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Heart of a Hero, Mind of a Pigeon
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<blockquote data-quote="Isaac Chalk" data-source="post: 6045548" data-attributes="member: 96952"><p>I would say that my incentive is game-oriented in that I prefer the game have more goals and structure than a toy would necessarily provide. I also, however, think that the How is more important than the If - it's my experiences that games built around the If tend to lean heavily on character optimization, whereas games centered around the How tend to let characters be off the beaten path and still be not only viable, but entertaining. If there's less of a need to ruthlessly optimize for every contingency, then the party doesn't need a tracp-checker if no one wants to play one, and they can play oddball combinations like Warforged Warlock that might be mechanically suboptimal but have interesting roleplay opportunities.</p><p></p><p>However, I also have to admit that the goals that D&D provides me with (XP and treasure) aren't that satisfactory by default.</p><p></p><p>Gaining more money inevitably presents me with two problems: the sheer lunacy of D&D economics, which have gotten harder for me to ignore since my college courses in micro- and macro-economics, and secondly, the notion that if I'm in it for the money, why not just settle down now that I have enough to live off of for the next fifty years (which happens around, what, level four?) Sure, there are personality types that are like money-sharks, moving forward constantly at the sniff of treasure and constantly demanding more of it, but I've met too many of those people in real life to enjoy pretending to be one in a game.</p><p></p><p>Then there's XP, which presents a deeper problem: namely, that it can either not change your character at all, since your challenges are keeping pace with you, or it does change your character, in which case, you're playing a different game suddenly. The former renders XP a calorie-free pellet that is dispensed out of the Skinner Box when the lever is nudged with our nose; the latter means that suddenly we're not playing the version of the game we were before, sometimes unexpectedly. The difference between firing a magic missile to feeding an entire kingdom is vast, not just in scale, but in tone (one is pure violence, well-modelled; the other more socio-economic, historically not modelled well in D&D at ALL.)</p><p></p><p>This was the core of the 3E-4E debate, with 4E trying to make a game out of the sweet spot, reasoning that if the game is radically different at high levels then that creates the possibility that a player won't WANT to advance, defeating the purpose of the carrot. Frankly, who can blame BMX Bandit for not wanting to play up to the levels where he will be outclassed by Angel Summoner? But critics of 4E say that such a goal makes all the levels feel samey, in which case, why bother advancing out of the heroic stage at all? All the math needed to level a character becomes needless busywork.</p><p></p><p>Neither system's to my satisfaction. But I admit, that's just me. There are plenty of players out there who derive their enjoyment from making the numbers higher and they're not having Wrong Fun. I just think that having your numbers get bigger as the chief incentive can neglect or even exclude a lot of interesting possibilities, such as someone who is terminally ill and is not going to be getting any stronger. It may be that I've just hit a certain age - when you're young, XP systems make sense since "constantly getting better at everything" is what you're doing. Past a certain point, that ceases to really be. (Maybe D&D is best served as a metaphor for growing up?)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Isaac Chalk, post: 6045548, member: 96952"] I would say that my incentive is game-oriented in that I prefer the game have more goals and structure than a toy would necessarily provide. I also, however, think that the How is more important than the If - it's my experiences that games built around the If tend to lean heavily on character optimization, whereas games centered around the How tend to let characters be off the beaten path and still be not only viable, but entertaining. If there's less of a need to ruthlessly optimize for every contingency, then the party doesn't need a tracp-checker if no one wants to play one, and they can play oddball combinations like Warforged Warlock that might be mechanically suboptimal but have interesting roleplay opportunities. However, I also have to admit that the goals that D&D provides me with (XP and treasure) aren't that satisfactory by default. Gaining more money inevitably presents me with two problems: the sheer lunacy of D&D economics, which have gotten harder for me to ignore since my college courses in micro- and macro-economics, and secondly, the notion that if I'm in it for the money, why not just settle down now that I have enough to live off of for the next fifty years (which happens around, what, level four?) Sure, there are personality types that are like money-sharks, moving forward constantly at the sniff of treasure and constantly demanding more of it, but I've met too many of those people in real life to enjoy pretending to be one in a game. Then there's XP, which presents a deeper problem: namely, that it can either not change your character at all, since your challenges are keeping pace with you, or it does change your character, in which case, you're playing a different game suddenly. The former renders XP a calorie-free pellet that is dispensed out of the Skinner Box when the lever is nudged with our nose; the latter means that suddenly we're not playing the version of the game we were before, sometimes unexpectedly. The difference between firing a magic missile to feeding an entire kingdom is vast, not just in scale, but in tone (one is pure violence, well-modelled; the other more socio-economic, historically not modelled well in D&D at ALL.) This was the core of the 3E-4E debate, with 4E trying to make a game out of the sweet spot, reasoning that if the game is radically different at high levels then that creates the possibility that a player won't WANT to advance, defeating the purpose of the carrot. Frankly, who can blame BMX Bandit for not wanting to play up to the levels where he will be outclassed by Angel Summoner? But critics of 4E say that such a goal makes all the levels feel samey, in which case, why bother advancing out of the heroic stage at all? All the math needed to level a character becomes needless busywork. Neither system's to my satisfaction. But I admit, that's just me. There are plenty of players out there who derive their enjoyment from making the numbers higher and they're not having Wrong Fun. I just think that having your numbers get bigger as the chief incentive can neglect or even exclude a lot of interesting possibilities, such as someone who is terminally ill and is not going to be getting any stronger. It may be that I've just hit a certain age - when you're young, XP systems make sense since "constantly getting better at everything" is what you're doing. Past a certain point, that ceases to really be. (Maybe D&D is best served as a metaphor for growing up?) [/QUOTE]
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