Developer Talk = Gospel?

[lejanius]

I think here is the issue at hand in a general sense

Role-playing games strive to make a set of rules to make a fun game where you, as a player, can do cool/fun/awesome things like swing a sword, cast a spell, jump off a cliff, etc.

However it is not real life and real life rules cannot apply. Why? Because there would be no balance.

This in my mind is the biggest issue games face, people sit and say "I can run 40 feet, jump off my house, land on top of that guard swinging a sword and impale him, why can't I do that in an RPG?"

I think in the end the biggest problems game designers face is balance. Making the game fun for all classes and people. Sure in theory a mage with fireball could destroy towns and be a real terror if he existed in ancient times, but that is only fun for the mage.

when you design a game you need to allow the spotlight and fun to be on each party member at various points, this is also the most difficult task as a GM as well.

so what does all this mean? It means thus far in my eyes the game designers haven't found a fun balance to the issues you brought up. It also means that the economy of actions is an attempt to make all characters viable options that are fun and equally effective. Is this a realistic attempt to imitate life? Of course not it is an attempt to make the game fun for all involved, in 4E I would say they succeeded, and I believed failed in 3.0 and 3.5

just my opinion.

 

[Slander]

Why is accepting the gospel truth of the 4E developers any different/worse than accepting the gospel truth of the previous editions' developers? Using your example, why was everyone OK accepting that one character got to have several more attacks per round than other characters. The math (another hot topic now-a-days) couldn't have possibly been balanced, but by including it in the rules, it became gospel.

The companion issue is just one example (and the examples really don't warrant in depth discussion in this thread), but the underlying question remains. I think the answer will match the reasons people give for liking a new edition or not. Each edition is a new gospel. Some will accept it as they seek something they feel the previous edition lacked. Some will reject it because they've already found what they are looking for in a game. Ultimately, DnD and it's community of players are changing and will continue to change as new lessons are learned.

 

[Henry]

Actually, it was a problem even as far back at 1st edition AD&D. I've seen a player of a Druid at 11th level, with his summoned magically-growthed Grizzly bear animal companion, his entourage of bears and wolves, nearly single-handedly take on Chief Nosnra the Hill Giant and his followers in the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief. With those, and the fire storms, etc. he over doubled the party's effective strength in that module.

In 3e, a Psion could easily make several Astral COnstructs every combat, custom tailored to whatever challenge the party faced. Need to assault the Gargoyles on those raised pillars, or get the whole aprty across a chasm? His constructs had wings. In addition to the customization, the extra actions are what really add to both lag time in combat, and to how much power a character has. If it can act separately, it can be buffed. It was started to be noticed even in 3.5, with the changes to Haste and other things that gave people extra std. actions. It's so important, it's considered worth milestones to get, and only once per character per encounter now.

 

[webrunner]

why was everyone OK accepting that one character got to have several more attacks per round than other characters.

The answer to this of course, is that people didn't want to accept it, but they did because, hey, it's what's in the rules. They weren't 'okay' with it, but they didn't care enough to not play D&D.

Now, it comes out, and finally, everybody's cool. So the people that were just "whatever" before are now "FINALLY!"

 

[Leatherhead]

Ah yes, finally a thread where it is on topic to talk about the term "Sacred Hamburger."

First of all, how is it possible that the term is allowed? It's like a religious slur.

Secondly, that's not a very good excuse to change anything at all. You change something because it needs to be changed, not because it hasn't been changed. And if something did need to be changed, it you should provide a better reason for it.

 

[Umbran]

Sorry, but Massawyrm [insert sexual act here] all over 4e's [insert sexual organ here]. I was also trolling.

Psychic Robot,

We have Rules of behavior on EN World. You had to click through them to get your account. We expect that you'll follow them.

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[IanB]

I've noticed something lately, something that disturbs me greatly. Up until 4e, nobody would bat an eye at the wizard having a familiar, the druid having a pet, the necromancer having undead, the conjurer having summons, and the like. However, after the developers started in with their "economy of actions"...rhetoric, everyone has jumped aboard the bandwagon. I've seen it here, I've seen it on the WotC forums, I've seen it on the Paizo forums.

I've batted plenty of eyes at this pre-4e. Druids and conjurers in particular taking long turns in combat has for years been a huge problem with D&D. Cohorts were often even worse, especially when the cohort itself was a druid or other summoner. Don't mistake your own limited experience (by definition all of our experiences are limited compared to the gaming population as a whole) for universal truth. From what I gather and apparently what WotC's own reasearch has shown, my groups are not the only ones who have had these problems.

 

[Psychic Robot]

Some people are swayed by a well reasoned argument

I am perfectly amenable to a well-reasoned argument. However, I believe that wizards ought to be necromancers and conjurers, as that is a trope of fantasy. My preference would have been to create a subsystem that didn't remove these things but rather allowed them to coexist in the paradigm. Even if they got an extra turn.

Why is accepting the gospel truth of the 4E developers any different/worse than accepting the gospel truth of the previous editions' developers? Using your example, why was everyone OK accepting that one character got to have several more attacks per round than other characters. The math (another hot topic now-a-days) couldn't have possibly been balanced, but by including it in the rules, it became gospel.

But my issue is that the developers never said that some characters were allowed to have extra turns. (They implicitly said so, but that's different.) However, now that the 4e developers have said that "no character deserves extra turns," it has been parroted to death.

Death to pets.
Death to uber casters.

Long live equity.

I am in absolute disagreement with this statement (and this, perhaps, is one of my underlying issues with 4e). Five out of six characters in my current D&D group have pets. In the last group, six out of seven characters had pets. I love pets. In almost every game I play, I want to have a familiar or an animal companion or somesuch. To me, removing such things is a huge turn-off to the system.

I'm also okay with wizards being more powerful than other characters. Not to the extent that they were in 3e, but more powerful nonetheless. I know that many people will disagree with this sentiment, but I'm fine with the guy who studies magic to be able to do more than the guy who swings a sword. The magic guy's early life is a lot harder than the sword-swinger's, but his long, hard road pays off when he can do all sorts of crazy things.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

And when you play a one-, two-, or three-shot campaign, that "balance" you speak of doesn't mean diddly. Wizards are more powerful because they can change the world without a weapon. Fighters are powerful because they can change the world with their weapon. All PCs should be equally cool. "Super Wizard" syndrome is boring in literature, and it's boring in D&D, too.

 

[Psychic Robot]

And when you play a one-, two-, or three-shot campaign, that "balance" you speak of doesn't mean diddly. Wizards are more powerful because they can change the world without a weapon. Fighters are powerful because they can change the world with their weapon. All PCs should be equally cool. "Super Wizard" syndrome is boring in literature, and it's boring in D&D, too.

PCs are as "cool" as their creators make them. Combat efficacy does not a character make.