair things is still quite likely to be fair. The only thing that really warps that is if you have enough silver bullet options to hit everything, and the ability to select them on a timescale that avoids risk.


The tiers will also change depending on the exact campaign. An investigator Chad might be near useless in a dungeon crawl.

This is why you should not include character concepts that can only contribute to a subset of the minigames your game has (for example, Fighter).

[Anonymouswizard]

I think this is mostly true, but only for balance. The game needs variety in the versatility (really, complexity) of characters, because not everyone wants to have the same level of complexity.

For the most part, I think the contribution of versatility to imbalance is dramatically overstated. Doing one of six different fair things is still quite likely to be fair. The only thing that really warps that is if you have enough silver bullet options to hit everything, and the ability to select them on a timescale that avoids risk.

Well if you look at the original JaronK system the it seems to mainly split into three power levels (awesome/good/bad) with versatility placing a charger at a certain point within a pet level

The way I see it is raw power is worth more than versatility, but relative versatility within ranges of per should also be taken into account.


This is why you should not include character concepts that can only contribute to a subset of the minigames your game has (for example, Fighter).

I mean, unless the player intentionally builds for that in a point build system. But in the realm of classes I agree 100%.

[Elderand]

No, I don't think it is intentional. Nor do I believe it correctly identified what is a bug and what is a feature. As I keep saying, I think having the range of Tiers is a feature, allowing the game to be played anywhere from easy mode to hard mode. And, personally, I think they should intentionally make / should have intentionally made a Tier 1 Fighter.

No

Just no

Your solution is simply a waste of time and words and ink.

It's not a good idea to have classes in wildly different tiers to represent easy or hard mode or power progression.

If you want a game were the system can represent weak characters that struggle and powerful characters you don't do it with different classes, you do it via levels.

You want a fighter that's mostly a regular guy that struggling and a fighter that's superman with the serial number filled off? That's not two different classes, that's the same class. One of them is low level, the other is high level.

[Anonymouswizard]

If you want a game were the system can represent weak characters that struggle and powerful characters you don't do it with different classes, you do it via levels.

Or by point totals. But the general idea is right, inherent power should be measured on ONE scale, whether that's levels, point totals, skill ratings (for systems like BRP), or squid owned. In pinch I'd except gear as being a separate measure of per, but that's power that can be taken away.

Now you can break this rule (Fate measures character power both by Refresh and Skill Points), but it can lead to all sorts of mess. Generally try to stick to one scale per type of power (e.g. inherent power, gear, narrative importance*), don't do something like 'inherent power is measured in levels and what class you chose'.

* I've always wanted to run a have where the PCs begin with one Fate Point of equivalent under the assumption they're playing side characters in someone else's sorry, then after a session or two have them come across the corpse of the hero (in red clothing), have a dramatic encounter with the villain, and gain the standard number for the system. I'm just not certain I'll ever get a group that would be up for the first but.


You want a fighter that's mostly a regular guy that struggling and a fighter that's superman with the serial number filled off? That's not two different classes, that's the same class. One of them is low level, the other is high level.

Oh boy, doesn't this exact point have at least two threads in this forum already? Although I do agree with the point here.

[Lord Raziere]

That and all this talk of different Tiers can't be a problem for the players is ignoring the the strain it has on GMs. How do you design encounters so that different people have the same challenge without either one stealing the spotlight over the other or ending up the same?

Say that are a GM who expects the campaign to focus around a bunch of knight-errants and their adventures, but a being flexible and kind GM, allows someone to play a mage, reasoning there is no reason a mage can't be a knight-errant as well. Lets say he intends combat to be an exciting clash of blade blade or something, dramatic, drawn out, full of parrying, blocking, shield bashes, and stabbing things through the opponents guard and whatnot.

Then the mage destroys the encounter in a single fireball. Ruining all his plans and ideals. Now he must include something to forever mute the mage every time to make sure what he wants happens. This of course, is unfair to the mage. But allowing the mage to use his fireballs and instantly solve the encounter is unfair to the knights as their entire purpose is combat. So you eventually get better and provide two groups: the one that the mage fireballs and destroys, the a second that springs out in ambush for the rest of the knights in a spread out manner that can't be taken out in a fireball because they're not grouped together. However now you must always come up with a way around that fireball for the knights to get a good fight. You must include a ice elemental that suddenly comes out of nowhere to distract him, or a group of zombies or a wall of wood too thick for anything else, all so that the knights can participate.

and then the mage learns two new spells: scry and teleport. They then proceed to scry where your BBEG is, teleport to him and fireball him. scry and die tactics. Now you must say its just a doombot every time he does that to keep the campaign on track so that your plot doesn't fall to pieces. Of course if your feeling spiteful, you can include a trap there as well to try and kill the mage but wouldn't be fair because the mage is supposedly just playing their character and supposedly just wanting to be smart about it. But thats not the end of it. these two spells also make it so that when you have a quest to find a cool artifact, the mage can say: scry where it is, teleport to artifact, take, teleport back, done. Now you must say that the artifact is a fake so that you have an actual quest for your knights, because this thematic idea for tests and traps won't work anywhere else!

With these three spells alone, you can already see the massive problems here. The campaign is already being bent to be less dramatic and full of contrived situations to make sure the knights stay useful. while the mage player probably is not an idiot and will start whining about how he keeps being twisted away from being able to just solve things instantly.

now imagine that, but with A LOT MORE SPELLS, and the mage constantly preparing contingency plans! That would be a nightmare to GM to make sure everything is dramatic and actually dangerous rather just a session of the wizard's plans going off and everyone standing around going "oh how cool that he prepared that." without any actual danger, action or adventure thats vital to the genre. that is what DnD sounds like to me when people talk about the tiers being "good".

[Quertus]

I'm going to address this for the sake of getting it out of the way.


I said, explicitly, and multiple times, that they should be roughly equal UNLESS THE GROUP HAS AGREED OTHERWISE.
The assumption is general equality. Inequality should be agreed upon by all participants. Green Arrow's player and Superman's player need to agree to being in the same game despite wild power imbalance.

Or, here's an idea, you can accomplish all of this by talking about it before play and create characters all together at the same time, INSTEAD of making a system that continues to encourage the sort of lone-wolf character creation that leads to so many dang problems to begin with.

I created Quertus, what, 30 years ago? You weren't there. So, if I want to play Quertus in a game with you, your solution doesn't work, at least not as written.

While I agree that having the group discuss things is one solution to many problems - perhaps even the best solution to most of these problems - I may point out that, despite how often I advise people to talk to each other, it isn't the only solution. Good thing, too, given that most of my groups don't care to talk about the metagame.

Further, the game design can limit what solutions are viable. I aim for maximum viable options.

I'm of the mindset that, unless the group has agreed otherwise, everything is fair game. Otherwise, in groups like mine, no-one could build anything, because no-one has agreed to anything. Now, usually, spoken or unspoken gentleman's agreement removes a lot of TO content, but that's still a lot of everything to work with.


Okay, here's something I don't think I've seen mentioned enough, almost every game will have a tier system and a tier 1, but what tier 1 means will change. Here's a system agnostic definition:

Tier 1 includes the most powerful characters the system can build.

Here I'm saying that versatility is a type of per, to an extent, in the fact that anyone with it will feel more powerful than those who can reach the same raw power level but are less versatile.

Now I'd argue that the goal of game design is to make everyone tier 1 (I'm assuming of you want a tier 2 game you should play a system wherein chargers are weaker), or have everyone at the point where you can build a significantly more powerful character. This can fail in various ways and normally does so (in Victoriana 3e it costs 2 build points for a basic attack spell. For 2 more points you can get a Save or Lose days long coma spell with the licence to cast it, it's not more difficult and it's longer ranged).

The tiers will also change depending on the exact campaign. An investigator Chad might be near useless in a dungeon crawl.

I think Chad could leverage his skills to find traps, locate secret doors, search for clues, and interrogate prisoners. Sounds pretty useful to me, even before we discuss his combat potential.

I come from the school of thought where power gaming - building for your definition of tier 1 - was kinda the goal of the game. It was doing something right. Whiners trying to give it a bad name ate baffling to me - it's like complaining that the people who win MTG tournaments have decks that are too good, or people who win at the Olympics practiced too much. Um, that's kinda the point?

Of course, I also built characters like Quertus, based off the idea of the guy who's been playing the game for decades but still hasn't seen the elephant, and Armus, who was pretty much designed to be as weak as possible, so that I could play on hard mode. Oh, and he started out at level 1 in a level 7 party. Good times!


Obviously you can play a game that is unbalanced and still have fun. But "make the game unbalanced" is a stupid goal, and should not be a part of the conversation when deciding how to build the game. There are people who want to crash cars into buildings, but we don't design cars to facilitate that.



I think this is mostly true, but only for balance. The game needs variety in the versatility (really, complexity) of characters, because not everyone wants to have the same level of complexity.

For the most part, I think the contribution of versatility to imbalance is dramatically overstated. Doing one of six different fair things is still quite likely to be fair. The only thing that really warps that is if you have enough silver bullet options to hit everything, and the ability to select them on a timescale that avoids risk.

This is why you should not include character concepts that can only contribute to a subset of the minigames your game has (for example, Fighter).

Actually, I think 4e demonstrated that "make the game balanced" is bad, and that "make the game unbalanced isn't just a good plan, it's an imperative :smallwink:

Ok, on a more serious note, this thread is, if nothing else, helping me understand my own beliefs. I believe that the game - whatever it is - should be balanced sounds it's own "Tier 1", with plenty of tier 1 options spanning the gamut of play styles. Then, lower tier options should exist, and be clearly labeled as such, to allow for hard mode.

A lot of RPGs get it wrong. They balance the game somewhere in the middle, put little warning signs sounds the strongest options, and do nothing to prevent people from taking trap options.

Instead, it should be more like video games. The default is easy mode, and there's warning signs around hard mode.

Now, in 3e, I feel that there should be a BDH class, which is the best of the Tier 1's, so that people who want to play BDHs can do so with the class obviously designed to provide the BDH experience.

And I can play both wizards and hard mode.


The way I see it is raw power is worth more than versatility, but relative versatility within ranges of per should also be taken into account.

Probably. Which is why tier 1-3 play well together


It's not a good idea to have classes in wildly different tiers to represent easy or hard mode or power progression.

If you want a game were the system can represent weak characters that struggle and powerful characters you don't do it with different classes, you do it via levels.

You know, I suggested that, and people told me I was crazy. You can't have level disparity in 3e, they said. It won't work, they said. And disparate levels even out over time.

So I'm working with what I've got.

But, once this conversation is concluded, asking which of the two techniques - different Tiers or different levels - is preferable to play power disparity, would also be interesting.

[Max_Killjoy]

Okay, here's something I don't think I've seen mentioned enough, almost every game will have a tier system and a tier 1, but what tier 1 means will change. Here's a system agnostic definition:

Tier 1 includes the most powerful characters the system can build.

Here I'm saying that versatility is a type of per, to an extent, in the fact that anyone with it will feel more powerful than those who can reach the same raw power level but are less versatile.

Now I'd argue that the goal of game design is to make everyone tier 1 (I'm assuming of you want a tier 2 game you should play a system wherein chargers are weaker), or have everyone at the point where you can build a significantly more powerful character. This can fail in various ways and normally does so (in Victoriana 3e it costs 2 build points for a basic attack spell. For 2 more points you can get a Save or Lose days long coma spell with the licence to cast it, it's not more difficult and it's longer ranged).


I'd say that for a game to have tiers, it needs character classes or some other pigeonhole mechanism.

For a well-designed points-based or similar system, you just adjust the character creation points up or down for the type of game you want, and all the PCs should be pretty close in "power". The only time that's not true is when someone goes well out of their way to really twist the system in knots, or someone just deliberately and with forethought makes their character useless to what's going on in the campaign.




The tiers will also change depending on the exact campaign. An investigator Chad might be near useless in a dungeon crawl.


Depends on how you build the investigator. If he's good at noticing things, finding clues and traps, etc, then he's probably got something to contribute. This is assuming a system that doesn't pigeonhole characters such that only "explorer" or "rogue" or some other class has exclusive access to such skills, and "investigator" class characters can only "investigate", whatever that means.

[Cosi]

Well if you look at the original JaronK system the it seems to mainly split into three power levels (awesome/good/bad) with versatility placing a charger at a certain point within a pet level

JaronK's system has problems, and those problems are exacerbated when trying to use it as a model for new design. It's trying to describe 3e (a flawed game) as it exists, and as such it uses standards (like "breaks the game") that are not helpful design targets.


No

Just no

Your solution is simply a waste of time and words and ink.

It's not a good idea to have classes in wildly different tiers to represent easy or hard mode or power progression.

If you want a game were the system can represent weak characters that struggle and powerful characters you don't do it with different classes, you do it via levels.

You want a fighter that's mostly a regular guy that struggling and a fighter that's superman with the serial number filled off? That's not two different classes, that's the same class. One of them is low level, the other is high level.

This. We have a mechanism for characters of different power levels. It's called level. The idea that we should instead (or "in addition") have tiers represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the point of levels as a game design tool. It's not so much "reinventing the wheel" as "trying to replace the wheel with a stone block".


That and all this talk of different Tiers can't be a problem for the players is ignoring the the strain it has on GMs. How do you design encounters so that different people have the same challenge without either one stealing the spotlight over the other or ending up the same?

*snip*

now imagine that, but with A LOT MORE SPELLS, and the mage constantly preparing contingency plans! That would be a nightmare to GM to make sure everything is dramatic and actually dangerous rather just a session of the wizard's plans going off and everyone standing around going "oh how cool that he prepared that." without any actual danger, action or adventure thats vital to the genre. that is what DnD sounds like to me when people talk about the tiers being "good".

So I agree with the broad notion (large tier discrepancies are hard to DM for) but it's being used to support a "Wizards bad" point that it doesn't really match. Of course one (high level) Wizard in a party of (low level) Fighters is going to overperform, and make it hard to challenge him without killing the Fighters. But a (low level) Fighter in a party of (high level) Wizards will underperform in much the same way the Wizard in the first example overperforms.


Actually, I think 4e demonstrated that "make the game balanced" is bad, and that "make the game unbalanced isn't just a good plan, it's an imperative :smallwink:

I don't think that's reasonable. 4e did a lot of things, and you can draw arrows from many of those things to 4e's failure. Reducing the number of classes, having a terrible skill challenge system, shoddy overall design. 4e is somewhat more balanced than 3e (though far from completely balanced), but even looking just at that axis, it seems to me you could equally conclude that 4e teaches us that characters need to be powerful. 4e's paradigm was to make every class like the Fighter -- narrowly focused and unable to contribute much outside combat. Maybe the issue wasn't that it was too balanced, but that characters couldn't do enough.


Ok, on a more serious note, this thread is, if nothing else, helping me understand my own beliefs. I believe that the game - whatever it is - should be balanced sounds it's own "Tier 1", with plenty of tier 1 options spanning the gamut of play styles. Then, lower tier options should exist, and be clearly labeled as such, to allow for hard mode.

It seems to me very easy to play hard mode if you want to regardless of what the game does. Ignore abilities you have, face monsters above recommended CR, things like that. I think it's probably easier to do hard mode effectively if the game has a functional, robust, and well understood balance point, because that makes it much easier to deviate without deviating too much (and ending up with something that just kills the party every encounter) or too little (and ending up with something that is not any more difficult than normal).

[Quertus]

That and all this talk of different Tiers can't be a problem for the players is ignoring the the strain it has on GMs. How do you design encounters so that different people have the same challenge without either one stealing the spotlight over the other or ending up the same?

That's one of the selling points of the system!

The GM never has to care about the party composition! The GM just builds for tier 1. If the players want to play the game "as intended", they all being tier 1. If they want a challenge, they bring lower tiers. If they want to be BDHs, they bring BDHs. No challenge whatever for the GM. Easiest thing in the world.


I'd say that for a game to have tiers, it needs character classes or some other pigeonhole mechanism.

For a well-designed points-based or similar system, you just adjust the character creation points up or down for the type of game you want, and all the PCs should be pretty close in "power".

That's... not even close to my experience with point buy - and that's even before considering how appropriate / applicable the character's skills are to the adventure at hand. One of the few times I was dumb enough to let people talking me into playing GURPS, I spent I over 90% of my points on things that sounded important from the game description, that the GM made useless 5 minutes in.

[Max_Killjoy]

That's one of the selling points of the system!

The GM never has to care about the party composition! The GM just builds for tier 1. If the players want to play the game "as intended", they all being tier 1. If they want a challenge, they bring lower tiers. If they want to be BDHs, they bring BDHs. No challenge whatever for the GM. Easiest thing in the world.


Or maybe the game system be built so that it avoids this issue entirely.

Make all classes fairly equivalent in "power" when compared at the same level, from level 1 to level X. If a level X (insert class here) is "power rating A", then make every other class "power rating A".

That is not to say that you cannot have "power rating B" or "C" or "purple" in another iteration of the game system. It's to say that you don't mix A, B, C, and purple in a single iteration of a single game system, and pretend everything is balanced and fine (ie, several iterations of D&D pretending classes are balanced when they're not).

The ONLY time classes at different "ratings" should be mixed, is when it's deliberate and all the players and GM agree they're going to take on that extra challenge and not get crappy about it later.





That's... not even close to my experience with point buy - and that's even before considering how appropriate / applicable the character's skills are to the adventure at hand. One of the few times I was dumb enough to let people talking me into playing GURPS, I spent I over 90% of my points on things that sounded important from the game description, that the GM made useless 5 minutes in.


You hit the actual problem there in your own post.

There was poor / insufficient communication as to the nature of the game and as to how characters would fit into it.

The same thing could happen if the GM was going to have magic fail in a fantasy setting in the first session, but quietly sat by and said nothing as one or more players made spellcasting-dependent-class characters.

[Lord Raziere]

That's one of the selling points of the system!

The GM never has to care about the party composition! The GM just builds for tier 1. If the players want to play the game "as intended", they all being tier 1. If they want a challenge, they bring lower tiers. If they want to be BDHs, they bring BDHs. No challenge whatever for the GM. Easiest thing in the world.


Thats a funny joke

Your speaking from years of bias. Your so deep into it, you've forgotten that a normal player, a starting player, as well as starting GM has no idea what a Tier even is. Your out of touch. If you were to go up to the normal player and talk about Pun-Pun or batman Wizard, they'd say its ridiculous either not believe you or reject it. "Its no problem! just throw encounters meant for gods at them!"

Guarantee you, will result in nothing but TPKs for a vast majority of groups. There are players who take unoptimized decisions all the time and GMs who don't follow your model of encounters at all. There are people who will do so for the sake of roleplaying or the story no matter how bad of a system it is to it in or how much you say for them to do something different. Most players don't have time to go through all the mechanics and don't really care for the mechanics, they're mechanics they're about as important as dirt: there but not all that noticeable compared to what is actually going on. People who don't care about optimization at all, and no matter what "fallacy" they're committing, they exist, and do not want to face what you think is appropriate. They want to face what is ACTUALLY appropriate for them. So that their story may be told, so that they DO NOT have to worry about you find fun, because they don't find it fun and can do OTHER THINGS that do not involve it!

Sure you can have both a strong character and roleplay them well, but not every character that CAN be roleplayed can fall into the singular archetype of a Wizard and still be strong. "Its no problem just throw a Superman enemy at The Question! Throw a Green Lantern enemy at the Punisher!" This is not a challenge this is going "screw you for not choosing what I like, here have the monsters of what your supposed to fight so that you'll die quicker and choose what I want for you to play and not respect your character at all." its pretty much railroading.

Easiest thing in the world, if you want to be a bad GM.

[Anonymouswizard]

That's one of the selling points of the system!

The GM never has to care about the party composition! The GM just builds for tier 1. If the players want to play the game "as intended", they all being tier 1. If they want a challenge, they bring lower tiers. If they want to be BDHs, they bring BDHs. No challenge whatever for the GM. Easiest thing in the world.

What if I want to play hard mode, so I bring a tier 5 character, but my friend Geoff doesn't, and so brings a tier 1 character. Our conflicting interests have made the game what neither of us wanted to play, it's easier than I wanted but harder than what Geoff wanted.


That's... not even close to my experience with point buy - and that's even before considering how appropriate / applicable the character's skills are to the adventure at hand. One of the few times I was dumb enough to let people talking me into playing GURPS, I spent I over 90% of my points on things that sounded important from the game description, that the GM made useless 5 minutes in.

Alright, for a point buy game a GM had to be honest with the kind of game they're running and what abilities will be useful. I played in one game where we were told it would be investigative, and so the party made certain we had a lot of social skills. In another I ended up as a warrior with a skill below basic mooks because I hadn't been told how hard to optimise (I had spent points primarily on skills for a merchant as that was my character concept). In a have of Unknown Armies nobody listened to the GM declaring it a combat heavy game, which led to us according it as much as possible and a lot of combats having dies that didn't want to kill us (also riding bikes in the tube). I once also ended up with points I couldn't spend without ruining my concept in a unisystem game because the GM wasn't honest about the kind of characters we should build (and actually rejected one that would have worked really well for what he had planned, just because it was an Anglican priest who gained power* from his faith [no magic the GM says before giving half the enemies magic]).

* Visions and great strength, specifically not healing as it would have changed the game.

[ImNotTrevor]

I created Quertus, what, 30 years ago? You weren't there. So, if I want to play Quertus in a game with you, your solution doesn't work, at least not as written.
You are free to bring the character sheet to session 0. And if it doesn't go with what the group decides, you are free to bow out or make a new character. I'm not picky. And the solution doesn't need to admit all characters. Barring characters from entry is, as you put it, a Feature. Not a bug.

If the character fits, then there's no problem. But if I asked you not to bring premade characters and you bring one anyways, you should not be insulted nor surprised when I don't allow you to ignore the requests everyone else follows.



While I agree that having the group discuss things is one solution to many problems - perhaps even the best solution to most of these problems - I may point out that, despite how often I advise people to talk to each other, it isn't the only solution. Good thing, too, given that most of my groups don't care to talk about the metagame.
I never said anything about the metagame. I did say to talk about the GAME.

Let's think of it like this:
If Karen brings Thogra, the half-orc barbarian sworn to kill all mages she finds
And Donald brings Chadwick the Wise, mage and scholar with a longrunning hatred of orcs and their kind...

We have an immediate problem caused directly by two people just showing up with characters.

The most straightforward solution (which is now even put forward by many systems) is a Session 0.



Further, the game design can limit what solutions are viable. I aim for maximum viable options.
Then you don't want classes or tiers. You want a pointbuy with a sliding scale.



I'm of the mindset that, unless the group has agreed otherwise, everything is fair game. Otherwise, in groups like mine, no-one could build anything, because no-one has agreed to anything. Now, usually, spoken or unspoken gentleman's agreement removes a lot of TO content, but that's still a lot of everything to work with.
Then expect a lot of problems caused by mis-or-non-communication.
Problems I haven't had in 6 years. (I've counted.)

[Max_Killjoy]

Yet we all know how that song and dance went, now don't we? WotC actually addressed the complaints, actually did what was needed- completely overhaul the spell system and replace with something else- and got a bunch of hate, complaints that "everyone is a wizard now" and that "this isn't DnD" and so on....


I wasn't a fan of 4e for different reasons (it felt ultra-"gamist", taking identical rules and mechanics across all classes and then just stretching different skins over for each), but at least they tried to fix some of the issues.

[Quertus]

This. We have a mechanism for characters of different power levels. It's called level. The idea that we should instead (or "in addition") have tiers represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the point of levels as a game design tool. It's not so much "reinventing the wheel" as "trying to replace the wheel with a stone block".



So I agree with the broad notion (large tier discrepancies are hard to DM for) but it's being used to support a "Wizards bad" point that it doesn't really match. Of course one (high level) Wizard in a party of (low level) Fighters is going to overperform, and make it hard to challenge him without killing the Fighters. But a (low level) Fighter in a party of (high level) Wizards will underperform in much the same way the Wizard in the first example overperforms.

I don't think that's reasonable. 4e did a lot of things, and you can draw arrows from many of those things to 4e's failure. Reducing the number of classes, having a terrible skill challenge system, shoddy overall design. 4e is somewhat more balanced than 3e (though far from completely balanced), but even looking just at that axis, it seems to me you could equally conclude that 4e teaches us that characters need to be powerful. 4e's paradigm was to make every class like the Fighter -- narrowly focused and unable to contribute much outside combat. Maybe the issue wasn't that it was too balanced, but that characters couldn't do enough.

It seems to me very easy to play hard mode if you want to regardless of what the game does. Ignore abilities you have, face monsters above recommended CR, things like that. I think it's probably easier to do hard mode effectively if the game has a functional, robust, and well understood balance point, because that makes it much easier to deviate without deviating too much (and ending up with something that just kills the party every encounter) or too little (and ending up with something that is not any more difficult than normal).

Playing Armus - a 1st level worst build I could come up with in a 7th level party - was lots of fun. And he was decidedly the MVP.

People seem more accepting of desperate tiers than disparate levels, and levels are, in 3e, self-correcting. Also, system-agnostic discussion: not all games have levels. My sample one certainly didn't. So there's a lot of holes in your reasoning. This is part of why I built the example system, to simplify the issue, and look at tiering on its own merits, instead of in the context of the various editions, where our biases can interfere with reason, and there are so many complex interactions, it can be difficult to properly attribute an effect to a cause.

My comments on 4e were mostly facetious. I dislike 4e, but that won't stop me from admitting it did some things well - even if I don't understand all of them. I want to learn the things I don't understand, and steal all the good ideas I can.


Or maybe the game can be built so that it avoids this issue entirely. Make all classes fairly equivalent in "power" when compared at the same level, from level 1 to level X.

You hit the actual problem there in your own post.

There was poor / insufficient communication as to the nature of the game and as to how characters would fit into it.

The same thing could happen if the GM was going to have magic fail in a fantasy setting in the first session, but quietly sat by and said nothing as one or more players made spellcasting-dependent-class characters.

Well, that sounds like where I want to start, but not where I want to end. Look at it this way: I'm calling that balance point, with power and versatility, "Tier 1". Then, I'm calling lower tiers "hard mode", and the single thing above tier 1, that just cakewalks through everything, BDHs.

Really, it's more complicated than that. I'm actually saying that you can build balanced characters that technically qualify as Tier 1 through 3, combining power and or versatility in balanced ways, as your balance point. Then things below that are hard mode. And things should technically exist above that level of fair challenge, for those who just want to breeze through the game. I'm calling that BDHs.

Oh, sure, my specific example had issues beyond point buy. I admitted that up front. But, as I said, even barring such invalidation of points spent, I've never seen characters turn out even roughly equal in any point buy systems I've ever played. That example is just easier to grasp than me going into a detailed analysis of the performance of various point buy characters in systems people might not be familiar with.

[Anonymouswizard]

Playing Armus - a 1st level worst build I could come up with in a 7th level party - was lots of fun. And he was decidedly the MVP.

What's the difference between this and me deciding to only spend 20CP in a 100CP GURPS game?

An intentional power difference is fine, I've had it myself a few times, but that should be modelled as you did: on the XP/CP scale, where the weaker character is lower down than most. That's really what a lot of people are saying, not that an imbalance isn't fun, but that there's a better way to do that than having different classes of different power levels.


People seem more accepting of desperate tiers than disparate levels, and levels are, in 3e, self-correcting. Also, system-agnostic discussion: not all games have levels. My sample one certainly didn't. So there's a lot of holes in your reasoning. This is part of why I built the example system, to simplify the issue, and look at tiering on its own merits, instead of in the context of the various editions, where our biases can interfere with reason, and there are so many complex interactions, it can be difficult to properly attribute an effect to a cause.

First off, you're experience isn't everyone's. I was once in a group where I was the only one who cared of everyone could contribute (the wizard actually got annoyed because my dexterity based fighter tended to win initiative and charge in [I built him to tank at level 1, I believe I had dodge, combat reflexes, and improved initiative, I charged in and punished enemies for moving away]).

Secondly, your sample system is plain weird. Honestly, tiering is an emergent property and will vary between groups, I had one GURPS group where IQ was the good stat and SAT was useless, and another where of you weren't a mage you shouldn't be purchasing IQ (big shocker how useless my 30+ points in IQ skills turned out to be). Your attempts to recreate them as an inherent thing just leads to a strange have where there is an intentional best move (which I've never seen in a game before) and intentional worst moves (which I've seen a couple of times, generally as fluff options).

There's also the fact that tiering will happen anyway, I can see the healer being seen as a suboptimal choice because the Toolkit is almost as good at healing but can do useful stuff when nobody's hurt (i.e. their bonus of
It's never wasted), whereas that one pip difference with the Striker and the tank might be regarded as important. It all depends on a metagame your sample system doesn't have because it focuses on the PCs and ignores challenges completely.

[Quertus]

Thats a funny joke

Your speaking from years of bias. Your so deep into it, you've forgotten that a normal player, a starting player, as well as starting GM has no idea what a Tier even is. Your out of touch. If you were to go up to the normal player and talk about Pun-Pun or batman Wizard, they'd say its ridiculous either not believe you or reject it. "Its no problem! just throw encounters meant for gods at them!"

Guarantee you, will result in nothing but TPKs for a vast majority of groups. There are players who take unoptimized decisions all the time and GMs who don't follow your model of encounters at all. There are people who will do so for the sake of roleplaying or the story no matter how bad of a system it is to it in or how much you say for them to do something different. Most players don't have time to go through all the mechanics and don't really care for the mechanics, they're mechanics they're about as important as dirt: there but not all that noticeable compared to what is actually going on. People who don't care about optimization at all, and no matter what "fallacy" they're committing, they exist, and do not want to face what you think is appropriate. They want to face what is ACTUALLY appropriate for them. So that their story may be told, so that they DO NOT have to worry about you find fun, because they don't find it fun and can do OTHER THINGS that do not involve it!

Sure you can have both a strong character and roleplay them well, but not every character that CAN be roleplayed can fall into the singular archetype of a Wizard and still be strong. "Its no problem just throw a Superman enemy at The Question! Throw a Green Lantern enemy at the Punisher!" This is not a challenge this is going "screw you for not choosing what I like, here have the monsters of what your supposed to fight so that you'll die quicker and choose what I want for you to play and not respect your character at all." its pretty much railroading.

Easiest thing in the world, if you want to be a bad GM.

Years of bias? Yes and no. I have a lot of experience with some games, like D&D, but I also try out new games. Just like I play wizards, but I occasionally look at life from the trenches. So I know both sides.

And stop thinking in terms of D&D. Please. Pun pun is broken. Sure. Time Walk or Ancestral Recall or Mana Drain may be broken, but that doesn't mean all of Blue is broken. I'd like to think my example system demonstrates that you can create characters of tier 1-3 that are balanced and fun. That the implementation in, say, 3e lacks this balance, and, worse, obfuscates where the balance lies, to the detriment of the fun of players, especially new ones, is completely irrelevant to an academic discussion regarding the conceptual value of a power / versatility tiering system.

So, you have the choice of the Striker, the Tank, the Healer, the Gestalt, and the Toolkit. Now, you can play one of them poorly, true, because there are player skills involved. But I'm not seeing how designing challenges for them, and warning you if you try to play the Dedicated or the Bug that that is hard mode can possibly be guaranteed TPK city. Only your own skill or desire for a challenge should produce that result in a balanced multi-tier game.


What if I want to play hard mode, so I bring a tier 5 character, but my friend Geoff doesn't, and so brings a tier 1 character. Our conflicting interests have made the game what neither of us wanted to play, it's easier than I wanted but harder than what Geoff wanted.

You're trying to control the game, not your character. And that is why you fail. If I bring Thor, I breeze through challenges; if I bring Hawkeye, I struggle with challenges. If I care about how the party does, if I care that the whole party is on easy or hard mode, then I need to talk to the other players. That was completely irrelevant to Armus being on hard mode, which I was able to implement with no discussion with my fellow players whatsoever.


You are free to bring the character sheet to session 0. And if it doesn't go with what the group decides, you are free to bow out or make a new character. I'm not picky. And the solution doesn't need to admit all characters. Barring characters from entry is, as you put it, a Feature. Not a bug.

If the character fits, then there's no problem.

That's perfectly reasonable. Sad, if I had my heart set on running that character, but perfectly reasonable.


But if I asked you not to bring premade characters

And that's where we'd have an interesting conversation, and learn more about each other and our respective gaming styles. Like I have with every other GM who has made that request.

[BayardSPSR]

Playing Armus - a 1st level worst build I could come up with in a 7th level party - was lots of fun. And he was decidedly the MVP.

That's great. Now imagine a system where you could build Armus by accident, believing you were building an easy-mode character.


Okay, here's something I don't think I've seen mentioned enough, almost every game will have a tier system and a tier 1, but what tier 1 means will change. Here's a system agnostic definition:

Tier 1 includes the most powerful characters the system can build.

On the topic of whether or not tiering is inherent to all RPGs, or a probable byproduct of designing an RPG, I think we need to seriously examine that. Since Apocalypse World has been brought up already, and since its playbooks are freely available online in PDF format, let's use it as an example. Are there actually any serious disparities in character effectiveness and versatility? Are there any two buildable characters that don't seem like they ought to be in the same game because of such a disparity? Keep in mind the scale of divergence between JaronK's tier system, which I understand to be the one we're referring to in this thread. If we're not using that well-defined, well-understood definition, and are just using tier 1 to abstractly describe powerful characters, it isn't meaningful or useful in a discussion of game balance: it's just redefined out of existence.

Yes, PbtA games are different stylistically from the D&D family, but that should help us narrow down exactly what's contributing to the issue and avoid the trap of dismissing it as an inevitability that we have to just play along with.

If Apocalypse World is just too alien and different, let's take any recent OSR game and do the same exercise. Otherwise, we're just universalizing 3.x and disclaiming it at the same time.

EDIT: Also, seriously, how many threads do we have on this topic right now?

[Max_Killjoy]

Secondly, your sample system is plain weird. Honestly, tiering is an emergent property and will vary between groups, I had one GURPS group where IQ was the good stat and SAT was useless, and another where of you weren't a mage you shouldn't be purchasing IQ (big shocker how useless my 30+ points in IQ skills turned out to be). Your attempts to recreate them as an inherent thing just leads to a strange have where there is an intentional best move (which I've never seen in a game before) and intentional worst moves (which I've seen a couple of times, generally as fluff options).

There's also the fact that tiering will happen anyway, I can see the healer being seen as a suboptimal choice because the Toolkit is almost as good at healing but can do useful stuff when nobody's hurt (i.e. their bonus of
It's never wasted), whereas that one pip difference with the Striker and the tank might be regarded as important. It all depends on a metagame your sample system doesn't have because it focuses on the PCs and ignores challenges completely.


To me, this gets back to how role-based / niche-protecting systems are part of the problem -- when everyone is restricted to a particular niche/role, and someone's character's role/niche isn't coming up, or they feel someone is "intruding" on "their" thing, it makes for a bad game for, really, everyone.

(Of course, even worse IMO is the player who insists on making their character good at nothing...)

[ImNotTrevor]

That's perfectly reasonable. Sad, if I had my heart set on running that character, but perfectly reasonable.
That's the entire point.
There are some who show up with a character they "have their heart set on running" who would end up being highly disruptive and quite frankly they put their own fun ahead of everyone else's.




And that's where we'd have an interesting conversation, and learn more about each other and our respective gaming styles. Like I have with every other GM who has made that request.

My half of the conversation would go like this:
"In groups that I GM, we do a session 0. This is to facilitate that everyone is on the same page, and to let us create characters all at once and understand the experiences they may have had together prior to the start of session 1. Our session 0 will take place on [date,] provided we can all make it."

[Explanation of how you do things goes here]

"That's great! It sounds like a wonderful character and I hope you bring those same character creation skills to the table at our Session 0 on [date.] We will all be creating characters together at that time, and I'm sure that watching you create a character will be useful to our newer players. I hope you can make it."

I do Session 0 for everything except Apocalypse World (because the session-0 stuff is kinda baked into the session-1 stuff.) That's just my policy. I understand how old D&D groups would involve "legacy characters" that went from campaign to campaign, but that's not how the games I run work. Hell, for most of them character creation is all of 10-20 minutes. So... It's not exactly like I'm asking you to do the gauntlet of math and spreadsheets that D&D demands.

[Quertus]

That's great. Now imagine a system where you could build Armus by accident, believing you were building an easy-mode character.

Don't have to imagine, I can just remember it. :smalltongue: :smallfrown: This is why I suggested moving the warning labels from the good options onto the weak options.


On the topic of whether or not tiering is inherent to all RPGs, or a probable byproduct of designing an RPG, I think we need to seriously examine that. Since Apocalypse World has been brought up already, and since its playbooks are freely available online in PDF format, let's use it as an example. Are there actually any serious disparities in character effectiveness and versatility? Are there any two buildable characters that don't seem like they ought to be in the same game because of such a disparity? Keep in mind the scale of divergence between JaronK's tier system, which I understand to be the one we're referring to in this thread. If we're not using that well-defined, well-understood definition, and are just using tier 1 to abstractly describe powerful characters, it isn't meaningful or useful in a discussion of game balance: it's just redefined out of existence.

Yes, PbtA games are different stylistically from the D&D family, but that should help us narrow down exactly what's contributing to the issue and avoid the trap of dismissing it as an inevitability that we have to just play along with.

If Apocalypse World is just too alien and different, let's take any recent OSR game and do the same exercise. Otherwise, we're just universalizing 3.x and disclaiming it at the same time.

