The danger of the Three Pillars of D&D

[Wik]

My quick response, before slogging through four pages of threads, is that the three pillars are bang on for my style of play. However, they are NOT bang on if you have a game that favours one game type over the other two.

If you have a D&D game that is a string of combat encounters, it weights in favour of combat classes. Likewise, a strong exploration game will favour the rangers and rogues. And so on, and so forth.

However, a game wherein different classes have different strengths in entirely different arenas is a good thing. Provided the game is built in such a way that it doesn't get stuck in one scene forever (ie, no three hour combats), it is perfectly fine to allow characters that can't fight, but are great at exploration or RP.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Agree. Not everyone has to be in the spotlight for everything all the time. Let the fighter shine in combat doing what he does best. Let the rogue shine when the party is trying to figure out how to navigate the giant chessboard room without springing the trap. And so on...

This plays into the "minor challenges" aspect of the game.

It's fine for someone to sit out a combat (or an exploration, or a social interaction) if it only takes 2 or 3 die rolls before it's over. It's not so fine if it takes a frickin' hour like 4e combat does.

In zooming out to make the game more about the entire adventure rather than about the each individual challenge, it's fine to have some parts of the adventure that don't feature everyone, as long as the challenges don't take up huge chunks of time.

Sometimes you do want a pretty epic encounter featuring the whole party, though, and for those, it's important to have that minimum competency level. When the big fight against the big dragon comes at the end of the dungeon, even the theif can meaningfully contribute -- even if they can't contribute AS MUCH as the fighter can. I'd also want the thief to be REQUIRED to contribute: as much as the fighter is the combat master, and will be achieving most of the successes here, he can't do it himself. He needs his friends who aren't so good at combat to come help out.

Similarly, the bard might need her friends who aren't so good at social skills to come help out in the big peace treaty signing. And the theif might need her friends who aren't the best at traversing dangerous territory to blaze a trail anyway. Big encounters should use all the members of the party, and all the members of the party should have some basic method of contribution (there is no Always Fail, and no one character will ever Always Succeed).

This directly hews to the amount of time the activity takes up at the table. I don't want to spend an hour -- or even really a HALF hour! -- in combat. Most of the time, I want to spend about five, and in a big climax, fifteen minutes is still probably fine. In a game where you don't take up huge chunks of time doing one single activity, you have a lot of flexibility to make some characters not so great at a given activity, without making them feel entirely boned as players (which is why it's important for DMs to communicate when they're going to focus almost entirely on one thing or another: so that players can pick characters that won't be poor picks for that focus).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Any robust character archetype involves strengths and weaknesses inherent in the concept. For example, your typical "Dumb Muscle" character is very strong, but not so smart.

Also more stereotype than archetype. A PC, even a barbarian, shouldn't just be 'dumb muscle,' leave that shallow concept to all the namless 'Human Thug Minion 5's out there.

And 'not so smart' (low INT) gets in the way of social & exploration, how, exactly? Social skills are CHA, you can be dim but charming or even a natural leader (I'll leave it to the reader to fill in a presidential example, here). Nature, Perception, and Dungeoneering are all WIS. A not-so-bright dwarven fighter could be an expert dungeoneer, a not-so-bright barbarian could be virtually at one with the wilderness.

One of my current characters is a gnome artificer who is great with machines, but who can't figure out people. I deliberately didn't invest a THING into her social skills, and it's great fun when I am forced into a social situation with her.

Social challenges can still be contributed to in other ways. What if your artificer makes a delightful gift (bribe) for the more socially adept characters to present? What if he rigs up a magical spying gizmo to get information prior to a negotiation? He can still 'not get' people while helping out in one way or another.

The 'pillars' are a nice concept, and they're really quite broad, 'social' could include a lot of things besides being charming.

To not be able to model those weaknesses -- to be unable to make them "fun failures" -- would be a problem for a system.

So, weaknesses are desirable, from a character-building standpoint.

Then think of class abilities as self-serve, you don't have to take /all/ of them. You can choose to play a weak character because you want to choose a weak character, but that shouldn't force everyone with the same class to have the same weakness.

The challenge, from a game-design standpoint, is to make the weakness notable, without unintentionally crippling a character.

