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Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals
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<blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 7759911" data-attributes="member: 3400"><p>Why limit it to being on opposite sides? Why not account for the actual sides a shield could cover like in 1e? Why not have the level advantage vary by the degrees of separation between the multiple opponents a combatant may be defending against?</p><p></p><p>And the answer is - the game's fairly abstract and there's a limited degree of simulation that can exist before the game becomes bogged down in minutiae too difficult to deal with. But every abstraction still has the potential to derange the simulation. How many characters took really weird approaches to combats in 3e/PF to avoid the Attacks of Opportunity for moving through an opponent's reach? How many made strange shifts just to avoid being in an exactly flanking position when, realistically speaking, a pretty wide separation probably should still have hampered their defense?</p><p></p><p>Part of the art of game design is choosing the balance point between the need to be abstract to promote playability and keep an eye to simulation so that the action is believable from a realism perspective, or reality filtered through a genre-appropriate lens as the situation warrants.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="billd91, post: 7759911, member: 3400"] Why limit it to being on opposite sides? Why not account for the actual sides a shield could cover like in 1e? Why not have the level advantage vary by the degrees of separation between the multiple opponents a combatant may be defending against? And the answer is - the game's fairly abstract and there's a limited degree of simulation that can exist before the game becomes bogged down in minutiae too difficult to deal with. But every abstraction still has the potential to derange the simulation. How many characters took really weird approaches to combats in 3e/PF to avoid the Attacks of Opportunity for moving through an opponent's reach? How many made strange shifts just to avoid being in an exactly flanking position when, realistically speaking, a pretty wide separation probably should still have hampered their defense? Part of the art of game design is choosing the balance point between the need to be abstract to promote playability and keep an eye to simulation so that the action is believable from a realism perspective, or reality filtered through a genre-appropriate lens as the situation warrants. [/QUOTE]
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