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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8929904" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Though, really, if you're going to do that...why continue to <em>have</em> the save-or-die/save-or-suck spells? They aren't actually <em>doing</em> anything, because a 20% chance to make the enemy suck for a while is a spell no one will ever cast. Wouldn't it be better to cut out these chaff spells that simply can't be made to work properly (because if they work reliably, they're broken, and if they're unreliable, they're pointless)? Then, instead, try to build spells that induce tactical choices simply by...working as advertised?</p><p></p><p>It just seems really weird to consider it a fully satisfactory result that the game is chock-full of either pointless or overpowered options. Because <em>that</em> was the real underlying problem of 3e. It wasn't PrCs; that they went wrong was a <em>symptom</em>, not the disease. The actual disease is that it <em>presumes</em> that it is a perfectly logical and internally self-consistent system, but it is only the former, not the latter. It's extremely good at <em>pretending</em> to be self-consistent, though, which is why people actually enjoy playing it (a system that is obviously not self-consistent is usually not enjoyable, as people realize that whatever you achieve with it is trivial and thus not very satisfying.)</p><p></p><p>We can, and IMO should, demand better of game design than "well most of the options are pointless, because they don't work often enough to be worth spending resources on, but the ones that <em>are</em> worth spending resources on are OP." Player creativity, to loop back to the thread topic, is given the best possible growing conditions when (a) you cannot just reduce decisions to calculations, so <em>qualitative</em> reasoning must be used to determine what choice is best, and (b) the options available to the player are sufficiently diverse as to actually provide distinct results but sufficiently narrow as to avoid analysis paralysis. The former qualification is why I don't generally enjoy 3e and its descendants (other than for intentionally "gonzo" games.) The latter is, I find, the big impediment for getting into "OSR" types of games, where things swing wildly between "you have 1-2 things you can do that matter at all" (usually with the added bonus of "and none of them are particularly engaging") and "you can employ the environment and your equipment in a nigh-infinite variety of ways, but a lot of those applications are unhelpful or even counterproductive and it's often extremely difficult to know what would actually be helpful in advance."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8929904, member: 6790260"] Though, really, if you're going to do that...why continue to [I]have[/I] the save-or-die/save-or-suck spells? They aren't actually [I]doing[/I] anything, because a 20% chance to make the enemy suck for a while is a spell no one will ever cast. Wouldn't it be better to cut out these chaff spells that simply can't be made to work properly (because if they work reliably, they're broken, and if they're unreliable, they're pointless)? Then, instead, try to build spells that induce tactical choices simply by...working as advertised? It just seems really weird to consider it a fully satisfactory result that the game is chock-full of either pointless or overpowered options. Because [I]that[/I] was the real underlying problem of 3e. It wasn't PrCs; that they went wrong was a [I]symptom[/I], not the disease. The actual disease is that it [I]presumes[/I] that it is a perfectly logical and internally self-consistent system, but it is only the former, not the latter. It's extremely good at [I]pretending[/I] to be self-consistent, though, which is why people actually enjoy playing it (a system that is obviously not self-consistent is usually not enjoyable, as people realize that whatever you achieve with it is trivial and thus not very satisfying.) We can, and IMO should, demand better of game design than "well most of the options are pointless, because they don't work often enough to be worth spending resources on, but the ones that [I]are[/I] worth spending resources on are OP." Player creativity, to loop back to the thread topic, is given the best possible growing conditions when (a) you cannot just reduce decisions to calculations, so [I]qualitative[/I] reasoning must be used to determine what choice is best, and (b) the options available to the player are sufficiently diverse as to actually provide distinct results but sufficiently narrow as to avoid analysis paralysis. The former qualification is why I don't generally enjoy 3e and its descendants (other than for intentionally "gonzo" games.) The latter is, I find, the big impediment for getting into "OSR" types of games, where things swing wildly between "you have 1-2 things you can do that matter at all" (usually with the added bonus of "and none of them are particularly engaging") and "you can employ the environment and your equipment in a nigh-infinite variety of ways, but a lot of those applications are unhelpful or even counterproductive and it's often extremely difficult to know what would actually be helpful in advance." [/QUOTE]
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