EDIT: Also, seriously, how many threads do we have on this topic right now?

Last comment first: none, because even the OP in this thread can't seem to stay on topic. :smallwink:

Again, in a neural reading of the supposedly "well-defined, well-understood definition", it's not tier 3 "power or versatility", while tier 1 is "power and versatility"?

Now, I understand neither AW nor J's tiers enough to be certain, but I believe that they are all tier 3 (niche), and that AW lacks archetypes for tier 3 (versatile), tier 1 (power and versatility), and Hard Mode. Feel free to correct that.


To me, this gets back to how role-based / niche-protecting systems are part of the problem -- when everyone is restricted to a particular niche/role, and someone's character's role/niche isn't coming up, or they feel someone is "intruding" on "their" thing, it makes for a bad game for, really, everyone.

Interesting. I'm not sure if we hold almost the opposite opinions here, or if we start at opposite ends to get to the same place.

See, I hate characters being pigeonholed by the system. Thus, I'm somewhat not a fan of tier 3 (niche), and am an avid opponent of extreme tier 3, where, if it's not your one single speciality, you either may as well not try, or, in some cases, literally cannot even attempt such an action. At least for characters I play - I'm happy having them as options for people who enjoy that kind of thing.

That having been said, I feel that "fun" is most readily achieved when everyone feels that their character has a role to play. And that fun is most readily destroyed when one character attempts to dominate all roles, excluding others, or when someone has a character who cannot perform any role / whose potential contribution is overshadowed by someone else.


(Of course, even worse IMO is the player who insists on making their character good at nothing...)

So, you would not enjoy a game of Demigods and Cripples? Pity. I've had a lot of fun on both sides of that setup, including playing as my intentionally statistically inferior Armus.


That's the entire point.
There are some who show up with a character they "have their heart set on running" who would end up being highly disruptive and quite frankly they put their own fun ahead of everyone else's.

And that's their bad.


My half of the conversation would go like this:
"In groups that I GM, we do a session 0. This is to facilitate that everyone is on the same page, and to let us create characters all at once and understand the experiences they may have had together prior to the start of session 1. Our session 0 will take place on [date,] provided we can all make it."

[Explanation of how you do things goes here]

"That's great! It sounds like a wonderful character and I hope you bring those same character creation skills to the table at our Session 0 on [date.] We will all be creating characters together at that time, and I'm sure that watching you create a character will be useful to our newer players. I hope you can make it."

I do Session 0 for everything except Apocalypse World (because the session-0 stuff is kinda baked into the session-1 stuff.) That's just my policy. I understand how old D&D groups would involve "legacy characters" that went from campaign to campaign, but that's not how the games I run work. Hell, for most of them character creation is all of 10-20 minutes. So... It's not exactly like I'm asking you to do the gauntlet of math and spreadsheets that D&D demands.

The following is a subset of the comments I randomly select in explaining my position on the matter. If you - or anyone else, for that matter - would enjoy discussing this topic further, please open a new thread, and I'll happily join you there.

(I'm glad you like this character idea, but the reality is,) I'm horrible at character creation. Most of my characters aren't worth playing. To put it in 3e D&D terms, I need to take a 20 to create a character I'll enjoy.

Would you rather I bring a character I know I'll enjoy, force me to play a character I won't enjoy, or have me switch out characters every season until I create a character I enjoy?

Further, (you say you like that character idea - ) what's the difference between Quertus, and Sutreuq, the statistically identical character I've never played before, aside from the fact that, due to experience, I'll be better at playing Quertus? Why would you make your goal to reduce my ability to play my character?

What does it matter whether I created that character here, or in a previous game, if it's the same character? :smallconfused:

No single GM can possibly provide the breadth of content 20 GMs can provide. To properly explore a character - the breadth of their personality, their responses under the most diverse set of conditions, etc - the optimal solution is to play them under multiple GMs. To prohibit such action is to declare exploring the character as not a worth goal. Why would I be incentivized to create any but the most lackluster personality under a GM who has already declared such pursuits not worthwhile?


Hell, for most of them character creation is all of 10-20 minutes. So... It's not exactly like I'm asking you to do the gauntlet of math and spreadsheets that D&D demands.

Crafting a good personality takes me much, much longer. D&D statistics are trivial in comparison. That is what you are attempting to inflict upon me. 20 times over, until I get it right. :smallfrown:

[Anonymouswizard]

All the great games I've been in have had a session zero. So you should generally have a week to create your personality. Session zero is about making sure the archetypes fit into the world and work together as a party, with an added bonus of you can all work out why you're working together. It's highly problematic if I'm planning to ruin a campaign focused on investigating a series of murders in a city experiencing a cholera outbreak, and you bring along Joe the Savage barbarian Berserker with practically no noncombat skills. Or if you're running a dungeon crawl and I bring along Juan Snow, doctor and ex-thief with no combat skills (and no ability to disarm traits, he was a pickpocket). Maybe I can still salvage the basic personality, but a lot of the specific bits can be useless. There's ideally conversation going on between the group before session zero as well, I was once in a group that doesn't two weeks discussing our character concepts before session zero, which was the GM discussing specifics with each of us in turn.

[Cluedrew]

Again, in a neural reading of the supposedly "well-defined, well-understood definition", it's not tier 3 "power or versatility", while tier 1 is "power and versatility"?

Now, I understand neither AW nor J's tiers enough to be certain, but I believe that they are all tier 3 (niche), and that AW lacks archetypes for tier 3 (versatile), tier 1 (power and versatility), and Hard Mode. Feel free to correct that.I'm pretty sure even in the neutral reading tier 1 & 2 have potentially game breaking power, with tier 1 having versatility on top of that. That's neutral in terms of trying to remove bias, not in terms of trying to strip all comments on good or bad from it. Having the potential for thing to get out of hand with tier 1 classes is bad, but sometimes its worth it for the good possibilities it opens up. You seem to be in that space.

Also, with AW=Apocalypse World and J=JaronK (I've forgotten the context of those short hands) I'm say, from my experience in other Powered by the Apocalypse systems, most playbooks fall into the "Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate".

[JAL_1138]

See, I hate characters being pigeonholed by the system. Thus, I'm somewhat not a fan of tier 3 (niche), and am an avid opponent of extreme tier 3, where, if it's not your one single speciality, you either may as well not try, or, in some cases, literally cannot even attempt such an action. At least for characters I play - I'm happy having them as options for people who enjoy that kind of thing. (emphasis added)

I think you're confusing Tier 3 with Tier 4, or maybe Tier 5.

Tier 3 can (A) do one thing quite well, and can still can contribute outside that thing somewhat; still useful when its specialty isn't appropriate for the current situation, OR (B)is able to do all things [/i]pretty well[/i], though not necessarily as well as a specialist (and thus doesn't run into the problem of not being able or worth it to try to do Thing X because it's not specialized in Thing X--a true specialist may potentially do Thing X better, but the Tier 3 generalist is still pretty good at it, and it's worth it for them to try).

Tier 4 can (A) do one thing quite well, but can't contribute effectively outside that thing (thus it has its niche and can't really venture outside it), OR (B) can do a lot of things (not necessarily all things; likely fewer than a Tier 3 generalist) to a reasonable degree of competence, but not as well as a Tier 3 generalist can.

Tier 5 is effectively "Tier 4, but worse"--it can (A) do one thing, and not necessarily all that well, and can't contribute outside that one thing, or (B) tries to do a lot of things, but doesn't do any of them very competently, and can often end up so unfocused as to be useless and has trouble contributing at all, or sometimes (C) can do one thing really well, but that one thing isn't useful very often.

What you're describing sounds like Tier 4 or 5, not tier 3.

[Max_Killjoy]

So, you would not enjoy a game of Demigods and Cripples?


Not even a little.

If my character is the "cripple" (and here I'm torn between the appeal of the rather insulting term given my feeling about this sort of game setup... and the fact that it's an insulting term) I'm left watching the "demigods" doing their thing, I'm just the audience to the action. There's no fictional contrivance, no authorial fiat, lending my character a role as the "plucky one" or some such nonsense.

If my character is the "demigod", then I have these other characters around that constantly need saving and contribute nothing outside of where the GM or rules warp events to grant them a "special moment".

[Nifft]

Don't have to imagine, I can just remember it. :smalltongue: :smallfrown: This is why I suggested moving the warning labels from the good options onto the weak options.

IMHO the only good option is playing a game where everyone feels able to contribute.

You can do that by getting everyone to play T1 / T2.

You can do that by getting everyone to play T2 / T3.

You can do that by getting everyone to play T3 / T4.

I personally don't enjoy T5 games, but I'm sure someone out there has an awesome time in a T4 / T5 game, and that's great for everyone involved.

The only important warning is: make sure everyone is on the same page regarding power levels. Which specific page they are all on matters a lot less than all of them being together.

[Quertus]

(emphasis added)

I think you're confusing Tier 3 with Tier 4, or maybe Tier 5.

Yes, thanks for the correction.


Not even a little.

If my character is the "cripple" (and here I'm torn between the appeal of the rather insulting term given my feeling about this sort of game setup... and the fact that it's an insulting term) I'm left watching the "demigods" doing their thing, I'm just the audience to the action. There's no fictional contrivance, no authorial fiat, lending my character a role as the "plucky one" or some such nonsense.

If my character is the "demigod", then I have these other characters around that constantly need saving and contribute nothing outside of where the GM or rules warp events to grant them a "special moment".

Apologies for the term.

Armus was statistically terrible, and lacked authorial contrivance, yet still contributed greatly to the game, and was great fun to play. I've played other, similar concepts I've enjoyed, even without Armus-level contribution.

But not your thing. Fair enough.

And I think every "enforced pigeonholed" system (which we both seem to dislike) seems centered around the idea that "demigod + pack of useless" is the ideal game state.


IMHO the only good option is playing a game where everyone feels able to contribute.

You can do that by getting everyone to play T1 / T2.

You can do that by getting everyone to play T2 / T3.

You can do that by getting everyone to play T3 / T4.

I personally don't enjoy T5 games, but I'm sure someone out there has an awesome time in a T4 / T5 game, and that's great for everyone involved.

The only important warning is: make sure everyone is on the same page regarding power levels. Which specific page they are all on matters a lot less than all of them being together.

Mostly agree with the first part, disagree with the rest.

As they say, player > character. If I'd never have played any RPGs before, I couldn't have pulled off Armus.

The players you have determines the possible range of capabilities that still allow everyone to contribute. I prefer groups with the largest possible range of viable characters.

But, yes, if everyone is at exactly the same skill level, and everyone always builds and plays to maximum efficiency possible, and everyone only cares about statistical equality, then your statements hold.

But there's a lot of other types of games out there.


I'm pretty sure even in the neutral reading tier 1 & 2 have potentially game breaking power, with tier 1 having versatility on top of that. That's neutral in terms of trying to remove bias, not in terms of trying to strip all comments on good or bad from it. Having the potential for thing to get out of hand with tier 1 classes is bad, but sometimes its worth it for the good possibilities it opens up. You seem to be in that space.

As I read it, tier 3 & 4 have the potential for every bit as much power as Tier 1. Tier 1 is just more likely to be broken just by statistics (if one of its options is broken, it's broken) and by Johnny Combo Player (if some combination of its options is broken, which might not come up on a character with only one of those options, it's broken). This is one of the reasons why I wanted the focus of balance to be at Tier 1, because that's where broken is most likely.

Evaluating the potential fail cases of each tier seems independent of a definition of the tier. I can build an Olympic athlete wrong, by having them try to take out the competition with a baseball bat, but that seems independent of how an Olympic athlete should be defined.


Also, with AW=Apocalypse World and J=JaronK (I've forgotten the context of those short hands) I'm say, from my experience in other Powered by the Apocalypse systems, most playbooks fall into the "Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate".

Yeah, I suspect you're right, actually.

[Lord Raziere]

Not even a little.

If my character is the "cripple" (and here I'm torn between the appeal of the rather insulting term given my feeling about this sort of game setup... and the fact that it's an insulting term) I'm left watching the "demigods" doing their thing, I'm just the audience to the action. There's no fictional contrivance, no authorial fiat, lending my character a role as the "plucky one" or some such nonsense.

If my character is the "demigod", then I have these other characters around that constantly need saving and contribute nothing outside of where the GM or rules warp events to grant them a "special moment".

Yeah. This is kinda what I've been saying this whole time. Me, I'm wondering why your including demigods in a game of cripples, because if the game is about the cripples then why are you rendering all the themes and challenges of being a cripple moot by having a demigod there? If its about the demigods, why are you allowing cripples to take part and focus on this random problem of a cripple without solving the cripples problem with the demigod powers instantly and thus rendering the cripples problems moot?

If I wanted to play a one-armed badass, the last thing I want is some demigod coming in and solving every easily right beside me. Because its one-armed badasses story that they don't NEED the demigod. That they given up the idea of ever having a second arm and have decided to be badass anyways and go forth being awesome regardless of their one arm.

If a demigod comes in and says "oh an arm replacement? easy here have one." THAT CHARACTER IS RUINED. Because my character concept is "one armed badass" not "formerly one-armed badass who now has two arms like everyone else and thus has nothing special about him." it makes the narrative janky. Because I know, Max your don't like narrative, but I really like narratives, but here is the thing: I like GOOD narratives, and I agree with your saying: those are bad narratives. a good story flows naturally and doesn't need contrivances like what your talking about.

because in the usual fantasy, there is a lot of contrivance going on make the sword hero guy the protagonist who solves thing rather than the wizards. contrivance that doesn't exist in roleplaying games and can't really work.

furthermore whats frustrating to me, is how they keep referring to these classes in such a gamist sense by not actually using them as their actual archetypes that everyone else in the world uses and just by their tier and how difficult it makes the game while ignoring what these classes are actually supposed to roleplay. there is a reason why we have paladins and they are not to be a Tier 3 class or whatever who you choose because its more challenging, its because the paladin represents the archetype of a holy shining knight, who goes forth with righteousness in their heart and slays evil like a badass while remaining above corruption, because you want to tell that story, to act it out, because if DnD is supposed to be so RPG then why are there paladins there having an actual code to roleplay and hold to? its just so alien to me that they think in these terms, because its like "don't you understand that someone might just want to a badass rogue without any contrivances or magic or mechanics making them hardmode for no reason getting in the way?"

because choosing a knight or an assassin because its "hard mode" thats alien to me. I don't get the thought process behind it, because its like they are ignoring everything that makes that class what they are and what they're designed for. I don't want to pick something because its easy or hard, I want to pick something because of the actual story I want to tell and not have to worry about whether I'm screwing myself over.

[Quertus]

Yeah. This is kinda what I've been saying this whole time. Me, I'm wondering why your including demigods in a game of cripples, because if the game is about the cripples then why are you rendering all the themes and challenges of being a cripple moot by having a demigod there? If its about the demigods, why are you allowing cripples to take part and focus on this random problem of a cripple without solving the cripples problem with the demigod powers instantly and thus rendering the cripples problems moot?

If I wanted to play a one-armed badass, the last thing I want is some demigod coming in and solving every easily right beside me. Because its one-armed badasses story that they don't NEED the demigod. That they given up the idea of ever having a second arm and have decided to be badass anyways and go forth being awesome regardless of their one arm.

Armus was a tactical genius. To dumb it down, let's say that, while he could only deal d4 damage, compared to the Demigods' 1d10+10 damage, they would deal that damage to whomever, while Armus would hold an action to disrupt the wizard's spell with the damage (makes more sense in 2e, and what Armus actual did was far more complex, but hopefully you get the idea).

But Armus actually contributed, significantly, despite his disadvantages. There are plenty of characters who don't, at least not in that sense. Suppose I enjoy the role-playing challenge of the following scenario:

You've got 4 amazing high school basketball players. They could easily make out to the state championships, perhaps even earn your school its first ever state trophy. Given the chance, most of them could go pro. But the rules state that you need 5 people to play. I'm the only person in the whole school willing to join the team. Problem is, I'm horrible.

Honestly, I'd love playing that character.


If a demigod comes in and says "oh an arm replacement? easy here have one." THAT CHARACTER IS RUINED. Because my character concept is "one armed badass" not "formerly one-armed badass who now has two arms like everyone else and thus has nothing special about him." it makes the narrative janky. Because I know, Max your don't like narrative, but I really like narratives, but here is the thing: I like GOOD narratives, and I agree with your saying: those are bad narratives. a good story flows naturally and doesn't need contrivances like what your talking about.

I'm torn. I'm a firm believer in teamwork. And a firm believer in character growth. So, on those grounds, I feel like I should object to your objection.

Problem is, I agree with your objection. I wouldn't have any interest in playing, "guy who learned to be just as good as the pro basketball players", especially if it was just, "well, you've earned enough XP to level up your basketball skill".

Now, if, instead, they worked to figure what role to put me in, taught me enough to not be a liability, etc, I could work with that. If they just tried to use me to make themselves good to the scouts, I could work with that. If one of them had Magick, and magically made me as good as them, I could work with that - even if it wasn't my original concept, I've now got concepts of honor & cheating to work with, let alone "WTF? Magic?!".

So, I'm of the opinion that that can be done well, and it can be done in ways that wreck the character concept.


because in the usual fantasy, there is a lot of contrivance going on make the sword hero guy the protagonist who solves thing rather than the wizards. contrivance that doesn't exist in roleplaying games and can't really work.

furthermore whats frustrating to me, is how they keep referring to these classes in such a gamist sense by not actually using them as their actual archetypes that everyone else in the world uses and just by their tier and how difficult it makes the game while ignoring what these classes are actually supposed to roleplay. there is a reason why we have paladins and they are not to be a Tier 3 class or whatever who you choose because its more challenging, its because the paladin represents the archetype of a holy shining knight, who goes forth with righteousness in their heart and slays evil like a badass while remaining above corruption, because you want to tell that story, to act it out, because if DnD is supposed to be so RPG then why are there paladins there having an actual code to roleplay and hold to? its just so alien to me that they think in these terms, because its like "don't you understand that someone might just want to a badass rogue without any contrivances or magic or mechanics making them hardmode for no reason getting in the way?"

because choosing a knight or an assassin because its "hard mode" thats alien to me. I don't get the thought process behind it, because its like they are ignoring everything that makes that class what they are and what they're designed for. I don't want to pick something because its easy or hard, I want to pick something because of the actual story I want to tell and not have to worry about whether I'm screwing myself over.

And this is why I want all the archetypes to be represented in tier 1 (or so), and then only have a few duplicates explicitly labeled "hard mode". Sounds like we're on the same team here. :smallwink:

[Lord Raziere]

And this is why I want all the archetypes to be represented in tier 1 (or so), and then only have a few duplicates explicitly labeled "hard mode". Sounds like we're on the same team here. :smallwink:

Ok then.

So my Tier Normal, is what your refer to as Tier 1. because what I refer to Tier 1 is something game-breaking.

So what you want is this Tier Normal where everyone is badass and a few Tier Hardmode classes that similar to the Deprived from Dark Souls 3 where you start out with a wooden board and a club and have to start with no armor and the worst stats in the game? (I've played Deprived actually its the farthest I've gotten in Dark Souls 3)

like, I feel that clear terminology should be the core of this discussion, because Tier 1 is just a number, and as we can see is prone to misinterpretation. and if we want this, we should make it very clear through the class names and fluff and such how they're hard mode as well the labels. like a Warrior is badass, but say, a thug or brute or peasant is hardmode, just by implication of their names, their out of character labels, their fluff, everything about them should be hardmode in mechanics and fluff to make sure people know what their getting into on all levels.

[Quertus]

Ok then.

So my Tier Normal, is what your refer to as Tier 1. because what I refer to Tier 1 is something game-breaking.

So what you want is this Tier Normal where everyone is badass and a few Tier Hardmode classes that similar to the Deprived from Dark Souls 3 where you start out with a wooden board and a club and have to start with no armor and the worst stats in the game? (I've played Deprived actually its the farthest I've gotten in Dark Souls 3)

like, I feel that clear terminology should be the core of this discussion, because Tier 1 is just a number, and as we can see is prone to misinterpretation. and if we want this, we should make it very clear through the class names and fluff and such how they're hard mode as well the labels. like a Warrior is badass, but say, a thug or brute or peasant is hardmode, just by implication of their names, their out of character labels, their fluff, everything about them should be hardmode in mechanics and fluff to make sure people know what their getting into on all levels.

Again, maybe what will come out of this thread is largely me understanding my own position, plus me attempting to redefine the tiers.

Still, I feel that "power + versatility" a) is the most neutral reading of "tier 1"; b) is how tier 1 should be defined; c) is where games should be balanced; d) is where most / the expected characters should live.

And I've been talking about putting explicit warning labels on those few options below tier 1. :smallwink:

[ImNotTrevor]

And that's their bad.

A bad with enough frequency that I'm just going to prevent it outright.




Your half, The following is a subset of the comments I randomly select in explaining my position on the matter. If you - or anyone else, for that matter - would enjoy discussing this topic further, please open a new thread, and I'll happily join you there.

(I'm glad you like this character idea, but the reality is,) I'm horrible at character creation. Most of my characters aren't worth playing. To put it in 3e D&D terms, I need to take a 20 to create a character I'll enjoy.
Well then it's a good thing my favorite systems will let you play multiple characters at once if you want to, and I'm very good at character creation. Most character problems come from overthinking it, in my experience. Giving room for the character to shift while keeping the core intact solves these problems.



Would you rather I bring a character I know I'll enjoy, force me to play a character I won't enjoy, or have me switch out characters every season until I create a character I enjoy?
If these are in actuality the only options, then I'll be sure to invite you next time a more appropriate campaign comes up, and I'm sorry we can't make this one work.



Further, (you say you like that character idea - ) what's the difference between Quertus, and Sutreuq, the statistically identical character I've never played before, aside from the fact that, due to experience, I'll be better at playing Quertus? Why would you make your goal to reduce my ability to play my character?
Since we will be generating characters at the same time, trying to finesse yourself into having the same character but a different name is just operating in bad faith.
That second bit is a non-sequitur. I don't need to reduce your ability to play your character to set a standard. Everyone else has agreed to this standard. I cannot make an exception to this standard for you without making it for everyone, invalidating the standard outright.
Which I'm not going to do.



What does it matter whether I created that character here, or in a previous game, if it's the same character? :smallconfused:
I'm not here to police personalities. It is fully possible to port Quertus' core personality traits and whatnot so long as they work with what the group has in mind. However, building a carbon copy point-for-point of another character, is not going to be acceptable. If you can envision playing Quertus but as a Cleric instead, for instance, then you may do just fine. If you don't think you can do this, that is alright. Not everyone fits at every table.



No single GM can possibly provide the breadth of content 20 GMs can provide. To properly explore a character - the breadth of their personality, their responses under the most diverse set of conditions, etc - the optimal solution is to play them under multiple GMs.
Most characters we know of do a fine job having their personalities explored in one story.
Harry Potter, Gandalf, etc. Are you arguing that we need to see Gandalf fight gnomes and pixies, and then fight an alien invasion, and then fight dinosaurs, to see if he faces adversity differently depending on what shape it takes?



To prohibit such action is to declare exploring the character as not a worth goal.
I refer to my above statement. We do not need to see a character in every conceivable situation to understand them. Same as we probably know how someone will react to a swarm of crocodiles once we've seen them react to a swarm of alligators. The cycle of grief over loss does not change much between the passing of a mother and the passing of a father.
Etc.



Why would I be incentivized to create any but the most lackluster personality under a GM who has already declared such pursuits not worthwhile?
Because it should be fun for its own sake, not just because the GM is rewarding you.
There is also just as much fun to be had starting with a simpler character and watching their complexity grow with time, sometimes to even your own surprise.



Crafting a good personality takes me much, much longer. D&D statistics are trivial in comparison. That is what you are attempting to inflict upon me. 20 times over, until I get it right. :smallfrown:

Introducing ImNotTrevor's 5 step character personality maker!

1. Pick a name and very broad description. (For example, Quertus the Wizard.)

2. Decide what this character wants.

3. Decide what is preventing this character from getting what they want.

4. Pick a part of them. (Their brain, heart, honor, anger, sadness, nose, gut, loins, etc). They follow this around.

5. Pick something this character believes, and that may very well be untrue. They live by this belief, for now.

Then find out where it goes from there.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Showing up with premade characters sort of works for a certain subset of games. Mainly ones where the characters don't really matter and they're pawns for exploring the world, which is the meat of the gameplay. Stuff like "There's a horrible dungeon. Adventurers have come far and wide to plunder its depths!" It can still fall apart if one guy shows up with Sir Righteous and the other shows up with Vlad the Impaler, but what can you do?

Premade characters immediately fail if you want to do something other than "Here's a random collection of people thrust together by unusual circumstances", though.

[JAL_1138]

Showing up with premade characters sort of works for a certain subset of games. Mainly ones where the characters don't really matter and they're pawns for exploring the world, which is the meat of the gameplay. Stuff like "There's a horrible dungeon. Adventurers have come far and wide to plunder its depths!" It can still fall apart if one guy shows up with Sir Righteous and the other shows up with Vlad the Impaler, but what can you do?

Premade characters immediately fail if you want to do something other than "Here's a random collection of people thrust together by unusual circumstances", though.

Not necessarily. It's not always as easy, it often takes some retconning of the backstory (at least recent events therein), and sometimes it doesn't work at all, but the mere fact a character is premade is not in and of itself a guarantee that it'll fail.

I've had more than one lucky coincidence where my premade background dovetailed perfectly with another players' despite neither of us having any knowledge of the other character beforehand. In other cases where the fit has been less-serendipitous, only minor tweaks have been necessary. And of course there have been cases where nothing could make the character fit, but actually not as many as the ones where a bit of tweaking and tailoring to the group, campaign, and setting has made the character work.

[BayardSPSR]

And that's their bad.

...

The following is a subset of the comments I randomly select in explaining my position on the matter. If you - or anyone else, for that matter - would enjoy discussing this topic further, please open a new thread, and I'll happily join you there.

(I'm glad you like this character idea, but the reality is,) I'm horrible at character creation. Most of my characters aren't worth playing. To put it in 3e D&D terms, I need to take a 20 to create a character I'll enjoy.

Would you rather I bring a character I know I'll enjoy, force me to play a character I won't enjoy, or have me switch out characters every season until I create a character I enjoy?

Further, (you say you like that character idea - ) what's the difference between Quertus, and Sutreuq, the statistically identical character I've never played before, aside from the fact that, due to experience, I'll be better at playing Quertus? Why would you make your goal to reduce my ability to play my character?

What does it matter whether I created that character here, or in a previous game, if it's the same character? :smallconfused:

No single GM can possibly provide the breadth of content 20 GMs can provide. To properly explore a character - the breadth of their personality, their responses under the most diverse set of conditions, etc - the optimal solution is to play them under multiple GMs. To prohibit such action is to declare exploring the character as not a worth goal. Why would I be incentivized to create any but the most lackluster personality under a GM who has already declared such pursuits not worthwhile?

The thing is, if you show up to a group with one character that you insist on playing, that's not your problem. That's a problem you're making for everyone else there. Maybe if it's just you and the GM, that can work - assuming the GM isn't interested in something that doesn't match up with "providing you content" - but especially in groups with other people in them, how can you realistically not expect to have to make compromises in the interest of other people having a good time too?

This is the core of this thread: wild character imbalance isn't a problem on the level of the individual player or character. The player can choose to play what they want to play for the kind of game they want to have, and that's fine for them as an individual. The problem is that one player having exactly the kind of game they want to have, in a system that doesn't balance characters, can wreak havoc on other players' ability to have fun. It's nice for an individual to be able to play a superhero surround by normals, or a normal surrounded by superheroes. It's a serious problem, however, if the people playing the superheroes (or normals) don't want their game dictated by one player who consistently shows them up or can't keep up.

Yes, you can work around this, or get lucky. But there's no solution that does not in some way restrict the range of character abilities that can be present in play.

Stepping the the question of whether JaronK-style tier 1 should or could be default: in theory, there's nothing wrong with it, except that in practice the game that tier exists in wasn't written with the assumption that tier 1 characters could be as dominant as they are. A practical game that intended a tier 1 group would have to be rewritten entirely from the group up (assuming we're all still talking about a D&D version). Hit points and skills wouldn't matter much. Neither would combat-related feats. The main rolling of dice would be saving throws, and time would be structured around resting. To be fair, this problem isn't so much inherent to tier 1 as it is to D&D's proliferation of redundant mechanics, but the point remains that a game actually centered around such high-powered characters would need to be built intentionally, not just a game built with different expectations, but with a warning added.

Someone who's familiar with Exalted might be able to elaborate? I haven't touched it myself, so I can't really use it as an example.

[Lord Raziere]

Someone who's familiar with Exalted might be able to elaborate? I haven't touched it myself, so I can't really use it as an example.

Well here is Exalted does it:

The Solar Exalted are the "Tier 1" so to speak. they get to be in the corebook, no other Exalt does. all the other Exalts must wait for their supplements to be released to even be playable. normal mortals are also released in the corebook, the weakest you can possibly be, so built in hard mode. the Solar exalted themselves are basically human excellence taken to the Nth degree- whatever they choose to specialize in, they become the absolutely best at in the entire world bar none.

the second Exalted to always be released are in contrast, the relatively weakest Exalted. The Dragon-Blooded are meant for smaller stories. their power is elemental manipulation and is more about teamwork to achieve a greater goal, as they are meant to be soldiers working in an army, but also kind of nobility and thus get servants and riches and other political/societal resources to use at the start that Solars don't get at the start. This great political/social power of the Dragon-Blooded help balance them against Solars and Dragon-Blooded at the start since they're enemies....until the Solars with super-social skills persuade a nation to worship them as gods and start training their own armies. However the Dragon-Blooded are the most numerous of the Exalted, having at least 10,000 of them despite their weakness compared to the Celestial Exalts who numbers are in the hundreds- a Dragon-Blooded will never lack for allies if not friends.

Then Abyssals, Sidereals and Lunars. each of them celestial Exalted stronger than Dragon-Blooded but in some way less power than Solars. Abyssals are basically Solars in strength but their non-death stuff taken out so that they are focused on killing and destroying things with darkness and whatnot, but with the backing of the Underworld behind them.

Lunars are strong but second to Solars in strength but can shapeshift and disguise themselves, as well as being far more flexible and adaptable than Solars, but lacking in refinement since Lunars are demigod barbarians, but have various threshold cultures to back them up, as well as other Lunars.

finally of the core Exalted we have Sidereals. the weakest of the Celestial exalted in both numbers and strength, only 100 of them compared to 150 of Solars and Abyssals and 400 Lunars. Their methods are inherently limited esoteric, and strange. being the watchers of fate and therefore the troubleshooters of physics itself in Creation, they know more than everyone else, having the largest knowledge base, working with the gods and Heaven itself, thus having the largest political/social/economic power of them all, some of the more well paid Sidereals can bankrupt entire kingdoms. their powers however are not as straightforward or numerous as other Exalted, being a strange and limited toolset to apply to solve your problems and no end of people demanding solutions given that you work for Heaven and all the gods within. However they do know Sidereal Martial Arts- powerful martial arts styles that apply kung fu to very foundations of reality that only the Solars can match Sidereals in.

Basically, while Solars are technically Tier 1, they have the least amount political/social/economic power. they start at zero, while everyone else starts with allies, resources and a culture that they can call upon to help them do things. In theory, this puts everyone else on some even playing field. In practice, since Solar Exalted are Tier 1, and everyone plays them the most since they are core book, with Dragon-Blooded being a distant second and everyone else third, Solars tend to just take over everything, the fandom idolizes them, "solars win at everything" joke-memes turn into actual belief that Solars win at everything, and then everyone plays Solars starting from zero then taking over Creation believing that they are most free Exalted, and then everyone else is basically ignored as being anything important or capable of changing anything for the better. and all those interesting powers that other Exalts can do are rarely played.

[Keltest]

Armus was a tactical genius. To dumb it down, let's say that, while he could only deal d4 damage, compared to the Demigods' 1d10+10 damage, they would deal that damage to whomever, while Armus would hold an action to disrupt the wizard's spell with the damage (makes more sense in 2e, and what Armus actual did was far more complex, but hopefully you get the idea).

But Armus actually contributed, significantly, despite his disadvantages. There are plenty of characters who don't, at least not in that sense. Suppose I enjoy the role-playing challenge of the following scenario:

You've got 4 amazing high school basketball players. They could easily make out to the state championships, perhaps even earn your school its first ever state trophy. Given the chance, most of them could go pro. But the rules state that you need 5 people to play. I'm the only person in the whole school willing to join the team. Problem is, I'm horrible.

Honestly, I'd love playing that character.

This sounds an awful lot like "I had to invest a lot of effort into being remotely effective, while the god tier characters just did whatever for the same effect, and the only reason they weren't even more effective is because they didn't have to be."

Yeah, if you don't use your power effectively, the people who do so will look better by comparison, but that doesn't mean you don't significantly outclass them, it just means youre allowing them to borrow the spotlight. And make no mistake, it is entirely up to the god tier players whether you are allowed to contribute even that much. What if one of them played a tactical genius who also had the god-mode powers? What would you even be there for?

[Quertus]

A bad with enough frequency that I'm just going to prevent it outright.

Eh?



Well then it's a good thing my favorite systems will let you play multiple characters at once if you want to, and I'm very good at character creation. Most character problems come from overthinking it, in my experience. Giving room for the character to shift while keeping the core intact solves these problems.

Multiple characters can somewhat reduce this issue; I'm mildly chagrined I didn't even think of that idea, given how much I love playing multiple characters.


Since we will be generating characters at the same time, trying to finesse yourself into having the same character but a different name is just operating in bad faith.

Eh, that wasn't what I meant. I was comparing hypothetical brand new character a hypothetical me created to an actual charter an actual me created and ran, and asking, if they turned out the same, why you'd care about the "just created" tag one had so much that it is more valuable to you than the "I know how to play this character" tag the other has.



That second bit is a non-sequitur. I don't need to reduce your ability to play your character to set a standard. Everyone else has agreed to this standard. I cannot make an exception to this standard for you without making it for everyone, invalidating the standard outright.
Which I'm not going to do.

What I'm asking is what the value of the standard is, and, if it has no value, for you to change the standard.

Or, if it has value, but less value than my standard, enter into a discussion on the surface regarding changing it, and with the subtext of learning how you think, how you adapt, how you view tradition vs improvement, etc.

Or, if it has more value than my standard, work on adapting my style to optimize my utilization of this standard.

Or, if you have a dogmatic desire to keep to useless standards, I'll know I won't enjoy the game, and bow out.


I'm not here to police personalities. It is fully possible to port Quertus' core personality traits and whatnot so long as they work with what the group has in mind. However, building a carbon copy point-for-point of another character, is not going to be acceptable. If you can envision playing Quertus but as a Cleric instead, for instance, then you may do just fine. If you don't think you can do this, that is alright. Not everyone fits at every table.

I do not see the value of this stance. Please explain.


Most characters we know of do a fine job having their personalities explored in one story.
Harry Potter, Gandalf, etc. Are you arguing that we need to see Gandalf fight gnomes and pixies, and then fight an alien invasion, and then fight dinosaurs, to see if he faces adversity differently depending on what shape it takes?

Not exactly. To be a ****, I'm saying most GMs are much more constrained than single author fiction, and therefore do a horrible job by comparison.

Further, I'm saying that I care about far more than what little comes up even in the superior exploration of single author fiction.

People have their biases. They have what they're good at running, and they have their weak points. I'd prefer to run the same character through 20 GMs' strong suits, to explore the character in these diverse scenarios, than to limit their experience to the stilted perspective of a single GM.

To continue to be a ****, if you can't understand that concept, it's just further evidence of a difference of frames of reference that both demonstrates my point, and limits my faith in how much of my character I can explore under you.


I refer to my above statement. We do not need to see a character in every conceivable situation to understand them. Same as we probably know how someone will react to a swarm of crocodiles once we've seen them react to a swarm of alligators. The cycle of grief over loss does not change much between the passing of a mother and the passing of a father.
Etc.

And there's two scenarios I'm not sure any of my characters have ever experienced, at least not in game. Although I shudder at the idea of crocodiles using the swarm rules. :smallwink:

A lot of my characters are built for me to explore certain facets of the human psyche. Letting them experience a diverse array of experiences is often the point.

I don't know if you've ever noticed from the various DM "help" threads, but a lot of DMs get stuck on one idea of what encounters should look like, and build very samey encounters, that can't handle certain pc builds. People them start describing various things to counter that build. Then, if no one else had said it (or even if they have), I'll chew them out for lacking GM skills encourage them to create a diverse set of encounters, so that this type of problem just goes away naturally, without forcing explicit counters to a given pc's shtick.

The same thing is true at many different levels of pretty much all GMs. We all have things were good at, things we focus on. And we all have weaknesses, and things we rarely account for.

This natural part of human nature is, sadly, detrimental to my endeavors to use a character to explore certain aspects of the human psyche, and part of why I prefer to run the same character repeatedly under many different GMs.


Because it should be fun for its own sake, not just because the GM is rewarding you.
There is also just as much fun to be had starting with a simpler character and watching their complexity grow with time, sometimes to even your own surprise.

You've lost me again. We must be talking about very different things here.


Introducing ImNotTrevor's 5 step character personality maker!

1. Pick a name and very broad description. (For example, Quertus the Wizard.)

2. Decide what this character wants.

3. Decide what is preventing this character from getting what they want.

4. Pick a part of them. (Their brain, heart, honor, anger, sadness, nose, gut, loins, etc). They follow this around.

5. Pick something this character believes, and that may very well be untrue. They live by this belief, for now.

Then find out where it goes from there.