Sure. But what use should a druid be in an urban intrigue campaign? Personally, I'd prefer if a DM just told me right out: "This is going to be an urban intrigue campaign, don't bother to roll a druid or a ranger or a barbarian, because they will suck at what this campaign is about,"

Frankly, the DM shouldn't have to threaten you with suckage - if you're told what sort of campaign it is, you should bring in apropriate characters. A balanced game doesn't force a choice on you, it allows choices. You can still decline something thematically inapropriate even though it might be mechanically viable. When you're dealing with imbalances, OTOH, you're pushed into inapropriate choices that might be strictly superior to more reasonable ones. You shouldn't have to play a self-buffing cleric and try to disguise the clericness just because you really want a strong melee fighter who's also competent in social situations and can contribute some when exploring.

rather than somehow forcing the DM to shoehorn barbarians and druids into his urban intrigue campaign, and giving druids and barbarians useful urban intrigue skills that make little to no sense as their character archetypes are really NOT in that vein.

Urban intrigue isn't a pillar. Social & exploration are. So the druid who can negotiate adeptly with Trents and Dryads and Elementals isn't inept in the social pillar just because he's not up the politics of an urban area.

I think it's pretty unsatisfying to force everyone to be equally competent at all areas of every kind of challenge.

Someone accused of a straw man, earlier, and you've got another one, here. The pillars are very broad. You could could have classes balanced independently in each pillar, everyone having reasonably balanced abilities in social, combat, and exploration, while still having those abilities be varied and situational. A barbarian could be a fish out of water in the court of a civilized imperial capital, and unable to do much beyond offend or amuse them like a caged animal, but in a negotiation with an orc cheiftant, or attempt to trick a giant, or calm a nervous guard drake, he might be quite capable, indeed. A fighter might be a capable commander and able to win friends and wield influence with men from salt-of-the-eart soldiers to high-born knights - but a hopeless idiot around women. Ability in a pillar doesn't have to be universal, just balanced within that pillar.

 

[IanB]

I think my problem with the OP's take is that it seems to assume that if two characters aren't equally powerful, that the less-powerful one is not contributing. There's a huge amount of space between 'contributing' and 'useless'.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Also more stereotype than archetype.

*shrug* I see nothing wrong with the character. I'd welcome it at my tables and play it as my character. It has an illustrious history in multiple forms accross many types of media. It's got a TV Tropes page. It's got Princess Bride pedigree. Someone who wants to play that kind of character should be able to have that weakness represented and relevant during play.

Again, point being: weaknesses and disadvantages are a core part of playing an interesting character. They're also a significant resource of "fun failure."

What if your artificer makes a delightful gift (bribe) for the more socially adept characters to present? What if he rigs up a magical spying gizmo to get information prior to a negotiation? He can still 'not get' people while helping out in one way or another.

Kind of missing the point, here. I don't want my gnome artificer to be good at contributing to a social situation. That runs against the character I'm playing. Her awkwardness and incompetence is part of the reason it's fun to play her. If she was the equal of the high-Cha Rogues or Shaman|Invoker in the party, that would suck.

Similarly, I'm playing a thri-kreen who is kind of barbaric and cruel. Again, she's not great at social situations. I don't WANT her to be as good at persuading people as the silver-tongued noble is. That's not her thing. Her thing is stabby doom.

Weaknesses are a core part of what makes playing a character fun.

You can choose to play a weak character because you want to choose a weak character, but that shouldn't force everyone with the same class to have the same weakness.

As long as classes overlap with character archetypes (and they do very much), part of the reason we have them is to demonstrate in game-mechanical terms what our characters are good at, and what they're not so good at.

There's no reason to make every character class able to always equally contribute in all three situations. If you don't want to have a particular weakness, you pick a different class. No one is making me play an Aspergaficer, I just thought it'd be a fun character. No one is making me play the Barbarian Bug Queen, I just thought it'd be a fun character. No one makes you play the Squishy Wizard or the Drunk Cleric or the Dumb Muscle, but those characters have weaknesses that are just as fun to play as their strengths.

This isn't to say that classes should be absolute and inflexible, just that there's no reason to make every character potentially awesome in every situation. Okay, so Wizards are poor at combat, but great at exploration. Okay, so Sorcerers are maybe better at combat, but not so great at finding their way around. Okay, so Warlocks are awesome at social interaction, but prefer to leave fighting to their teammates. There's leeway, but these remain generally true, as much as it is generally true that dwarves are tough and gruff and elves are graceful and frail.

You shouldn't have to play a self-buffing cleric and try to disguise the clericness just because you really want a strong melee fighter who's also competent in social situations and can contribute some when exploring.

A cleric might not be the best choice of character class for a person who wants to do that.

Every character should be able to contribute, but the contributions should be unequal.

