Why is the Vancian system still so popular?

[Neonchameleon]

I think you're the one trying to take the mile here because of your assumptions of play. You're assuming that the ability to do all of these things you suggest must be done extensively or the player is sloppy. that's the real canard here because that's not really the case. Any and all of these things may be done (or not done) in moderation without a major balance hit on the system. That's determined by the players and DM at the individual game table.

You confuse player choice with character choice. And it's all In Character choices I've been pointing out except for the druid. I assume that the character is actually feeling that they are in danger for their life and taking maters seriously. And I assume that most people who regularly risk their lives, and those fo their friends (and possibly even the fate of the world) and know they are going to in the future will take at least basic steps to prepare for this. To me to do otherwise would indicate that the character had a deathwish.

And although I can play PCs with a deathwish (a paladin of mine springs to mind) I wouldn't want all my characters to have one.

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

Seriously I'm going to try to sell you on some of Essentials later in the post *snip*

Interesting read. If Essentials really is more AD&D than 3e, I'll have to get my hands on it--I play 3e and some 4e now but I've always been a bit more of an AD&D fan. Thanks for the recommendation.

That 3E breaks when pushed is a flaw, but hardly killer. All game systems eventually break when pushed, unless cut down so simple that there are highly limited combinations. (And even some of those systems still break when pushed.) No, 3Es problem is that it breaks, readily, when not pushed, but by accident. That it breaks selectively and partially when not pushed only means that it is playable by people that are lucky.

Playing 3E without restrained system mastery (i.e. you know exactly where it breaks but choose not to go there) is akin to a bunch of folks tailgating each other at high speeds on the freeway. A lot of them, a lot of the time, will get where they want to go, because no one slammed on the breaks at the wrong moment. Some will be a little stressed at the close calls, but they might get over that. Eventually, someone has a massive wreck, though. Maybe someone should call Ralph Nader.

To be fair, it easily breaks accidentally if you don't go in with AD&D assumptions in mind. If you're essentially trying to play 2e using 3e rules, you can go a long time before you accidentally break something, simply because you're not even thinking of doing the sorts of things that would break it. It's much more of a problem for people who either go into it cold having never played AD&D or who deliberately try to play in a non-AD&D style.

 

[Libramarian]

I'm not being moralistic about it, or arguing about a game design standpoint. I'm just stating that some *players* (as opossed to PC) might want to play Conan-like or The Great Mouse-like characters, and still being comparatively competent to other players who choose diferent kinds of flavor for their in game avatars.

In your proposed example, the game states that wizards start being worse, and end being better. A *LOT* of players might feel bad treated by that. For example, a player that is an unconditional fan of martial archetypes (like Conan or Aragorn) and ussually plays in high level campaigns, or a player that is an unconditional fan lof caster-archetypes, but play mostly low level campaigns. Or a martial fan that play from 1-20/30, but want to stay balanced through the whole career. In your proposed scenario, those players have two options: either they can play a character they *don't want* to play, or they can go and find a different game. None of those are good for WotC, from a selling perspective.

If a player wants to play a fighter, and stay gimped, they should be able to. But if a player wants to play a fighter that stay balanced, they should be able to as well. There's a whole difference between me, deciding I like to play a class that is gimped, and *you* deciding that the class I like to play *has* to be a gimped class.

It's not about playing a "gimped" class.

The attraction of the traditional D&D Wizard (I will agree with those earlier in the thread who said the reason people like "Vancian" wizards isn't really because of its Vancian-ness as such, although *I* love The Dying Earth and do have a fondness for spell memorization for that reason) is that it's "hard mode". If you choose wizard, in exchange for more work and a more fragile character at lower levels, you have the opportunity to have greater relative power later.

It's a "hard mode" with benefits.

I purchased The Witcher 2 videogame yesterday. The hardest difficulty is called "Dark" and it says that if you play on this difficulty you can get some unique items and quests. Cool!

I imagine some people are upset that they'll be missing out on content just because they choose to play on Easy mode. But too bad for you, Easy-moders. Games are supposed to reward greater skill and risk-tolerance.

Now if you understand this aspect -- perhaps you will then say "'difficulty' as it were should be divorced from class, and there should be 'easy mode' and 'hard mode's for each."

I am not entirely averse to this and it could be space for a compromise...if it at least is recognized that there is a drawback any time you weaken the connection between fluff and mechanics. This should never be done willy-nilly just to offer players maximum aesthetic freedom. Many people want the game to provide a strong aesthetic "out of the box". i strongly feel that "refluffing" is not as popular among the general gaming populace as it is among some 4e players.

But if there are compelling archetypes for easy mode Wizards and hard mode Fighters, then OK perhaps.

 

[Ranes]

Actually the implicit one is that you aren't using wands of CLW to simply heal the fighter.

