Is it possible to have a fun game for both power-gamers and casuals?

[Renduaz]

So, something I've been thinking about. I often prefer running games of the variety in which players aren't expected to "Play Dumb" for the sake of not ruining a DM's plot line or whatever ( Sometimes seen in casual tables ) and anyone who goes "I'll just whip up this spell array to bypass everything" ( Yes, there should be contingencies in place, but that's why I say it's seen in casual tables where the DM isn't proficient enough with the class and game mechanics to know how to prepare things in advance ) is frowned upon as ruining all the fun. Since I've spent.... a very long time researching anything imaginable, I like to play the opposite game, of "Throw everything you've got at me". Each single thing in those campaigns is infinitely layered with every conceivable setback imaginable.

Low-level characters which would bait you in social situations to "Zone of Truth" them only because they had a Gilbness scroll at the ready for any nosy armed guys they see coming or a golden tooth which is actually a "Magic Mouth" spell set to itself repeat a specific message triggered by the synced lip movement of an individual and bolstered with Nystul's to avoid detection by Detect Magic WHILE being investigated in a Zone of Truth. Also, Nystul's Magic Aura everywhere, all over the place. Reverse Magic traps in which a magical illusion or the like conceals both a magical trap ( Glyph ) AND a well-hidden mechanical trigger which would in fact be triggered by the absence of a certain active magical spell ( Arcane Lock for example surpassing something from snapping or falling through ), the glyph masked with Nystul's as non-magical, likewise the Illusion, and the "trigger" magic masked as being Illusion. A double-bait to both catch people in the glyph if they do nothing and to dispel/Antimagic the illusion thereby actually triggering a mechanical trap.

And these are just examples, no need to get caught up on the details, if something doesn't "get" a player, the next one might. And don't even get me started on the combat difficulty, we're talking some original Illidan Stormrage, ambient exponentially rising lair damage each round, timed encounter ( before a wipeout event ), main opponent invulnerable until requirements met, constantly spawning Deadly-tier numbers/CR mobs type of things. And oh yeah, the "Unconscious characters are left alone" thing, as the song goes - "I'm going in for the kill, I'm doing it for the thrill, I'm hoping you'll understand".....and then they'd love to unleashed/summon/transform into some Barghests just prior to consume your soul so you can never be resurrected either.

Anyway to get to the point, the theory-crafting ( The talented ones - spell combos, environment, creature exploitation, items both mundane and magical, long-term planning, not just x+x = more damage in my build ), Pun-Pun inclined, Elder Brain scheming players find all of this mechanically inception-esque stuff and criminally insane combat difficulties pleasantly challenging and don't need to hold back on trying to power-game as much as humanly possible. On the other hand though, many casual players ( Not full-time D&D researchers, can't recite the entire spell list, class abilities, conditions, damage types and obscure creatures as if they were saying their own name, etc.. ) usually can't say "Jack Robinson" before getting ripped to shreds, having no clue what the hell is going on with certain maps/puzzles and no idea how to counter some Mastermind Arch-Magi Lich's endless defenses and plots.

I remember having a player, and there was some innocuous cultist pacing about in a chamber, and he was like "I can just assassinate him" while 2 of the regulars, with the Fear of God on their faces, Nystul-cloaked Non-Detection spells on their bodies ( Which they had to tell him to do as well ) just instantly using Contingent Dimension Doors in sheer terror upon spotting the mob and starting a frenzied routine of crawling up a rope trick, hidden by illusion, hidden by Nystul's, and sending out an Arcane Eye all the way back just to watch, all the while amusingly telling the other player - "You have no idea what kind of madness you're dealing with here.."

So what would often happen is that casual players will either eventually complain about feeling left out and everything being too complicated and always having to basically follow the lead of hardcore players, while in combat they also end up getting killed a lot, and overall being used to campaigns in which you know, like the official modules, you have a group of monsters and you just attack, maybe with some very slight tactics or suggestions on a sliver platter involved, and you win and yay, and simple strategies, and 20-30% probability of TPK or failing a plotline in general. Meanwhile many advanced players have been there, done that, and are easily bored by it, seeking out a much more challenging platform to test their skills. So the discussion would be, is there any way to reconcile the two? Make a campaign which is equally pleasing to the pro-est of pros and everyone else alike? I imagine someone might say "Well just settle for the middle ground!", but the differences are so vast it's as if you have someone wanting a grain of sand and someone else wanting the moon. The "middle" of that won't be anywhere close enough to either side.