So if you want to be a strong fighter (say, Combat A) who is competent in social situations (say, Social C), and can contribute when exploring (say, Exploraiton D), you don't have to play a cleric to do that necessraily. You could, for instance, play a Paladin. They aren't great at exploration, and maybe you weighted Combat over Social (perhaps they started at B each), so you will probably never find the hidden path (a minor exploration challenge), but you can contribute to escaping the Mage's Maze (a major exploration challenve), and you'll be singlehandedly bashing goblins (a minor combat challenge), and be the main guy wailing on the dragon (a major combat challenge), and you can probably convince most NPC's to see the light (a minor social challenge), and are a great addition when trying to convince the elves to lend members to the king's army that is fighting the necromancer lord (a major social challenge).

Your buddy the wizard might have Combat D (magic missile!), Social C (charm person!), and Exploration A (Teleport!).

The thief might have Combat C (backstab!), Social C (Bluff!), and Exploration B (stealth!).

They can contribute. Those contributions aren't equal. There are some quick rolls where only one character needs to bother.

. So the druid who can negotiate adeptly with Trents and Dryads and Elementals isn't inept in the social pillar just because he's not up the politics of an urban area.
...
A barbarian could be a fish out of water in the court of a civilized imperial capital, and unable to do much beyond offend or amuse them like a caged animal, but in a negotiation with an orc cheiftant, or attempt to trick a giant, or calm a nervous guard drake, he might be quite capable, indeed. A fighter might be a capable commander and able to win friends and wield influence with men from salt-of-the-eart soldiers to high-born knights - but a hopeless idiot around women. Ability in a pillar doesn't have to be universal, just balanced within that pillar.

But then you have a "you can't sneak attack undead" scenario, where a specific situation bones a character class unbeknownst to anyone. Rather than bake that into class design and pretend like the Barbarian and the Bard should be on equal footing, concepts like Advantage can be used. Overlal, the Druid is a Social D. With animals, she's got Advantage, raising it to Social B. Overall, the barbarian is Social D. With dudes he's defeated in an arm wrestling contest, he's Social C. Or whatever.

 

[Spatula]

That doesn't make my argument a strawman. A strawman argument is a deliberately weak, insincere argument posited just for the purpose of knocking it down. Since I actually do think that's less than satisfying, it's kind of impossible for it to be a strawman.

The idea that "everyone is good at everything" is a bit of a strawman, because no one is really proposing that. Although I suppose that depends on how one defines "good at" and "everything".

But what use should a druid be in an urban intrigue campaign?

While it's not an ideal setting for a druid, I would find that being able to befriend and communicate with animals is probably pretty damn useful in such a campaign. Not to mention the ability to detect poison, control the weather, and change shape into a mouse or bird.

I think it's pretty unsatisfying to force everyone to be equally competent at all areas of every kind of challenge.

Again, who is proposing this? Equal at all areas of every kind of challenge? Here's a trap! Oh good, everyone is equally capable of locating and disarming it!

 

[Lanefan]

The idea that "everyone is good at everything" is a bit of a strawman, because no one is really proposing that. Although I suppose that depends on how one defines "good at" and "everything".

Reading between some lines, it seems there's a segment of the population here that want all characters to be able to (about evenly) function in combat, and (about evenly) function in social situations. However...

Again, who is proposing this? Equal at all areas of every kind of challenge? Here's a trap! Oh good, everyone is equally capable of locating and disarming it!

...I haven't seen anyone yet asking for all characters to be able to (about evenly) function during the exploration part of the game. Odd, that.

The question is whether such relatively-even functionality in combat and social-RP is desireable for the game or not. On the small scale I say certainly not - it's a fact of life that not everybody will be useful all the time and that there's going to be (ideally short) periods where you just let yourself be entertained by what the others are doing; knowing you'll get your chance later. On the large scale, over the course of several adventures, then yes: everyone should be able to do their bit.

That said, I still think social interaction should be up to the player.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

I am not sure I understand you. Are you saying that the assassin should completely avoid the fight and the fighter should completely avoid the ball? Does that mean that the dungeon master should just have those players play Nintendo while the dungeon delve or the ball occurs?

One option I suggested upthread was that PC + henchman might be a version of the "three pillars" strategy - so at the ball the player primarily plays his/her assassin, while the muscle waits outside guarding the carriage and keeping an eye out for enemy assasins, while in the dungeon the muscle takes the lead and fights the orcs, while the assassin hangs out in the middle and maybe kibbitzes with the mapper.

A different option might be for the GM to tailor adventures more closely to the areas of competence of his/her players' PCs, and/or for the players to work more closely together to build a cohesive party. I think this is a big issue in D&D, because perhaps more than any other RPG it has such a strong emphasis on party play.

I have seen games - mostly using 2nd ed AD&D - in which players build dapper assassins and then run them through the GM's dungeon crawls, or in which players build dumb muscle and have GMs who send them to ball after ball, but in my experience this tends to towards the dysfunctional end of the roleplaying spectrum.

