why do people dislike tiers in dnd?

[AMFV]

Indeed.

And this is what I keep coming back when when people talk about the GM having a "responsibility" to artfully and painstaking craft encounters and scenarios to play to each particular character very particularly.

Well the GM has other responsibilities in other game systems that are typically equal work (if the DM has equal responsibility), and are involved. I mean in WoD the GM is expected to build meaningful encounters for characters emotionally and what-not. There are games that makes easier but those generally do that by heavily constraining the GM.



(And it's a big part of why I hate the notion of niches and niche protection.)

Why should such a large and ongoing investment in such artifice be necessary just to make the game work?

Because it's the way that game works, for people who enjoy that aspect that is necessary. If you're really into the character mini-game in D&D 3.5, then you need that, there's no way to do it without that.

[Darth Ultron]

And this is what I keep coming back when when people talk about the GM having a "responsibility" to artfully and painstaking craft encounters and scenarios to play to each particular character very particularly.

Why should such a large and ongoing investment in such artifice be necessary just to make the game work?

Any group social event takes a large and ongoing investment to work, mostly all ways borne by one person. Sure you can just randomly toss people together and hope something good comes of it, but it works out a lot better with some investment.

[Pex]

There are tons of games made for exactly this: were all characters get ''A plus one'' . So the fighter has a +1 to hit with a weapon, and wizard has a +1 to hit with a spell and they both have a +1 to influence a person or move an object. This type of game is made for people that don't like the D&D way.

I'd say that is 5E D&D. Fighter attacks with his sword. A wizard attacks with his spell. They'll both have the same +# to hit presuming equal optimization. Ditto their DC for any special ability/spell they have. The difference between two characters on their to hit for their attack or DC for their special ability for the most part is only by +1 because one player took a feat where another went +2 to their prime ability score.

Personally that bothers me but just a tiny sliver because it harkens to my dislike of the sameness of 4E classes. I understand the desire to have the numbers the same. It's a personal aesthetic irk that doesn't impact my opinions on 5E. The numbers are the same, but the effects and processes are quite diverse enough I would never say the classes are samey as I would for 4E. I would not object to the idea that the irk comes from being used to 3E/Pathfinder where the numbers are all over the place different.

[Max_Killjoy]

Well the GM has other responsibilities in other game systems that are typically equal work (if the DM has equal responsibility), and are involved. I mean in WoD the GM is expected to build meaningful encounters for characters emotionally and what-not. There are games that makes easier but those generally do that by heavily constraining the GM.


It would seem, to me, to be a different sort of mechanical micromanagement.

[Quertus]

Let me ask you this, if you replaced the tier system with some other 2 post block of text to help people run their games, what would it be? The only restriction is it must address the same sort of issues around inter-party balance.

Interesting question.

First and foremost, the premise is wrong. It assumes that the correct replacement for the tier list is another standalone product. If you only walk away understanding only one thing from what I've said here, imo, it should be that a proper product to facilitate game balance discussion and education should be a more complex, interconnected series of observations and analysis, not another one-sided failure.

That having been said, in order to gain traction with the masses, one or more of these interconnected nodes must be as simple, and resonate as strongly with their hatred and frustration, as the tier system.

So, what angle are you approaching this from? Do you want a dry, academic tome that will be a vastly superior product that no-one will use? Or do you want a marketing marvel that will capture the hearts and souls of the audience, and hopefully link in a meaningful way into the larger discussion? Or are there some alternate design principles that I should follow when answering your question?


OK, how much do feel you have to say about this? Because I have some very particular things to say about this (some in disagreement yes) but they feel kind of topic for this thread. How interwoven the campaign and characters are could probably be its own thread if you, and others, are interested.

Another tricky question. While my initial comments were relevant to why I dislike the tier system, I agree, the type of discussion you are describing likely would not be appropriate for this thread.

I would love to have the discussion with you, but... In what context? I mean, "ways Cluedrew believes he could create a game Quertus would enjoy that don't necessitate keeping the GM in the dark" seems a rather limited scope for a thread. So, if you've got a bigger topic for which you believe that this discussion would be a part, then, by all means, thread create away, and I'll endeavor to contribute. Although I imagine that we can count on the Playground to provide contributions if we start debating opposing viewpoints. :smallwink:


Edit 2: And yes it DOES require DM attention, everything does, and DMs should be designing their encounter design to allow each individual player some chances to shine in most encounters or giving them a spotlight encounter, and as a player you should be cogent of that fact and wait for your chance to shine when it's clearly somebody else's. That's the virtue of the tier system it lets you know whether you need to step it up, as our talky fighter does, or pull back as a wizard might need to.

Personally, I prefer when the author is so skilled that the published module does this automatically, without having to see the party, by naturally varying the types of encounters presented.

Now, that might not be as perfect as a game where the GM knows that he's working with a party of Striker / Controller / Tank, vs a party of Face / Medic / Heavy, vs a party of Diamond / Spade / Club, but I find it generally acceptable. What's your thoughts on pre-planned encounter variance as a method of spotlight distribution?


Or you can have a system where everyone can contribute more or less all the time without having to be carefully fed and tended. Your system is prone to accidental breakage and, worst of all, boring-ness. That's my problem. If you can lose the game at character creation by choosing one of the unmarked trap options, the game has a design flaw.

I don't think I've seen a system without arbitrary-feeling constraints that didn't run that risk. Have any systems in mind that you feel would make good exemplars of role-playing games with both good freedom and no risk of boredom?


I find this idea so odd. Your saying you just want to have ''a game'' that is somehow fun or anything else you want it to be...by chance? In a general sense, you don't want to leave things to chance, and this is even more so for social things.

The thread, "ways Cluedrew believes he could create a game Quertus would enjoy that don't necessitate keeping the GM in the dark" is clearly very custom-tailored to the PCs Quertus and Cluedrew. The thread, "Is it good to keep the GM in the dark?" is not (or, at least, is less so).

In an RPG, I don't want the world or the scenarios to feel contrived.

I didn't leave things to chance. I chose GitP as my forum of choice because it best matched what I was looking for. The people here were generally smarter, and otherwise better matched my criteria (well informed, thorough, detailed analysis, friendly, and argumentative, to name a few) than on any other form I investigated. It had a strong focus on D&D 3.x (so much so that the Playgrounder Fallacy is a thing), but discussed all games. The moderators were active, but not petty, and generally believe in giving warnings before taking action. Etc etc etc. This forum is very nearly bloody ideal - easily way, way better than any other forum I've found.

By presenting this as it's "pitch", it earned my "player buy-in" that I would participate in this forum, attempt to help my fellow members, and not attempt to circumvent the few imo stupid rules I've run into (like I can't talk about when I **** a gun without hitting a filter? Wtf?)

So, what I'm saying is, just as one can create a good forum and good topics without knowing in advance that I was going to be joining GitP, a good GM can create a good game with a good variety of encounters to facilitate shining the spotlight on a variety of characters with a variety of talents without actually knowing in advance who those characters will be.


Its been a decade or so since I last played high level 3.X, but other than the Cape of the Mountebank (which takes up the cloak slot, meaning that the character loses out on the cloak of resistance, which is absolutely necessary for facing a caster) what other tactical teleportation is available to a fighter?

1) Adding Resistance to a Cape of the M~ costs the same as buying an equal power Cloak of Resistance. No loss there.

2) I play wizards. Tactical Teleport (or any other aspect of playing a Fighter, for that matter) isn't really my thing.

3) that having been said... off hand...

Ring of Spell Storing

Ioun Stone of Spell Storing (Ioun socket optional)

UMD + Scroll of Dimension Door (cheaper than the cost of the material components of Force Cage)

Level dip in Cloistered Cleric + Travel Domain + ... (you know the rest)

Level dip or feats for Tome of Battle maneuvers

Anklet of Translocation - although this is the go to item for tactical teleportation, turns out it requires line of effect. :smallfrown: So, a quick Google search says...

Shadow Cloak

Boots of Big Stepping


Also, fighters are not good at stealth, and once the battle starts if they continue to remain stealthed they aren't contributing. Likewise readying an action to disrupt the caster's spell is not a guaranteed success, and even if it works the fighter is contributing scarcely more to the fight than they would in a force cage at that point.

"I hit the mage (who can cast bloody Forcecage!) every turn, disrupting his spells until he drops" is not contributing? We clearly have different thresholds for what counts as a contribution in combat.


And a caster who spends their spell slots / time baby sitting the fighter probably isn't contributing very much to the fight either, let alone having fun.

"Someone who comprehends teamwork, and is actively helping his teammates contribute" is not contributing?

"HaHa, neeneer neeneer, I bet that spell would have done something if it had gone off" probably isn't having fun? Ok, I'll grant you that one, depending on the player's personality.


Out of curiosity, I assume this only applies to mechanical aspects? Because for me I am going to need to know your alignment, profession, motivation, and background simply so that I know where to set the campaign and what adventure hooks to prep for you, and if you won't let me see your character sheet this is gonna be tough.

... So, my signature character, Quertus, for whom this account is named. Unlike most of my characters, he actually has an alignment. Of course, depending on the edition of D&D, it might best be described as Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, or Neutral Good. For 3e, let's call him True Neural (Lawful).

Profession? Author.

Motivation? Eh, magical research? Also, end of the world level threats, friends, and cool tech like the printing press have been known to motivate him to reluctantly leave the lab.

Background? That'll take a while. Quertus is several hundred years old. In short, he's saved over 100 different worlds from world-ending catastrophes, catalogued observations on magic monsters etc on all those worlds and more, published numerous books regarding his observations, learned dozens of unique styles of magic, built up an impressive array of enemies including no fewer than 5 distinct incarnations of Asmodeus, built up an even more impressive array of allies and contacts, and founded an adventure's guild. Oh, and researched numerous custom spells, including more custom sights than there are published core spells.

During this time, he's created several custom items, packed warehouses full of artifacts, created more simulacrum copies of himself than is healthy, and trained several apprentices - none of whom has Quertus felt confident in passing on the mantle of "protecting these undeniably, unfathomably unstable worlds from certain destruction" to.

Quertus is likely more familiar than any other D&D character he's likely to meet not native to these environs with magic theory, the under dark, the planes, space travel, time travel, ancient (ie, modern) tech, and parallel realities.

Of all that, only his alignment is written on his sheet.

But having a conversation about proposed hooks and adventure ideas is something I thoroughly endorse.

[Frozen_Feet]

No, RAW above all sounds like a nice philosophy, but it just doesn't work in the real world because English is an imprecise language...

The actual reason why it doesn't work is that RAW specifies a human GM who has the task and authority to interprete the rules. It hence follows that Cosi's interpretation of Shapechange is RAW only when Cosi or someone who agrees with them is serving as a GM.

---


Any group social event takes a large and ongoing investment to work, mostly all ways borne by one person. Sure you can just randomly toss people together and hope something good comes of it, but it works out a lot better with some investment.

Must be that time of the day when a broken clock is right. Sort of.

One way to formulate the same idea is that in any sufficiently large group, division of labour begins to follow the Pareto Principle: 80 percent of effects stem from 20 percent of causes, or, fifth of the people are doing four fifths of the work.

"Sufficiently large" starts at about five people.

[Cluedrew]

First and foremost, the premise is wrong. It assumes that the correct replacement for the tier list is another standalone product. [...] That having been said, in order to gain traction with the masses, one or more of these interconnected nodes must be as simple, and resonate as strongly with their hatred and frustration, as the tier system.

So, what angle are you approaching this from?Yeah it doesn't have to be a complete stand alone. But something like a bit sized node would be entirely within scope. Really the only restriction is: you (or someone else in this as a hobby) have to be able to make it and someone other people in the hobby, just looking for a bit of advice for their campaign will be able to read. Completeness is important, but so is accessibility. Other than that, go with whatever you want.


I would love to have the discussion with you, but... In what context? I mean, "ways Cluedrew believes he could create a game Quertus would enjoy that don't necessitate keeping the GM in the dark" seems a rather limited scope for a thread. So, if you've got a bigger topic for which you believe that this discussion would be a part, then, by all means, thread create away, and I'll endeavor to contribute. Although I imagine that we can count on the Playground to provide contributions if we start debating opposing viewpoints. :smallwink:All very true. Hmm... I think the topic would be... "Is Tailor Made Better?" Something like that. Your particular statement and my reaction aside I think it is a more general topic on how much should the party, the campaign, the setting and the system be made with each other in mind.

I mean I doubt anyone would create a new system from the ground up to support a particular character, but I expect people have done homebrew classes for that. On the other hand you could easily tweak a character concept to so that it comes across better mechanically.


One way to formulate the same idea is that in any sufficiently large group, division of labour begins to follow the Pareto Principle: 80 percent of effects stem from 20 percent of causes, or, fifth of the people are doing four fifths of the work.My issue with this is that the 1/5th that does the work is not always the same as the group that gets credit/pay for it. Not that I haven't seen it happen in groups of 2.

[Arbane]

"I hit the mage (who can cast bloody Forcecage!) every turn, disrupting his spells until he drops" is not contributing? We clearly have different thresholds for what counts as a contribution in combat.


Step 0 of this plan is 'be able to hit the mage', and one of the complaints about the tier system caster supremacy is that doing so can be unreasonably difficult.

(Edited to identify the real problem.)

[Quertus]

Yeah it doesn't have to be a complete stand alone. But something like a bit sized node would be entirely within scope. Really the only restriction is: you (or someone else in this as a hobby) have to be able to make it and someone other people in the hobby, just looking for a bit of advice for their campaign will be able to read. Completeness is important, but so is accessibility. Other than that, go with whatever you want.

Ok, brainstorming phase.

I picture a multi-view layout. One view is just flat, with names of topics (like a thread list). One view is a relational map, with all "Session 0" topics grouped together, and lines linking linked topics. Within a given topic will be links to related topics, ala Wikipedia (or Warhammer Fantasy "career exits").

I suspect that one of the juicier topics will live somewhere between "how to have a good session 0" and "how (not to) be a ****".

Actually, I'm really liking the "career entrances and career exits" model. Because, while each (base?) node should stand on its own, some of the advanced nodes should be written with the assumption that the reader understands certain basic principles, and all of the nodes should be written with the idea that they fit into a bigger picture.

Getting your Inquisitor's rosette in "Hunting down heretical gaming practices" should require understanding all of the nodes, not just having a myopic understanding of one.

So, great artists steal. Let's say that The practical applications portion of "How (not to) be a ****" is composed primarily of a series of links to gaming stories (especially horror stories, like the SUE files, but also some tamer failures), and an evaluation of the failures of various gaming practices, and examples of what alternative responses (both successful and alternate failures) would have looked like.

But where is my juicy topic?

Hmmm... It needs to address issues that people are experiencing in games. So it should probably live near "how to fix problems in games", or "how to spot problems in games", but probably not be adjacent to "how to avoid misidentifying problems in games".

So, probably in the "common causes of problems in games" bucket.

What are the actual core causes of most problems in games? Hmmm... Assumptions, conflicting expectations, spotlight issues, irreconcilable differences, play aesthetics, failures of session 0, etc.

Tools: know your players, open discussion, metagaming, fudging (I personally hate this one, but it would be academically dishonest of me to exclude it just because of personal bias), varying encounters / scenes / challenges


All very true. Hmm... I think the topic would be... "Is Tailor Made Better?" Something like that. Your particular statement and my reaction aside I think it is a more general topic on how much should the party, the campaign, the setting and the system be made with each other in mind.

I mean I doubt anyone would create a new system from the ground up to support a particular character, but I expect people have done homebrew classes for that. On the other hand you could easily tweak a character concept to so that it comes across better mechanically.

I'm down for expressing my outspoken minority opinion in that thread.


I mean I doubt anyone would create a new system from the ground up to support a particular character

Clearly, you underestimate some people's determination. I've seen it done, I've done it, and the SUE files sure sound close. :smalltongue:

[Quertus]

Step 0 of this plan is 'be able to hit the mage', and one of the complaints about the tier system is that doing so can be unreasonably difficult.

Ouch, that phrasing hurts. Another reason to hate the tier list.

Buy thank you for pointing out that I neglected to address this portion of the problem.

5 hirelings with hats of disguise, all of whom look like the fighter. Wizard now only has a 1-in-6 chance of choosing the right one to Force Cage with his opening action.

Illusions. Maybe those "Fighters" aren't even real.

Disguise. Maybe the "Fighter" is actually the party wizard.

Invisibility. Yeah, sure, the wizard can probably see through it, but it is an option.

Stealth. Yeah, hide isn't a Fighter class skill (before dips), but neither is spot a Wizard class skill. And spot takes a -1 penalty per 10'. With minimal investment, the fighter should be able to close to melee range unnoticed. I cast Force... Hey, get hit in the face for all the damage with my AoO, then get hit in the face for all the damage again with my held action, then really get hit in the face for all the damage with my full attack action(s) on my turn(s) (darn Belt of Battle, White Raven Tactics etc etc).

[JNAProductions]

Cast Forcecage on YOURSELF. Small grid, so you can shoot out, but he can't stab in, and has to resort to his back up bow.

Also, cast defensively. No AoO, and it's an easy to pass Concentration check.

[Quertus]

Cast Forcecage on YOURSELF. Small grid, so you can shoot out, but he can't stab in, and has to resort to his back up bow.

Also, cast defensively. No AoO, and it's an easy to pass Concentration check.

Few wizards are smart enough to cast defensively when they are not visibly threatened, IME. But, yes, it is technically an option.

[JNAProductions]

Few wizards are smart enough to cast defensively when they are not visibly threatened, IME. But, yes, it is technically an option.

How are you getting that close without being spotted? The only reliable way I see is Invisibility, and you yourself said that's not likely to work.

[Arbane]

Ouch, that phrasing hurts. Another reason to hate the tier list.


That was badly phrased on my part. I should've said "And one of the complaints with CASTER SUPREMACY is that this can be unreasonably difficult."



5 hirelings with hats of disguise, all of whom look like the fighter. Wizard now only has a 1-in-6 chance of choosing the right one to Force Cage with his opening action.

Illusions. Maybe those "Fighters" aren't even real.

Disguise. Maybe the "Fighter" is actually the party wizard.

Invisibility. Yeah, sure, the wizard can probably see through it, but it is an option.

Stealth. Yeah, hide isn't a Fighter class skill (before dips), but neither is spot a Wizard class skill. And spot takes a -1 penalty per 10'. With minimal investment, the fighter should be able to close to melee range unnoticed. I cast Force... Hey, get hit in the face for all the damage with my AoO, then get hit in the face for all the damage again with my held action, then really get hit in the face for all the damage with my full attack action(s) on my turn(s) (darn Belt of Battle, White Raven Tactics etc etc).

As always, the only effective way to defeat magic is with More Magic.



Cast Forcecage on YOURSELF. Small grid, so you can shoot out, but he can't stab in, and has to resort to his back up bow.

This might be a bad plan. Spears are a thing that exist.

[Quertus]

How are you getting that close without being spotted? The only reliable way I see is Invisibility, and you yourself said that's not likely to work.

Cloak of Elvenkind (2.5k, +5 bonus) Dex 14 (+2 bonus) = +7 vs a +0 spot check. If we need more, we can get a psionic skin, or use a handy spell storing item for other stealth boosts

But, two fighters, each with only a +7 stealth, have... Hmmm... (13*6)/400 odds each of being caught, --> have about a 96% chance of at least one of them being adjacent to the wizard when he begins casting (64% chance of both being there).

A competent fighter should deal enough damage (especially with two tries) to defeat the concentration check of any wizards of their level I've built. And two fighters should be sufficient to encourage him study for his geology test.


That was badly phrased on my part. I should've said "And one of the complaints with CASTER SUPREMACY is that this can be unreasonably difficult."

Much better.


As always, the only effective way to defeat magic is with More Magic.

Well duh. WBL is a balance requirement, and isn't in trade goods.

Which reminds me of yet another solution I missed: Contingent Dimension Door.

But, for a completely mundane solution (how... mundane), why not disguise a dozen or so mercs as party members / disguise party members as just more mercs? This should greatly reduce the effectiveness of Forcecage as an opening gambit.


This might be a bad plan. Spears are a thing that exist.

I haven't had a single 3e character with a spear. I am so suboptimal. :smallredface:

[JNAProductions]

+7 and requires concealment or cover.

That's the kicker.

[Quertus]

+7 and requires concealment or cover.

That's the kicker.

Well, I play wizards (in bright red robes, no less, for my signature character), but, IIRC, you only need cover or concealment to initiate the hide action. After that, you're free to move whatever you want. Honestly, in most games I've played, that translates into "hide behind this bush, then walk for hours through this featureless plane". Once you stop hiding (HiPS says you keep hiding in combat, albeit at a -20 penalty) - say, to sleep - you need to duck behind a party member or something to continue your hiding spree.

Ok, that probably won't fly at most tables, but, then again, do most tables really adventure on featureless planes?

[JNAProductions]

No, but you'd have to ambush a Wizard right at a corner or something.

It's not impossible, but the Fighter needs special circumstances to take down the Wizard. The Wizard doesn't.

[Arbane]

No, but you'd have to ambush a Wizard right at a corner or something.

It's not impossible, but the Fighter needs special circumstances to take down the Wizard. The Wizard doesn't.

Right. Because Fighters, unlike Wizards, have to care about trivia like 'distance' and 'terrain' and 'tangibility' and 'being on the same plane of existence'.

Plus, Fighters have a much more limited number of ways to shut down a fight in one round. (Which is odd - you'd think 'I will cut your head off' should be a save-or-die ability for fighters...)

[Nifft]

I've been skimming this thread, but I can't see whether the fundamental issue was resolved.

Did the OP realize that "tiers" are descriptive -- and that being for or against them is kinda like being for or against gravity?

[Lord Raziere]

I've been skimming this thread, but I can't see whether the fundamental issue was resolved.

Did the OP realize that "tiers" are descriptive -- and that being for or against them is kinda like being for or against gravity?

Well I'm still against the attitude that we shouldn't fix the system just because the tiers give you guide of how to dance around the problems. Just because you can ignore and plan around the problems, doesn't mean the problems aren't there, it just means that you are required to plan around them, instead of a game where you don't have to because you fixed them before the game ever started, which is the ideal.

[Quertus]

I've been skimming this thread, but I can't see whether the fundamental issue was resolved.

Did the OP realize that "tiers" are descriptive -- and that being for or against them is kinda like being for or against gravity?

Well, the OP actually reads, to me, more like, "D&D 3.x gives people everything they can imagine. Is it a problem that people have better imaginations for Wizards than they do for Fighters?"

We've gone a bit far afield, whatever the OP was supposed to be asking.


Well I'm still against the attitude that we shouldn't fix the system just because the tiers give you guide of how to dance around the problems. Just because you can ignore and plan around the problems, doesn't mean the problems aren't there, it just means that you are required to plan around them, instead of a game where you don't have to because you fixed them before the game ever started, which is the ideal.

But the problem is that we don't all agree that the fighter's incompetence and inability to find a way to contribute with WBL and a map is the problem.

More seriously, the diversity of 3.x can be a bug or a feature, depending on your PoV. For me, it's a feature. I can build (something close to) the Wizard I want to run. And I can build a Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot if I want to.

That those two characters cannot contribute equally is irrelevant to me, so long as they can both contribute. And do so in a logical, meaningful way. If my NPZR can scoop out your brains with a rusty spoon with which he has no skill, just because, that breaks that v word. If, otoh, he does the exact same thing by virtue of having 10d6 Sneak Attack, I'm cool with that.

[Arbane]

Well, the OP actually reads, to me, more like, "D&D 3.x gives people everything they can imagine. Is it a problem that people have better imaginations for Wizards than they do for Fighters?"

The root of the problem:
"As always, magic is limited by your imagination - if you can imagine it happening, it does. And martial powers are limited by your imagination - if you can imagine a reason why it can't happen, it doesn't." - LightWarden

[Cluedrew]

Ok, brainstorming phase.

I picture a multi-view layout. One view is just flat, with names of topics (like a thread list). One view is a relational map, with all "Session 0" topics grouped together, and lines linking linked topics. Within a given topic will be links to related topics, ala Wikipedia (or Warhammer Fantasy "career exits").That sounds... like it would be amazing if that existed. Actually it does, on a small scale in various dedicated article sites. For a very small example, see the Giant's Gaming articles. There are other larger examples, but nothing on the scale you are talking about. Sadly I fear it misses the "a hobbyist could make it", I feel it would need a pretty large and well coordinated effort to pull that off.

But you kind of missed the part about addressing the same issue as the tier system. And before you say you don't think that it needs to be addressed let me quote you again.

More seriously, the diversity of 3.x can be a bug or a feature, depending on your PoV. For me, it's a feature. I can build (something close to) the Wizard I want to run. And I can build a Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot if I want to.For who is it a bug? For those who don't realize the consequences of that diversity. For instance first time a bunch of people sit down and play 3.X (not such a common occurrence anymore, but hey). The GM starts on the campaign, the party consists of a paladin who's player really wants to play the heroic hero type, a druid played like a "not here" hippy trying to bring world peace, a wizard who's player is really into finding cools spells and doing interesting things with them, a rogue who wants to go for the dashing rascal type with cool stylish tricks and a monk played as a wandering warrior, wise elder and herbalist.

Instead of me saying what I think about this, tell me: A) What would someone with no experience in 3.X think about this party. Say they have some experience in other systems where the party has to work together. B) What do you, with all your 3.X experience, think of this party?


Clearly, you underestimate some people's determination. I've seen it done, I've done it, and the SUE files sure sound close. :smalltongue:I have a high bar for "from the ground up", the SUE Files for instance don't qualify because it is ultimately a mod of d20 to make it more universal... officially. Whatever the reason was the feeling of taking d20 and hitting it repeatedly with a hammer.

[Quertus]

That sounds... like it would be amazing if that existed. Actually it does, on a small scale in various dedicated article sites. For a very small example, see the Giant's Gaming articles. There are other larger examples, but nothing on the scale you are talking about. Sadly I fear it misses the "a hobbyist could make it", I feel it would need a pretty large and well coordinated effort to pull that off.

