Tony Vargas
Member

...hen but superficially. Nature will prevail and keep things as they were meant to be, provided the "wheel" surrounding the hub of nature does not become unbalanced due to the work of unnatural forces - such as human and other intelligent creatures interfering with what is meant to be. So true neutral, in AD&D, is a "naturalistic ethos" which holds that all is as it is meant to be, with each facet of life contributing to that overall balance - provided that humans and their ilk don't disturb the balance through their attempts to change things (which cannot have any long-lasting effect). This is not unaligned, but more like the outlook of some realworld philosophies and religions - stoicism, for instance - and also some political movements - eg Burkean conservatism. The Han Solo-type scoundrel, who in 4e is unaligned and in OD&D or B/X is neutral, in AD&D I think is chaotic neutral: they prioritise their own self-realisation over other-regarding moral obligations. EDIT: I see Tony Vargas made a similar point to this upthread.

I think it's a good idea to think about medieval archetypes that may not be well served by the current class selection, but ... ...you need a day or two to let us know what those might be? ;) PPP - Fighter PPM - Tomb Raider, Adventuring Scholar, Horseman, Monk PPS - Cleric (Paladin) MMM - Scholar, MMP - Rogue, Merchants and Swashbucklers MMS - Priest SSS - Scorcerer SSP - Warlock SSM - Wizard PMS - Bard The "adventuring" is a good distinction on the PPM scholar. It implies that a character, or adventuring, has a required Physical component to it. Tomb Raider is a good choice, but is there a medieval equivalent? Also interesting to see rogues and merchants in the same category. Does the handling of large quantities of money constitute a class characteristic? Are merchants less physically oriented than rogues, or is that not a necessary distinction? Tony Vargas dropped the Mastermind into the MMM slot, which has a definite villain-flavor to it. Scholar has no flavor, except for a hint of Harry Potter. And sages...are just old. Aren't they? I was looking at putting Ranger as I did because I view that as a Fighter who earned his place through being a very skilled fighter. (M being more a focus on skills and learned tricks, application of the brain if you will, P being a kick ass fighter/combatant, application of the body, S being a how natural magic is to them, as I view it) This has me thinking that there could be three base classes - warrior, mage, thief - and each one has two varieties based on which direction it takes to differ from the base. The Skyrim standing stones might be too much of a pigeon hole though, but warrior/fighter and mage/wizard seem pretty obvious. Poet doesn't sound like a good class, but as a person who uses his mind to get what he needs, it fills the gap between warrior and mage pretty well. Aristocrat co...

Or Martial Controllers whichever thread this is AbdulAlhazred and Tony Vargas

LOL to both of you @Tony Vargas and @AbdulAlhazred.. gimme some epic practices ;)

Tony Vargas Heh, I would never have guessed you were a Skinnerian who hated the ‘black box’. I get the impression that you feel that something that you want is being taken away from you, by those who say it is for the sake of immersion. What would that be?

Tony Vargas I have a sense of what you are looking for in a warlord class from various discussions. But have you designed your own class, with all of the features that you want to see? I would love to have a look at if you did.

Tony Vargas, I think your post was mostly tongue-in-cheek, but where I thought I had something worthwhile to say in response I've said it: I think the issue is that the system implies qualities of the world, so if the system seems silly, the world will seem silly. Well, the systems that Lanefan is talking about include Burning Wheel, Cortex+ Heroic, HeroWars/Quest, a certain approach to 4e, etc. Which of those is supposed to imply a silly world? It's a reward for showing up, thenIn default 4e, showing up doesn't as such earn XP. Playing the game (by engaging encounters, realising quests, and - per the rule in DMG2 - meaningfully engaging the non-encounter fiction) accures XP at a rate of (roughly) 4 level-equivalent monster's worth per hour. Or approximately 3-4 sessions per level. I think one of the most remarkable things about 4e is how, on the surface, it retains so many D&D mecahnical tropes (hp, XP, attack rolls, magic items, and the like) but uses them to build a game which is ...

I've tried all the other restaurants I think we both know that Tony Vargas will say to this astounding claim! ;)

@Tony Vargas I have a solution for scaling at will warlord powers while still providing short rest or daily healing. I don't have a solution for scaling long rest ones at all. Level 1 looks a little convoluted as I'll have to add the long rest powers in but also add something else just about as strong as them but not capable of producing healing. Level 3 looks even worse as I would potentially need to go from 2 uses to 6 uses (or maybe more). Level 5 even with extra attack you likely need to greatly upgrade your uses or their effects at this level. (probably effects would be best which would be doable) I guess I may have just answered the question for you. It looks adequate and not too bad when compared to the cleric or anything else.

