"'Kill it before it grows'...he said 'Kill it before it grows'..."

[SlyDoubt]

Save-or-die / save-or-suck effects are a much trickier subject. We all rely on the monster manuals or published adventures occasionally when we're low on prep-time, and if the published material is full of monsters who stun/paralyze/banish/kill pcs with a single attack, that makes it a major head-ache for me, as I find that type of gameplay very frustrating and un-fun. Yeah, I can work around it and not use those monsters if I have to, but if that mechanic is built into the core of the game, it makes the game a lot less fun for me and makes me question why I would give up 4e for the new game.

I understand that a large collection of players (like the OP) feel the exact opposite way and would feel like things were less fun without paralyzing Medusas, or the cleric being able to banish the pit fiend in one attack if it fails its save (pick your example of choice). That's why I said in my first response that it will be impossible to have an edition for everyone. If WotC can manage to come up with a system that can make players on both sides of the save-or-suck divide happy, it would be amazing, but I'm having trouble imagining how you would do that.

Thresholds. If you have a cleric like in your example who focuses on turning or banishing, etc. at a certain point he goes from doing x damage to banishing or destroying the thing outright.

The downside being you don't want the game to just devolve into everyone trying to hit some kind of required threshold. So it should be mostly unattainable except to extremely focused characters. Stuff that should be completely unavailable to multi-classed characters. I think the capstone abilities in pathfinder touch on this idea but I think it could be extended to include abilities that are strictly made for characters who only stay in one class.

The way 4E is setup as far as classes sucks imho. It's not interesting. The multi-classing feats were a joke. Hybrids work but only sort of. The required stats are too extreme in 4E. A system with multi-classing but that gives specific benefits to staying in one class is a great idea and I think one way to integrate a lot of the old style mechanics.

 

[Lanefan]

First, can someone rep Celebrim for me - I haven't spread the luv around enough, it seems.

I think trying to fix class imbalance by slowing progression is putting the cart before the horse. The real problem is the fact that classes are imbalanced in the first place. Fix that and there ceases to be a need for different rates of advancement.

Perhaps, but one of the fix-it tools is in fact variable progression; and so round and round we go.

And yes if someone misses a session they get the same XP and advance at the same rate as everyone else.

Same here, based on what their characters do in the session. ('round here, if you miss a session it's a known fact your characters are going to be run by those who are present, for better or worse) But the ExP given is still broken down individually.

Having PCs of different level makes it harder to design encounters for the group as a whole and its something that should be strictly avoided, IMO.

Hmmm...either you've got encounter design down to a razor-edge balance or you're overthinking it. A level or two variance here and there is - or should be - almost irrelevant to design. Large variances - say, where half the party is 6th and the rest are 2nd - I'll grant are a headache.

Not wanting save or die is a completely different issue. [...] In the first combat, I failed a save and was paralyzed for long enough that I was out the whole encounter. That encounter ended up lasting most of that three hour session.

Which is why I don't run 3e-4e-PF. And is why I let people run more than one character at a time...

But when failure occurs in the first round of die roll before you can even act, I have made no meangingful choices in the game, nor even gotten to make any choice. I suppose you could say I got to make two die rolls. I rolled initiative before I was hit and paralyzed, but that doesn't really help your case, IMO.

The cost of a failure is way out of proportion to the path it takes to get there. One die roll and you are potentially sitting out your whole game session. And the other is that the failure of my character ends up unduly punishing me as a player and directly affecting my ability to participate in the game itself.

So how would you design this out while still keeping the possibility of failure in the game? Could you?

Lanefan

 

[Felon]

Er...are you saying a DM may not (in your view) decide how such things work in her own game irregardless of what the rules do/do not allow? If yes, we have a serious argument. If no, please clarify.

If I've designed a world where Hobbits don't do magic and Elves can't see in the dark, then that's what I'm going to run. You can play in it or not, as you wish; assuming I'll have you in.

And I wouldn't say my players "obsess over racial flavor"; but they accept the world as it is (despite their characters' best attempts to destroy it now and then, but that's another story) and if they want it to be different they'll design their own world and run that.

They DM is the world-builder. That the DM has final authority is not the issue. What I am endeavoring to communicate is that because DM's are often selish with their authority is what ultimately undermines any attempt by WotC to mollify the community through the offering of moduler sets of rules. We are our own worst enemies.

Take race/class restrictions. You're taking an option away from the players. Who benefits? Since the general disposition you express is that players can take your world or leave it, that begs the question of whether you feel DM authority has any onus attached to it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Rules are not the problem with achieving unity in our community. Complacency and--most of all--selfishness are the major hurdles. Making the most of D&D is like making the most of any group activity: the prime ingredient is the capacity to value other people's satisfaction as well as your own. I think that a lot of gamers--notably those in the DM's seat--don't make that connection. They are mired what is essentially a competitive frame of mind where they must be the ones to have their way. That's why we see people who think that the satisfaction of other players at the table should take a backseat to "flavor" or "verisimilitude" or some other fine abstraction.

I dunno, that sounds a little cynical to me. I think that people who value "flavor" and "verisimiltude" generally believe that player satisfaction comes from these things first, that without these things, there isn't as much player satisfaction. Thus, rules that, in their view, damage these things, don't accomplish the goal of making everyone at the table happy -- a limitation on player options for the goal of flavor or verisimilitude makes the game better for everyone, even if it's a small limitation in the rules.

And there may be plenty of players who are satisfied with that explanation, or who, at least, don't mind indulging the DM in that way.

Bottom line: I don't think rules or editions were ever the prime reasons our community got divided. I think people divided themselves with their disinterest in compromise. They drew lines in the sand and patted themselves on the back for their obstinance.

