A problem with new school as of 3.x and later. Or is it a problem?
Nevertheless we can make some comparative observations that hold some ground. Besides game design is based on this priniciple. Game reviews are based on this principle.
Tav_Behemoth
First Post
I took a swing at quantifying this shift by counting how many choices you get during character generation in different D&D editions. Check the comments for some critiques of the method I used, but I think it's not just a generalization to say that making a character in 4E requires you to make many more choices and consider many more options before play begins than OD&D does. I didn't look at 2E or 3E, but it seems clear to me that you could demonstrate a trend of increasing focus on character options with each successive edition.
As a player I personally like old-school approaches that restrict my ability to choose what my PC is like, such as "roll 3d6 in order". I will often roll randomly for things like my alignment and gender even when the rules don't require it. I find that it's more interesting for me to play a character that has an individuality that came neither from my habits about what kinds of PC I go for (a rut that I like using the dice to help me break out of) nor the game system putting pressure on PCs to have a certain set of optimal stats. I would not enjoy playing a character with all sub-11 scores in 4E, whereas that could be lots of fun in OD&D. What changes is not my attitude towards my lovable loser PC, but how much the system mechanics would punish my bad die rolls and make playing that PC unrewarding.
This pressure means that some of the apparent choice in 4E character creation is false. The social obligation folks here have talked about to choose a character that doesn't suck and bring down everyone else's chances of success means that it's a severe over-estimation to count the range of legitimate choices for the Wisdom score of a cleric as 8-18, as I did in that blog post. A game that's tightly restricted to combat and inflexible in its adjucation of the rules, like the highly enjoyable d20-based CRPG Knights of the Chalice, leaves me feeling like the real choice is between optimal party configuration A or B; the environment of the game is rigid enough that you can accurately figure out which is the objectively superior character creation choice out of all the options presented (especially after you've played parts of it a couple of times, like I did!).
Note that the ability to have a good time playing an OD&D fighter with a 3 Strength comes from the fact that your ability scores are mechanically meaningless, more or less. This may not be to everyone's taste, but I'm fine with a system in which what matters most is how I imagine my PC, then how my DM imagines the interaction of his ability scores with the scene we're all visualizing, with what the rules have to say being the least important aspect.
As a player I personally like old-school approaches that restrict my ability to choose what my PC is like, such as "roll 3d6 in order". I will often roll randomly for things like my alignment and gender even when the rules don't require it. I find that it's more interesting for me to play a character that has an individuality that came neither from my habits about what kinds of PC I go for (a rut that I like using the dice to help me break out of) nor the game system putting pressure on PCs to have a certain set of optimal stats. I would not enjoy playing a character with all sub-11 scores in 4E, whereas that could be lots of fun in OD&D. What changes is not my attitude towards my lovable loser PC, but how much the system mechanics would punish my bad die rolls and make playing that PC unrewarding.
This pressure means that some of the apparent choice in 4E character creation is false. The social obligation folks here have talked about to choose a character that doesn't suck and bring down everyone else's chances of success means that it's a severe over-estimation to count the range of legitimate choices for the Wisdom score of a cleric as 8-18, as I did in that blog post. A game that's tightly restricted to combat and inflexible in its adjucation of the rules, like the highly enjoyable d20-based CRPG Knights of the Chalice, leaves me feeling like the real choice is between optimal party configuration A or B; the environment of the game is rigid enough that you can accurately figure out which is the objectively superior character creation choice out of all the options presented (especially after you've played parts of it a couple of times, like I did!).
Note that the ability to have a good time playing an OD&D fighter with a 3 Strength comes from the fact that your ability scores are mechanically meaningless, more or less. This may not be to everyone's taste, but I'm fine with a system in which what matters most is how I imagine my PC, then how my DM imagines the interaction of his ability scores with the scene we're all visualizing, with what the rules have to say being the least important aspect.
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It's almost as if the group collectively only had a certain amount of head-space for the game - and so the more interest there was in the mechanics, the less there was available for the roleplay aspect. (Luckily, we have found that both SWSE and WFRP provide an excellent middle-ground for us. So that works quite well.)
VERY true. This is why I've lately started to become more and more interested in "old-school" gaming--not because it has fewer mechanical options at chargen and more mechanical options in play, but because it has fewer mechanical options for both.
rogueattorney
Adventurer
It's a problem for me simply because I have no interest whatsoever in the "deck building" aspect of the 3+ editions of D&D. By the time NWPs were cropping up in 1e back in 1986, it was already too much for me. I don't begrudge others their fun, but that's just not my bag.
WalterKovacs
First Post
I'm sure that, had 3E/3.5 been included in the mix, it would show a spike that was reduced with 4e (although, in the case of a fighter or rogue, the number of choices would be lower). With multiclassing, and later prestige classes available as an option at many levels, and the number of spell choices (and the less 'rigid' structure of 4e spell choices), the skill system which was more complex than the binary "Trained or untrained" system in 4e, etc ... creates more choice options.
So while 4e is definitely more choice intensive than the original system ... compared to the most recent system, it hasn't continued the trend so much as having stabilized it so that all characters have similar number of options, and also in spreading the distribution of options such that every level up has at least one significant option (picking an ability score boost and a feat, a utilty power and a feat, an attack power which may also require choosing to lose an older power, and choosing a paragon path or epic destiny).
I'm not sure if 4e would really be a step backwards in terms of increasing number of character choices, but it isn't really continuing a great increase from what 3.0 and 3.5 had, except for the simplest of classes.
I think one of the concepts you addressed in this post, about random generation of a character, points to different expectations for a game. Using random generation, it is easier to create something completely unexpected, and using the few choices available to create a character out o the random options and then seeing what happens with it. In the choice intensive system, one can instead invision the character you want, and try to find a way to recreate this image into the system. Each approach offers something different, and will appeal to people in different ways. Neither system is better, only better suited to one person or another.
Raven Crowking
First Post
Heh.
Everyone knows that generalizations are only valid when they support your point.
RC
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