Well, not only is this almost the definition of why most of my characters aren't any fun / aren't of any use to me to explore the human psyche, it's also almost the definition of why games fail, IME. When you have established personalities, it's much easier to describe and predict them. Therefore, it's much easier to determine which characters will work well together. I've watched this mentality in action before, and it was generally a recipe for disaster.


Showing up with premade characters sort of works for a certain subset of games. Mainly ones where the characters don't really matter and they're pawns for exploring the world, which is the meat of the gameplay.

Exploration is my favorite aesthetic. Stuff like, "people keep disappearing from town. A very careful evaluation will reveal subtle patterns to which people, where, and or when, depending on what you evaluate, and which clues you follow". Or "a strange floating island just appeared, with completely different laws of physics than the rest of the world."

But it's also optimal for games where the world is just a pawn to explore your character. And works about as well as anything for the only story worth telling: the story of what these particular characters chose to do when they encountered this particular scenario, and how that turned out.

So I'm curious as to what, exactly, that leaves that it doesn't work well for, and whether that's something I'd enjoy playing.


Premade characters immediately fail if you want to do something other than "Here's a random collection of people thrust together by unusual circumstances", though.

I mean, if we were playing GitP: the RPG, I don't see where having Quertus and Koo Rehtorb be new characters matters. I'd think them being premade characters, with the advantages that their players like them, and know how to play them, would be a good thing, no?


Not necessarily. It's not always as easy, it often takes some retconning of the backstory (at least recent events therein),

I like to work not so much with retcon as with addition: here's what had to happen to get from where my existing character left off to where he needs to be at the start of this game.


and sometimes it doesn't work at all, but the mere fact a character is premade is not in and of itself a guarantee that it'll fail.

And then there was the time that we all made new characters, and came up with the party of the Paladin, the Assassin, the Undead Hunter, his dear childhood friend the Undead Master, and my character, the borderline undead / best friend of the Paladin. This train wreck never would have happened if we had gotten together with existing characters we could have discussed.

And I'm so glad we didn't, because then I never would have had this awesome story of playing through such an incredible train wreck. :smallcool:


The thing is, if you show up to a group with one character that you insist on playing, that's not your problem. That's a problem you're making for everyone else there. Maybe if it's just you and the GM, that can work - assuming the GM isn't interested in something that doesn't match up with "providing you content" - but especially in groups with other people in them, how can you realistically not expect to have to make compromises in the interest of other people having a good time too?

Ok, two things:

One, I have a folder of hundreds of characters. Premade character =/= one character I insist on playing.

Two, your mindset is completely out of touch with the success of the drop in game.

So, whatever problems you're thinking about, they're either something you're manufacturing, or something the drop in game crowd solved long ago.


This is the core of this thread: wild character imbalance isn't a problem on the level of the individual player or character. The player can choose to play what they want to play for the kind of game they want to have, and that's fine for them as an individual. The problem is that one player having exactly the kind of game they want to have, in a system that doesn't balance characters, can wreak havoc on other players' ability to have fun. It's nice for an individual to be able to play a superhero surround by normals, or a normal surrounded by superheroes. It's a serious problem, however, if the people playing the superheroes (or normals) don't want their game dictated by one player who consistently shows them up or can't keep up

I think you have it backwards on which players are trying to force their hand on the others.

I'm (generally) talking about each player choosing and controlling their own character, and the game being about what happens when they get together.

You're discussing players wanting to control what the group looks like, and defining their characters in relation to each other.

Whether you're playing a superhero or a mortal does not change whether I'm playing a superhero or a mortal.


.Yes, you can work around this, or get lucky. But there's no solution that does not in some way restrict the range of character abilities that can be present in play.

Stepping the the question of whether JaronK-style tier 1 should or could be default: in theory, there's nothing wrong with it, except that in practice the game that tier exists in wasn't written with the assumption that tier 1 characters could be as dominant as they are. A practical game that intended a tier 1 group would have to be rewritten entirely from the group up (assuming we're all still talking about a D&D version). Hit points and skills wouldn't matter much. Neither would combat-related feats. The main rolling of dice would be saving throws, and time would be structured around resting. To be fair, this problem isn't so much inherent to tier 1 as it is to D&D's proliferation of redundant mechanics, but the point remains that a game actually centered around such high-powered characters would need to be built intentionally, not just a game built with different expectations, but with a warning added.

Someone who's familiar with Exalted might be able to elaborate? I haven't touched it myself, so I can't really use it as an example.

You're still looking at the (3e) D&D implementation of the tiers. Let's look at the 2e Tier 1 character: the fighter.

The 2e Fighter had it all. He had the best attacks, the best (single target) damage, the best AC, the most HP, the best saves. He had priority picks for the best treasure, and, by virtue of being the only one who could use it, also got the most treasure. As Strength was his primary score, he could carry the most. Which meant he had the most options. Starting at low level, with the blunt / piercing / slashing weapons, rope, 10' pole, caltrops, marbles, bag of flour, slab of meat, flask of oil, flask of acid, etc etc etc, and continuing to high level with a diverse array of magical weapons and items. Power and versatility. The 2e Fighter bloody had it all. An absolute paragon of Tier 1.


This sounds an awful lot like "I had to invest a lot of effort into being remotely effective

Pretty much.


while the god tier characters just did whatever for the same effect,

For on average almost as much effect as Armus had on average, sure.


and the only reason they weren't even more effective is because they didn't have to be."

Yeah, if you don't use your power effectively, the people who do so will look better by comparison, but that doesn't mean you don't significantly outclass them, it just means youre allowing them to borrow the spotlight. And make no mistake, it is entirely up to the god tier players whether you are allowed to contribute even that much. What if one of them played a tactical genius who also had the god-mode powers? What would you even be there for?

Well, I knew the group - most of them couldn't have played a tactical genius. They were playing at their peak. :smallfrown:

There was one player in particular who was God Mode: he had the strongest build, and he had good tactics. The other players were upset, but had a hard time understanding why, largely because most of them couldn't understand just how bad their tactics were.

But he did not invalidate my character. My character was still a weak tactical genius. Just because there was an extremely powerful character whose tactics were second only to Armus' in no way changed what Armus was. Yes, the God Mode character took a lot of the spotlight from everyone. But Armus was still Armus. And Armus was quite enjoyable for me to play. Perhaps even more so because he got to make very significant contributions, but, as I said with my basketball example, that isn't necessarily a requirement in order for me to enjoy the character.

[goto124]

Introducing ImNotTrevor's 5 step character personality maker!

1. Pick a name and very broad description. (For example, Quertus the Wizard.)

2. Decide what this character wants.

3. Decide what is preventing this character from getting what they want.

4. Pick a part of them. (Their brain, heart, honor, anger, sadness, nose, gut, loins, etc). They follow this around.

5. Pick something this character believes, and that may very well be untrue. They live by this belief, for now.

Then find out where it goes from there.

According to my experience, Step 6 is throwing all semblence of personality I have away and just playing a healer to support the party. Or leaving the game altogether. But my utter lack of success in actually roleplaying a personality is best left for another thread.


I'm (generally) talking about each player choosing and controlling their own character, and the game being about what happens when they get together.

You're discussing players wanting to control what the group looks like, and defining their characters in relation to each other.

Whether you're playing a superhero or a mortal does not change whether I'm playing a superhero or a mortal.

Consider a hypothetical party of 5 superheroes and 1 human with no special powers. How does a GM create an encounter such that the human isn't left out, while still engaging the superheroes?

[BayardSPSR]

Two, your mindset is completely out of touch with the success of the drop in game.

So, whatever problems you're thinking about, they're either something you're manufacturing, or something the drop in game crowd solved long ago.

...

You're still looking at the (3e) D&D implementation of the tiers. Let's look at the 2e Tier 1 character: the fighter.

The 2e Fighter had it all. He had the best attacks, the best (single target) damage, the best AC, the most HP, the best saves. He had priority picks for the best treasure, and, by virtue of being the only one who could use it, also got the most treasure. As Strength was his primary score, he could carry the most. Which meant he had the most options. Starting at low level, with the blunt / piercing / slashing weapons, rope, 10' pole, caltrops, marbles, bag of flour, slab of meat, flask of oil, flask of acid, etc etc etc, and continuing to high level with a diverse array of magical weapons and items. Power and versatility. The 2e Fighter bloody had it all. An absolute paragon of Tier 1.

Thanks for clarifying.

Yeah, I'm saying tier divergence of the kind that prompted the only widely-distributed tier concept that I've heard of seems (to me) very poorly suited to a drop-in game. Doesn't mean it can't work; just means it could work better. In fact, I would bet that drop-in games preceded that kind of wide tier divergence, and that the use application of drop-in games to RPGs with that kind of divergence is carried over from earlier times, not invented as an application of them.

2e Fighters don't sound like a good example of that kind of tier 1. Tier 1 doesn't mean strong, versatile, or strong and versatile. It's a concept created in response to character effectiveness disparities on the scale that 3.x has. That said, I'm not familiar enough with 2e to try to describe its classes with a tier system of my own invention, so I'll leave that to other people.

[Frozen_Feet]

Easy, the human is threatened and the superheroes are trying to save them. (Because they are a friend/ a lover / the president / whatever.)

Like, this discussion still looks to me like many people can only imagine one sort of metagame. You look at the above paragraph and leap to the conclusion that playing the character being saved cannot be fun for the player / the group / the GM, because they aren't contributing some arbitrary fraction of effort against whatever arbitrary threat.

But what if one player is fine with being saved because they chose to be a normal human knowing it would make them useless, and the other are fine with saving them because that's what superheroes do?

Like, it shouldn't be so hard to imagine a game where one player willingly plays Lois Lane when another plays Superman. For that matter, it shouldn't be so hard to imagine a game where the character being saved is a thankless bastard and their saviour hates their guts, but the players are fine with this because they find that dynamic amusing. I can get you might not personally prefer to play any of these sorts of characters, but that's not a good metric for how valid they'd be for a game.

[Frozen_Feet]

Premade characters immediately fail if you want to do something other than "Here's a random collection of people thrust together by unusual circumstances", though.

That's... not a single type of game.

Like seriously. That's not a single type of game. If you have four players, ten different characters and ten different circumstances, that creates 50,400 different combinations. Even if you manage to eliminate some combinations as being "too similar" based on specifics of the scenario, chances are you're still left with more game seeds than most GMs manage to run in their entire lives.

[Mechalich]

Easy, the human is threatened and the superheroes are trying to save them. (Because they are a friend/ a lover / the president / whatever.)

Like, this discussion still looks to me like many people can only imagine one sort of metagame. You look at the above paragraph and leap to the conclusion that playing the character being saved cannot be fun for the player / the group / the GM, because they aren't contributing some arbitrary fraction of effort against whatever arbitrary threat.

But what if one player is fine with being saved because they chose to be a normal human knowing it would make them useless, and the other are fine with saving them because that's what superheroes do?

Like, it shouldn't be so hard to imagine a game where one player willingly plays Lois Lane when another plays Superman. For that matter, it shouldn't be so hard to imagine a game where the character being saved is a thankless bastard and their saviour hates their guts, but the players are fine with this because they find that dynamic amusing. I can get you might not personally prefer to play any of these sorts of characters, but that's not a good metric for how valid they'd be for a game.

I think this is confusing how games are played with how games are designed.

Classes are a design choice - they are a way to structure character concepts and advancement by matching them to certain archetypes. Now, those archetypes do not have to be balanced against each other. Rifts has classes (more or less) and those classes are no more balanced than anything else in Rifts, and that's okay, because game balance is a thing Rifts explicitly does not have. Likewise there are games like Exalted where you can play different classes of being and it is made clear that Solars are better than other Celestial Exalts who are better than dragon-blooded who are better than god-blooded who are better than mortals. There are consequences to those design choices, but it is quite clear that if I choose to play a dragon-blood in a party of all Solars I'm going to be weaker than the rest of the party and we can all recognize that and move on.

D&D, across pretty much all editions but especially in 3.X/PF, does not do this. The game makes the explicit claim that the classes are balanced against each other - by stating that level equals CR - to the point of even including multi-class combinations. The game claims that a Level X Fighter versus a Level X Bard versus a Level X Wizard should be an even match, and this is utterly not true with the possible exception of at levels 1-3 (where the RNG remains god).

This is a problem, in several ways. It deceives players and cheats people who are new or have low system mastery into potentially building concepts they think will be good but are in fact terrible - including certain iconic characters. Drizzt clones lack originality, but they are a thing that young gamers think are cool, except in 3.X a TWF ranger is...incredibly sub-optimal (and all the other Drizzt-verse characters with the possible exception of Jarlaxle as a UMD master are if anything, worse). It contrasts with the fluff that players both expect and that is found in actual official 3e material. The simple fact that, past level 10 martials might as well be practice dummies for all the impact they have compared to full casters is nowhere in the published material and is a huge design and messaging failure. The extreme imbalance between the character types means that certain archetypes we would like to see share the field in the manner of say, Authurian legends or actual D&D novels turn out to be impossible in actual gameplay. That's terrible - outside of E6 and other variants D&D's class imbalances hinder the ability for it to produce the type of games it advertises. Finally, highly optimized tier 1 full casters turned out to be far more powerful than any character type was ever intended to be - the iconic high-level wizard is Elminster, but a fully optimized wizard makes him look like an idiot and high-level play (meaning pretty much anything over level 12) is simply impossible above the very lowest optimization levels without a huge wall of houserules (most of which are nerfs).

The bottom line is that, yes, you can have unbalanced classes, but if you're going to do that it needs to be the design intent. D&D was designed to have roughly equal classes and the failure to provide that was a gaping design flaw that has had massive impacts on the game. The tier system is a reaction to that design flaw that attempts to recognize class imbalances and categorize them out so as to provide guidelines for having a game where the characters are in fact roughly even.

[Koo Rehtorb]

But it's also optimal for games where the world is just a pawn to explore your character. And works about as well as anything for the only story worth telling: the story of what these particular characters chose to do when they encountered this particular scenario, and how that turned out.

So I'm curious as to what, exactly, that leaves that it doesn't work well for, and whether that's something I'd enjoy playing.

Again, any sort of game that doesn't involve a random group of people thrust together by unusual circumstances.

For a random example, a game about a noble family that's fallen on hard times trying to rebuild their household and rise in prominence. And the players show up to the game with character sheets for Gandalf, Skeletor, nine year old girl Einstein, and a robot. Talk about a dysfunctional family. Now perhaps you can make it work. Einsteina turns out to be a cousin of the King and could potentially succeed to the throne if everyone else in line was removed, she built a faithful robot companion with her genius powers, Skeletor sees potential for world domination in this plan and decides to pitch in, and Gandalf is her father, whatever. But it would sure be a hell of a lot more coherent if people built the party together and established reasonable relationships with each other in session zero instead.


That's... not a single type of game.

Like seriously. That's not a single type of game. If you have four players, ten different characters and ten different circumstances, that creates 50,400 different combinations. Even if you manage to eliminate some combinations as being "too similar" based on specifics of the scenario, chances are you're still left with more game seeds than most GMs manage to run in their entire lives.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. Yes, obviously, you can have a near infinite number of possible games while never doing anything other than having a random party of people thrown together. It breaks down when people want to do something else. And they probably should want to do something else. Because it often makes for a better game, or at least a different sort of game, and variety is fun.

[Lord Raziere]

Easy, the human is threatened and the superheroes are trying to save them. (Because they are a friend/ a lover / the president / whatever.)

Like, this discussion still looks to me like many people can only imagine one sort of metagame. You look at the above paragraph and leap to the conclusion that playing the character being saved cannot be fun for the player / the group / the GM, because they aren't contributing some arbitrary fraction of effort against whatever arbitrary threat.

But what if one player is fine with being saved because they chose to be a normal human knowing it would make them useless, and the other are fine with saving them because that's what superheroes do?

Like, it shouldn't be so hard to imagine a game where one player willingly plays Lois Lane when another plays Superman. For that matter, it shouldn't be so hard to imagine a game where the character being saved is a thankless bastard and their saviour hates their guts, but the players are fine with this because they find that dynamic amusing. I can get you might not personally prefer to play any of these sorts of characters, but that's not a good metric for how valid they'd be for a game.

Yeah, but there is a point where you reach "is this a realistic thing that you can expect a human to actually desire even accounting for how weird humanity can be?"

I never heard in my life someone being happy that they are useless. in any circumstance.

like sure we can talk all day about how the world is more than what is dreamed of in our philosophies and how some one out there might actually desire that and we shouldn't judge them for it....but honestly, lets get real here: the people who desire that sort of dynamic? they ain't roleplaying. they're writing fan fictions about their self-inserts mary sues who don't actually do anything while writing the actual Superman to become their lover in that fan-fic, all by themselves. they don't need other people for that nonsense and no roleplayer wants people to be roped into that nonsense. Unless we're talking an entirely different kind of roleplaying that ain't board-appropriate. hint hint.

Like for that sort of thing, why bother with other people? you know the drill for the story, you don't need a character created by someone else. ones a moving piece that you move however you want, another is static and is made entirely in reaction and compliment to the moving piece. our hobby is kind of about both pieces moving on their own to two different players.

TL:DR? For that, I'm sure there are many slashfics that can do the job better. both for Superman/Lois and your Mutual Tsundere example.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Being weak/useless is only a problem in a game that punishes being weak/useless, like D&D.

If you fail a roll in D&D the best you can hope for is nothing happening, the worst is you dying. In a game where failure is interesting then failing a lot doesn't matter.

A big chunk of D&D is about combat. If you're useless in combat in D&D then you're probably going to have a bad time because you'll be sitting around for hours contributing nothing, the game would play out exactly the same if you weren't even there at all. In a game that doesn't sink a huge amount of time into tactical combat then you're going to be able to do meaningful things a lot more, even if you fail at them.

[Frozen_Feet]

@Mechalich: have you read any of my other posts in this thread? Like the first one on the first page? Because I already know what D&D's problem is. What I want is people to get out of that rut and look at these things in the context of actually designing a new game or a system where you can ditch the conceits of any version of D&D.

Now, as to your point about how games are designed versus how games are played... a system is not a game. You don't really have a game before you have both a game scenario and the characters to go through it.

Hence, in a very real sense, the more freedom you give for players to design their roles and characters, the more they are designing for your game.

From that viewpoint, it doesn't make sense to assume many of the things about the player thrown around in this thread just because they chose a weaker character. This goes double for a game with explicit tiers, but the choice exists in D&D as well because a player could choose to play a lower lever character, such as familiar, cohort or follower of another player.

---

@Koo Rehtorb: The point is that your parameters for "premade characters are only good for this kind of game" is broad enough to cover pretty much any kind of game. I can grant you that random characters for an unknown situation is unlikely to give you something specific, but this isn't really any sort of flaw when you don't have anything specific in mind.

Or in other words: deciding what the player characters will do after-the-fact is just as valid as choosing what they will do before-the-fact and designing them to match. Both approaches have large enough design space to cover practically any scenario imaginable.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I can grant you that random characters for an unknown situation is unlikely to give you something specific, but this isn't really any sort of flaw when you don't have anything specific in mind.

But that's the whole point. Restrictions on character type changes the scenario. And the more tight the restrictions are the more coherent the scenario is probably going to be.

Imagine a game with no restrictions at all. Someone brings Luke Skywalker, someone brings Orphan Annie, someone brings Poseidon and someone brings The Flash. I'm not saying that it's impossible to make this game work. With the right group this could potentially be a hilarious comedy game. But it's completely incoherent. Games already do some of the work for you by restricting the things you can make by virtue of enforcing a rough setting with their ruleset. But in certain games that still leaves a whole lot of variety available, more than enough to make a game incoherent, to a lesser degree than the example above. If someone brings a blackguard and someone brings a paladin there's still probably going to be problems, even if those characters at least share a setting. Either the players are going to have to work super hard to come up with reasons why the party doesn't immediately break down in infighting, or someone is going to have to die/remake. And it probably doesn't work at all if the game doesn't assume a starting point of "Your four strangers are thrown together ten minutes ago".

The more you narrow the starting focus of the game the more sense it's going to make. I'm not going to be snobby and suggest that this inherently makes a game better, especially since I've enjoyed both types of game in the past. But it does let you start with a more well tailored and coherent situation for the game, with a party that's all guaranteed to fit properly. And hey, if you do session zero properly and get everyone on the same page, that's more licence to make an oddball character, not less, because everyone present will have signed off on it and found a way to make it work seamlessly instead of having to shoehorn it in later.

[Max_Killjoy]

Easy, the human is threatened and the superheroes are trying to save them. (Because they are a friend/ a lover / the president / whatever.)

Like, this discussion still looks to me like many people can only imagine one sort of metagame. You look at the above paragraph and leap to the conclusion that playing the character being saved cannot be fun for the player / the group / the GM, because they aren't contributing some arbitrary fraction of effort against whatever arbitrary threat.

But what if one player is fine with being saved because they chose to be a normal human knowing it would make them useless, and the other are fine with saving them because that's what superheroes do?

Like, it shouldn't be so hard to imagine a game where one player willingly plays Lois Lane when another plays Superman. For that matter, it shouldn't be so hard to imagine a game where the character being saved is a thankless bastard and their saviour hates their guts, but the players are fine with this because they find that dynamic amusing. I can get you might not personally prefer to play any of these sorts of characters, but that's not a good metric for how valid they'd be for a game.

People will enjoy what they enjoy. But as noted above, to me that sounds like a situation in which "Lois" is just playing the MacGuffin-in-a-skirt, or in which the GM has to constantly create bifurcated situations to contrive usefulness for "Lois". Such a setup is getting close to "Lois" being either useless or redundant at everything, in every situation, since it's "Superman" she's quasi-teamed with. "Superman" is also smart, and has those investigative reporter skills he doesn't show off much hanging out with Batman etc, plus he has super-senses.

About the only things "Lois" can do that he can't is pick up kryptonite, and go into women-only areas... and here we get into contrivance if the story keeps coming back to those two elements repeatedly.

[Frozen_Feet]

I don't really by this notion of incoherence you have, because I don't think there's any good benchmark to measure it against.

To use your example: so we had a group of players showing up with Luke, Poseidon, etc. And the GM showed up with some event or circumstance for them to explore. Then the game focuses around how this group deals with that event or circumstance.

Do you think the end result will really be all that different from if the game had been specifically pitched as "hey, what if we put Luke, Poseidon etc. in this event or circumstance?" with everyone following suit?

There's an empirical aspect to this as well. I run old-school games heavy on random generation and I see order emerge from chaos frequently. Regardless of who or what their characters are, players usually rapidly latch on the situation at hand and create a working dynamic between their characters and the environment.

So it doesn't really seem all that influential to me whether character relations are settled before the game or during it. The distinction only becomes less relevant when a game is extended from a single session to a campaign, as subsequent sessions build on the first one, just like as a first session would build on a pre-game.

---

@Max: please clarify what you mean by "bifurcated". Because in the ordinary sense, there isn't really anything contrived with a branching scenario, nor is there anything contrived about the branches meeting, when two characters have different motives and/or abilities but at least one has vested interest in protecting the other.

[Quertus]

@Frozen_Feet: are you intentionally being meta? Because, if you're intentionally trying to obsolete my role, by saying everything I'd say, but better, making me a useless character, I just want you to know, it's not going to work. I'm going to keep on posting, because I enjoy it. I enjoy this character, even if it's useless. :smallwink:


According to my experience, Step 6 is throwing all semblence of personality I have away and just playing a healer to support the party. Or leaving the game altogether. But my utter lack of success in actually roleplaying a personality is best left for another thread.

:smallfrown:

Perhaps try to emulate the personality of another player's old character, and see where that gets you? One if my favorite characters - my signature academia mage for whom this account is named - was created because I was emulating a player. Specifically, the concept of playing the game forever, but never really getting it. Being just that bad at tactics that you never see the elephant, despite a decade+ of play.


Consider a hypothetical party of 5 superheroes and 1 human with no special powers. How does a GM create an encounter such that the human isn't left out, while still engaging the superheroes?

Let me start with the dumbest* possible answer: the human is playing the game of having a crush on the superhero.

Next dumbest possible answer: it's a harem game. All 5 superheroes have a crush on the human.

And there's lots and lots of possible, less dumb answers.

There are lots of ways to participate in a game. It's much easier to not step on each other's toes when your concepts of "role" aren't even in the same genre: one player is striker, one player is tank, and one player is love interest.

* I had a whole list, but then my brain oozed out my ear. As this was the only answer left, it's apparently the... simplest? Dumbest? Easiest?


I think this is confusing how games are played with how games are designed.


The bottom line is that, yes, you can have unbalanced classes, but if you're going to do that it needs to be the design intent. D&D was designed to have roughly equal classes and the failure to provide that was a gaping design flaw that has had massive impacts on the game. The tier system is a reaction to that design flaw that attempts to recognize class imbalances and categorize them out so as to provide guidelines for having a game where the characters are in fact roughly even.

Um... 1) I'm advocating doing it with design intent; 2) D&D 3e, like masking tape, may not have met its design goals, but that doesn't mean it didn't accidentally create something wonderful.


Finally, highly optimized tier 1 full casters turned out to be far more powerful than any character type was ever intended to be - the iconic high-level wizard is Elminster, but a fully optimized wizard makes him look like an idiot and high-level play (meaning pretty much anything over level 12) is simply impossible above the very lowest optimization levels without a huge wall of houserules (most of which are nerfs).

Well, from what I've read in the novels, Elminster is an idiot, so any wizard should make him look like an idiot. That's a feature, not a bug. :smallwink:

And I've played well into epic with single-digit house rules. So apparently my experience is impossible. :smallconfused:


Again, any sort of game that doesn't involve a random group of people thrust together by unusual circumstances.

For a random example, a game about a noble family that's fallen on hard times trying to rebuild their household and rise in prominence. And the players show up to the game with character sheets for Gandalf, Skeletor, nine year old girl Einstein, and a robot. Talk about a dysfunctional family. Now perhaps you can make it work. Einsteina turns out to be a cousin of the King and could potentially succeed to the throne if everyone else in line was removed, she built a faithful robot companion with her genius powers, Skeletor sees potential for world domination in this plan and decides to pitch in, and Gandalf is her father, whatever. But it would sure be a hell of a lot more coherent if people built the party together and established reasonable relationships with each other in session zero instead.

I've played games with pre-established relationships before. They were horrible. Far, far better to establish the relationship through actual play, than to figure out WTF to do when your character's backstory, history, and personality are based on relationships you never would have formed with the particular characters the others brought to the table. I can't imagine why anyone would willingly put themselves through such a train wreck, unless they either don't care about personality and relationships, or just love train wrecks.


It breaks down when people want to do something else. And they probably should want to do something else. Because it often makes for a better game, or at least a different sort of game, and variety is fun.

Well, there's only so many types of train wreck you can create with the scenario you've described...


Yeah, but there is a point where you reach "is this a realistic thing that you can expect a human to actually desire even accounting for how weird humanity can be?"

I never heard in my life someone being happy that they are useless. in any circumstance.

There's a zombie apocalypse game where one of the archetypes is not only useless, but supposed to actively be detrimental to the group. And there's other games with "useless character" baked right into the rules. So, clearly, someone thinks it's a valid archetype.

And, as I've mentioned, I'd love playing the useless 5th basketball player on the team of future pros, and have loved playing useless characters before.

As I mentioned above, imagine a game with a Striker, a Tank, a (statistically useless) tactician, and a love interest. They all have a role to play, they are all fun, but they aren't all the same tier, and they aren't all "useful".

From the rest of your post, I can see that that's not your cup of tea, but why can't you see that someone else could enjoy it?

Hmmm... maybe this will help: imagine one player playing Superman, and a second playing Batman. But imagine that there's no mechanical support for anything that makes Bats good. The player has to struggle through puzzling things out using nothing but player skills. Can you not imagine one player enjoying being a BDH, while another enjoys trying to contribute by thinking about the problem at hand?


Being weak/useless is only a problem in a game that punishes being weak/useless, like D&D.

A big chunk of D&D is about combat. If you're useless in combat in D&D then you're probably going to have a bad time because you'll be sitting around for hours contributing nothing, the game would play out exactly the same if you weren't even there at all. In a game that doesn't sink a huge amount of time into tactical combat then you're going to be able to do meaningful things a lot more, even if you fail at them.

Armus begs to differ. As I said before, he was statistically horrible, yet he contributed, on average, more than the demigods he adventured with, because he applied his limited force much more judiciously (well, there was a lot more to it, but that should get the idea across).

But, even if they had contributed more, it wouldn't have changed who Armus was: a weak but brilliant tactician. And that (coupled with the rest of his personality and history) is someone I enjoy playing.

EDIT:
But that's the whole point. Restrictions on character type changes the scenario.

So... bring an existing character who meets these criteria? I've run and played in plenty of games like that. You can't exactly be hired for a mission requiring discretion if you aren't hireable, and aren't known for discretion, for example.


People will enjoy what they enjoy. But as noted above, to me that sounds like a situation in which "Lois" is just playing the MacGuffin-in-a-skirt, or in which the GM has to constantly create bifurcated situations to contrive usefulness for "Lois". Such a setup is getting close to "Lois" being either useless or redundant at everything, in every situation, since it's "Superman" she's quasi-teamed with. "Superman" is also smart, and has those investigative reporter skills he doesn't show off much hanging out with Batman etc, plus he has super-senses. About the only things "Lois" can do that he can't is pick up kryptonite, and go into women-only areas... and here we get into contrivance if the story keeps coming back to those two elements repeatedly.

So Lois doesn't contribute much. But her player enjoys writing up the articles Lois makes in character. Just like Quertus wrote the books that the people who wrote the books your characters learned their knowledge skills from read. I'm not seeing the problem here.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I don't really by this notion of incoherence you have, because I don't think there's any good benchmark to measure it against.

To use your example: so we had a group of players showing up with Luke, Poseidon, etc. And the GM showed up with some event or circumstance for them to explore. Then the game focuses around how this group deals with that event or circumstance.

Do you think the end result will really be all that different from if the game had been specifically pitched as "hey, what if we put Luke, Poseidon etc. in this event or circumstance?" with everyone following suit?

Possibly not, that particular example may well be unsalvageable. But I would argue that it at least has a greater chance of making any amount of sense if it's a deliberate planned thing by the group as opposed to it just happening. The other half of it is that planning characters together lets the group work together to veto stuff that blatantly doesn't fit at all and everyone can get on the same page.


There's an empirical aspect to this as well. I run old-school games heavy on random generation and I see order emerge from chaos frequently. Regardless of who or what their characters are, players usually rapidly latch on the situation at hand and create a working dynamic between their characters and the environment.

But again, this only gives you "Disparate party of strangers come together to encounter situation". It doesn't let you do "Four members of the same noble family struggling to keep their faltering house intact" It might let you do "You four mercenaries have been hired by House Davion to protect their interests", but that's not the same thing at all and presents a very different tone to the game. And again I would argue that it pushes towards a game where the situation matters more than the characters and the characters are just your pawns for exploring the situation.

[Quertus]

And again I would argue that it pushes towards a game where the situation matters more than the characters and the characters are just your pawns for exploring the situation.

Or where the characters matter more than the situation, and the situation is just a pawn for exploring your character? Like, say, a sandbox? literally and figuratively

[Koo Rehtorb]

I've played games with pre-established relationships before. They were horrible. Far, far better to establish the relationship through actual play, than to figure out WTF to do when your character's backstory, history, and personality are based on relationships you never would have formed with the particular characters the others brought to the table. I can't imagine why anyone would willingly put themselves through such a train wreck, unless they either don't care about personality and relationships, or just love train wrecks.

You realize this is an argument for making characters together, right? So you can actually all see the characters each other are making, and make your own in a way that would fit with them? This is only a problem if four people are showing up with developed characters and then awkwardly stapling them together.


Armus begs to differ. As I said before, he was statistically horrible, yet he contributed, on average, more than the demigods he adventures with, because he applied his limited force much more judiciously (well, there was a lot more to it, but that should get the idea across).

There is certainly a small niche for a more adept player giving himself a handicap in order to better pair up with less adept players. I don't think this is a big enough niche to cripple most of the classes in the game for. You can probably get the same effect by making a sub-optimal build instead. This isn't something the game needs to help you with.


And, as I've mentioned, I'd love playing the useless 5th basketball player on the team of future pros, and have loved playing useless characters before.

This really seems to depend entirely on the focus of the game. Is it a game about high school drama and the power of ~friendship~ and the PCs happen to be basketball players? Or is it a game where you spend 90% of your time in tactical basketball combat against the BM (Basketball Master). In one of those games being useless seems like a wonderful source of drama and tension. In the other one everyone's wondering why you're messing up their fun.


So... bring an existing character who meets these criteria? I've run and played in plenty of games like that. You can't exactly be hired for a mission requiring discretion if you aren't hireable, and aren't known for discretion, for example.

Again, this only really works if everyone plays nothing but weird wandering vagrants who roam the lands in search of high adventure. It breaks if you want to do anything else, like play a group of people with established roots.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Or where the characters matter more than the situation, and the situation is just a pawn for exploring your character? Like, say, a sandbox? literally and figuratively

Sandbox is too broad a term to be helpful, I think. In a traditional hexcrawler style sandbox the focus is absolutely on the world.

[Lord Raziere]

Hmmm... maybe this will help: imagine one player playing Superman, and a second playing Batman. But imagine that there's no mechanical support for anything that makes Bats good. The player has to struggle through puzzling things out using nothing but player skills. Can you not imagine one player enjoying being a BDH, while another enjoys trying to contribute by thinking about the problem at hand?



Yes, this is how I imagine it:

a bunch of robbers are attacking!
Batman: Ok If I sneak up behind them and launch a surprise attack with my batarang-
Superman: Already done!
The robbers are already beaten up because Superman has both super-speed and super strength.

We to have to interrogate a criminal!
Batman: I got this, judging by his accent and clothes I can deduce-
Martian Manhunter: Read his mind, the supervillains device is hidden near the docks.

We have to defuse a bomb!
Batman: ok, I am skilled at this, according to this wire configuration and the bombs design I safely assume-
The Flash: I grab the bomb run to a desert far away from everyone, drop it then run back.

We have to investigate a crime scene:
Batman: I'm the World's Greatest Detective, there is no possible way this could...could.....uh how does detective-ing work? uuuuuuuugh I don't know how forensics works, roll for it!
Roll: 1
Batman: GAAAAAAAH!
Not everyone knows this stuff.

fighting a major supervillain:
Batman: ok judging from what I can analyze I think if use my batarang on their weak point-
Green Lantern: already used my green lantern powers to just fly up here, hit the weak points by conjuring literally anything I want as well as conjure any defense needed against their attacks.

Darkseid blows up Gotham:
Batman:......ok what do I even do!? he just blew GOTHAM! I can't fight a city-destroying threat!
Darkseid: die!
Omega Beams fire and kill batman in the chest. There are just some scenarios you can't out think

[Frozen_Feet]

Possibly not, that particular example may well be unsalvageable.

The same question can be asked of any example party in any example scenario. If you think any given example is "unsalvageable", this implies those cases are inherently incoherent regardless of how they were created. Which opens up possibility of the reverse: cases which are coherent regardless of how they are created.


But I would argue that it at least has a greater chance of making any amount of sense if it's a deliberate planned thing by the group as opposed to it just happening.

Maybe, but the same question arises here as in regards to incoherence: what is the metric for "making sense"?


The other half of it is that planning characters together lets the group work together to veto stuff that blatantly doesn't fit at all and everyone can get on the same page.

I could grant you that, but for there to be things which don't fit implies a specific image of how the game is supposed to turn out.


But again, this only gives you "Disparate party of strangers come together to encounter situation". It doesn't let you do "Four members of the same noble family struggling to keep their faltering house intact" It might let you do "You four mercenaries have been hired by House Davion to protect their interests", but that's not the same thing at all and presents a very different tone to the game.

Not so fast. The situation which brings the strangers together might be the reveal that they're inheritors to the same house. Or the players could've independently chosen to craft members of the same house - I've seen homologous things happen.

You can argue there's not a high chance for things like this to happen, but that is quite different from only giving you something else. Again: the game space for random characters in a random situation covers pretty much all scenarios imaginable. It's large enough to include both of your examples. If the players are specifically after one and not the other, I agree they'll be disappointed, but it's a non-issue for players who'd be fine with either.


And again I would argue that it pushes towards a game where the situation matters more than the characters and the characters are just your pawns for exploring the situation.

I don't think it's possible to establish that as any general rule. It's highly player dependent whether they focus on their character or the situation; give the same character in the same situation to different players and you are likely to get different outcomes.

[Cluedrew]

According to my experience, Step 6 is throwing all semblence of personality I have away and just playing a healer to support the party. Or leaving the game altogether. But my utter lack of success in actually roleplaying a personality is best left for another thread.I am totally in for a Tips for goto124 thread. Admittedly we can't really fix everything in a discussion thread, but we can try.

[Quertus]

@Lord Raziere: as I'm not a Bats fan, that depiction of HISHE was thoroughly enjoyable.


You realize this is an argument for making characters together, right? So you can actually all see the characters each other are making, and make your own in a way that would fit with them? This is only a problem if four people are showing up with developed characters and then awkwardly stapling them together.

Clearly, your experiences don't allow you to understand my gaming experience. Hmmm... I think I can make this work. Imagine people who, like many playgrounders suggest, don't build a personality up front, and let it develop exclusively in game. Then, as their personalities develop, 2 of the characters develop in diametrically opposed directions, producing a conflict. A conflict which could have been avoided by bringing existing characters with established personalities, that the players could discuss in session 0.