Tony Vargas Since your direction is so strongly pushing to have the Warlord's Core ability be daily perhaps you can give us a preview of how to capture that ability and any others needed at level 1 while still keeping the potential healing power level in line with a cleric or bard and having as much potential combat power as those classes? How would you accomplish that? Further, how would you plan on scaling the Warlord Core ability in the level 1-5 range to ensure the warlord has enough uses and power in his core ability to keep up in power with classes like the cleric and bard?

...l, the Warlord becomes a long-range supporter, and has freedom to work from pretty much anywhere in the battlefield. Given the concept of the Warlord, Int is pretty much a required stat. Its complementary stat must be Dex, Con, or Wis (the 'big three' defense stats). Every single class has proficiency in one of the 'big three', and one of the other three; never two of the same type. If Int is a given, then the complementary stat must pretty much be Con. This benefits concentration checks, assuming concentration becomes a component, as well as the frontliner Icon/Vanguard types. Even if you discount the Tactical Focus and concentration, I have a hard time seeing the Warlord fitting a Dex or Wis proficiency. So an Int/Con support class. Of course, there are various concepts that go with it that draw on all of the other four stats. Str on the vanguard, Chr for inspiration, Dex for the ranged version, or Wis for the diplomatic or guerilla version. It's a very MAD class. Tony Vargas came up with a lot of subclass concepts. My own approach is much more concise. Icon - Inspirational focal point. Shonen hero (or protected princess). Minimum tactics, maximum guts (or luck). Commander - Focuses on tactics that can be executed by allies. Mix of working to gain advantage, and reactions. Strategist - Plots and schemes and creates elaborate strategems. Anticipates the enemy and preemptively counters. Defender - Tactician shaping the battlefield. Affects movement, hindering the enemy, and traps. Tony's Bravura, Inspiring, Hector, and Icon all wrap together into the same general concept (be a focus, inspire to heal, temp hp), which I call Icon. Protector might also fall in here. His Tactical/Commander, Combat Veteran, and Artillerist all fall under what I have as Commander, though I like the extra flavor he added about the cynical world view. His Resourceful and Skirmisher both roughly map to my Defender. His Insightful/Watcher is my Strategist....

Tony Vargas, Healing is an ability that Mearls believes should be gated behind some kind resource taking ability that you can run out of. I think most of us agree with mearls on that. This issue is that adding in a healing ability like that ends up constraining design a lot. Is it independent of our other warlord abilities or does it use a shared mechanic with them? If it's independent then we have to track the healings power and reduce the other warlordy stuff appropriately If they share a mechanic then suddenly you are requiring that mechanic to be gated behind some kind of spell slot or superiority dice or ki style mechanic. None of those abilities equal to the heal can then be at will, whereas there's many abilities a warlord could do at will that are just as strong as healing but because of how healing works, at will healing is bad. Basically, be aware of how your demands for core class healing will constrain other warlord mechanics.

So the concept as described in the two hours of video does cut it? For me, the Happy Fun warlord comes close to meeting all the criteria of the warlord. Close enough that it seems to me, it might work. So I am enthusiastic. Heh, but the truth is, to me, Tony Vargas pretty much personifies the warlord fan. If he is happy, I will rest easy about the warlord tradition. The reason why care about the warlord is, it opens up viable nonmagical options for D&D, that are essential to a DM for worldbuilding. Plus, if the warlord turns out cool, as Happy Fun suggests it will, I would love to play it as a player.

Tony Vargas well a Knight in full plate could fight 20 unarmored / lightly armored People at once without much Problems.

