Be honest, how long would it really take you to notice all of this stuff...?

[Savage Wombat]

Where is any of this implied?

You're misreading if you think "Monte malevolently sabotaged the game" is the narrative here.

Since I'm the one who first commented, no I'm not. I objected to the idea that Monte deliberately created "bad" feats as a "trap" for players. If you are disagreeing with me, you're defending that idea.

Phrasing is everything. I think Monte said, effectively, "some feats are worse than others, and that's OK, and arguably desirable." And you can disagree with that, but I don't. But what people seem to interpret it as, would be "haha, we snuck bad feats into the game so that only clever players would figure out how to beat it". And don't think I'm strawmanning here, because I've heard that tone many a time around these parts.

It's the difference between "I thought putting more salt in the caramel ice cream would make the ice cream taste better, but in hindsight it didn't work so well" and "I'm going to put lots of salt in the ice cream so only the very best ice-cream-eaters will appreciate it".

 

[Neonchameleon]

I consider that you rephrase his statement, with your comment about "quite deliberately did not". I think that he's saying that the game designers felt that perfection was not achievable and not actually necessary. You seem to think he was saying it wasn't desirable.

Indeed.

Another way to translate it would be "we felt that trying too hard for balance would result in all choices feeling blandly identical, and that would be no fun".

I consider that to be an incredible stretch from what he actually says by interpolating things he does not mention. He at no point mentions flavour as a reason for the difference in power, merely rewarding system mastery. There is literally no way I can get what you claim he is saying from the words he used in the article under discussion.

But to reiterate - I don't want to say you are wrong for feeling that the game has a problem as a result. I dislike the implication that, as so often comes up in ENWorld arguments, a particular game designer deliberately and malevolently made a design decision counter to the interests of the game and the players as a group. Monte (and his team) made a decision about game style that a lot of people disagreed with. Years later he regrets that it caused a problem. This is hardly a deliberate act of sabotage.

Oh, I don't think he made it deliberately and malevolently. He certainly made the choice deliberately - this is not in question. I also think that the choice was obvious bad design - in short he ed up badly.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Since I'm the one who first commented, no I'm not. I objected to the idea that Monte deliberately created "bad" feats as a "trap" for players. If you are disagreeing with me, you're defending that idea.

Phrasing is everything. I think Monte said, effectively, "some feats are worse than others, and that's OK, and arguably desirable."

Continue what he said in the way you didn't last time. "... and it's desirable because it rewards system mastery."

And you can disagree with that, but I don't. But what people seem to interpret it as, would be "haha, we snuck bad feats into the game so that only clever players would figure out how to beat it". And don't think I'm strawmanning here, because I've heard that tone many a time around these parts.

It's the difference between "I thought putting more salt in the caramel ice cream would make the ice cream taste better, but in hindsight it didn't work so well" and "I'm going to put lots of salt in the ice cream so only the very best ice-cream-eaters will appreciate it".

Once more you are removing his reasoning. It's closer to "I thought that it would be interesting to mix the flavourings with cream directly for the ice cream. And this includes the coca-cola and lemon flavours. In hindsight that didn't work out so well."

 

[Savage Wombat]

I consider that to be an incredible stretch from what he actually says by interpolating things he does not mention. He at no point mentions flavour as a reason for the difference in power, merely rewarding system mastery. There is literally no way I can get what you claim he is saying from the words he used in the article under discussion.

I disagree - I think my interpretation is valid. Moving on.

Oh, I don't think he made it deliberately and malevolently. He certainly made the choice deliberately - this is not in question. I also think that the choice was obvious bad design - in short he ed up badly.

Then defend this point, instead of arguing about who interpreted his statement which way. The key phrase being "obvious bad design" - when I feel it's more of a case of "Neonchameleon and others don't like it". "Obvious bad design" would be "what idiot put the handbrake behind the gear shift" - whereas this is more of a "I thought a push-button dashboard would be neat, popular and effective, but it turned out to be otherwise".

Seems to me it's just a matter of degree, on how much you and Monte feel balance is possible and necessary.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I disagree - I think my interpretation is valid. Moving on.

He gives one specific reason. Your reason is something completely different.

"Mostly, we just made sure that we didn't design it away -- we wanted to reward mastery of the game."