YThere is certainly a small niche for a more adept player giving himself a handicap in order to better pair up with less adept players. I don't think this is a big enough niche to cripple most of the classes in the game for. You can probably get the same effect by making a sub-optimal build instead. This isn't something the game needs to help you with.

Most classes? Build? No, that's not at all what I'm discussing. I'm talking about the idea of making most playing pieces - and the game - balanced around tier 1: power and versatility. Then making a few, explicitly labeled Hard Mode playing pieces, and a single BDH playing piece.


This really seems to depend entirely on the focus of the game. Is it a game about high school drama and the power of ~friendship~ and the PCs happen to be basketball players? Or is it a game where you spend 90% of your time in tactical basketball combat against the BM (Basketball Master). In one of those games being useless seems like a wonderful source of drama and tension. In the other one everyone's wondering why you're messing up their fun.

Role-playing doesn't stop when the dice come out. We may be spending 90% of our time in tactical basketball combat, but that doesn't keep me from spending 100% of my time in high school drama.


Again, this only really works if everyone plays nothing but weird wandering vagrants who roam the lands in search of high adventure. It breaks if you want to do anything else, like play a group of people with established roots.

We all live in the same town. We all built and ran our characters individually. For today's game, we're all trying to get the same candidate elected as mayor. Not seeing where that breaks down.


Sandbox is too broad a term to be helpful, I think. In a traditional hexcrawler style sandbox the focus is absolutely on the world.

Clearly, we're playing in different sandboxes, too. :smallconfused:

Well, ok, how you build the sandbox can limit what toys the child / whoever has access to to build a scene, but, even so, I think it's the scene they make that is the important part of the sandbox.


I am totally in for a Tips for goto124 thread. Admittedly we can't really fix everything in a discussion thread, but we can try.

My advice may not be the best, but I'd give it a shot. Oh, wait, I already did.

[Max_Killjoy]

So Lois doesn't contribute much. But her player enjoys writing up the articles Lois makes in character. Just like Quertus wrote the books that the people who wrote the books your characters learned their knowledge skills from read. I'm not seeing the problem here.


And "Superman's" player never gets tired of "Lois" contributing absolutely nothing outside of when the GM contrives a space for her to contribute? Saving the MacGuffin-in-a-skirt never gets old for "Superman"? "Lois" can't help "Superman" at all against any foe that represents even a minor obstacle to "Superman", unless the situation is specifically set up to grant "Lois" a role by fiat.

I know I've said this before, but when there's a character who consistently contributes absolutely nothing, then at some point my character is going to question why we're dragging the dead weight along.

A character who can't seize a role in the ongoing events, who has to have their role granted to them by GM or mechanical fiat, is dead weight.

A character whose only role is to get in trouble and be saved is annoying and aggravating in fiction. Some people might argue that such a character "works" in fiction, but for me, personally, it's a story-killer. Especially so in ongoing fiction where the character doesn't outgrow that stage somehow... whether damsel or dude, the "X in distress" trope is one that needs to be used VERY sparingly. That same character in gaming gets old FAST as an NPC, and is pretty much a non-starter as a PC.


E -- to be crystal clear, this whole concept of the "character who exists to be saved" is one that I don't like in fiction, and like even less in gaming.

[Karl Aegis]

The most powerful piece on your board is the Tank piece. Place three Tank pieces together and all three of them can no longer be interacted with. The most damage any piece can deal is 12, the Tank pieces reduce all damage taken by 12. Therefore, no piece in the group can take damage. The Tank pieces can still deal adequate damage to the enemy. If they can't, just ignore the enemies, what are they going to do to you?

The Solo piece may appear to be more powerful, but it's abilities are awkward to use. To use the heal function of their attack, the damage from their attack must not be enough to kill their opponent and their opponent must get past their damage reduction ability. A full half of their abilities must not have worked to get the last part moving. The Tank piece does not have this problem. They will be using most of their capabilities most of the time.

The Healer piece sucks. It does the exact same thing the Tank piece does but only on one target. The more party members there are the less the Healer piece actually does compared to the Tank piece. Just place a Tank piece where a Healer piece would go.

The Striker piece doesn't do anything special. More damage only matters if that damage was enough to disable an enemy. You're losing out on a brilliant Tank piece to take a lame Striker piece. That is not a fair trade.

The Dedicated Healer, Dedicated Tank and Gish (Gestalt) pieces are all super lame. The Gish piece suffers from the same problem as the Solo piece. The Dedicated Healer piece is so situational that there is no reason to bring one over a normal Healer piece (which nobody would bring over a Tank piece). More heals only matter if you need more heals. Overhealing is for noobs. If you are taking that much damage maybe you should put a stop to that by removing a few enemy pieces. But, you can't because, you know, no damage attacks. The Dedicated Tank piece caps out at the most damage an enemy can deal. Which is 12. While also dealing no damage. Just stick to three Tank pieces.

The Toolkit piece is a Striker piece that can also act as a Healer piece in case something happens to your Tank pieces. But it has this extra ability that nobody would ever use. If you replace a Tank piece with a Toolkit piece your damage reduction isn't enough to nullify all damage. If you add a Toolkit piece as a fourth unit in your squad your damage reduction ability is too much and is wasted entirely. I would probably run three Tank pieces and a Toolkit piece in a four-man squad, but half the Toolkit piece will never come up and the other half may never come up. You choose this piece if more Tank pieces don't do anything for you.

You've created a system where the Tier 1 pieces aren't as good as the Tank pieces. It's a bad example.

[Frozen_Feet]

So what mechanical or GM fiat does Lois need to write her articles? What mechanical or GM fiat does she need for her career as an investigative reporter need to get her into trouble? What mechanical or GM fiat is required for her to decide to do her best to get where the action is so she can document Superman's exploits?

By contrast: what mechanical or GM fiat does Superman need to care about saving Lois? What mechanical or GM fiat does he need to stop to listen to or help a person he loves? What mechanical or GM fiat does he need to spent time with Lois as Clark Kent, where heeding her opinions and actions as his co-worker are important?

Again: contributing to a roleplaying game is not the same as contributing against whatever arbitrary challenge the GM throws at you today. Sure, when Earth is being threatened by Darkseid, I can grant you Lois is "dead weight" and it'd make sense for Superman to leave her behind... but that, and scenarios like that, are just a slice of potential gaming with these characters. When it's time to get back to Daily Planet to write that article about how Superman saved the world, or to pick up Lois for that lunch date Clark promised her yesterday, she again has natural role to play in the game.

I could buy the argument that eventually it gets boring because anything gets boring if you do it enough. But that's not how the arguments of you and others seem and feel like to me. Rather, they look like you're not honestly even entertaining the idea of two people playing Lois Lane and Superman and enjoying the dynamic - you're approaching this from an angle where one player is playing Disposable Love Interest #7, and the other is playing Dude Who Punches Aliens in the Face #8 with no motive nor desire on the players' part to play out the parts of the relationship which don't involve punching aliens.

[kyoryu]

And "Superman's" player never gets tired of "Lois" contributing absolutely nothing outside of when the GM contrives a space for her to contribute? Saving the MacGuffin-in-a-skirt never gets old for "Superman"? "Lois" can't help "Superman" at all against any foe that represents even a minor obstacle to "Superman", unless the situation is specifically set up to grant "Lois" a role by fiat.

Well, it also depends on the game you're playing. Playing Lois Lane in the Superman comics is a niche desire, at the very least.

It's a little bit different in Smallville, where super-strength may not be the be-all, end-all power, and not every problem can be punched to victory.

Or, to flip it a bit, look at the movie My Super Ex-Girlfriend, where the protagonist is basically the (unwilling) male Lois, and super powers create more problems than they solve.

And Superman is a pretty bad example for any kind of game design discussion, as he's such a hugely problematic character because of his incredibly overpowered nature. It's practically a fallacy, that if a system can't handle Superman together with a group of <insert other character type here> that it's a bad system. Like, whenever "oh, how does <system> handle Superman teamed up with <other characters>" comes up, I pretty much tune out, because no system does that well. The best any system does is really tell you "uh, don't do that."

[PhoenixPhyre]

And Superman is a pretty bad example for any kind of game design discussion, as he's such a hugely problematic character because of his incredibly overpowered nature. It's practically a fallacy, that if a system can't handle Superman together with a group of <insert other character type here> that it's a bad system. Like, whenever "oh, how does <system> handle Superman teamed up with <other characters>" comes up, I pretty much tune out, because no system does that well. The best any system does is really tell you "uh, don't do that."

Right, and that's why people use him. In a tier context (which inevitably draws from d&d), tier 1 is about as far from tier 3-4 (where most of the classic archetypes are) as Superman is from other heros.

A true T1 character warps the whole game around itself by trivializing challenges unless the player takes extreme care not to by consciously anti optimizing. This often comes across as condescending to the other players (like a pro sports player playing with high school kids, holding himself back to give them a chance).

[Max_Killjoy]

So what mechanical or GM fiat does Lois need to write her articles? What mechanical or GM fiat does she need for her career as an investigative reporter need to get her into trouble? What mechanical or GM fiat is required for her to decide to do her best to get where the action is so she can document Superman's exploits?


Which gets right back to the character so routinely getting into trouble and needing to be saved by the other character, that it becomes a nuisance and a cliche.

No thank you, I've no desire for my character to be EITHER side of that equation. Or in the words of Mr Incredible...



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndijXgdeE5k&nbsp;


The fiat/contrivance comes in making sure that "Superman's" superheroic challenges/story-arcs and "Lois's" reporter challenges/story-arcs overlap enough that they're almost always working on what just "coincidentally" happens to be the same or related cases -- otherwise you have two solo games that happen to overlap at the office, with the occasional date.




By contrast: what mechanical or GM fiat does Superman need to care about saving Lois? What mechanical or GM fiat does he need to stop to listen to or help a person he loves? What mechanical or GM fiat does he need to spent time with Lois as Clark Kent, where heeding her opinions and actions as his co-worker are important?


None. But that's pretty much unrelated to what we've been discussing. "Superman" gets to fully engage all parts of the campaign, "Lois" only gets to engage some parts of the campaign, unless she's brought in as a complication or MacGuffin... again. "Lois" isn't just useless against Darkseid (unless she "just happens" to uncover a conspiracy involving one of his agents, which "Superman" can do as "Clark Kent" anyway), she's useless against far less powerful opponents as well.

And of course if she got some martial training and some sort of non-lethal weapon, so that she could actually defend herself from the thugs, mooks, henchmen, and low-level threats... there are those who'd complain that you'd "violated the character concept". Because evidently she exists to be saved?




Again: contributing to a roleplaying game is not the same as contributing against whatever arbitrary challenge the GM throws at you today. Sure, when Earth is being threatened by Darkseid, I can grant you Lois is "dead weight" and it'd make sense for Superman to leave her behind... but that, and scenarios like that, are just a slice of potential gaming with these characters. When it's time to get back to Daily Planet to write that article about how Superman saved the world, or to pick up Lois for that lunch date Clark promised her yesterday, she again has natural role to play in the game.

I could buy the argument that eventually it gets boring because anything gets boring if you do it enough. But that's not how the arguments of you and others seem and feel like to me. Rather, they look like you're not honestly even entertaining the idea of two people playing Lois Lane and Superman and enjoying the dynamic - you're approaching this from an angle where one player is playing Disposable Love Interest #7, and the other is playing Dude Who Punches Aliens in the Face #8 with no motive nor desire on the players' part to play out the parts of the relationship which don't involve punching aliens.


Interesting how you frame it in those terms... as if it's a this/that choice, and a game with PCs who are equals in engaging the whole campaign and in their "roles" is automatically a bunch of faceless generic characters that only exist to fill game roles.

[Max_Killjoy]

Well, it also depends on the game you're playing. Playing Lois Lane in the Superman comics is a nice desire, at the very least.

It's a little bit different in Smallville, where super-strength may not be the be-all, end-all power, and not every problem can be punched to victory.

Or, to flip it a bit, look at the movie My Super Ex-Girlfriend, where the protagonist is basically the (unwilling) male Lois, and super powers create more problems than they solve.

And Superman is a pretty bad example for any kind of game design discussion, as he's such a hugely problematic character because of his incredibly overpowered nature. It's practically a fallacy, that if a system can't handle Superman together with a group of <insert other character type here> that it's a bad system. Like, whenever "oh, how does <system> handle Superman teamed up with <other characters>" comes up, I pretty much tune out, because no system does that well. The best any system does is really tell you "uh, don't do that."

They weren't my example, and I'm not suggesting that a game is broken or bad if it can't handle them both as PCs.

I'm responding to the example by trying to explain that (and why) from my point of view, it doesn't work in serial fiction, and it really doesn't work as the format for a game.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend works somewhat as a one-off, single story arc for a movie. The same premise used for serial fiction would just get old fast.

Smallville... is a very odd concept, a sort of teen soap opera where one of the characters happens to be Clark Kent but his super powers rarely matter, at least from what I've seen of it.

[Frozen_Feet]

@Kyoryu:

Superman makes a great example because he has extreme power, well-defined relationships with weaker characters and well-defined weaknesses which are widely known. So in theory it should be easy to imagine example RPG scenarios with Superman as one role and other characters of his mythos as other roles. If there's a problem with using Superman as an example, it's apparently the number of people who vocally hate him and carry their grudge to any imagined scenario with him.

---

@Quertus & Lord Raziere:

Let me offer my interpretation of "Batman with no mechanical support".

Let's start with establishing what the Batman's player can do. Without mechanical ability to model his character's great intellect, wealth, information resources etc., the player can only listen to what happens at the table, use that information to scheme and plot, and then talk to other players to offer them those schemes and plots.

This is not a huge handicap in a medium where majority what all player do is listen to what happens at the table, scheme and plot, and talk to each other. Especially not for a character who is most known for scheming and plotting.

So, to build on Raziere's examples:

Batman: hey Superman, there's a bank robbery. Could you...?
Superman: already stopped it and caught the culprits.
Batman: Great! So I'll call the Martian Manhunter to read the minds to see what they were robbing the bank for.
Martian Manhunter: Oh hey, good idea. Hmmm, it seems they were working for Lex Luthor.
Superman: Oh no, not Lex again. Okay, I'll go and...
Batman: Wait! He might have Kryptonite! Let's call Flash and have him check before you go rushing in.

So on and so forth.

What I'm trying to establish here is how and what Batman can contribute. The answer is: ideas. His player can look at the situation and the resources available to other characters, make judgements based on that and present those through his character. Of course, all other players can do that too. But that makes neither Batman nor his player useless, as Batman has specific past and personality. When played to role, Batman's ideas are different from, say, Wonder Woman's.

So when can't Batman contribute?

1) when all situations the other characters end up in are so trivial that their players cannot benefit from listening to another living human. That distinction between characters and players there is pretty damn important. Just because Superman's player has Super Intellect written on their character sheet doesn't actually make them smarter. Even if they have big "I WIN!!!" button in their list of abilities, it's not given they will spot it, so having another player to bounce ideas with it is useful.

2) the player of Batman is too inept to play their role. Raziere already made an example of this happening. So yeah, playing Batman sucks when you suck playing Batman. That's not inherent to the role, though. And it's relatively easy to start getting around it. Like, put some effort to learn about the things Batman does, like forensic science, and next time you will have more usable ideas for the other players.

3) All the other players decide to ignore Batman. That's where you ought to sound the record scratch. Because if the other players are playing the Justice League, they're all co-workers with Batman. They all have a very basic motive to listen to Batman to see if he can contribute. So what's their motive to not do that?

So my issue with any argument to the effect of "Superman and Batman don't belong to the same game!!!" is that they seem to assume 1) or 2) before-the-fact to conclude 3) is valid. You can swap Batman for Lois Lane, or Green Arrow, or any other weaker character.

[Psyren]

Are we back to the Superman analogy? Because that is just going to get the thread locked as restarting a topic.


I have seen these arguments, and I think the people who make them would tell you it's your own fault for playing with a GM who is not an all-knowing god of system mastery and who is unwilling to make the setting equally ridiculous to counter to the ridiculous shenanigans your tier 1 class pulls.

At some point, at least one of you (the T1 player, or the GM) is going to need to operate under a gentleman's agreement if the group is not going to be all T1s facing T1 challenges. Somebody has to be playing below their maximum potential. Is this unreasonable? I would argue that this only really became a problem in the age of the World-Wide Web, when gamebreaking tricks became so much easier to disseminate - and even then, the vast majority of tables just don't use them, killing the arm's race before it can start.


Ah, I think this is the kernel of miscommunication.

You seem to think Tier 1 classes were intended to be Tier 1, as distinct from the classes in the other tiers.

They were not.

The original designers intended that all classes were roughly equal in power. They failed. Classes were not equal in power, nor in versatility.

The tier system is not a design guide. It's an illustration and codification of design failures.

Citation? Because "These two classes have 20 levels, therefore they were intended to be equal in power" doesn't cut it.

No, it seems to me that the designers fully intended magic-users to be stronger. The opening to Complete Arcane and Complete Mage make that abundantly clear. The fact that even in core, magic users get a whole chapter of the PHB purely to themselves while the martials got nothing in return also make that pretty clear.

[Keltest]

@Kyoryu:

Superman makes a great example because he has extreme power, well-defined relationships with weaker characters and well-defined weaknesses which are widely known. So in theory it should be easy to imagine example RPG scenarios with Superman as one role and other characters of his mythos as other roles. If there's a problem with using Superman as an example, it's apparently the number of people who vocally hate him and carry their grudge to any imagined scenario with him.

---

@Quertus & Lord Raziere:

Let me offer my interpretation of "Batman with no mechanical support".

Let's start with establishing what the Batman's player can do. Without mechanical ability to model his character's great intellect, wealth, information resources etc., the player can only listen to what happens at the table, use that information to scheme and plot, and then talk to other players to offer them those schemes and plots.

This is not a huge handicap in a medium where majority what all player do is listen to what happens at the table, scheme and plot, and talk to each other. Especially not for a character who is most known for scheming and plotting.

So, to build on Raziere's examples:

Batman: hey Superman, there's a bank robbery. Could you...?
Superman: already stopped it and caught the culprits.
Batman: Great! So I'll call the Martian Manhunter to read the minds to see what they were robbing the bank for.
Martian Manhunter: Oh hey, good idea. Hmmm, it seems they were working for Lex Luthor.
Superman: Oh no, not Lex again. Okay, I'll go and...
Batman: Wait! He might have Kryptonite! Let's call Flash and have him check before you go rushing in.

So on and so forth.

What I'm trying to establish here is how and what Batman can contribute. The answer is: ideas. His player can look at the situation and the resources available to other characters, make judgements based on that and present those through his character. Of course, all other players can do that too. But that makes neither Batman nor his player useless, as Batman has specific past and personality. When played to role, Batman's ideas are different from, say, Wonder Woman's.

So when can't Batman contribute?

1) when all situations the other characters end up in are so trivial that their players cannot benefit from listening to another living human. That distinction between characters and players there is pretty damn important. Just because Superman's player has Super Intellect written on their character sheet doesn't actually make them smarter. Even if they have big "I WIN!!!" button in their list of abilities, it's not given they will spot it, so having another player to bounce ideas with it is useful.

2) the player of Batman is too inept to play their role. Raziere already made an example of this happening. So yeah, playing Batman sucks when you suck playing Batman. That's not inherent to the role, though. And it's relatively easy to start getting around it. Like, put some effort to learn about the things Batman does, like forensic science, and next time you will have more usable ideas for the other players.

3) All the other players decide to ignore Batman. That's where you ought to sound the record scratch. Because if the other players are playing the Justice League, they're all co-workers with Batman. They all have a very basic motive to listen to Batman to see if he can contribute. So what's their motive to not do that?

So my issue with any argument to the effect of "Superman and Batman don't belong to the same game!!!" is that they seem to assume 1) or 2) before-the-fact to conclude 3) is valid. You can swap Batman for Lois Lane, or Green Arrow, or any other weaker character.


Heres the problem with that. Ideas in a tabletop game do not come from characters, they come from players. Batman isn't the idea guy because his class is batman, he is the idea guy because his player has a lot of ideas that his fellow players do not. That is completely divorced from the character he is playing unless he specifically rolled up a character who is mentally below average.

Anybody can be the "idea guy". You don't need a specific class to do so, and theres nothing stopping Superman from suggesting all those things and coordinating the team as well as Batman does.

[Max_Killjoy]

Are we back to the Superman analogy? Because that is just going to get the thread locked as restarting a topic.


Did that actual example somehow get a thread closed? If so, I'll stop responding to it in specific terms, if it's going to cause problems.

[Anonymouswizard]

Okay, if low level fighters are Conan, and high level fighters should be approximately Superman, what should other classes be?

I'd say the mages should scale from John Constantine to Khellus (or whatever your preferred example of demigod mage is). They begin with some magic but requiring other skills to get by, and eventually annihilate armies (with effects that high level fighters can reliably or semireliably tank).

What about rogues and clerics, how should they scale?

I'd also argue that playing on 'hard mode' should either be multiclassing or ideally just having a lower level. Constantine can occasionally contribute to Superman level stories, but not as much as Doctor Strange or Rand Al'Thor. But I think the key cause of D&D tiers is designers not understanding the conceptual idea of both ends of the class.

[Frozen_Feet]

@Max:
Interesting how you frame it in those terms... as if it's a this/that choice, and a game with PCs who are equals in engaging the whole campaign and in their "roles" is automatically a bunch of faceless generic characters that only exist to fill game roles.

Interesting how you frame it in those terms... as if it's a this/that choice, and a game with PCs who are not equals in engaging the whole campaign and in their "roles" is automatically a bunch of faceless generic characters that only exist to fill game roles.

For the Nth time: I can totally appreciate if you prefer playing equals. But it shouldn't be so hard to imagine other players who are happy playing inequals. The inability of a character to contribute against some challenge shouldn't be assumed to double as inability to contribute to a game.

The point I was trying to make about GM or mechanical fiat was that when characters have fleshed-out, interrelated motives, you need neither. Lois Lane seeks Superman because she wants to get the scoop about Superman's next stunt, Superman worries about her safety and rushes to help her because he loves her. Lois doesn't "exist to be saved" in this dynamic. In many cases, it'd be perfectly appropriate for Lois to try to save herself. What I was trying to point out that Lois gets into trouble just for acting like Lois. The slice of scenarios where Superman saves Lois is naturally emerging feature of how these characters work.

If you'te tired lf discussing these particular example characters, we can substitute them for other character sets with comparable dynamics. I know you read Schlock Mercenary, so consider Tagon's Toughs and Petey. What mechanical or GM fiat would a company of mercenaries need to get into trouble? What mechanical or GM fiat does the plenipotent protogod who is their friend need to try and save them from that trouble? To me, the answer is a pretty simple "no" and at no step am I reducing these characters to trope collections.

---

@Keltest: uh... nothing you said is something that wasn't pointed out in the very post you quoted. Well, expect for the "the players ideas are completely divorced from the characters you play". If you honestly think that, you're just wrong. Again, a player playing the personality of Batman will present different ideas than the player playing the personality of Superman. If the role you've assumed has no effect on how you play, you are failing roleplaying.

[Nifft]

Citation? Because "These two classes have 20 levels, therefore they were intended to be equal in power" doesn't cut it.

Sure, here's a citation:



Associated Class Levels

Class levels that increase a monster’s existing strengths are known as associated class levels. Each associated class level a monster has increases its CR by 1.

Barbarian, fighter, paladin, and ranger are associated classes for a creature that relies on its fighting ability.

Rogue and ranger are associated classes for a creature that relies on stealth to surprise its foes, or on skill use to give itself an advantage.

A spellcasting class is an associated class for a creature that already has the ability to cast spells as a character of the class in question, since the monster’s levels in the spellcasting class stack with its innate spellcasting ability.

One level of Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, or Ranger => +1 CR.

One level of a spellcasting class => +1 CR.

Wealth-by-Level and feat prereqs which require a minimum class level also point to equality.

As far as I can see, all classes are considered equal in power by the rules.

Perhaps you can cite an exception?


No, it seems to me that the designers fully intended magic-users to be stronger.

Citation?

[Max_Killjoy]

@Max:
For the Nth time: I can totally appreciate if you prefer playing equals. But it shouldn't be so hard to imagine other players who are happy playing inequals. The inability of a character to contribute against some challenge shouldn't be assumed to double as inability to contribute to a game.


So how do you challenge S in a way that doesn't ignore that he's superhuman? In a way that wouldn't be identical if he were just Clark Kent, normal human reporter at the Daily Planet? AND how do you do so in a way that doesn't make L either trivial, or a complication?




The point I was trying to make about GM or mechanical fiat was that when characters have fleshed-out, interrelated motives, you need neither. Lois Lane seeks Superman because she wants to get the scoop about Superman's next stunt, Superman worries about her safety and rushes to help her because he loves her. Lois doesn't "exist to be saved" in this dynamic. In many cases, it'd be perfectly appropriate for Lois to try to save herself. What I was trying to point out that Lois gets into trouble just for acting like Lois. The slice of scenarios where Superman saves Lois is naturally emerging feature of how these characters work.


This isn't about character motivation, it never has been. After a certain point, I don't care why L keeps getting into trouble -- the fact that she keeps getting into trouble and S keeps having to save her, over and over and over, and it never changes, is the problem.

And the fact remains that there are certain parts of the campaign that can ONLY involve L as bystander, or victim, or hostage, or otherwise in danger. She cannot contribute. This is an extreme example of the power difference between characters, but it's very illustrative.

Meanwhile, what can L do that S can't? What part of the campaign is there for L to take the lead? What challenges does L face that S finds more difficult than L to address if L actually applies his full capability, and what other than contrivance/fiat is going get the player of S to hold back that full capability?


And no, I cannot imagine enjoying that -- either as the player whose character who cannot contribute and is either a spectator or a victim, or as the player whose character has to carry the weight of the non-contributing character(s).




If you'te tired lf discussing these particular example characters, we can substitute them for other character sets with comparable dynamics. I know you read Schlock Mercenary, so consider Tagon's Toughs and Petey. What mechanical or GM fiat would a company of mercenaries need to get into trouble? What mechanical or GM fiat does the plenipotent protogod who is their friend need to try and save them from that trouble? To me, the answer is a pretty simple "no" and at no step am I reducing these characters to trope collections.


And that's fiction, and it can work within the framework of a fictional story put down in concrete form by an author (or creative team, whatever). AI protogod Petey and random mercenary grunt Private Markowitz can both be characters in the same work of fiction, and interact, and it can work.

What's not functional is for Petey and Markowitz to be PCs in the same RPG. There's nothing Markowitz can do that Petey, or one of Petey's nodes, or one of Petey's other allies, aren't so much better at as to make Markowitz superfluous -- unless the GM and the players all contrive to leave space for Markowitz.

RPGs are not comics, or novels, or movies, or television series, or campfire stories. There are things that work in fiction that do not work in RPGs. Fiction doesn't have dice or whatever RNG involved, it doesn't have emergent events that arise out of unexpected choices or incomplete player knowledge or different players wanting different personal experiences out of the game. In fiction, the author is in control of all the characters and the entire setting and everything that happens.

In order to make those things work, the players have to leave the realm of playing their characters, and cross into the realm of "cooperative fiction", in which they're constantly engaged in the metagaming of "what would make the better story?" and "what should our characters do next?" and "what is my character's role in the story?" and so on.

[Lord Raziere]

@Quertus & Lord Raziere:

Let me offer my interpretation of "Batman with no mechanical support".

Let's start with establishing what the Batman's player can do. Without mechanical ability to model his character's great intellect, wealth, information resources etc., the player can only listen to what happens at the table, use that information to scheme and plot, and then talk to other players to offer them those schemes and plots.

This is not a huge handicap in a medium where majority what all player do is listen to what happens at the table, scheme and plot, and talk to each other. Especially not for a character who is most known for scheming and plotting.

So, to build on Raziere's examples:

Batman: hey Superman, there's a bank robbery. Could you...?
Superman: already stopped it and caught the culprits.
Batman: Great! So I'll call the Martian Manhunter to read the minds to see what they were robbing the bank for.
Martian Manhunter: Oh hey, good idea. Hmmm, it seems they were working for Lex Luthor.
Superman: Oh no, not Lex again. Okay, I'll go and...
Batman: Wait! He might have Kryptonite! Let's call Flash and have him check before you go rushing in.

So on and so forth.

What I'm trying to establish here is how and what Batman can contribute. The answer is: ideas. His player can look at the situation and the resources available to other characters, make judgements based on that and present those through his character. Of course, all other players can do that too. But that makes neither Batman nor his player useless, as Batman has specific past and personality. When played to role, Batman's ideas are different from, say, Wonder Woman's.

So when can't Batman contribute?

1) when all situations the other characters end up in are so trivial that their players cannot benefit from listening to another living human. That distinction between characters and players there is pretty damn important. Just because Superman's player has Super Intellect written on their character sheet doesn't actually make them smarter. Even if they have big "I WIN!!!" button in their list of abilities, it's not given they will spot it, so having another player to bounce ideas with it is useful.

2) the player of Batman is too inept to play their role. Raziere already made an example of this happening. So yeah, playing Batman sucks when you suck playing Batman. That's not inherent to the role, though. And it's relatively easy to start getting around it. Like, put some effort to learn about the things Batman does, like forensic science, and next time you will have more usable ideas for the other players.

3) All the other players decide to ignore Batman. That's where you ought to sound the record scratch. Because if the other players are playing the Justice League, they're all co-workers with Batman. They all have a very basic motive to listen to Batman to see if he can contribute. So what's their motive to not do that?

So my issue with any argument to the effect of "Superman and Batman don't belong to the same game!!!" is that they seem to assume 1) or 2) before-the-fact to conclude 3) is valid. You can swap Batman for Lois Lane, or Green Arrow, or any other weaker character.

I dunno, Batmans contribution seems like "Batman is glorified telephone." whats the point of batman if its just player ideas? the player might as well be on the sidelines not even being in the game and just throwing out suggestions. I guess if you really want to feel smart and mastermind-y it could work, but, you can't do that with a fighter. A fighter is meant to FIGHT. Batman is meant to swing between rooftops and be this cool modern ninja who strikes terror in the hearts of the common criminal. a Rogue is meant to steal, smuggle, and stab their enemies in the back, and cheat. A character is more than their ideas they speak, more than a microphone for the player to speak through. Actions speak louder than words. a character who is nothing but a talking head is not really worth much respect now aren't they? Nothing but exposition and telling things when they should be showing.

like none of the ideas I've said are particularly hard to come up with. I don't see why you'd need an ideas guy for them. nor why Batman would automatically be competent enough to pull it off.

Let me propose a different take on the scenario:

Player A picks Superman, and Player B picks batman.

Player B THINKS they're the ideas guy and they are super smart, but actually all their ideas are horrible while thinking that they're badass and prepared just because they're batman.

Player A however is comes up with good ideas and is smart and picked superman because he knows that he has a reliable toolset in Superman to solve problems with, and just applying creativity he solves things easily. He ignores Player B's advice and proceeds to dominate the game.

Player B on the other hand fails at everything because the mechanics don't support Batman, can't come up with any good ideas and thought he was going to easily have this awesome adventure where he goes around be an action hero Batman who kicks ass but ends up sucking because he is Batman, having no experience of the mechanics because they're so complex that he has no time to learn them.

you keep assuming that all the players are competent and know the system in and out, when for something like 3.5 thats.....not a reasonable proposition, when I've heard its basically a minor college degree to properly learn how to work the 3.5 system the way these guys do it. I don't have time for that, and lots of people out there playing system light rpgs and such don't either. and honestly, the scenario I propose is more probable. because everyone thinks that when they're choosing Fighter, that they're choosing Batman, when they are choosing someone that couldn't hold a candle to what he can do, while people who choose wizard think they're choosing harry potter or merlin.....when really they're choosing GOD. the only people who demonstrate this competence you speak of are experienced roleplayers. I doubt everyone is as good as us at coming up with these solutions and being ok with said solutions.

because newsflash, the ideas guy is more likely to come up with the good idea of being a character who has a good set of powers to use his ideas with and therefore being useful even without other people being around, since there is no guarantee that the other people around him will always be there. while the guy who can't come up with good ideas is uh.....lets be honest, more likely to not realize that playing a non-mechanically supproted Batman is a bad idea for what he wants in the first place. it only works if those two people have enough awareness of what they are, when its very possible that they don't. its not as if everyone is that self-aware of themselves.

[Koo Rehtorb]

The same question can be asked of any example party in any example scenario. If you think any given example is "unsalvageable", this implies those cases are inherently incoherent regardless of how they were created. Which opens up possibility of the reverse: cases which are coherent regardless of how they are created.

Obviously games where everyone brings a random character can work. What I'm saying is that in a game about the characters, making the characters together tends to be produce better results. It can work anyway if you don't, but it's usually a good idea.


Maybe, but the same question arises here as in regards to incoherence: what is the metric for "making sense"?

I don't understand the question. I would say it's self-evident that some setups inherently make more sense than others. If there was randomly a robot in Game of Thrones with no explanation given the show would make less sense.


Not so fast. The situation which brings the strangers together might be the reveal that they're inheritors to the same house.

Sure. That could absolutely be a premise for a game. It's still not the same thing as four house members that have been living in the same house for an extended period of time and has an entirely different tone. That's not a bad thing, but it's certainly not the same thing.


Clearly, your experiences don't allow you to understand my gaming experience. Hmmm... I think I can make this work. Imagine people who, like many playgrounders suggest, don't build a personality up front, and let it develop exclusively in game. Then, as their personalities develop, 2 of the characters develop in diametrically opposed directions, producing a conflict. A conflict which could have been avoided by bringing existing characters with established personalities, that the players could discuss in session 0.

It's quite easy to start with a basic personality that will fit reasonably well with other another basic personality, enough to justify an existing relationship. And then maybe in play these people grow apart, that's fine. People grow apart in real life too.


Most classes? Build? No, that's not at all what I'm discussing. I'm talking about the idea of making most playing pieces - and the game - balanced around tier 1: power and versatility. Then making a few, explicitly labeled Hard Mode playing pieces, and a single BDH playing piece.

I think where you're throwing people off is that this has practically no relation to D&D (3.5) and the tier system that describes the class imbalances in that game. You'd probably be better off dropping the existing terminology and talking about this idea in a vacuum instead.


Role-playing doesn't stop when the dice come out. We may be spending 90% of our time in tactical basketball combat, but that doesn't keep me from spending 100% of my time in high school drama.

If the game's rules are about tactical basketball combat then the game is about tactical basketball combat and it doesn't care at all about your teenage angst. The mechanical needs of a game about teenage drama are completely different than the mechanical needs of a game about basketball.

If I was making a game about tactical basketball combat then each character would need a variety of stats like power, speed, agility, passing, shooting, etc. It'd need a basketball grid. Probably some sort of tournament system. A character that can't contribute to basketball is wasting everyone's time. If you're spending 90% of your time in tactical basketball combat then the roleplay is window dressing to the actual focus of the game.

If I was making a game about teenage angst then I'd probably borrow heavily from games like Monsterhearts or Masks. There would be moves to comfort and support people, to put people down, to remain emotionally stable in the face of adversity, etc.


Clearly, we're playing in different sandboxes, too. :smallconfused:

Well, ok, how you build the sandbox can limit what toys the child / whoever has access to to build a scene, but, even so, I think it's the scene they make that is the important part of the sandbox.

If the GM is designing a big world full of weirdness and mystery then that's where the focus of the game is. On going out there and exploring it and seeing all the strange and cool things (and killing them and taking their stuff). The Blasted Wastes don't care if it's Sir Percival the Gallant or Black Agnes is exploring them, the character is more or less irrelevant to the world.

If the focus, instead, is on the politics in a game where there's a religious witch hunt going on then it absolutely matters a lot more which character gets brought to the table and should probably be discussed in advance.

[Quertus]

@Max_Killjoy - think less "character that exists to be saved", and more "character who exists for their own purposes, role, whatever, whose concept happens to be inherently weaker than the status quo". Did lacking Data's strength make Picard a bad character?

Data existing in the game doesn't make Picard any less Picard, and Picard existing in the game doesn't make Data any less Data. Even if they're horribly balanced, they each have their role to play.

But, sure, some stories feel quite contrived, and some games would be difficult to make disparate characters not feel like 2 (or more!) separate games.

Just try and see that not all stories need always have those failings.


The most powerful piece on your board is the Tank piece. Place three Tank pieces together and all three of them can no longer be interacted with. The most damage any piece can deal is 12, the Tank pieces reduce all damage taken by 12. Therefore, no piece in the group can take damage. The Tank pieces can still deal adequate damage to the enemy. If they can't, just ignore the enemies, what are they going to do to you?

The Solo piece may appear to be more powerful, but it's abilities are awkward to use. To use the heal function of their attack, the damage from their attack must not be enough to kill their opponent and their opponent must get past their damage reduction ability. A full half of their abilities must not have worked to get the last part moving. The Tank piece does not have this problem. They will be using most of their capabilities most of the time.

The Healer piece sucks. It does the exact same thing the Tank piece does but only on one target. The more party members there are the less the Healer piece actually does compared to the Tank piece. Just place a Tank piece where a Healer piece would go.

The Striker piece doesn't do anything special. More damage only matters if that damage was enough to disable an enemy. You're losing out on a brilliant Tank piece to take a lame Striker piece. That is not a fair trade.