[Hyde]

Who has more fun, The Easy Halo Player in Legendary, or the Legendary Halo player in Easy?

[Renduaz]

Who has more fun, The Easy Halo Player in Legendary, or the Legendary Halo player in Easy?

Probably the Legendary player on Easy by a marginal amount. The Easy player will get actually frustrated and experience the direct opposite of fun while teeth-gnashing-ly trying and failing to do something which he is as of yet not experienced enough to tackle. The legendary player is going to be incredibly bored but might derive some novelty from just owning everything and proceeding with the story.

[Unoriginal]

Well, yes, it is possible to make both power gamers and less-concerned-about-power people happy in the same campaign.

The thing is, most of the the stuff about the advanced power gaming vs a world where everyone has contingencies against your contingencies that you're presenting has a major problem: it's assuming unlimited ressources for everyone, both PCs and NPCs, or rather, it's assuming that the world with just comply and let anyone do their plan with only other people (and even that is dubious) being able to affect it, without taking things like how many opportunities one would have to encounter X or how much handling this opportunity would cost..

I mean, just as an exemple: you mentioned being Nystul's Magic Aura being cast everywhere. Where do all that casting come from? Magic Aura is a 2nd level spell that last 24h. Most caster NPCs don't have the spell slots to cast it more than an handful of time, and the default assumption for 5e is that casters aren't the most common people around. And the PHB indicates that hiring one to cast a that kind of spell would at minimum cost 60 gp, which is one month of salary for a guard, for exemple.

Same with Zone of Truth: most people in a social interaction would simply refuse it (as you could have them reveal anything with the right questions, and they probably don't want to expose themselves), and if you tricked or forced someone into one you'll gain a person who at minimum won't like you. Sure, it would work well in a dungeon or against people you're not planning to let live, but it's not something you'll be able to do to a nobleman in a civilized setting without consequences.

The same is true about how NPCs act: some can be very clever, sure, and every NPCs should have the tactical acumen implied by their mental stats, but it doesn't mean everyone will always be optimal and do the option that was calculated to be the best. Even a fanatic cultist won't be able to perfectly wait to bait hypothetical intruders into a foolish move all the time. The vampire won't necessarily have the perfect counter for the spells a wizard he never met uses the most. The elf archer won't always be capable to find an Oathbow. And the like.

Basically, what I'm saying is: you can have a tough, challenging campaign that pleases power gamer still contain the elements non-power gamers enjoy (like RP and exploring a world) without turning the game into Optimization: the Optimizing of Life.

[JNAProductions]

Yes. Hell, it was possible in 3.P, and that game is a [cuss] of a lot less balanced than 5E.

Because 5E has pretty good internal balance, you don't even need to go out of your way to make it work-so long as the less optimization inclined don't mind doing, say, 30% less damage than the more powergamey sort (and I doubt they will) you can just run a regular campaign.

Now, if you're talking about casual as in "roleplay heavy" and powergamer as in "hates roleplay, only cares about combat and numbers" then no, you can't, but rare indeed is the second type of gamer. If casual means "more focused on the story than on the mechanics" and powergamer as "more focused on mechanics than story", then it's pretty easy to do.

For instance-to pull an example from the 4E DMG, let's say you're running a big fight scene. The powergamers are obviously in their element, having a blast, but maybe your more story focused players aren't. As a solution throw in a new threat that's currently neutral to both sides-in the 4E DMG, it used a green dragon. Let the more RP focused players take the fore there, trying their hand at convincing this new threat to help them (or at least tolerate them and attack their enemies) while the powergamers can continue mulching baddies and feeling like a boss.

[Renduaz]

Well, yes, it is possible to make both power gamers and less-concerned-about-power people happy in the same campaign.