Have you seen my "Wall of Text" spells? If people want to see this happen (or just want me mostly out of their hair for a while), I'd be willing to make a horribly opinionated stab at it, under two conditions: 1) someone created a thread for discussion of the organization (and to allow people to voice dissenting opinions, which I would publish alongside my analysis); 2) someone provided me with a site to publish it on.

Because, as you can likely tell from my initial brainstorming, there's more to what I'd want than I am personally capable of mapping out.

If, otoh, others want to get together to make this happen via group effort... I'll gladly volunteer my services for editing, and I'll participate in discussions if invited (as my opinionated nature may add to or detract from the discussion). But unless people are as bad at writing neutral analysis as I am, I'll avoid the actual writing portions of a group exercise.


But you kind of missed the part about addressing the same issue as the tier system. And before you say you don't think that it needs to be addressed let me quote you again.

Not so much missed it as... didn't get there yet. I'm still brainstorming. But see below.



For who is it a bug? For those who don't realize the consequences of that diversity. For instance first time a bunch of people sit down and play 3.X (not such a common occurrence anymore, but hey). The GM starts on the campaign, the party consists of a paladin who's player really wants to play the heroic hero type, a druid played like a "not here" hippy trying to bring world peace, a wizard who's player is really into finding cools spells and doing interesting things with them, a rogue who wants to go for the dashing rascal type with cool stylish tricks and a monk played as a wandering warrior, wise elder and herbalist.

Instead of me saying what I think about this, tell me: A) What would someone with no experience in 3.X think about this party. Say they have some experience in other systems where the party has to work together. B) What do you, with all your 3.X experience, think of this party?

... Boy, am I ever not qualified to answer either half of that question!

You've got a hero, a hippie, a myopic introvert, a rascal, and a, um, monk. That's a recipe for disaster with an inexperienced or uncooperative party. But those diverse perspectives could be amazingly fun with the right group.

From a 3e perspective, well, what do they want their roles / contribution to be? What do they want out of the game? If something happens that they have problems achieving those goals, well, we'll work on it.

3e being, usually, very combat oriented, well, if they're anything like the players that I played with back in Y2K, the Paladin and the Monk will dominate the game, and I hope the Druid, Rogue, and Wizard enjoy playing second fiddle.

More to the point, 3e is a game of System Mastery. Whichever player attains a higher level of mastery first will dominate the game, regardless of which class they take.

Unless, like me, they enjoy playing tactically inept academia mages. :smallwink:

So... is "System Mastery is a thing" a good replacement for tiers? No. It just doesn't have the same draw. How about "not all characters are created equal"? Hmmm... This might be closer, both in terms of useful content and emotional draw. Perhaps "how (not) to be a ****".

But, honestly, imo, the single most useful bit of advice would most likely be, "how to fix problems with your game". That's right, my expert opinion is that, for a single first lesson, an Epimethian stance is optimal. Because there are so, so many ways you can **** your game up that focusing on any one is... tantamount to pushing an agenda, to be honest. But knowing what to do once your game goes ploin shaped is applicable to nearly all of them.

Does that answer your question to your satisfaction?


I have a high bar for "from the ground up", the SUE Files for instance don't qualify because it is ultimately a mod of d20 to make it more universal... officially. Whatever the reason was the feeling of taking d20 and hitting it repeatedly with a hammer.

That's fair. I was more talking about the underlying system for SUE-ness that he created. Which is just a sub-system (or several), not actually a whole system.

But the rest of the point stands - I have created my own systems, and worked with those who have done so.

[Cluedrew]

Have you seen my "Wall of Text" spells?Yes, yes I have. But you hit the other, issues that we just can't throw more words at. You would literally need something like a wikirpg site with many of people addressing the same issues, and some benevolent dictator moderators who can let different opinions in but still sort out the actually crazy stuff. Its a tall order.

Perhaps a more reasonable solution would be a cross site index, you are curious about managing a party with conflicting motivations, well here are three articles from three different other sites with 3 different play styles on the matter.


Does that answer your question to your satisfaction?It wasn't the answer I was looking for (in form or content)... but that's kind of the point isn't it? Still can you really give useful advice at that level of generality? There are many mistakes to make and problems to arise, and the solutions are also varied.


But the rest of the point stands - I have created my own systems, and worked with those who have done so.Right I forgot that to address that part. Perhaps it might have been better to approach it from a matter of simple frequency.

[Lord Raziere]

The root of the problem:
"As always, magic is limited by your imagination - if you can imagine it happening, it does. And martial powers are limited by your imagination - if you can imagine a reason why it can't happen, it doesn't." - LightWarden

Speaking of which, this entire "only magical things can be awesome" argument, is weird to me, because its arguing that all the things not in the real world are supposed to be more powerful than things in real world.

Lets take for example, orcs. orcs are not something that occurs in the real world. they're created by god magic supposedly- but that was long ago. since then, dnd orcs give birth like any other race since they have male and female orcs. so their birthing process is just as natural as any human born in the same universe, so all orcs in a DnD setting are just natural born and the distinction between being supernaturally created and born is a useless one given that all races were created by deities at one point or another. problem is, a race isn't magical in DnD. you can't dispel an orc from existence.

furthermore, an orc despite being technically supernatural, can be a plain fighter class. does that mean an orc fighter is more capable than a human one, given that an orc has supernatural origins and therefore not bound by human limitations of the real world? like, an orc has +4 Strength. that automatically makes them stronger than any human in the game by default. and then there are things like a troll fighter or a giant fighter. these have even more glaring advantages from their race that make them better fighters, simply because a troll can regenerate and a giant is a GIANT. or how about Warforged? they're explicitly created by magical methods, yet can't dispelled out of existence and can take the fighter class, shouldn't they be able to do things beyond human capability with their skills?

Yet at the same time, a race isn't magical in DnD. race does not count as an enchantment or anything, its just another variable to be manipulated by magic, since y'know, a race can exist without magic inside an anti-magic field. so does that mean all these races SHOULDN'T be stronger humanity since they're all natural in how they currently exist rather than their creation? they after all, are not magic since they can exist in an anti-magic field. that means a trolls ability to regenerate isn't magic yet its also beyond human ability. but things beyond human ability can only be magic. but trolls exist inside an anti-magic field. therefore an anti-magic field either doesn't do what it says, or things that aren't magic can do things beyond human ability without magic.

[Quertus]

Speaking of which, this entire "only magical things can be awesome" argument, is weird to me, because its arguing that all the things not in the real world are supposed to be more powerful than things in real world.

Lets take for example, orcs. orcs are not something that occurs in the real world. they're created by god magic supposedly- but that was long ago. since then, dnd orcs give birth like any other race since they have male and female orcs. so their birthing process is just as natural as any human born in the same universe, so all orcs in a DnD setting are just natural born and the distinction between being supernaturally created and born is a useless one given that all races were created by deities at one point or another. problem is, a race isn't magical in DnD. you can't dispel an orc from existence.

furthermore, an orc despite being technically supernatural, can be a plain fighter class. does that mean an orc fighter is more capable than a human one, given that an orc has supernatural origins and therefore not bound by human limitations of the real world? like, an orc has +4 Strength. that automatically makes them stronger than any human in the game by default. and then there are things like a troll fighter or a giant fighter. these have even more glaring advantages from their race that make them better fighters, simply because a troll can regenerate and a giant is a GIANT. or how about Warforged? they're explicitly created by magical methods, yet can't dispelled out of existence and can take the fighter class, shouldn't they be able to do things beyond human capability with their skills?

Yet at the same time, a race isn't magical in DnD. race does not count as an enchantment or anything, its just another variable to be manipulated by magic, since y'know, a race can exist without magic inside an anti-magic field. so does that mean all these races SHOULDN'T be stronger humanity since they're all natural in how they currently exist rather than their creation? they after all, are not magic since they can exist in an anti-magic field. that means a trolls ability to regenerate isn't magic yet its also beyond human ability. but things beyond human ability can only be magic. but trolls exist inside an anti-magic field. therefore an anti-magic field either doesn't do what it says, or things that aren't magic can do things beyond human ability without magic.

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

Quertus has 3 at least 4 no fewer than 5 ways to use magic inside an antimagic field. So, clearly, it doesn't do what is says on the tin.

Yet, despite that fact, in 3.5, trolls cannot regenerate inside an antimagic field (they can in 3.0, btw). Dragons cannot breathe death inside an antimagic field (and might not be able to fly, either, depending on the edition).

Sadly, the game seems determined to ensure that, if it's "natural", you can't have nice things.

[Frozen_Feet]

In d20 D&D, it's explicit through the description of (Ex)traordinary abilities that there are things which break real-life physics yet are neither magical nor supernatural.

Just like it's explicit via description of (Sp)ell-like abilities that there are magic abilities which are not spells.

And, if you apply Magic - Psionic non-transparency, it is explicit via description of (Psi)onic, Psi-like and (Su)pernatural abilities that there are supernatural powers which are neither spells nor magic.

And that's why Anti-Magic field works so wonkily. Because there are supernatural things which do not count as magic.

There isn't a hard, general rule that (Su), (Psi), (Sp) or magic abilities should be more powerfull than natural or (Ex) abilities, the rules just ended up being that way.

[georgie_leech]

Yet, despite that fact, in 3.5, trolls cannot regenerate inside an antimagic field (they can in 3.0, btw).

Might want to double check that, their regeneration is (Ex).

[Quertus]

Might want to double check that, their regeneration is (Ex).

I... was told wrong. :smallannoyed:

Or I'm being senile. Also possible. Did something change across the board from Ex to Su in the 3.5 update?

Either way, I stand corrected.

[NorthernPhoenix]

Imo tiers are a symptom of mechanical imbalance, which I think is a really bad thing for any system. That's less hating "tiers" and more hating what causes this meta-concept to exist

[Arbane]

Imo tiers are a symptom of mechanical imbalance, which I think is a really bad thing for any system. That's less hating "tiers" and more hating what causes this meta-concept to exist

Very true, but some people's reaction to having the problem pointed out is to want to shoot the messenger.

[Nifft]

Very true, but some people's reaction to having the problem pointed out is to want to shoot the messenger.

This is an excellent reason to fit one's messengers with explosives on a deadman's switch.

[Dimers]

Imo tiers are a symptom of mechanical imbalance, which I think is a really bad thing for any system.

I learned from this thread that many good people have a fundamentally different opinion. Some say imbalance doesn't matter, and some say it's a plus. I agree that in practice imbalance isn't as bad as theory makes it out to be, but ... I was really amazed by how many people object to the whole idea that balance is preferable.

The other thing I learned from this thread? From the neutral statement "All else being equal, fighters are less effective in battle than clerics", fans of the tier system will read into it you can use this understanding to make your game better while opponents will hear so therefore you're dumb if you play a fighter.

[Pex]

Very true, but some people's reaction to having the problem pointed out is to want to shoot the messenger.

Other people's reaction is disagreeing there's a problem in the first place.

[Quertus]

The other thing I learned from this thread? From the neutral statement "All else being equal, fighters are less effective in battle than clerics", fans of the tier system will read into it you can use this understanding to make your game better while opponents will hear so therefore you're dumb if you play a fighter.

And then the pedants will say that that's clearly wrong, as the fighter gets more HP, and more feats, so, obviously, if he's given the same buffs, he'll outperform the cleric, as long as he isn't asked to make a will save. :smalltongue:

[Cluedrew]

Other people's reaction is disagreeing there's a problem in the first place.That's called denial. {Nods Wisely.}

OK joke over, the particular statement I really don't think you can justify is "[Any] edition of D&D is balanced in that each class can be pushed to the same upper power level". But that is a very particular statement that might not be what you are aiming for. Do you mean: It is not a problem if characters are imbalanced (Quertus seems to go for this a lot), the power levels the characters reach under regular play is not that different or something else.

And if you did mean the first statement, you can argue for that as well. I don't think you can justify it but maybe you can. I reserve the right to be wrong.

[Quertus]

It is not a problem if characters are imbalanced (Quertus seems to go for this a lot),

Quite true. The objective is to have fun. Balance and fun are not synonyms. It is not inherently a problem if characters are imbalanced. Some classes of fun require balance, some require imbalance, some are balance agnostic. Some problems only show up when you have balance, some only show up when you have imbalance, some are balance agnostic.

[Lord Raziere]

Quite true. The objective is to have fun. Balance and fun are not synonyms. It is not inherently a problem if characters are imbalanced. Some classes of fun require balance, some require imbalance, some are balance agnostic. Some problems only show up when you have balance, some only show up when you have imbalance, some are balance agnostic.

A naive view in my opinion. If adventurers are anything like I've experienced, they wouldn't accept anyone being being more powerful than them and still being alive for long and cause only problems because of it. I don't like the idea of any of my character only existing and being relevant just because some other guy chose to be merciful with their all powerful mary sue character. That choice can be rescinded at any time, so how can I trust it? The answer is, I can't. I'd be a fool to trust that. and I am no fool.

[Dimers]

If adventurers are anything like I've experienced ...

Fortunately, many are not. So my experience tells me.

I've often thought it, and I figure I should say it at least once -- Lord Raziere, I'm sorry for the hurt that has been done to you that advises you people are basically bad. I used to feel the same way, and it sucked for me, so ... you have my sympathy.

[Quertus]

A naive view in my opinion. If adventurers are anything like I've experienced, they wouldn't accept anyone being being more powerful than them and still being alive for long and cause only problems because of it. I don't like the idea of any of my character only existing and being relevant just because some other guy chose to be merciful with their all powerful mary sue character. That choice can be rescinded at any time, so how can I trust it? The answer is, I can't. I'd be a fool to trust that. and I am no fool.


Fortunately, many are not. So my experience tells me.

I've often thought it, and I figure I should say it at least once -- Lord Raziere, I'm sorry for the hurt that has been done to you that advises you people are basically bad. I used to feel the same way, and it sucked for me, so ... you have my sympathy.

Yeah, um, while I may lack the decency to empathize with your position directly, I've had plenty of bad experiences with people in general and GMs in particular. So, I'm sorry your experiences have been so horrible, but understand that not everyone is like that.

Besides, if everyone is balanced, then any two people could rescind your option to exist at any time, which really isn't much better. So you can clearly never game with more than one other person, as, as not a fool, you can never trust that the two John Smiths won't decide that you are no longer relevant, and rescind their mercy.

EDIT: and this is exactly what I was talking about, actually, about different classes of problems arising from balance vs imbalance. In an imbalanced game, one person could take out another. In a balanced game, political backstabbing and ganging up is a better tactic.

[Cluedrew]

Some problems only show up when you have balance, some only show up when you have imbalance, some are balance agnostic.In my (not universal) experience*, most problems in cooperative games only show up when you have a high-degree of imbalance. That is to say they aren't problems when the game is balanced or close to balanced. The latter could be called imperfect balance, which is to say they are not actually balanced, but they are close enough for game play reasons.

Come to think of it the tier system actually seems to assume you only need imperfect balance, if I am understanding the 2 tier window. Which is given as roughly how far you can go without further consideration.

Also, besides just cutting off any a bit off exploring the unbalanced set ups, what are the problems that only show up when the game is balanced? With the sort of exception of sameness, I can't think of any right now.

*Which here includes some second hand experience as well, stuff from stories and games I have heard of.

[Dimers]

what are the problems that only show up when the game is balanced?

Player differences, for one. An imbalanced game allows a stronger player to use a weaker option or vice versa. With balanced options, player differences take the spotlight.

Another problem for balanced cooperative games: Lack of 'slack'. Everyone has to perform well or the whole group loses, which is generally less fun.

A problem for the creators of a balanced game: Expansion. It's increasingly hard to keep everything balanced as the number of options increases. You'll be vilified if you don't expand (e.g. players' reaction to the glacial pace of D&D 5e products) and you'll be vilified if you expand imperfectly.

[Kish]

So, I'm sorry your experiences have been so horrible, but understand that not everyone is like that.
Yeah, I'm going "wow." Whoever you play with, Lord Raziere, you should walk away from that group. Either they act like you consider a default and you don't deserve to have to deal with their horrifyingly dysfunctional group behavior--or, frankly, they don't and they don't deserve to be treated as if they would.

[Lord Raziere]

Player differences, for one. An imbalanced game allows a stronger player to use a weaker option or vice versa. With balanced options, player differences take the spotlight.

Another problem for balanced cooperative games: Lack of 'slack'. Everyone has to perform well or the whole group loses, which is generally less fun.

A problem for the creators of a balanced game: Expansion. It's increasingly hard to keep everything balanced as the number of options increases. You'll be vilified if you don't expand (e.g. players' reaction to the glacial pace of D&D 5e products) and you'll be vilified if you expand imperfectly.

1. Oh yes, tell me of this abstract problem of "player differences" and how imbalanced play is the only way to protect people against someone being too good or someone being bad at roleplaying. how convenient. [/sarcasm] there is nothing wrong with player skill and the point of someone being at something is to improve it, and if someone is worse at roleplaying than another, who cares? they're learning, its not their fault, just deal with it and move on, and if your skilled enough to be a good roleplayer and help the less good ones in an imbalanced system, your skilled enough to do so in an imbalanced one to, so there is no excuse.

2. if your not making the effort, why are you playing? why are you here?

3. Fandoms are un-please-able and filled with hate. news at 11.


Yeah, I'm going "wow." Whoever you play with, Lord Raziere, you should walk away from that group. Either they act like you consider a default and you don't deserve to have to deal with their horrifyingly dysfunctional group behavior--or, frankly, they don't and they don't deserve to be treated as if they would.

Oh no, I left that group/forum long ago. its years dead.

I know that other groups and forums are better.

but if you think that I FORGOT? that the same can't happen in other ways? I'm no fool. I'm not taking that chance. I've seen what rules-lawyering powergaming nerds can be at their worst. Tippyverse, batman wizards? sound EXACTLY like those guys, just with DnD rather than Mt:G or whatever else. I'm not playing anything that allows a player to go "oh lol, I have only one weakness and am immune to everything else, and I won't tell you what that weakness is because you have to figure it out yourself" or "I am a shapeshifting being gets the powers of what I shapeshift into,my only weakness is the indesctructible metal of darksteel from mirrodin." just screw that forever. Screw That. Forever. and thats only two examples!

[Kish]

Playing a mechanically powerful character =/= roleplaying. You jumped from "less powerful than other characters" to "bad at roleplaying" when that's as much of a stretch as "actually expects games with friends to be fun and friendly" = "a fool."

[PhoenixPhyre]

Player differences, for one. An imbalanced game allows a stronger player to use a weaker option or vice versa. With balanced options, player differences take the spotlight.

Player skill trumps class build except in extreme cases. This is not unique to balanced games. Is it worse? Possibly. But unbalanced games aren't known for the weak players getting directed to the strong options and vice versa. In fact, in 3.5 one of the major problems was that weak players were weak specifically because they were unaware of the strong options.


Another problem for balanced cooperative games: Lack of 'slack'. Everyone has to perform well or the whole group loses, which is generally less fun.


Strongly dependent on the DM. I have tables that I play at a much different level than with others, despite the system being the same. Unbalanced games deal with this too, except the problem is magnified. Anything that can challenge a strong build will obliterate a weak one, anything that's a proper challenge for a weak one will be obliterated by a strong one. If the strong build's player is on-point, the rest of the team doesn't have to do anything (in fact, can't do anything in extreme cases). If they're not on point, the team fails if the challenges were suitable for the strong player. If not, they win without too much difficulty.



A problem for the creators of a balanced game: Expansion. It's increasingly hard to keep everything balanced as the number of options increases. You'll be vilified if you don't expand (e.g. players' reaction to the glacial pace of D&D 5e products) and you'll be vilified if you expand imperfectly.

People are hard to please because people don't want the same things. While its true that combinatorics makes balancing harder as options increase, you can build to a baseline and balance to that. The issue is one of synergy. A partial solution to that is restricting build flexibility (gating important things behind class level, for example, weakens multi-classing; going to a SoP-style magic system restricts the spells-as-interchangeable-class-features problem).

[Mechalich]

Player skill trumps class build except in extreme cases. This is not unique to balanced games. Is it worse? Possibly. But unbalanced games aren't known for the weak players getting directed to the strong options and vice versa. In fact, in 3.5 one of the major problems was that weak players were weak specifically because they were unaware of the strong options.

It's also that many people simply don't want to play spellcasters - which are all the strongest options. This data set from D&D Beyond (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-your-dd-character-rare/), nicely compiled by FiveThirtyEight, makes the point that the most popular class choice is Fighter, and the second most popular is Rogue. Wizard comes in 3rd, but Barbarian comes in 4th. Cleric is 5th, but Bard, Sorcerer, and Druid are the three rarest classes, behind warlock and monk for goodness sake.

That is for 5e, with greater class balance, but the spell casters are still stronger, and yet people are signing up to play martials a significant majority of the time.

So if you design a generic fantasy game, the martial types (and the skill-based rogue types) have to be able to hold their own, because that's what a huge portion of the player base wants. In a system like 3.5 it is possible to build fighters who a viable for the core in-a-box gameplay setup - the dungeon crawl - but they require narrow tailoring to work properly. Strength must be absolutely prioritized, certain feats (power attack for one) are effectively required. Huge portions of the conceptual space occupied by fantasy warriors in actual fiction are simply walled off because the game doesn't allow them to hold their own. So the tiers represent a problem because they go against the concepts that the fanbase wants.

Again, this isn't a problem unique to D&D. 2e Exalted had huge imbalance problems due to screwing up the math involving weapons such that having giant death-hammers overwhelmed any other design setup, so a character who fought with anything other than the biggest possible engine of destruction they could find was totally pointless - a crippling problem for a game that supposedly featured barehanded martial artists and knife-throwing sorceresses among their iconic characters.

[Dimers]

Hey, don't get me wrong, folks, I'm playing devil's advocate here -- I'm very much pro-balance. Just ... yes, there are ways balanced systems are less than ideal. Obviously. If something were ideal, we'd all be playing it instead of chatting about it. :smallsmile:

[Pex]

but if you think that I FORGOT? that the same can't happen in other ways? I'm no fool. I'm not taking that chance. I've seen what rules-lawyering powergaming nerds can be at their worst. Tippyverse, batman wizards? sound EXACTLY like those guys, just with DnD rather than Mt:G or whatever else. I'm not playing anything that allows a player to go "oh lol, I have only one weakness and am immune to everything else, and I won't tell you what that weakness is because you have to figure it out yourself" or "I am a shapeshifting being gets the powers of what I shapeshift into,my only weakness is the indesctructible metal of darksteel from mirrodin." just screw that forever. Screw That. Forever. and thats only two examples!

I'm with you a player should not be making a character that "wins D&D". Doesn't matter how technically legal the build is, if it makes the game unplayable screw the rules. We might disagree on the ceiling of acceptable optimization level of a build, but we agree a ceiling should exist.

[Saiga]

Player differences, for one. An imbalanced game allows a stronger player to use a weaker option or vice versa. With balanced options, player differences take the spotlight.

Another problem for balanced cooperative games: Lack of 'slack'. Everyone has to perform well or the whole group loses, which is generally less fun.

A problem for the creators of a balanced game: Expansion. It's increasingly hard to keep everything balanced as the number of options increases. You'll be vilified if you don't expand (e.g. players' reaction to the glacial pace of D&D 5e products) and you'll be vilified if you expand imperfectly.

To me, it sounds like these options are about failing to achieve balance. The first two points imply a large gap between optimized and un-optimized builds (first point) and tactics (second point). However, this gap can be found in unbalanced systems (good players take the OP options, bad players take the underpowered ones) and is arguably worse there.

The third point, expansion, is definitely a difficult thing to manage - because it can potentially create imbalance. It's hard to call this a flaw compared to a system that already IS unbalanced, though.

[Quertus]

Also, besides just cutting off any a bit off exploring the unbalanced set ups, what are the problems that only show up when the game is balanced? With the sort of exception of sameness, I can't think of any right now.

Dimers already listed most of the best examples (kudos!): exacerbating player differences, performance requirements, and creation-side.

You're already mentioned sameness, and I've already mentioned the political backstabbing mindset of "dealing with" equals.

To this list, I will add... a counterpoint to creation-side. Or I will one I remember it. :smallredface:

And 4e. You don't get 4e D&D in unbalanced. That's reason enough right there. :smalltongue:

-----

But let's look at mindset. When people had the expectation that 3e was balanced, remember how up in arms they were to discover that it wasn't? When people discovered that Fighters got at will AoE no save, just die*, whereas poor Wizards got single target SoD a few times per day against monsters with inflated HD & saves that no PC could possibly match? Oh, or when they were playing at less optimized tables, and saw the opposite problem?

Things will never be balanced in any RPG interesting enough to be worth playing. Expecting balance just sets you up for disappointment. But building a healthy attitude about imbalance sets you up for success. Accepting and embracing the fact that there will be imbalance in the game - whether in mechanics, or player skill, or spotlight time, or being in sync with the GM or the campaign premise - is one of the best steps to happiness in an RPG, imo.

Now, that doesn't mean that you can't strive for better balance than 3e has, if you care about such things. Because, "I failed at the character creation step by picking one of the choir options" is kinda lame. Imo, the core classes should all be "tier 1-2"**, and more advanced options should allow you to do anything from raise them to tier 1 to drop them to tier 5. So that everyone new to the game wins at character creation, and people with more system mastery can build exactly what they want to play.

-----

Player skill is a big thing. Heck, just look at the posts of GitP, and you'll see huge variations in intellect, writing skill, charisma, leadership, organization, reading comprehension, and ability to formulate cogent arguments, to name a few. These variations in aptitude greatly impact one's ability to make a meaningful impact on the Playground, despite 99%-100% of the accounts being "balanced" (I'll argue for 100%, as, imo, the moderators on this site neither ask for not receive special treatment when not actually putting on their moderator hats).

Most people who fail because they're bad at life don't want to have to admit that they're bad at life. It is much easier to blame something else***, like the government, or never getting a break, when, really, you're just incompetent. It's the same thing in an RPG. Most bad players want to be able to blame things like character build, or GM favoritism, rather than have to admit that they suck (huh, that didn't hit a filter). Having game imbalance is a kindness to the frailty of human ego.

* Great Cleave Improved Crit Keen Vorpal...
** not necessarily using the established tier system here, btw
*** not that there aren't people who can legitimately blame something else, mind


Playing a mechanically powerful character =/= roleplaying. You jumped from "less powerful than other characters" to "bad at roleplaying" when that's as much of a stretch as "actually expects games with friends to be fun and friendly" = "a fool."

