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"Combat Optimized" versus "Role-playing" -- One Dude's Perspective (looong)
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<blockquote data-quote="Antithetist" data-source="post: 5112813" data-attributes="member: 88443"><p>Isn't this equally true of every previous D&D edition? D&D is, and always has been, a game that is mostly focused around killing big bad beasties and taking their stuff. Successive DMGs through the generations have had random encounter tables and a reward system which is explicitly focused on making your players better at killing stuff. Not to mention that every edition has rolled out hundreds or thousands of monster statblocks over its lifespan, which speaks of a real demand on the part of DMs everywhere for new and exciting varieties of goblins to throw at their players. </p><p></p><p> Before I ever opened a D&D book, my background was mostly in free-form RP and rules-lite systems. I had also spent some time with Deadlands, Call of Cthulhu, the Storyteller system and the Marvel SAGA system. I was certainly not inexperienced with RPGs. But in all of those, I had never seen anything remotely approaching the barrage of automatic combat-focused class abilities, encounter tables and magic swords +x that came along as standard with D&D. </p><p></p><p> In short: if I wasn't interested in tactical play and a combat-heavy playstyle, there's no earthly way I would play D&D. Not 4E, not 3E, and I daresay none of the previous incarnations either. </p><p></p><p> That said, it's really not so hard as all that to adjust your DMing style to cater for a less-than-optimized bunch of PCs. If they choose to play a bunch of paraplegic cryptographers with not a jot of weapon training or magic power between them, then admittedly you probably won't get a viable D&D game out of them. But as long as they're using real classes and putting medium-high numbers in their key stats, it should be entirely possible to tailor combat encounters for them no matter what wacky feat and power choices they make. Frankly, I don't think it'd be any harder than finding the right difficulty level to challenge a truly optimized group, since WotCs default system assumes something in the middle.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Antithetist, post: 5112813, member: 88443"] Isn't this equally true of every previous D&D edition? D&D is, and always has been, a game that is mostly focused around killing big bad beasties and taking their stuff. Successive DMGs through the generations have had random encounter tables and a reward system which is explicitly focused on making your players better at killing stuff. Not to mention that every edition has rolled out hundreds or thousands of monster statblocks over its lifespan, which speaks of a real demand on the part of DMs everywhere for new and exciting varieties of goblins to throw at their players. Before I ever opened a D&D book, my background was mostly in free-form RP and rules-lite systems. I had also spent some time with Deadlands, Call of Cthulhu, the Storyteller system and the Marvel SAGA system. I was certainly not inexperienced with RPGs. But in all of those, I had never seen anything remotely approaching the barrage of automatic combat-focused class abilities, encounter tables and magic swords +x that came along as standard with D&D. In short: if I wasn't interested in tactical play and a combat-heavy playstyle, there's no earthly way I would play D&D. Not 4E, not 3E, and I daresay none of the previous incarnations either. That said, it's really not so hard as all that to adjust your DMing style to cater for a less-than-optimized bunch of PCs. If they choose to play a bunch of paraplegic cryptographers with not a jot of weapon training or magic power between them, then admittedly you probably won't get a viable D&D game out of them. But as long as they're using real classes and putting medium-high numbers in their key stats, it should be entirely possible to tailor combat encounters for them no matter what wacky feat and power choices they make. Frankly, I don't think it'd be any harder than finding the right difficulty level to challenge a truly optimized group, since WotCs default system assumes something in the middle. [/QUOTE]
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