D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

Fifth Element · Jul 25, 2012

Ahnehnois said:
Actually, I'm not "conflating" the in-game world with the game rules. I'm "assuming" that the two are connected. Thus...

Connected? Sure. The same thing? Doesn't have to be.

Ahnehnois said:
No, it certainly doesn't. Thankfully, a mechanical revolution is not needed to achieve this.

Even if a mechanical resolution is not strictly needed, it doesn't mean it's still not desirable.

Ahnehnois said:
All editions of D&D have been successful at it, partially because the game is robust and tolerates imbalance, and particularly because the contribution of a character is more reflective of the person who plays it than of that character's mechanical properties.

If a character's contribution is more reflective of the player than the character, what's the problem with having balanced characters? Why does the magic-user need mechanical things to make it distinctive, if it's up to the player to contribute to the game?

Ahnehnois · Jul 25, 2012

Fifth Element said:
If a character's contribution is more reflective of the player than the character, what's the problem with having balanced characters? Why does the magic-user need mechanical things to make it distinctive, if it's up to the player to contribute to the game?

The problem is that balance is achieved by constraints, and constraints prevent players and DMs from doing things, and this is not fun. In other words, not all aspects of the game (or even most) can even be considered in terms of game balance, and those that can't suffer under such constraints. There's a balance here (a balance between balance and freedom; confusing), but 3e already angered enough people by pushing this angle, and it's time to open things up again.

Spatula · Jul 25, 2012

Jester Canuck said:
4e doesn't discourage alternate types of play. There's nothing to prevent stealth or intrigue or Game of Thrones style power plays. But there's nothing that encourages it, there's nothing that rewards it or prompts it or enables it.

The same is true of every other edition of D&D, as well. So... what's the point in singling out 4e for this?

Manbearcat · Jul 25, 2012

Ahnehnois said:
The problem is that balance is achieved by constraints, and constraints prevent players and DMs from doing things, and this is not fun. In other words, not all aspects of the game (or even most) can even be considered in terms of game balance, and those that can't suffer under such constraints. There's a balance here (a balance between balance and freedom; confusing), but 3e already angered enough people by pushing this angle, and it's time to open things up again.

I couldn't disagree more with your first two statements. I see people throw this around all the time without the necessary caveat of <not fun> "for me" or "for specific gaming tastes/styles." Understand that your DnD gaming style/tastes is not a monololith. Its quite frustrating trying to have discourse regarding solutions to dispirate positions on dogmatic issues when one side doesn't repcognize the other's existence or right to exist...whether that side is asserting that you shouldn't be able to reproduce a 1e/2e game, a 3e game, or a 4e game within the Read as Written rules of DnDNext.

If we are on the same "big tent team" and want options to reproduce all of these games, we really need to stop with the non-starters.

Ahnehnois · Jul 25, 2012

Manbearcat said:
Understand that your DnD gaming style/tastes is not a monololith.

This was precisely and manifestly my point. I make very few assumptions about anyone else's game, what constitutes balance, fun, etc., and have posted on the broadest and most philosophical level possible. Anything to the contrary is not present, either literally or subtextually.

To wit, a good version of D&D should be able to produce the full variety of styles and characters and game mechanics associated with all its various editions, which precludes this emphasis on balance at the expense of the above.

Fifth Element · Jul 25, 2012

Ahnehnois said:
To wit, a good version of D&D should be able to produce the full variety of styles and characters and game mechanics associated with all its various editions, which precludes this emphasis on balance at the expense of the above.

So it should be able to produce a full variety of styles and characters...except balanced ones? If the above precludes a balanced game, then it's still not accomplishing what you say it should.

Manbearcat · Jul 25, 2012

Ahnehnois said:
This was precisely and manifestly my point. I make very few assumptions about anyone else's game, what constitutes balance, fun, etc., and have posted on the broadest and most philosophical level possible. Anything to the contrary is not present, either literally or subtextually.

