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Legends & Lore 09/03 - RPG design philosophy
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6011763" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>This only assumes though that the game has been built such that players are only expected to win 50% of the time... which we all know is not the case.</p><p></p><p>If a 'balanced' 4E game was only meant to give the PCs a 50% success rate, whereas an 'unbalanced' pre-4E game was meant to give the PCs an 85% success rate... then sure, what you say is correct-- it'd be much easier to predict the winner of the unbalanced game and thus maybe make the balanced game 'more exciting'.</p><p></p><p>But since 4E is actually built to give the PCs probably like a 90% success rate against a standard encounter build... and an unbalanced game might push that up to 95% (or down to 75% for that matter)... the predictions are pretty much the same. BOTH games predispose the PCs are going to win MOST of the time. And when the PCs in a 4E game <em>don't</em>... it usually will be due to the <em>DM purposely putting them up against an encounter</em> built specifically to be more of a threat (one meant for a party like 4 levels higher or so). As opposed to the unbalanced game, where it more often will result just based upon the whims of the dice, when you have saving throws to BIG spells that fail, spell resistance that you do or don't get past, etc.</p><p></p><p>And I imagine that's probably what the non-4E players prefer. If the winner is unpredictable... it's because of the whims of the dice and game, as opposed to the whim of the <strong>DM</strong> building the encounter a certain way.</p><p></p><p>And believe me... I'm not saying one is or isn't better than the other... but it at least explains why some folks might not see a very tightly balanced game as more freeing or more exciting or more unpredictable than one that wasn't.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 6011763, member: 7006"] This only assumes though that the game has been built such that players are only expected to win 50% of the time... which we all know is not the case. If a 'balanced' 4E game was only meant to give the PCs a 50% success rate, whereas an 'unbalanced' pre-4E game was meant to give the PCs an 85% success rate... then sure, what you say is correct-- it'd be much easier to predict the winner of the unbalanced game and thus maybe make the balanced game 'more exciting'. But since 4E is actually built to give the PCs probably like a 90% success rate against a standard encounter build... and an unbalanced game might push that up to 95% (or down to 75% for that matter)... the predictions are pretty much the same. BOTH games predispose the PCs are going to win MOST of the time. And when the PCs in a 4E game [I]don't[/I]... it usually will be due to the [I]DM purposely putting them up against an encounter[/I] built specifically to be more of a threat (one meant for a party like 4 levels higher or so). As opposed to the unbalanced game, where it more often will result just based upon the whims of the dice, when you have saving throws to BIG spells that fail, spell resistance that you do or don't get past, etc. And I imagine that's probably what the non-4E players prefer. If the winner is unpredictable... it's because of the whims of the dice and game, as opposed to the whim of the [B]DM[/B] building the encounter a certain way. And believe me... I'm not saying one is or isn't better than the other... but it at least explains why some folks might not see a very tightly balanced game as more freeing or more exciting or more unpredictable than one that wasn't. [/QUOTE]
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