Yeah, and it's not even an issue of skill at role-playing, so much as one of tactics and critical thinking.


Player skill trumps class build except in extreme cases. This is not unique to balanced games. Is it worse? Possibly. But unbalanced games aren't known for the weak players getting directed to the strong options and vice versa. In fact, in 3.5 one of the major problems was that weak players were weak specifically because they were unaware of the strong options.

Strongly dependent on the DM. I have tables that I play at a much different level than with others, despite the system being the same. Unbalanced games deal with this too, except the problem is magnified. Anything that can challenge a strong build will obliterate a weak one, anything that's a proper challenge for a weak one will be obliterated by a strong one. If the strong build's player is on-point, the rest of the team doesn't have to do anything (in fact, can't do anything in extreme cases). If they're not on point, the team fails if the challenges were suitable for the strong player. If not, they win without too much difficulty.

Let's look at that second paragraph first, because that's a really good point. When your strongest batter strikes out, the team is gonna have issues. How can you solve this? I have seen three solutions to optimize fun based on this dilemma.

The first is to attempt to enforce balance. Then, scenarios can be (but, in practice, rarely are) measured in terms of how many characters have to strike out before the team is in trouble. For challenging challenges, that's usually "1", so, in a way, we've got the potential to either exacerbate the problem, or spread the blame more evenly. But, if you take the time to measure your acceptable failure rate ahead of time, balance can work.

The second is to work to make the strong batter be consistent. There's a player I really love gaming with. Aside from being a good friend, he is also very reliable. I love it when he has the mechanically strongest character, because I can trust him to carry the team 80% of the way to victory. Then I can be free to play some unstable crackpot whose contribution is more determined by chance and roleplay than mechanical efficiency.

The third solution is to accept failure as a possibility. Really, this is a good idea in any event, imo.

Now, as to the first paragraph, and, in particular the sentiment, "unbalanced games aren't known for the weak players getting directed to the strong options and vice versa", I can only say, play with better people. Care about everyone's fun, and only play with those who share that mindset.

Ok, that was a bit harsh. Instead, how about, "take these examples of bad games, and use them to encourage a more cooperative attitude among your play groups". The game isn't known for that - why not? Seriously, why the **** not, if not because of us?

(oh, and how do you feel about my idea of making to core options all really good, really solid, and making the add-ons more unbalanced (and usually in the "make the character worse" direction?))


To me, it sounds like these options are about failing to achieve balance. The first two points imply a large gap between optimized and un-optimized builds (first point) and tactics (second point). However, this gap can be found in unbalanced systems (good players take the OP options, bad players take the underpowered ones) and is arguably worse there.

The third point, expansion, is definitely a difficult thing to manage - because it can potentially create imbalance. It's hard to call this a flaw compared to a system that already IS unbalanced, though.

Now, I may be mistaken about the intent here, but, as I read it...

The first point is about tactics, too: some people will try to seduce the mindless zombie, hide from the creatures with scent, give away all their political leverage, and never think to fill their gas tank.

And, yes, you can choose to stack power multipliers, which is fun for some groups, so it's great that it's an option. But you can also choose to play at a handicap. If the latter will be more fun, why the **** did you make the dumb, unfun choice?

The third point... Remember, the designers thought (or, at least, claimed) that 3e was balanced.

[Pleh]

Remember, the designers thought (or, at least, claimed) that 3e was balanced.

Also remember: it is balanced if played as intended (which is to say, unoptimized at the lower end of the level spectrum).

Hence the popularity of E6. It's a lot closer to the balance the game creators thought they had.

[Pex]

To me, it sounds like these options are about failing to achieve balance. The first two points imply a large gap between optimized and un-optimized builds (first point) and tactics (second point). However, this gap can be found in unbalanced systems (good players take the OP options, bad players take the underpowered ones) and is arguably worse there.

The third point, expansion, is definitely a difficult thing to manage - because it can potentially create imbalance. It's hard to call this a flaw compared to a system that already IS unbalanced, though.

You need to define what constitutes being overpowered. An ability or combination of abilities that allows a character to do something awesome could very well be the whole point feature. It's not a crime for a PC to be powerful. There is such a thing as "too powerful", but the floor of being too powerful is subjective. An experienced player knowing and using the combination is not doing anything wrong and neither is the game doing anything wrong even though the novice hasn't noticed or used it or some other combination he could be using for his character. The solution isn't blame the game and ban stuff. The solution is for the novice player to learn and be taught.

[Quertus]

The solution isn't blame the game and ban stuff. The solution is for the novice player to learn and be taught.

Mostly agree. I tend more towards the solution being for the group to think in terms of the group, and for the skilled players to be on the lookout for novices, and respond accordingly / appropriately.

[Dimers]

The solution is for the novice player to learn and be taught.

Not a great solution if the novice isn't already invested in the game. If the first impression someone gets is "dude, I need to study this?!" then they might not give it enough time to learn. And some people don't ever learn the rules, or don't learn well enough to get past novice play.

5e is successful at pulling in new players partly because the basics are simple to learn and partly because it's balanced well enough that making your character suck is difficult. And partly because of the halfling art. Just kidding! Kidding! Don't hit me! XD

[Cluedrew]

There was a very good quote that compared creating an optimized 3.X character to getting a PhD. Unfortunately I can't seem to replicate it. But I agree, that seems like a bit too much work.

[Pex]

Not a great solution if the novice isn't already invested in the game. If the first impression someone gets is "dude, I need to study this?!" then they might not give it enough time to learn. And some people don't ever learn the rules, or don't learn well enough to get past novice play.

5e is successful at pulling in new players partly because the basics are simple to learn and partly because it's balanced well enough that making your character suck is difficult. And partly because of the halfling art. Just kidding! Kidding! Don't hit me! XD

Any player who wants to become good at a game needs to invest in playing time and learn. This is not a unique concept to roleplaying games. If he doesn't want to bother that's on him.

[Saiga]

You need to define what constitutes being overpowered. An ability or combination of abilities that allows a character to do something awesome could very well be the whole point feature. It's not a crime for a PC to be powerful. There is such a thing as "too powerful", but the floor of being too powerful is subjective. An experienced player knowing and using the combination is not doing anything wrong and neither is the game doing anything wrong even though the novice hasn't noticed or used it or some other combination he could be using for his character. The solution isn't blame the game and ban stuff. The solution is for the novice player to learn and be taught.

But, like you said, there is such a thing as "too powerful". I was merely using the assumption that, in a unbalanced game, there is an option that is "too powerful". If I didn't, there'd be no point talking about it.

If there aren't options that are "too powerful" that pushes the game closer to being balanced. For such a general comparison, I was using the extremes of either side, otherwise there would be less distinguishing between the two.

edit: It's also unfair to say it's on the player if they don't want to invest time learning. It really depends on how much time the system is asking them to take. You can certainly criticize a system for asking too much time investment to learn how to build or play a competent character.

[georgie_leech]

Any player who wants to become good at a game needs to invest in playing time and learn. This is not a unique concept to roleplaying games. If he doesn't want to bother that's on him.

I think you'll find many players are happy with the modicum of skill just required to play the game. Like, I could spend my time trying to become the best Parcheesi player ever, but that doesn't actually serve my goals for the game: having fun with friends, mainly. I enjoy the character creation minigame of TTRPG's, but to say that a TTRPG requires study is to cut out a sizable chunk of the audience.

[Lorsa]

Any player who wants to become good at a game needs to invest in playing time and learn. This is not a unique concept to roleplaying games. If he doesn't want to bother that's on him.

That kind of depends what "being good at role playing games" mean. This is clearly very dependent on both the individual and the group.

Just because you build optimized characters, it doesn't necessarily make you good at RPGs. I might as well make a case for "method acting" being the skill to develop to be a good roleplayer. Or what about being good at helping the DM share spotlight among the players? Coming up with creative ideas to solve complex problems?

Sure, everything requires time to learn; but first you need to define what counts as "being good at the game" before the curriculum can be created.

[Pex]

That kind of depends what "being good at role playing games" mean. This is clearly very dependent on both the individual and the group.

Just because you build optimized characters, it doesn't necessarily make you good at RPGs. I might as well make a case for "method acting" being the skill to develop to be a good roleplayer. Or what about being good at helping the DM share spotlight among the players? Coming up with creative ideas to solve complex problems?

Sure, everything requires time to learn; but first you need to define what counts as "being good at the game" before the curriculum can be created.

Fair point. Given the plethora of stuff in 3E and Pathfinder it's not necessary to know about every book. To be good doesn't require mastery of knowing how to pick and choose abilities from the different books for a very but not much optimized character. What Pathfinder novice is going to know the awesomeness of a paladin casting Widen Aura spell from Advanced Player's Guide when he wants to give everyone in the party smite evil but they're not in Fireball formation? However, it does require bothering to learn you don't take Power Attack when using Two Weapon Fighting the second time because you thought double the extra damage was cool.

Generally read and know the basic Player's Handbook.

[Pleh]

Fair point. Given the plethora of stuff in 3E and Pathfinder it's not necessary to know about every book. To be good doesn't require mastery of knowing how to pick and choose abilities from the different books for a very but not much optimized character. What Pathfinder novice is going to know the awesomeness of a paladin casting Widen Aura spell from Advanced Player's Guide when he wants to give everyone in the party smite evil but they're not in Fireball formation? However, it does require bothering to learn you don't take Power Attack when using Two Weapon Fighting the second time because you thought double the extra damage was cool.

Generally read and know the basic Player's Handbook.

I disagree. Not aggressively, but generally. A good roleplayer doesn't need to know a thing about the rules. The point of the game is just to have fun. A good roleplayer is good at making choices that are interesting and fun.

The DM is the arbiter of the rules. A good DM must know the rules. A good DM should be able to run a game with a group that knows none of the rules, just by asking them what kind of character they want to play, then presenting a scenario in which they are able to make meaningful choices.

There have been many games I've run where there was absolutely not enough time to make characters AND play, much less teach people what the rules were ahead of time. BUT everyone did want to play a game.

So I just asked people to pick a core race, a core class, and we rolled out a few attributes, then we entered the story. I kept in mind the general range of abilities for low level characters of the specified character choices and just rolled d20s to see what Lady Luck had to say about things. I knew enough of the rules to guess at them pretty well and those games turned out just fine.

Yes, D&D is more fun when you get to play the mini-game of character creation to play the optimization game, but it really is totally non-essential to the actual roleplaying. You just need some basic ideas about who your character is, what abilities they have, and how difficult it is to handle particular encounters with a character's given set of skills.

The rules are really optional to good roleplaying.

[Quertus]

I disagree. Not aggressively, but generally. A good roleplayer doesn't need to know a thing about the rules. The point of the game is just to have fun. A good roleplayer is good at making choices that are interesting and fun.

The DM is the arbiter of the rules. A good DM must know the rules. A good DM should be able to run a game with a group that knows none of the rules, just by asking them what kind of character they want to play, then presenting a scenario in which they are able to make meaningful choices.

There have been many games I've run where there was absolutely not enough time to make characters AND play, much less teach people what the rules were ahead of time. BUT everyone did want to play a game.

So I just asked people to pick a core race, a core class, and we rolled out a few attributes, then we entered the story. I kept in mind the general range of abilities for low level characters of the specified character choices and just rolled d20s to see what Lady Luck had to say about things. I knew enough of the rules to guess at them pretty well and those games turned out just fine.

Yes, D&D is more fun when you get to play the mini-game of character creation to play the optimization game, but it really is totally non-essential to the actual roleplaying. You just need some basic ideas about who your character is, what abilities they have, and how difficult it is to handle particular encounters with a character's given set of skills.

The rules are really optional to good roleplaying.

Pedantic: you are talking about a good player. A good roleplayer knows how to play a consistent character. And can totally be That Guy if they're not also a good player.

Be a good player.

Also, please develop skills like "pay attention, plan ahead, take your turn quickly" and "know basic mechanics and how to make rolls" and "don't spill food everywhere". K, thanks.

[Lorsa]

Fair point. Given the plethora of stuff in 3E and Pathfinder it's not necessary to know about every book. To be good doesn't require mastery of knowing how to pick and choose abilities from the different books for a very but not much optimized character. What Pathfinder novice is going to know the awesomeness of a paladin casting Widen Aura spell from Advanced Player's Guide when he wants to give everyone in the party smite evil but they're not in Fireball formation? However, it does require bothering to learn you don't take Power Attack when using Two Weapon Fighting the second time because you thought double the extra damage was cool.

Generally read and know the basic Player's Handbook.

Did that ever happen to to you?

Well, technically you DO extra damage... if you ever hit. Hopefully in situations like these, the DM can inform the player of the pitfalls of their choice and make sure they're certain that's the kind of gamble they are after?

[Max_Killjoy]

I disagree. Not aggressively, but generally. A good roleplayer doesn't need to know a thing about the rules. The point of the game is just to have fun. A good roleplayer is good at making choices that are interesting and fun.

The DM is the arbiter of the rules. A good DM must know the rules. A good DM should be able to run a game with a group that knows none of the rules, just by asking them what kind of character they want to play, then presenting a scenario in which they are able to make meaningful choices.

There have been many games I've run where there was absolutely not enough time to make characters AND play, much less teach people what the rules were ahead of time. BUT everyone did want to play a game.

So I just asked people to pick a core race, a core class, and we rolled out a few attributes, then we entered the story. I kept in mind the general range of abilities for low level characters of the specified character choices and just rolled d20s to see what Lady Luck had to say about things. I knew enough of the rules to guess at them pretty well and those games turned out just fine.

Yes, D&D is more fun when you get to play the mini-game of character creation to play the optimization game, but it really is totally non-essential to the actual roleplaying. You just need some basic ideas about who your character is, what abilities they have, and how difficult it is to handle particular encounters with a character's given set of skills.

The rules are really optional to good roleplaying.

I have to disagree.

It's the same as a chess player knowing the rules and terminology of chess before they sit down, so that the other player doesn't have to constantly remind them where they can move their horsey knight.

A player should have a good idea of what their character can and can't do, and what to expect, at least well enough that their RPing the character isn't utterly disconnect from the capabilities of the character or the reality of their world -- enough to have functional expectations.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I have to disagree.

It's the same as a chess player knowing the rules and terminology of chess before they sit down, so that the other player doesn't have to constantly remind them where they can move their horsey knight.

A player should have a good idea of what their character can and can't do, and what to expect, at least well enough that their RPing the character isn't utterly disconnect from the capabilities of the character or the reality of their world -- enough to have functional expectations.

Depending on the system, a lot of that can be learned in play. Having to learn all the convoluted rules (and the commentary on the rules, and the meta rules) before you can even create a character is stifling. I play with mostly new players (new to TTRPGs entirely). We're usually up and running real quick, and they pick up the idea very fast. Yes, I have to remind them of some mechanical things for a while ("which is the d8 again?"), but they become good roleplayers very quickly. And that, to me, is more important than being able to dodge the traps in the system itself.

I'd rather have a system that has as few traps (or brokenly good) options as possible. You should have to consciously work to create a broken (in either direction) character. Taking what looks good should give you decent, middle of the road performance. To me, that's the important part of balance. Numbers? Not so important. Being able to sit down with a new system and easily create a character that can participate more or less in all areas and still be a character? That's important to me.

[Max_Killjoy]

Depending on the system, a lot of that can be learned in play. Having to learn all the convoluted rules (and the commentary on the rules, and the meta rules) before you can even create a character is stifling. I play with mostly new players (new to TTRPGs entirely). We're usually up and running real quick, and they pick up the idea very fast. Yes, I have to remind them of some mechanical things for a while ("which is the d8 again?"), but they become good roleplayers very quickly. And that, to me, is more important than being able to dodge the traps in the system itself.

I'd rather have a system that has as few traps (or brokenly good) options as possible. You should have to consciously work to create a broken (in either direction) character. Taking what looks good should give you decent, middle of the road performance. To me, that's the important part of balance. Numbers? Not so important. Being able to sit down with a new system and easily create a character that can participate more or less in all areas and still be a character? That's important to me.

I generally agree, but consider this more of a system problem. Some systems just seem to be rife with trap options, convoluted special-case rules or even a new mechanic for each new little thing, etc. 3.5 and its offspring stand as a good example.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I generally agree, but consider this more of a system problem. Some systems just seem to be rife with trap options, convoluted special-case rules or even a new mechanic for each new little thing, etc. 3.5 and its offspring stand as a good example.

Exactly my point. A good system shouldn't require much mastery at the beginning. Having system mastery is great and helps smooth things out, but if your system requires doing calculus to calculate encumbrance (to exaggerate a bit) that's going to hurt new people tremendously. Especially if it doesn't give any clue on the face that that's what's required.

I find 5e much more new-player friendly than 3.5 (or even 4, which is where I originally started with new people). You can basically "pick what looks cool" and have a functional character. All the optimization things come with time. It's also easy enough for a DM to scale things up and down to the skill level of the players/choices made by the group. Any of the more complicated mechanics can be ignored until the players are more comfortable with them.

[Pex]

Did that ever happen to to you?

Well, technically you DO extra damage... if you ever hit. Hopefully in situations like these, the DM can inform the player of the pitfalls of their choice and make sure they're certain that's the kind of gamble they are after?

Yeah, me, when 3.0 first came out. Learned that lesson.
:smallbiggrin:

[Pleh]

I have to disagree.

It's the same as a chess player knowing the rules and terminology of chess before they sit down, so that the other player doesn't have to constantly remind them where they can move their horsey knight.

A player should have a good idea of what their character can and can't do, and what to expect, at least well enough that their RPing the character isn't utterly disconnect from the capabilities of the character or the reality of their world -- enough to have functional expectations.

Chess is a bad example. There is only 1 way to play chess: only 1 objective. There are only a few tools to help you meet that objective and effectively limitless permutations of combining those tools.

Sure, you could repurpose the board and pieces to play a different game. But then you're not playing chess. You could be playing chess + house rules, or just playing House with the chess pieces as characters, but no matter how much or little you change the rules, there's always a point where it isn't chess anymore.

D&D (and other RPGs) aren't just one game in this way. One game is a highly mechanical dungeon crawl, another is a table theater drama where character abilities and dice rolling hardly come into use. Both are equally D&D.

And by the time people want to play D&D, they already have a pretty good idea what functional expectations to have.

"I want to play a halfling rogue."

So you are probably stealthy and cunning, good at bluffing and technical skills, have a few light weapons that are easy to conceal, a habit of disregarding laws, and a penchant for stealing things.

"I want to fly."

You aren't a wizard or a bird, so that's going to take some work.

"What if I steal it from a wizard?"

So you want a quest to steal a magic item from a wizard. Give me Gather Information to get your quest started.

It really doesn't require the player to know the rules of the game. More to have just consumed fantasy literature and enjoyed it enough to want to live it out a bit, which is exactly what fantasy literature is rather designed to do.

[Knaight]

Any player who wants to become good at a game needs to invest in playing time and learn. This is not a unique concept to roleplaying games. If he doesn't want to bother that's on him.
Most people aren't aiming to be really skilled at the games they play - reasonably competent, sure, but not highly skilled. Reasonable competence can be reached in most games pretty quickly, and while a really high bar to entry isn't unique to RPGs (there's more than a few highly intricate strategy games I can point to here) it is relatively uncommon outside of them.

To learn even fairly intricate Eurogame boardgames I might have to read 30 pages of rules. To learn D&D without even getting into expansions I have to read somewhere in the vicinity of 950.


I have to disagree.

It's the same as a chess player knowing the rules and terminology of chess before they sit down, so that the other player doesn't have to constantly remind them where they can move their horsey knight.
The rules and terminology of chess (not counting weird tournament specific edge cases) can be fit on one sheet of paper pretty easily, including the likes of castling and en passant. Despite that, it's hardly unreasonable to teach people the basics of chess before playing it in a great many contexts.

[Max_Killjoy]

Chess is a bad example. There is only 1 way to play chess: only 1 objective. There are only a few tools to help you meet that objective and effectively limitless permutations of combining those tools.

Sure, you could repurpose the board and pieces to play a different game. But then you're not playing chess. You could be playing chess + house rules, or just playing House with the chess pieces as characters, but no matter how much or little you change the rules, there's always a point where it isn't chess anymore.

D&D (and other RPGs) aren't just one game in this way. One game is a highly mechanical dungeon crawl, another is a table theater drama where character abilities and dice rolling hardly come into use. Both are equally D&D.

And by the time people want to play D&D, they already have a pretty good idea what functional expectations to have.

"I want to play a halfling rogue."

So you are probably stealthy and cunning, good at bluffing and technical skills, have a few light weapons that are easy to conceal, a habit of disregarding laws, and a penchant for stealing things.

"I want to fly."

You aren't a wizard or a bird, so that's going to take some work.

"What if I steal it from a wizard?"

So you want a quest to steal a magic item from a wizard. Give me Gather Information to get your quest started.

It really doesn't require the player to know the rules of the game. More to have just consumed fantasy literature and enjoyed it enough to want to live it out a bit, which is exactly what fantasy literature is rather designed to do.

As a GM, I expect my players to take at least enough time to know what dice to roll, the basics of resolution (combat and otherwise) and so on, for the first session. I'm happy to sit down and show them these things during Session 0.

On the flip side, I avoid mashup systems with excessive overhead such as 3.5 and its ilk.

[Darth Ultron]

Yes, D&D is more fun when you get to play the mini-game of character creation to play the optimization game, but it really is totally non-essential to the actual roleplaying. You just need some basic ideas about who your character is, what abilities they have, and how difficult it is to handle particular encounters with a character's given set of skills.

The rules are really optional to good roleplaying.

I agree. Yes, some players must play the rules number game and have tons of fun trying to get a ''+1'' more in something or whatever. But a lot of players can just have fun playing the game, role playing, and not worrying about all the rules. They know the basics of combat, and the all important ''roll a 1d20'' to do something, but that is about it. A player can have a ton of fun, being rule clueless.

[Quertus]

And by the time people want to play D&D, they already have a pretty good idea what functional expectations to have.

"I want to play a halfling rogue."

C'mon now, people who don't know D&D don't start at "halfling rogue", they start at "hobbit" or "Frodo". :smallwink: :smalltongue:

[Mechalich]

C'mon now, people who don't know D&D don't start at "halfling rogue", they start at "hobbit" or "Frodo". :smallwink: :smalltongue:

People do not want to play halflings, period. Halfling is chosen less often then Dragonborn, Tiefling, or Genasi. I mean, they still beat out half-orcs and gnomes, but the reality is that the most popular D&D race is humans, by an immense margin, with elves as the second most popular, also by a large margin. Everyone else is second or third tier.

[Pleh]

C'mon now, people who don't know D&D don't start at "halfling rogue", they start at "hobbit" or "Frodo". :smallwink: :smalltongue:

I tell new players about the copyright problems involved there.


People do not want to play halflings, period. Halfling is chosen less often then Dragonborn, Tiefling, or Genasi. I mean, they still beat out half-orcs and gnomes, but the reality is that the most popular D&D race is humans, by an immense margin, with elves as the second most popular, also by a large margin. Everyone else is second or third tier.

Never been a problem in my games. Halflings are a common enough choice, especially for the "small package" character archetypes. Dragonborn and Tiefling have come up less often due mostly to social prejudices and stigma.

But I've seen lots of halflings in games.

[Pex]

I'd be shocked if someone who is playing a halfling is not playing a rogue.

Not counting that one shot 2E game where everyone was a halfling, I've only seen a non-rogue PC halfling once in all my years of playing, and it took 5E to happen. He played a battlemaster fighter who went with the double light hand crossbow shtick with crossbow expert which was in fashion at the time.

[Lord Raziere]

I'd be shocked if someone who is playing a halfling is not playing a rogue.

Not counting that one shot 2E game where everyone was a halfling, I've only seen a non-rogue PC halfling once in all my years of playing, and it took 5E to happen. He played a battlemaster fighter who went with the double light hand crossbow shtick with crossbow expert which was in fashion at the time.

Once tried to play a chaotic good halfling paladin in 4e. game didn't go far, so it never amounted to anything.

[Pleh]

I'd be shocked if someone who is playing a halfling is not playing a rogue.

Not counting that one shot 2E game where everyone was a halfling, I've only seen a non-rogue PC halfling once in all my years of playing, and it took 5E to happen. He played a battlemaster fighter who went with the double light hand crossbow shtick with crossbow expert which was in fashion at the time.

Hanging around in the 3.5 forum, I've seen Strongheart Halfling Paladin.

The build seems to be "one of the few nice things paladins get is Special Mount, but mounts are often too big for dungeons, so Halfling Paladins can have a Riding Dog, go everywhere the party can, and optimize the mounted combat charging rules."

Humans are usually the second best choice for any build due to the bonus feat. Strongheart Halflings get the same bonus feat.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'd be shocked if someone who is playing a halfling is not playing a rogue.

Not counting that one shot 2E game where everyone was a halfling, I've only seen a non-rogue PC halfling once in all my years of playing, and it took 5E to happen. He played a battlemaster fighter who went with the double light hand crossbow shtick with crossbow expert which was in fashion at the time.

I have a halfling bard currently (as well as a halfling rogue). Both in 5e. I guess playing with teenagers (and new players almost exclusively) means that I see "weird" combinations (strange ones in bold):

Party 1:
* halfling bard
* high elf wizard (ok, this one's normal)
* tiefling druid

Party 2:
* halfling rogue (going for an indiana jones expy)
* wood elf rogue (this player, while not new, has played nothing else)
* variant human fighter
* tiefling (I think) paladin

Party 3:
* dragonborn monk
* high elf rogue
* half-elf warlock
* variant human druid (but did not choose an "optimal" feat)

I've had lots of dragonborn (mostly from female players, oddly enough). Quite a few tieflings, a reasonable number of aasimar, and very few straight humans or half-elves. My players just aren't that mechanically inclined. Optimization is not what they care about. They've also never taken any of the "max DPR" feats (GWM, Crossbow Expert, Polearm master, etc). The warlock tends to use telekinesis instead of just EB spam.

I think that we have to remember that forum goers are not a valid statistical sample of all players (even just of D&D).

