Do you like character building?

[Lanefan]

classes are generally "fluff-less" bags of mechanics ...

I don't agree with your points but I've got to give you props for this line. Fluff-less bags of mechanics indeed!

You can, the game cannot. That's the thing. You can write whatever you want under background. You can write "My fighter is actually Superman and Goku's baby who then was teleported into the D&D universe" if you so desire. And guess what? It would be just as valid as any other fighter.

Absolutely. Our disagreement lies in that I don't have a problem with this, where it seems you do. Sure, my 7th-level longsword-spec. Str. 17 Fighter functions in game mechanics terms (in a null-magic zone) exactly the same as John's 7th-level longsword-spec. Str. 17 Fighter which is in turn mechanically identical to the NPC 7th-level longsword-spec. Str. 17 Fighter we're currently in battle with. So what?

Playing D&D with you must be the most frustrating thing imaginable if you honestly think those two are somehow seperate.

"I attack the orc! I raise my longsword and - "
"Whoh whoh, don't describe it man. I need to know how much damage you do. You can't do both things at once."

Every character has elements of both...the question remains, however, as to which one you choose (or the game chooses for you) to focus on.

No, good players do both, and bad players try to set up dichotomies and make others "choose."

Hmmm...long time since I've been called a bad player...duly noted.

Lan-"is 'bag of mechanical fluff' another term for 'robot'?"-efan

 

[Ariosto]

Chaosium RuneQuest and Classic Traveller -- even Empire of the Petal Throne, which adds some twists to OD&D -- generate a lot of differences among characters, but they are not "a game of builds" like TFT, or Champions ... or WotC-D&D.

"Oh," you may say, "but that's because they are not about deciding beforehand just what a character is like. They are about 'rolling up' stats." That is by default true, and quite sufficient. It is not necessary, however.

The way I use Marvel Super Heroes -- what the rules books call "character modeling", if memory serves -- is also not "a game of builds". If you don't end up with exactly the character you conceived then it's because I have shot down the concept itself. There is no "mechanical" obstacle to going into as much precise detail as your brain is capable of contriving. There is no guarantee, however, that everyone else is going to find every little thing as fascinating as you do.

We can do just the same with any of the games above, from OD&D to 4e-- with any RPG, really -- by substituting this methodology for whatever may be the standard one.

So, there are at least these two different ways to depart from "a game of builds". Both can easily produce character sheets with as much detail as the products of builds.

The "modeling" approach is rather likely in my experience to produce more detail, precisely because it is not limited by a "detail budget".

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

The "modeling" approach is rather likely in my experience to produce more detail, precisely because it is not limited by a "detail budget".

While I think that may end up being true for a lot of players, there's nothing preventing you from having a vast wealth of character details that exist entirely outside the rules. This was sometimes hard in 3e, since 3e sought to have rules for everything. So you couldn't, for example, be an avid knitter without giving up a mechanical advantage elsewhere. But 4e assumes nothing about your knitting skill vis a vis your more traditional "adventuring" skills, allowing you to have such a skill and use it as you see fit without feeling a need to model it explicitly in the world.

In this respect, you are allowed, much as less mechanically explicit games, to have Grunt the Orc-killer also be a maker of cunning hats and skarves.

 

[Ariosto]

While I think that may end up being true for a lot of players, there's nothing preventing you from having a vast wealth of character details that exist entirely outside the rules.

How something "entirely outside the rules" could be relevant at all must depend on a semantic quibble.

What a "game of builds" prevents is anyone having more than a set allotment of arbitrarily "significant" things that are actually implemented in the game.

You seem to imply that modeling does no more than allow an unlimited number of "insignificant" things. That is false.

It is not equivalent to the GM waiving the point cost for weaving skill but allowing (or even requiring) Grunt to have so many points' worth of "significant" factors.

No, it is not merely equivalent to, but is in fact literally, depicting Doctor Strange as Doctor Strange and Patsy Walker as Patsy Walker.

 

[Umbran]

How something "entirely outside the rules" could be relevant at all must depend on a semantic quibble.

In D&D*, character personality is outside the rules. Character history that informs in-game choices (say, that they were the son of a turnip farmer, so that they won't ever choose to draw steel on turnip farmers) is outside the rules. You want to argue that these aren't relevant to play?


* in some games, some points of character behavior and history are are in the rules, so I am specific here.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

How something "entirely outside the rules" could be relevant at all must depend on a semantic quibble.

Not really. It depends on the game and the table.

Knitting is external to the 4e rules as written. And the rules relationship to the table work sort of like the U.S. Constitution relationship to the individual states. Whatever details are not laid out within the rules themselves are left to the DM and players to do with as they will.

There is nothing preventing you from writing on your character sheet that you are a tremendously skilled knitter of yarn. Nor is there anything preventing you from simply announcing this at the table one day. It would take a substantial corner case to make your character's knitting skill relevant to the adventure-based rule-set of 4e. If you find such a corner case, the DM decides how to adjudicate the situation.

What a "game of builds" prevents is anyone having more than a set allotment of arbitrarily "significant" things that are actually implemented in the game.

You are very narrowly defining "implemented in the game." If my character knits or plays the harmonica, it is implemented in the game anytime it comes up when we're RPing, hanging out in town, or table-talking about what our characters are doing. But since neither of those things are assumed to have a substantial effect within the context of adventuring, the DM and players decide what the influence of those skills is on the narrative.

