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Convincing 4th Edition players to consider 5th Edition
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<blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 5958896" data-attributes="member: 17106"><p>That's a perspective, I guess. Then again, I can think of a few others...</p><p>If you want to create a roleplaying <em>game</em> in which character choice matters and you make all character creation choices effectively equal, you've failed.</p><p>If you want to create a game that allows players to create whatever character they want and you only have one mechanical framework for building a character, you've failed.</p><p>If you want to create a game in which people become involved in the characters and story but you make it difficult to do that because of the artificiality of so-called game balance, you've failed.</p><p>If you want to create a game with heroic characters but success is effectively assured regardless of what they do, you've failed.</p><p></p><p>I'm not going to use the word "objective" for these examples though.</p><p></p><p>Actually, it needs to be the Lord of the Rings, where Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, <strong>and Sam</strong> all matter, despite Sam being a three-foot tall gardener who is not remotely "balanced" with the former three. Oh, and where Gandalf matters, but doesn't dominate, because his divine powers come with great responsibility. And where Frodo matters, not because he was talented or competent or even successful in the end, but because he made a choice to do something adventurous.</p><p></p><p>The presumption that everyone must be mechanically equal to be dramatically interesting or fun to play is a tremendous disservice to everyone in reality and in fiction who is not exactly equal to everyone else.</p><p></p><p>In other words, you definitely don't want all the characters to be "balanced".</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ahnehnois, post: 5958896, member: 17106"] That's a perspective, I guess. Then again, I can think of a few others... If you want to create a roleplaying [I]game[/I] in which character choice matters and you make all character creation choices effectively equal, you've failed. If you want to create a game that allows players to create whatever character they want and you only have one mechanical framework for building a character, you've failed. If you want to create a game in which people become involved in the characters and story but you make it difficult to do that because of the artificiality of so-called game balance, you've failed. If you want to create a game with heroic characters but success is effectively assured regardless of what they do, you've failed. I'm not going to use the word "objective" for these examples though. Actually, it needs to be the Lord of the Rings, where Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, [B]and Sam[/B] all matter, despite Sam being a three-foot tall gardener who is not remotely "balanced" with the former three. Oh, and where Gandalf matters, but doesn't dominate, because his divine powers come with great responsibility. And where Frodo matters, not because he was talented or competent or even successful in the end, but because he made a choice to do something adventurous. The presumption that everyone must be mechanically equal to be dramatically interesting or fun to play is a tremendous disservice to everyone in reality and in fiction who is not exactly equal to everyone else. In other words, you definitely don't want all the characters to be "balanced". [/QUOTE]
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