Then defend this point, instead of arguing about who interpreted his statement which way. The key phrase being "obvious bad design" - when I feel it's more of a case of "Neonchameleon and others don't like it". "Obvious bad design" would be "what idiot put the handbrake behind the gear shift" - whereas this is more of a "I thought a push-button dashboard would be neat, popular and effective, but it turned out to be otherwise".

Seems to me it's just a matter of degree, on how much you and Monte feel balance is possible and necessary.

Not in the slightest. Monte Cook never mentioned whether he thought balance was possible. He says that"Mostly, we just made sure that we didn't design [imbalance] away". And they did not try because "we wanted to reward mastery of the game."

It's not an aesthetic choice he's talking about. It's not a worldbuilding choice. It's not a flavour choice. It's a choice to reward one small subset of players who will already be automatically rewarded by understanding what works.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

But it is discrete from it. Many games have no conception of balance at all. Others have purposeful and extreme imbalances. Balance is only really critical for pure games of strategy, like chess (which even then has purposeful imbalances between the pieces built in).

And D&D is not a strategy game, it's a roleplaying game, to which balance between player choices is somewhere between a tertiary consideration and completely irrelevant. Only because of D&D's wargame heritage is it even mentioned.
/snip

Again swimming upthread. Name three. Name three games which have no conception of balance at all. Chess is about as balanced as it can be. Yes, not all pieces are equal, but, both sides are perfectly equal. The only difference here is player skill.

If you think balance between player choices is a tertiary consideration, you haven't actually read a whole lot of RPG books. Balance is a primary concern, even going back to 1e. Let me ask you this, then. If balance isn't a concern, why do classes have different xp requirements in AD&D? What's the justification, if it isn't balance?

 

[Lanefan]

All characters have an approximate strength and toughness and behave as they do in the world. But the camera is almost invariably following the PCs. The map is displayed at whatever scale the PCs are at the time This doesn't mean that the underlying reality has changed, any more than switching from a Mercator to a Peters Projection or a Waterman Butterfly changes the world. The game mechanics aren't the laws of the world - they are a map reflecting what is going on in the world.

Neon-"But we don't actually roll it out when the PCs aren't there"-Chameleon

However, let's say I look at a map of Canada/USA. Vancouver, LA, Chicago, Montreal - they're all there just like they should be. But the PCs are in Lake Geneva Wisconsin, so I zero in on that bit of the map and bring it in way closer. The fact I'm now looking only at the map of Lake Geneva doesn't invalidate the map of Vancouver's existence, nor does it invalidate Vancouver itself - it's still there, even though I can't see it on a map of Lake Geneva.

Same thing with NPCs - the 5th-level NPC Cleric the party bought cures from last night was a 5th-level Cleric yesterday morning and is still a 5th-level Cleric today even though she might - for all we know - never interact with the PCs again. The laws of the game dictate what her being a 5th-level Cleric represents in terms of abilities, h.p., etc; and she's reflected as such on the map whether you happen to be looking at that particular bit of the map at the moment or not.

Put another way, if a bar brawl starts before the PCs walk into town, then the PCs arrive and interact with it somehow, absolutely nothing should change about the parameters of the original brawl. Sure, more dice are going to get rolled if the PCs interact with things than if they don't, but from the point of view of a participant in the original brawl the presence or absence of a PC (who, for sake of discussion, does nothing but stand back and watch) should make no observable difference at all to what happens.

Lan-"brawling with a 5th-level Cleric in Vancouver"-efan

 

[Neonchameleon]

If you think balance between player choices is a tertiary consideration, you haven't actually read a whole lot of RPG books. Balance is a primary concern, even going back to 1e. Let me ask you this, then. If balance isn't a concern, why do classes have different xp requirements in AD&D? What's the justification, if it isn't balance?

What do you mean "even going back to 1e". Balance was a primary concern long before 1e.

From The Strategic Review volume 2, Issue 2 - April 1976

Magic-use was thereby to be powerful enough to enable its followers to compete with any other type of player-character, and yet the use of magic would not be so great as to make those using it overshadow all others. This was the conception, but in practice it did not work out as planned. Primarily at fault is the game itself which does not carefully explain the reasoning behind the magic system. Also, the various magic items for employment by magic-users tend to make them too powerful in relation to other classes (although the GREYHAWK supplement took steps to correct this somewhat).

...