The thing is, most of the the stuff about the advanced power gaming vs a world where everyone has contingencies against your contingencies that you're presenting has a major problem: it's assuming unlimited ressources for everyone, both PCs and NPCs, or rather, it's assuming that the world with just comply and let anyone do their plan with only other people (and even that is dubious) being able to affect it, without taking things like how many opportunities one would have to encounter X or how much handling this opportunity would cost..

Obviously not everything needs to be optimally calibrated with unlimited resources, at least in low levels, and I don't really have the word limit here to write the entire book on how each encounter is going to play out on a campaign meant to be challenging for the best players, but it should suffice to say, and I guess you'll have to take my word for it, that realistic, context-sensitive scenarios can always be frequently crafted to provide the necessary challenge, and those challenges often end up being too advanced for less experienced players. As for the world, that's actually a part, there are going to be just as many agents on the party's side who are just as smart and resourceful as the other side or sides most of the time, although often it comes down to the party being the "tipping point" of that balance anyway which means they still have to do their own massive power-gaming to gain the edge over the enemy's own upper elite/the BBEG themselves.

At higher levels, when you're a power-gamer, "unlimited resources" would in fact not only be possible but standard. I mean, just your example..


I mean, just as an exemple: you mentioned being Nystul's Magic Aura being cast everywhere. Where do all that casting come from? Magic Aura is a 2nd level spell that last 24h. Most caster NPCs don't have the spell slots to cast it more than an handful of time, and the default assumption for 5e is that casters aren't the most common people around. And the PHB indicates that hiring one to cast a that kind of spell would at minimum cost 60 gp, which is one month of salary for a guard, for exemple.

60g isn't actually that much for even a mediocre organization to have more than enough for the rest of their days ( And don't forget steady incomes ), and that's at low levels. High levels, you're virtually swimming in resources. I would go on about the thousands of way to get anything you could dream of with creature-spell combos and about the environment in the Plane of Earth and so forth, but really, just True Polymorph's base description or Simulacrum who Wishes for 25,000gp worth ( 8 hours to make one ) should be enough to know that it isn't really a problem.

As for magic, well, if I'm making a campaign designed to challenge power-gamers, then I might as well make my setting as magic-infused as I want, the DMG even says you can choose it as such. That is why it's an "assumption". But actually, I mostly play official Forgotten Realms and there's still more than enough magic to go around. Thousands of Thayan mages, secret societies, at higher levels you get to places like Sigil in which there is no shortage of population and the magically gifted among them and... you know that in the official modules themselves, you have dungeons crawling with mage cultists at every corner or a mage in every third and fourth mob group. It can hardly be more rare in a campaign where plots involving spellcasters and spellcasting societies are featured prominently for the challenge.


Same with Zone of Truth: most people in a social interaction would simply refuse it (as you could have them reveal anything with the right questions, and they probably don't want to expose themselves), and if you tricked or forced someone into one you'll gain a person who at minimum won't like you. Sure, it would work well in a dungeon or against people you're not planning to let live, but it's not something you'll be able to do to a nobleman in a civilized setting without consequences.

You've misread that one. It's about NPC's baiting PC's into attempting to Zone of Truth THEM so they can lie while in a Zone of Truth but therefore make the PC's believe all they say with certainty.


The same is true about how NPCs act: some can be very clever, sure, and every NPCs should have the tactical acumen implied by their mental stats, but it doesn't mean everyone will always be optimal and do the option that was calculated to be the best. Even a fanatic cultist won't be able to perfectly wait to bait hypothetical intruders into a foolish move all the time. The vampire won't necessarily have the perfect counter for the spells a wizard he never met uses the most. The elf archer won't always be capable to find an Oathbow. And the like.

Basically, what I'm saying is: you can have a tough, challenging campaign that pleases power gamer still contain the elements non-power gamers enjoy (like RP and exploring a world) without turning the game into Optimization: the Optimizing of Life.

Well again, all of that depends on the DM's world-building in the first place. You can easily have a campaign in which even from low levels, all the major schemes and arcs are perpetrated by very clever NPC's who know how to orchestrate their actions and dungeons or organizations. A justification for world-building is not a requirement, but you even have a perfectly good one - All the dumb aspirants have long been discovered/wiped out/absorbed by the competition or established orders opposed to them, only the most devious ones survived and therefore need to be rooted out by the party.