To wit, a good version of D&D should be able to produce the full variety of styles and characters and game mechanics associated with all its various editions, which precludes this emphasis on balance at the expense of the above.

And of course then you go around in circles where the next party says something like:

False premise. This assumes that an emphasis on balance excludes the possibility of unbalancing the system to meet your tastes.

And then the next person says something like:

Its easier to balance an unbalanced system than it is to balance it.

And then the next person says something like:

Nuh uh. Its easier to unbalance a balanced system than it is to balance an unbalanced system.

And then someone queues the Benny Hill theme.

Neonchameleon · Jul 25, 2012

Ahnehnois said:
The problem is that balance is achieved by constraints, and constraints prevent players and DMs from doing things, and this is not fun. In other words, not all aspects of the game (or even most) can even be considered in terms of game balance, and those that can't suffer under such constraints. There's a balance here (a balance between balance and freedom; confusing), but 3e already angered enough people by pushing this angle, and it's time to open things up again.

I'm sorry. Can I just check where you are arguing the constraints are and can I check where you are arguing the balance is?

Because 3e has more constraints than any other version of D&D. There's a skill needed to Use Rope. Most PCs are very unskilled in most things - this is not true in any other edition of D&D. In AD&D most things are stat rolls, and in 4e most things are d20 + half level + stat - and breadth of skills is possible.

3e is also worse balanced than any version of D&D even before Unearthed Arcana brought the fighters into the picture. 4e is much better balanced than 3e. And nothing in 2e or post-UA 1e can replace the fighter. (OK, so the 1e monk is a waste of space). The Weapon Specialisation Fighter kicks arse and takes names - and has the highest saving throws of all. The most broken spells (Polymorph) had a chance of killing the recipient. The game effectively soft-capped at level 10 or so.

What 3e had was one way of blowing the constraints out of the water. Magic. If your problem is that 4e doesn't have enough ways of blowing the constraints out of the water then you may have a point. But if the wizards are going to play Exalted (or, I believe, be significantly faster and stronger at magic than Exalted casters), then so should the fighters.

Also who says constraints aren't fun? If I didn't want constraints to work with and against I wouldn't be using rules.

Fifth Element · Jul 25, 2012

Neonchameleon said:
Also who says constraints aren't fun? If I didn't want constraints to work with and against I wouldn't be using rules.

Yes, good point. If a wizard can cast fireball, why can't he cast it over and over and over again? Why is he constrained by only being able to cast it a few times a day? Magic in D&D has always been constrained, it's just a matter of degree.

Ahnehnois · Jul 25, 2012

It seems like there is unlikely to be anything productive to come of this exercise in distortion, so I'll just repost the original post:

And I think maybe it's because the 4e / 3.x split finally put out in front of us, in the full daylight of blogs, forums, and chat rooms, something that we had maybe suspected but weren't really willing to admit to ourselves---That when it comes to D&D, rather than being "united" in our game of choice, we'd actually been demanding radically different things from E. Gary Gygax's magnum opus all along. The fact that it remained somewhat of the community's "lingua franca" for nearly 25 years is a testament to Gygax's original vision.

One reason the 4e / 3e split was so divisive, I think, is because when the 4e fans threw up their hands in joy and said, "FINALLY!!! CLASS BALANCE!!", all of us 3e fans went "Huh? Really? THIS is the game you wished you'd been playing for the past 25 years? Hmm. Didn't see that one coming." The concept that entire groups of players would so wholeheartedly embrace 4e's conventions seemed almost foreign to the 3.x-ers.....and the 4e-ers couldn't for the life of them figure out why the 3.x-ers couldn't see that the mechanical improvements were producing a "superior" style of game.

As a community we were forced to look across the table, across the room at our FLGS, and realize that what we assumed was a "shared D&D nationality" was more akin to groups of isolated city-states battling it out for territorial control. (I realize some of the more long-standing gamers probably came to that recognition long before 2008.)