[Max_Killjoy]

I have a halfling bard currently (as well as a halfling rogue). Both in 5e. I guess playing with teenagers (and new players almost exclusively) means that I see "weird" combinations (strange ones in bold):

Party 1:
* halfling bard
* high elf wizard (ok, this one's normal)
* tiefling druid

Party 2:
* halfling rogue (going for an indiana jones expy)
* wood elf rogue (this player, while not new, has played nothing else)
* variant human fighter
* tiefling (I think) paladin

Party 3:
* dragonborn monk
* high elf rogue
* half-elf warlock
* variant human druid (but did not choose an "optimal" feat)

I've had lots of dragonborn (mostly from female players, oddly enough). Quite a few tieflings, a reasonable number of aasimar, and very few straight humans or half-elves. My players just aren't that mechanically inclined. Optimization is not what they care about. They've also never taken any of the "max DPR" feats (GWM, Crossbow Expert, Polearm master, etc). The warlock tends to use telekinesis instead of just EB spam.

I think that we have to remember that forum goers are not a valid statistical sample of all players (even just of D&D).

Love seeing that diversity of concepts and combinations.

It drives me buggy that we see so many threads with people seeking mechanical combinations for biggest effect, and so few where a player is trying to build to match their concept.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Love seeing that diversity of concepts and combinations.

It drives me buggy that we see so many threads with people seeking mechanical combinations for biggest effect, and so few where a player is trying to build to match their concept.

It's a reason I like playing with new players. They're not jaded with "must optimize" or "this is the one true build." They're actually better roleplayers (more focused on "what my character does given the circumstances") than a lot of the more experienced players I've seen. To them, even medium difficulty fights/traps (that I as an experienced DM know aren't really a threat) are exciting and tense. It makes my job as a DM so much more enjoyable and easy because I can focus on crafting interesting situations without having to struggle to counteract munchkins who are intent on breaking things. They also follow adventure hooks willingly--after all, to them that's the point of the game. To go adventure and have fun.

Sometimes I think that we on the forums take this whole thing (RPGs) way too seriously and forget the sense of wonder and fun that new players (properly introduced) have. It's like watching babies interact with things. They find everything fascinating, even stuff adults find boring and normal. I'd argue that that sense of wonder is a good thing and killing it (however that happens) is a negative.

[Pleh]

It's a reason I like playing with new players. They're not jaded with "must optimize" or "this is the one true build." They're actually better roleplayers (more focused on "what my character does given the circumstances") than a lot of the more experienced players I've seen. To them, even medium difficulty fights/traps (that I as an experienced DM know aren't really a threat) are exciting and tense. It makes my job as a DM so much more enjoyable and easy because I can focus on crafting interesting situations without having to struggle to counteract munchkins who are intent on breaking things. They also follow adventure hooks willingly--after all, to them that's the point of the game. To go adventure and have fun.

Sometimes I think that we on the forums take this whole thing (RPGs) way too seriously and forget the sense of wonder and fun that new players (properly introduced) have. It's like watching babies interact with things. They find everything fascinating, even stuff adults find boring and normal. I'd argue that that sense of wonder is a good thing and killing it (however that happens) is a negative.

That's also why I work hard to keep my games from discouraging the mechanical pitfalls. I like my new players feeling free to make unoptimized low tier characters. I mentally weight the system in their favor to help keep it from slapping them.

That's why I like JaronK's tiers. When you take them for what they are (a general guideline, not a hard science) they really can help a DM fill in those mechanical potholes before a player blows out their fantasy on a stupid broken rule.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That's also why I work hard to keep my games from discouraging the mechanical pitfalls. I like my new players feeling free to make unoptimized low tier characters. I mentally weight the system in their favor to help keep it from slapping them.

That's why I like JaronK's tiers. When you take them for what they are (a general guideline, not a hard science) they really can help a DM fill in those mechanical potholes before a player blows out their fantasy on a stupid broken rule.

I find 3.5e to be harder (not impossible, but certainly more difficult) to do that with except at low levels (where the tiers are much more even). The power gradient is just too big and the trap options (even at the "what skills do I invest in" level) are too common.

But as to philosophy, I agree. I'd rather reweight the scenarios to the optimization level than to require a certain optimization level to pass the fixed challenges. In doing so, the lower-power party is facing qualitatively different scenarios, but they're scenarios that they have a chance of shining in. Different rides, but no visible "you must be this tall to ride"/"You must have these abilities/DPR/items to play" signs.

[Quertus]

forum goers are not a valid statistical sample of all players (even just of D&D).


that sense of wonder is a good thing and killing it (however that happens) is a negative.

Somebody ate their wheaties. That's two very signature worthy quotes right there. Words to live by, even. Kudos!

[PhoenixPhyre]

Somebody ate their wheaties. That's two very signature worthy quotes right there. Words to live by, even. Kudos!

Thanks! Sig them at will.

[Quertus]

Thanks! Sig them at will.

If I ever make a Sig, I definitely will. Thanks!

[Talakeal]

People do not want to play halflings, period. Halfling is chosen less often then Dragonborn, Tiefling, or Genasi. I mean, they still beat out half-orcs and gnomes, but the reality is that the most popular D&D race is humans, by an immense margin, with elves as the second most popular, also by a large margin. Everyone else is second or third tier.

Really? I play a low fantasy game and strongly encourage all human groups, but I have to fight tooth and nail for more than a single token human in any group.

I would say elves are the most popular, and I have more people wanting to play catfolk, dragonborn, and assimar / tiefelings than humans.

Heck, I probably have as many people wanting to play some weird race out of the MM than humans.

[Darth Ultron]

Really? I play a low fantasy game and strongly encourage all human groups, but I have to fight tooth and nail for more than a single token human in any group.

I would say elves are the most popular, and I have more people wanting to play catfolk, dragonborn, and assimar / tiefelings than humans.

Heck, I problem have as many people wanting to play some weird race out of the MM than humans.

I find this true as well. Often a group will look like a zoo. and this is a really bad thing about Pathfinder is they have like a hundred races...and too often you will have a player that wants to be 'super weird race''.

[Quertus]

I find this true as well. Often a group will look like a zoo. and this is a really bad thing about Pathfinder is they have like a hundred races...and too often you will have a player that wants to be 'super weird race''.

Quertus is human. Armus is elven mixed breed. Ikou is... I don't even remember, tbh. But, if I'm making a new character, I'm going to want to make it something I haven't made before. I've made around 200 D&D characters. So, probably some "super weird race" is gonna be my preference. For myself, and for my companions. Normal party? Been there, done that to death.

[adrian23]

Why does it make sense that a fireball is stronger than my longsword being shoved through your gut?

In order for a mage being more powerful than a fighter to be okay, one must accept the postulate that magic is more powerful than technology.

I reject this claim, and therefore stabbing someone, possibly multiple times, should be about as effective as a fireball.


I reject this claim on the ground that if magic was significantly more powerful than non-magic means, the world would be an autocratic mageocracy with the most powerful magic users in the highest positions of power, and all institutions of magic tightly regulated and under the direct power of the ruler, if not outright banned.

Since the world is not an autocratic mageocracy, then magic is not significantly more powerful than non-magical means.


still reading through the responses but mageocracies do exist in the world(as well as magical theocracies psionocracies etc) in most settings i think.

[Lord Raziere]

I just realized:

proponents of the tier system say that its supposed to be a check against player skill.

yet isn't optimization and therefore the use of the tier system, the purest expression of player skill? The players skill to game the system beyond the abilities they are meant to have and thus break the game? you cannot claim to be a check against player skill when its so obvious that optimization itself is the player skill thats screwing things up. to assume that the strong player will always choose a weak class and that a weak player will always choose a strong class is ridiculous. if nothing else, dunning-krueger effect will rear its ugly head: the incompetent will self-report as being highly competent and take a weak class and the competent will see themselves as a normal DnD player and thus take a strong class.

the conceit that you can balance against player skill when the very system you use it with enables that very player skill is foolish. there is no true "system/player" balance because mastery of the system itself is a player skill that imbalances a player by making the group see things in the light of such system mastery, thus twisting it into their version of the game where they will always win. thus imbalance in the system is an expression of player skill of optimization and the only way to balance against the player skill is balance, while any other player skill is too abstract to ever be balanced against, I mean what are you going to balance against? a players skilled descriptions of what they do? Ridiculous.

[Max_Killjoy]

Aside -- Dunning-Kruger mentioned, obligatory link: https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-kruger-effect-is-and-isnt/

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm horribly confused by now. Is the point of this thread

Proponents of ranking classes based on versatility vs People who believe that such rankings are useless/invalid/bad/etc.

OR

Pro/con the existence of the underlying disparity that is summarized in the tiers.

It seems both are being thrown together.


Also--

I just realized:

proponents of the tier system say that its supposed to be a check against player skill.



They do? That's not a claim I've heard before.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'm horribly confused by now. Is the point of this thread

Proponents of ranking classes based on versatility vs People who believe that such rankings are useless/invalid/bad/etc.

OR

Pro/con the existence of the underlying disparity that is summarized in the tiers.

It seems both are being thrown together.


There's a lot of conflation and talking-past-each-other going on because those two axes are being blurred.




Also--

They do? That's not a claim I've heard before.


I can see where some of the statements here might well be read that way.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I can see where some of the statements here might well be read that way.

Rereading things, I can sort of see that reading. I think a lot of that is due to the aforementioned cross-talk due to different understandings of the original topic. I'm still quite confused.

[Nifft]

In the various 3e forums, I've never seen anyone advocate for the value of preserving nor enshrining Tiers.

Rather, I've seen people advocate for the understanding of Tiers, and for designing a game to compensate for the existence of Tiers.

[Quertus]

In the various 3e forums, I've never seen anyone advocate for the value of preserving nor enshrining Tiers.

Rather, I've seen people advocate for the understanding of Tiers, and for designing a game to compensate for the existence of Tiers.

I mean, I kinda am. A lot of my friends definitely are.

Making characters able to operate at completely different levels of power and/or flexibility has numerous advantages. The biggest is as a balancing tool.

There are many potential sources of imbalance in a game. Player Skills, Setting knowledge, being in sync with the GM, being in sync with the character, level of distraction, luck, and even cheating could lead to a party of statistically identical characters having radically different effective capabilities. Most of those, the player can't do much about. But the dial that they can really tune is their build. Making that dial have as large a range as possible, and capable of as much fine tuning as possible, makes it easiest to balance out an otherwise imbalanced game.


I just realized:

proponents of the tier system say that its supposed to be a check against player skill.

yet isn't optimization and therefore the use of the tier system, the purest expression of player skill? The players skill to game the system beyond the abilities they are meant to have and thus break the game? you cannot claim to be a check against player skill when its so obvious that optimization itself is the player skill thats screwing things up. to assume that the strong player will always choose a weak class and that a weak player will always choose a strong class is ridiculous. if nothing else, dunning-krueger effect will rear its ugly head: the incompetent will self-report as being highly competent and take a weak class and the competent will see themselves as a normal DnD player and thus take a strong class.

the conceit that you can balance against player skill when the very system you use it with enables that very player skill is foolish. there is no true "system/player" balance because mastery of the system itself is a player skill that imbalances a player by making the group see things in the light of such system mastery, thus twisting it into their version of the game where they will always win. thus imbalance in the system is an expression of player skill of optimization and the only way to balance against the player skill is balance, while any other player skill is too abstract to ever be balanced against, I mean what are you going to balance against? a players skilled descriptions of what they do? Ridiculous.

The biggest player skill is caring about the fun of everyone playing the game.

Those skilled players might attempt to play a weaker character to balance out their superior player skills in parties where the players care about game balance.

Or those skilled players might help players who are frustrated by having an ineffective or "doesn't-match-my-concept" build to rebuild their character into something that makes them happier.

I'm sad that most humans are too dumb to get it, if other gamers' tales are to be believed. :smallfrown: I'm so glad that I game with better people, where that kind of behavior is the exception, rather than the rule. Thank all of y'all for helping remind me how truly blessed I've been.

[Talakeal]

Aside -- Dunning-Kruger mentioned, obligatory link: https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-kruger-effect-is-and-isnt/

This is futile. People who don't understand what the DK effect is will assume they do and thus skip the article, while those who think they don't know now what it is will read the article but as they already know what it is they won't learn anything new.

[Nifft]

I mean, I kinda am. A lot of my friends definitely are.

Making characters able to operate at completely different levels of power and/or flexibility has numerous advantages. The biggest is as a balancing tool.


Okay, I'm going to translate what I see, because I'm not sure you mean what it looks like you're saying:



Making characters able to operate at completely different levels of power and/or flexibility has numerous advantages. The biggest is as a balancing tool.

Imbalance has numerous advantages. The biggest is as a balancing tool.


"Advocating for tiers" means advocating for invisible imbalance between classes -- which are presented to new players as though they were all equally valid choices.

Is that really what you are advocating for?

If you like variety, and if you like different kinds of games -- that stuff is all achievable without tiers.

[Quertus]

Okay, I'm going to translate what I see, because I'm not sure you mean what it looks like you're saying:

"Advocating for tiers" means advocating for invisible imbalance between classes -- which are presented to new players as though they were all equally valid choices.

Is that really what you are advocating for?

If you like variety, and if you like different kinds of games -- that stuff is all achievable without tiers.

Me talk much goodly. :smallredface:

I am absolutely not advocating for invisibility, or noob traps. In fact, in several threads, I have presented the idea of writing the game such that the best options are the basic ones in the core book, and that build skill allows you to customize to match your vision at the cost of overall power. Probably the first such time was in a thread about what percentage power increase should build skill give, and I stated a negative number.

I am advocating the capability to create weaker-than-core characters as a means of achieving game balance. For those who care about that kind of thing.

I am advocating letting people try the challenge of an all-ninja party. I am advocating letting people who don't find statistical balance to be conducive to fun in their games have imbalanced parties. I am advocating the joy of reading the one awesome commoner build that defeats the Tarrasque at 1st level through the power of RAW and Name Optimization.

I am saying that there is so much fun to be had, if you only follow the simple rule(s) of "care about other people" and "don't be a ****". Statistical balance isn't important to that.

[Lord Raziere]

I am saying that there is so much fun to be had, if you only follow the simple rule(s) of "care about other people" and "don't be a ****". Statistical balance isn't important to that.

Yes it is. It is the core of that. people who care about other people and not be a jerk think far enough to advocate for a system where its easier to not be so.

[Dimers]

optimization and therefore the use of the tier system

"Optimization" and "use of the tier system" are separate concepts. I use an understanding of tiering to evaluate what a character will be good at and what they won't.* I don't use an understanding of tiering to try to make a character amazing at everything. Even if I were to succeed, it doesn't give me the kind of game I'm interested in playing.

Heck, it doesn't give me a game. "Here's a challenge." "Okay, I beat it." That's not a game.

*Ideally, I can use this to enhance RP. If I know that, say, swimming is dangerous for a character, I can RP their response to water as a danger -- act dismissive if the character is brash, jump right in if the character loves to push his own boundaries, refuse to go in if the character is overcautious even if that makes for more difficulty overall.

[2D8HP]

....I would say elves are the most popular, and I have more people wanting to play catfolk, dragonborn, and assimar / tiefelings than humans....


That's been my experience with 5e.

There's even been an all Elf and Half-Elf party, but in.the late 1970's and early 80's D&D games I played most PC's were human.

[Nifft]

Me talk much goodly. :smallredface:

I am absolutely not advocating for invisibility, or noob traps. In fact, in several threads, I have presented the idea of writing the game such that the best options are the basic ones in the core book, and that build skill allows you to customize to match your vision at the cost of overall power. Probably the first such time was in a thread about what percentage power increase should build skill give, and I stated a negative number.
Then you ought to be opposed to perpetuating or preserving the tier system.


I am advocating the capability to create weaker-than-core characters as a means of achieving game balance. For those who care about that kind of thing. 1 - You don't need tiers to do that; and
2 - It's actually easier to do that without tiers.

For example: in 5e, you can just lower your character's ability scores. Boom, weaker-than-core character, using all the same tools as Core.


I am advocating letting people try the challenge of an all-ninja party. I am advocating letting people who don't find statistical balance to be conducive to fun in their games have imbalanced parties. I am advocating the joy of reading the one awesome commoner build that defeats the Tarrasque at 1st level through the power of RAW and Name Optimization.

I am saying that there is so much fun to be had, if you only follow the simple rule(s) of "care about other people" and "don't be a ****". Statistical balance isn't important to that. Um.

That's a bunch of non-sequiturs.

Playing an all-Ninja party is not inherently more fun if Ninjas always suck mechanically. Playing all-Ninjas while being awesome seems like a concept that would sell more games.

People who want imbalance can trivially create it. If you start with a balanced system, it's easy to imbalance one or more characters. It's very difficult to do the reverse, which is why people pay for game designers to design games. Balance is hard. Imbalance is very easy.

Commoner vs. Tarrasque is the joy of reading about TO, which is basically the bloopers roll of game design. It's a hilarious failure. I'm happy that you got to laugh at the hilarity, but please get out of the way when the rest of us want to fix the blooper.

Finally, setting traps for noobs (or enshrining the current traps) is being a **** to noobs. If you don't want to be a ****, help fix the trap instead of defending it.

[Quertus]

Then you ought to be opposed to perpetuating or preserving the tier system.

1 - You don't need tiers to do that; and
2 - It's actually easier to do that without tiers.

Um... You need to be able to create characters of differing levels of capabilities in order to do balance for player skill. "Tiers" represents a success in creating such vast gulfs in capabilities that, given equal player skill, many of the classes seem unplayable in the same party. Tales like those of a Greenbound Summoner being useless in a party indicates that the existing tiers aren't even enough to overcome the fact that Player > Character.

So, which do you prefer? That all characters are equal, and new players are turned away from the hobby when they just fail at the game, thus the hobby only attracts hardcore enthusiasts? Or that there is a lever we can use to make the game more balanced despite vast differences in player skill? Or some third option?

Because I'm all for player skills, and perfectly willing to resume screaming, "suck it up, git gud noob", but I'm trying to be nice, and advocate a better way.


For example: in 5e, you can just lower your character's ability scores. Boom, weaker-than-core character, using all the same tools as Core.

Back in 2e, I created a character specifically as a challenge. I picked the weakest chassis I could. I used 2-for-1 trading of stats to lower my stats ("I take 2 from my strength, and add one to my strength..."). And I was still a huge contributor (while the rest of the party would deal their massive damage to whatever was closest, I'd hold my action to deal 2 damage to the enemy caster, disrupting their spell, for example).

I haven't played 5e (let alone with a diverse set of players) to know if solely different base stats is adequate to compensate for that range of player skills that I'm describing.


Um.

That's a bunch of non-sequiturs.

Not exactly. It's a list of some of the cool things you wouldn't get in, say, 4e. It's examples of the value of imbalance.

Now, those examples might not be anywhere near as good as the reasons to make things more balanced, but the existence of 4e as the flagship of D&D game balance makes that a hard sell.


Playing an all-Ninja party is not inherently more fun if Ninjas always suck mechanically. Playing all-Ninjas while being awesome seems like a concept that would sell more games.

Sorry, I explicitly meant playing the challenge (I believe I used that very word) of the 3e underpowered Ninjas.

If you want your all-Ninjas party to be awesome, gestalt them with a tier 1 class. Deity's Body Part, I hate that sentiment.


People who want imbalance can trivially create it. If you start with a balanced system, it's easy to imbalance one or more characters. It's very difficult to do the reverse, which is why people pay for game designers to design games. Balance is hard. Imbalance is very easy.

Balance is hard. Agreed. Why remove one of the best tools to help produce balance?

Now, as to making a balanced game for players with the same amount of skill... If that skill level is high, they can do it themselves. If it is low, yes, make all the core, dead simple options balanced. Is there a flaw in my plan I'm not seeing? (other than if that otherwise high universal skill level oddly didn't include skill at things like comprehending game balance, I suppose)


Commoner vs. Tarrasque is the joy of reading about TO, which is basically the bloopers roll of game design. It's a hilarious failure. I'm happy that you got to laugh at the hilarity, but please get out of the way when the rest of us want to fix the blooper.

... I'm opposed to stupid versions of the fix. Like 4e. Look at absolutely everything of value in 3e before trying to "fix" it. Even the blooper real.


Finally, setting traps for noobs (or enshrining the current traps) is being a **** to noobs. If you don't want to be a ****, help fix the trap instead of defending it.

How many times do I have to repeat that I'm against noob traps?


Yes it is. It is the core of that. people who care about other people and not be a jerk think far enough to advocate for a system where its easier to not be so.

Let me just quote myself in explaining why being able to create characters with different levels of power and versatility is advantageous to allow players to work around imbalances in player skill:


I mean, I kinda am. A lot of my friends definitely are.

Making characters able to operate at completely different levels of power and/or flexibility has numerous advantages. The biggest is as a balancing tool.

There are many potential sources of imbalance in a game. Player Skills, Setting knowledge, being in sync with the GM, being in sync with the character, level of distraction, luck, and even cheating could lead to a party of statistically identical characters having radically different effective capabilities. Most of those, the player can't do much about. But the dial that they can really tune is their build. Making that dial have as large a range as possible, and capable of as much fine tuning as possible, makes it easiest to balance out an otherwise imbalanced game.



The biggest player skill is caring about the fun of everyone playing the game.

Those skilled players might attempt to play a weaker character to balance out their superior player skills in parties where the players care about game balance.

Or those skilled players might help players who are frustrated by having an ineffective or "doesn't-match-my-concept" build to rebuild their character into something that makes them happier.

I'm sad that most humans are too dumb to get it, if other gamers' tales are to be believed. :smallfrown: I'm so glad that I game with better people, where that kind of behavior is the exception, rather than the rule. Thank all of y'all for helping remind me how truly blessed I've been.

So, let me push this back to you. Tell me, if all the characters are identical, how do you propose dealing with a huge gulf in player skills? Just yelling, "git gud noob!"? Or do you have a better plan in mind?

Or do you just not care about the other players?

[Lord Raziere]

Optimization which causes imbalance, is the purest expression of player skill that causes the "git gud" response, optimization, the char-op game? that IS the hardcore elite player thing, optimizing at all is the hardcore gamer experience for anything. we don't complain about a players skill to notice something another player wouldn't in game, but do we complain about a character suddenly being able to pull an infinite loop combo and break the game? YES. optimization is the only player skill that causes any imbalance at all, which is produced by the tier system.

I mean, what player skills are you seeking to protect me from with the optimizer's tier system?

the ability for a player to describe their characters actions? oh yes that purple prose is so dangerous.

their ability to think up of a crazy in character plan that works despite not being optimal that we all enjoy? what madmen.

their ability to observe things and piece things together by themselves? Yes its so bad we have someone to solve an IC thing like that, I'm so worried.

Or are you referring to the clearly unfair skill of rolling dice so that it always lands on a natural 20? a skill which y'know, totally exists.

this "protection from player skill" nonsense is just that: nonsense. because it presumes that the optimizer player skill is somehow morally better than all the rest and can somehow fix a problem which doesn't exist, because every time its mentioned, its vague like some looming scary threat, but never actually described in detail as to which skills cause which problems and how this or that solves it in specifics. I've never had any problems with "player skill", but I've had a lot of problems with players optimizing their characters for the sake of winning and causing imbalances because of it. There is no reason to accept imbalance as the default and allow such people the foot to stand on so that they may wreck the game easier.

[Nifft]

So, let me push this back to you. Tell me, if all the characters are identical, how do you propose dealing with a huge gulf in player skills? Just yelling, "git gud noob!"? Or do you have a better plan in mind?

Or do you just not care about the other players?

First of all, I set the strawman on fire, then take a 5 ft. step back, and ready a marshmallow as a Swift action.

Seriously, if your "pushing back" is an assertion that balance = "all the characters are identical", then you need to find a new argument. That's a very poor argument.


To answer the questions at the end, I'd teach the players by talking to them, both in and out of game. I'd encourage them to talk to the DM (which might also be me) in non-mechanical terms, so the DM can help fill in the gaps in mechanical knowledge while engaging with the new players' imaginations.

I'd use my skill as a tutor and mentor to figure out what they're struggling with, and help them learn to not struggle so much.

I'd use my skill as a manager to see what they enjoy doing, and help them find ways to do more of those things.

I'd use my character in-game to support the others, including any noobs, so they could both learn to cooperate and hopefully learn all my tricks. D&D is a cooperative game, so I can do that better with a normal character. Self-gimping would reduce my capability to teach.


It sounds like Quertus plays in a more antagonistic every-PC-for-herself environment, where cooperation is scarce and "git gud noob" (the rallying cry of video games like Dark Souls) is common. If I were hoping to introduce new players to D&D, what I'd do first is remove that antagonistic environment. Cooperative games are a better learning environment, and in my opinion also a lot more fun.


Since I set your straw man on fire, shall I provide one of my own in compensation?

Here's what I would NOT do:
- Make an obviously gimped character.
- Use my meta-game knowledge to show off how awesome I am in spite of playing a gimped character.
- Rub it in the noob's faces.

That's the real choice: either rubbing dirt in noob faces, or playing a more balanced game in a more cooperative way.

Why do you want to rub dirt in poor, innocent noob faces?

Why do you hate all other players?

[Arbane]

Um... You need to be able to create characters of differing levels of capabilities in order to do balance for player skill. "Tiers" represents a success in creating such vast gulfs in capabilities that, given equal player skill, many of the classes seem unplayable in the same party. Tales like those of a Greenbound Summoner being useless in a party indicates that the existing tiers aren't even enough to overcome the fact that Player > Character.

That notion falls down a bit with the fact that the simpler classes are ALSO the lower ones on the Tier List. And if someone wants not to show up the other players with their powergamingPLAYER SKILL, there IS the possibility of ASKING the l33t pl4y0rz to tone it down a bit.


So, which do you prefer? That all characters are equal, and new players are turned away from the hobby when they just fail at the game, thus the hobby only attracts hardcore enthusiasts? Or that there is a lever we can use to make the game more balanced despite vast differences in player skill? Or some third option?

Um... make the game in such a way that spells aren't Instant Win Buttons for every problem, and even dumb sword-swingers can be competent at stuff outside of fights?