The Dedicated Healer, Dedicated Tank and Gish (Gestalt) pieces are all super lame. The Gish piece suffers from the same problem as the Solo piece. The Dedicated Healer piece is so situational that there is no reason to bring one over a normal Healer piece (which nobody would bring over a Tank piece). More heals only matter if you need more heals. Overhealing is for noobs. If you are taking that much damage maybe you should put a stop to that by removing a few enemy pieces. But, you can't because, you know, no damage attacks. The Dedicated Tank piece caps out at the most damage an enemy can deal. Which is 12. While also dealing no damage. Just stick to three Tank pieces.

The Toolkit piece is a Striker piece that can also act as a Healer piece in case something happens to your Tank pieces. But it has this extra ability that nobody would ever use. If you replace a Tank piece with a Toolkit piece your damage reduction isn't enough to nullify all damage. If you add a Toolkit piece as a fourth unit in your squad your damage reduction ability is too much and is wasted entirely. I would probably run three Tank pieces and a Toolkit piece in a four-man squad, but half the Toolkit piece will never come up and the other half may never come up. You choose this piece if more Tank pieces don't do anything for you.

You've created a system where the Tier 1 pieces aren't as good as the Tank pieces. It's a bad example.

Yay, someone actually addressed my system!

Well, for one, the characters aren't fighting each other, they're fighting monsters with broadly different stats.

Second, the Tank only shuts down creatures that he attacks. So, against mobs, the all tank party has some issues.

[Anonymouswizard]

I once had a session zero where we decided nobody knew each other. We were all from different areas and in the campaign city for different reasons, we were almost all different races, all had completely different specialisations and for of us were explicitly in loan to the police from another organisation. But we went into the first puppet season knowing exactly where our chats were going to stand with each other, and could roleplay those relationships (and then the alchemist almost view up a plane, and then we discovered that nobody liked the elf).

I've also had one where over half the characters ended up working with each other beforehand, and one where one character explicitly mentored another. Having a session zero just shows everybody to be on the same page, and allows a great number of possibilities.

[kyoryu]

So, a few thoughts:

1) Superman and Lois breaks if your game is about punching things (gross simplification). If your game is about doing other things, some of which are punchable and some of which are not, then it's more workable. If your game is structured so that punching things is often not a viable solution, then it's a lot easier to work. Heck, if your game is structured in such a way that punching things is actively frowned on, and more Lois-y solutions are the preferred and most effective way to solve things, then you're golden.

2) For the Batman issue, Monster of the Week does an interesting thing where if you follow a "guide character"'s advice, you get a bonus while doing so. Which means that their advice becomes effective so long as it's at least reasonable advice.

3) DFRPG actually tries to handle the Lois/Superman split (or more accurately, the Murphy/Dresden split), by having supernatural abilities cost Refresh points. So mortals don't have the raw firepower of a wizard, but man do things tend to go their way randomly. The effectiveness of this approach is subject to some amount of debate. It's also worth noting that Fate derivatives are less about overcoming challenges, and more about playing through an emergent story, so the same type of balance mechanisms may not work in other games.

[Psyren]

One level of Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, or Ranger => +1 CR.

One level of a spellcasting class => +1 CR.

Wealth-by-Level and feat prereqs which require a minimum class level also point to equality.

As far as I can see, all classes are considered equal in power by the rules.

Perhaps you can cite an exception?

CR is not a hard-and-fast rule, but a very broad guideline. By your own "calculation", a Wizard 20 who prepares Read Magic in every single one of his slots and carries all his WBL in the form of currency is CR 20. So is one that has no spells left that day at all, or had no chance to prepare any - still 20. Those wizards will struggle with an encounter even below their level.


Citation?

Complete Arcane pg. 4, "The Nature of Magic"
Ultimate Magic pg. 4, Introduction
Inner Sea Magic pg. 3, Introduction
...you get the point

[ImNotTrevor]

Complete Arcane pg. 4, "The Nature of Magic"
Ultimate Magic pg. 4, Introduction
Inner Sea Magic pg. 3, Introduction
...you get the point

I have one of these, so Imma just blow that one up real quick:

Complete Arcane in no way suggests magic is stronger. In fact, everything they list is explicitly prefaced as a "limitation." Implying these are downsides, not upsides.

So....

Yeah, if D&D wants spellcasters to be the strongest class, they in no way make that clear. And no, a random paragraph from a non-essential splatbook does not count as "making it clear."

All signs point to an implied equality, not an implied inequality. Even your CR argument falls apart since CR is meant to mean how threatening a thing is when at its best state.

The CR for the Terrasque assumes you're not fighting it at 50% health. It assumes 100%, and with all abilities intact. Doing the whole "but what if it's not at 100%?" Is just mental gymnastics at this point.

Yes, a wizard in all those situations is CR 20 because it's not measured in a case by case basis. It's based on potential, not current status.

A lvl 20 Fighter is CR 20 and so is a lvl 20 Wizard. Their potential as threats is measured to be the same by the system, meaning their potential overall is deemed equal by the system.

This is wrong, and indicative of faulty design.

[Nifft]

CR is not a hard-and-fast rule, but a very broad guideline. By your own "calculation", a Wizard 20 who prepares Read Magic in every single one of his slots and carries all his WBL in the form of currency is CR 20. So is one that has no spells left that day at all, or had no chance to prepare any - still 20. Those wizards will struggle with an encounter even below their level. Indeed, an intentionally stupid player can screw up even the best character.

That's equally true for martial characters, of course: a Fighter 20 could carry around all her WBL as currency, wear a blindfold as armor, and fight using an improvised weapon.

That Fighter 20 would be equally useful in a game as your Wizard 20, so you've demonstrated that it's quite possible to balance Fighters and Wizards at high levels -- just play them both as stupidly as possible.

Totally useless is equally useless, viva la game balance.


Complete Arcane pg. 4, "The Nature of Magic"
This?
http://i.imgur.com/RVwAOzD.png

That doesn't say anything about spellcasters being intentionally more powerful than anyone else.

Are you reading these things before you post them?


Ultimate Magic pg. 4, Introduction
Inner Sea Magic pg. 3, Introduction
...you get the point

Those other books aren't in my collection -- perhaps you could post the actual citations, since the only one I could find didn't support your argument at all?

[Karl Aegis]

Yay, someone actually addressed my system!

Well, for one, the characters aren't fighting each other, they're fighting monsters with broadly different stats.

Second, the Tank only shuts down creatures that he attacks. So, against mobs, the all tank party has some issues.

So, wait, what does the party set-up look like for the five Shadow Omega Bear God Kings? I know TIER 1 WIZARD can just walk up to all five of them and punch them to death with little to no effort, but your classes seem like they would have trouble the first time they used Gatling Omega Wave Cannon Buster. Do you just stack more Tank pieces? Do you just never get to these guys? What is the deal with fighting STRONG enemies? Do you just get another piece to control after certain objectives are completed so that one player gets to play a couple tarpits, one player gets to play the death star and the last player plays a bunch of chaff? What is the deal here?

[Quertus]

So how do you challenge S in a way that doesn't ignore that he's superhuman? In a way that wouldn't be identical if he were just Clark Kent, normal human reporter at the Daily Planet? AND how do you do so in a way that doesn't make L either trivial, or a complication?

Give him a crossword puzzle? Make him need to be in 2 places at the same time? Give him a mission that needs to be solved incognito?

And a lot of your other questions can be answered in part by factoring in concepts like action economy, headspace / focus, etc - sure, S could do the things L is doing, but he's busy with something else, or just didn't think of them.

Even so, their contribution won't likely be similar, and may or may not be anywhere near equal. Like in most games, IME.


Obviously games where everyone brings a random character can work. What I'm saying is that in a game about the characters, making the characters together tends to be produce better results.

That hasn't been my experience yet. More like the exact opposite. Which is just one more reason I try to avoid such scenarios.

Then again, I'm usually playing with people who want the minimum possible communication, so that probably has something to do with why our experiences differ.


It's quite easy to start with a basic personality that will fit reasonably well with other another basic personality, enough to justify an existing relationship. And then maybe in play these people grow apart, that's fine. People grow apart in real life too.

And you don't find it worthwhile / better to prevent the "I murder him because it's what my character would do" scenario by picking existing personalities that will work together? :smallconfused:


I think where you're throwing people off is that this has practically no relation to D&D (3.5) and the tier system that describes the class imbalances in that game. You'd probably be better off dropping the existing terminology and talking about this idea in a vacuum instead.

Probably. Except that I think the tier system is on to something with its talk of power and versatility. And I do want to apply these concepts to many games, including and especially D&D.


If the game's rules are about tactical basketball combat then the game is about tactical basketball combat and it doesn't care at all about your teenage angst. The mechanical needs of a game about teenage drama are completely different than the mechanical needs of a game about basketball.

I want to tease apart some concepts here: the system may be about tactical basketball combat, but the game is about whatever we make it be about.

Can certain systems help or hinder certain game concepts? Sure. But if player > character, GM > system. So, with the right GM / group, I'd imagine most games could be played with most systems.


If I was making a game about tactical basketball combat then each character would need a variety of stats like power, speed, agility, passing, shooting, etc. It'd need a basketball grid. Probably some sort of tournament system. A character that can't contribute to basketball is wasting everyone's time. If you're spending 90% of your time in tactical basketball combat then the roleplay is window dressing to the actual focus of the game.

I picked basketball in part on purpose, because 5 players on the field. The classic D&D party is 4 people. Instead of forcing the DM to rebalance the adventure for 5 competent adventurers, the odd man out brings someone incompetent and/or nerfed. I've seen it several times, and it's made the DM's life easier, not harder. And been fun for the whole party. It let everyone play together in what was supposed to be a 4 person game. But usually involves someone who can get enjoyment out of something other than being a BDH.

I just happened to get attached to the particulars, and liked the idea of the actual character, not just what he poetically represents.


If the focus, instead, is on the politics in a game where there's a religious witch hunt going on then it absolutely matters a lot more which character gets brought to the table and should probably be discussed in advance.

Why? Well, ok, if your group has a "no PvP" rule, setting up an inherently adversarial situation at least requires discussion about which side everyone wants to belong to. Otherwise, why?

[Frozen_Feet]

So how do you challenge S in a way that doesn't ignore that he's superhuman? In a way that wouldn't be identical if he were just Clark Kent, normal human reporter at the Daily Planet? AND how do you do so in a way that doesn't make L either trivial, or a complication?

Darkseid threatens Metropolis, Supes needs to go kick his ass and calls Lois to cancel appointments for Clark, contact friends and relatives etc. in case he goes belly up. Not because Supes can't do those things himself in some absolute sense, but because he can't do it at the same time as punching Darkseid.



This isn't about character motivation, it never has been. After a certain point, I don't care why L keeps getting into trouble -- the fact that she keeps getting into trouble and S keeps having to save her, over and over and over, and it never changes, is the problem.

Again, if your argument here is that it gets old because anything gets old if you do it enough, I can grant you that. But this won't get me to agree that it's the power disparity itself which is the problem.


And the fact remains that there are certain parts of the campaign that can ONLY involve L as bystander, or victim, or hostage, or otherwise in danger. She cannot contribute. This is an extreme example of the power difference between characters, but it's very illustrative.

And again, it shouldn't be so hard to imagine a player who is fine with playing the role of a bystander, victim, hostage etc.. Those roles contribute to the game in their own way, by shaping the situation and enlivening the world, even when they don't contribute to the game's solution.


Meanwhile, what can L do that S can't? What part of the campaign is there for L to take the lead? What challenges does L face that S finds more difficult than L to address if L actually applies his full capability, and what other than contrivance/fiat is going get the player of S to hold back that full capability?

Refer back to the above example with Darkseid. We can grant Superman does everything better than Lois, except maybe handling kryptonite. But he can't be doing everything when his full capability is right now being spent to fight Darkseid. This leaves a space of situations where both Superman and Lois have to act in their full capability to achieve the outcome they desire.

Then are the potential aftermaths. Let's get the first one out of the way, where Lois is trivial/useless: Darkseid wins and kills everybody. That's called losing, it occasionally happens in games. Then there are intermediate outcomes: Superman wins Darkseid but dies, and the focus is left on Lois by virtue of her being the last PC standing. Superman wins but is severely weakened or injured, shifting the focus on Lois as she has to track him down or nurse him to health, cover for Clark at Daily Planet etc.

You can call these "contrivances" if you like, but they're just as much a natural result of playing the game at the edge of player ability. I, as a GM, don't need to decide before-the-fact that "then Superman is wounded and Lois is the star of next session". I only need to create a non-trivial challenge for Superman which has this outcome as one of the potentials. I see homologous events in my actual games constantly.


And no, I cannot imagine enjoying that -- either as the player whose character who cannot contribute and is either a spectator or a victim, or as the player whose character has to carry the weight of the non-contributing character(s).

Okay. I can imagine it, I have done it. Again: can appreciate if it's not your cup of tea. But it's starting to sound like I might have to pin this on a failure of imagination on your part.



What's not functional is for Petey and Markowitz to be PCs in the same RPG. There's nothing Markowitz can do that Petey, or one of Petey's nodes, or one of Petey's other allies, aren't so much better at as to make Markowitz superfluous -- unless the GM and the players all contrive to leave space for Markowitz.

Okay, first, the same goes for Petey as what I said about Superman: just because a player has "plenipotent protogod" written on their character sheet, it doesn't make them smarter. For Markowitz and their player to be actually superfluous, the situation must be so trivial that Petey's player cannot benefit from another living human, or Markowitz and his player must be so bad as to have no usable ideas, or Petey's player has to choose to ignore Markowitz and his player.

Second, if Petey's player contrives to create "space" for Markowitz for in-character reasons, there should be no problem with it.

Third, as above with Darkseid and Superman, challenging Petey to his limits can directly lead to scenarios where Markowitz matters - as the viewpoint character who has do deal with stuff on their own, if nothing else, because Psychobear was forced to bend over for the DaMEs.


RPGs are not comics, or novels, or movies, or television series, or campfire stories. There are things that work in fiction that do not work in RPGs. Fiction doesn't have dice or whatever RNG involved, it doesn't have emergent events that arise out of unexpected choices or incomplete player knowledge or different players wanting different personal experiences out of the game. In fiction, the author is in control of all the characters and the entire setting and everything that happens.

See, I can agree with you that RPGs are a particular medium, and there are things which don't work in RPGs or don't work as well as in non-game media.

Yet I still disagree with you on the matter of whether you can have inequal characters in the same game. Because I'm confident in my ability to get valid games out of such characters by using tools particular to roleplaying games.


In order to make those things work, the players have to leave the realm of playing their characters, and cross into the realm of "cooperative fiction", in which they're constantly engaged in the metagaming of "what would make the better story?" and "what should our characters do next?" and "what is my character's role in the story?" and so on.

That's one way to do it. I take it's one you dislike. Based on everything I've read, I hazard I stress much less about metagaming than you do.

But here's the kicker: I don't play storygames. I play OSR games like LotFP, heavy on random generation. For my tabletop games, I don't sit down to do "co-operative fiction", I leave that for play-by-post freeforms.

So the first metagame questions I ask myself is "what sort of events do I want to see as a player?" and within the constraints of the game, I assume a role which I estimate to be likeliest to lead to those. Then I play that role, and if I picked well, I don't have to ask that question again, because what I from my player perspective would want to do neatly overlaps with what my character from their in-universe perspective would want to do.

When you, me, or anyone else asks "what's my role in the game?", I think of the answer in terms of "what are my character's motives, personality, alliances, dynamic with other characters?" Stories arise from those things, but I don't choose them to get any particular story.

And then there's "what should my/our character/s do next?" That's... supposed to be a metagame question? I'd figure that's just a sign you're playing the game, the question at the root of any roleplaying ever. You'll have to explain how anyone is supposed to enter the realm of playing their character if asking that question means leaving it!

Anyways, the point I'm after here is that whether one ask your questions or my questions about a character like Lois Lane or Mercenary Markowitz gives a pretty different view of the same characters. From one perspective, Lois is "Damsel in Distress" or some other collection of fictional tropes, from another she's "investigative reporter, co-worker and lover of Clark Kent/Superman" or some other string of in-universe information. If you had one player playing Lois by "co-operative fiction" rules and another playing her by "old-school" rules, you'd occasionally get similar outcomes which would also be similar to comicbook versions of the character, but the motives of the players would be different, the process of play leading to those outcomes would be different, and what their enjoyment would come from would also be different.

So just because an after-the-fact account of a game sounds like a story, doesn't mean any participant specially contrived the game to get that specific story.

[Koo Rehtorb]

That hasn't been my experience yet. More like the exact opposite. Which is just one more reason I try to avoid such scenarios.

Then again, I'm usually playing with people who want the minimum possible communication, so that probably has something to do with why our experiences differ.

Well sure, obviously if you have people who refuse to engage with the process then the process won't work. That doesn't make the process flawed.


And you don't find it worthwhile / better to prevent the "I murder him because it's what my character would do" scenario by picking existing personalities that will work together? :smallconfused:

Choose to react differently. If you don't want irreconcilable differences then work together to avoid that happening.

Alternatively, if irreconcilable differences arise during play maybe that's potentially fun. In my game the wizard is growing apart from the party. I expect him either leaving, or lethal PvP in the next few sessions. And that's fine. If it comes to that people can make new characters and return to the game.


I want to tease apart some concepts here: the system may be about tactical basketball combat, but the game is about whatever we make it be about.

Can certain systems help or hinder certain game concepts? Sure. But if player > character, GM > system. So, with the right GM / group, I'd imagine most games could be played with most systems.

You can probably play most games in most systems, like you could probably technically play soccer with a rock instead of a ball. But why would you want to? It sounds unpleasant. If you play a political intrigue game in D&D then you're either playing the game wrong or you're playing the wrong game. You would be better served by either playing D&D as intended, or by switching systems to something that supports instead of hinders what you're trying to do.


I picked basketball in part on purpose, because 5 players on the field. The classic D&D party is 4 people. Instead of forcing the DM to rebalance the adventure for 5 competent adventurers, the odd man out brings someone incompetent and/or nerfed. I've seen it several times, and it's made the DM's life easier, not harder. And been fun for the whole party. It let everyone play together in what was supposed to be a 4 person game. But usually involves someone who can get enjoyment out of something other than being a BDH.

Maybe. But this is an edge case that relies on there being an unexpected addition to the group, a game that relies strictly on razor-thin balance, and a GM that doesn't want to change anything to accommodate a new player.

[goto124]

Darkseid threatens Metropolis, Supes needs to go kick his ass and calls Lois to cancel appointments for Clark, contact friends and relatives etc. in case he goes belly up. Not because Supes can't do those things himself in some absolute sense, but because he can't do it at the same time as punching Darkseid.

Imagine that the Lois class was presented as being equal to the other superhero classes such as Superman, and the game designers fully intended said Lois class to be on an equal level to the Superman class. Equal level here means getting into combat with supervillains and their mooks, among all the other cool stuff superheroes do, and it's presented as something the Lois class is able to perform. Only for the Superman class to get all the fancy powers for fighting supervillains, while the Lois class is reduced to a phone caller. People pick up the Lois class wanting to be a superhero and end up being a phone caller.

The solution you present is less of making Fighters viable, and more of changing the book such that it says "actually Fighters are useless beyond a certain level, play a spellcaster instead". Probably not a good way to handle class discrepancy in DnD since huge numbers of players want to play an actually viable Fighter.

[Frozen_Feet]

I dunno, Batmans contribution seems like "Batman is glorified telephone."

Yes. That's an artefact of the hypothetical, playing Batman with no mechanical support. The point is that if you are decent at playing Batman, you can still get a lot of mileage out of it.


whats the point of batman if its just player ideas? the player might as well be on the sidelines not even being in the game and just throwing out suggestions.

It's not just player ideas. It's the ideas of a player trying to think like Batman. I assure you, me throwing comments from the sidelines as myself would be quite different from me putting on a figurative bat cowl. Think of the way I change font and writing style for my freeform characters. Now imagine me changing my actual voice and manner of speech. The effect would, arguably, be more dramatic in person than in text.

That is the point: getting into character and approaching the problems as the character, rather than yourself.


I guess if you really want to feel smart and mastermind-y it could work, but, you can't do that with a fighter. A fighter is meant to FIGHT.

I don't disagree. That you can do anything at all as Batman without mechanical support is because what you're doing in actuality and what Batman's doing in the game have overlap: scheming and talking with your friends. But you can't fight at a tabletop, unless you want to fetch your best weapon replicas and start LARPing. But again, this is artefact of the hypothetical. I'm not arguing offering Batman no mechanical support is good game design, I'm merely examining what it possible.


A character is more than their ideas they speak, more than a microphone for the player to speak through. Actions speak louder than words. a character who is nothing but a talking head is not really worth much respect now aren't they? Nothing but exposition and telling things when they should be showing.

Giving ideas =/= exposition. I was actually suggesting that Batman suggest courses of actions to the other characters. Respect is gained when those ideas work, and lost when they don't. Trying to hold the lack of action against Batman in this hypothetical doesn't make much sense. For one, we've established there's no mechanical support for him to do anything else. For two, advicing Superman through a microphone (etc.) from his Batcave is perfectly in-character for Batman.


like none of the ideas I've said are particularly hard to come up with. I don't see why you'd need an ideas guy for them. nor why Batman would automatically be competent enough to pull it off.

I already addressed this but apparently it bears repeating: having another living human at a table to think for you is only useless when the situation is so trivial that there's no extra benefit from it, or the extra human sucks at their role. Nowhere did I say your particular ideas need an extra player playing Batman to come up with them, nor am I assuming Batman's player is automatically competent. My message was that you can't assume Batman's player is automatically incompetent either. Such only really becomes apparent during a game and isn't constant either way.


you keep assuming that all the players are competent and know the system in and out

Uh, no. I plainly said both the Superman's player and the Batman's player can suck. It's not really wise to assume either way. The more important thing to remember is that the two players working together may be able to squeeze more out of Superman's mechanics than either could alone. Batman's player in this hypothetical is not helped by the system, but neither are they hindered by having to focus on mechanics of their own.

The rest of your post was so rant-like I found it hard to comment properly. I'll just say this: even when playing with groups of people who are new to the entire hobby and playing for the first time, it's bloody rare to see a player who provides zero usefull ideas for a whole session. It's not a high bar to pass. Yes, you can set the bar to the stratosphere by using an arcane system like d20 D&D and then insisting on optimal play, but you don't really have to. And you still don't have to repeat errors of that game system when making a new one.

[Max_Killjoy]

@Max_Killjoy - think less "character that exists to be saved", and more "character who exists for their own purposes, role, whatever, whose concept happens to be inherently weaker than the status quo". Did lacking Data's strength make Picard a bad character?

Data existing in the game doesn't make Picard any less Picard, and Picard existing in the game doesn't make Data any less Data. Even if they're horribly balanced, they each have their role to play.

But, sure, some stories feel quite contrived, and some games would be difficult to make disparate characters not feel like 2 (or more!) separate games.

Just try and see that not all stories need always have those failings.


Except that first, a television series is not an RPG campaign and Data and Picard don't have players, and second, the stories constantly had to work around Data's inherent mental and physical advantages and violate the basic concept of the character in order to make the stories they wanted to tell work (seriously, how often did some dangerous thing they ran into affect Data when it had no business affecting Data, such as a couple supposedly biological space diseases...).

[Max_Killjoy]

Darkseid threatens Metropolis, Supes needs to go kick his ass and calls Lois to cancel appointments for Clark, contact friends and relatives etc. in case he goes belly up. Not because Supes can't do those things himself in some absolute sense, but because he can't do it at the same time as punching Darkseid.


Yay, one of the players gets to RP a secretary for the other player.

Not my idea of fun.




Again, if your argument here is that it gets old because anything gets old if you do it enough, I can grant you that. But this won't get me to agree that it's the power disparity itself which is the problem.


Good setups don't get old in a hurry the way bad setups do. Stories that don't rely on contrivances and transparent tropes have a lot more staying power than stories that do rely on them.

[Max_Killjoy]

So, a few thoughts:
1) Superman and Lois breaks if your game is about punching things (gross simplification). If your game is about doing other things, some of which are punchable and some of which are not, then it's more workable. If your game is structured so that punching things is often not a viable solution, then it's a lot easier to work. Heck, if your game is structured in such a way that punching things is actively frowned on, and more Lois-y solutions are the preferred and most effective way to solve things, then you're golden.


On this one... there comes a point where the game is so much about things where superpowers aren't useful that one has to wonder why those involved are bothering to play superheroic characters at all.

It's like having a space opera or space SF game system and setting... and then using it run a domestic comedy set entirely on a single planet with largely superfluous or transparent technology that feels just like the present-day real world.

[Cosi]

Give him a crossword puzzle? Make him need to be in 2 places at the same time? Give him a mission that needs to be solved incognito?

But none of those give you any reason to include Louis Lane. They just give you a reason to have a character that isn't Superman, and there are lots of characters that aren't Superman. Batman isn't Superman, and he solves crosswords at least as well as Louis Lane does while also having the Hellbat or an army of Bat-Drones at his disposal. Wonder Woman isn't Superman, and she can be somewhere Superman isn't at least as well as Louis Lane while also being a demigodess. Martian Manhunter isn't Superman, and he can go undercover at least as well as Louis Lane while also being a psychic shapeshifter.

You can't just be able to do things, you have to be able to do enough things to be comparable to whatever character you replace. Otherwise you either hurt the party because it has Louis Lane instead of Wonder Woman or hurt the DM because he has to warp every encounter around Louis Lane.


People seem more accepting of desperate tiers than disparate levels, and levels are, in 3e, self-correcting. Also, system-agnostic discussion: not all games have levels. My sample one certainly didn't.

It's hard to imagine a game that has characters with different amounts of mechanical power that doesn't have some dial that plays the role of level. Also, I think the issue is less "people don't like level disparity" and more "3e's advancement system is dumb and bad".


CR is not a hard-and-fast rule, but a very broad guideline. By your own "calculation", a Wizard 20 who prepares Read Magic in every single one of his slots and carries all his WBL in the form of currency is CR 20. So is one that has no spells left that day at all, or had no chance to prepare any - still 20. Those wizards will struggle with an encounter even below their level.

Yes, CR isn't perfect. But the rules do say a Wizard 20 is the same CR as a Fighter 20. You can't wave that away by pointing out that some Wizard 20s under-perform. Where do the CR rules indicate that we should generally expect Wizards to be more of a threat than Fighters?


Again, if your argument here is that it gets old because anything gets old if you do it enough, I can grant you that. But this won't get me to agree that it's the power disparity itself which is the problem.

You can tell any story you can tell with Superman and Louis Lane with Superman and Wonder Woman. You can also tell additional stories with Wonder Woman that you can't with Louis Lane. It's not even the disparity that is the problem -- it's Louis Lane sucking.


Okay, first, the same goes for Petey as what I said about Superman: just because a player has "plenipotent protogod" written on their character sheet, it doesn't make them smarter. For Markowitz and their player to be actually superfluous, the situation must be so trivial that Petey's player cannot benefit from another living human, or Markowitz and his player must be so bad as to have no usable ideas, or Petey's player has to choose to ignore Markowitz and his player.

This is stupid. Yes, you can do things out of character that make you useful. But those things are out of character and are therefore necessarily not a defense of your character. If you gave Markowitz power to match Petey's, it would not diminish any contributions his player made.


Third, as above with Darkseid and Superman, challenging Petey to his limits can directly lead to scenarios where Markowitz matters - as the viewpoint character who has do deal with stuff on their own, if nothing else, because Psychobear was forced to bend over for the DaMEs.

But Markowitz doesn't actually matter. It looks like he matters because he has marginal resources Petey doesn't, but those resources could better accomplish his and Petey's shared goals if he gave Petey control of them.

[goto124]

At this point, I don't know who Markowitz and Petey are.

[Lord Raziere]

On this one... there comes a point where the game is so much about things where superpowers aren't useful that one has to wonder why those involved are bothering to play superheroic characters at all.

It's like having a space opera or space SF game system and setting... and then using it run a domestic comedy set entirely on a single planet with largely superfluous or transparent technology that feels just like the present-day real world.

Yeah.

there's a saying: you can't have your cake and eat it to.

you can't have your low-level power solution cake and eat it to do high-power stuff at the same time.

thats common sense. you want low-level stuff, be in a low-level game. you want high powered stuff, be in a high power game. you can keep one cake and eat another, but you can't do both for one cake. and thing is, all the players have that cake. you as a GM, are not baking five cakes, your baking one cake for all players to share. if one player eats the cake, it ruins it all for the people who want to keep it, and if all the other four eat the cake it ruins it for the one who wants to have the cake.

its why all this feels so wrong and kind of clunky and janky to make work at best- its all a big attempt at trying to have your cake and eat it to. the result is not that Lois and Batman are relevant despite being normal and low powered....the result is that Batman becomes this godly human of super-skills, super tech and preparedness because he takes on gods without powers, as so many people have meme'd him into becoming. by successfully taking on something high-powered, you BECOME high powered as a result. power and relevance are the same thing. you want to be relevant in a high powered setting? you got to be high powered yourself. you want high power to be irrelevant in a low power setting? then they have to be so distant and unable to act that the low-powered ones do the job.

trying to combine it just results in this weird world where why is the high-powered being relevant at all if the low-powered being can solve it without him? what is the use of such overwhelming power if anyone so normal can be just as effective right along side him? it just doesn't make sense. while if low powered one can't solve it while the high powered one can, WHY IS THE LOW-POWERED ONE STILL HERE? get away! get to safety! stop being an idiot and distracting the person who needs to do the job!

I mean sure there are instances of low power beings doing important things to help high powers, but they're almost always protected by plot armor, their roles while important are often temporary and highly specific....you simply don't have that guarantee in an RPG because in a roleplaying game, villains won't stop to monologue or pointlessly glare at the weak enemy doing nothing.

same with player-Lois....such a character isn't protected by the plot. there is no plot. if Lois falls from a great height and Superman fails to save her with his roll, she goes splat and dies. because thats the biggest problem with low-powered characters vs. high powered world: their defenses. my contribution is not going to matter much if my character dies in a single hit to the first round of combat. much like all those red shirts! yeah, aren't those red shirt characters SOOOOOOOO important and relevant, with how they die in one hit and provide some slight indication of danger that will never actually befall our heroes? thats basically the problem. Lois is just a red shirt is lucky enough to not die.

[Max_Killjoy]

At this point, I don't know who Markowitz and Petey are.

Petey is a godling gestalt AI in the online comic Schlock Mercenary, with the power of a generator powered by the spin of the galactic core at his disposal.

Markowitz is a normal human grunt extra/redshirt mercenary soldier I just made up to contrast with Petey.

[kyoryu]

On this one... there comes a point where the game is so much about things where superpowers aren't useful that one has to wonder why those involved are bothering to play superheroic characters at all.

It's like having a space opera or space SF game system and setting... and then using it run a domestic comedy set entirely on a single planet with largely superfluous or transparent technology that feels just like the present-day real world.


The more generalized version of this is that imbalance is, in many ways, a matter of characters having the skills to deal with the situations they're involved in, for some definition of "deal with" (which could mean different things at different tables).

Why would somebody play Superman in that game? Maybe because they think the idea of a game revolving around how superpowers impact various relationships or whatever is more interesting than one where people punch things? People like different things.



same with player-Lois....such a character isn't protected by the plot. there is no plot. if Lois falls from a great height and Superman fails to save her with his roll, she goes splat and dies. because thats the biggest problem with low-powered characters vs. high powered world: their defenses. my contribution is not going to matter much if my character dies in a single hit to the first round of combat. much like all those red shirts! yeah, aren't those red shirt characters SOOOOOOOO important and relevant, with how they die in one hit and provide some slight indication of danger that will never actually befall our heroes? thats basically the problem. Lois is just a red shirt is lucky enough to not die.

This post is full of assumptions.

Yeah, Lois Lane as a character doesn't work in a sim-oriented or D&D-like campaign.

[Keltest]

@Keltest: uh... nothing you said is something that wasn't pointed out in the very post you quoted. Well, expect for the "the players ideas are completely divorced from the characters you play". If you honestly think that, you're just wrong. Again, a player playing the personality of Batman will present different ideas than the player playing the personality of Superman. If the role you've assumed has no effect on how you play, you are failing roleplaying.

That is, at best, going back to the idea of having to deliberately play Superman sub-optimally in order to give Batman something to do. Sure, its roleplaying, which is always to be encouraged, but it doesn't address the fundamental problem that an intelligently played superman character is always going to out perform an equally intelligently played batman character.

Furthermore, this stance basically restricts batman to being played by legitimately intelligent people willing to devote the time to memorizing all the monster manuals and otherwise putting in a lot more effort into their character than a superman would. Unless you intend to give batman a class features that generates 1d4 good ideas on demand, you've set a limit such that the class can only be effective in the hands of somebody who is like the role they are playing in reality.

[Psyren]

@ Nifft: On Complete Arcane, I was mistaken - that was the quote that supports spellcasters being rarer than mundanes, a fact that is also borne out by the DMG population tables, and so the ease of becoming a martial eclipses that of becoming a wizard or cleric. Still related in that it explains why magic should be stronger than not-magic, but from a dev intent standpoint I'll dig that up elsewhere.

Going back to this point however:


Indeed, an intentionally stupid player can screw up even the best character.

But your holy writ, the CR system, does not take that into account now, does it? By the system, that character is CR 20 no matter what choices he made. So clearly it must be fine, by your point of view. Or are you admitting that you're wrong, and that CR is actually flawed?

For that matter, a character made up of 20 classes (Barbarian 1/Wizard 1/Rogue 1/Cleric 1/Swashbuckler 1/Mountebank 1....Hexblade 1) is also CR 20 by the system, so clearly that is working as intended too.

[Nifft]

@ Nifft: On Complete Arcane, I was mistaken - that was the quote that supports spellcasters being rarer than mundanes, a fact that is also borne out by the DMG population tables, and so the ease of becoming a martial eclipses that of becoming a wizard or cleric. Still related in that it explains why magic should be stronger than not-magic, but from a dev intent standpoint I'll dig that up elsewhere. Spellcaster NPCs are rare, sure.

That says exactly nothing about any intentional difference in power between classes.


But your holy writ, the CR system, does not take that into account now, does it? By the system, that character is CR 20 no matter what choices he made. So clearly it must be fine, by your point of view. Or are you admitting that you're wrong, and that CR is actually flawed? Look, I'm trying to have a grown-up conversation with you.

What the CR system shows is that the designer's intent depends on the applicability of each class to a monster, and makes no distinction between the different classes.

Each class is listed and discussed in terms of when it is relevant, and then each class is priced exactly the same way.

This is the closest I've found to designer intent regarding differences between classes in a core book.

Saying disingenuous & sarcastic BS, like trying to characterize my position as "your holy writ, the CR system", frankly drags down the level of discussion.

If you want people to continue to engage with you as a grown-up, knock it off.

[Psyren]

Spellcaster NPCs are rare, sure.

That says exactly nothing about any intentional difference in power between classes.

D&D (and by extension PF) is simulationist. The difficulty of becoming a spellcaster in-universe explains why, despite being objectively better than not having magic, everybody doesn't simply do it. When it's easy to do, you get locales like Netheril and Azlant where everybody and their brother is a spellcaster to at least some degree.


Look, I'm trying to have a grown-up conversation with you.

Right back at you.



What the CR system shows is that the designer's intent depends on the applicability of each class to a monster, and makes no distinction between the different classes.

Each class is listed and discussed in terms of when it is relevant, and then each class is priced exactly the same way.

This is the closest I've found to designer intent regarding differences between classes in a core book.

Saying disingenuous & sarcastic BS, like trying to characterize my position as "your holy writ, the CR system", frankly drags down the level of discussion.

Here's the thing - we actually agree that CR is useless for differentiating between classes. So why do you and those like you keep bringing it up in a balance context? If a level 20 Wizard (who doesn't make bad choices) and a level 20 Fighter (who also doesn't make bad choices) can both beat up a Balor, then that is literally all CR needs to tell us. It does not, and should not, care how much easier it is for one of them than the other - the only thing that matters is that they both CAN do it.


If you want people to continue to engage with you as a grown-up, knock it off.

Right back at you.

[Nifft]

D&D (and by extension PF) is simulationist. The difficulty of becoming a spellcaster in-universe explains why, despite being objectively better than not having magic, everybody doesn't simply do it. When it's easy to do, you get locales like Netheril and Azlant where everybody and their brother is a spellcaster to at least some degree. That's also incorrect.

Netheril can't happen again in its setting because the goddess of magic decided to change the rules to nerf caster.

Any current society disproportionately populated by spellcasters -- several of which do exist in that setting -- cannot replicate the feats of the ancient dead empire, and that's got nothing to do with demographics.

Your conclusions are based on incorrect assumptions.


Here's the thing - we actually agree that CR is useless for differentiating between classes. So why do you and those like you keep bringing it up in a balance context? If a level 20 Wizard (who doesn't make bad choices) and a level 20 Fighter (who also doesn't make bad choices) can both beat up a Balor, then that is literally all CR needs to tell us. It does not, and should not, care how much easier it is for one of them than the other - the only thing that matters is that they both CAN do it.

It's because the "Monsters with Class Levels" write-up shows designer intent, in an unambiguous way. The designers listed out each class type, and then explicitly valued all classes the same.

We seem to agree that the designers were wrong about this -- but that's a separate discussion, and probably a settled discussion.

This is about whether the disparity between casters & muggles was intentional. (It wasn't.)