...defense, or maybe recognizing the opponent's fighting style, and knowing how to counter it, etc. Mostly it just rewards the fighter for not dumping Int, because he's supposed to be smart. The Inspiring/Insightful Heal/Damage thing will need more mechanics behind it to really evaluate. This is the bit that's most strongly tied to the available dice pool. Maybe give a few temp hit points before the fight starts, or urge the paladin to keep fighting when he's just about to fall over. On the other side, it might grant damage boosts, though I'm rather unsure in how that might be applied that isn't in conflict with the other ways of boosting damage that the Cunning Plan offers. ~~~ Overall, I'm already very much liking the design. It provides an easy hook to readily expand its minor cantrip-level abilities, and even spell-level abilities, and it maintains the essence of "flavor before mechanics" design. Even in this incomplete state, I'm very much interested in playing it. Tony Vargas provided this list of 4E Warlord builds earlier in the thread: Tactical - a canny warlord, who excels at devising & coordinating cunning plans. This is the one that Mearls was talking about in the podcast as if it were the whole class, so, in 5e would use INT and 'Gambits' that map, vaguely, to spells in the way Mearls went into, only, to do it 'right,' it'd map more to the casting of Druid or Wizard than an EK. It would emphasize 'Tactical Gambits' in the same sense that an Evoker emphasizes blasty spells, an emphasis, being better at it, not in the sense of being unable to use everything else. Inspiring - the original opposite number to the tactical warlord, the inspiring warlord did exactly what it says on the tin, bolstered his allies (hps, both healing &temps and handed out buffs), mainly keyed off CHA. It tended to be less about maneuvering & commanding and more about leading & aiding. In 5e, it would use the same Gambits & Maneuvers as other warlords, but better at the ones...

I chose "Other". I can't possibly determine just from a list of names. What matters is the design space, not the title. So maybe you're assuming they would be similar to classes from previous editions, but I think that's a bad way to go about it. The "design space" I could see exploring: - A more animistic/primitive caster class. Something that encapsulates shaman and witches and witch-doctors. -INT-based, but whereas Wizards are "book learned" these would be more informally schooled, or self-taught. Mechanically I would like to see spell lists that exclude most direct damage spells, especially the flashy nukes, and maybe even make it a half-caster, then make up for it with interesting, subtle support features. The druid could have served this role if they had put the shapeshifting into sub-classes. - Although I detest Warlords, I have been persuaded by Tony Vargas and Bawylie and some others that there's room for a more flexible "martial support class". So I could picture something that is like a fighter but less so (if that makes sense) with more room in the sub-classes to tack on interesting and flavorful abilities. - I've also always wanted a divine magical support class that more resembles a priest from WoW than a cleric from D&D. While you can build such a thing, it's always a bad tradeoff. But this could also be solved with a cleric sub-class that had an ability or abilities that only function when no armor is worn. And that's about it. Looking through the list in the poll I could see almost all of them (if we are envisioning the same thing because, again, the OP just provided titles, not concepts) fitting in as subclasses of existing classes.

Tony Vargas The volley fire ability used to create a wall... reminds me very much of a Warlord

My current horribly verbose Feign Death - maybe @Tony Vargas has affected my designing. 92506

This is exactly how I do it of course. ;-), cannot imagine why. It also works for when my ray of frost is cast on a flyer vs cast on a grounded character... different method. Feet sticking to the ground is significantly different perceptually than wings clumped with ice. Yeah, and MOSTLY this is OK. It can seem a bit forced at times though. I mean think about the 'Ray of Fire' example that Tony Vargas uses: Why does a Ray of Fire cause you to move slower in order to put yourself out, but some other Fire power just does ongoing damage UNTIL you put yourself out (presumably covered by the save ends or the EONT or whatever it is). I'm not saying this doesn't work, but 4e always left me wondering why the same 'narrative' effects get mapped so inconsistently to mechanical effects. Of course I don't think 4e is especially unique in this respect. D&D in general has been fairly ad-hoc. It just seems that 4e, with its rich repertoire of standardized effects, didn't do better. Well, clearly it would have added a whole extra rule to do so. I think maybe there should have been fewer but more interesting 'damage changers', and if effects WERE standardized then those could have been where some more comprehensive approach would be undertaken. In other words you could create a set of powers that exchange damage types and encapsulate the rules (however complex) for changing effects. Then anythin...

...am simply disagreeing with Man in a Funny Hat that there should be no correlation between attention and player roleplaying skill. I think such a correlation is fairly inevitable in player-driven RPGing, and I prefer player-driven RPGing. That's not an argument for player-driven RPGing. It's an argument from player-driven RPGing to the falsity of MitFH's contention. Some of the DM driven style games do a great job of balancing between character options and don't pay any attention to spotlight time. 4e is a great example of the latter, where niche protections are weak, there's little mechanical drive for spotlight time, and player options are keenly balanced against each other. But 4e runs fine without regard to your theory of spotlight time.I don't really follow this. 4e, at least as I've experienced it, defaults to a rather player-driven game (some better-known illustrations: player-authored quests; player wish-lists for one category of "reward"); and I think it illustrates Tony Vargas's idea that balanced player options which allow players to engage the ingame situation together, in mutually reinforcing ways, makes spotlight non-zreo-sum.

