D&D General Explain Bounded Accuracy to Me (As if I Was Five)

[FrozenNorth]

I have to agree with you on this one.

One of my players not only went to the fire academy and passed it qualified to be a firefighter, but worked as an EMT the entire time, and also while he was applying not just to the fire departments here in Los Angeles, but all across the state and into Oregon and Arizona. While doing all of that he went to school and passed the exam to be a paramedic. People in those fields work 24 hour shifts and he does overtime when other shifts become available. The last thing this man can be called is lazy.

i have a similar story. Friend with a demanding job and a ton of extra-curricular activities. He plays with us because we’re friends and he like to hang.
He’s definitely not lazy because he doesn’t invest as much time in the game as the people with less demanding schedules.

 

[Gammadoodler]

you could almost definitely make a pretty darn simple caster if you made it a baseline 1/3 progression caster, focus mostly on having a large array of cantrips and a carefully selected list of levelled spells chosen around the idea of being able to cast them infinitely, like the warlock’s invocation that do the same thing, no resource management, no worrying about upcasting, a familiar set of spells that they can just spam all day long and know in-and-out.

Honestly, you could just about port the Champion over whole cloth, and change some ability names. All you need is a replacement for fighting style, and to choose a basic, repeatable, or adequately scaling spell attack.

It may not be good, but it would be simple, and a caster.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Honestly, you could just about port the Champion over whole cloth, and change some ability names. All you need is a replacement for fighting style, and to choose a basic, repeatable, or adequately scaling spell attack.

It may not be good, but it would be simple, and a caster.

we should do more than just checkmarking the most basic requirements of the design goal, we should try make the experience enjoyable for anyone who wants to use the simple caster 'you get a worse experience because you want simpler mechanics' is not a good principle to qualify the design on

 

[ezo]

Yes, yes, all these examples of people who are "busy" and "committed" to other things, so can't be called lazy, but can't bother to learn the basics of a gamen which they voluntarily want to participate in? We aren't talking about "memorising rule books" or "knowing every feature, bonus, etc." without ever having to references a book. We're talking about knowing how proficiency bonus works, how to calculate attacks, and being familiar your character.

And for each such example, there are one (to several more) people who have very busy lives but do manage to learn the basics of the game, even if they can only spare the time to play once a month (or less!). In fact, many of them choose to learn more than the basics of the game, learn to run multiple characters, and even become DMs themselves--yes, even if only once a month.

But none of it is helpful. The point is simply when someone says they want to do something, joins in, and fails to follow through to the point it is determental to the enjoyment of the other participants, then it becomes an issue. When these players are people I know outside of D&D, their lives, habits, goals, etc. and I know them to be similarly "lax" in other areas of their lives, I take no issue with saying they are lazy. Yes, it is a judgement on my part and how I categorize them. I know I cannot expect them to follow through, and if or when they finally do, I'm glad to see it... and hope to see it repeated. However, there comes a time when them not showing up (sometimes literally) is too much. They are not just hurting themselves, but ruining it for others.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes, there is. That you do not find the idea credible is not a particularly persuasive argument that it can't be done--particularly given, as I mentioned, the 4e Elementalist Sorcerer, which really was a pretty friggin' simple spellcaster.


Uh...no? You just need a better design concept, and better-constructed design goals, than the absolute hodgepodge mess that is D&D spellcasting.

Shadowrun has Harry Potter-like mages (they must resist Drain, but can do basic magic that inflicts minimal Drain pretty much without limit). It also has Faces and Street Sams whose cybernetic augmentations are effectively equivalent to magic items, and Deckers that are effectively cyber-thieves with cyber-thieves'-tools, just with more bits and bobs.

It's really not as hard as you're claiming.


Note: I did not, at all, say that EVERY martial had to be this way. I phrased it the way I did for a reason. Why is it that, if a class is martial, it must be simple? Why can't we have just one--just a single class--that actually appeals to folks who like complex stuff? It quite clearly wouldn't be for you. But we've already established that things can be in D&D and not be for everyone; Druid is one of the least-popular classes in D&D (per WotC's own polls during the Next playtest) but it's still part and parcel of what D&D is today. Likewise, dragonborn and tieflings are a turn-off for some folks, but they're inarguably part of D&D now, and folks that don't like them can just ignore them.