[Quertus]

but from a dev intent standpoint I'll dig that up elsewhere.

Going back to this point however:

the CR system, does not take that into account now, does it? By the system, that character is CR 20 no matter what choices he made.


It's because the "Monsters with Class Levels" write-up shows designer intent, in an unambiguous way. The designers listed out each class type, and then explicitly valued all classes the same.

We seem to agree that the designers were wrong about this -- but that's a separate discussion, and probably a settled discussion.

This is about whether the disparity between casters & muggles was intentional. (It wasn't.)

So, in addition to comments about whether CR is borked, there's the issue that how something performs as a monster / challenge is not exactly equivalent to how it perform as a pc.

As to designer intent, IIRC, someone (Mark Hall, maybe?) claimed that the designers (EDIT: that's the 3e game designers) intended (3e) Wizards to be more powerful at the same level, and intended to make them lower level in the same party by including XP costs in spells, in item creation, etc. It sounds plausible, but, IIRC, whoever made that claim never provided a citation of the designers explicitly stating that that was their intent.

So... maybe?

[Nifft]

As to designer intent, IIRC, someone (Mark Hall, maybe?) claimed that the designers intended Wizards to be more powerful at the same level, and intended to make them lower level in the same party by including XP costs in spells, in item creation, etc. It sounds plausible, but, IIRC, whoever made that claim never provided a citation of the designers explicitly stating that that was their intent.

Citation?

Here's what the game's original designer says:



"If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D&D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly... It is the opinion of this writer that the most desirable game is one in which the various character types are able to compete with each other as relative equals, for that will maintain freshness in the campaign ..."

—E. Gary Gygax in The Strategic Review #7, April 1976

[Max_Killjoy]

D&D (and by extension PF) is simulationist.


Not even in the slightest. In so much as the GNS trichotomy can be taken seriously, D&D is straight-up the poster child for a Gamist system. The combat system is utterly abstracted (and don't let the maps and attacks of opportunity fool you, it's abstracted as hell), classes and levels have no basis in anything beyond themselves, other rules produce clearly ridiculous results (falling damage, etc), and its roots absolutely lie in tacking RP onto a wargame.




Here's the thing - we actually agree that CR is useless for differentiating between classes. So why do you and those like you keep bringing it up in a balance context? If a level 20 Wizard (who doesn't make bad choices) and a level 20 Fighter (who also doesn't make bad choices) can both beat up a Balor, then that is literally all CR needs to tell us. It does not, and should not, care how much easier it is for one of them than the other - the only thing that matters is that they both CAN do it.


As far as I can tell from what Nifft has posted, they're bringing it up in that context because it's evidence that the designers of the game intended all the classes to be balanced -- NOT as evidence that the classes ARE balanced. Two very different things.

[Psyren]

That's also incorrect.

Netheril can't happen again in its setting because the goddess of magic decided to change the rules to nerf caster.

Any current society disproportionately populated by spellcasters -- several of which do exist in that setting -- cannot replicate the feats of the ancient dead empire, and that's got nothing to do with demographics.

Your conclusions are based on incorrect assumptions.

She nerfed the rules by making magic more difficult to learn and master. That supports my assertion rather than disproving it. In other words, when magic is easy (few barriers to entry), you end up with the entire population learning it a la Netheril - which proves that magic is inherently superior. The only way you stop that from happening is by making it hard to learn, or require supreme faith or a bloodline etc.

This matters to the topic at hand because D&D is again, a simulation. Magic being inherently better is an integral part of that simulation. Inter-class balance is a nice goal but takes a backseat to that, and rightfully so.


It's because the "Monsters with Class Levels" write-up shows designer intent, in an unambiguous way. The designers listed out each class type, and then explicitly valued all classes the same.

We seem to agree that the designers were wrong about this -- but that's a separate discussion, and probably a settled discussion.

This is about whether the disparity between casters & muggles was intentional. (It wasn't.)

Except we don't agree; I don't think the designers were making a statement about PC power at all. What they were doing was slapping together a quick-and-dirty surface-level guideline to help GMs who are then expected to engage their brain cells when designing encounters, rather than blindly trusting numbers. Much like CR is itself a guideline, and trusting IT blindly has negative results for the game.

[PhoenixPhyre]

This matters to the topic at hand because D&D is again, a simulation.

No. It isn't. Not at all. D&D is a game in which the rules form the user interface. That is all. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything else is your own personal preferences speaking. Classes, level, CR, spells, all of this is game, not simulation.

[Quertus]

Citation?

Here's what the game's original designer says:

Apologies, I was unclear. I'll fix my post. The poster was referring to 3e game design, not D&D game design in general. And provided no citation.

[Psyren]

No. It isn't. Not at all. D&D is a game in which the rules form the user interface. That is all. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything else is your own personal preferences speaking. Classes, level, CR, spells, all of this is game, not simulation.

Obviously it's a game. But it has simulationist aspects too. They have rules for walking cross-country and rearing animals. They have population statistics. They have rules for generating weather. If you want pure gamism, I suggest you give 4th edition a try (and incidentally, it's much more balanced) but 3e and PF aren't it.

[Max_Killjoy]

No. It isn't. Not at all. D&D is a game in which the rules form the user interface. That is all. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything else is your own personal preferences speaking. Classes, level, CR, spells, all of this is game, not simulation.


And even among those games, D&D is not what one could accurately call "simulationist". The focus of its rules and mechanics is not emulating the feel and depth of a world, and it creates no sense of verisimilitude. The fictional worlds that most D&D campaigns take place in cannot be reverse-extrapolated from the rules and mechanics of the game -- and the fictional world that can be reverse-extrapolated from the rules is nothing like the world most people imagine, but is instead something like the Tippyverse.

[Nifft]

She nerfed the rules by making magic more difficult to learn and master. That supports my assertion rather than disproving it. In other words, when magic is easy (few barriers to entry), you end up with the entire population learning it a la Netheril - which proves that magic is inherently superior. The only way you stop that from happening is by making it hard to learn, or require supreme faith or a bloodline etc.

This matters to the topic at hand because D&D is again, a simulation. Magic being inherently better is an integral part of that simulation. Inter-class balance is a nice goal but takes a backseat to that, and rightfully so. D&D is not a simulation.

Inter-class balance was intended, per everything that's actually been cited in this thread, even if it wasn't achieved.

The only think you're showing is that NPC spellcasters are intentionally less common than NPC non-casters -- and that was never in dispute, since it's irrelevant to the discussion about inter-class power.


Except we don't agree; I don't think the designers were making a statement about PC power at all. What they were doing was slapping together a quick-and-dirty surface-level guideline to help GMs who are then expected to engage their brain cells when designing encounters, rather than blindly trusting numbers. Much like CR is itself a guideline, and trusting IT blindly has negative results for the game.

They were making a statement about the relative power of classes, as applied to monsters.

This means they were not making statements about "PC power", but rather NPC power, specifically the relative power of NPCs with class levels.

Since we're discussing the relative power of different classes, statements about the relative power of different classes are quite relevant, even if they're not about the classes as applied to PCs.

Here's another useful quote, from the 3.5e PHB glossary:



level: a measure of advancement or power applied to several areas of the game. See caster level, character level, class level, and spell level.


I can't see anything about losing power if you choose a particular class.

It looks like the PHB writers had explicitly intended level to be a measure of power.

(They're wrong, of course, but this is not about their system mastery -- it's about their intent.)

[Morty]

D&D 3e certainly does try to be a simulation. It's just exceptionally bad at it, and later editions wisely drop the whole pretence. Likewise, I think it is pretty clear that the designers were invested in magic being superior... too bad the game skirts the topic and never outright admits that beyond a certain level, a non-spellcaster is a sidekick.

[PhoenixPhyre]

EDIT:


D&D 3e certainly does try to be a simulation.


Do you have designer or textual statements to that fact? If so, I'd love to see them. I hear this claim all the time, but have never seen evidence.


And even among those games, D&D is not what one could accurately call "simulationist". The focus of its rules and mechanics is not emulating the feel and depth of a world, and it creates no sense of verisimilitude. The fictional worlds that most D&D campaigns take place in cannot be reverse-extrapolated from the rules and mechanics of the game -- and the fictional world that can be reverse-extrapolated from the rules is nothing like the world most people imagine, but is instead something like the Tippyverse.

Right. And while the Tippyverse is a fun thought exercise, it'd be hard to game in.


Obviously it's a game. But it has simulationist aspects too. They have rules for walking cross-country and rearing animals. They have population statistics. They have rules for generating weather. If you want pure gamism, I suggest you give 4th edition a try (and incidentally, it's much more balanced) but 3e and PF aren't it.

There are rules for things, but that doesn't make them a simulation. It's saying--for action X, use rules {Y}. There is no indication that these are the laws of a universe--in fact the ability to homebrew things as well as use a variety of settings demands that you're not simulating anything concrete. Otherwise altering the rules would have far-reaching effects (most of them bad, if you like matter holding together and all). You have a set of rules that provide a user interface for a game, not a set of laws that describe reality.

<rant>
This idea of "rules as physics" is in my opinion a pernicious thing. It blinds us to wonder and promotes hyper-literal readings of text that was never designed for such. It cannot be true because the rules themselves are inconsistent and self-contradictory. That's fine as a game, just compartmentalize. It's not fine for a simulation. It also turns off new players tremendously because it requires a huge amount of meta-knowledge--knowledge about the implications of the rule system--to be able to use the rules. It also demands that DMs be constrained to a narrow vision of what's possible and what adventures can be done. I'd also be willing to bet that it was never intended as such by the creators, and when you go beyond the design parameters the situation becomes more precarious. Not saying the design was perfect (or even good in some cases), but when you wander off into uncharted territory and use that stick blender as an outboard motor...bad things can happen.
</rant>

[Max_Killjoy]

There are rules for things, but that doesn't make them a simulation. It's saying--for action X, use rules {Y}. There is no indication that these are the laws of a universe--in fact the ability to homebrew things as well as use a variety of settings demands that you're not simulating anything concrete. Otherwise altering the rules would have far-reaching effects (most of them bad, if you like matter holding together and all). You have a set of rules that provide a user interface for a game, not a set of laws that describe reality.


Right -- just because a game has rules for everything, doesn't tell us anything about how those rules were designed, or with what intent, or the degree of success in meeting that intent.




<rant>
This idea of "rules as physics" is in my opinion a pernicious thing. It blinds us to wonder and promotes hyper-literal readings of text that was never designed for such. It cannot be true because the rules themselves are inconsistent and self-contradictory. That's fine as a game, just compartmentalize. It's not fine for a simulation. It also turns off new players tremendously because it requires a huge amount of meta-knowledge--knowledge about the implications of the rule system--to be able to use the rules. It also demands that DMs be constrained to a narrow vision of what's possible and what adventures can be done. I'd also be willing to bet that it was never intended as such by the creators, and when you go beyond the design parameters the situation becomes more precarious. Not saying the design was perfect (or even good in some cases), but when you wander off into uncharted territory and use that stick blender as an outboard motor...bad things can happen.
</rant>


It also depends on what one means by "rules as physics".

If one means "the rules are the physics by which the world operates", then one had best do a far better job writing up the "physics" than D&D has ever done... or one is presenting a very bizarre world indeed.

If one means "the rules should do their best to represent the physics of the world, do their best to reflect the feel of the fictional world, and do the best they can at producing roughly the same results that we can expect within that world", then that's a different challenge, and one that I think we can be somewhat successful at.

[Quertus]

Here's another useful quote, from the 3.5e PHB glossary:



I can't see anything about losing power if you choose a particular class.

It looks like the PHB writers had explicitly intended level to be a measure of power.

(They're wrong, of course, but this is not about their system mastery -- it's about their intent.)

I hope you can see the flaw in this line of thought once it's pointed out to you: the level X Warrior was never intended to be equal to the level X Fighter, let alone the level X Commoner to the level X Wizard.

Further, I imagine you could apply the exact same text to earlier editions, where different classes used different XP tables, and we're supposed to advance at different rates.


<rant>
This idea of "rules as physics" is in my opinion a pernicious thing. It blinds us to wonder and promotes hyper-literal readings of text that was never designed for such. It cannot be true because the rules themselves are inconsistent and self-contradictory. That's fine as a game, just compartmentalize. It's not fine for a simulation. It also turns off new players tremendously because it requires a huge amount of meta-knowledge--knowledge about the implications of the rule system--to be able to use the rules. It also demands that DMs be constrained to a narrow vision of what's possible and what adventures can be done. I'd also be willing to bet that it was never intended as such by the creators, and when you go beyond the design parameters the situation becomes more precarious. Not saying the design was perfect (or even good in some cases), but when you wander off into uncharted territory and use that stick blender as an outboard motor...bad things can happen.
</rant>

Sorry, are you saying that simulation games are more difficult to play? If so, please explain how you reach this conclusion.

[Nifft]

I hope you can see the flaw in this line of thought once it's pointed out to you: the level X Warrior was never intended to be equal to the level X Fighter, let alone the level X Commoner to the level X Wizard. The Warrior class is not an option in the PHB.

The Warrior class is only relevant as an opponent played by the DM, and the DM uses CR (not level) -- and of course, when we look at the CR of a Warrior NPC, the Warrior NPC does indeed receive a lower CR than a Fighter NPC would.

So, the rules are clear that NPC classes are intended to be weaker than PC classes.

You need a better example, since this one does not support your claim.



Further, I imagine you could apply the exact same text to earlier editions, where different classes used different XP tables, and we're supposed to advance at different rates.

If those editions explicitly said such a thing, then your thought might be relevant.

Can you cite any previous edition saying this?

[Psyren]

And even among those games, D&D is not what one could accurately call "simulationist". The focus of its rules and mechanics is not emulating the feel and depth of a world, and it creates no sense of verisimilitude. The fictional worlds that most D&D campaigns take place in cannot be reverse-extrapolated from the rules and mechanics of the game -- and the fictional world that can be reverse-extrapolated from the rules is nothing like the world most people imagine, but is instead something like the Tippyverse.

So this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploration.htm) isn't simulating a world? Or this? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/wilderness.htm) Or this? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/weather.htm) Or this? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm)

Also, no, even the generic setting has some fictional assumptions. Stuff like "fiends and chromatic dragons are evil" or "the Astral Plane exists" or "Magic is usable on the Material Plane." A setting can change these constants, but does not have to establish them.



Inter-class balance was intended, per everything that's actually been cited in this thread, even if it wasn't achieved.

Your sole citation was a brief guideline for customizing monsters by adding class levels to them. It's neither persuasive nor representative of the game as a whole, and certainly not of player-controlled characters going through campaigns specifically. Treating it as gospel is not helpful.



Here's another useful quote, from the 3.5e PHB glossary:



I can't see anything about losing power if you choose a particular class.

It looks like the PHB writers had explicitly intended level to be a measure of power.

(They're wrong, of course, but this is not about their system mastery -- it's about their intent.)

Level as a measurement of power isn't the issue; obviously it is meant to be. Your issue is expecting Class A with level X to = Class B with level X, regardless of all other factors. But the DMG never said that; what it says instead is that a party of adventurers of level X with WBL X can handle a challenge of CR X. That's it, nothing more and nothing less.

[Lord Raziere]

well here is the fundamental disconnect I see with DnD and the people who play it thinking that this was all intentionally designed as rules as physics:

say I made a low fantasy rpg about knights doing knightly things. y'know courtship, slaying monsters, finding squires all that sort of thing. but lets say, somehow a write up of swords somehow makes them explode like dynamite, allowing them to be used as grenades. and that no where in the fluff, no the setting or ANYTHING says that swords explode in setting. and that I keep writing the fluff assuming normal knight setting. but the mechanics still make it so that you can throw swords like dynamite.

now one type of gamer will look at the dynamite sword and go "well that ain't right, what where the designers thinking?" and correct or ignore that for swords that are normal swords so they can play the game. makes sense right?

only there is apparently this type of rules as physics gamer will extrapolate from the mechanics that dynamite swords change warfare drastically by the knights constantly throwing them as explosives instead of using them as swords. This is not modeling a game of knights doing knightly things at all. It has suddenly turned into this weird world where you throw sword-bombs at people and while thats slightly interesting, its also very silly and not what the game is designed for and gets in the way of playing it as intended.

Except the disconnect comes in when this type of rules-as-physics gamer concludes that since the mechanics says this and the fluff says absolutely nothing about exploding swords, that the mechanics must somehow be right and exploding swords must be the intended design and exploding sword-world the intended setting. and then argues against the fluff and the archetypes written in there and ignores the flavor of the classes for the sake of throwing sword-bombs. The idea that maybe it was badly designed and somehow someone missed this detail that screws everything up....somehow never occurs to them, and somehow bomb-sword world is somehow better than the intended setting just because they came up with it. Worse the designer says nothing about this and never corrects this.

this is DnD 3.5 on a massive scale. at least to me.

[Nifft]

Your sole citation was a brief guideline for customizing monsters by adding class levels to them. It's neither persuasive nor representative of the game as a whole, and certainly not of player-controlled characters going through campaigns specifically. Treating it as gospel is not helpful.

I've given you three citations so far, including one which you thought supported your position (but which in fact contradicted you).

My position is supported by the text.

Your position is not supported by anything.

One piece of concrete evidence would have been sufficient to destroy your unsupported assertions -- the fact that I have provided two is pure luxury.


Level as a measurement of power isn't the issue; obviously it is meant to be. Your issue is expecting Class A with level X to = Class B with level X, regardless of all other factors. But the DMG never said that; what it says instead is that a party of adventurers of level X with WBL X can handle a challenge of CR X. That's it, nothing more and nothing less.

Indeed, that's quite accurate.

Did you perhaps notice how the party of adventurers are PCs with arbitrary classes?

The only way your underlined text could possibly be true is if the class didn't matter, because the designers intended all classes to be roughly equal in power at any given level.

Which they did.

[Koo Rehtorb]

If one means "the rules are the physics by which the world operates", then one had best do a far better job writing up the "physics" than D&D has ever done... or one is presenting a very bizarre world indeed.

That doesn't make D&D not a simulation. That makes it a bad simulation.

[Psyren]

One piece of concrete evidence would have been sufficient to destroy your unsupported assertions -- the fact that I have provided two is pure luxury.

If you're so confident in your position, surely you won't mind repeating it? The "Monsters with Class Levels" one doesn't hold water, but we'll put that aside for now, what else do you have?


Indeed, that's quite accurate.

Did you perhaps notice how the party of adventurers are PCs with arbitrary classes?

The only way your underlined text could possibly be true is if the class didn't matter, because the designers intended all classes to be roughly equal in power at any given level.

Which they did.

Does not follow: Character A and Character B can both do static task X does not mean A=B. Your logic is like saying "Superman and Spiderman can both lift up a car, therefore Spiderman is as strong as Superman." They're certainly both strong, and they're certainly both capable of dealing with problems normal humans can't handle, but that doesn't make them remotely equals.

[Max_Killjoy]

That doesn't make D&D not a simulation. That makes it a bad simulation.

I still would say it's gamist to the core, and that someone trying to treat it like a simulation is what ends with reverse-extrapolating to the Tippyverse or the like.

[Max_Killjoy]

So this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploration.htm) isn't simulating a world? Or this? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/wilderness.htm) Or this? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/weather.htm) Or this? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm)


Nope, not necessarily.

CCGs and similar games often have "damage types" or "energy types" or whatever, with similar labels like "cold" and fire" applied, and I don't think anyone would claim that those games are anything put purely "gamist".

As I said before -- just because a game has rules for everything, doesn't tell us anything about how those rules were designed, or with what intent they were designed, or the degree of success in meeting that intent.

Having rules that say "this happens in darkness" or "this happens when it rains" doesn't make the rules of a game "simulationist", the idea of "variable conditions" can easily be part of a gamist ruleset. And it also doesn't tell us whether rules that might have been intended to be a simulation, succeed at being a good simulation.


(For those who might wonder, I'm just using "gamist" and "simulationist" as shorthand for "this is a game, rules define the world, trust the rules and not your eyes" vs "this is characters interacting with a fictional world, rules attempt to map/model the world, the world always trumps the rules" respectively... and not at all pushing the Edwardian false trichotomy.)

[Nifft]

If you're so confident in your position, surely you won't mind repeating it? The "Monsters with Class Levels" one doesn't hold water, but we'll put that aside for now, what else do you have?
It actually does hold water. Unless you can find something to refute it other than your personal distaste?

In the form of a rules book citation or a public statement from a developer, to be specific.

Finally, you can find all my posts about this topic in this thread.


Does not follow: Character A and Character B can both do static task X does not mean A=B. Your logic is like saying "Superman and Spiderman can both lift up a car, therefore Spiderman is as strong as Superman." They're certainly both strong, and they're certainly both capable of dealing with problems normal humans can't handle, but that doesn't make them remotely equals.
Nobody said A = B, so that's either a strawman or just an honest mistake on your part.

Roughly equal in power is what I actually said, and the context for that is while overcoming level-appropriate challenges.

In your new example, if the level-appropriate challenge is lifting a car, then both Spiderman and Superman would be adequate to overcome that challenge. Functionally, they are both appropriate.

But of course they're not ~equal~.

Spiderman can quip.

[kyoryu]

I still would say it's gamist to the core, and that someone trying to treat it like a simulation is what ends with reverse-extrapolating to the Tippyverse or the like.

The original versions of D&D were incredibly "gamist" in nature (I loathe GNS). Making things play well was the only real goal - any kind of "simulation" was secondary, at best.

It can be argued that later editions of D&D tried to make the game more realistic/"simulationist," but many of the core assumptions still boil down to a gameply concern over anything else.

Class balance in the original editions was.... viewed differently. There wasn't an intention that a class level x was equal to the same class at level x. There were other factors in play - fragility of characters, time to level, etc. This worked in the open-table, megadungeon-centric games that Gygax ran, but may not work nearly as well in more common game structures nowadays. A lot of old-school play boiled down to "make the best of what you have" as well, as opposed to "make a good build".

[Psyren]

I still would say it's gamist to the core, and that someone trying to treat it like a simulation is what ends with reverse-extrapolating to the Tippyverse or the like.

It has all kinds of rules that exist for no purpose beyond world-building. Consider the DMG population tables, or random encounter tables. Or heck, the entire "World-Building" section in the DMG. The point of constructs like these is to simulate a living, breathing world.


It actually does hold water. Unless you can find something to refute it other than your personal distaste?

In the form of a rules book citation or a public statement from a developer, to be specific.

Already did that - Wizard 20 with nothing but Read Magic is still CR 20. The book citation for that was provided by none other than yourself.



Finally, you can find all my posts about this topic in this thread.

So you don't believe they hold up then?



Nobody said A = B, so that's either a strawman or just an honest mistake on your part.

Roughly equal in power is what I actually said, and the context for that is while overcoming level-appropriate challenges.

"A roughly equals B" doesn't follow either. All you can tell is that A (Superman) is at least as strong as B (Spiderman). It tells you nothing about their upper limits.

Similarly, Fighter 20 and Wizard 20 can both beat a Dragon, which says nothing about their power relative to each other.



In your new example, if the level-appropriate challenge is lifting a car, then both Spiderman and Superman would be adequate to overcome that challenge. Functionally, they are both appropriate.

But of course they're not ~equal~.

Spiderman can quip.

Well, we agree on that much.

[Talakeal]

I think the OP touches on (atleast) three very separate issues.

First, the value of specialization. How much power should a character give up for versatility? Where is the proper balance point? Should characters be allowed to be so specialized that they trivialize the game when their area of expertise comes up but stand around like dead weight the rest of the time?

Second, and this is more a problem with class systems in general rather than tiers, is that classes encompass (atleast) six separate aspects:

A: Power
B: Versatility
C: Narrative Fantasy (eg knight in shining armor, mystical wizard, barbarian swordsman, dashing scoundrel, etc.)
D: Playstyle (vancian casting, spell point casting, refresh on abilities, abilities at will, random abilities, etc.)
E: Combat Role (striker, defender, healer, buffers, crowd control, hybrid, etc.)
F: Out of Combat Role (party face, scout, academic, craftsman, survivalist, etc.)

All of these aspects are tied into class. The problem is that players who want to do one might not like the others. I know there is no class in any edition of D&D that hits all of the right spots for me. IMO one should do their best to make these things as equal and modular as possible to appeal to the widest variety of players. This would, of course, be easier if we were able to ditch classes entirely and switch to priority character creation or full on point by, but D&D without classes is a bit further than most anyone (myself included) is willing to go.


Third, it assumes that difficulty works on a per player basis. If the whole group wants a harder campaign, just tell the DM to through over CRed monsters at them (and vice versa), there is no reason to design class balance around that difficulty. If each player wants a different difficulty, well then you run into a couple problems. Some people resent being carried, some people resent having to carry dead weight, some people like a challenge, some people like to steamrole things, some people are good at the game, some people are bad.
You have to make sure everyone in the group fits into all of the right boxes for the class they want to play and the game that the rest of the group (including the DM) wants to play, which is unlikely to ever happen in the real world, especially when these choices are also tied into a class which determines all of the gameplay and narrative factors discussed in point two.






On the topic of narratives being able to work better with power differentials than RPGs:

While it is true that they are a different medium and author FIAT / plot induced stupidity are harder to come by, let's not forget that all RPGs have gamist and narrativist / dramatist elements. If you are player a simulation light game it is easy to make the rules such that they can give lower powered characters an advantage.
Even simulationist games tend to have highly abstract combat systems that allow for disparate power levels to have minor effects on the game rules. Examples would be D&D HP representing skill at avoiding injury as much as ability to withstand injury or Super Hero games where increasing lifting capacity by an order of magnitude only provides a +1 bonus to damage.
On the other hand, if you are playing a hardcore simulationist game with no room for any of that sort of meta-game balancing, then I expect a lot more explanation of the power disparity. You need consistent powers, you can't have a guy who is normally shown to be hurt by grenades suddenly survive a nuke because it is so BADASS, you have to keep a constant power level. Likewise the powers need to be well explained, and clearly defined limits and costs, and the consequences need to be thought out. Why doesn't Superman break the world when he walks? How does he violate basic laws of physics like relativity and conservation of energy?
I mean, I don't want to go all "but dragons!" fallacy, but seriously, if Superman can output more energy than the sun in one punch (to say nothing of not destroying the world in the process) than is it any more ridiculous to say that Batman is so skilled at combat that he can avoid said punch?



@Quertus: You really have a set of under ten house rules that can keep 3.X D&D from being broken at epic levels? I would legitimately love to see those.

[Nifft]

Already did that - Wizard 20 with nothing but Read Magic is still CR 20. The book citation for that was provided by none other than yourself. ... as was the debunking of your misinterpretation.

Remember how a deliberately-stupid Fighter 20 is exactly as useless to a deliberately-stupid Wizard 20?

Well, that would be the counter-argument.

Again.


So you don't believe they hold up then? Ah, I see.

You are unable to cite anything in support of your position, therefore you don't believe your position holds up at all.

Is that accurate? If not, please justify why you hold yourself to a lower standard.


"A roughly equals B" doesn't follow either. All you can tell is that A (Superman) is at least as strong as B (Spiderman). It tells you nothing about their upper limits.

Similarly, Fighter 20 and Wizard 20 can both beat a Dragon, which says nothing about their power relative to each other.

Again, you're getting confused between the intention of the writers vs. the reality of the system.

The intention of the writers -- as demonstrated by citations & arguments -- is that classes are roughly equal in power at any given level.

The reality of the system -- to which you keep referring as though it were a counter-argument -- is that classes are NOT equal in power, especially not towards the higher levels.


When the writers say, "A party of any 4 characters of level 6 should be able overcome this challenge", they are explicitly telling you that classes shouldn't matter in terms of the power to overcome challenges.

They're wrong, of course. But that's what they are saying.

[Psyren]

... as was the debunking of your misinterpretation.

Remember how a deliberately-stupid Fighter 20 is exactly as useless to a deliberately-stupid Wizard 20?

Well, that would be the counter-argument.

Again.

That counter ignores the underlying point, that blind adherence to CR numbers is silly. They are not gospel.



Ah, I see.

You are unable to cite anything in support of your position, therefore you don't believe your position holds up at all.

Is that accurate? If not, please justify why you hold yourself to a lower standard.

Cited, see above.


Again, you're getting confused between the intention of the writers vs. the reality of the system.

The intention of the writers -- as demonstrated by citations & arguments -- is that classes are roughly equal in power at any given level.

The reality of the system -- to which you keep referring as though it were a counter-argument -- is that classes are NOT equal in power, especially not towards the higher levels.

I'm saying they couldn't have possibly intended that when every other aspect of the system they designed - from the spells themselves to the exclusivity of magic - proves that they never intended equality to begin with. There's a whole chapter full of powerful abilities that martials don't get to use, and you somehow think they meant for your pointy stick muggle man to be equal to the ones that do? :smallconfused:



When the writers say, "A party of any 4 characters of level 6 should be able overcome this challenge", they are explicitly telling you that classes shouldn't matter in terms of the power to overcome challenges.

They're wrong, of course. But that's what they are saying.

But they're not wrong, because WBL exists. Four Fighter X might have a harder time with CR X, but they can do it. That's all that matters. It's binary, yes or no, and the answer is yes.

[Cluedrew]

But of course [Superman and Spiderman are] not ~equal~.

Spiderman can quip.This is the best thing to come out of this thread in about 2 pages.

[Nifft]

That counter ignores the underlying point, that blind adherence to CR numbers is silly. They are not gospel.
Nobody is adhering to the CR guidelines, and certainly nobody is doing so blindly.

We're using the text to demonstrate the writer's intent.

Which we have done.


Cited, see above.

See what above? You've never cited anything. You listed some pages in books, but when two people checked, both found you were wrong about the contents.

Was that what you'd wanted to show me?


I'm saying they couldn't have possibly intended that when every other aspect of the system they designed - from the spells themselves to the exclusivity of magic - proves that they never intended equality to begin with. There's a whole chapter full of powerful abilities that martials don't get to use, and you somehow think they meant for your pointy stick muggle man to be equal to the ones that do? :smallconfused:
Again, you're getting confused between the intention of the writers vs. the reality of the system.

The intention of the writers -- as demonstrated by citations & arguments -- is that classes are roughly equal in power at any given level.

The reality of the system -- to which you keep referring as though it were a counter-argument -- is that classes are NOT equal in power, especially not towards the higher levels.


But they're not wrong, because WBL exists. Four Fighter X might have a harder time with CR X, but they can do it. That's all that matters. It's binary, yes or no, and the answer is yes.

... and you're now arguing that characters of equal level are roughly equal in power.

And simultaneously, that spellcasters are more powerful.

Wow, that's just... wow.

[Max_Killjoy]

The original versions of D&D were incredibly "gamist" in nature (I loathe GNS). Making things play well was the only real goal - any kind of "simulation" was secondary, at best.

It can be argued that later editions of D&D tried to make the game more realistic/"simulationist," but many of the core assumptions still boil down to a gameply concern over anything else.


I'm not exactly a fan of GNS either, but I don't know what else besides "gamist" to use as shorthand for a game system or design intent that boils down to "This is a game -- the rules are what matter, winning is what matters", and where a very common standard of character design is extracting the greatest mechanical advantage possible, all else be damned, with players considering a smart fighter or a contemplative thief "suboptimal".




Class balance in the original editions was.... viewed differently. There wasn't an intention that a class level x was equal to the same class at level x. There were other factors in play - fragility of characters, time to level, etc. This worked in the open-table, megadungeon-centric games that Gygax ran, but may not work nearly as well in more common game structures nowadays. A lot of old-school play boiled down to "make the best of what you have" as well, as opposed to "make a good build".


I get the impression from what I recall of the oldest D&D editions that classes were more meant to fulfill different and complementary "tactical" roles on the same team, and balance was just a rough "every team needs a mix of these guys, so they're all making trade-offs".

[Psyren]

Nobody is adhering to the CR guidelines, and certainly nobody is doing so blindly.

We're using the text to demonstrate the writer's intent.

Which we have done.



See what above? You've never cited anything. You listed some pages in books, but when two people checked, both found you were wrong about the contents.

Was that what you'd wanted to show me?

You're using a very brief guideline aimed at GMs to try and customize their monsters, and trying to apply it to the much more involved metagame that is character creation as a whole. No, doesn't fly.



Again, you're getting confused between the intention of the writers vs. the reality of the system.

The intention of the writers -- as demonstrated by citations & arguments -- is that classes are roughly equal in power at any given level.

The reality of the system -- to which you keep referring as though it were a counter-argument -- is that classes are NOT equal in power, especially not towards the higher levels.

Again, a brief guideline over here cannot be used to demonstrate intent everywhere else.


... and you're now arguing that characters of equal level are roughly equal in power.

And simultaneously, that spellcasters are more powerful.

Wow, that's just... wow.


The one confused here is you.

"Superman and Spiderman can both lift that boulder" = my position, and right.

"Superman and Spiderman are roughly equal in power" = your position, and wrong.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Psyren, you have yet to defend any of your claims with actual evidence. I think the balance of proof is not in your favor here.

On a general note, I believe that the designers "balanced" the system under the (false) assumption that people would generally run the following archetypes:

Meat-shield
Skill-monkey
Blaster magic user
Healer/buffer

Under this assumption, most of the imbalance goes away (as I understand things). Note that none of these are T1 characters. I accept it's a bad assumption, but I wouldn't be shocked if that were the initial assumption. Then they compounded the mistake by adding more and more cruft to the top. Spells are easy to make. Balanced, believable non-magical "superpowers" are harder. Ease won out, and here we are.

[Morty]

The original designers of 3rd edition D&D thought Evocation was a strong spell school. Or that half-orcs' strength bonus was good enough not to give them any actual racial benefits. Or that bonus feats are an adequate class feature. Or that two-weapon fighting is worth sinking several feats into. Their insight into their own game's balance was clearly not very sharp.

Still, I believe that the spell-casting dominance of D&D is at least somewhat intentional. Of course, I don't consider it a good thing. Nor do I think that the game does any sort of adequate job getting it across. If it was honest about the vast gulf between different kinds of characters, I'd consider it differently. Again, the designers' clear blunders in balancing the game make it difficult to judge how much of it was intentional, to preserve wizards' sense of superiority.

[Talakeal]

I think one good indication of designer intent is that as the game goes along (and the author's have a better grasp of the system they have created) you get a lot less tier 1-2 or tier 5-6 character classes being introduced. This applies to both martial classes (such as those in the ToB) and the caster's (see limited school casters like Dread Necromancer or Beguiler)

IMO tier three classes map better to the CR guidelines listed in the DMG and MM.

This is enough evidence to me that there was a tier 3 balancing point they were aiming for with all classes, but didn't really know what they were doing for quite a while.

But this is just my opinion, I don't think we are going to get "proof" one way or the other.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think one good indication of designer intent is that as the game goes along (and the author's have a better grasp of the system they have created) you get a lot less tier 1-2 or tier 5-6 character classes being introduced. This applies to both martial classes (such as those in the ToB) and the caster's (see limited school casters like Dread Necromancer or Beguiler)

IMO tier three classes map better to the CR guidelines listed in the DMG and MM.

This is enough evidence to me that there was a tier 3 balancing point they were aiming for with all classes, but didn't really know what they were doing for quite a while.

But this is just my opinion, I don't think we are going to get "proof" one way or the other.

I agree with you. Note that in 5e (which has much better inter-class balance by most accounts) the classes (and their subclasses) are mostly in the T3-ish range. That, plus the matching with the CR guidelines, etc, makes me suspect that T3 is the design point. Early stuff was just bad (in both directions). As was some of the later "hurry it up out the door" splat stuff.

[Quertus]

So, apparently, Superman is a bad example to use, because different versions of him are very different, and among his super powers are the ability to ignore the action economy, invent new super powers, and supposedly get threads closed. :smalleek:

So, instead, let me describe a team up of Spider-Man and Average Joe.

Bad things happen, and they have to deal with Doc Oc. Spidey can go toe to toe with Doc Oc. Joe could run in there, and hope to get lucky with his pocket knife. Heck, Doc's just a regular guy - realistically, Joe could do some serious damage or even kill Doc with a single hit. Since we're playing a game, Doc probably has the Hit Points / Plot Armor / whatever to say that that just isn't going to happen. So, in a direct confrontation, Joe is left floundering for minimal effect. A normal opponent might actually have to consider whether Joe is worth his time to attack, but with Doc's 4 extra arms, it's highly likely that Joe is toast, unless he also benefits from Doc's and Spidey's HP / narrative defense / whatever.

So Joe needs to try a different approach while Doc is hopefully occupied with Spider-Man. Now, this being a game cuts both ways, and Joe might not fear legal repercussions from certain vigilante acts. So, if their fight lasts long enough (most Spider-Man fights do), and they stay still (most Spider-Man fights don't), Joe might try something like getting on top a nearby building, and dumping bricks on Doc's head, driving a car at Doc (which, this being a game, the rules may make that action much more successful than it really ought to be, IMO), or even get a rifle and shoot at Doc from far away.

Yes, Joe's player has to work much harder than Spider-Man's player to contribute to combat, but, depending on reality / the system, it could still be possible.

But combat isn't the only possible contribution in a game. Joe might just grab a megaphone, and start working the crowd against Doc and / or for Spider-Man, with possible outcomes including but not limited to
Distracting Doc
Giving Doc a morale penalty
Giving Spidey a morale bonus
Getting the crowd to help in some way
Improving Spidey's reputation (SM cares about that kind of thing, and maybe the system and/or the game does, too)
Or even getting Doc to change tactics, flee, surrender, or even change sides.