At higher levels you have most BBEG-worthy creatures having something like 20+ INT scores. Arch-Liches, Demon-Lords, Divine Avatars and all manner of folk who basically absorbed information ever since the world started spinning, so it's even less of a consideration. As for RP and Exploration, sure that's something which is very important and all can enjoy, like good characters and stories and funny interactions. The problem comes down to game mechanics. Some players want a "Very Hard" difficulty game along with a good story ( Just as you might want when playing a CRPG ), others can't cope with "Very Hard". So the RP and story stay the same, but the question is how to reconcile game mechanics.

[Renduaz]

Yes. Hell, it was possible in 3.P, and that game is a [cuss] of a lot less balanced than 5E.

Because 5E has pretty good internal balance, you don't even need to go out of your way to make it work-so long as the less optimization inclined don't mind doing, say, 30% less damage than the more powergamey sort (and I doubt they will) you can just run a regular campaign.

Now, if you're talking about casual as in "roleplay heavy" and powergamer as in "hates roleplay, only cares about combat and numbers" then no, you can't, but rare indeed is the second type of gamer. If casual means "more focused on the story than on the mechanics" and powergamer as "more focused on mechanics than story", then it's pretty easy to do.

For instance-to pull an example from the 4E DMG, let's say you're running a big fight scene. The powergamers are obviously in their element, having a blast, but maybe your more story focused players aren't. As a solution throw in a new threat that's currently neutral to both sides-in the 4E DMG, it used a green dragon. Let the more RP focused players take the fore there, trying their hand at convincing this new threat to help them (or at least tolerate them and attack their enemies) while the powergamers can continue mulching baddies and feeling like a boss.

We're probably in quite a disagreement about 5E's balance, especially when it comes to Spellcasters and the Wizard, to a lesser degree the Sorcerer chief among them. Now, "Optimization" and damage percentages are the very least of the problem. If you'll recall from my OP, when I said that theory crafters, the talented ones, are those who theory-craft on spell combos, environment, creatures, items and so forth, rather than those whose sole focus is a class build for more damage. To begin with as described, you'll have puzzles and obstacles and social situations in which you need mastery over game mechanics, not damage. In combat, devious combos can neutralize you before you can deal any damage whatsoever. You'll need to know how to have contingencies, how to play defensive, how to counter utility moves with your own, how to render enemies vulnerable in the first place.

It's that more than everything. To make a really proper analogy, that whole theory-crafting and field knowledge thing is the Kung-Fu, "30% more damage" is just the extra muscle in your arm. The most experienced players know the Kung-Fu, the casual or new ones struggle with responding to or devising moves.

[JNAProductions]

Renduaz, I agree that spellcasters are immensely more powerful if you allow ridiculous and unlikely to work shenanigans to happen consistently without consequence. In real games, though, the balance is, if not necessarily TIGHT, pretty good.

In addition, you say adventurers will be swimming in money with which to hire spellcasters? I agree with the first bit-they'll have money, almost certainly. But then they need to 1) find a caster who 2) knows the spell they need cast and 3) won't blab to anyone else. In addition all the shenanigans used to avoid the Zone of Truth? That's incredibly easy to counter, as a DM and as a government. Just get someone with good Insight-no Zone needed, just normal perceptiveness. Or, hell, let's say the crown Prince wants the players dead. He's the crown prince-they're random murderhobos. He can order them captured and killed, unless the government is REALLY progressive for the D&D age.

Another thing-how exactly did your players acquire a scroll of Glibness at low level? That's a rare and expensive piece of magical utility.

Really, I think you're making up issues where there aren't really any. Alternatively, you're letting players get away with many things they shouldn't be able to. The world does NOT conform to the players' whims. If they need a spellcaster to cast Nystul's Magic Aura? Okay, sure, they can probably find one in the next town, or this city, or whatnot. They need it cast 30 times? Good freaking luck finding that many casters, and even if by some miracle they do, good luck having NONE OF THEM mention the heavily armed people clearly up to no good asking for subtlety magic.