The logic behind it all was drawn from game balance as much as from anything else. Fighters have their strength, weapons, and armor to aid them in their competition. Magic-users must rely upon their spells, as they have virtually no weaponry or armor to protect them. Clerics combine some of the advantages of the other two classes. The new class, thieves, have the basic advantage of stealthful actions with some additions in order for them to successfully operate on a plane with other character types. If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D & D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly, or the referee is forced to change the game into a new framework which will accommodate what he has created by way of player-characters. It is the opinion of this writer that the most desirable game is one in which the various character types are able to compete with each other as relative equals.​

 

[Hussar]

However, let's say I look at a map of Canada/USA. Vancouver, LA, Chicago, Montreal - they're all there just like they should be. But the PCs are in Lake Geneva Wisconsin, so I zero in on that bit of the map and bring it in way closer. The fact I'm now looking only at the map of Lake Geneva doesn't invalidate the map of Vancouver's existence, nor does it invalidate Vancouver itself - it's still there, even though I can't see it on a map of Lake Geneva.

Same thing with NPCs - the 5th-level NPC Cleric the party bought cures from last night was a 5th-level Cleric yesterday morning and is still a 5th-level Cleric today even though she might - for all we know - never interact with the PCs again. The laws of the game dictate what her being a 5th-level Cleric represents in terms of abilities, h.p., etc; and she's reflected as such on the map whether you happen to be looking at that particular bit of the map at the moment or not.

Put another way, if a bar brawl starts before the PCs walk into town, then the PCs arrive and interact with it somehow, absolutely nothing should change about the parameters of the original brawl. Sure, more dice are going to get rolled if the PCs interact with things than if they don't, but from the point of view of a participant in the original brawl the presence or absence of a PC (who, for sake of discussion, does nothing but stand back and watch) should make no observable difference at all to what happens.

Lan-"brawling with a 5th-level Cleric in Vancouver"-efan

But, that bar brawl most likely only occurred in the DM's head. No dice were rolled, and absolutely no game mechanics were engaged to determine the results of that brawl. I mean, probably there would be broken chairs lying around the bar right? Did the DM roll for those to be broken? If they were used as weapons, they shouldn't break at all, since weapons don't take damage when used as weapons. So, how did the chairs get broken?

And, the only person who knows the level of that cleric is the DM. No one in the game world knows, unless you buy into the idea that level is a real thing. That 5th level cleric can be any level I want him/her to be whenever I need him/her to be whatever level. Or are you saying that the DM can never change an NPC behind the scenes? Anything in the DM's notes is now carved in stone, never to be revised?

I've certainly never seen anyone who plays like that. Setting revisions happen all the time. So long as it doesn't contradict anything established at the table, who cares?

 

[Lanefan]

If you have a kobold PC, he's going to have however many hit points a PC of his class, level, and stats would normally have. If it's being treated as a minion, a kobold has 1. I don't see what the problem is? I mean, those minion kobolds are just imaginary and who cares what you imagine they might imagine? They're not the PCs, because no players are playing them.

In truth, someone *is* playing them: the DM; and while the usual DM might not bother getting in the heads of each little Kobold to find out what it's thinking the possibility of doing so is and always has been present in the game.

Put another way, the PCs are every bit as imaginary as the minion kobolds.

Things "off screen" have no hit points, since hit points are a gameplay convenience and stuff "off screen" is, by definition, not being played at the time and thus needs no gameplay convenience.

Gameplay convenience suggests that off-screen things carry their stats with them at all times as they could become on-screen at a second's notice. The Ogre hiding in ambush in its cave has 45 h.p. before the party meet it, 45 h.p. when the party meet it (though probably not after the party meet it!) and 45 h.p. if the party never meet it at all.

And while if you know the party are never going to meet it you might not bother rolling up its actual h.p. total it still undeniably *has* a h.p. total; you just don't know what the actual number is.

And the PCs deserve to be treated differently because (1) real people are playing them at a game table, presumably to have a good time, and (2) they are in 99% of all play time, so they're clearly more important than anything else. Who would hand someone a 8th level character with 1 hit point? That sounds like a terrible thing to do to your friends!

It's not a very nice thing to do to the DM either, yet 4e consistently wants to hand her 8 HD (or 8th level) monsters with 1 h.p. that should, by virtue of their Con. score and natural toughness, have a lot more than 1.

Lan-"redefining the one-hit wonder"-efan