And then there's the actions that anyone could do, like turning the lights on/off, or picking up the dropped McGuffin, that Average Joe is much more likely to perform, as he's not occupied fighting Doc.

Personally, I can enjoy the challenge of playing someone like Average Joe in a group with Spider-Man. It lets me explore my options a lot more than if I just have "Win Button" written on my character sheet.

And I can also enjoy playing Spider-Man, and watching the cool things someone else comes up with when they decide that they want the challenge of playing Average Joe.

But, no, I absolutely don't want someone thinking they're on par with Spider-Man when they're actually playing Average Joe.


A lot of old-school play boiled down to "make the best of what you have" as well, as opposed to "make a good build".

I personally think that portion of the old-school mindset was far superior / far more fun than modern optimization.

Magic the Gathering (MTG) is great for the sheer variety of different decks one can build. IIRC, the game was made by someone who loved the sheer variety present in Cosmic Encounters, and it shows.

But, I remember a story of someone sitting down to a team game with this cool deck that they had built, and getting chewed out, because there was only one optimal way to play that format, and the expectation was that he bring exactly that one deck to the game.

Me, I've won more than my fair share of tournaments, but I rarely bring something competitive. I'm usually just there to play for fun, trying out some hair brained scheme against decent competition. As long as I win at least a single round in one of my matches, I'm happy. I cut it really close once, getting swept in all but one match, where I lost 1-2, but the deck was a lot of fun, and the looks on people's faces when the previous tournament winner brought that was priceless.


I think the OP touches on (atleast) three very separate issues.

Very insightful. And I think "at least" is right.


First, the value of specialization. How much power should a character give up for versatility? Where is the proper balance point? Should characters be allowed to be so specialized that they trivialize the game when their area of expertise comes up but stand around like dead weight the rest of the time?

Bingo! Although I prefer to stand it on its head, putting the focus on versatility, and asking how much power should one get for giving up versatility. And answering, "not much". But that's largely just my bias for personally hating games that basically amount to all but one player standing around twiddling their thumbs while the one specialist does his thing, repeat.

And, no, that's not contradictory with my stance on Spider-Man and Average Joe. Average Joe is actually generally much more engaged in the game than Spider-Man, for one. For another, Average Joe actually has the not unreasonable expectation of contributing, at least most of the time.


Second, and this is more a problem with class systems in general rather than tiers, is that classes encompass (atleast) six separate aspects:

A: Power
B: Versatility
C: Narrative Fantasy (eg knight in shining armor, mystical wizard, barbarian swordsman, dashing scoundrel, etc.)
D: Playstyle (vancian casting, spell point casting, refresh on abilities, abilities at will, random abilities, etc.)
E: Combat Role (striker, defender, healer, buffers, crowd control, hybrid, etc.)
F: Out of Combat Role (party face, scout, academic, craftsman, survivalist, etc.)

All of these aspects are tied into class. The problem is that players who want to do one might not like the others. I know there is no class in any edition of D&D that hits all of the right spots for me. IMO one should do their best to make these things as equal and modular as possible to appeal to the widest variety of players. This would, of course, be easier if we were able to ditch classes entirely and switch to priority character creation or full on point by, but D&D without classes is a bit further than most anyone (myself included) is willing to go.

Have you ever had a DM who would craft custom classes? It sounds like this would be the optimal solution to this problem.

Another, of course, would be to divorce D&D from the monolithic class, and make classes selectable now piecemeal. I've suggested in other threads the idea of making all classes "Gestalt", with one half allowing you to pick your combat role, and the other half allowing you to select your non-combat role; a variation on that, with more granularity could help with this, I feel.


Third, it assumes that difficulty works on a per player basis. If the whole group wants a harder campaign, just tell the DM to through over CRed monsters at them (and vice versa), there is no reason to design class balance around that difficulty. If each player wants a different difficulty, well then you run into a couple problems. Some people resent being carried, some people resent having to carry dead weight, some people like a challenge, some people like to steamrole things, some people are good at the game, some people are bad.
You have to make sure everyone in the group fits into all of the right boxes for the class they want to play and the game that the rest of the group (including the DM) wants to play, which is unlikely to ever happen in the real world, especially when these choices are also tied into a class which determines all of the gameplay and narrative factors discussed in point two.

Um, I suppose I prefer the word "asserts", or better yet, "takes as a given" over "assumes", as I'm speaking from a lot of experience playing in such games. Perhaps replace "works" with "can work", if that makes you feel better.

People who resent being carried should not play Hard Mode. People who will just be dead weight should not play Hard Mode. There are reasons to suggest someone bring a new character - these are two good ones, IMO.

Now, this does require, as I've stated before, that all archetypes are covered in the expected tier 1, and that Hard Mode only contains nerfed variants (Warrior for Fighter, for example). So that someone who has their heart set on a particular character / backstory / personality / whatever can simply upgrade from Hard Mode to Tier 1 if issues arise.

However, the rest of these issues about player / character / group compatibility with 6+ different attributes bound into one class - yikes!


Examples would be D&D HP representing skill at avoiding injury as much as ability to withstand injury or Super Hero games where increasing lifting capacity by an order of magnitude only provides a +1 bonus to damage.


One of these days, I want to see truly simulated damage, where hundreds of people (and gorillas, elephants, etc) were measured for lifting capacity, force of impact with various weapons, and number of hits required to destroy various objects using said weapons, to accurately model lift / carry / damage rules.


@Quertus: You really have a set of under ten house rules that can keep 3.X D&D from being broken at epic levels? I would legitimately love to see those.

Rule #1 - don't be a ****. Very hard for me to follow that rule. But we only needed a few rules after that one. :smallwink:


I'm not exactly a fan of GNS either, but I don't know what else besides "gamist" to use as shorthand for a game system or design intent that boils down to "This is a game -- the rules are what matter, winning is what matters", and where a very common standard of character design is extracting the greatest mechanical advantage possible, all else be damned, with players considering a smart fighter or a contemplative thief "suboptimal".

How about, "the rules are what matters, having fun is what matters"?


I get the impression from what I recall of the oldest D&D editions that classes were more meant to fulfill different and complementary "tactical" roles on the same team, and balance was just a rough "every team needs a mix of these guys, so they're all making trade-offs".

People don't seem to like that idea any more.


Again, the designers' clear blunders in balancing the game make it difficult to judge how much of it was intentional, to preserve wizards' sense of superiority.

Preserve wizards' sense of superiority?!

Ok, look, the classic wizard got a bathrobe, a stick, the ability to once per day maybe actually contribute, and the hope that someday all this throwing himself into almost certain death would pay off, and he'd stumble upon other scraps of arcane knowledge, so that he could contribute with better spells.

The fighter, meanwhile, got a slew of weapons, the strength to carry a literal toolkit of options, and the armor, Hit Points, and Saving Throws to expect to come home alive after contributing the lion's share to the expedition. And, as most of the random tables were skewed hard in his favor, come home with the lion's share of the loot.

There was no sense of "wizard superiority" to preserve. :smalltongue:

[woweedd]

[snip]
I'd like to point out that, for this to work, your hypothetical game would have to have a variety of possible conflict resolution mechanisms. That way, you don't leave anyone feeling left out because the game focuses on something their character can't do. As stated earlier, you'd want a game that could, to use an earlier example, do both teen drama AND basketball matches and, preferably, give even team members a way of contributing to either, even if they're geared more one way then the other. You don't want any party member to be completely useless. That said, you also don't want to go all "This Looks Like A Job For Aquaman." on them, either. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman) If you find you have to stretch to make a certain party member useful, then you probably want to make sure that there's some other way to both keep them engaged and their fellow players not pissed off at the useless load. If necessary, you might want to go over their character concept again and have them progress towards being more overall useful via, say, wise investment of SKill Points. This is why having people discuss thier character concepts ahead of time is so useful. Point here is, some people can enjoy being less powerful then other people but no one likes being redundant or useless.

[goto124]

Why didn't you add a TVtropes warning? I'm going to waste the next 4 hours of my life now!

Also, put the long quote in a spoiler.

Speaking of which, is DnD good - or rather, okay enough - for playing a high-level party with no magic? How selective do you have to get with the monsters? Does the party get trashed without spells, or is the issue with magic users largely that a Wizard will overshadow a Fighter in the same party?

[woweedd]

Why didn't you add a TVtropes warning? I'm going to waste the next 4 hours of my life now!

Also, put the long quote in a spoiler.

I sniped it.

[BayardSPSR]

I get the impression from what I recall of the oldest D&D editions that classes were more meant to fulfill different and complementary "tactical" roles on the same team, and balance was just a rough "every team needs a mix of these guys, so they're all making trade-offs".

This matches my impressions. The old-school stuff I've been exposed to is so different from the D&D3+ stuff I've been exposed to that I have a hard time seeing how the game got from one to the other.


The original designers of 3rd edition D&D thought Evocation was a strong spell school. Or that half-orcs' strength bonus was good enough not to give them any actual racial benefits. Or that bonus feats are an adequate class feature. Or that two-weapon fighting is worth sinking several feats into. Their insight into their own game's balance was clearly not very sharp.

To be fair to the designers, how long did they spend developing it, and how long after release did it take for the problems to show up? Especially since, assuming we're right about their intentions re: balance, it's taken about 17 years for them to get where they wanted to be. This isn't rhetorical; I wasn't involved in any RPG community in the early aughts, so I have no idea.

[Anonymouswizard]

On the subject of Magic (the Gathering, not the broken have element), outside of friendly have the are really three ways to play:
-Standard: bring a pre built deck and sideboard with you. Here you generally pre plan, look at the metagame, and try to build a deck that fits with your playstyle and gives you the best chance of winning. (I'm ignoring restrictions on what cars are asked here)
-Sealed: get five boosters (I remember when it was three boosters and a big pack of about 75 cards and lands, was that just where I was?), use these and additional land to build a deck. You got squat? Well you still have to make do with what you've been given, and everyone's likely not got anything brilliant.
-Draft: good old fashioned open your first booster, pick one card to keep, and pass the rest on, repeat with the cards you've been passed. Do this with two more boosters, and then build a deck from your chosen cards and extra lands. Here you have to decide your deck strategy during the first booster, and act on little information.

Note that these all have a different metagame. You'll almost never see a successful monocolour draft deck, because it's really unlikely you'll get passed enough good cards of one colour. Since cards that are great in Standard might not be worth a second pick in a draft, I've seen rares go all around the table because nobody wants them in their device and nobody is rare drafting.

Most of my experience is with drafts, where I've gone from 'worthless' to 'potentially competitive'. I enjoy the having to operate on limited knowledge in the dressing stages, maybe green will have really good cards in round 2 but I've seen three boosters and all it has is a shiny forest and two copies of Grizzly Bears, might be safer to draft black which I've nabbed some decent removal from.

[Quertus]

I'd like to point out that, for this to work, your hypothetical game would have to have a variety of possible conflict resolution mechanisms. That way, you don't leave anyone feeling left out because the game focuses on something their character can't do. As stated earlier, you'd want a game that could, to use an earlier example, do both teen drama AND basketball matches and, preferably, give even team members a way of contributing to either, even if they're geared more one way then the other. You don't want any party member to be completely useless. That said, you also don't want to go all "This Looks Like A Job For Aquaman." on them, either. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman) If you find you have to stretch to make a certain party member useful, then you probably want to make sure that there's some other way to both keep them engaged and their fellow players not pissed off at the useless load. If necessary, you might want to go over their character concept again and have them progress towards being more overall useful via, say, wise investment of SKill Points. This is why having people discuss thier character concepts ahead of time is so useful. Point here is, some people can enjoy being less powerful then other people but no one likes being redundant or useless.


Also, put the long quote in a spoiler.


I sniped it.

Yeah, but now I'm not sure what you're quoting...

IMO, the best system in which to run a game to do both teen drama and tactical basketball combat is one that has rules for tactical basketball combat, and only has rules for tactical basketball combat. Because I've never encountered a system better than "just roleplay" for handling the social side of things. But that's a topic for another thread (or twenty).

Now, if you're referencing Average Joe with a megaphone, you either need a) a system with mechanics built in for morale / reputation, or b) a system where the GM is expected to ad-lib situational modifiers in order for this to be a useful contribution. Personally, I think "A" is preferable in this case.

And, no, you never want to contrive the game to stretch to make a character useful, IMO. Either the player can make the character useful, or everyone enjoys the character not being useful, or the player needs to pick a different character. Now, personally, as you may be able to guess from my MTG (MtG?) example, I'm opposed to an "optimize or GTFO" mentality even in a competitive environment, and even more so in a team play environment like an RPG. So, if I were the kicking sort of GM, I'd be more likely to kick a player who complained that someone wasn't carrying their weight than someone who wasn't optimized to the party's level. Because, IME, that mindset is much more likely to be poisonous to the environment.

Did I just contradict myself? Yes, yes I did. Because I can't find a way to express exactly what I mean without using a while lot more words, and I'm not sure my response is on topic enough to be worth that many words. :smallwink:


Speaking of which, is DnD good - or rather, okay enough - for playing a high-level party with no magic? How selective do you have to get with the monsters? Does the party get trashed without spells, or is the issue with magic users largely that a Wizard will overshadow a Fighter in the same party?

Depends on what you mean by that.

3e falls apart if you don't have appropriate magical items around level 3, starting with the Shadow.

The best epic game I was in demonstrated that a well built, well buffed party of muggles could handle any challenge you threw at them, with the casters only providing logistics and toolkit services: Plane Shift, Glitterdust on invisible foes, Cleric to remove those annoying status effects like poisoned, paralyzed, or dead.


On the subject of Magic (the Gathering, not the broken have element), outside of friendly have the are really three ways to play:
-Standard: bring a pre built deck and sideboard with you. Here you generally pre plan, look at the metagame, and try to build a deck that fits with your playstyle and gives you the best chance of winning. (I'm ignoring restrictions on what cars are asked here)
-Sealed: get five boosters (I remember when it was three boosters and a big pack of about 75 cards and lands, was that just where I was?), use these and additional land to build a deck. You got squat? Well you still have to make do with what you've been given, and everyone's likely not got anything brilliant.
-Draft: good old fashioned open your first booster, pick one card to keep, and pass the rest on, repeat with the cards you've been passed. Do this with two more boosters, and then build a deck from your chosen cards and extra lands. Here you have to decide your deck strategy during the first booster, and act on little information.

Note that these all have a different metagame. You'll almost never see a successful monocolour draft deck, because it's really unlikely you'll get passed enough good cards of one colour. Since cards that are great in Standard might not be worth a second pick in a draft, I've seen rares go all around the table because nobody wants them in their device and nobody is rare drafting.

Most of my experience is with drafts, where I've gone from 'worthless' to 'potentially competitive'. I enjoy the having to operate on limited knowledge in the dressing stages, maybe green will have really good cards in round 2 but I've seen three boosters and all it has is a shiny forest and two copies of Grizzly Bears, might be safer to draft black which I've nabbed some decent removal from.

I don't know if there are tournaments for it, but the specific format I was referencing was Emperor, a team play game where one person on your team is designated "Emperor", and your team loses when your Emperor dies. I have seen tournaments for 2-Headed Giant. Both of these formats run like you describe Standard, albeit without the sideboard, IME.

[Anonymouswizard]

I don't know that there are tournaments for it, but the specific format I was referencing was Emperor, a team play game where one person on your team is designated "Emperor", and your team loses when your Emperor dies. I have seen tournaments for 2-Headed Giant. Both of these formats run like you describe Standard, albeit without the sideboard, IME.

Not played Emperor, but I did play some 2-headed giant, including a limited version (so built from a 'random' pool of limited cards). However the point was that magic is also a Gabe where the metagame can be vastly different based on exactly what you're playing, as a draft player the potential fun of a situational spell out artefact just isn't practical compared to the fun of another draw spell or removal, while of I can construct my deck around it that card might be worth playing.

[Psyren]

Psyren, you have yet to defend any of your claims with actual evidence. I think the balance of proof is not in your favor here.

There is no "proof." Just people trying to divine intent by reading whatever unrelated tea leaves best fit their existing biases.


I think one good indication of designer intent is that as the game goes along (and the author's have a better grasp of the system they have created) you get a lot less tier 1-2 or tier 5-6 character classes being introduced. This applies to both martial classes (such as those in the ToB) and the caster's (see limited school casters like Dread Necromancer or Beguiler)

IMO tier three classes map better to the CR guidelines listed in the DMG and MM.

This is enough evidence to me that there was a tier 3 balancing point they were aiming for with all classes, but didn't really know what they were doing for quite a while.

But this is just my opinion, I don't think we are going to get "proof" one way or the other.

See?

But since all we have are theories, there are alternative ones for every assertion. You claim they realized they dun goofed and started aiming for T3, but this is belied by the fact that they never actually stopped making T1s and T2s. Archivists came pretty late, as did Artificers. On the PF side, we got Arcanists, Shamans, and recently Psychics. Even putting the classes aside, right up until the end 3.5 was still making more and more options for the T1s and T2s. Nearly every splat has wizard and cleric spells in it, and things like Planar Shepherd came fairly late. Why is that? Simple - the power differences that forums accentuate are not as common in actual play. Far fewer people have problems with "T1" classes in practice than threads like this would indicate.

[Max_Killjoy]

How about, "the rules are what matters, having fun is what matters"?


"Fun" is tangential, or rather what each "faction" thinks they're after. Anyone is going to claim that their way of playing / designing a game is "fun".

[Koo Rehtorb]

You can't design a game for "fun". You design a game to produce a certain type of experience, which hopefully some subset of people will find fun.

[Morty]

To be fair to the designers, how long did they spend developing it, and how long after release did it take for the problems to show up? Especially since, assuming we're right about their intentions re: balance, it's taken about 17 years for them to get where they wanted to be. This isn't rhetorical; I wasn't involved in any RPG community in the early aughts, so I have no idea.

I don't know, and I don't really care. The point is that a lot of the balance problems are clearly mistakes - not all of them involve magic, either. Or if they involve magic, the unbalance is in comparison to other magic. See also: evoker and conjurer or sorcerer and wizard. Or a two-handed fighter and a dual-wielding one. Or fighter against other non-magical classes. Or the Complete Warrior Samurai, in its entirety. So claiming it's all gone as planned is rather inaccurate.

Well, unless the plan was for the CW Samurai to be this way all along, who knows. I've heard that the sorcerer's weakness compared to the wizard was intentional, but I couldn't verify it.

[Quertus]

"Fun" is tangential, or rather what each "faction" thinks they're after. Anyone is going to claim that their way of playing / designing a game is "fun".


You can't design a game for "fun". You design a game to produce a certain type of experience, which hopefully some subset of people will find fun.

Ah, this is in response to "winning is what matters". Playing, say, soccer, some parents and coaches encourage the kids to play to have fun, others encourage them to play to win. I'm (EDIT: usually) in the "play for fun" camp, not the "play to win" camp.

Same with RPGs. Yes, winning is fun. Yes, being BDHs is fun. But, sometimes, losing, in character, is more fun.

I was just asking, if you replace "trying to win" with "playing to have fun", whether that changes the evaluation of whether something was still a game vs a simulation.

My guess is, talk of winning was superfluous to the definition. But, I asked anyway, in case I had missed something important. I love learning. :smallwink:

[Cosi]

But your holy writ, the CR system, does not take that into account now, does it? By the system, that character is CR 20 no matter what choices he made. So clearly it must be fine, by your point of view. Or are you admitting that you're wrong, and that CR is actually flawed?

Of course CR is flawed. No set of rules can ever be as accurate as a particular DM evaluating a particular monster in the context of a particular environment for a particular party. That doesn't make CR bad because it is sometimes wrong.

The question isn't "is CR flawed" it's "given that we know CR is flawed, should we respond by changing the system to align with CR or CR to align with the system".


D&D (and by extension PF) is simulationist.

Every game is a game that simulates something around which a story is told. GNS is not a meaningful framework for evaluating things and every time you use it, the world gets a little bit dumber.


You can't design a game for "fun". You design a game to produce a certain type of experience, which hopefully some subset of people will find fun.

I don't think that's totally true. Certainly, you can't design a game that will be fun for everyone, but you can probably design a game that is more fun for most people interested in some broad kind of experience (like "TCG about dueling Wizards" or "RPG about a fantasy world" or "smartphone app about catapulting birds"). Think about it from the other direction -- can you design a game to be less fun? I think you pretty obviously can. For example, if you took D&D and changed the rules so that whenever you rolled a d20 everyone else at the table had to punch you in the face, that would be less fun.

So, yes, sometimes you're going to make choices not because they are fun, but because of what kind of game you are designing. But that doesn't mean you can't design something to be more fun, and if you forget that you'll probably end up with games that aren't a lot of fun, just as if you forget that you can design games which are balanced you'll end up with a game that isn't balanced.

[Max_Killjoy]

Ah, this is in response to "winning is what matters". Playing, say, soccer, some parents and coaches encourage the kids to play to have fun, others encourage them to play to win. I'm (EDIT: usually) in the "play for fun" camp, not the "play to win" camp.

Same with RPGs. Yes, winning is fun. Yes, being BDHs is fun. But, sometimes, losing, in character, is more fun.

I was just asking, if you replace "trying to win" with "playing to have fun", whether that changes the evaluation of whether something was still a game vs a simulation.

My guess is, talk of winning was superfluous to the definition. But, I asked anyway, in case I had missed something important. I love learning. :smallwink:


It's not "wanting to win" or "trying to win" that defines the approach to design and play that I'm using "gamist" as shorthand for. It's "winning, and by as much as possible, is the only thing that matters and the entire point, everything else be damned". I mean, personally, I'll never be on board with the idea that "failure is fun", and I don't like attempts to pile on complications as a result of actual success... but there's this whole different thing out there, that treats PCs as plastic playing pieces in what amounts to a board game.

Not saying you're doing this, but there's this very aggravating idea out there that trying to avoid death or trying to succeed is "bad roleplaying" -- when I'd say that most people, and thus most characters, are very motivated to avoid death, and would like to obtain the things or outcomes that are important to them.

Maybe it's excessive reaction to the "victory uber alles" approach of some gamers -- which treats characters as playing pieces who only serve as tools in that quest -- that leads some other gamers to mistakenly believe that it's "out of character" for PCs to want to survive and achieve victory.

[Quertus]

It's not "wanting to win" or "trying to win" that defines the approach to design and play that I'm using "gamist" as shorthand for. It's "winning, and by as much as possible, is the only thing that matters and the entire point, everything else be damned". I mean, personally, I'll never be on board with the idea that "failure is fun", and I don't like attempts to pile on complications as a result of actual success... but there's this whole different thing out there, that treats PCs as plastic playing pieces in what amounts to a board game.

Not saying you're doing this, but there's this very aggravating idea out there that trying to avoid death or trying to succeed is "bad roleplaying" -- when I'd say that most people, and thus most characters, are very motivated to avoid death, and would like to obtain the things or outcomes that are important to them.

Maybe it's excessive reaction to the "victory uber alles" approach of some gamers -- which treats characters as playing pieces who only serve as tools in that quest -- that leads some other gamers to mistakenly believe that it's "out of character" for PCs to want to survive and achieve victory.

Oh, it's absolutely in character for most characters to want to avoid death (Amalak, my classic Cleric of Death, being a clear exception). But whether that's the player's goal is another matter entirely.

One could certainly build a game where the player hopes that their character gets killed off in entertaining ways. I'm told that's the best way to look at Paranoia.

Or a game where the players are allowed and encouraged to add in complications for their characters - but, unlike most systems with such mechanics, are not "rewarded" with metagame currency, but do so solely because it makes the game more enjoyable.

So, given that my goal as a player isn't "win, and win at any cost" (even in existing RPGs that do not so encourage going against your character's best interests), but to maximize the fun and roleplay the character to the best of my ability, does that change whether a given system is game vs simulation to me?

[Nifft]

There is no "proof." Just people trying to divine intent by reading whatever unrelated tea leaves best fit their existing biases. You're only speaking for yourself here.

There's plenty of evidence which rational, unbaised people have tried to show you -- and there's more which you could find for yourself, if you were inclined to set aside your bias.


You claim they realized they dun goofed and started aiming for T3, but this is belied by the fact that they never actually stopped making T1s and T2s. Archivists came pretty late, as did Artificers. On the PF side, we got Arcanists, Shamans, and recently Psychics. Even putting the classes aside, right up until the end 3.5 was still making more and more options for the T1s and T2s. Nearly every splat has wizard and cleric spells in it, and things like Planar Shepherd came fairly late. Why is that? Simple - the power differences that forums accentuate are not as common in actual play. Far fewer people have problems with "T1" classes in practice than threads like this would indicate. Ah ha ha, no.

They kept publishing books full of things that would sell.

People like buying materials that support their existing characters -- which is why they published more support for the Core classes, from T1 (spells) to T5 (fighter feats), right through the end of the run.

You can see evidence that they realized their goof in some of the new sub-systems that they published late in the run, stuff like Shapeshift Druids (PHB2) and the Polymorph Subschool (various). Those were efforts to scale back a few aspects of the crazy they (belatedly) realized they had unleashed.

You can find a lot of evidence for what they learned about game balance in 3.5e by looking at what got carried forward into 4e and 5e.



Every game is a game that simulates something around which a story is told. GNS is not a meaningful framework for evaluating things and every time you use it, the world gets a little bit dumber.
That's true even when the GNS terms are being used accurately -- which he's not doing.

In GNS theory, Simulationist games simulate a genre. They do not mean the type of simulation you would find in Sim City.

(GNS theory isn't very useful, at least not in my experience, but the discussions which try to reference it and fail to use the words correctly must be some kind of next-level uselessness.)


I don't think that's totally true. Certainly, you can't design a game that will be fun for everyone, but you can probably design a game that is more fun for most people interested in some broad kind of experience (like "TCG about dueling Wizards" or "RPG about a fantasy world" or "smartphone app about catapulting birds"). Think about it from the other direction -- can you design a game to be less fun? I think you pretty obviously can. For example, if you took D&D and changed the rules so that whenever you rolled a d20 everyone else at the table had to punch you in the face, that would be less fun.


http://i.imgur.com/uTAfOBL.gif

[Max_Killjoy]

Oh, it's absolutely in character for most characters to want to avoid death (Amalak, my classic Cleric of Death, being a clear exception). But whether that's the player's goal is another matter entirely.

One could certainly build a game where the player hopes that their character gets killed off in entertaining ways. I'm told that's the best way to look at Paranoia.

Or a game where the players are allowed and encouraged to add in complications for their characters - but, unlike most systems with such mechanics, are not "rewarded" with metagame currency, but do so solely because it makes the game more enjoyable.


When those sorts of considerations supersede the character's values, priorities, and motivations... when "what would make the story better" or "what would be funniest" come to take precedence over "what would this character do in this situation"... I'd suggest that's a way which the the RP in RPG can start to shrink, and the game wander off toward storytelling game / collaborative fiction territory.

I have to be very careful how I phrase those things, because there seems to be sharp tendency towards binary thinking on these matters. If I post about priorities and precedence, people don't seem to read it as a matter of "more than one thing can inform your decision, the emerging story being coherent and interesting and the game being fun are legitimate concerns, but the ultimate factor needs to be the character itself", they instead somehow read it as "Only character matters, story and having a fun game are garbage".




So, given that my goal as a player isn't "win, and win at any cost" (even in existing RPGs that do not so encourage going against your character's best interests), but to maximize the fun and roleplay the character to the best of my ability, does that change whether a given system is game vs simulation to me?


Another reason to look for different terms -- "gamist" vs "simulationist" isn't a matter of thinking that an RPG is literally / totally / exclusively a "game" or a "simulation". It's about priorities, and where each person's priorities can drag the game out of the center of the Venn diagram and off into non-RPG territory.

Too much focus on the game-as-game, rules-as-defining, etc, and you're off into the territory of a complicated board game.

Too much focus on simulation, and you're just letting the world and characters run on their own, and there's no player agency or unexpected outcomes.

Too much focus on narrative/story, and you're off into the territory of collaborate storytelling and narrative causality and acting out predetermined stories.





That's true even when the GNS terms are being used accurately -- which he's not doing.

In GNS theory, Simulationist games simulate a genre. They do not mean the type of simulation you would find in Sim City.

(GNS theory isn't very useful, at least not in my experience, but the discussions which try to reference it and fail to use the words correctly must be some kind of next-level uselessness.)


I keep searching for better terms, and I certainly don't slavishly use them as Edwards intended, and certainly don't consider them mutually exclusive categories that only "bad" games mix between.

"Simulationist" in particular... the idea of "simulating a genre"... just... no. If I use it, I'm talking about coherence between the actual setting / fictional world, and game's mechanics. I really don't care much for "genre conventions" in general.

I like Kyoryu's framework quite a bit, but there are times when the general notion of "does this game or gamer prioritize the rules, the setting, or the narrative as most important?" does have some validity and I want to have terms to discuss that without dragging in Edwardian garbage. It's even more aggravating in that the model Edwards stole used as the basis of his misbegotten framework existed before he contaminated ran with it, and covered some of the ground I wish I could cover sometimes.

[PhoenixPhyre]

<snip>

I fully agree here, although I suspect I'm more tolerant of "game for the sake of fun" and "the rules don't always mesh with the fiction and that's ok" (as well as metagaming) than Max is. I've never read GNS theory and have no real desire to.

[Nifft]

I keep searching for better terms, and I certainly don't slavishly use them as Edwards intended, and certainly don't consider them mutually exclusive categories that only "bad" games mix between.

"Simulationist" in particular... the idea of "simulating a genre"... just... no. If I use it, I'm talking about coherence between the actual setting / fictional world, and game's mechanics. I really don't care much for "genre conventions" in general.

I like Kyoryu's framework quite a bit, but there are times when the general notion of "does this game or gamer prioritize the rules, the setting, or the narrative as most important?" does have some validity and I want to have terms to discuss that without dragging in Edwardian garbage. It's even more aggravating in that the model Edwards stole used as the basis of his misbegotten framework existed before he contaminated ran with it, and covered some of the ground I wish I could cover sometimes.

Yeah a big part of why GNS is not useful is that terms like "Simulationist" and "Gamist" seem like they're already evocative of different meanings, and using them to mean something unlike what they commonly connote is ... well, people have bad discussions because the terms are misleading.

I agree that there is significant value in being able to prioritize and disambiguate the various aspects of game design and game play.

I just feel that GNS is not the way to do that.

[Psyren]

You're only speaking for yourself here.

There's plenty of evidence which rational, unbaised people have tried to show you -- and there's more which you could find for yourself, if you were inclined to set aside your bias.

For the umpteenth time, "Monsters with Class Levels" is evidence for nothing except adding class levels to customize monsters. Not for standard player characters, nor for matching average party level to the printed monsters.



Ah ha ha, no.

They kept publishing books full of things that would sell.

My point exactly - magic being stronger than not-magic is a thing people want to see. Thus it sells. Couldn't have put it better myself.

[Morty]

The GNS theory was created to promote its author's highly specific vision of what roleplaying games should be, which included "narrative" games being superior, "gamist" being sort of acceptable, and "simulationist" being terrible. And any overlap between those automatically disqualified the game. Which, yes, means the majority of the hobby. That would be the reason why it's difficult to actually apply the term "simulationist" to anything.

[Max_Killjoy]

The GNS theory was created to promote its author's highly specific vision of what roleplaying games should be, which included "narrative" games being superior, "gamist" being sort of acceptable, and "simulationist" being terrible. And any overlap between those automatically disqualified the game. Which, yes, means the majority of the hobby. That would be the reason why it's difficult to actually apply the term "simulationist" to anything.