I know I've skipped over a big chunk of this conversation, but when you say Player Skill, are you referring to skill at "Using 10' poles, rope, and disposable lackeys to Mother-May-I past BS insta-death traps" (aka 'Old School Roleplaying' - I've been reading Grognards.txt, and it's left me more than a bit jaundiced), or 'Writing down 'Wizard' in the space for 'Class'"?

I've played a lot of other RPGs, and while plenty of them have weird powergaming exploits, D&D3 seems to be the only one with this particular pathology. (Aside from maybe White Wolf/Onyx Path/Whatever crossover games, and anyone who plays a Mage in a group of Werewolves knows perfectly well what they're getting into.)


To answer the questions at the end, I'd teach the players by talking to them, both in and out of game. I'd encourage them to talk to the DM (which might also be me) in non-mechanical terms, so the DM can help fill in the gaps in mechanical knowledge while engaging with the new players' imaginations.

I'd use my skill as a tutor and mentor to figure out what they're struggling with, and help them learn to not struggle so much.

(Snipe)

It sounds like Quertus plays in a more antagonistic every-PC-for-herself environment, where cooperation is scarce and "git gud noob" (the rallying cry of video games like Dark Souls) is common. If I were hoping to introduce new players to D&D, what I'd do first is remove that antagonistic environment. Cooperative games are a better learning environment, and in my opinion also a lot more fun.

WHAT MADNESS IS THIS???? TALKING to PLAYERS? SUPPORTING THEM? How are they going to become traumatized, paranoid grave-robbing lowlife losers like God and Gygax intended without a heap of dead PCs who never got to level 2? :smallbiggrin:



Why do you want to rub dirt in poor, innocent noob faces?


Because PAIN is the only way new players can learn.

[Quertus]

Seriously, if your "pushing back" is an assertion that balance = "all the characters are identical", then you need to find a new argument. That's a very poor argument.

All characters are identical is the easiest form of balance to discuss. Is there something inherently wrong with it as an example of balance?


To answer the questions at the end, I'd teach the players by talking to them, both in and out of game. I'd encourage them to talk to the DM (which might also be me) in non-mechanical terms, so the DM can help fill in the gaps in mechanical knowledge while engaging with the new players' imaginations.

I'd use my skill as a tutor and mentor to figure out what they're struggling with, and help them learn to not struggle so much.

I'd use my skill as a manager to see what they enjoy doing, and help them find ways to do more of those things.

I'd use my character in-game to support the others, including any noobs, so they could both learn to cooperate and hopefully learn all my tricks. D&D is a cooperative game, so I can do that better with a normal character. Self-gimping would reduce my capability to teach.

So, I gotta admit, that's not a horrible list. It requires a rather optimized player, who possesses skills not exactly common in the gaming community, IME. I wouldn't expect the average player to be able to pull most of that off successfully.

Yet, even so, none of that would have helped me play Warhammer (where I just don't get it, and could probably play as Magnus himself and still under-perform compared to a party of scribes and tech priests with good players), or some of the other players I've seen who just don't get various games, or, at times, the real world.

I mean, some of the players will blow holes in the space ship they're currently in, decide to take a nap alone in the middle of hostile territory, gather up a mob around themselves then turn it into the riot that wants to kill them, or tell the inquisitors that they did what they did because the demon told them to.

And then there's me, who's even worse at Warhammer. :smallredface:

So, again, you'd do what now?


I mean, what player skills are you seeking to protect me from with the optimizer's tier system?

The ability to make good choices. Especially in comparison to those in the same party who cannot. Read the Darwin Awards for some good examples of humanity at its finest.


this "protection from player skill" nonsense is just that: nonsense. because it presumes that the optimizer player skill is somehow morally better than all the rest

I'm sorry if my baseline for "decent human being" equates to "somehow morally better" than anyone you've met. You have my sympathy.


and can somehow fix a problem which doesn't exist, because every time its mentioned, its vague like some looming scary threat, but never actually described in detail as to which skills cause which problems and how this or that solves it in specifics.

Sorry, I wasn't specific enough? How about my above examples? Let me repeat a few examples of how divergent levels of player skill can be:

...While the rest of the party would deal their massive damage to whatever was closest, I'd hold my action to deal 2 damage to the enemy caster, disrupting their spell, for example

...Some of the players will blow holes in the space ship they're currently in, decide to take a nap alone in the middle of hostile territory, gather up a mob around themselves then turn it into the riot that wants to kill them, or tell the inquisitors that they did what they did because the demon told them to.

If those are not specific enough, please explain what, exactly, you are looking for.


I've never had any problems with "player skill", but I've had a lot of problems with players optimizing their characters for the sake of winning and causing imbalances because of it. There is no reason to accept imbalance as the default and allow such people the foot to stand on so that they may wreck the game easier.

I'm sorry. I can only suggest playing with better people.


That notion falls down a bit with the fact that the simpler classes are ALSO the lower ones on the Tier List.

Well, yes. I was referencing the idea that, if you're changing the game / making one from scratch, make the core Monk balanced with the core Wizard. Then make the complex splat-hopping Wizard / Pyromancer / Blood Magus / Eternal Pregnancy build, or the complex splat-hopping Monk / Creeper / Stinky Foot style be generally weaker than the base class.


And if someone wants not to show up the other players with their powergamingPLAYER SKILL, there IS the possibility of ASKING the l33t pl4y0rz to tone it down a bit.

If someone is smart enough to pack trail rations for a week's journey, do you ask them to tone their intellect and common sense down? Because that's more the level type of player skills I'm trying to balance against.


I know I've skipped over a big chunk of this conversation, but when you say Player Skill, are you referring to skill at "Using 10' poles, rope, and disposable lackeys to Mother-May-I past BS insta-death traps" (aka 'Old School Roleplaying' - I've been reading Grognards.txt, and it's left me more than a bit jaundiced), or 'Writing down 'Wizard' in the space for 'Class'"?

Closer to the former. But more just, "I don't swim in the lake of acid", or "I experiment to see what I can use to collect samples from the lake of acid", especially when at the same table as someone who struggles with basic... life, tbh.


Because PAIN is the only way new players can learn.

As most discussions of better skill systems eventually address, failure is a good teacher.

[Knaight]

Um... You need to be able to create characters of differing levels of capabilities in order to do balance for player skill. "Tiers" represents a success in creating such vast gulfs in capabilities that, given equal player skill, many of the classes seem unplayable in the same party. Tales like those of a Greenbound Summoner being useless in a party indicates that the existing tiers aren't even enough to overcome the fact that Player > Character.

So, which do you prefer? That all characters are equal, and new players are turned away from the hobby when they just fail at the game, thus the hobby only attracts hardcore enthusiasts? Or that there is a lever we can use to make the game more balanced despite vast differences in player skill? Or some third option?
Two things:
1) Games much better balanced than D&D manage to cope with differing levels of player skill just fine - it doesn't need to be identical, and just not having a character creation minigame you can lose counts for a lot. The need to balance for player skill under those conditions is thus questionable.
2) That hypothetical lever you were talking about exists. In a D&D with balanced classes you can just use level as a handicap, in most other systems you can alter starting conditions in some fashion (skill pyramids of varying width, more starting points, priority systems with tied high rankings, whatever). It's pretty consistently unnecessary though.


That notion falls down a bit with the fact that the simpler classes are ALSO the lower ones on the Tier List. And if someone wants not to show up the other players with their powergamingPLAYER SKILL, there IS the possibility of ASKING the l33t pl4y0rz to tone it down a bit.
There's also this, along with archetype restrictions. Are you a new player that needs a boost to equalize for player skill? Guess you have to be a spell caster, even if you don't want to be, and I guess you have to deal with the annoyance that is Vancian casting, even if you don't want to.

[Lord Raziere]

what you call problems, I call a plothook generator, a PC who makes less than smart decisions is one that keeps the game from being a boring snoozefest of everything going too right for it to be an adventure. a good character isn't perfect and makes mistakes too, regardless of the realism of those mistakes. I fail to see how anything you cast as a problem, is problematic at all.

and don't act as if I'm referring to people being better, I'm referring to the quality of optimizing itself, which isn't something inherently good and my criticism is that your acting as if optimizing is somehow a virtue that can do no wrong when it isn't, those people are WORSE because they optimized, you can't just say "play with better people" because those people were brought DOWN by the very quality which you CHAMPION. you can't just ignore that. like any quality, optimization needs to be guarded against it excesses and moderated vigilantly. thats what y'know, sanity and reason is about. your people aren't inherently better than mine just because you like to make your numbers go up. Screw whatever thinking makes you think that is ok, screw whatever thinking whatever lead you to the conclusion, screw whatever thinking that makes you patronize me by going "oh such a poor being, who doesn't know the joys and people that I don't!" screw your condescending attitude THAT I'M SOMEHOW WORSE OFF! I will not talked down to as if I'm some missing some freaking essential quality that is required here, because news flash: there ISN'T.

My experience is that the good people are the ones who don't like imbalance, that the good people are the ones who don't optimize, that the ones who reject what you do, are the decent people, and that everything you suggest, every solution you think of, sounds just like a trainwreck waiting to happen, because I've seen the results. y'know what my experience also is? good people don't condescend and talk down to other people about how their life experience is better than yours and how they feel sorry about people not experiencing their "awesome" life. Did you have an awesome life? I don't know, I don't care, maybe its subjectively awesome to you, but maybe if I experienced it I would hate it because I'm not you, who knows. I certainly wouldn't want to experience any life that makes me think a 3.5 wizard is a good idea on any level. So stuff anything you have to say about your so-called awesome life, no one wants to hear how your behind smells better.

I've already shed all those bad people you think are there long ago. The precautions I take? The roleplaying I do? To make sure that doesn't happen again? They work. that includes balance, and I have fun. I'm proud to not be an optimizer, I'm proud that I'm not someone who breaks the game with some hax uber build made entirely out of mechanics and no fluff to back it up. I'm proud that I'm above such things. Why wouldn't I? optimization looks like nothing but a bunch of weird scraps thrown together to make a ridiculous machine that has nothing to do how things should be designed all for the express purpose of what? a laugh? I do not see the humor in it, its just a thing that apparently can happen and breaking immersion entirely, its not really funny at all. my comedy comes from people and how they think, how personalities clash and cultures misunderstand each other and so on. for theory? I've seen better theories based on pure fluff. for winning the game? I hardly see the need, a PC doesn't really need optimization to figure out a way to win, they just need be willing to be clever and take a few risks. and I'm proud to take those risks rather than resort to hax shenanigans concocted by some charop enthusiast who has been spending too much time reading the sourcebooks and using things like tiers to influence their decisions. which is why I don't use optimization or the tier system: I have more fun that way, and break less things, by simply playing it as an actual character and not a vehicle for solving problems. :smallamused:

[Nifft]

All characters are identical is the easiest form of balance to discuss. Is there something inherently wrong with it as an example of balance? Well, the easiest form of imbalance to discuss is one in which I always win at everything, and everybody else always loses at everything.

Do you agree that's a fair characterization of your position?


So, I gotta admit, that's not a horrible list. It requires a rather optimized player, who possesses skills not exactly common in the gaming community, IME. I wouldn't expect the average player to be able to pull most of that off successfully.

Yet, even so, none of that would have helped me play Warhammer (where I just don't get it, and could probably play as Magnus himself and still under-perform compared to a party of scribes and tech priests with good players), or some of the other players I've seen who just don't get various games, or, at times, the real world.

I mean, some of the players will blow holes in the space ship they're currently in, decide to take a nap alone in the middle of hostile territory, gather up a mob around themselves then turn it into the riot that wants to kill them, or tell the inquisitors that they did what they did because the demon told them to.

And then there's me, who's even worse at Warhammer. :smallredface:

So, again, you'd do what now?

What I do is play a better game, which isn't full of "GOTCHA!" mechanics.

When a player wants to take an action that has obvious and easily-foreseen consequences (which the PC would know about), I tell the player before allowing the action to occur.

[Quertus]

2) That hypothetical lever you were talking about exists. In a D&D with balanced classes you can just use level as a handicap,

Well, don't I just feel silly now. :smallredface:

Admittedly, this solution would require a different gaming mindset than I usually see, and better GMs than I'm accustomed to (myself absolutely included in that, btw, as I take a more epimethian approach).

But maybe my experience is atypical in having difficulty making GMs see that balanced power <> balanced contribution, player > character.

EDIT: sorry, that probably wasn't clear: massive character imbalance, such as could exist in a better implementation of tiering, puts the power of game balance in the players' hands, where I've seen it used to good effect. Unless PCs can arbitrarily set their level, your proposed lever is solely under the control of the GM - who, IME, is usually the source of problems, not solutions. So... That's not a workable solution at most tables I've seen.


There's also this, along with archetype restrictions. Are you a new player that needs a boost to equalize for player skill? Guess you have to be a spell caster, even if you don't want to be, and I guess you have to deal with the annoyance that is Vancian casting, even if you don't want to.

Yeah, that's a problem. I don't like the current implementation of the tiers, I don't like the current distribution of the tiers.


what you call problems, I call a plothook generator, a PC who makes less than smart decisions is one that keeps the game from being a boring snoozefest of everything going too right for it to be an adventure. a good character isn't perfect and makes mistakes too, regardless of the realism of those mistakes. I fail to see how anything you cast as a problem, is problematic at all.

Well, in my examples, usually either the inept player's PC died, or their idiocy resulted in a TPK. So I guess I fail to see how you can fail to see that as a problem.


and don't act as if I'm referring to people being better, I'm referring to the quality of optimizing itself, which isn't something inherently good and my criticism is that your acting as if optimizing is somehow a virtue that can do no wrong when it isn't, those people are WORSE because they optimized, you can't just say "play with better people" because those people were brought DOWN by the very quality which you CHAMPION. you can't just ignore that. like any quality, optimization needs to be guarded against it excesses and moderated vigilantly. thats what y'know, sanity and reason is about. your people aren't inherently better than mine just because you like to make your numbers go up. Screw whatever thinking makes you think that is ok, screw whatever thinking whatever lead you to the conclusion, screw whatever thinking that makes you patronize me by going "oh such a poor being, who doesn't know the joys and people that I don't!" screw your condescending attitude THAT I'M SOMEHOW WORSE OFF! I will not talked down to as if I'm some missing some freaking essential quality that is required here, because news flash: there ISN'T.

I'm sorry, I'm a **** - i don't know a polite way to tell you a) how much you've missed the mark here, or b) how badly this response impunes your humanity.

Caring about numbers doesn't make you a worse person. But not caring about other people - which you've implied is typical in your circles - does.


My experience is that the good people are the ones who don't like imbalance, that the good people are the ones who don't optimize, that the ones who reject what you do, are the decent people, and that everything you suggest, every solution you think of, sounds just like a trainwreck waiting to happen, because I've seen the results.

Then our experiences differ.

Where I come from, people take a handicap in golf to make the game more balanced, more fun. Because they recognize that the players aren't equal. And it works. Just like it works in an RPG.


Well, the easiest form of imbalance to discuss is one in which I always win at everything, and everybody else always loses at everything.

Do you agree that's a fair characterization of your position?

You know, I was going to say, "no", but then I remembered another poster saying something about just that example. It's a bit extreme, but, at least in single author fiction, it apparently can be done.

Still, while I get what you're saying, I don't get why "all characters are identical" is an issue, only that apparently it is. So... what now?


What I do is play a better game, which isn't full of "GOTCHA!" mechanics.

When a player wants to take an action that has obvious and easily-foreseen consequences (which the PC would know about), I tell the player before allowing the action to occur.

Well, yes, there is that. Most of my GMs (even ones I've liked) have been "gotcha" GMs, among other things. It's no small wonder why I feel most problems in a game originate from the lonely side of the GM screen.

Still, as is evidenced in the posts of other poster(s), some people value and enshrine the right to have characters do stupid stuff, to make the game more fun. Heck, my signature character, for whom this account is named, is tactically inept. Yes, I want to know the things he'd know, but that doesn't mean that he'll make anywhere near optimal choices with that information.

[2D8HP]

...traumatized, paranoid grave-robbing lowlife losers like God and Gygax intended without a heap of dead PCs who never got to level 2? :smallbiggrin:


:confused: :eek:

Just how do you know how my games of the late 1970's and early 80's went?


....What I do is play a better game, which isn't full of "GOTCHA!" mechanics....


And what game is that (please post)?

For a thread in the "General Role-playing" Sub-Forum it seems that the vast majority of posts in this thread are related to "D20" (3.x D&D) which I have never played, is any of this theory relevant to other games?

[Cluedrew]

Well, don't I just feel silly now. :smallredface:
[...]
Unless PCs can arbitrarily set their level, your proposed lever is solely under the control of the GM - who, IME, is usually the source of problems, not solutions. So... That's not a workable solution at most tables I've seen.Wait seriously, I was just thinking about how I couldn't remember why that was ruled out and it was because it had never been considered in the first place?!

Anyways, you can turn it into a workable system. Use an XP as currency system and have let people hold onto it until they decide to spend it. Similarly, don't have the leveling happen right away when you reach the XP minimum to level up.


Well, in my examples, usually either the inept player's PC died, or their idiocy resulted in a TPK. So I guess I fail to see how you can fail to see that as a problem.Hey, one of our best campaigns ended with an (all but 1)PK and another with us just giving up and going home... we are really short on major successes.

Although one thing I have noticed is that most "incompetence" is actually one of two things:
Apathy: They are not invested in the game enough to worry about the outcome, in there character enough to make sure they survive.
Misunderstanding: Often they assume it works just like a video game and forget to apply real life logic to the game.
I'm not sure it means anything here.

To 2D8HP: I think JasonK's tier system is for 3.5, although it reflects some things that can be seen at a lesser level in some other editions.

[Nifft]

You know, I was going to say, "no", but then I remembered another poster saying something about just that example. It's a bit extreme, but, at least in single author fiction, it apparently can be done.

Still, while I get what you're saying, I don't get why "all characters are identical" is an issue, only that apparently it is. So... what now? "All character are identical" is an unkind parody of the position that all characters ought to be balanced.

"All identical" is an undesirable trait, while "balanced" is a desirable trait. Equating them feels like a straw man -- there's a strong aversion to "all identical", an that's specifically because of the ways in which "all identical" differs from "balanced".

So, that's the why of it.


If you want to compare the two extreme positions, I suspect you'll find that "all identical" would play better than "I win, everyone else loses". But I'd prefer to abandon the extremes and discuss a situation more like the actual games I enjoy.



Well, yes, there is that. Most of my GMs (even ones I've liked) have been "gotcha" GMs, among other things. It's no small wonder why I feel most problems in a game originate from the lonely side of the GM screen.

Still, as is evidenced in the posts of other poster(s), some people value and enshrine the right to have characters do stupid stuff, to make the game more fun. Heck, my signature character, for whom this account is named, is tactically inept. Yes, I want to know the things he'd know, but that doesn't mean that he'll make anywhere near optimal choices with that information.

I've had characters deliberately do stupid stuff, but usually that's just half-decent roleplaying.

Like, there was one time where as a player I just knew my character was walking into an ambush (by Iteration-X; this was Mage: the Awakening). The character had no way of knowing, though, so we players bemoaned our characters' lack of genre awareness, and then marched them happily into the ambush without any special preparation.

Was that a mistake? Should I have used my superior ~player skill~ to negate, avoid, or wreck the planned encounter instead of participating as the more-naive character would have done?

I play to beat the challenges -- not to beat the DM, and absolutely not to beat the other PCs.


I hope that's a valid answer. Or maybe I missed (part of) the question?



And what game is that (please post)? All editions of D&D can and have been played in such a manner, most with me on both sides of the screen.

This is also how I run Exalted, Shadowrun, Mage:tA*, and FATE.

I prefer players make informed decisions, because their characters are all experienced professionals, and their mistakes should be the product of difficult decisions in tense situations and/or each character's tragically flawed personality and/or just good role-playing (see above) -- not "you forgot to say you looked up", not "you forgot to write rations on your sheet", and certainly not "you did something anyone sensible would do but screw you anyway, you're a Fallen Paladin now just because".

[Arbane]

:confused: :eek:

Just how do you know how my games of the late 1970's and early 80's went?


:smallbiggrin: Another old-timer! (I think I first played Basic D&D in... 1979, maybe? I was in elementary school...)

Like I said, I've been reading Grognards.txt, which is full of quotes from people hailing that style of play as the One True Way Of Gygax(tm). (The 'Old School Renaissance' OD&D-clones are ALL ABOUT paranoid loot-grabbing.)

[2D8HP]

...To 2D8HP: I think JasonK's tier system is for 3.5, although it reflects some things that can be seen at a lesser level in some other editions.


Thanks.

I suppose it's the "Hipster-snob"/"Grumpy-old-man" in me, but stuff that's only relevant to 3.x isn't as interesting to me as stuff that also applies to other editions and games.


...All editions of D&D can and have been played in such a manner, most with me on both sides of the screen.

This is also how I run Exalted, Shadowrun, Mage:tA*, and FATE.

I prefer players make informed....


Ah you were talking about the "how" not the "what".

Thanks!


:smallbiggrin: Another old-timer! (I think I first played Basic D&D in... 1979, maybe? I was in elementary school...)

:smile:

Same here!

I got the "blue book" in '78 and DM'd with my little brother as my first victim player and then in '79 my classmate and future invited me to play in a game him and some teenagers including his big brother who is the DM the "rules" are oD&D, plus the Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldrich Wizardry, and the Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes supplements, and the AD&D Monster Manual, and the Arduin Grimoires (third party), and the third party All the World's Monster's (including the Perrin Conventions), which was the BEST GAME EVER!

Except for the "bluebook" (and to some extent the AD&D PHB, and DMG that I got 1979-1980) while I get the "gist" the rules are pretty much opaque to me, it's only upon reading later editions that I go, "Oh that's what they meant".

After far to short of a time playing D&D we switched to firstVillians & Vigilantes, and then a host of other games.


...Like I said, I've been reading Grognards.txt, which is full of quotes from people hailing that style of play as the One True Way Of Gygax(tm). (The 'Old School Renaissance' OD&D-clones are ALL ABOUT paranoid loot-grabbing.)


I never heard about "Grognards.txt" I'll check it out.

Thanks!

Thing is I remember Gygax's attempt to undo oD&D's "make the game your own" ethos with a "That's not Dungeons & Dragons, that's Dungeons & Beavers" in AD&D as being wildly mocked, and it wasn't "all about paranoid loot-grabbing" there was also running away!

[Arbane]

I suppose it's the "Hipster-snob"/"Grumpy-old-man" in me, but stuff that's only relevant to 3.x isn't as interesting to me as stuff that also applies to other editions and games.

Every edition of D&D has problems, but D&D 3.X specifically has a well-earned rep as the Caster Supremacy Edition.


I got the "blue book" in '78 and DM'd with my little brother as my first victim player and then in '79 my classmate and future invited me to play in a game him and some teenagers including his big brother who is the DM the "rules" are oD&D, plus the Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldrich Wizardry, and the Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes supplements, and the AD&D Monster Manual, and the Arduin Grimoires (third party), and the third party All the World's Monster's (including the Perrin Conventions), which was the BEST GAME EVER!

I saw Arduin, but nobody I knew ever played with it. By all accounts it was pretty gonzo. Sounds like a fun game, even if Modern Rules-Nerd Me would probably have conniptions over all the hackery. But, well, see my sig for my opinion about systems.


I never heard about "Grognards.txt" I'll check it out.

Thanks!

You may not thank me after you start reading it...



Thing is I remember Gygax's attempt to undo oD&D's "make the game your own" ethos with a "That's not Dungeons & Dragons, that's Dungeons & Beavers" in AD&D as being wildly mocked, and it wasn't "all about paranoid loot-grabbing" there was also running away!

Of course, running is also important! And occasionally letting monsters eat the least-popular teammate.
OD&D _had_ to be houseruled - it was kind of incomplete, IIRC.

[WarKitty]

I wonder if this isn't exacerbated in D&D by the fact that there's really only one major character goal the system is built for - make things deader faster. There's really not a whole lot to it outside of that. 3.5 kind of tried, but at the end of the day the focus is on killing monsters. It's not like, say, one WoD character I have where "I know things and find out things but I'm not great at combat" is really viable.

[Pleh]

Thanks.

I suppose it's the "Hipster-snob"/"Grumpy-old-man" in me, but stuff that's only relevant to 3.x isn't as interesting to me as stuff that also applies to other editions and games.

I will point out the thread title again.

The basic premise appears to be founded in 3.5 and the impact it had on RPGs as a whole via the phenomenon frequently described as Tiers.

[2D8HP]

...the impact it had on RPGs as a whole via the phenomenon frequently described as Tiers.


What impact is that?

Old D&D had no "concept of Tiers" it simply said in the rules that "Fighting-Men" were more powerful at low levels compared to the other two classes, and "Magic-Users" were more powerful at high levels (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?538255-why-do-people-dislike-tiers-in-dnd&p=22448863&highlight=Magic-User#post22448863) without a mention of "Tiers".

Of what import are "Tiers" to any other game or edition?

[Pleh]

The tiers mostly describe an aspect of 3.5 that left a sour taste for many players. It was sour not because it was tiered, but because the tiering wasn't communicated. The system told us all classes were the same and then they weren't. Some people wanted a level playing field and were disappointed.

In future RPG design going forward, you can see designers moving away from it.

Despite it mostly being a 3.5 thing, games in the future seem to be trying to make sure they don't unintentionally emulate 3.5's problems. This is an impact.

I would say that 4e overcorrected for this problem and generated the other extreme: classes weren't different enough. Overcorrecting is another impact of the original problem.

Other RPGs not affiliated with D&D are less affected, but not totally unaffected. Some might have improved themselves by observing 3.5's unintentionally tiered construction.

[Quertus]

Wait seriously, I was just thinking about how I couldn't remember why that was ruled out and it was because it had never been considered in the first place?!

Anyways, you can turn it into a workable system. Use an XP as currency system and have let people hold onto it until they decide to spend it. Similarly, don't have the leveling happen right away when you reach the XP minimum to level up.

Hey, one of our best campaigns ended with an (all but 1)PK and another with us just giving up and going home... we are really short on major successes.