Maybe my harmonica is an affectation that does nothing but irritate another player character. Is that "implemented in the game"? Must it serve a plot purpose? If I am captured and my party finds my hidden prison in the warren of dungeon pits by following my harmonica music, does that suddenly implement my previous harmonica playing in the game? Should the DM require a Harmonica skill roll from me just to see if I can make the sound travel X number of feet so the party can hear it?

You seem to imply that modeling does no more than allow an unlimited number of "insignificant" things. That is false.

If so, that was not my intent. I should have included more of your argument and broken down my response better. I was talking about your "detail budget" and how it will limit player concepts in certain games, not at all about games that use this modeling approach.

 

[Ariosto]

You want to argue that these aren't relevant to play?

I want to argue that they are not relevant to the argument actually at hand.

Curiously, this is just what the advocates of the "game of builds" typically argue for themselves!

 

[Ariosto]

There is nothing preventing you from writing on your character sheet that you are a tremendously skilled knitter of yarn.

You are, once again, completely missing the point.

There is no more than that "nothing" preventing me from writing on my character sheet, in OD&D, that my character is a tremendously skilled knitter of yarn.

I have pointed out where the actual difference, which is more pronounced in the character-modeling approach, really lies. It is not skill at knitting, or lack thereof, that most notably characterizes Earth's Sorcerer Supreme in most minds!

As the Champions rules put it, a "disadvantage" that is not a disadvantage is not worth any points.
Game of Builds:0
Not Game of Builds:0

Ditto Umbran's huffing about personality. If you guys seriously think a character can't have a hobby, or personality, or history, without the "game of builds", then you are plainly and simply factually wrong in the world in which I live.

You are very narrowly defining "implemented in the game."

On the contrary, I am defining it in the broadest possible sense. In whatever way a phenomenon actually is part of the game, I call it "implemented in the game".

I am likewise defining "the rules" in the broadest possible sense. Whatever facts define and regulate a phenomenon in the game, those are "rules".

Should the DM require a Harmonica skill roll from me just to see if I can make the sound travel X number of feet so the party can hear it?

I do not think so. Why you would think this more likely to happen in a game that lacks a "game of builds" is quite a puzzlement!

The most prominent, fundamental and unifying reason I choose old D&D instead of 3e or 4e is that I want not to have such a pile of formal rules that demand this or that exercise in dice-rolling and calculation. The absence of a game of builds is just part of that.

Your "arguments" have not been contradicting my statements at all! Is it really the case that knitting and harmonica-playing are in the same "arbitrarily significant" league as Perception or Encounter Powers? If so, then what is the rationale for limiting one but not the other?

Let us make this very, very simple: The things that a game of builds limits, the things it treats as wealth to be purchased with some currency, are what I mean by "arbitrarily significant". They are significant enough to warrant all that jumping through hoops, eh?

Now, when Carol has invested points in a "Diplomacy" factor, or in a "shield bash" power or feat, the value of her investment depends on Bob -- who invested his points in something else -- not getting the benefit. That's what the points are for, and it would be pointless if points were not limited!

Those are the facts of the matter, without which there is no game of builds.

It is the purpose of the build system to prevent one character from being more "powerful" than another, however the game defines power. Its purpose is to prevent either Doctor Strange or Patsy Walker -- or both -- in the name of a more narrowly defined "balance".

That is generally not the purpose of a random-roll system. Random rolls are, well, random! They place bounds and tend to averages, but that they should produce imbalances ought to be desired -- because it is the result in any case.

The purpose is very clearly not intrinsic to a modeling system that says nothing whatsoever about "power" or "balance".

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I'm not sure what you're trying to prove other than stating over and over that you don't like "builds" in games.

Fine. But you keep stating, insinuating, or broadly implying that the mere presence of "builds" in and of itself hampers character concepts and character details. This is false. You may not find such a game environment to your liking, but that does not mean it fails at some basic level to do these things.

"You can't possibly be doing X, Y, or Z with that type of game" is a strange and irritating statement when I watch X, Y, and Z happen all the farking time.

But I'm done playing the "someone is wrong on the internet!" game. We clearly have very different views of how to use assorted gaming systems and what fits within their respective milieus, and no amount of not getting each other's points for lack of a common frame of reference is going to change that.

 

[Ariosto]

I'm not sure what you're trying to prove other than stating over and over that you don't like "builds" in games.

I have no reason to "try to prove" that! The actual case, and what I actually have stated, is that I do like "builds" in games.

I'm just old-fashioned (or something) in happening to enjoy more than one kind of game -- including the kind without "builds", such as old D&D.

But you keep stating, insinuating, or broadly implying that the mere presence of "builds" in and of itself hampers character concepts and character details. This is false.

That, or rather its opposite, is an opinion to which you are entitled. It has not been the subject of my discourse at all.

The facts I have noted dictate nothing whatsoever as to how you feel about them, and that in turn has no effect whatsoever on whether they are factual or false.

They are actually extremely simple matters, about as controversial as 2>1. If you really think there is anything to dispute, then it is vastly more likely that you do not understand the statement in the first place.

Communication is a team effort. It's hard to "argue against" something when one is in the dark as to what it is! Asking questions for clarification, and feeding back what one thinks one understands, can be helpful.