Obviously, it could be a bad thing for a detail to already be ruled out that'd make a better game or better story (not just a better outcome for the PCs - for instance, conversely, you might have established there's no assassins in the town, then find the PC's actions would be a more than ample motivation for an NPC to hire one, unfortunately, the nearest assassin is days away and the PCs finish screwing the NPC over before he can get the message delivered). To each their own. Personally, I don't see it as an issue. If I were to want assassins going after the party, maybe someone related to the NPCs goes to the guild and hires them several days later (or simply pays someone to track down and kill the characters). Maybe, someone goes to an official and the official sends out assassins. Maybe, a more powerful related NPC takes it upon themselves to track down the party with the help of allies. Hell, in one campaign, after the party crossed the only Wizard's Guild and killed a few low level ...

The "feeling" you refer to seems to involve, at its core, having someone else tell you a story about a place they made up.That sort of 'setting tourism' would be the arguably-dysfunctional extreme of a focus on world-building. But you can delve pretty deeply into building a world and running a game within it, without taking it that far.What I describe isn't particularly about "setting tourism." Every time a player talks about "scouting out" some location, or "gathering information", or similar episodes of "exploration", in the context of a GM-worldbuilding RPG, they are talking about having the GM tell them a story about the place s/he made up. Take the simplest example of dungeon play: Player: "I poke in front of me with a 10' pole as I walk down the 30' long passage." <GM consults dungeon map and key> GM: "OK, after 10' of walking you feel that the floor in front of you - half way down the passage - gives under your pole. It seems to be a trapdoor of some sort." What is happe...

I've characterized it as a technique, and a powerful one. It can be used to produce desirable or undesirable results, depending on the skill and inclination of the DM employing it.As you know, I very strongly dislike "low player agency" RPGing (what I would call railroading). But you'll get no argument from me that it is very common, widely advocated in RPG rulebooks (see eg 2nd ed AD&D for one highwatermark), and appears to be very popular. So, no creativity, no interest, no imagination, no character portrayal? And clearly this is what a lot of RPGers seem to have in mind when they talk about playing a game or playing their character. It is all quite compatible with having no agency in respect of the trajectory of play and the shared fiction. An exception to my previous paragraph: in my experience playing CoC is all about this sort of creativity and character portrayal, and in modest doses it's quite fun.

OK, that's just amusing.Why? If I didn't have stuff prepared, when they veered way off course from where they appeared to be headed, I'd have to improvise literally everything.

Obsession with balance? I only checked out the few that interested me, but in one I caught, he essentially said "F balance, let the player feel good about finding the combo..." Yes, I think they focus overly on balance before fun, not that they are mutually exclusive. Think of the Exhaustion penalty for the berserker barb: it add an unfun mechanic to a thematic ability because they feared (some would say this fear was unfounded) the ability would unbalance something. So they end up with a subclass that many people are reluctant to use because of a balancing mechanic that hurts the fun of playing the archetype for this particular ability. Same with beastmaster: the balancing mechanics hurt the narrative of the subclass. Balance is important, but should not hurt the fun of playing a class. Many classes have one unbalanced mechanic for its level, and its not the end of the world. Look at the moon druid powerspikes or the paladin's nova: there's some ''whoaaa'' moments at first, then it ...

Yeah, I suppose it might. It'd make a very minion-sweeping-focused controller. Oh, sure, as a secondary-leader power it'd be fine. (Though, really some secondary leaders, like, oh, the Paladin, have specific powers that are quite impressive leader support, just only a few of 'em.)Could even do it as aid attack as a feat extending it

I get the distaste for MCing, but it is optional, and not opting into it removes the issue, entirely, so, 'nuff said. Hypothetically, if the were nor Sorcerer or Warlock, you could play a wizard, 'roleplay' having magical powers from an ancestor or perilous pact with some being beyond mortal ken, and just keep the whole spellbook thing under your hat. You'd have created the concept you wanted, only had to ignore/re-fluff one thing, and been mechanically effective enough, into the bargain. Does that mean there 'shouldn't' have been a Sorcerer or Warlock? Because, if it /does/ mean that, fine, I get what you're saying. I don't think it's a very helpful point, and that we're still going to need new classes like the Artificer, Warlord, Mystic & Shaman down the road, 'cause people want 'em, and they have at least as much justifying them as the Sorcerer or Warlock or Bard or Druid (and more than the Barbarian, Ranger or Paladin), but it'd at least make sense to me. Had there not been a So...