I'm kind of wondering about that too. As I see it, these are characters out of their best element not situations in which something has gone wrong.

Perhaps. It's a matter of degree. And of mechanics - for example, it's fairly easy to envision mechanics in which the dapper assassin, caught in melee, is able to prevail through wit and deftness. Such mechanics probably would have a high metagame component, however, meaning they're probably not going to be part of core D&Dnext.

But when I think of 3 pillars PCs, and especially ones that don't rely so heavily on metagame mechanics, I think of Conan, Aragorn, Merlin, The Grey Mouser, or if I go outside fantasy tropes then a slew of superheroes, James Bond, etc. Whereas dumb muscle and dapper assassins seem to me just not to be 3 pillars archetypes. If the game is really about the 3 pillars, then I'm not sure it should be going out of its way to include dapper assassins and dumb muscle among its PC build options (certainly not in the core).

these are situations that sometimes generate the best long term stories. So I'd agree that these situations can be meaningful, though not because the PCs have any mechanic that can help them make it meaningful. Often, it's because they lack a mechanic to make it positively as opposed to negatively meaningful.

I agree that the occasional quirky failure can be meaningful. If these generate the best long term stories, though, then I want to have a second look at whether the RPG's mechanics are really doing a good job of supporting the sort of play it claims to be supporting.

 

[pemerton]

Sometimes you do want a pretty epic encounter featuring the whole party, though, and for those, it's important to have that minimum competency level. When the big fight against the big dragon comes at the end of the dungeon, even the theif can meaningfully contribute -- even if they can't contribute AS MUCH as the fighter can. I'd also want the thief to be REQUIRED to contribute: as much as the fighter is the combat master, and will be achieving most of the successes here, he can't do it himself. He needs his friends who aren't so good at combat to come help out.

To date, D&D encounter design has taken it for granted that in combat everyone will take part. The technique it has used to achieve this is (i) to have all the PCs at more-or-less the same place on the map, and (ii) to have the monsters threatening everyone at that place on the map.

It would be nice to see techniques a bit more sophisticated than that, that go beyond "Oh, and there's a complexity 1 skill challenge hazard that the rogue need to deal with."

To date, D&D social encounter design has given no thought at all to how all the PCs should be incorporated, and how the GM should adjudicate that. If your dragon example is to generalise across all 3 pillars - and I think that it should - then the designers need to think about action resolution mechanics, and advice to GMs on designing and adjudicating encounters at least as hard as they are thinking about PC build options.

Social challenges can still be contributed to in other ways.

<snip>

The 'pillars' are a nice concept, and they're really quite broad, 'social' could include a lot of things besides being charming.

Yes (and couldn't XP you, sorry). Again, this goes to the designers giving GM's decent guidelines on how to set up and adjudicate situations in the social and exploration pillars, so as to make PCs useful without requiring them to break type.

A balanced game doesn't force a choice on you, it allows choices. You can still decline something thematically inapropriate even though it might be mechanically viable. When you're dealing with imbalances, OTOH, you're pushed into inapropriate choices that might be strictly superior to more reasonable ones. You shouldn't have to play a self-buffing cleric and try to disguise the clericness just because you really want a strong melee fighter who's also competent in social situations and can contribute some when exploring.

Another excellent point.

A related question: in 4e, to play a socially competent fighter you really have to build a warlord. Do you think this is objectionable in the same way as your cleric example, or should we just think of the warlord as the socially competent subclass of fighter?

 

[pemerton]

The constant discussion about balance is kind of strange to me. It makes me realize just how much of the gameplay in my D&D (rules+group) is pretty class-agnostic and communal.

The players interact and make plans together constantly. Like when it comes to the MU using their spells, it's not uncommon for the group Fighter to give them a suggestion.

My table is fairly communal in the sort of way you describe, but I still think there is something important about being able to impact on a situation via your mechancial resources as a player (which will typically be via your PC, even if it's a bit indirect like the lazy warlord or via your PC's henchman or summoned creature).

This just doesn't sound like it has any connection to D&D at all. Like it would be impossible to tell from this that you posted this in a D&D related forum.

You're not even using DM instead of GM.

I didn't know there was some minimum WotC-trademarked quotient for posts. If I say "beholder", "mind flayer" and "yuan-ti" all at once will that be an improvement?

On the point of winning vs other goals of play - in D&D that goes back at least to a whole heap of non-winning focused Dragon articles in the early-to-mid 80s, and Oriental Adventures as an official AD&D supplement. On the wooing and scaring of maidens, there is a nymph encounter in The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, and probably others in modules of comparable vintage, and similar sort of stuff in Beyond the Crystal Cave, I think. And that's all before we get to 2nd ed AD&D.