So: Why is it martial classes are required to be simple, while caster classes are forbidden to be simple? We know the former isn't mandatory, and I've argued for why the latter isn't either (if you're familiar with Avatar: the Last Airbender, the 4e Elementalist Sorcerer is basically "pick what kind of bender you are: Earth, Water, Air, Fire. You get an elemental blast attack, a versatile utility cantrip, some reliable at-wills, and...that's pretty much it." It never grows particularly complex; it's about throwing elements around and being a master of your element's quirks and benefits.)

There are plenty of complex martials out there. They're just not in the currently supported version of official D&D as published by WotC, and frankly it seems unlikely that they will be any time soon.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Yes, yes, all these examples of people who are "busy" and "committed" to other things, so can't be called lazy, but can't bother to learn the basics of a gamen which they voluntarily want to participate in? We aren't talking about "memorising rule books" or "knowing every feature, bonus, etc." without ever having to references a book. We're talking about knowing how proficiency bonus works, how to calculate attacks, and being familiar your character.

And for each such example, there are one (to several more) people who have very busy lives but do manage to learn the basics of the game, even if they can only spare the time to play once a month (or less!). In fact, many of them choose to learn more than the basics of the game, learn to run multiple characters, and even become DMs themselves--yes, even if only once a month.

But none of it is helpful. The point is simply when someone says they want to do something, joins in, and fails to follow through to the point it is determental to the enjoyment of the other participants, then it becomes an issue. When these players are people I know outside of D&D, their lives, habits, goals, etc. and I know them to be similarly "lax" in other areas of their lives, I take no issue with saying they are lazy. Yes, it is a judgement on my part and how I categorize them. I know I cannot expect them to follow through, and if or when they finally do, I'm glad to see it... and hope to see it repeated. However, there comes a time when them not showing up (sometimes literally) is too much. They are not just hurting themselves, but ruining it for others.

You are definitely not wrong. There are people like this, and at some point they become a burden too much.
However, in my own personal experience, these people whose lack of investment in the game rises to the point of being detrimental to others are right up there with these examples you are poo-pooing in terms of being incredible outliers not overly meaningful of anything grander. We can all come up with one example of each, just like we've all run into someone who is chronically absent at work for legitimate reasons; and one who is chronically absent without said reasons (possibly a third example being someone who always has a good excuse, but you don't really believe it or it sure seems like they must seek out chaos to live such a life). I've just not found them to be in the top 10 or top dozen types of players who frustrate a game. I take it your experience differs?

 

[Thomas Shey]

There is flat-out no such thing as a simple caster.

There's no reason there can't be; make it something with a ranged, non-ranged and area at-wills, set the damage accordingly (so spell slot consumption isn't something needed to balance it out), and move on.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Only if you define "caster" by reference to the AD&D wizard as a paradigm.

There can be a simple magic-using character. They can (say) fire a blasty-bolt, fly, teleport short distances and use X-Ray vision. These abilities are spread out over their levels in some fashion that is roughly balanced with what a rogue or ranger of the same level can do.

Done!

That probably works, too.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You could basically just give a lot more invocations and use the Warlock without spell slots.

However, you still have to know what all those "spells" (i.e. invocations) can do. Now, it is much simpler if they don't change, must like a rogue or ranger whose features are constant.

If you're wanting something genuinely simple, just don't give him things he needs to think about. Pemerton's example was actually simpler than mine, and adds up to "Move with no impediments, ranged usable attack, and largely passive sense". There's just about no decision overload on that, either, certainly nothing beyond range limits on it all and what damage the blast does.

 

[Thomas Shey]

we should do more than just checkmarking the most basic requirements of the design goal, we should try make the experience enjoyable for anyone who wants to use the simple caster 'you get a worse experience because you want simpler mechanics' is not a good principle to qualify the design on

It depends on what you translate as "worse experience". I found OD&D fighters dull as dishwater, but some people seemed to like them. "Simple" and "interesting choices" are always going to be to some extent at odds, but not everyone apparently needs the latter to find the experience good.