2) The game shouldn't allow MC'ing because it's total powergaming catnip, and every valid concept should just have a sub-class cover it - plus a background and throw in the 'just role-play-it' panacea for anything that's missing. Which doesn't add up. I don't suppose you're just taking the apologist tack of '5e is perfect, any fewer classes (no Barabarian? unthinkable!) would be too few, any more classes ('psionicist?' bah! humbug!) would be too many,' so I guess I'm just missing an actual point in there somewhere.... Nope, not what I mean at all. Multiclassing on the face of it is fine. If people want to multiclass with what they current have access to, they're more than able to and it's for the most part no big deal (normally). My point though is that people usually multiclass for the wrong reasons (in my opinion). They do it because of game mechanics, and NOT because the story their character has gone through inspires the multiclass. Which is why "coincidentally" almost eve...

Of the 5e implementations of classic classes, I have to admit, I like the Druid best. So you just had to go there. ;( The class itsef is quite good, but it doest allow for a lot of design space and its thematic niche is rather small when you want to create no archetypes. Even I who would like new different archetype have a hard time finding something original within the limited space I have. I blame part of it on the disappearance of 4e Primal power source in 5e. That unifying theme would help a lot in creating original archetype for the druid. But that's off topic, sorry for my rant about your favorite class :p What I meant is that having the capacity to support 10 archetypes is a false bar to attain, even for ''supplemental'' classes.

2) The game shouldn't allow MC'ing because it's total powergaming catnip, and every valid concept should just have a sub-class cover it - plus a background and throw in the 'just role-play-it' panacea for anything that's missing. My own experience is 180 degrees away from this. In 5e, multiclassing isn't the "road to greatness" it was with some earlier editions. Just that all us old grognards think it is. And I tell you, every single one of my powergaming friends immediately went to multiclassing in 5e because of that ... and most of them ended up shooting themselves in the foot. So then they learned some lessons, and tried again, and found that earlier multiclassing misses the level 5 bump, so do it later, and lots of multiclassing usually wasn't worth it later since except for the few classes that didn't give out anything meaningful at high levels. I have a big problem with 5e multiclassing - it's that people (not veteran players) can come up with cool concepts (or copy them from movies a...

Don't even know what that is, nor am I curious to find out. Okay.

So, no creativity, no interest, no imagination, no character portrayal? Just choosing actions that must have a meaningful impact that they're aware of up-front and can't ever be over-ridden nor obfuscated? Illusionism doesn't take either of those choices away. In fact, it can create the experience of making more, more difficult/interesting/risky, such decisions, for the player. As the name suggests, some of those experiences may be 'illusionary,' but that doesn't make them any less real than the others, which are still imaginary decisions for imaginary characters in an imaginary world. Obviously, removing it entirely would render the whole exercise pointless, but illusionism isn't an all-in, only way to run a campaign from beginning to end, it's a technique that can be used as much or as little as the DM judges helpful. Abridging is not annihilating. Heh. Like I said, a technique/tool that can be used for good or ill. D&D survives, and outshines all other RPGs in the market, in spite...

No, you've assumed it's innately bad, and offered no support for that assumption. I've characterized it as a technique, and a powerful one. It can be used to produce desirable or undesirable results, depending on the skill and inclination of the DM employing it. I'm sorry you choose to ignore decades of D&D's history. Tony, you're being facetious. I was very clear that player agency is the only thing players get to bring to the table. They're one thing is choosing what their characters do and how they spend their character resources. Abridging that, especially for the sole purpose of maintaining the DM's vision of what should happen instead of what the player wants to happen is clearly removing the one thing the players get to do. The reason for doing it makes it clear that the only thing at stake here is the DM's ego, not any idea that the player will be happier being told what moves to make rather than getting to play their character. It also breaks a number of the guideline...