I really don't think the raw hatred of other people having fun is quite as strong as you seem to believe. People can be crazy divisive, but I think a lot of that springs from the idea that there is One Best Way To Play and everyone who isn't playing that way is Doing It Wrong. 5e seems to be abandoning the idea that there is only one way to do things, and embracing the idea that people have fun in different ways, some of them mutually exclusive.

I guess I'm not quite convinced that most of the people who play or DM D&D just want to be jerks. My own experience is that most of the people who play or DM D&D really want to have fun with their friends while pretending to be magical gumdrop elves (or whatever). It might be anomalous, but it at least is a datapoint in favor of the idea that an inclusive game isn't automatically going to be loathed by a hate-fueled base. As long as the game is inclusive, and doesn't tell you The Only Way To Play (tm), I don't see it having a major problem.

And I guess those few that DO have a problem with it...those people who can't stand the idea that my fun with the game might be different from their fun with the game...I'm pretty happy to loose those people as D&D fans. I'm really not eager to keep around folks who think that because I don't like minis combat (or whatever), I shouldn't be allowed to play Official D&D. I honestly think those people are in a minority.

 

[Felon]

I really don't think the raw hatred of other people having fun is quite as strong as you seem to believe....

I guess I'm not quite convinced that most of the people who play or DM D&D just want to be jerks....

If you think that's what I've been trying to say--that gamers are outright malevolent--then I've been wasting my breath. It's not about being mean or hateful.

Take a look at Lanefan's post. He's not a misanthrope. He's not trying to do wrong by anyone. He just has his world set up the way he wants it, and it's his way or the highway. That's not being cruel, but the "take it or leave it" demeanor does smack of seflishness (though I'm keen to hear his reply to my post). And really, that's all it takes. Look at the world around us--the economic crash, the increasingly faster depletion of our oil reserves, and so on--and you'll see how pernicious a little "looking out for number one" can be.

 

[avin]

At least in 3e, the difference between poor rolls and great rolls isn't all that much in the end.

What? We were playing Oriental Adventures 3E. The Monk rolled 18, 18, 17, 14, 12, 9... now imagine what happened... in a point buy that won't happens...

 

[Hassassin]

What? We were playing Oriental Adventures 3E. The Monk rolled 18, 18, 17, 14, 12, 9... now imagine what happened... in a point buy that won't happens...

I'm honestly interested: what happened?

My guess: the monk was quite good at 1st to maybe 3rd, but didn't outshine anyone at least after a few levels. Unless of course you had several monks... in that case the rest would have been outclassed.

 

[Celebrim]

Take a look at Lanefan's post. He's not a misanthrope. He's not trying to do wrong by anyone. He just has his world set up the way he wants it, and it's his way or the highway. That's not being cruel, but the "take it or leave it" demeanor does smack of seflishness (though I'm keen to hear his reply to my post). And really, that's all it takes. Look at the world around us--the economic crash, the increasingly faster depletion of our oil reserves, and so on--and you'll see how pernicious a little "looking out for number one" can be.

Give a guess at who I'd rather game with.

Some how I think your understanding of what is selfish and what isn't is different than mine. Let's just say that I don't think that its Lanefan that's exhibiting the selfish stance here.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Take a look at Lanefan's post. He's not a misanthrope. He's not trying to do wrong by anyone. He just has his world set up the way he wants it, and it's his way or the highway. That's not being cruel, but the "take it or leave it" demeanor does smack of seflishness (though I'm keen to hear his reply to my post). And really, that's all it takes. Look at the world around us--the economic crash, the increasingly faster depletion of our oil reserves, and so on--and you'll see how pernicious a little "looking out for number one" can be.

His first few paragraphs:

Er...are you saying a DM may not (in your view) decide how such things work in her own game irregardless of what the rules do/do not allow? If yes, we have a serious argument.

If I've designed a world where Hobbits don't do magic and Elves can't see in the dark, then that's what I'm going to run. You can play in it or not, as you wish; assuming I'll have you in.

And I wouldn't say my players "obsess over racial flavor"; but they accept the world as it is (despite their characters' best attempts to destroy it now and then, but that's another story) and if they want it to be different they'll design their own world and run that.

They lead me to understand that he is talking about what he wants at his own table, in his own world, and not about what everyone at every table should always play.

That may or may not be a game I'd be willing to play in (I don't think I'd personally have a problem with either of those restrictions), but it is pretty clearly his own game, and he doesn't appear to be saying no one should ever have halfling wizards or elves with low-light vision, just that he doesn't want them. In fact, he specifically says they'll design and run their own world, and seems to be pretty not-upset over the idea of someone else running a game in which halfling wizards are peachy keen.

So he doesn't seem to be one of these people who is selfish and petty enough to tell other people how to run their games. He merely wants to run his game the way he wants to run his game.

I see no reason why he shouldn't be catered to in being able to do that. However arbitrary or limiting the restrictions appear from the view on the Internet, the only people that can really judge his games as worth it or not are the players, and as long as they're fine with it, I see no reason to tell Lanefan that he must be more inclusive. Hegemony isn't one of D&D's strong suits (never really has been). It's an imaginary game about pretending to be magical elves. Every person is going to have their fun doing that in slightly different ways. It's not my place or WotC's place to tell them that they are doing it wrong and must change.

And to me, that seems to be the central design philosophy of 5e: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. I don't see a problem with this...er...libertarian...game design, though I would certainly see a problem with that philosophy in areas that were a little more concrete than pretending to be a magical elf.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Forced inclusiveness is just another kind of limit.