By the way, thank you for 'implicit'; more apposite than the word I used.

Sorry, everyone. As you were.

 

[WizarDru]

I find it interesting some of the arguments put forth in defense or against the Vancian system. Not that I find them invalid in any way, just that in some cases they seem to point towards other notions that might actually point that folks aren't necessarily discussing the likes/dislikes of the Vancian system.

For example: one school of thought is that the Vancian system is evil because it makes the casters too powerful. Certainly this isn't a new thought. EGG's original thinking was that as the game wore on, the classes progressed at different rates as part of his attempt at balance. While the Vancian system was not designed by him specifically, his implementation was certainly an attempt at balance. Taking AD&D to task for not doing the best job of implementing that balance seems, to me, to be like criticizing Watt's steam engine forty years after its invention. That is, it was the first iteration of the concept (well, OK, the newcomen engine, let's not get derailed) and successive versions, iterations and competitors refined the concept.

The innate balance mechanism was that fighters were tough at the start and got tougher, but only just so. It was easier for them to survive a fight and engage monsters. Wizards, by contrast, were fragile...the proverbial eggshells-with-hammers. Each had separate save tables and required different XP to advance. This led to the wizards being dependent on the fighters, not unlike the archers on a battlefield needed protecting by infantry...D&D did, of course, rise from wargaming roots and it shows quite well, there.

Are wizards and clerics in D&D anything like the characters in fiction they attempt to emulate, at least in semblance? Of course not. Because the needs of fiction and gameplay are not the same. Gandalf, of course, isn't your typical wizard of legend. Because excepting Gandalf, most wizards would dwell in a tower or evil crypt...they didn't go looking for adventure, they were the adventure others sought out.

The idea that vancian casters get too much flexibility begs the question: do they get too much flexibility or do other classes get too little (assuming that this is an issue)? Under 3E, a core concern was that casters could often do a better job of a task than a class devoted to that task...under limited circumstances for a certain period of time, assuming they can prepare or know beforehand what challenge they're facing. This was a problem in previous editions, but 3E codified it more than most....but at the same time, 3E was more balanced than any edition before it, in terms of player parity. This fact, IMHO, made perceived imbalances more noticeable or at the very least, more annoying. The claim that Vancian casters could outdo the fighter fell in the same place as the rogue sneak attack being overpowered, to me...true in specific instances, but not true over the long haul. That wizard could easily take out the FIRST Umber Hulk. It was the second or third that was the problem. By the time the party was escaping the dungeon, he might be spent, while the fighter was still ready for action. The rogue might have dealt more damage (with the help of flanks), but his hit points dwindled and now he had to stay back.

I liked the Sorceror an awful lot. He showed that the Vancian system could be tweaked, just like other systems. I think he also illustrates a point that I'm not sure some folks are seeing. That is, that the implementation of the Vancian system does not necessarily mean it has to be identical to previous iterations, other than a base adherence to the concept.

Consider the 3E sorceror for a moment. He sacrifices depth for volume. This typically led to sorcerors being 'blasters', but didn't necessarily have to end up that way. They could make great illusionists, for example. Because of the way they altered how they used the vancian system, they played differently...even when they had access to the same resources. A 5E vancian system does not have to mean an exact replicat of AD&D or 3E's versions. It sounds like many folks are assuming that D&D Next's implementation will be an exacting recreation of what has gone before and judging the system on that. There's nothing wrong with that, but I suspect that Monte and his team are probably looking to improve the system and make it more flexibile than previous iterations.

For me, personally, Vancian magic isn't better, but it is part of D&D's flavor and I'd like to see it included as the default. I LOVE alternate magic systems, be they rune magic, psionics, spell point systems, keywords or what have you. But if I had to choose one system that was core to the conceit of D&D (as opposed to generic fantasy), I'd use Vancian.

 

[innerdude]

3e's main flaw, as I see it, is it's highly responsive to player choices. Players who push the envelope can be much more powerful than those who don't. If players at a table aren't in general agreement on play styles with respect to optimization, conflict and trouble will occur.

And this is a huge point, because the response to this need to agree on playstyles was 4e .... where the rules in large part negated the need to have a social contract in place for optimization, conflict, and class balance "trouble."

If, as a designer, you view the D&D ruleset as primarily a vehicle to combat resolution, then removing the need for that social contract probably seems like a high-minded, absolutely necessary step for the game to evolve.

At it's core, 4e's seductive undertones are, "Don't be beholden to the whims and fancies of DMs and players. Build the character YOU want, and it will work. Never feel useless, never let those Wizards and CoDzillas rule you again."

It's a powerful, persuasive argument to the right kind of players and groups. And while there were certainly other avenues to pursue the goal of inter-class balance than the sum total of 4e's approach, 4e definitely solved "it" better than any other edition of D&D to date.