"Illusionism" is bad enough. I'll tolerate it, because it evokes the idea of a stage magician entertaining with 'illusions,' which is a pretty good analogy. But calling it dishonest is inappropriate. Do you rail against magicians in 'Vegas for being 'dishonest?' No. It's not the same thing. A player isn't aware of illusionism (otherwise it would be "participationism" or whatever) in the same way I'm aware I signed up for being tricked by a magician. Even the DMG suggests not letting players know you fudge. I think that's bad advice because it's encouraging acting in an untruthful manner. I'd rather the DM tell me he or she does that so I can opt not to play in that game. What was going on, and went on in D&D as a matter of course back in the day, was that the players did not have full knowledge of the system nor how it was being used to resolve their actions and the events around them that might affect them. That's all that's required for illusionism. While that may be true in ...

Heck, in some games (most D&D eds, for instance), you can /follow/ play procedures and abridge agency. Not ignore them, use them, arguably even as intended. Not anymore than to presume that a technique some rule in some game is designed to prevent is a bad technique in some other game... DMs have been DMing for 40 years. There's a vast pool of experience & knowledge out there. Techniques like 'illusionism' get negatively-connoted labels like that precisely because someone is irate that so many DMs have been using them for so long, and yet D&D remains stubbornly dominant in the hobby. I've done a lot of DMing, and it's certainly been my experience. It felt more like fun than work, for the most part, though. It's a non-magical ability, based on experience, applied to one table of gamers, in the moment. Seems like they'd have a better shot at it than a game designer trying to make the same kind of judgement for everyone who might ever play his game. You might want to do m...

Clearly system fixes can reduce the frequency of the kinds of issues, while keeping more 'appropriate' deaths on the table. I don't think the game makes any serious judgment on what "appropriate" deaths are by way of its design, nor should it in my view. It does seem like an intentionally-loaded term, meant to impose a connotation of deception ('dishonestly is, well, honestly pushing it - is a magician 'dishonest' for not explaining his tricks? No. Indeed fellow magicians might question the honor of one who did.) on a technique that merely withholds information from the player, in order to present the experience the game is shooting for. Consider Mike Mearls's recent post about playing 1e with Luke Gygax, where he was going on, semi-coherently, about the system adding to the sense of mystery of exploring the dungeon. I'm going to stick with dishonest. It's certainly not dishonesty of any ruinous sort, since we are talking about a game here, but I prefer to be honest and transpar...

Secondary roles are fine, of course. You suggested having a small unit of men for volleys and such to aid the controller role (that seems it would utterly dominate the build), but I was thinking more of knocking the leader angle to secondary by replacing this primary leader power with something less potent and changing other presences and such to ones which enhance other controllerish abilities akin to the Mages enchanter abilities. I was considering something along the lines of a last second warning encounter power. Last Second Warning : While you are less about inspiring allies than other Warlords you never the less are eminently aware of enemy actions and keeping allies aware and hale is very much an advantage to the team. Trigger ally within 10 squares would be hit by an enemy attack. Free Action: Ally gains benefit as though the Warlord performed an aid defense action; This may be selected after damage has been rolled for. While it still has a leader cast to it, I think this woul...

Yep. Illusionism or 'death is off the table' are more complete solutions. But, as you fix up the system, you could use the former less and less as you go, while the latter still need to be employed up front. ...hmmm. It becomes a de-facto complete solution if you make it through a campaign without anything going south, though. I just don't think there's a system fix for it that keeps death on the table and illusionism sounds like Forge Waffle for "dishonesty." My position is also that the system doesn't need fixing. It's not a mechanics thing, but a technique thing as far as I can tell. If you want death to be a real possibility, keep the stakes as they are and prepare for that possibility - good advice for both DMs and players in my view.

The Witch is older than 1e. OK, it was pretty warlock-y back then, but still. You could do the same to get a Paladin or Ranger, and they're full classes. Interesting thought.I don't think the Paladin and Ranger have super strong reasons to exist.

Remembering, tracking & judging those personality traits for every character. It doesn't seem more arduous to me than keeping track of character aspects is for the GM in a game of Fate. Awarding inspiration is exactly that, a reward for 'good RP,' as the DM judges it, based on multiple traits per PC. It could be /adapted/ to work more like aspects, which might not be a bad idea. Clearly, I don't think it's much of a stretch. A fate point is a reward for accepting a complication from a compel, after all. Also, Inspiration doesn't need to be awarded for portraying multiple personal characteristics in a single act of roleplaying, if that's what you're saying. I'd imagine most instances of awarding Inspiration are for playing true to one personal characteristic or another. OTOH, it already clashes a bit with alignment and the whole very-traditional D&Dness of 5e, in the first place. ::shrug:: I'm not sure what you mean by "clashes". Do you feel there's an overlap? You'd hav...