Although one thing I have noticed is that most "incompetence" is actually one of two things:
Apathy: They are not invested in the game enough to worry about the outcome, in there character enough to make sure they survive.
Misunderstanding: Often they assume it works just like a video game and forget to apply real life logic to the game.
I'm not sure it means anything here.

Yeah, my "the problem is usually with the GM" bias does occasionally have me overlook otherwise viable options. Your implementation of player-controlled XP spending seems perfectly legit.

As to your description of the causes of incompetence... I'm not sure to what extent that matches my experience. I mean, sure, I've seen apathy, and I've seen "raised on something else" (video games, novels, etc). But that doesn't explain a lot of the failings I've seen. Well, I mean, maybe it kinda does, in that things like me being "out of sync" with Warhammer could be me viewing it through some other lens(es), as I'm not steeped in the lore like most of the players have been.

Perhaps some of the players are just viewing the game through an unrecognized lens.


I've had characters deliberately do stupid stuff, but usually that's just half-decent roleplaying.

Like, there was one time where as a player I just knew my character was walking into an ambush (by Iteration-X; this was Mage: the Awakening). The character had no way of knowing, though, so we players bemoaned our characters' lack of genre awareness, and then marched them happily into the ambush without any special preparation.

Was that a mistake? Should I have used my superior ~player skill~ to negate, avoid, or wreck the planned encounter instead of participating as the more-naive character would have done?

I play to beat the challenges -- not to beat the DM, and absolutely not to beat the other PCs.


I hope that's a valid answer. Or maybe I missed (part of) the question?

Hmmm... Ignoring your character's ignorance would have been bad role-playing, as would the classic example of a GM role-playing the NPCs responding to a player's charisma as opposed to the character's skill at speaking.

So, what do I mean when I talk about player skills?

I mean skill at playing the game. This includes the basics*, like knowing basic mechanics and terms. This includes intermediate skills, like character creation, and metagaming / being able to discuss the game. This includes advanced topics, like spotlight sharing and critical thinking skills. Role-playing fits in there somewhere, too.

So, knowing what to do when you get ambushed, and knowing what your character would do when ambushed, and taking your turn quickly and describing your actions efficiently once you are ambushed, all involve player skills.

Choosing to act on player knowledge of the ambush that your character didn't have represents a failure of player skills.

Hmmm... And I think I'd describe my stance not as playing to beat the challenge, so much as to experience the character encountering the challenge? It's complicated.

* actual complexity of each task will vary by system


I wonder if this isn't exacerbated in D&D by the fact that there's really only one major character goal the system is built for - make things deader faster. There's really not a whole lot to it outside of that. 3.5 kind of tried, but at the end of the day the focus is on killing monsters. It's not like, say, one WoD character I have where "I know things and find out things but I'm not great at combat" is really viable.

I gotta say, my signature character, Quertus, for whom this account is named, is a D&D tactically inept academia mage, with more custom sights & detects & ways of gaining information than there are published core spells. So, um, that archetype seems perfectly valid to me.

But, then, I really dig the Exploration side of things.

[Necroticplague]

The tiers mostly describe an aspect of 3.5 that left a sour taste for many players. It was sour not because it was tiered, but because the tiering wasn't communicated. The system told us all classes were the same and then they weren't. Some people wanted a level playing field and were disappointed.

To contrast this, look at Exalted. It has a fairly clear tier system in the PCs (Solaroids>Lunars/Sidereals>dragonblooded>most of the rest of humanity). However, this is something the game and the lore itself makes fairly clear.

[Kish]

I'm sorry, I'm a **** - i don't know a polite way to tell you a) how much you've missed the mark here, or b) how badly this response impunes your humanity.

Caring about numbers doesn't make you a worse person. But not caring about other people - which you've implied is typical in your circles - does.
Yes, this.

I'm sorry, Lord Raziere, but multiple people (me among them) have pointed out that if you cannot expect the people you're gaming with to not humiliate you and laugh at you, the solution is to walk away from that group, not to demand the rule system must treat "someone wants to humiliate somebody else" as an expected default and be inflexible in ways to prevent their succeeding. In response to which, you've declared repeatedly "I'm no fool," equated not assuming most players are vicious and that viciousness is to be played around rather than rejected with being a fool, and otherwise made it clear that you are offended by people pointing out the horrifying dysfunctionality of the approach to RPGs you're championing. But as long as you continue to champion that approach you cannot expect people not to respond by pointing out that it's horrifyingly dysfunctional.

[JAL_1138]

Of what import are "Tiers" to any other game or edition?


The tiers mostly describe an aspect of 3.5 that left a sour taste for many players. It was sour not because it was tiered, but because the tiering wasn't communicated. The system told us all classes were the same and then they weren't. Some people wanted a level playing field and were disappointed.

In future RPG design going forward, you can see designers moving away from it.

Despite it mostly being a 3.5 thing, games in the future seem to be trying to make sure they don't unintentionally emulate 3.5's problems. This is an impact.

I would say that 4e overcorrected for this problem and generated the other extreme: classes weren't different enough. Overcorrecting is another impact of the original problem.

Other RPGs not affiliated with D&D are less affected, but not totally unaffected. Some might have improved themselves by observing 3.5's unintentionally tiered construction.


I wouldn't say it's an exclusively 3.5 problem by any means. AD&D had plenty of its own balance issues, too. While the JaronK tier system was created to address 3.5 balance issues specifically, there were balance disparities between mundanes and magic-users since the start, and the "character creation minigame" being something complicated and involved and something you could "win" or "lose" inadvertently got its start to a large degree with 2e splatbooks, like the "Complete Book of [Whatever]" or the kits and alternate ststems in the "Complete [Whatever]'s Handbook" lines, and especially the "Player's Option: Skills and Powers" book. To an extent 1e had an issue as well with Unearthed Arcana classes being considered broken. You could well apply the JaronK tiers to AD&D, although it would have to account for levels and leveling speed.

4e's problem I think was more mechanical and presentation-related than actually balance-related—using the same chassis for most classes in a way that left them feeling indistinct, not in balance. Characters felt "samey" because most used the same AEDU power structure with only a few powers apiece. The powers thenselves were all written in similar ways using the same kind of presentation and structure, as well, and many involved some form of forced movement of some sort, although often in different ways (e.g., one class might be single-target focused, another might be AoE focused), so classes that actually did fairly-different things from each other nonetheless looked and felt very similar to players.
It had its own issues with the character creation minigame, too—the math was so tight that if you didn't grab every +X you could, you fell off the progression treadmill, and there were dozens upon dozens of very similar powers for a given class, many of which were objectively worse options than others but which looked good on paper. That also led to some of the "samey" problems—to build a character properly you had to pretty much stick to the one thing it did well, grab all the +X options you could instead of versatile or flavorful ones, and pick the better powers out of the huge list to put in the class's quite limited number of slots for them, or else the character just didn't work particularly well.

And over on the 5e forum, we had a long thread a while back on how the tier system either applied as-is or would be revised to fit 5e, since the class balance is far from perfect for it—e.g., Beastmaster Ranger, Frenzy Barbarian, Champion Fighter, and Four Elements Monk being considered problematically weak or otherwise flawed to some extent, or things like the Moon Druid becoming Fighter-proof thanks to at-will Wild Shape at 20th level and having some additional balance issues at low levels being seen as too strong. The mundane/magic disparity is still a thing for it, although to a significantly lesser degree.
(My contention would be that while there are definitely enough disparities to apply the tier system to 5e, it's compressed into a three-tier range of Tier 2, Tier 3, and Tier 4 in the JaronK system, although you might need to get more granular with things like "positions within a tier"—e.g. "high Tier 3," "low Tier 3"—or some such to nail down 5e class balance more precisely. Since it all falls within a three-tier range you don't have to worry about it as much, but there can still be problems.)

[Lemmy]

Disliking tiers is like disliking the weather forecast for saying that it's going to rain on your day-off... It's an understandable reaction, but you're blaming the wrong guy here.

[Dimers]

you cannot expect people not to respond by pointing out that it's horrifyingly dysfunctional.

I would say "whatever works for her" ... but it really doesn't seem to. Not that pointing out the dysfunction works for her either. Really unfortunate position to be in.


Beastmaster Ranger, Frenzy Barbarian, Champion Fighter, and Four Elements Monk being considered problematically weak or otherwise flawed to some extent, or things like the Moon Druid becoming Fighter-proof thanks to at-will Wild Shape at 20th level and having some additional balance issues at low levels being seen as too strong. The mundane/magic disparity is still a thing for it, although to a significantly lesser degree.

(The following paragraphs just use 5e as a specific; they're not intended as arguments against JAL_1138.)

I don't stop by the 5e subforum every day, but I think I've seen all of two threads since the game came out where someone was saying that they significantly underperform compared to other characters in a real game. 5e got the balance thing down pretty well. I don't particularly like the system, but man do they have balance. :smallsmile:

That bit about mundane/magic disparity -- comparing 3.X structure to 5e structure, it's easy to see why the disparity is reduced. The concentration mechanic preventing stacking, lack of "5 foot step", no bonus spells for ability score, tight limit on spell save DC, few spells granting skill bonuses, yadda yadda. And it's easy to see why there is still some degree of caster superiority. Casters at least occasionally get to break the boundaries that mundanes are stuck inside, having rituals can essentially grant bonus spells per day, and many GMs don't follow the six-to-eight-encounters-per-day structure that would best balance daily benefits against constant or short-rest benefits. So evaluating what makes an option more or less valuable (a.k.a. using the tier system) can make it easier to design balance into an option and point out what imbalances still exist post-design.

[Arbane]

I wonder if this isn't exacerbated in D&D by the fact that there's really only one major character goal the system is built for - make things deader faster. There's really not a whole lot to it outside of that. 3.5 kind of tried, but at the end of the day the focus is on killing monsters. It's not like, say, one WoD character I have where "I know things and find out things but I'm not great at combat" is really viable.

That's actually not the biggest problem - it's not too hard to make a fighter who can one-shot any enemy they can reach. The thing is all the stuff spellcasters can do OUTSIDE of combat.

"At level 1, the Fighter is hitting things with a sword and the Wizard is casting Color Spray."
"At level 16, the Wizard is building their own private universe, seeing the future, summoning a legion of demons, reading minds, and teleporting across the world, and the Fighter is hitting things with a sword."

Edit to add from another thread:

Even a high level Fighter or Ranger can one-round almost anything printed in Monster Manual with just core sources, but high level game shouldn't be just about the combat rounds, attacks, damage and so on. Spell effects enable easy, fast resurrections, near instantaneous global and planar travel, all manners of underlings, acquiring information from the gods themselves, et cetera. Almost all the potential is wasted in an encounter-focused game. And indeed, all creatures in the world have to not use most of their abilities for the game to be reduced down into encounters.

[Lord Raziere]

Yes, this.

I'm sorry, Lord Raziere, but multiple people (me among them) have pointed out that if you cannot expect the people you're gaming with to not humiliate you and laugh at you, the solution is to walk away from that group, not to demand the rule system must treat "someone wants to humiliate somebody else" as an expected default and be inflexible in ways to prevent their succeeding. In response to which, you've declared repeatedly "I'm no fool," equated not assuming most players are vicious and that viciousness is to be played around rather than rejected with being a fool, and otherwise made it clear that you are offended by people pointing out the horrifying dysfunctionality of the approach to RPGs you're championing. But as long as you continue to champion that approach you cannot expect people not to respond by pointing out that it's horrifyingly dysfunctional.

That group is LONG GONE AND BURIED. STOP TREATING ME AS IF I'M STILL WITH THOSE PEOPLE. :smallmad:

Get it through your head that I can stand for something because of my past and not my present, my present is fine. Again, I'm proud that I'm not an optimizer. I'm happy that the people I'm speaking about? I haven't seen for years, and that you apparently never interacted with them. but that doesn't change they still exist, that the behavior can still spread to others, and that vigilance is needed to guard against any excess.

I trust and am happy with the players I play with. I get that, I am supposed to, and I do that. Honestly my cynicism runs more towards peoples flaking problems these days. But nevertheless, just because you don't think balance is important doesn't mean it isn't. I trust them, because they know balance is important. Instead of talking ridiculous complicated systems that only enable TO and for people to turn TO into an actual game when they feel like it, or to overshadow others because they aren't you. I have no doubt you are capable of such restraint, but I also know that your probably the best case scenario. Furthermore, I have my pride- if I know that another player is holding back for me like that? Well frankly its kind of patronizing. I'd rather someone play on my level rather than know that my awesome moment happens only because the wizard is sitting back there going "oh how cute, I can probably do that faster with less risk, ohohohohohoho."

Really, if anything such mixed games are whats horribly dysfunctional. playing entirely different games in the same group never actually works.

[2D8HP]

I wouldn't say it's an exclusively 3.5 problem by any means. AD&D had plenty of its own balance issues, too....

.....something you could "win" or "lose" inadvertently got its start to a large degree with 2e splatbooks, like the "Complete Book of [Whatever]" or the kits and alternate ststems in the "Complete [Whatever]'s Handbook" lines, and especially the "Player's Option: Skills and Powers" book. To an extent 1e had an issue as well with Unearthed Arcana classes being considered broken.....


I never got any 2e stuff when it was current, but I did look at 1985"s Unearthed Arcana, which I left in the store after reading it as it was clear that it would make a mess of D&D (one reason that I never got 2e was because I thought it would be more stuff like UA).

Maybe my tables were unusual but we overwhelmingly played human Fighters, and reaching the high levels where Magic Users were much more powerful just didn't happen, mostly Mages were NPC antagonists.

Where PC's did feel unbalanced was when someone would play a class other than Fighter at First Level, and when there were big discrepancies in starting gold because it often seemed that equipment carried was more important than "stats", but none of that was a surprise, if someone played a weaker class it was because they wanted to (or just had unlucky rolls and wanted to play them out, I don't remember anyone not letting you re-roll a bit).



....And over on the 5e forum, we had a long thread a while back on how the tier system either applied as-is or would be revised to fit 5e, since the class balance is far from perfect for it....


I've read of how 5e is also unbalanced, but it's never much bothered me in play, and that the Fighters, Rogues, and occasional Barbarians I've played wouldn't be able to do whiz bang caster stuff has never been a surprise.

The highest level PC I've played was an 11th level Champion Fighter, and that "simple" class had too many abilities/options for me to keep track of at that level, so I don't begrudge those who have even more complex classes.

If they have more powerful PC's that's their reward for being able to keep track of all that minutiae!

The only time I was really annoyed was when I rolled an 18 for INT, and another player kept insisting that I play a Wizard (I chose to play a Rogue), if it had been TSR D&D I would've tried, but even a first level 5e Wizard just had too many options/abilities for me to keep track of.

[Darth Ultron]

I never got any 2e stuff when it was current, but I did look at 1985"s Unearthed Arcana, which I left in the store after reading it as it was clear that it would make a mess of D&D (one reason that I never got 2e was because I thought it would be more stuff like UA).

Well..note 1985"s Unearthed Arcana was 1E.

[2D8HP]

Well..note 1985"s Unearthed Arcana was 1E.


Yes. When 2e subsequently came out I thought it would be more stuff like UA so I didn't get it, also tables that still played D&D were hard to find (first Champions, then Cyperpunk, and Vampire were then popular), and I left gaming.

I started as DM 1978-ish when I got the "bluebook" with my little brother as my first victim player.

1979-ish: Classmate invites me to play in a game him and some teenagers including his big brother who is the DM the "rules" are oD&D, plus the Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldrich Wizardry, and the Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes supplements, and the AD&D Monster Manual, and the Arduin Grimoires (third party), and the third party All the World's Monster's (including the Perrin Conventions), which was the BEST GAME EVER!

Except for the "bluebook" (and to some extent the AD&D PHB, and DMG that I got 1979-1980) while I get the "gist" the rules are pretty much opaque to me, it's only upon reading later editions that I go, "Oh that's what they meant".

1980's: My circle plays many FRPs, one of which, Chaosium's Runequest just seems to make more sense to me, but I realize I'm just not having as much fun as I did with D&D. The game I most played was probably Traveller and the game I most GM or "Keeper" was probably Call of Cthullu.

1992: I'm just not finding the games that are available to play (Champions, Cyberpunk, and Vampire) much fun, so no more games for decades.

2015: My son turn the age I was when I got the "bluebook" so I get 5e D&D and for him, which I have fun with.

As a player I prefer AD&D, and "5e" D&D.

As a DM/GM I prefer TSR "Basic"/"Classic" D&D, and Call of Cthullu,

I like "standard equipment" in 5e, and I like having PC's survive first level, and I've "drinked the Kool-Aid", and like no longer playing with "ten foot poles and bags of flour", but... by 11th level 5e is dull for me, wheras TSR I like.

Basically if I'm invited to play five sessions WotC 5e D&D is my choice, but if I'm invited to play fifty sessions TSR D&D is my choice.

My other favorite game is Pendragon and I'm really intrigued by the settings for Castle Falkenstein, and 7th Sea.

[Quertus]

Maybe my tables were unusual but we overwhelmingly played human Fighters, and reaching the high levels where Magic Users were much more powerful just didn't happen, mostly Mages were NPC antagonists.

Where PC's did feel unbalanced was when someone would play a class other than Fighter at First Level, and when there were big discrepancies in starting gold because it often seemed that equipment carried was more important than "stats", but none of that was a surprise, if someone played a weaker class it was because they wanted to (or just had unlucky rolls and wanted to play them out, I don't remember anyone not letting you re-roll a bit).

Yeah, 2e was much the same, IME. Your unoptimized 1st level Wizard had a single casting of Light, which wasn't nearly as useful as the torch the fighter spent a copper on.

Your "optimized" 1st level wizard had a single casting of no-save Sleep. So, once per day, your Wizard could pretend to be a Fighter, and take out foes - something the Fighter did all day long, without breaking a sweat. (EDIT: if the Fighter wasn't optimized, the optimized Wizard got to shine for one round per day. If the Fighter was optimized, they'd still be out-performing your sleep spell.)

The Fighter got a better chassis, with better HP (unmatched), better saves (unmatched), better attack skill (THAC0 (unmatched), iterative melee attacks (unmatched), and 2-handed fighting (matched only by the Thief, although the Ranger sub-class beat them both IIRC)), and better armor (matched only by the Cleric). To this, they added more starting gold -> more equipment, and had random item tables skewed heavily in their favor. And, as a strength-based class, generally had better carrying capacity. And, outside of a few edge cases, had a higher top-end Strength and got more mileage out of a high Con.

Oh, and lets not forget that 2e Wizards didn't get automatic spell acquisition - by default, you were limited to whatever spells - if any! - the GM gave you.

So, no, your experience wasn't unusual. Most of my parties looked like they were ripped straight out of the Hobbit - double-digit Fighters, a Rogue, and me playing a Wizard.

So, one could argue for 3e being the overcompensation edition, trying desperately to make Wizards playable.

[Cosi]

To contrast this, look at Exalted. It has a fairly clear tier system in the PCs (Solaroids>Lunars/Sidereals>dragonblooded>most of the rest of humanity). However, this is something the game and the lore itself makes fairly clear.

People are okay with that? Every time I've seen people talk about Exalted, they've complained about Solar/Everyone Else disparity in much the same way as they complain about Caster/Martial disparity in D&D.


That's actually not the biggest problem - it's not too hard to make a fighter who can one-shot any enemy they can reach.

Well, that being success for a martial is itself a problem. Optimized casters actually do a variety of things in combat, while optimized martials are basically all in on whatever thing they optimized.

[Lord Raziere]

People are okay with that? Every time I've seen people talk about Exalted, they've complained about Solar/Everyone Else disparity in much the same way as they complain about Caster/Martial disparity in D&D.

Are you sure you weren't just hearing me? I know I have that view, and a few other people on another forum I think has that too, but I know that a big chunk of the Exalted fanbase were like, REAL against me speaking against that disparity back when I cared more* because of legit fluff reasons, but I'm not sure how many people have that view on here.

*the reason I don't care as much now is because Exalted 3e's book release pace is glacial and I now have Godbound for all my rules lite Exalted needs.

[Nifft]

People are okay with that? Every time I've seen people talk about Exalted, they've complained about Solar/Everyone Else disparity in much the same way as they complain about Caster/Martial disparity in D&D.

1) It's enshrined in the setting. It's a major meta-plot element that the Solars were gone for a few thousand years, and their return is a really big deal.

2) The default game design seems to be all about a party from one book or another, so the tier issue isn't supposed to matter, since you're all Dragonbloods or you're all Lunars or whatever. This is in very stark contrast to how I see the game actually played, though: every group I've talked to in person seems to want a mixed party. So a major design decision was made early on to balance within type, not between types, because the assumption was you'd always play within one type -- and that's not what happens.

White Wolf probably saw how most Vampire games were 100% Vampire PCs -- not 2 Vampires, one Werewolf, and one Mage -- and they assumed Exalted games would follow that pattern. AFAICT, this was a reasonably informed design decision which simply happened to be wrong.



There are some potential ways to preserve (1) while fixing (2), but so far the Exalted designers haven't show much interest in doing that.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah, and currently the Exalted 3e Tier system can be summed up as this:

Tier One: Solars
Has a book, thus playable.

Tier Two: Everyone Else
Doesn't have a book. Either wait or homebrew.

Much simpler, but arguably much starker and sadder. I mean you can argue pure mortals is a third between the two since its playable but much weaker than Solars, but I don't really care. This pretty much comes about directly from the decision to keep the splats separate ala WoD, because the designers seem perfectionist in how they are going make each individual splat, so each one takes forever to make. So if you want to enjoy 3e Exalted....well hope you got the patience for it, I'm using Godbound. which basically does everything Exalted does. but in only one book.

and this isn't just playable splats, you want a good roster of enemies for your Solars to fight? screw you to, because the corebooks enemies are limited and can't sustain your campaign forever. the other Exalts are like, half your enemies at least.

[2D8HP]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CUGACO3WRXE/To5KSQ7_8_I/AAAAAAAAguo/aLnlf1ehXgg/s400/rpg-Stormbringer.jpg

Chaosium's old Stormbringer! (http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2011/10/rpgs-that-time-forgot-stormbringer.html?m=1) game had a "magic system" based on summoning and attempting to control demons and elementals. It was completely BADASS! and I thought it was truer to Swords and Sorcery than D&D.

The main flaw as a game was that it's random character creation method typically generated PC's from different nations and backgrounds with very wide power-levels (more so than old D&D) so you'd wind up with a party of one mighty sorcerer and four drooling beggar "sidekicks".

I think a Melee/Wizard/The Fantasy Trip or Champions poinr-buy-ish system would have improved the game.

Seems to me that what should be done withthey way to fix the "http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?316058-Linear-fighter-Quadratic-wizard]Linear Fighters, Quadratic Wizards" problem in WotC D&D is to bring back the disperate Levels for XP for classes that TSR D&D had.

http://www.geekindustrialcomplex.com/articles/linear-fighters-vs-quadratic-wizards

[Max_Killjoy]

I need to find a copy of that for the magic system, as a reference.

Friend of mine had it, and I recall that it really didn't pull any punches.

[Quertus]

White Wolf probably saw how most Vampire games were 100% Vampire PCs -- not 2 Vampires, one Werewolf, and one Mage -- and they assumed Exalted games would follow that pattern. AFAICT, this was a reasonably informed design decision which simply happened to be wrong.

They were clearly not informed by any WoD tables I've ever been at. My last Vampire game included 3 non-vampires "masquerading" as vampires. And I don't even know what eldrich homebrew half the party was in my last Mage game.

This would be like 3e D&D designers expecting parties to be either all Monks, or all Wizards, or all half-dragon were-platipus whisper gnome dread pirates.

[Lord Raziere]

They were clearly not informed by any WoD tables I've ever been at. My last Vampire game included 3 non-vampires "masquerading" as vampires. And I don't even know what eldrich homebrew half the party was in my last Mage game.

This would be like 3e D&D designers expecting parties to be either all Monks, or all Wizards, or all half-dragon were-platipus whisper gnome dread pirates.

Agreed. White Wolf designers focus too much upon "I've got a great idea in my head thats so deep guys" rather than "lets make a fun game." like if they focused more on making stuff like Pugmire....

[Morty]

All CoD (formerly New World of Darkness) games I've participated in were single-splat - vampire, hunter or changeling. World of Darkness games and Chronicles of Darkness games are written as self-contained, because trying to account for every single gameline while designing material for a particular one would be nigh-impossible. Crossover is possible, but it's not the default. Well, as long as you stay far away from Mage: the Awakening, which I do on principle anyway. I guess it might be disappointing if you want some sort of big monster-mash, but CoD's focus is intra-gameline clarity of focus.

Exalted is a different situation, because every different Exalted type is assumed to exist in the same setting. But every type of Exalted still gets their own book. And I honestly can't see how they could balance between the types without completely breaking away from what the system is supposed to be about. Other Exalted can't match Solars for raw power, Drabon-Blooded are weaker than Lunars and Sidereals, and so on. But each of them has something that makes it stand out, or is supposed to anyway. Something I think D&D would benefit from far more than some nebulous idea of "balance".

Neither of those systems' balance problems, such as they are, compare to D&D's. Not only because D&D's imbalance is (in my opinion) worse, but because the points of balance are completely different. A mixed group of mages, vampires and mummies in CoD isn't the same as a party with a fighter, monk and warlock. Unless every one of those classes came with its own cosmology, conflicts and supporting cast of supernatural beings (ghouls, Proximi, mummy cults etc.). A party of different Exalts is closer, but still not really the same thing, seeing as every Exalted splat can cover a good deal of traditional D&D classes. Except for druid, I guess, since you need a Lunar for animal-shifting. But a Solar, Dragon-Blooded or Sidereal can all be warriors, sorcerers, savants, performers, thieves and so on, each filtered through their splat's themes. Likewise with any given supernatural in CoD/WoD, except the roles will be more modern.

[Cosi]

1) It's enshrined in the setting. It's a major meta-plot element that the Solars were gone for a few thousand years, and their return is a really big deal.

That doesn't have to imply that Solars are better than other types though. They could just be, on average, higher level. If most of the world is playing E6, a 15th level Wizard showing up is a really big deal, even if there are other Wizards who would be just as powerful if they happened to be 15th level.


