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[+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap
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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9155536" data-attributes="member: 6877472"><p>I totally get that. When you look at D&D purely as a game, designed as such, with all the challenges you have to overcome from a developer perspective, it completely strips away the magic. Because D&D is different than say, a board game, because there is a human element. The players and the DM can go beyond the rules and make the game world feel more real, by throwing in curve balls and coming up with ingenious ideas that no game designer can possibly account for.</p><p></p><p>Something I learned the hard way long ago is that no carefully designed scenario will ever survive contact with the player characters, and that this is a <em>good</em> thing, even if it's sometimes frustrating.</p><p></p><p>And there are parts of the game that, no matter how much effort you put into giving the characters the ability to handle, is always going to come down to the real people involved. </p><p></p><p>We can say "the Ranger has great survival skills" but this is always going to come secondary to actual real-world knowledge of how to survive in the wilderness.</p><p></p><p>We can say "the Bard has great social skills" but this is always going to come secondary to the acting ability, savvy, and wittiness of the player.</p><p></p><p>We can say "the Wizard has a cunning mind" but this is always going to come secondary to the problem solving skills of real people when faced with a puzzle or riddle.</p><p></p><p>Even in combats, where we have to rely on the numbers and abilities of the characters, the strategic and tactical minds of the players will always be involved.</p><p></p><p>You can only design around characters, you can't really design around people save in absolutes. If I was writing an adventure, I have no idea that you might have a friend who can solve just about any riddle a matter of zeptoseconds. Nor do I know that you have a friend who has special forces training if I've crafted a difficult scenario about creeping through some fens to avoid a tribe of lizardfolk.</p><p></p><p>So yeah, published adventures can only interact with what we can assume a group of players to have, which usually comes down to "well, they can fight good".</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 9155536, member: 6877472"] I totally get that. When you look at D&D purely as a game, designed as such, with all the challenges you have to overcome from a developer perspective, it completely strips away the magic. Because D&D is different than say, a board game, because there is a human element. The players and the DM can go beyond the rules and make the game world feel more real, by throwing in curve balls and coming up with ingenious ideas that no game designer can possibly account for. Something I learned the hard way long ago is that no carefully designed scenario will ever survive contact with the player characters, and that this is a [I]good[/I] thing, even if it's sometimes frustrating. And there are parts of the game that, no matter how much effort you put into giving the characters the ability to handle, is always going to come down to the real people involved. We can say "the Ranger has great survival skills" but this is always going to come secondary to actual real-world knowledge of how to survive in the wilderness. We can say "the Bard has great social skills" but this is always going to come secondary to the acting ability, savvy, and wittiness of the player. We can say "the Wizard has a cunning mind" but this is always going to come secondary to the problem solving skills of real people when faced with a puzzle or riddle. Even in combats, where we have to rely on the numbers and abilities of the characters, the strategic and tactical minds of the players will always be involved. You can only design around characters, you can't really design around people save in absolutes. If I was writing an adventure, I have no idea that you might have a friend who can solve just about any riddle a matter of zeptoseconds. Nor do I know that you have a friend who has special forces training if I've crafted a difficult scenario about creeping through some fens to avoid a tribe of lizardfolk. So yeah, published adventures can only interact with what we can assume a group of players to have, which usually comes down to "well, they can fight good". [/QUOTE]
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