[Nifft]

Fun is poorly defined, so if we're abiding by strict definitions then it's probably impossible to have fun ever, at all.

This means you're off the hook: nothing is fun, all is permitted.


Personally, I have had fun games with groups that contained vastly different levels of player skill, and I think the key thing here is: if your players are not trying to be negatively competitive with each other, then the relative player skill levels don't matter too much.

However, if you've got players who want to make other players feel bad, then you're going to have problems -- some of which might manifest as power-gaming, but the issue isn't really power-gaming. The problem is the player who needs to beat someone else in order to feel good.

[Renduaz]

Renduaz, I agree that spellcasters are immensely more powerful if you allow ridiculous and unlikely to work shenanigans to happen consistently without consequence. In real games, though, the balance is, if not necessarily TIGHT, pretty good.

In addition, you say adventurers will be swimming in money with which to hire spellcasters? I agree with the first bit-they'll have money, almost certainly. But then they need to 1) find a caster who 2) knows the spell they need cast and 3) won't blab to anyone else. In addition all the shenanigans used to avoid the Zone of Truth? That's incredibly easy to counter, as a DM and as a government. Just get someone with good Insight-no Zone needed, just normal perceptiveness. Or, hell, let's say the crown Prince wants the players dead. He's the crown prince-they're random murderhobos. He can order them captured and killed, unless the government is REALLY progressive for the D&D age.

Another thing-how exactly did your players acquire a scroll of Glibness at low level? That's a rare and expensive piece of magical utility.

Really, I think you're making up issues where there aren't really any. Alternatively, you're letting players get away with many things they shouldn't be able to. The world does NOT conform to the players' whims. If they need a spellcaster to cast Nystul's Magic Aura? Okay, sure, they can probably find one in the next town, or this city, or whatnot. They need it cast 30 times? Good freaking luck finding that many casters, and even if by some miracle they do, good luck having NONE OF THEM mention the heavily armed people clearly up to no good asking for subtlety magic.

I think we might also be in some disagreement about "ridiculous and unlikely to work", and that I'm not the only one, but you do know that insanely powerful spell combos and spellcaster builds are to be found all over here and all over the web in mass quantities and that they are all considered to be on their own mile-high club of power-gaming. There's only so much that can be done with Sneak Attacks and swinging a sword, but dozens of spells pertaining to almost every facet of the universe however... well, this balance seems to fly out of the window.

Adventurers? No this was about villain organizations and the like in response to unoriginal's post about how would there be so many Nystul's Magic Aura enchantments lying around. Also the rest of my reply to him would answer the later point about casters. There isn't really so much shortage of casters even in official modules, in fact they seem to be all over the place, almost in every encounter. And obviously if I'm building a rife-with-magic world then it's just as well. Scroll of Gilbness would be with some high profile NPC's that a party might wish to question. Bought it with lots of gold in somewhere like Waterdeep or Thay or Amn, maybe even had it commissioned. Not the average Joe, obviously.

Nystul's was also about being cast by NPC's, but it's not much of an issue for them, especially not the party. A single mid-level spellcasters can do it plenty of times. This is kind of diverging from the main subject, but you say the game is balanced enough that it shouldn't be possible for someone to be significantly more powerful than someone else. I've known thousands of people who would recount situations that suggest otherwise, but leave spellcasting and all of that aside for a moment. Let's just say the puzzles are too complex and there are too many enemies, too powerful enemies, whatever you want. Power-gamer knows how to use his balanced-given abilities to handle that, new player doesn't. That's the main issue here.

[ad_hoc]

It sounds like 'power-gaming' is being used to mean 'power fantasy' here.

There will be clashes when different players want different themes/styles of campaign/game.

Everyone needs to give buy in at session 0. If half of the players want to enact a power fantasy and the other half don't, it's probably not going to be a fun campaign for everyone.

[Arkhios]

Yes. Don't be so hung-up with the rules, and make it clear to each participant upfront. At its core, everyone is there to have fun. If you keep arguing with power-gamers whether something works in one way or another, the casuals get bored really fast. Just remind them "your game, your rulings. End of discussion"