White Wolf probably saw how most Vampire games were 100% Vampire PCs -- not 2 Vampires, one Werewolf, and one Mage -- and they assumed Exalted games would follow that pattern. AFAICT, this was a reasonably informed design decision which simply happened to be wrong.

That does not seem reasonably informed. It seems blindingly obvious to me that the gap between "Vampire" and "random oWoD splats" is going to be larger than "Solar" and "Lunar", by simple virtue of Vampire being an established cultural trope that people already think is cool, while "Solar" and "Lunar" are not.


Are you sure you weren't just hearing me? I know I have that view, and a few other people on another forum I think has that too, but I know that a big chunk of the Exalted fanbase were like, REAL against me speaking against that disparity back when I cared more* because of legit fluff reasons, but I'm not sure how many people have that view on here.

I don't think I've ever seen an Exalted debate on this forum. That said, people seem equally defensive of the notion that Wizards should be better than Fighters when D&D comes up.

[Morty]

That doesn't have to imply that Solars are better than other types though. They could just be, on average, higher level. If most of the world is playing E6, a 15th level Wizard showing up is a really big deal, even if there are other Wizards who would be just as powerful if they happened to be 15th level.

Exalted doesn't use levels. Neither does WoD/CoD. Or any other system that's not D&D, for that matter.



That does not seem reasonably informed. It seems blindingly obvious to me that the gap between "Vampire" and "random oWoD splats" is going to be larger than "Solar" and "Lunar", by simple virtue of Vampire being an established cultural trope that people already think is cool, while "Solar" and "Lunar" are not.


I've seen no Exalted developer ever speak against mixed parties. The obstacles are power difference, availability of books and willingness/ability to learn new rules.

[Nifft]

That doesn't have to imply that Solars are better than other types though. Solars are better than all other types. That is enshrined in the setting's lore. It doesn't have to be implied by anything -- it's a basic setting conceit.


They could just be, on average, higher level. If most of the world is playing E6, a 15th level Wizard showing up is a really big deal, even if there are other Wizards who would be just as powerful if they happened to be 15th level. That might be one way to model it, except it wouldn't work on a bunch of other levels. But it doesn't really matter -- we're not trying to model Exalted using D&D, are we? We're just talking about how Exalted has explicit imbalance between different types of characters, and I'm giving one theory for why that might be.


That does not seem reasonably informed. Sorry, who or what seems unreasonably informed?


It seems blindingly obvious to me that the gap between "Vampire" and "random oWoD splats" is going to be larger than "Solar" and "Lunar", by simple virtue of Vampire being an established cultural trope that people already think is cool, while "Solar" and "Lunar" are not. It really sounds like you're saying something here, but I can't tell what.

White Wolf made up a huge amount of brand-new lore for Vampires, and different lore for Werewolves, and different lore for Changelings. They write each supernatural type as self-contained but with enough legends to support a very wide world.

Exalt types are similarly expansive in their lore, and could potentially be in a game that's similarly self-contained. As an example: if you're in a Solars game, there's no reason for the Thousand Stream Rivers project to even exist. It exists to give Lunars additional agency in the setting.


I've seen no Exalted developer ever speak against mixed parties. The obstacles are power difference, availability of books and willingness/ability to learn new rules.

Also lore and location and background compatibility and having potential allies who hate your party members.

But yeah, if you want to write the rules-glue to have a mixed-splat party, no developer is going to tell you that you can't do it. They have just totally failed to support those parties themselves, in spite of the popularity of that choice.

[Cluedrew]

Well I think the big question here is: Is Exalted's imbalance better (easier to deal with, leaves less hard feelings, doesn't sideline characters as often...) for being explicate? That seem to be the main point of separation between that and D&D, but does it help?

[Nifft]

Well I think the big question here is: Is Exalted's imbalance better (easier to deal with, leaves less hard feelings, doesn't sideline characters as often...) for being explicate? That seem to be the main point of separation between that and D&D, but does it help?

It does NOT help.

But it's baked into the setting, extracting it would be difficult, and the Exalted devs have not talked about doing so for Ex3 (though they've also only published rules for 1 type of Exalt so it's probably a bit too early to complain).

[Morty]

Exalt types are similarly expansive in their lore, and could potentially be in a game that's similarly self-contained. As an example: if you're in a Solars game, there's no reason for the Thousand Stream Rivers project to even exist. It exists to give Lunars additional agency in the setting.

Thousand Streams River is no longer a thing in 3E, I should note.


Also lore and location and background compatibility and having potential allies who hate your party members.

But yeah, if you want to write the rules-glue to have a mixed-splat party, no developer is going to tell you that you can't do it. They have just totally failed to support those parties themselves, in spite of the popularity of that choice.

Yes, because the relationships between different kinds of Exalted make for the bulk of the setting's conflicts, politics and backgrounds. The Dragon-Blooded from the Realm believe that Solars and Lunars are vile demons. Plenty of Lunars want to tear down the Realm and bury the ashes for that reason and more. Sidereals are divided. And so on. But all you need for a mixed party is different Exalts who have reasons to work together, if maybe not trust one another. Then you need to account for the power difference, either by accepting it or assigning more XP to the weaker parties. I'm honestly lost as to what you think they should do to facilitate it that wouldn't undermine basic setting conceits.


Well I think the big question here is: Is Exalted's imbalance better (easier to deal with, leaves less hard feelings, doesn't sideline characters as often...) for being explicate? That seem to be the main point of separation between that and D&D, but does it help?

It's not better or worse because it's a completely different thing. Exalted has had balance problems like D&D's. Such as sorcery being underwhelming in past editions, or the designated warrior-caste of Solars being actually worse than fighting than others.

[Pex]

Only because I've made a point of it not happening many times in many threads, I will state for the record that finally a fellow player is complaining about the lot of fighters in Pathfinder, saying many of the same things I've read here and not wanting to play a fighter again starting a hypothetical next game. He will continue to play his current fighter. The other players and DM disagree there is a problem, but I acquiesce someone I play with has now made issue of it.

This does not change my position on the matter, only that I can no longer say it has never been an issue for any game I've played. It has been an issue once.

[Dimers]

Well, hey, we're coming closer together! I can likewise admit that it occasionally hasn't been a problem in some of my games! :smallsmile:

Honestly, aside from the recent campaign I mentioned with the psion and cleric, most of my D&D games haven't seen any big imbalance. Monks and rogues do get annoyed at their base classes' problems, but the casters don't usually overpower everything.

Which I why I'm more centrist in this argument. I prefer theoretical balance, but I'm easily swayed by the facts of actual practice.

[Knaight]

Exalted doesn't use levels. Neither does WoD/CoD. Or any other system that's not D&D, for that matter.

They're rare outside D&D, but they do crop up occasionally. Torchbearer comes to mind.

[Cluedrew]

It does NOT help.
It's not better or worse because it's a completely different thing.Well thank-you for your replies but umm... how so? Why doesn't it help, what makes it neither better nor worse?

[Quertus]

Thousand Streams River is no longer a thing in 3E, I should note.

It's not better or worse because it's a completely different thing. Exalted has had balance problems like D&D's. Such as sorcery being underwhelming in past editions, or the designated warrior-caste of Solars being actually worse than fighting than others.

Yeah, and D&D has had 4e and 5e since the 3e under discussion.

So, the edition of Exalted more people (myself included) have experience with - that would be 2e, right? In Exalted 2e, despite telegraphing the imbalance, the balance issues were still at least as bad as those in 3e, correct? Because my Exalted characters were far, far less capable of contributing than my D&D characters have ever been.

Whether because of extreme tier differences, or builds, or whatever, my experience with Exalted is where I really felt the "losing at character creation" effect (although honorable mention goes to my D&D character who took one level in a dozen different classes).

Now, maybe if I had enough experience with Exalted that I expected the level of sheer uselessness I felt from some of my characters, it would only be as bad as 3e. But, my experience, despite it being telegraphed, was that it was worse.

But I was still playing the charter I intended to, so it wasn't all bad.


Well thank-you for your replies but umm... how so? Why doesn't it help, what makes it neither better nor worse?

Does that answer your question?

[Nifft]

Well thank-you for your replies but umm... how so? Why doesn't it help, what makes it neither better nor worse?

If you play by the default designer assumptions -- all PCs are from one single type of Exalt -- then the imbalance between types doesn't matter.

If you play the more common way -- a group of PCs from different types of Exalt -- then the imbalance between types makes things worse.


So it never helps, and sometimes (not always) it hurts.

[Arbane]

Well I think the big question here is: Is Exalted's imbalance better (easier to deal with, leaves less hard feelings, doesn't sideline characters as often...) for being explicate? That seem to be the main point of separation between that and D&D, but does it help?

They go out of the way to explain that if you're a Terrestrial in a group of Solars, you're gonna be the Vibe to their Superman, deal with it. (Heroic Mortals would be more like the Red Bee.) A few ways to keep the Dbs from feeling redundant have been explicated - Terrestrials can get away with going full-power without the Wyld Hunt coming after them, Realm DBs probably have powerful family all over, etc.


They're rare outside D&D, but they do crop up occasionally. Torchbearer comes to mind.

Isn't Torchbearer intended to mimic OD&D?



So, the edition of Exalted more people (myself included) have experience with - that would be 2e, right? In Exalted 2e, despite telegraphing the imbalance, the balance issues were still at least as bad as those in 3e, correct? Because my Exalted characters were far, far less capable of contributing than my D&D characters have ever been.


I have to ask - how on Creation did THAT happen? Were you playing a mortal? Did you put all your points in Sail Charms and end up in a desert?

[Lord Raziere]

So, the edition of Exalted more people (myself included) have experience with - that would be 2e, right? In Exalted 2e, despite telegraphing the imbalance, the balance issues were still at least as bad as those in 3e, correct? Because my Exalted characters were far, far less capable of contributing than my D&D characters have ever been.

Whether because of extreme tier differences, or builds, or whatever, my experience with Exalted is where I really felt the "losing at character creation" effect (although honorable mention goes to my D&D character who took one level in a dozen different classes).

Now, maybe if I had enough experience with Exalted that I expected the level of sheer uselessness I felt from some of my characters, it would only be as bad as 3e. But, my experience, despite it being telegraphed, was that it was worse.

But I was still playing the charter I intended to, so it wasn't all bad.


2e is worst edition. yes. Like. the Exalted fandom agrees, that it screwed up a lot mechanically and flavorfully. here is the list of things could've potentially screwed up your playing Exalted 2e experience:

1. you weren't a Solar
2. you didn't get a perfect defense for combat
3. you didn't pick a skill to specialize in
4. you weren't playing paranoia combat
5. you tried to use the rules for mass combat
6. you tried to use the social combat rules and didn't have a perfect mental defense or a way of just outright winning from the start
7. you weren't an Exalt in an Exalt game
8. you got hit by a two-handed artifact hammer and died or otherwise experienced 2e's rocket tag combat system.
9. you specialized in something like sail or ride or something else useless.
10. you played a Lunar
11. you didn't invest in willpower at character creation
12. you don't have the hundred of pages long Scroll of Errata which is online and therefore not immediately obvious to get
13. someone used the charms "Void Avatar Prana" "Shinmaic communion" or "Shinmaic (forget other word was, but it was more powerful)" which are broken as hell
14. someone used Sidereal Martial arts from Scroll of the monk. they are also broken as hell.
15. you didn't raise your essence to 3 at character creation
16. you didn't get some Excellencies at character creation
17. you didn't get artifact weapons and armor at character creation
18. you weren't stunting to constantly replenish yourself
19. you didn't raise your Dexterity to 5.
20. you tried to play a Raksha without errata.

these are just the pitfalls I can remember, after a while of not thinking about 2e, mind you. because no Exalted fan wants to think about Exalted 2e anymore. sure its what your familiar with.....but no one WANTS to be. trust me, there is a reason the Exalted 3e kickstarter got filled up so fast.

[Arbane]

these are just the pitfalls I can remember, after a while of not thinking about 2e, mind you. because no Exalted fan wants to think about Exalted 2e anymore. sure its what your familiar with.....but no one WANTS to be. trust me, there is a reason the Exalted 3e kickstarter got filled up so fast.

Unfortunately, 3rd edition decided to stick with the Storyteller system, which strikes me as not unlike trying to design a sports-car and insisting it has to seat at least 10. :smallannoyed:

(I love some of Exalted's ideas, but the rules just frustrate me these days.)

[Lord Raziere]

Unfortunately, 3rd edition decided to stick with the Storyteller system, which strikes me as not unlike trying to design a sports-car and insisting it has to seat at least 10. :smallannoyed:

(I love some of Exalted's ideas, but the rules just frustrate me these days.)

Again, thats why I use Godbound for Exalted these days. takes a nice sword to that crunchy Exalted gordion knot of mechanical problems. no broken 2e problems, no ridiculous 3e wait, no 3e subsystems particularly the stupid crafting don't get me started on that, all those charms compressed into a few cool flexible abilities, just........yes. just right.

[Knaight]

On Exalted - I've mostly been staying out of this, but I'm just going to say that the basic theory behind it (and WoD games in general) is to effectively package a number of distinct game types together, with different characters having different game types. A group of all Solar characters should play very differently than a group of all Dragonblooded, while keeping a shared system and setting.

It's just dragged down by the way the Storyteller system is basically garbage.


Isn't Torchbearer intended to mimic OD&D?
Kind of. It's intended to be a deliberate homage to early D&D while filling a pretty similar niche - mechanically they're very different games, with Torchbearer looking more like Mouseguard than anything else.

[Morty]

If you play by the default designer assumptions -- all PCs are from one single type of Exalt -- then the imbalance between types doesn't matter.

If you play the more common way -- a group of PCs from different types of Exalt -- then the imbalance between types makes things worse.


So it never helps, and sometimes (not always) it hurts.

If you're playing a single splat, the others still exist. As antagonists, NPCs, or simply background. So, yes, it matters. If Dragon-Blooded are somehow balanced with Solars and Lunars, the entire institution of Wyld Hunts makes no sense. If Sidereals have as much raw power as Solars, their theme of being Fate-manipulators is lessened. Likewise with Lunars being shape-shifting and ever-adapting.


They go out of the way to explain that if you're a Terrestrial in a group of Solars, you're gonna be the Vibe to their Superman, deal with it. (Heroic Mortals would be more like the Red Bee.) A few ways to keep the Dbs from feeling redundant have been explicated - Terrestrials can get away with going full-power without the Wyld Hunt coming after them, Realm DBs probably have powerful family all over, etc.

Also, less powerful Exalted are still Exalted. They're still superhero demigods who have their own unique themes. Solars might be super-strong, but they can't change shape, wield elements, enter dreams or screw with causality with their own native Charms. Other Exalts can. Didn't work out so well in older editions, but that's the answer 3E seems to be going with. How well it works... well, remains to be seen.

[Quertus]

I have to ask - how on Creation did THAT happen? Were you playing a mortal? Did you put all your points in Sail Charms and end up in a desert?


here is the list of things could've potentially screwed up your playing Exalted 2e experience:

I think I hit 16/20 points on that list. :smallfrown:


Also, less powerful Exalted are still Exalted. They're still superhero demigods

Let's not forget that, in D&D, less powerful adventurers are still Adventurers. They can take on horrible monsters that can slaughter whole towns, defeat armies single-handed, and have experiences that leave the common folk gaping in wonder.

[Lord Raziere]

I think I hit 16/20 points on that list. :smallfrown:


Which is exactly why the Exalted fanbase demanded a new edition. imagine your frustration and sadness, but multiplied by "Being An Actual Fan Who Is Really Into This", plus "I Played Exalted 1st Edition And It Wasn't This Bad" sentiments. Thats the kind of thing that made Exalted 3e. Unfortunately, the developers seemed to overreacted to 2e's slapdash making of books by focusing on quality no matter how long it takes to put out, so.......now we got a corebook, a pdf of backer Solar charms and nothing else to show for it. the corebook itself had a mixed reception, even though it sold well. lets just say Exalted fanbase is very passionate, the developers don't have a PR guy, and sometimes they make comments that were well.......taken controversially.

which is a polite way of saying "about half the fanbase read the 3e corebook, declared it the greatest thing ever, kissed the ground the developers walked on and wait for the developers to bring the promised next books to this day, the other half hated it despite acknowledging that the 3e corebook is objectively better than 2e, then went off to make Exalted Heartbreakers, and the remainder said "screw this, I'm sticking with 2.5e, you took too long". and now everyone makes schedule jokes like "3e Alchemicals to come in 3015"." that 3e corebook release was a fiasco, plain and simple.

Edit: and now I have Spheres of Power and Path of War, which do a lot of things Exalted does, because well.....I dunno, I like what they do, and they might be useful for a game.

[Cosi]

Exalted doesn't use levels. Neither does WoD/CoD. Or any other system that's not D&D, for that matter.

You don't have to use levels for the point to hold though, just some power yardstick. IIRC, White Wolf's stuff is on some kind of points system, so you could model Solars as having more points, rather than having those points buy better things (as is my understanding).


Solars are better than all other types. That is enshrined in the setting's lore. It doesn't have to be implied by anything -- it's a basic setting conceit.

I think you're looking at it backwards (or maybe I said it backwards). Just because Solars (as an organization or type) are more powerful than Lunars or Dragonkin, doesn't mean individual Solars can't be balanced against individual Dragonkin.


White Wolf made up a huge amount of brand-new lore for Vampires, and different lore for Werewolves, and different lore for Changelings. They write each supernatural type as self-contained but with enough legends to support a very wide world.

Exalt types are similarly expansive in their lore, and could potentially be in a game that's similarly self-contained. As an example: if you're in a Solars game, there's no reason for the Thousand Stream Rivers project to even exist. It exists to give Lunars additional agency in the setting.

I'm not talking about lore in the game, I'm talking about the out-of-game stuff that gets people interested in the first place. People play games because there is something they are interested in doing. Sometimes that's the premise ("play a demigod in a vaguely eastern-inspired fantasy setting"), but sometimes it's some other story that got them hooked ("be like Blade or Angel"). It seems obvious to me that the plethora of Vampires elsewhere in fiction would tilt the preferences of WoD players towards them in a way that Exalted players wouldn't prefer e.g. Solars. For comparison, what was the general split on the Vampire clans in WoD games? I would imagine those guys have a similar relationship (in terms of player appeal) to what Exalted types have.

[Arbane]

You don't have to use levels for the point to hold though, just some power yardstick. IIRC, White Wolf's stuff is on some kind of points system, so you could model Solars as having more points, rather than having those points buy better things (as is my understanding).

I think you're looking at it backwards (or maybe I said it backwards). Just because Solars (as an organization or type) are more powerful than Lunars or Dragonkin, doesn't mean individual Solars can't be balanced against individual Dragonkin.

Yeah, Exalted has Essence as its general power stat.

And yes, the DBs have the significant advantage of having been active for generations, whereas the Solars are just now returning. An Essence 2 Solar vs an Essence 5 DB with 300 years with of Charms is likely to end badly for the Solar, despite DB Charms being weaker.

(Which is one of the problems with the setting, really- despite Solars being the Returned God-Kings of Creation, there's a plethora of ultra-powerful NPCs who COULD easily slaughter or brainwash any group of starting PCs, who are apparently spared only by their utter insignificance. White Wolf at its White Wolfiest, folks!)

[Morty]

You don't have to use levels for the point to hold though, just some power yardstick. IIRC, White Wolf's stuff is on some kind of points system, so you could model Solars as having more points, rather than having those points buy better things (as is my understanding).

You should probably actually try to read up on those systems before passing judgements, because that's not how it works. Every Exalted splat as its own power set. That's the whole point. If you give them the same pool of powers and give Solars more points, the whole game is completely different.


I think you're looking at it backwards (or maybe I said it backwards). Just because Solars (as an organization or type) are more powerful than Lunars or Dragonkin, doesn't mean individual Solars can't be balanced against individual Dragonkin.

It's pretty much the other way around. Solars are meant to be individually mighty, but when the game starts, they don't have any sort of support or organization.


I'm not talking about lore in the game, I'm talking about the out-of-game stuff that gets people interested in the first place. People play games because there is something they are interested in doing. Sometimes that's the premise ("play a demigod in a vaguely eastern-inspired fantasy setting"), but sometimes it's some other story that got them hooked ("be like Blade or Angel"). It seems obvious to me that the plethora of Vampires elsewhere in fiction would tilt the preferences of WoD players towards them in a way that Exalted players wouldn't prefer e.g. Solars. For comparison, what was the general split on the Vampire clans in WoD games? I would imagine those guys have a similar relationship (in terms of player appeal) to what Exalted types have.

See above - that's not how it works. Every Exalted splat has its own set of powers, themes and copabilities. They're nothing like vampire clans or any of their equivalents in WoD/CoD. Each Exalted type has its own castes or aspects that work similarly to clans in terms of mechanics.

It's really hard to have a discussion when someone doesn't know the basics of the topic.



Let's not forget that, in D&D, less powerful adventurers are still Adventurers. They can take on horrible monsters that can slaughter whole towns, defeat armies single-handed, and have experiences that leave the common folk gaping in wonder.

That could be true, and perhaps should be true. But it's not, because of the thing you conveniently omitted when quoting my post. The less powerful D&D classes don't get their own cool themes and powers. Just scaling numbers. If they could actually do amazing things within their thematic bailiwick, far fewer people would give a toss about "balance". Mind you, that would require the game to first set down what their thematics are, which it never has.

And, again, comparing Exalted types to D&D classes is erroneous, because every one of them can learn and master all sorts of skills and powers. A Solar warrior is obscenely powerful while also being a warrior... mind you, nothing stops a Solar warrior from dabbling into sorcery, speech-craft or whatever else.

[Cosi]

You should probably actually try to read up on those systems before passing judgements, because that's not how it works. Every Exalted splat as its own power set. That's the whole point. If you give them the same pool of powers and give Solars more points, the whole game is completely different.

You don't have to give them the same powers, you have to give them balanced powers.


See above - that's not how it works. Every Exalted splat has its own set of powers, themes and copabilities. They're nothing like vampire clans or any of their equivalents in WoD/CoD. Each Exalted type has its own castes or aspects that work similarly to clans in terms of mechanics.

They are from the perspective of player expectations. Someone without prior exposure to WoD/Exalted is going to have the same level of expectation about what being a Venture means as they will about what being a Solar means (e.g. none).

It's really hard to have a discussion when someone doesn't know the basics of the topic.


That could be true, and perhaps should be true. But it's not, because of the thing you conveniently omitted when quoting my post. The less powerful D&D classes don't get their own cool themes and powers. Just scaling numbers. If they could actually do amazing things within their thematic bailiwick, far fewer people would give a toss about "balance". Mind you, that would require the game to first set down what their thematics are, which it never has.

That makes imbalance even stupider. If classes are conceptual equal (that is, they can each do a variety of stuff), making them mechanically equal is easy.

[Tinkerer]

You don't have to give them the same powers, you have to give them balanced powers.


On Exalted I'm willing to give them a lot more leeway because each group is supposed to be extremely separated by power level. Think less Mage vs Fighter vs Ranger and more Human vs Dragon vs Mouse. And they do flat out say that. I wouldn't be the slightest bit interested in playing Exalted if they balanced the Solars with the other groups because that fundamental division is one of the things which makes the world interesting. Yes you can have a powerful Dragon Blooded mop the floor with a weak Solar just the same as you could have a powerful human mop the floor with a weak dragon though the division between the power classes is still there. But within the different types of Exalted there are the Mage vs Fighter vs Ranger divisions and those definitely should be balanced.

In most of the WW materials I definitely think that you lose so much by having a mixed group that it isn't worth it. If you have a Vampire and a Werewolf and a Mage all in the same party then you are losing 90% of what makes each of them interesting and just turning everything into a free-for-all gumbo. I like gumbo but it's not what I go to WW for.

[Morty]

You don't have to give them the same powers, you have to give them balanced powers.

How do you define "balanced" in the context of Exalted? Solars and Dragon-Blooded have different places in the setting. There's only 300 Solars at a given time, but thousands of Dragon-Blooded. Why would you balance them?


They are from the perspective of player expectations. Someone without prior exposure to WoD/Exalted is going to have the same level of expectation about what being a Venture means as they will about what being a Solar means (e.g. none).

Says who? People who have no prior exposure to the system will have all kinds of expectations, often completely erroneous. When I first heard about "Dragon-Blooded" in Exalted context, I thought they were of the scaly sort with tails. I once saw someone assume their Hunter: the Vigil character would get a jetpack.

Point being, assumptions made by people without necessary information hardly count as evidence. And once they actually learn anything, it will become clear that a vampire clan and an Exalted splat are nothing alike. Because, again, Exalted has an actual equivalent of a vampire clan. Vampires get five clans (more than that in Masquerade), Solars get five castes. And the core book for every edition of Exalted only has rules for Solars, with other splats appearing as NPC writeups.

[Cosi]

On Exalted I'm willing to give them a lot more leeway because each group is supposed to be extremely separated by power level. Think less Mage vs Fighter vs Ranger and more Human vs Dragon vs Mouse. And they do flat out say that. I wouldn't be the slightest bit interested in playing Exalted if they balanced the Solars with the other groups because that fundamental division is one of the things which makes the world interesting. Yes you can have a powerful Dragon Blooded mop the floor with a weak Solar just the same as you could have a powerful human mop the floor with a weak dragon though the division between the power classes is still there. But within the different types of Exalted there are the Mage vs Fighter vs Ranger divisions and those definitely should be balanced.

I don't understand why this implies that you should have imbalance between PCs, or why you should forbid mixed-splat parties. Both of those choices seem obviously worse than the alternative. I mean, I get that White Wolf is bad at making games, but these do not seem like good decisions even taking that into account.


In most of the WW materials I definitely think that you lose so much by having a mixed group that it isn't worth it. If you have a Vampire and a Werewolf and a Mage all in the same party then you are losing 90% of what makes each of them interesting and just turning everything into a free-for-all gumbo. I like gumbo but it's not what I go to WW for.

I don't understand why you think having Werewolves in a Vampire story makes it less interesting. I can barely think of any Urban Fantasy setting that doesn't include both, and the examples I can think of are mostly standalone movies. Dresden has both. Buffy has both. Supernatural has both.


