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How much should 5e aim at balance?
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<blockquote data-quote="Libramarian" data-source="post: 5984877" data-attributes="member: 6688858"><p>OK your take on it is less extreme and more familiar to me. I'm not strongly opposed to having some of the tactical/strategic choices made during character creation/upgrading. I don't see why there must be such a sharp distinction between these two "games" within the game as you put it. But practically I think a heavy focus on system mastery is unwise because it kinda sucks as gameplay, because the learning curve is brutal and once the best "builds" are discovered people just look them up online. i.e. it's the opposite of the classic formula for a good game: easy to learn, hard to master. It tend to be hard to learn, easy to master.</p><p></p><p>Agreed.</p><p></p><p>Have you ever read or played 1e? It's a pretty coherently gamist RPG by my estimation. I don't think you tried very hard not to offend people who like pre-3e editions best.</p><p></p><p>I also disagree with your analysis of 4e. I basically agree with <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/members/pemerton.html" target="_blank">pemerton</a>'s earlier reply to you. My frustrations reading pemerton's posts arise from the fact that he's not always clear just how much theoretical and practical knowledge he relies on for his way of playing 4e that is not in the 4e DMG. When I claim to be analyzing 4e, I'm just looking at the text itself; I'm not crossreferencing it with Burning Wheel or Maelstrom Storytelling (never even heard of this one). To me, 4e doesn't really support any metagame agenda -- gamism or narrativism -- well out of the box. The DMG presents it as essentially an adventure path system. If you follow the adventure creation guidelines then you end up with a boring piece of crap like the Keep on the Shadowfell. The DM plans a series of 10 encounters at a time, some being battles and some being skill challenges, and then the players work through it linearly with very little wiggle room for differing rewards based on skilled play or risk tolerance. It's bloodless and perfunctory. It has no metagame agenda "spark" at all; pretty much all of the entertainment value has to come from the work the DM puts in to make the encounters narratively interesting. In GNS terms the only creative agenda I see this as supporting is high concept sim -- aka play through the DMs story as new powers get unlocked now and then. I think most 4e groups play the game this way. I think this playstyle has a pretty brutal prepwork to fun ratio and limited ability to draw in new players from other forms of gaming and I don't want to see it presented as the default way to play D&D ever again.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libramarian, post: 5984877, member: 6688858"] OK your take on it is less extreme and more familiar to me. I'm not strongly opposed to having some of the tactical/strategic choices made during character creation/upgrading. I don't see why there must be such a sharp distinction between these two "games" within the game as you put it. But practically I think a heavy focus on system mastery is unwise because it kinda sucks as gameplay, because the learning curve is brutal and once the best "builds" are discovered people just look them up online. i.e. it's the opposite of the classic formula for a good game: easy to learn, hard to master. It tend to be hard to learn, easy to master. Agreed. Have you ever read or played 1e? It's a pretty coherently gamist RPG by my estimation. I don't think you tried very hard not to offend people who like pre-3e editions best. I also disagree with your analysis of 4e. I basically agree with [URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/members/pemerton.html"]pemerton[/URL]'s earlier reply to you. My frustrations reading pemerton's posts arise from the fact that he's not always clear just how much theoretical and practical knowledge he relies on for his way of playing 4e that is not in the 4e DMG. When I claim to be analyzing 4e, I'm just looking at the text itself; I'm not crossreferencing it with Burning Wheel or Maelstrom Storytelling (never even heard of this one). To me, 4e doesn't really support any metagame agenda -- gamism or narrativism -- well out of the box. The DMG presents it as essentially an adventure path system. If you follow the adventure creation guidelines then you end up with a boring piece of crap like the Keep on the Shadowfell. The DM plans a series of 10 encounters at a time, some being battles and some being skill challenges, and then the players work through it linearly with very little wiggle room for differing rewards based on skilled play or risk tolerance. It's bloodless and perfunctory. It has no metagame agenda "spark" at all; pretty much all of the entertainment value has to come from the work the DM puts in to make the encounters narratively interesting. In GNS terms the only creative agenda I see this as supporting is high concept sim -- aka play through the DMs story as new powers get unlocked now and then. I think most 4e groups play the game this way. I think this playstyle has a pretty brutal prepwork to fun ratio and limited ability to draw in new players from other forms of gaming and I don't want to see it presented as the default way to play D&D ever again. [/QUOTE]
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