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The danger of the Three Pillars of D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5818573" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>A subtle distinction: The existence of the Three Pillars doesn't mean that you have to suck at two and rock at one (or even that you have to suck at one and rock at two, or even that you have to suck at any).</p><p></p><p>You can easily have a game where every character can contribute meaningfully in each area of the game. </p><p></p><p>However, the counterpoint to this is that if everyone is good at everything, there's no meaningful character distinction: Every mage can climb walls and every cleric has a fireball-equivalent and every fighter can interact as well as any paladin.</p><p></p><p>That's less than satisfying.</p><p></p><p>Like with anything, the best idea is usually somewhere in the middle. In this case, the answer is twofold. First, you give each character a sort of "minimum competency" in all three areas: Even idiot barbarians can Intimidate some critters, even if they don't invest much in it. They'll be able to do SOMETHING in a social encounter, even if it's the functional equivalent of a basic melee attack. On the A to F scale, every heroic character is at least a D. </p><p></p><p>You then provide meaningful distinction in how you raise that D to an A (or not). </p><p></p><p>The second prong is on the DM's side: you ensure that each adventure you design has all three pillars in it, as valid ways to overcome problems. You may lean more in one direction or another (some DMs may prefer combat, others might be more for the intrigue), but the three ways should all be present.</p><p></p><p>So, for instance, when dealing with the orcs attacking the town, you can go out and fight them, you can negotiate with their chieftain, or you can sneak into their camp and assassinate the chieftain in his sleep. Combat, roleplaying, and exploration.</p><p></p><p>Depending on your characters' builds, some ideas are better than others, and depending on the DM's design, some ideas might be better than others, but you leave the potential for all three ways to be potential solutions, and you leave the adventure open to whichever approach the party feels their characters are best at.</p><p></p><p>So, you give everyone a minimum competency, and then you present adventures in which the main conflict can be resolved using any of the three methods, and you don't have thieves struggling in a game that is all about combat, or fighters being gimped in a social game. </p><p></p><p>Another point to ameliorate this is easy respeccing, something like what 4e offers as a default: if you find your Thief struggling in a combat-heavy game, maybe you retrain and become an Assassin instead. If your Fighter is flustered by the social-heavy game, you maybe become a Knight instead. If your cleric isn't faring well in the Exploration-centric game, maybe you become a Druid instead. Or whatever. </p><p></p><p>It's not a universally horrible idea to trade one pillar for the other, you just need to sort of protect the game from binary results (Always Fails or Always Succeeds), and make sure that DMs include all three as valid playstyles (or are really clear about which ones they are excluding from their game -- a dungeon crawl game might not have room for much social interaction, so the DM might say "don't bother to play a bard or a paladin, they will suck at this.").</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 5818573, member: 2067"] A subtle distinction: The existence of the Three Pillars doesn't mean that you have to suck at two and rock at one (or even that you have to suck at one and rock at two, or even that you have to suck at any). You can easily have a game where every character can contribute meaningfully in each area of the game. However, the counterpoint to this is that if everyone is good at everything, there's no meaningful character distinction: Every mage can climb walls and every cleric has a fireball-equivalent and every fighter can interact as well as any paladin. That's less than satisfying. Like with anything, the best idea is usually somewhere in the middle. In this case, the answer is twofold. First, you give each character a sort of "minimum competency" in all three areas: Even idiot barbarians can Intimidate some critters, even if they don't invest much in it. They'll be able to do SOMETHING in a social encounter, even if it's the functional equivalent of a basic melee attack. On the A to F scale, every heroic character is at least a D. You then provide meaningful distinction in how you raise that D to an A (or not). The second prong is on the DM's side: you ensure that each adventure you design has all three pillars in it, as valid ways to overcome problems. You may lean more in one direction or another (some DMs may prefer combat, others might be more for the intrigue), but the three ways should all be present. So, for instance, when dealing with the orcs attacking the town, you can go out and fight them, you can negotiate with their chieftain, or you can sneak into their camp and assassinate the chieftain in his sleep. Combat, roleplaying, and exploration. Depending on your characters' builds, some ideas are better than others, and depending on the DM's design, some ideas might be better than others, but you leave the potential for all three ways to be potential solutions, and you leave the adventure open to whichever approach the party feels their characters are best at. So, you give everyone a minimum competency, and then you present adventures in which the main conflict can be resolved using any of the three methods, and you don't have thieves struggling in a game that is all about combat, or fighters being gimped in a social game. Another point to ameliorate this is easy respeccing, something like what 4e offers as a default: if you find your Thief struggling in a combat-heavy game, maybe you retrain and become an Assassin instead. If your Fighter is flustered by the social-heavy game, you maybe become a Knight instead. If your cleric isn't faring well in the Exploration-centric game, maybe you become a Druid instead. Or whatever. It's not a universally horrible idea to trade one pillar for the other, you just need to sort of protect the game from binary results (Always Fails or Always Succeeds), and make sure that DMs include all three as valid playstyles (or are really clear about which ones they are excluding from their game -- a dungeon crawl game might not have room for much social interaction, so the DM might say "don't bother to play a bard or a paladin, they will suck at this."). [/QUOTE]
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