How do you define "balanced" in the context of Exalted? Solars and Dragon-Blooded have different places in the setting. There's only 300 Solars at a given time, but thousands of Dragon-Blooded. Why would you balance them?

Why would you balance anything in any game? I don't understand why you think this question is different from "Wizards aren't Fighters, why do Wizards and Fighters need to be balanced". Yes, the setting has some stuff in it, but that doesn't require that Solars be inherently better than Dragonblood, just that the specific Solars that do exist be better than the specific Dragonblood that do exist. Just as, by analogy, you can have Gandalf be stronger than Frodo by having him be higher level, rather than by having Wizards be inherently better than Fighters.


Says who? People who have no prior exposure to the system will have all kinds of expectations, often completely erroneous. When I first heard about "Dragon-Blooded" in Exalted context, I thought they were of the scaly sort with tails. I once saw someone assume their Hunter: the Vigil character would get a jetpack. But once they actually learn anything, it will become clear that a vampire clan and an Exalted splat are nothing alike. Because, again, Exalted has an actual equivalent of a vampire clan.

Because people's expectations determine what characters they are interested in playing. The whole point was whether it was reasonable to expect people to be more interested in cross-splat games in Exalted than they would be in oWoD.

[Quertus]

You should probably actually try to read up on those systems before passing judgements, because that's not how it works. Every Exalted splat as its own power set. That's the whole point. If you give them the same pool of powers and give Solars more points, the whole game is completely different.

Eh, how about, "in a balanced party, a solar status with X XP, a lunar starts with y XP"?
You know, like the whole "x level mage = y level Fighter" concept.


That could be true, and perhaps should be true. But it's not, because of the thing you conveniently omitted when quoting my post. The less powerful D&D classes don't get their own cool themes and powers. Just scaling numbers. If they could actually do amazing things within their thematic bailiwick, far fewer people would give a toss about "balance". Mind you, that would require the game to first set down what their thematics are, which it never has.

And, again, comparing Exalted types to D&D classes is erroneous, because every one of them can learn and master all sorts of skills and powers. A Solar warrior is obscenely powerful while also being a warrior... mind you, nothing stops a Solar warrior from dabbling into sorcery, speech-craft or whatever else.

The übercharger one-shots everything with his scaling numbers. As does a well-supported good rogue build. "less powerful" classes can do utterly amazing things.


On Exalted I'm willing to give them a lot more leeway because each group is supposed to be extremely separated by power level. Think less Mage vs Fighter vs Ranger and more Human vs Dragon vs Mouse. And they do flat out say that. I wouldn't be the slightest bit interested in playing Exalted if they balanced the Solars with the other groups because that fundamental division is one of the things which makes the world interesting. Yes you can have a powerful Dragon Blooded mop the floor with a weak Solar just the same as you could have a powerful human mop the floor with a weak dragon though the division between the power classes is still there. But within the different types of Exalted there are the Mage vs Fighter vs Ranger divisions and those definitely should be balanced.

In most of the WW materials I definitely think that you lose so much by having a mixed group that it isn't worth it. If you have a Vampire and a Werewolf and a Mage all in the same party then you are losing 90% of what makes each of them interesting and just turning everything into a free-for-all gumbo. I like gumbo but it's not what I go to WW for.

Again, what if the expectation is that a party would consist of an ancient dragon blooded and a noob solar?

Also, what 90% do you think I'm missing out on with my mixed WoD parties? I'm really curious about this.

[Nifft]

Why would you balance anything in any game? I don't understand why you think this question is different from "Wizards aren't Fighters, why do Wizards and Fighters need to be balanced". Yes, the setting has some stuff in it, but that doesn't require that Solars be inherently better than Dragonblood, just that the specific Solars that do exist be better than the specific Dragonblood that do exist. Just as, by analogy, you can have Gandalf be stronger than Frodo by having him be higher level, rather than by having Wizards be inherently better than Fighters.

Again, this is not the apparent default assumption in Exalted.

Fighter & Wizard are supposed to be in the same party in D&D. That's the intent. They are supposed to be equally valid choices for a PC in the same game.

Exalted games are more like:
- "Here's a book with 5 kinds of Monk. If you have one of each, you cover all the archetypes & skills in the game."
- "Here's a book with 5 kinds of Bard. If you have one of each, you cover all the archetypes & skills in the game."
- "Here's a book with 5 kinds of Druid. If you have one of each, you cover all the archetypes & skills in the game."
- "Here's a book with 5 kinds of gestalt Warblade // Wizard. If you have one of each, you cover all the archetypes & skills in the game."

You have played Exalted before, right?

[Knaight]

Why would you balance anything in any game? I don't understand why you think this question is different from "Wizards aren't Fighters, why do Wizards and Fighters need to be balanced". Yes, the setting has some stuff in it, but that doesn't require that Solars be inherently better than Dragonblood, just that the specific Solars that do exist be better than the specific Dragonblood that do exist. Just as, by analogy, you can have Gandalf be stronger than Frodo by having him be higher level, rather than by having Wizards be inherently better than Fighters.

The setting requires that Solars be inherently better than Dragonblooded, the same way the setting of Ars Magica requires wizards to be inherently better than warriors, the same way your typical schizo-tech setting requires a tank to be inherently better than some dude with a spear. There are underlying themes that just don't work without it.

Meanwhile, in a completely different sort of game about mixed parties adventuring with a focus on overcoming challenges (e.g. D&D) the requirements are different.

[Tinkerer]

I don't understand why this implies that you should have imbalance between PCs, or why you should forbid mixed-splat parties. Both of those choices seem obviously worse than the alternative. I mean, I get that White Wolf is bad at making games, but these do not seem like good decisions even taking that into account.

Because they flat out state several times that they are not intended to be used in the same party and as a result are not balanced. If the GM wants to balance them then that's fine (similar to giving a wizard 3/4 of an XP for every 1 XP the fighter gets) but it goes against the fluff and the mechanics of the setting.


I don't understand why you think having Werewolves in a Vampire story makes it less interesting. I can barely think of any Urban Fantasy setting that doesn't include both, and the examples I can think of are mostly standalone movies. Dresden has both. Buffy has both. Supernatural has both.


Because you are splitting things between two, three, or four cultures. Saying that Buffy has both really isn't true, it has human culture and a dash of vampire culture (surprisingly little though) and pretty much no werewolf culture. They exists as a creature in the world but aside from that they barely touch on it, even with Oz. Supernatural I haven't watched since season 1. Bear in mind that what we are talking about here isn't the existence of the creatures in the world but where our focus is.



Again, what if the expectation is that a party would consist of an ancient dragon blooded and a noob solar?

Also, what 90% do you think I'm missing out on with my mixed WoD parties? I'm really curious about this.


That's definitely doable although if you are going to have the campaign going for an extended period and want to keep it balanced you also need to adjust the leveling rates due to differing growth patterns. I was just saying that I find it a lot more excusable in Exalted than in D&D due to it being baked into the setting.

As for what is being missed out on there are a number of things. For starters with the exceptions of a small handful of combinations if word gets out that the group is a group pretty much every supernatural organization will want to see them dead. So either a) You rewrote the world setting in a fundamental way or b) the group is a pariah and has no contact with any of the supernatural organizations. Which is a massive part of the WoD, particularly for vampires and werewolves. You can't really delve deep into any of the meta-narratives since they usually clash with each other. All mixed WoD groups that I've seen kinda boil down to generic Urban Fantasy, usually with more than a touch of the Superhero genre thrown in. Fun, but at that point you might as well just throw out the entire setting and start from scratch.

[Tvtyrant]

i mean,this is supposed to be a roleplaying game right? not "gameplay and story segregation wow. by definition story and gameplay are supposed to be one, so logically speaking does it not make sense that reality warping should be stronger that hitting something with a big stick? if i could say (in real life) move things with my mind,bend others to my will,change shape,become invisible and summon cthulhu i would be emperor of the world.tomorrow morning in fact. if i could smash people's faces with fists i would be.. at best making money as a boxer.


it's not even something unique to dnd
it's why the big bad in tolkien's middle earth is a magical fallen angel instead of some angry troll with an axe.
or why the biggest threat to palpatine were the 10,000 strong jedi order or hell even the survivors of his purge
or why cthulhu is such a threat(size alone would not get him anywhere near)
or why circe beats the argonauts even though they are more muscular than her.
or why the lich king's terror is not caused by wielding a big ****ing sword.
or how demeter nearly destroys the world when her daughter is kidnapped.
or how "let there be light" did not involve any muscle .

essentially my point is that having fighters be as strong as wizards only makes sense in settings where the lore/fluff supports it. for instance classical mythology and whitewolf's Exalted solve the problem by giving a convincing in-game metaphysical reason about how(for instance) you were able to shoot ten people in one shot.i.e making everyone magical but looking like ridiculously advanced mundane stuff.

personally(though i haven't yet played it) i think 5e is in a somewhat better direction i.e removing ,insanely abused feats/prestige classes etc,giving fighters some extra capabilities(not unlike,say,warblades in 3.5e or for that matter what real life people or heroes like drizzt can do)

You seem to be asking two different things with your examples.

1. "Why do people object to differently powered classes?"

Because roleplaying games are meant to be about the ingame interactions, and unequal power makes out of character decisions more important to success than in character decisions. RPGs are in essence two games, roleplaying and mechanical optimization. Optimization is often the dominant game, which frustrates people who are more interested in the roleplaying.

The two games actually have nothing to do with each other, you can be great at one and awful at the other or great at both. It just happens to be a design point that irritates some people and unequal options mechanically makes it impossible to avoid. If I just want to roleplay a homeless ninja who is a badass, and my friend just wants to play a wizard he is going to be better than me nearly 100% of the time regardless of our intentions.

2. "Why do people object to talking about the differences between class power?"

This one is basically a see no evil, do no evil fallacy. It is an assumption that by knowing that there are mechanical pratfalls in a game, you are more likely to abuse them. The tier system isn't meant to be a crib sheet to greater optimization potential, however. It is to help people avoid the extremely common "angel summoner and BMX Bandit" issue of playing two characters of wildly varying power by accident. See point 1.


So basically RPGs have an inherent flaw (although many people enjoy it) in being two games glued together, and if you focus on just roleplaying the mechanical problems with one of them can overshadow the other. People object to talking about this because they think that these problems can be ignored if you just don't try to play the mechanical part of the game, despite it being the underlying system of the roleplaying.

[Lord Raziere]

Cosi, you do NOT know how Exalts work:

an Exalt is not a class. Solars are not Wizards. Castes are closer to classes, and even then there room for flexibility, because its possible for a Twilight Caste, the most intellectual of the Solar Exalted to not be a Wizard yet still make magical artifacts, deal with and exorcise spirits, as well as literally create order out of chaos and remake lands of pure chaos into livable land for mortals because they are scholars but not wizards. a Solar who is a wizard, could be ANY of the castes, a Dawn Caste who is otherwise a fighter or general can be a wizard, a Night Caste who is otherwise a rogue can be a wizard, a Zenith who is otherwise a bard can be a wizard. an Eclipse Caste can make magical binding oaths as their natural ability no wizardry needed. or Sorcery as Exalted calls it.

Every Exalted type has its fighter/scholar/social/stealth/other social role. well almost, Lunars only have three but they're more flexible. all "being a Solar" tells someone is how massive their power is, not what they can do. in some ways, similar castes of different Exalted types have more in common with each other than they do with their own Exalts, despite being on different sides. but Solars have only 300 of themselves, are scattered and to be honest are just as likely to fight each other as other Exalts. Dragon-Blooded have tens of thousands of themselves, and can drown a Solar in numbers. Sidereals have only 100 of themselves, but a lot of information that other people don't, are secret to most, have Heaven itself to hide in, and are full of schemes. Lunars have 300, are less powerful than Solars but make up for it in being harder to find and completely terrifying because shapeshifting.

In short there is at least 25 different flavors of hero running around Creation being epic in some way shape or form, and five of them out the number the other twenty flavors about 100 to 1. Trust me when I say I've argued for Exalts being more equal before and got nothing but failure for my folly, it just wouldn't work as a core setting thing. the whole game is designed to be intentionally asymmetric so as to invoke real world comparisons of how power functions when your placed in certain positions, which is again y'know, White Wolf being White Wolf in how it attempts to be artsy, thematic and deep in its RPG-making rather than just going for something fun, because a Dragon-Blooded is supposed to be outclassed by a Solar Exalted in every way, a Dragon-Blooded is supposed to see a Solar do something and go "darn it I hate that they can do that and not me!" as some metaphor for how some people just plain get more power than others through no fault of their own just like how in the real world some people just have have more money than you and there is nothing you can do about it unless you get real lucky. I knows its bull and things should be fun, but thats White Wolf for you, and why I use Godbound instead of the actual Exalted rpg.

[Tinkerer]

Cosi, you do NOT know how Exalts work:

snip

That is what I was referring to when I said that it's not a matter of Fighter vs Mage vs Ranger but rather a matter of Human vs Dragon vs Mouse. But at the same time I don't want my Humans to be as strong as Dragons or my Dragons to be as strong as Mice. That's just boring in my book. It's like if someone took a look at D&D and decided "Well since players can play as gods why would anyone not want to?" Or worse yet "I think all humans should start out with the powers of gods to balance things since it is possible for players to play as gods". But what is important is to make it explicit and not try to hide it. Exalted did that and that is why I give it a pass on that but 3.X doesn't.

[Morty]

Why would you balance anything in any game? I don't understand why you think this question is different from "Wizards aren't Fighters, why do Wizards and Fighters need to be balanced". Yes, the setting has some stuff in it, but that doesn't require that Solars be inherently better than Dragonblood, just that the specific Solars that do exist be better than the specific Dragonblood that do exist. Just as, by analogy, you can have Gandalf be stronger than Frodo by having him be higher level, rather than by having Wizards be inherently better than Fighters.


The bolded is actually a good question people should be asking more often. Balance isn't inherently necessary or desirable. People have already explained why a) Exalted types aren't classes and b) the setting hinges on a measure power disparity between them. There's nuance to that, and you might or might not like it. But that's how the game is written. It's an inherently different model than D&D tries to use, and trying to equate the two is folly.

[Mechalich]

Exalted, as a game, tries to hit a very narrow point of balance. The setting requires that the Solars and the other Celestial Exalted (Lunars+Sidereals initially, later other types too) be individually stronger than the dragon-blooded but weaker than a group working together and for this to remain true throughout the XP curve. This doesn't hold true at all in the extant editions with stats for the other groups, 1e and 2e, but it's mostly because of various other huge flaws in how the system works as a whole, the utterly balance destroying nature of certain powers (perfect defenses), and a total failure of the XP curve to work (as in most White-Wolf games a full powered elder can wipe the floor with infinite weaklings). A lot of this is due to the nature of the storyteller system overall being unsuited for such a combat heavy game and having a very poor mathematical setup to deliver balance at all.

[Pleh]

The bolded is actually a good question people should be asking more often. Balance isn't inherently necessary or desirable. People have already explained why a) Exalted types aren't classes and b) the setting hinges on a measure power disparity between them. There's nuance to that, and you might or might not like it. But that's how the game is written. It's an inherently different model than D&D tries to use, and trying to equate the two is folly.

Why try to balance things?

Because games build trust out of submitting to a system that purports to be somehow fair.

Now, it's fine to play calvinball and let fairness be defined as an equal lack of rules restrictions, but that's a different scenario than most RPGs.

Now, when people say, "balance," my physics training is quick to point out that there are many points of balance, some more stable than others. A triangle can balance on its face, on its side, or on its tip. All of these forms of balance are equally employing balance, but they're not the same and they permit different kinds of interaction.

I see 3.5 like a bike. It has some balance issues that need to be understood to ride as intended. You could rig the bike with safety wheels to stabilize it, or just carry the bike on your back, but there'a not all that many ways to ride it as intended, and even doing so has a few common pitfalls that could disappoint people who don't know to anticipate the danger.

5e, with bounded accuracy, put 4 wheels on the machine, making it much more difficult to tip over when using as intended (not that this prevents you from getting stupid with it). You don't quite get to lean and cut corners like 3.5 can in its versatility, but it's a lot harder to crash and burn.

So why do we bother with balance when players want to pop wheelies anyway? Because a lot of players rely on some kind of balance to establish fair expectations.

The balance can be any weird, fragile kind you want, or you can skip balance altogether, as long as the intended balance is accurately communicated in the rules.

[Necroticplague]

One of the main problems, I find, with imbalance is when it's not seen coming. If you know what parts of the system are broken, you can work around them, or at least plan for it. Thus, if a system is imbalance, I'd rather it be upfront about it (like Exalted, Mutants and Masterminds, or Champions), and preferably even point out where and why (Exalted does this with Summon First Circle, Mutants and Masterminds gives warnings about some power modifiers). I'd have less problems with DnD's imbalance if it at least bothers to point out 'oh yaeah, past level 8-10, either get spells or get wrecked'.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I agree that unexpected or unmentioned imbalance is the deal-breaker for me. Intentional imbalance can work, but has to be signaled loud and clear. Not be a result of multiple interactions between abilities that are no where signaled.

Basically (unless the system explicitly warns against it), if two equally unskilled people make characters by picking what "looks good/seems useful" for their chosen archetype, the characters produced should be roughly able to participate at the same level (against the same challenges, combat or non-combat). 3.5 breaks that horribly--a CW Samurai and a Druid who take the "logical" feats and abilities will come out on completely different planes. 5e D&D is better balanced, but not perfect.

Exalted 1e (from what I understand) has rough parity between Solar builds of various castes and chosen foci. WoD at least pretends to have rough parity between Mages of different circles(?). Neither pretend to have parity between Solars and Dragonblooded Exalts or between Mages and Hunters (for example). Thus, if a Mage and a Hunter are together, they know going in that there will be disparities.

[Cosi]

Again, this is not the apparent default assumption in Exalted.

Sure. But it's a bad assumption to make. Because what people manifestly want to do is play Lunars, Solars, Abyssals, and Dragonblooded in the same party. So the game should support that. Just like D&D should support playing "guy who swings a sword", because that is something people want to play in a fantasy game.


You have played Exalted before, right?

No. I've read (some of) the books, but I haven't played it for exactly this reason. Also because it shares many of the problems White Wolf has with game content.


The setting requires that Solars be inherently better than Dragonblooded, the same way the setting of Ars Magica requires wizards to be inherently better than warriors, the same way your typical schizo-tech setting requires a tank to be inherently better than some dude with a spear. There are underlying themes that just don't work without it.

Again, this does not require that Solar PCs be better than Dragonblooded PCs. You could mandate that Solars were all at least Essence 12 (or whatever) while Dragonblooded could be any essence. So you could have Dragonblooded and Solars in a balanced party, while still preserving the setting level assumption that Solars are super hardcore.


Because they flat out state several times that they are not intended to be used in the same party and as a result are not balanced. If the GM wants to balance them then that's fine (similar to giving a wizard 3/4 of an XP for every 1 XP the fighter gets) but it goes against the fluff and the mechanics of the setting.

Mechanics, yes. But mechanics can be changed, and if they don't produce the game we want, they should be. Setting, no. All the setting requires is that Solar characters have more power than Dragonblood characters. That doesn't mean you can't have a Dragonblood and a Solar at the same power level.


Because you are splitting things between two, three, or four cultures. Saying that Buffy has both really isn't true, it has human culture and a dash of vampire culture (surprisingly little though) and pretty much no werewolf culture. They exists as a creature in the world but aside from that they barely touch on it, even with Oz.

On Angel they have various demon cultures. Even then, you don't actually need "werewolf culture" to have werewolf PCs, as you point out. Also, Buffy does have "mage culture" in various places (e.g. the magic drug den in Season 6).

EDIT: Seriously, how many works in this genre can you name that have only one kind of supernatural creature, aside from stand-alone monster movies (which are not really what WoD is going for, and even then there are team-ups and cross-overs)?

[Quertus]

Because games build trust out of submitting to a system that purports to be somehow fair.

Because a lot of players rely on some kind of balance to establish fair expectations.

The balance can be any weird, fragile kind you want, or you can skip balance altogether, as long as the intended balance is accurately communicated in the rules.

Sure, the designers say it's balanced, but does 3e actually anywhere in the rules purport to be balanced? Sure, everyone earns the same XP, and levels at the same time - but you can say the equivalent for Exalted.

Is there anything to the belief that D&D is supposed to be balanced more than us projecting our own beliefs and desires on the system?

Of course, even if it doesn't say that it's balanced, that isn't the same as it saying that it's not balanced.


Neither pretend to have parity between Solars and Dragonblooded Exalts or between Mages and Hunters (for example). Thus, if a Mage and a Hunter are together, they know going in that there will be disparities.

That involves player skills of knowing about that imbalance. I went into WoD blind, not knowing that there were any balance issues to worry about. And I still had fun.

I went into Exalted knowing that it wasn't balanced, but not understanding the extent of the imbalance. I had more issues with Exalted imbalance than with WoD or D&D. But I still got to play the character I intended to play.

IMO, the problem is when you can't build the character you intend to run. When, no matter how good a tracker you make your Wizard, he can't feed his family, let alone come across as a master hunter. When, no matter what you do to build a solo monster hunter, it just can't solo monsters. Things like that.

[Nifft]

1) It's enshrined in the setting. It's a major meta-plot element that the Solars were gone for a few thousand years, and their return is a really big deal.

2) The default game design seems to be all about a party from one book or another, so the tier issue isn't supposed to matter, since you're all Dragonbloods or you're all Lunars or whatever. This is in very stark contrast to how I see the game actually played, though: every group I've talked to in person seems to want a mixed party. So a major design decision was made early on to balance within type, not between types, because the assumption was you'd always play within one type -- and that's not what happens.
(...)
There are some potential ways to preserve (1) while fixing (2), but so far the Exalted designers haven't show much interest in doing that.


Sure. But it's a bad assumption to make. Because what people manifestly want to do is play Lunars, Solars, Abyssals, and Dragonblooded in the same party. So the game should support that. Just like D&D should support playing "guy who swings a sword", because that is something people want to play in a fantasy game.

No kidding?

I'm getting some tone/content dissonance.

Your content is manifestly agreeing with what I said, but your tone seems to imply that you're arguing about something.

Could you clarify what you are trying to say?

[Arbane]

Is there anything to the belief that D&D is supposed to be balanced more than us projecting our own beliefs and desires on the system?

I dunno about D&D proper, but from what I've seen the Paizo devs are officially in deep denial there's a caster/martial disparity problem. (But even if they're not allowed to admit it, they have created some Nice Things For Fighters. Too bad they're scattered across multiple books.)

Back in AD&D days, the rulebook was pretty clear that high-level Magic-Users were supposed to be the most powerful characters - 'balanced' by being bad at low levels and fragile at all levels. (An AD&D M-U is unlikely to be able to survive being caught in their own fireball if they blow the save.)


Sure. But it's a bad assumption to make. Because what people manifestly want to do is play Lunars, Solars, Abyssals, and Dragonblooded in the same party. So the game should support that. Just like D&D should support playing "guy who swings a sword", because that is something people want to play in a fantasy game.


Lunars, Solars, DBs and Abyssals in the same party? (http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0001.html) (Warning: dead webcomic. I liked it while it lasted.) Note that their solution to the problem was to have the DB be several centuries more experienced than the others.

[Lord Raziere]

Lunars, Solars, DBs and Abyssals in the same party? (http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0001.html) (Warning: dead webcomic. I liked it while it lasted.) Note that their solution to the problem was to have the DB be several centuries more experienced than the others.

Ah yes, mourn for the fallen awesome webcomic. :smallfrown:

I wish I could write my own Exalted story, but I honestly don't have enough experience with Exalted or its inspirations to get the feel and tone right to my satisfaction. Its just so hard to get what its supposed to be going for down, artistically speaking.

[Knaight]

Sure. But it's a bad assumption to make. Because what people manifestly want to do is play Lunars, Solars, Abyssals, and Dragonblooded in the same party. So the game should support that. Just like D&D should support playing "guy who swings a sword", because that is something people want to play in a fantasy game.


D&D should support playing "guy who swings a sword" because D&D is trying (and failing) to position itself as the one game you play, a generic fantasy game that covers all the generic fantasy characters. Exalted isn't doing that, it's a small game for a specific concept and it's entirely reasonable for it to be designed around that concept and not around people playing it in a way the designers didn't intend.

[Mechalich]

I dunno about D&D proper, but from what I've seen the Paizo devs are officially in deep denial there's a caster/martial disparity problem. (But even if they're not allowed to admit it, they have created some Nice Things For Fighters. Too bad they're scattered across multiple books.)

Back in AD&D days, the rulebook was pretty clear that high-level Magic-Users were supposed to be the most powerful characters - 'balanced' by being bad at low levels and fragile at all levels. (An AD&D M-U is unlikely to be able to survive being caught in their own fireball if they blow the save.)


In AD&D, the different classes had different experience tables, so that at the same amount of XP, characters would be different levels - often significantly so. Thieves advanced rapidly, while wizards advanced very slowly by comparison. This was an explicit rules-based acknowledgement that the classes were not balanced, because levels of a certain class were worth more than levels of other classes.

[Pleh]

Sure, the designers say it's balanced, but does 3e actually anywhere in the rules purport to be balanced? Sure, everyone earns the same XP, and levels at the same time - but you can say the equivalent for Exalted.

Is there anything to the belief that D&D is supposed to be balanced more than us projecting our own beliefs and desires on the system?

Of course, even if it doesn't say that it's balanced, that isn't the same as it saying that it's not balanced.

As you noted, official support says it's balanced. A few peripherals such as XP imply it is balanced.

Then the rest of the rule books say nothing to contradict this notion.

It's kind of like being introduced at a social event as being someone you're not, and simply not correcting them at any point later.

Just because you were the one who lied doesn't mean you aren't employing deceptive practices.

Then there's that argument of lying vs ignorance. Do they just not know any better or refuse to accept the truth? Ultimately, it doesn't matter how the state of the game is misrepresented in the rules. It's the fact that it is.

When a system says, "choose any class for your adventure" it should really go out of its way to warn about class disparity if such were ever intentional. If it were not intentional, then it's a mistake (and one they've refused to fix or acknowledge).