I have zero problem with the goal as stated; I'm actually drawn to it. I also think there are lots of ways to approach that goal that D&D has yet to explore.

(If there is a flaw in this view, as Ranes states below, it's the assumption that the need for inter-party "balance," and thus the removal of a need for an active social contract governing "balance" in playstyle, was important enough that other elements of robustness were sacrificed, generally affecting groups that DON'T treat combat resolution as the primary raison d'etre of RPGs.)

 

[Gorgoroth]

+1

Being the guy that always wants to play Aragorn I always though that a high level Aragon will have an army at his back...

Warder

An unkillable undead one, at that.

 

[Ranes]

And this is a huge point, because the response to this need to agree on playstyles was 4e .... where the rules in large part negated the need to have a social contract in place for optimization, conflict, and balance "trouble."

If, as a designer, you view the D&D rule set as primarily a vehicle to combat resolution, then removing the need for that social contract probably seems like a high-minded, absolutely necessary step for the game to evolve.

At it's core, 4e's seductive undertones are, "Don't be beholden to the whims and fancies of DMs and players. Build the character YOU want, and it will work...

So far so good.

"...Never feel useless, never let those Wizards and CoDzillas rule you again."

And it's still that easy to come off the rails. It's not a binary argument.

It's a powerful, persuasive argument to the right kind of players and groups.

Undoubtedly.

And while there were certainly other avenues to pursue that goal than the sum total of 4e's approach, 4e definitely solved it better than any other edition of D&D to date.

Er, not for any given definition of 'it' but for yours, evidently.

I have zero problem with the goal as stated; I'm actually drawn to it. I also think there are lots of ways to approach that goal that D&D has yet to explore.

When you say 'the goal as stated', if you mean, as you said earlier, "If, as a designer, you view the D&D ruleset as primarily a vehicle to combat resolution..." then I agree. However, I also think the way they chose to explore that with 4e (in terms of how certain elements of the narrative were given back to the player) undervalued me as a DM and, by extension, DMs in general.

On the other hand, as a designer, if you don't regard the rule set's primary goal as being that of combat resolution vehicle, then 4e's solution to solving whatever it was it was supposed to solve was overshadowed - for some - by all the new pitfalls it brought with it.

Anyway, here we are.

 

[innerdude]

Ranes: by "it," I mean the need for a social contract so that players of certain classes were not automatically going to overshadow other players / classes.

As billd91 states, you really have to have one or the other--players who agree not to stretch the limits of the rule system, or a rules system that keeps the players within highly codified limits of "stretching."

When it comes down to it, there's really two specific arguments generally levied against "Vancian" casting:

1. It assumes a very specific "flavor" or "fluff" surrounding the workings of magic that does not appeal to everyone.

2. It creates more leeway than many people / groups like in having to adjudicate the "stretchable" limits of magic. It has to be tightly regulated to not overshadow non-caster classes, and as some have pointed out in this thread, it's been that way since 1e. Vancian magic is just hard to balance so that it's fun for the players of casters, AND the players of non-casters, because it inherently creates high rules "stretchiness."

 

[Tony Vargas]

OK come on. Don't use language like "this is all martial classes can hope for". Classes can't hope for anything. They are not people.

"All the players who prefer martial archetypes can hope for..." Better?

We're not talking about the relative balance of power among classes of people.

And the classes of people who play those classes of characters.

They're just classes in a role-playing game. It's got nothing to do with being fair or unfair to real people. If somebody really feels their fighter is underpowered, then they can always just play a damn wizard.

It's a game balance issue. If people are playing wizards, or self-buffing clerics, or Druids in animal form, instead of fighters because those builds are strictly superior to the fighter, then that's a balance problem. A sign of players coping with a poorly designed game.

There are many possible solutions. For instance, the game could simply delete inferior classes as PC options. Or it could present them in a more balanced fashion, like 4e did. As long as whatever classes are presented are balanced, the game is functional.

This is not an ethical issue.

Game balance does share some parallels with ethics, though, so it's not a bad metaphor. Not one that I was using, at least not intentionally, this time, but a fair one.

It's just an aesthetic issue. Some people like the mundane martial/magical caster image, and some people like the...

If you like the idea of player characters that can be either martial or magical, then you'd want a game where both sorts are viable: a balanced game. If you just want mundane to contrast with the superior feats and abilities of those with magic - in a 'Harry Potter' sort of universe, for instance, or M:tA or Ars Magica for RPG instances - then there's no need for mundane to be PCs, there are more than enough muggle NPCs to provide the contrast.

well I haven't even figured out what the image 4e presents is yet

Heroic fantasy. The PCs in 4e - all of them - are heroes in a fantasy setting. Not sidekicks or magic item caddies or healbots or meatshields. Freak'n heroes who actually make a difference when they pull out the stops and do something heroic.