I'd go further in rejecting his ideas, and suggest that any game that's purely of one sort probably isn't an RPG, but something else -- as noted above.

~~~~

Anyway, all of this talk of priorities and dividing up roles and whatnot... I do think it's germane to the discussion of balance, because it gets to one of the important but often unspoke questions -- WHAT are you balancing? Combat role? Story role? RP spotlight? Something else? A blend?

[Talakeal]

I like Kyoryu's framework quite a bit, but there are times when the general notion of "does this game or gamer prioritize the rules, the setting, or the narrative as most important?" does have some validity and I want to have terms to discuss that without dragging in Edwardian garbage. It's even more aggravating in that the model Edwards stole used as the basis of his misbegotten framework existed before he contaminated ran with it, and covered some of the ground I wish I could cover sometimes.

I much prefer the original "Big Three" theory before Edwards got ahold of it and added all of his baggage.

Its not perfect, but it is useful as a reference point for broad trends in RPG design as a set of terms so that people know what you are talking about. Kind of like animal classifications in biology, there is no perfect definition for any of the categories but it is useful enough to facilitate communication.


But since all we have are theories, there are alternative ones for every assertion. You claim they realized they dun goofed and started aiming for T3, but this is belied by the fact that they never actually stopped making T1s and T2s. Archivists came pretty late, as did Artificers.

Looking at the initial tier list:

3.5 ran from 2003-2007.

2003 saw a pretty even distribution of all tiers.
2004 saw a similarly even distribution but with a strong preference for tiers 2 and 4 (cutting off the extreme ends on both sides).
2005 saw only two T5 and a single T1, Other than that is was all T3 and T4. The T5, T4, and T1s published in 2005 would be the last of their respective kinds.
2006 had a single T2 (the last one ever published), everything else was T3.
2007 saw only a single new class, the T3 factotum.

Although my statistics are a bit rusty, these numbers seem to confirm a very strong shift towards T3 over the course of the game's lifetime. Maybe a math expert could help me out?

[BayardSPSR]

The GNS theory was created to promote its author's highly specific vision of what roleplaying games should be, which included "narrative" games being superior, "gamist" being sort of acceptable, and "simulationist" being terrible. And any overlap between those automatically disqualified the game. Which, yes, means the majority of the hobby. That would be the reason why it's difficult to actually apply the term "simulationist" to anything.

And there I was thinking GNS was just an alternate term for RPG - Game Narrative Simulator. :smallwink:

Jokes aside, I thought the point of GNS was that games could be either gamist OR narrativist OR simulationist, and that a game that blended any of them was "incoherent" and bad?

[woweedd]

Yeah, but now I'm not sure what you're quoting...

IMO, the best system in which to run a game to do both teen drama and tactical basketball combat is one that has rules for tactical basketball combat, and only has rules for tactical basketball combat. Because I've never encountered a system better than "just roleplay" for handling the social side of things. But that's a topic for another thread (or twenty).

Now, if you're referencing Average Joe with a megaphone, you either need a) a system with mechanics built in for morale / reputation, or b) a system where the GM is expected to ad-lib situational modifiers in order for this to be a useful contribution. Personally, I think "A" is preferable in this case.

And, no, you never want to contrive the game to stretch to make a character useful, IMO. Either the player can make the character useful, or everyone enjoys the character not being useful, or the player needs to pick a different character. Now, personally, as you may be able to guess from my MTG (MtG?) example, I'm opposed to an "optimize or GTFO" mentality even in a competitive environment, and even more so in a team play environment like an RPG. So, if I were the kicking sort of GM, I'd be more likely to kick a player who complained that someone wasn't carrying their weight than someone who wasn't optimized to the party's level. Because, IME, that mindset is much more likely to be poisonous to the environment.

Did I just contradict myself? Yes, yes I did. Because I can't find a way to express exactly what I mean without using a while lot more words, and I'm not sure my response is on topic enough to be worth that many words. :smallwink:



Depends on what you mean by that.

3e falls apart if you don't have appropriate magical items around level 3, starting with the Shadow.

The best epic game I was in demonstrated that a well built, well buffed party of muggles could handle any challenge you threw at them, with the casters only providing logistics and toolkit services: Plane Shift, Glitterdust on invisible foes, Cleric to remove those annoying status effects like poisoned, paralyzed, or dead.



I don't know if there are tournaments for it, but the specific format I was referencing was Emperor, a team play game where one person on your team is designated "Emperor", and your team loses when your Emperor dies. I have seen tournaments for 2-Headed Giant. Both of these formats run like you describe Standard, albeit without the sideboard, IME.
Hmmm...See, I feel like, in this hypothetical deliberately-unbalanced game, the GM advice section should include quite a large heading about, basically, making sure that everyone is able . AN unbalanced game is only really fun if everyone's agreed to it. Optionally, you might want to have everyone do a "Session Zero", as has been mentioned before, to ensure that everyone's charecters can work together. Remember, you may be against the "Optimize or GTFO" ideas, and I am too, but that idea is FAR more justified in co-operative play, where you don't want to have dead weight.

[Nifft]

For the umpteenth time, "Monsters with Class Levels" is evidence for nothing except adding class levels to customize monsters. Not for standard player characters, nor for matching average party level to the printed monsters. That's a separate topic, but it's one that has also been answered upmteen times already.

The fact that a party of 4 level 5 characters who defeat CR 6 monster will get the same XP each, no matter what their class might have been, is evidence that the designers considered all classes roughly equal when it came to overcoming challenges.

They were wrong about this, of course, but their intent seems unambiguous.



My point exactly - magic being stronger than not-magic is a thing people want to see. Thus it sells. Couldn't have put it better myself.

Actually this was your point:


No, it seems to me that the designers fully intended magic-users to be stronger. The opening to Complete Arcane and Complete Mage make that abundantly clear. The fact that even in core, magic users get a whole chapter of the PHB purely to themselves while the martials got nothing in return also make that pretty clear.

If you're conceding that point, then we can move on and talk about sales numbers and how WotC had been focusing on T3 more and more as 3.5e rolled forward.

[Talakeal]

Maybe I missed a definition somewhere along the line, but what does BDH stand for?

The only think I can think is something like "Balanced Design Heuristic," but that might just be nonsense.

A Google search tells me that BDH is an acronym for Bryce Dallas Howard, but unless we are looking to cast a remake of Red Sonja I don't think that has much relevance to the design goals of the fighter class :p

[Max_Killjoy]

And there I was thinking GNS was just an alternate term for RPG - Game Narrative Simulator. :smallwink:

Jokes aside, I thought the point of GNS was that games could be either gamist OR narrativist OR simulationist, and that a game that blended any of them was "incoherent" and bad?

The claim that a game is either purely one thing, or "bad", is part of Edward's baggage... evidently when someone called their game mechanics the "Storyteller" system but it wasn't a "narrative game system", it was equivalent to child abuse and caused brain damage to Mr Edwards (his words, not mine). The more Edwards explained his reasons, the more ridiculous he got.

Thing is, I'd say the opposite is true, and that in order to even be an RPG, a thing has to blend all those elements -- it needs rules (gamist) to provide framework and neutral arbitration, and in order to allow the characters to interact with each other and their fictional world (simulationist), and from that interaction a story emerges (narrativist), not to mention that gaming and fiction share certain things like characters, and worldbuilding.

Exclude any element or go too far into any one element, and you've gone off to a neighboring country that's not really the land of RPGs.

[Max_Killjoy]

Maybe I missed a definition somewhere along the line, but what does BDH stand for?

The only think I can think is something like "Balanced Design Heuristic," but that might just be nonsense.

A Google search tells me that BDH is an acronym for Bryce Dallas Howard, but unless we are looking to cast a remake of Red Sonja I don't think that has much relevance to the design goals of the fighter class :p

"Big Damn Heroes".

[woweedd]

The claim that a game is either purely one thing, or "bad", is part of Edward's baggage... evidently when someone called their game mechanics the "Storyteller" system but it wasn't a "narrative game system", it was equivalent to child abuse and caused brain damage to Mr Edwards (his words, not mine).

Thing is, I'd say the opposite is true, and that in order to even be an RPG, a thing has to blend all those elements -- it needs rules (gamist) to provide framework and neutral arbitration, and in order to allow the characters to interact with each other and their fictional world (simulationist), and from that interaction a story emerges (narrativist). Exclude any element or go too far into any one element, and you've gone off to a neighboring country that's not "RPG".
Indeed. Go too far to the Narrativist end and, at a certain point, you might as well just do freeform RP and, while there's nothing wrong with that, it's kind of its own separate thing from tabletop roleplaying.

[Max_Killjoy]

For those who don't know and are interested, this does a fairly good job of telling a more neutral version of the Edwards story than I'm capable of telling, given how intensely offensive I find much of what Edwards said about gaming, games, and gamers:

https://refereeingandreflection.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/remembering-the-forge/

At the conclusion, however, the author and I agree:



In retrospect, the whole incident makes me glad that Ron’s tastes in gaming seem too narrow to enjoy any game I’d be participating in, and have taken him further and further away from the mainstream RPG hobby over time. The more distance exists between Ron and the rest of the gaming community, the happier everyone’s going to be.

[Nifft]

The claim that a game is either purely one thing, or "bad", is part of Edward's baggage... evidently when someone called their game mechanics the "Storyteller" system but it wasn't a "narrative game system", it was equivalent to child abuse and caused brain damage to Mr Edwards (his words, not mine).

Thing is, I'd say the opposite is true, and that in order to even be an RPG, a thing has to blend all those elements -- it needs rules (gamist) to provide framework and neutral arbitration, and in order to allow the characters to interact with each other and their fictional world (simulationist), and from that interaction a story emerges (narrativist). Exclude any element or go too far into any one element, and you've gone off to a neighboring country that's not "RPG".

Yeah his definitions were bad, and continue to pollute some terms that could have been pretty useful if they were defined without his input.


"Big Damn Heroes".

Those definitely have a place in my games.


Indeed. Go too far to the Narrativist end and, at a certain point, you might as well just do freeform RP and while there's nothing wrong with that , it's kind of its own separate thing from tabletop roleplaying.

Or just write a novel together.

Which is also fun.

[Psyren]

That's a separate topic, but it's one that has also been answered upmteen times already.

The fact that a party of 4 level 5 characters who defeat CR 6 monster will get the same XP each, no matter what their class might have been, is evidence that the designers considered all classes roughly equal when it came to overcoming challenges.

They were wrong about this, of course, but their intent seems unambiguous.

Finally, a second example. But this one doesn't work either. Yes, as a broad guideline everyone gets equal XP, but the GM is encouraged to give out individual XP rewards too, particularly as rewards for roleplaying or individual accomplishment (DMG 40.) So if you feel a wizard's individual contribution was particularly clever, you have full discretion to reward him for it.



Actually this was your point:



If you're conceding that point, then we can move on and talk about sales numbers and how WotC had been focusing on T3 more and more as 3.5e rolled forward.

I can make more than one point at a time you know. In fact, those two are not mutually exclusive at all; what the designers intended was to make money, and so they're designing what makes money. Simple.

[Morty]

Anyway, all of this talk of priorities and dividing up roles and whatnot... I do think it's germane to the discussion of balance, because it gets to one of the important but often unspoke questions -- WHAT are you balancing? Combat role? Story role? RP spotlight? Something else? A blend?

I tend to think about it in terms of story role and RP spotlight. Bearing in mind that combat role can be a story role, if someone's role in a story is to hit things repeatedly with weapons and/or magic. Balance is, to me, if different character types, and ways to build them, have more-or-less equal opportunities to affect the game's story and world, according to their chosen roles.

The thing about balance, to me, is that there's no game which is intentionally unbalanced. Even if there are clear dividing lines between different options, people still expect a measure of balance within those lines. Like in Chronicles of Darkness, supernaturals are more powerful than mortals, and they differ in power. A mage is miles above a mortal human, and also generally stronger than a vampire. But if one type of mage was straight-up more versatile and potent than another, it'd be a problem.

In Vampire: the Requiem 1e, the fact that a vampire who invested in combat can fold a mortal in half is not imbalance. The fact that physical disciplines are pretty wimpy except against mortals, or that the first dot of Protean is largely pointless, are imbalance.

[Nifft]

Finally, a second example. But this one doesn't work either. Yes, as a broad guideline everyone gets equal XP, but the GM is encouraged to give out individual XP rewards too, particularly as rewards for roleplaying or individual accomplishment (DMG 40.) So if you feel a wizard's individual contribution was particularly clever, you have full discretion to reward him for it. Third example for 3.5e, fourth overall, but hey who's counting?

Well, I guess you were -- perhaps it was supposed to be a rhetorical point? -- but being wrong about something this basic kinda undercuts whatever point you thought you were scoring.


I can make more than one point at a time you know. So far you have not been able to make even one point at a time.

Seriously, have you been able to dig up even one citation to support your positive assertion that the designers ~intended~ for magic classes to be more powerful than muggles?

C'mon, do something other than just failing to score points.


I tend to think about it in terms of story role and RP spotlight. Bearing in mind that combat role can be a story role, if someone's role in a story is to hit things repeatedly with weapons and/or magic. Balance is, to me, if different character types, and ways to build them, have more-or-less equal opportunities to affect the game's story and world, according to their chosen roles.

The thing about balance, to me, is that there's no game which is intentionally unbalanced. Even if there are clear dividing lines between different options, people still expect a measure of balance within those lines. Like in Chronicles of Darkness, supernaturals are more powerful than mortals, and they differ in power. A mage is miles above a mortal human, and also generally stronger than a vampire. But if one type of mage was straight-up more versatile and potent than another, it'd be a problem.

In Vampire: the Requiem 1e, the fact that a vampire who invested in combat can fold a mortal in half is not imbalance. The fact that physical disciplines are pretty wimpy except against mortals, or that the first dot of Protean is largely pointless, are imbalance.

The FATE system, for example the Dresden Files RPG, had a neat "fate point" system whereby more powerful characters got fewer "dictate the universe" tokens, and more mundane characters got more such tokens

What that means is that if your character is less powerful in-setting, the player is more powerful as a meta-game director.

Basically, it tried to allow players to have equal impact on the game, even when their characters were not balanced against each other.

It did actually work out pretty well. It wasn't perfect, but it worked.

Anyway, that was a game which did explicitly have imbalanced characters -- but which made up for it by making the unit of balance the player, rather than the character.

[Lord Raziere]

Indeed. Go too far to the Narrativist end and, at a certain point, you might as well just do freeform RP and, while there's nothing wrong with that, it's kind of its own separate thing from tabletop roleplaying.

Hey don't knock it, most of my roleplaying is freeform, every time I try get a group for an actual system online it doesn't work, while the one time I actually played on a table top, the group broke up after a year. I had fun and it was good, but I prefer the freeform and narrative stuff to more properly depict my characters, so I never felt the motivation to find another.

[Talakeal]

I tend to think about it in terms of story role and RP spotlight. Bearing in mind that combat role can be a story role, if someone's role in a story is to hit things repeatedly with weapons and/or magic. Balance is, to me, if different character types, and ways to build them, have more-or-less equal opportunities to affect the game's story and world, according to their chosen roles.

The thing about balance, to me, is that there's no game which is intentionally unbalanced. Even if there are clear dividing lines between different options, people still expect a measure of balance within those lines. Like in Chronicles of Darkness, supernaturals are more powerful than mortals, and they differ in power. A mage is miles above a mortal human, and also generally stronger than a vampire. But if one type of mage was straight-up more versatile and potent than another, it'd be a problem.

In Vampire: the Requiem 1e, the fact that a vampire who invested in combat can fold a mortal in half is not imbalance. The fact that physical disciplines are pretty wimpy except against mortals, or that the first dot of Protean is largely pointless, are imbalance.

I'm surprised no one has posted that stupid Penny Arcade episode "Perfect Imbalance" that my play-testers link to me every time I nerf their character.

[woweedd]

I'm surprised no one has posted that stupid Penny Arcade episode "Perfect Imbalance" that my play-testers link to me every time I nerf their character.
You mean this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e31OSVZF77w
That's...not Penny Arcade. That's from Extra Credits, a video series about game design that used to be hosted on PATV and is now on Youtube. Also, your players are massively mis-interpreting that episode's point. The idea they're pointing out is that having perfect balance causes players to become complacent and not develop new strategies, something that doesn't work in a cooperative play environment like D&D. Plus, they've also pointed out the problems that can come when one option is so clearly more powerful then others that everyone uses it. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w)

[woweedd]

Hey don't knock it, most of my roleplaying is freeform, every time I try get a group for an actual system online it doesn't work, while the one time I actually played on a table top, the group broke up after a year. I had fun and it was good, but I prefer the freeform and narrative stuff to more properly depict my characters, so I never felt the motivation to find another.
Oh, i'm not knocking them, I love freeform RP too, i'm just saying that a tabletop RPG, by definition, requires some sort of rules or restrictions surrounding what you can do or it might as well just be freeform RP and, if so, why spend money on it?

[Max_Killjoy]

The FATE system, for example the Dresden Files RPG, had a neat "fate point" system whereby more powerful characters got fewer "dictate the universe" tokens, and more mundane characters got more such tokens

What that means is that if your character is less powerful in-setting, the player is more powerful as a meta-game director.

Basically, it tried to allow players to have equal impact on the game, even when their characters were not balanced against each other.

It did actually work out pretty well. It wasn't perfect, but it worked.

Anyway, that was a game which did explicitly have imbalanced characters -- but which made up for it by making the unit of balance the player, rather than the character.


If you're going to have deliberately unbalanced characters, that's one way to "stick your thumb on the scale" to keep it from making enjoyment of the game uneven for the players.

For me, it's hard to get around the idea that the character is the player's point of interaction with the world, and that metagaming -- mechanical or otherwise -- is an end-run around that basic feature.

[Psyren]

Third example for 3.5e, fourth overall, but hey who's counting?

So far you've got "Monsters with class levels" and "Party XP", both of which I've responded to. To which your only response has been that I didn't respond.


So far you have not been able to make even one point at a time.

Seriously, have you been able to dig up even one citation to support your positive assertion that the designers ~intended~ for magic classes to be more powerful than muggles?

Um, neither of us can "cite" intent, not without calling up the designers and asking them, recording the conversation, and posting it online.

What we can do is what I've been doing - pointing to very obvious designer desires (like commercial success) and the correlations between those drives and their design choices.




The FATE system, for example the Dresden Files RPG, had a neat "fate point" system whereby more powerful characters got fewer "dictate the universe" tokens, and more mundane characters got more such tokens

What that means is that if your character is less powerful in-setting, the player is more powerful as a meta-game director.

Basically, it tried to allow players to have equal impact on the game, even when their characters were not balanced against each other.

It did actually work out pretty well. It wasn't perfect, but it worked.

Anyway, that was a game which did explicitly have imbalanced characters -- but which made up for it by making the unit of balance the player, rather than the character.

And good for FATE, I'm glad that a game is out there that fills the niche you and yours are looking for. Just as I'm glad D&D is nothing like that.

[Quertus]

Anyway, all of this talk of priorities and dividing up roles and whatnot... I do think it's germane to the discussion of balance, because it gets to one of the important but often unspoke questions -- WHAT are you balancing? Combat role? Story role? RP spotlight? Something else? A blend?

That's the trick, isn't it? Player > character, so two statistically identical characters, played by two different players, can have one over perform, while the other under performs. Or Armus, the statistically inferior, can over perform.


Hmmm...See, I feel like, in this hypothetical deliberately-unbalanced game, the GM advice section should include quite a large heading about, basically, making sure that everyone is able . AN unbalanced game is only really fun if everyone's agreed to it. Optionally, you might want to have everyone do a "Session Zero", as has been mentioned before, to ensure that everyone's charecters can work together. Remember, you may be against the "Optimize or GTFO" ideas, and I am too, but that idea is FAR more justified in co-operative play, where you don't want to have dead weight.

How does fear that Average Joe (who just crushed Doc Oc under a bus, btw) might be dead weight make Spider-Man any less Spider-Man?

Or, to be a **** about it, how is fear that you might not pick a tier 1 Wizard, and therefore be dead weight, not poisonous to a healthy game environment?


If you're going to have deliberately unbalanced characters, that's one way to "stick your thumb on the scale" to keep it from making enjoyment of the game uneven for the players.

For me, it's hard to get around the idea that the character is the player's point of interaction with the world, and that metagaming -- mechanical or otherwise -- is an end-run around that basic feature.

Yeah, I'm not really ready to go that route, yet. Although I do enjoy metagame resources like Player Skills and free rerolls x/day.

[goto124]

if you took D&D and changed the rules so that whenever you rolled a d20 everyone else at the table had to punch you in the face, that would be less fun.

I'll like to say thank you for that mental image.

[Mechalich]

That's the trick, isn't it? Player > character, so two statistically identical characters, played by two different players, can have one over perform, while the other under performs. Or Armus, the statistically inferior, can over perform.

From a design perspective you want to balance with the assumption of a minimal level of player skill. Essentially you need it to be possible for someone who is completely new to your game and your system - and potentially new to TTRPGs as a whole if you're designing something with significant mass market appeal like D&D or a Star Wars game, this is less important if you're building something more niche like Eclipse Phase. So you need things to be balanced so that the little brother or marginally curious girlfriend/boyfriend or visiting cousin can be included in the game in such a fashion that they understand they character and can contribute in a meaningful way - not that they have to contribute equally to established players, but that they aren't obviously useless to the point that they quickly get bored and do something else.

3.X D&D has the particular problem that the easiest classes to conceptualize a character for, develop and stat out - barbarian and fighter - are among the most susceptible to the uselessness problem (especially if you keep them to simple builds).

One of the reasons to even have classes at all is that be limiting character statistical development to a handful of discrete tracks you can theoretically minimize the variance between class and level combinations in the way you can't do in a point buy system. Point buy can very easily produce characters who have no purpose, no function, and no good way to contribute to the game (the various oWoD splat books were full of sample characters, many of them were of little use in common campaign scenario), or who are simply completely eclipsed by someone else's character who found some synergistic way to do everything your character does only better. This means that if you are going to have classes, those classes that are intended to play together ought to be roughly equal in power.

[woweedd]

That's the trick, isn't it? Player > character, so two statistically identical characters, played by two different players, can have one over perform, while the other under performs. Or Armus, the statistically inferior, can over perform.



How does fear that Average Joe (who just crushed Doc Oc under a bus, btw) might be dead weight make Spider-Man any less Spider-Man?

Or, to be a **** about it, how is fear that you might not pick a tier 1 Wizard, and therefore be dead weight, not poisonous to a healthy game environment?



Yeah, I'm not really ready to go that route, yet. Although I do enjoy metagame resources like Player Skills and free rerolls x/day.

I'm just saying that, if players are going to have major power differences from each other, you want to make sure that everyone in the group is both aware of and OK with those differences. In answer to your question, the way it interferes is because, if they're in the same party, it could leave one player feeling left out and the other player feeling like all they're doing is pulling someone else out of the fire. You need to make sure all players are both aware of and OK with each other's power disparities or you're going to have a pretty major problem. Also, the reason I suggested Session 0 to test how everyone works together is in order to ensure that Average Joe will not be dead weight. If, in the practice session, he ends up as such, that may be indicative of a problem that should be addressed.

[Morty]

The FATE system, for example the Dresden Files RPG, had a neat "fate point" system whereby more powerful characters got fewer "dictate the universe" tokens, and more mundane characters got more such tokens

What that means is that if your character is less powerful in-setting, the player is more powerful as a meta-game director.

Basically, it tried to allow players to have equal impact on the game, even when their characters were not balanced against each other.

It did actually work out pretty well. It wasn't perfect, but it worked.

Anyway, that was a game which did explicitly have imbalanced characters -- but which made up for it by making the unit of balance the player, rather than the character.

That's one way to do it, yes. Storyteller games don't do that, but unlike Dresden Files, mortals rubbing shoulders with supernaturals isn't their intent. Hunters are very deliberate underdogs when they go and fight them. Both are fine. D&D is fairly unique in that it creates wildly imbalanced options, at least some of which is deliberate, and then doesn't really inform us about what the dynamics is supposed to be.

It's not like it would be hard for it to actually have its cake and eat it, too. Create a fully-balanced level progression, then give players and GMs the option to freeze the progression of non-magical characters past a certain level, E6-style.

[Quertus]

From a design perspective you want to balance with the assumption of a minimal level of player skill. Essentially you need it to be possible for someone who is completely new to your game and your system - and potentially new to TTRPGs as a whole if you're designing something with significant mass market appeal like D&D or a Star Wars game, this is less important if you're building something more niche like Eclipse Phase. So you need things to be balanced so that the little brother or marginally curious girlfriend/boyfriend or visiting cousin can be included in the game in such a fashion that they understand they character and can contribute in a meaningful way - not that they have to contribute equally to established players, but that they aren't obviously useless to the point that they quickly get bored and do something else.

3.X D&D has the particular problem that the easiest classes to conceptualize a character for, develop and stat out - barbarian and fighter - are among the most susceptible to the uselessness problem (especially if you keep them to simple builds).

One of the reasons to even have classes at all is that be limiting character statistical development to a handful of discrete tracks you can theoretically minimize the variance between class and level combinations in the way you can't do in a point buy system. Point buy can very easily produce characters who have no purpose, no function, and no good way to contribute to the game (the various oWoD splat books were full of sample characters, many of them were of little use in common campaign scenario), or who are simply completely eclipsed by someone else's character who found some synergistic way to do everything your character does only better. This means that if you are going to have classes, those classes that are intended to play together ought to be roughly equal in power.

That's... interesting. Ok, I agree that there should be some dead simple options which can compete with the complex Power + Versatility Tier 1 options. Apparently, my opinion has shifted somewhat since the thread that asked what % power increase one should net from superior build skill, and I answered with a negative number. My logic then may have been that someone with superior build skills likely also had superior player skills, so it was a nice, built-in "handicap", if you made the complex builds weaker.

But I think it's a hard sell - especially to the 3e crowd - that player skills, especially build skill, shouldn't be rewarded.

I agree with the potential uselessness of point buy characters. I know I've never enjoyed being unexpectedly useless. This is why I've suggested explicitly labeling the few Hard Mode characters, for those whose superior player skills would otherwise allow them to eclipse their little siblings / SO, or who just enjoy a challenge.


I'm just saying that, if players are going to have major power differences from each other, you want to make sure that everyone in the group is both aware of and OK with those differences. In answer to your question, the way it interferes is because, if they're in the same party, it could leave one player feeling left out and the other player feeling like all they're doing is pulling someone else out of the fire. You need to make sure all players are both aware of and OK with each other's power disparities or you're going to have a pretty major problem. Also, the reason I suggested Session 0 to test how everyone works together is in order to ensure that Average Joe will not be dead weight. If, in the practice session, he ends up as such, that may be indicative of a problem that should be addressed.

When I sit down to a group, I rarely brag about the fact that my player skills make it such that I'm better than everyone else there. Nor do I expect it fair to kick me for those skills, or the noob for his lack thereof. And, since player > character, what's a little character disparity by comparison? :smallwink:

I'm glad Armus, my statistically inferior tactical genius, pulled ahead of the pack in his very first session - I'd hate to think you'd have tried to can him if he'd have had an off day. :smalleek:

Now, Average Joe is a somewhat unreliable character. Sometimes, he comes up with a clever way to contribute, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes, the system lets his contribution be huge, and he flattens Doc Oc under a bus, or send him to the hospital with a single knife wound; other times, the system either does not appreciate his attempted contribution, luck is against him, or he gets taken out too early to contribute. Here's the thing: he's the system equivalent of a watered down Wizard, while Spider-Man, with his Win Button, is the system equivalent of a scaled-up Fighter.

Average Joe has the versatility of options available to him. And, unlike Spider-Man, he doesn't need to worry about the hit to his image from running away from a costumed villain, or from using a bull horn on the crowd instead of standing and fighting.

But, yes, depending on the player, the GM, and the system, Average Joe might not be a good fit. I remember playing a WoD Mage game, where the GM didn't even let me use rotes straight out of the book, because he didn't view magic working that way. :smallconfused: :smallfurious: What I'm not seeing is why Average Joe's player isn't the one who should be upset in that scenario.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Of some note to this topic, I find this section in Torchbearer interesting.


Hard Mode
Torchbearer is decidedly traditional in its perspective on characters and difficulty of play. Some classes are better than others and some are easier to play than others.

Warriors, adventurers and burglars are the simplest characters to play. They have a good core of useful skills and abilities, but their special abilities (from level benefits) have minor effect. If a player wants to join a game but doesn’t want to read rules, these are the best class choices.

Clerics are moderately more powerful than warriors, adventurers and burglars, due to their prayer ability—but that does come at the cost of level benefits. But since they only get one prayer at first level, they’re still fairly straight forward.

Magicians are the hardest class to play by far. As is traditional in this type of game, these characters start with little power. They have no armor, can’t fight, and have limited spell selection and inventory. In order to be effective at first level, a magician player must be willing to both read the rules and master their spells, and also be willing to learn the rules for gear, Beginner’s Luck, Nature and even conflicts. To have a fun experience, the magician player must hurl their character into the unexpected. Casting one spell and then moping for the rest of the session is no fun for anyone. Thus less active players should be discouraged from this class.

Elven rangers are the quirkiest of the bunch. They are the most powerful class by far. They can fight and cast spells, and get access to useful special abilities. On the other hand, playing the class requires significant rules mastery. Encourage players fluent with the rules who enjoying playing with restraint to take on the role of elves.

[Talakeal]

Of some note to this topic, I find this section in Torchbearer interesting.

I find the section on the elven ranger interesting. It only expects players with both rule mastery AND restraint to play it. That has to be a relatively small overlap, and I wonder why they didn't just make a lower powered character to begin with if they knew it would be underpowered for unskilled players and overpowered with highly skilled players if used to its fullest. That is a very weird design choice.


You mean this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e31OSVZF77w
That's...not Penny Arcade. That's from Extra Credits, a video series about game design that used to be hosted on PATV and is now on Youtube. Also, your players are massively mis-interpreting that episode's point. The idea they're pointing out is that having perfect balance causes players to become complacent and not develop new strategies, something that doesn't work in a cooperative play environment like D&D. Plus, they've also pointed out the problems that can come when one option is so clearly more powerful then others that everyone uses it. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w)

I knew it was Extra Credits, although I was unaware that they had left Penny Arcade TV.

But yeah, I don't necessarily agree with the episode's intended point, (nor do a lot of League of Legends players I have to talked to, they say both the evidence and the conclusion are flawed and some have gone so far as to suggest Riot paid them to make it as a bit of PR), but it is downright frustrating how often I hear people try to apply it to cooperative games or tabletop games or simply think it is saying "Unbalanced games are more fun so designers shouldn't even try to balance anything!".


"Big Damn Heroes".

That makes a lot more sense, thanks.

[kyoryu]

I keep searching for better terms, and I certainly don't slavishly use them as Edwards intended, and certainly don't consider them mutually exclusive categories that only "bad" games mix between.

"Simulationist" in particular... the idea of "simulating a genre"... just... no. If I use it, I'm talking about coherence between the actual setting / fictional world, and game's mechanics. I really don't care much for "genre conventions" in general.

I like Kyoryu's framework quite a bit, but there are times when the general notion of "does this game or gamer prioritize the rules, the setting, or the narrative as most important?" does have some validity and I want to have terms to discuss that without dragging in Edwardian garbage. It's even more aggravating in that the model Edwards stole used as the basis of his misbegotten framework existed before he contaminated ran with it, and covered some of the ground I wish I could cover sometimes.


I much prefer the original "Big Three" theory before Edwards got ahold of it and added all of his baggage.

Its not perfect, but it is useful as a reference point for broad trends in RPG design as a set of terms so that people know what you are talking about. Kind of like animal classifications in biology, there is no perfect definition for any of the categories but it is useful enough to facilitate communication.

GDS. Game/Dramatist/Simulationist, and it captures that thought well. "Given that RPGs are games, simulations, and usually tell a story, which do you prioritize?"

It's a useful distinction. GDS captures that distinction, while GNS is really about something different.

[BayardSPSR]

3.X D&D has the particular problem that the easiest classes to conceptualize a character for, develop and stat out - barbarian and fighter - are among the most susceptible to the uselessness problem (especially if you keep them to simple builds).


I find the section on the elven ranger interesting. It only expects players with both rule mastery AND restraint to play it. That has to be a relatively small overlap, and I wonder why they didn't just make a lower powered character to begin with if they knew it would be underpowered for unskilled players and overpowered with highly skilled players if used to its fullest. That is a very weird design choice.

If anything, I'd think that you'd want to encourage less skilled players to engage with the more powerful but more intricate class, expecting that (given its power) they'd be able to wring some effectiveness out of it, but (given its complexity) not so much as to outshine experienced players with other classes. For a rules-heavy system, I imagine you'd want to hook new players on the intricacy and interconnectedness, not deny them access to it by pretending to be rules-light.

That is, if you're designing (or running) a game that relies on significant system mastery, isn't system mastery something you want to encourage?

[Nifft]

Um, neither of us can "cite" intent, not without calling up the designers and asking them, recording the conversation, and posting it online.
I've found other people who do exactly that thing -- it's called "an interview", just FYI, you can google the term -- and I actually did post Gygax's intent from one of these "interview" events.

Anyway, I see you saying that you can't cite intent -- and this applies to only you, since you don't speak for anyone else -- which sounds like either a concession or a declaration that you know you can't win, so you want to move on.

You have my permission to move on.


If you're going to have deliberately unbalanced characters, that's one way to "stick your thumb on the scale" to keep it from making enjoyment of the game uneven for the players.

For me, it's hard to get around the idea that the character is the player's point of interaction with the world, and that metagaming -- mechanical or otherwise -- is an end-run around that basic feature.

Yeah it's very different from traditional RPGs as I've played them -- it's quite a deliberate departure from immersion gaming, for example, but it's absolutely fantastic for groups that prefer the collaborative storytelling style, separated from immersion.

It is a different way to play, and it's not strictly better, nor worse.


That's one way to do it, yes. Storyteller games don't do that, but unlike Dresden Files, mortals rubbing shoulders with supernaturals isn't their intent. Hunters are very deliberate underdogs when they go and fight them. Both are fine. D&D is fairly unique in that it creates wildly imbalanced options, at least some of which is deliberate, and then doesn't really inform us about what the dynamics is supposed to be.

In my experience, Storyteller falls apart whenever you try to combine two (or more) different supernaturals.

Hunters are not at the same power level as Vampires, and neither of them can comprehend the power of a fully operational Mage, who's like "Screw you guys, I'm moving to Jupiter." Werewolves dominated physically, so everyone else either avoided getting physical, or just plain died.

I bet you could re-write the rules to make them all play nice against each other, but it would be a LOT of work.

[Psyren]

I've found other people who do exactly that thing -- it's called "an interview", just FYI, you can google the term -- and I actually did post Gygax's intent from one of these "interview" events.

Anyway, I see you saying that you can't cite intent -- and this applies to only you, since you don't speak for anyone else -- which sounds like either a concession or a declaration that you know you can't win, so you want to move on.

You have my permission to move on.

Gygax also felt Paladins can freely murder people who atone so they ascend before backsliding. His opinions don't particularly matter to me or to the modern state of the game.

And since we're being paragons of maturity, I'm rubber and you're glue, nyah nyah.

[Nifft]

Gygax also felt Paladins can freely murder people who atone so they ascend before backsliding. His opinions don't particularly matter to me or to the modern state of the game.

And since we're being paragons of maturity, I'm rubber and you're glue, nyah nyah.

Okay, so the stated intent of the game's designers is irrelevant to you -- and yet you want to argue about the intent of the game's designers.

Are you pretending to be like this for some kind of rhetorical effect, or is this your A-game?

[Psyren]

Okay, so the stated intent of the game's designers is irrelevant to you -- and yet you want to argue about the intent of the game's designers.

Are you pretending to be like this for some kind of rhetorical effect, or is this your A-game?

"Tiers" as we currently understand them (3.x and beyond) did not exist when Gygax was a designer. Bringing him up is like citing the inventor of the horse-drawn buggy and saying we should never have self-driving cars.

I wouldn't be opposed to discussing BECMI tiers, but I'm not certain they'd bear much resemblance to this thread's subject.

[Nifft]

"Tiers" as we currently understand them (3.x and beyond) did not exist when Gygax was a designer. Bringing him up is like citing the inventor of the horse-drawn buggy and saying we should never have self-driving cars.

I wouldn't be opposed to discussing BECMI tiers, but I'm not certain they'd bear much resemblance to this thread's subject.

Tiers are irrelevant to this discussion.

You asserted that the designers ~intended~ for spellcasters to be imbalanced in comparison to mundane classes.

Since asserting that, you've done nothing to back it up other than try to dismiss any evidence to the contrary -- of which there's quite a bit, and this means you are probably wrong.

Just now you tried to mock the idea of calling up one of the developers and talking about game balance. I pointed out that interviews exist, and maybe you could look into them. Hell, you might even find something to support your position.

It'll certainly be more productive than ... whatever you've been trying to do rhetorically here.

Regarding BECMI, of course it's on topic -- this forum is for discussions that are NOT edition-specific.

[Morty]

In my experience, Storyteller falls apart whenever you try to combine two (or more) different supernaturals.

Hunters are not at the same power level as Vampires, and neither of them can comprehend the power of a fully operational Mage, who's like "Screw you guys, I'm moving to Jupiter." Werewolves dominated physically, so everyone else either avoided getting physical, or just plain died.

I bet you could re-write the rules to make them all play nice against each other, but it would be a LOT of work.

Chronicles of Darkness (formerly New World of Darkness), at least, treat crossover as a "possible, but at your own peril" thing. Nothing stops you, but the games are designed around their own themes, conflicts and possibilities. So you'll have to do some legwork. Hunter is something of an odd duck in that it's an inherently crossover game. But even Hunter has its own Dread Power rules to emulate different supernaturals, or come up with stuff not found in any other book.

[Psyren]

Tiers are irrelevant to this discussion.

Do you... even read the titles of threads before posting in them? :smallconfused:



You asserted that the designers ~intended~ for spellcasters to be imbalanced in comparison to mundane classes.

Actually, I'm asserting that having magic is logically superior to not having it, and that the imbalance between casters and martials is a natural consequence of that. I do think that, in 3.5's case, that imbalance went to an extreme that subsequent games (namely PF and 5e) have done a better job at expressing, but I'm okay with the basic premise.



Since asserting that, you've done nothing to back it up other than try to dismiss any evidence to the contrary -- of which there's quite a bit, and this means you are probably wrong.

A mountain of bad evidence is not evidence at all.


Regarding BECMI, of course it's on topic -- this forum is for discussions that are NOT edition-specific.

I never said it wasn't, just that the concept of "tiers" doesn't translate to it well at all. That makes it unrepresentative at best.

[Nifft]

Chronicles of Darkness (formerly New World of Darkness), at least, treat crossover as a "possible, but at your own peril" thing. Nothing stops you, but the games are designed around their own themes, conflicts and possibilities. So you'll have to do some legwork. Hunter is something of an odd duck in that it's an inherently crossover game. But even Hunter has its own Dread Power rules to emulate different supernaturals, or come up with stuff not found in any other book.

Heh, "your own peril" indeed.

From what I could tell playing half a year of New Mage, and reading through the new V:tR core book, it would be possible -- the nWoD base system is unified & the magic stats are comparable now -- but it seemed to me that making the starting assumptions align & getting the power interactions between systems to work coherently & unambiguously would be a significant undertaking.

If someone's already done it, I'd be very interested in seeing the results.

[BayardSPSR]

"Tiers" as we currently understand them (3.x and beyond) did not exist when Gygax was a designer.

This should tell us something.

[Psyren]

This should tell us something.

I can think of a great many things, which specific one were you alluding to?

[Lord Raziere]

I can think of a great many things, which specific one were you alluding to?

That they should not.

[Mechalich]

Actually, I'm asserting that having magic is logically superior to not having it, and that the imbalance between casters and martials is a natural consequence of that. I do think that, in 3.5's case, that imbalance went to an extreme that subsequent games (namely PF and 5e) have done a better job at expressing, but I'm okay with the basic premise.


This does not follow. Having magic may be superior to not having magic, but it is totally possible to have a magic system where mastery of magic is far less effective for all purposes than mundane capabilities. This is a design choice about what the capabilities of magic are in a given system, it is not inherent.

If you statement is true, in a setting, that having magic is superior in essentially all scenarios to not having magic - then you have a universe of 'powered' and 'mundanes' and playing as a mundane is not a viable game choice. This is, largely, how most superhero universes work (even characters like Batman and Hawkeye have super-gadgets and logically ludicrous levels of athletic ability). That is certainly one way to build a game, and plenty of games have been built that way.

However, many universes are built around the construction that having magic is superior for some, but not all, purposes. Usually this is followed by the corollary that learning magic actually induces deficiencies in whatever areas where it does not produce adept-ness - because learning the secrets of the universe or mastering the power of the Force or unlocking the secret capabilities of the mind leaves no time to master other things and also often precludes practicing a decent exercise regime (the traditional 'squishy wizards' situation). This, of course, is the type of thinking that produces the kind of fantasy and science fiction worlds people want to play in (it also avoids the nasty tendency towards grimdark that emerges when you make a game that has a literal master race of 'powered' types surrounded by 'muggles' who are helpless before them, something Exalted had spewing from every pore).

This is, admittedly, tricky to balance. It involves enforcing hard limits on what magic can do and on the kinds of non-magical abilities the magic types can develop. Star Wars is a good example of a universe that has see-sawed back and forth on just how capable the Jedi can be and there have been real problems when Jedi have been allowed to overly develop non-Force skills like piloting and hacking and so on because it shoves other characters out of viability.

For high fantasy purposes, the general trend is not towards world where only spellcaster types (whatever that happens to mean in a given setting) are viable. Even in settings where this is manifestly true, like the Wheel of Time, the authors continually make exceptions to avoid the consequences of an all-caster world and provide means for non-caster characters to be a significant part of the narrative. Since you can't do that with narrative fiat in a game, you have to make it so that spellcasters are not operating on a different level of capability than martials with your system. There are various ways to do that: make magic weak, give warriors inherent powers of their own, use a MtA paradox-style limitation mechanic, etc. AD&D 2e did a bunch of little things that tried to limit the power of casters. It kinda-sorta worked, especially if you limited resting (the viability of martials in a game like BGII, for instance, is directly correlated to how gimmick-y you are about resting). 3e took away a lot of those limitations without totally realizing it and the emergent result was that spellcasting became godlike in power compared to everything else.

[Lord Raziere]

If you statement is true, in a setting, that having magic is superior in essentially all scenarios to not having magic - then you have a universe of 'powered' and 'mundanes' and playing as a mundane is not a viable game choice. This is, largely, how most superhero universes work (even characters like Batman and Hawkeye have super-gadgets and logically ludicrous levels of athletic ability). That is certainly one way to build a game, and plenty of games have been built that way.


And even then, the magic and powers at work have widely varying rules and limitations to keep them interesting rather than all being the same rules and limitations. often the most "normal" superheroes make up for their relative normalcy by not having to rely on some of the weirder rules or fear weaknesses that more empowered people have- for example, Superman and his kryptonite.

[Max_Killjoy]

I thought "tiers" in this context were supposed to be descriptive, not prescriptive.

That is... they look at what already exists and analyze it, rather than tell you what "should" happen going forward.

If that's true, it really doesn't matter if they existed as a concept in 1970-something.