If it has to be fun or balance then I choose fun.
If they can get both then I will be happy.
If they can get both then I will be happy.
It isn't really about competition for people that are after balance either, at least not usually so.
If it was just competition, then it would be okay, we'd just all play Wizards and CoDzillas and try ot make the most uber character we can.
I would classify it more as "contribution". We do not want that the choice of a particular character class automatically means that character has less to contribute.
If it comes to, say Travelling, you have a Fighter. In 3E, he could train Climb, Jump and Swim, which is pretty useful for traveling. But the Wizard could fly and teleport - possibly the entire group. That means the Wizard is better than the Fighter alone for traveling, and if group abilities are used, the Fighter's ability is even superflous.
Take Combat. A Fighter has the best attack bonus, the best armor and the best defense. A Druid has his animal companio nwhose stats equal that of the Fighter or exceed it, and he can still cast spell or wild-shape.
Chosing the Druid allows you to contribute as two Fighters. Chosing the Fighter allows you contribute as... one Fighter, not surprisingy.
Now, there are other reasons other than mechanical balance why one player contributes less and one player contributes more. Someone may be shy and rather hold back, rarely adding. Another player may have no sense of tactics and make the worst mistakes. And yet another player is sleeping with the DM and gets everything he wants anyway, or whatever. Those reasons are their own "problems", but not one that the game mechanics can fix.
Competition is not the only situation where quality is relevant.I'm also confused. Do you think that choices in PC build should make a difference to PC effectiveness, or not? If so, but if the game is not in some sense competitive, than why? Conversely, if the game is in some sense competitive, than the comparison to chess isn't so inapt, is it?
To be clear, this isn't directed as a person. It's a phlilosophical statement that a game in which all meaningful choices are functionally equivalent does not require skill. Since D&D does require a significant amount of system mastery, a game that truly "accomplished" the above would lose this element (which is a significant part of the game). Relative to a game that had any sort of mechanical dynamics, simulation, or narrative utility, this "balanced" game would effectively reward suboptimal choices and punish players with vision, experience, and intelligence.To put it another way: why should you try to win an argument by calling the other side stupid?
Ability scores are abstract, yes. Just like the rest of D&D.First off, ability scores are a pretty awful form of simulation. They are so heavily abstracted that no two people can agree on what a 13 in Charisma actually means in-universe. The quantities they are representing are too abstract to clearly correlate with anything someone can recognize. Dexterity covers so many completely unrelated things that it ends up not correlating to anything at all, for example.
A game that's about creating a reality doesn't need to simulate anything? Hard to take any of your posts seriously if you don't acknowledge the value of simulation (and implicitly put balance ahead of it).Also, I don't consider simulation to be a laudable goal for an RPG.
It helps beginners because they understand what ability scores are. They can articulate that they want a strong but unwise character who jumps into things headfirst, even if they cannot understand classes/levels/etc.I don't see how it is supposed to help beginners either when the main effect of ability scores is to screw over players who aren't masters of the rules.
Nothing artificial about it. You've also mischaracterized the issue. It's not that smart and suave fighters are limited, it's that weak and clumsy ones are. The game doesn't always do enough to reward good ability scores, but what really matters is whether you have low values in your important ones. But there's nothing artificial about saying that a half-orc with 6 Int is too stupid to learn wizardry.They also artificially limit the number of viable character archetypes (where are the smart and suave fighters?).
You I have a hard time seeing how such a fundamental mechanic is "anathema". The six ability scores and their basic functions are really inherent to D&D.At a very fundamental level, ability scores are anathema to a class-based RPG like D&D.
So a commoner and a cleric should be equal in power? Or you weren't referring to NPC classes or don't think that's relevant?It would be the best if all classes had equal overall power. Merely being viable would be an acceptable, but inferior, alternative.
So the existing versions of D&D are very, very wrong?If the designers aren't trying to make all D&D classes equal in strength to each other, they are doing something very, very, very wrong. Falling short of that goal of class equality would be a legitimate source of complaints against an RPG that uses a class-based system.
It's more complex IMHO... if the Druid can fight as well as 2 Fighters then the game is still fine IF the combat is arranged so that while the Druid fights his 2orcs then my Fighter fights her own orc, and both players are challenged enough. If that's so, I don't see why I should be worried about playing the Fighter, except of the worry that in a fight me and the Druid make the mistake of engaging the wrong opponents, in case e.g. there's an orc and an ogre and the weaker PC takes on the ogre while the stronger PC mops the floor with the orc in a round.
..........
Well, what I wanted to say is that some group may actually use unbalanced options exactly to balance the best players against the beginners.
If I am confident that I have mastered the rules and I have beginner players in the group, maybe it is better to take some subpar choices while suggesting the beginners which are the best choices.
If all choices were equal, the only way to balance the players to contribute equally would be to purposefully downplay my character which is much much less fun.
You could "silo" this stuff. People can pick the "power-relevant" skills that are always important, like Stealth or Diplomacy, and they have to make choices between them. And in addition, yo uget the "flavor" skills, that are their own pool and you can select Craft (Basketweaving) and Profession (Farmer) or Perform (Interpretative Dance) - they will rarely come up, but they are there for you to take and define your character with it.NoobDragon....
I think you need to identify if something is for adventuring power or for flavor enrichment.
It's a rare case that craft or profession skills add much to the adventure. They do on occasion I'm not arguing but it's rare. None of them are as good though as stealth.
So if you say that a skill or feat or power needs to be of value to someone in some game (dishwasher wouldn't be but blacksmith would) then I'm for it. If though you say that it has to be equally value to every other skill when on the adventuring trail then I think you are taking a lot of fun elements out of the game. Your approach results in the 4e skill list. A list so short and so abstract that it's basically worthless for a lot of us.
If it has to be fun or balance then I choose fun.
If they can get both then I will be happy.
What's really interesting, to me, is that what I'd describe as "transparency" is often being described as "balance" or "what's important" to "balance". These are two completely different things in my mind.
What makes this so intriguing to me, personally, is that the big pro-balance posters (mostly pro-4e posters) are the ones describing things this way, while the posters who aren't focused on balance (or are specifically against aiming for it as a top priority... usually the pro-pre-4e crowd) seem to think of balance more along the terms that I do: equal in output (or effectiveness), to some degree.
What strikes me, really, is that I'm actually very big on balance. It was one of the three big things that was considered every time I instituted a new rule, modified one, etc. (the big three were realism, fantasy, and balance). When it comes to designing 5e, I'm very pro-balance, and I think it should be aimed for from the beginning. Yet, even with this view (pro-balance) seemingly aligned with pro-4e posters (of which I am not one... not that I play pre-4e, either), I'm coming to realize that I may not actually be on the same page with them, as our definitions differ pretty substantially.
It's just a striking, interesting development in this conversation. But, don't mind me; carry on! As always, play what you like
Why do a lot of people play uber? Why do a lot of (other) people don't play uber or see anyone else play uber at their table but still complain that the possibility exists in the game? Because they have competition in mind all the time.
It's more complex IMHO... if the Druid can fight as well as 2 Fighters then the game is still fine IF the combat is arranged so that while the Druid fights his 2orcs then my Fighter fights her own orc, and both players are challenged enough.
Well, what I wanted to say is that some group may actually use unbalanced options exactly to balance the best players against the beginners.
The difference between competititon and contribution can be this:Aha... but this sounds like competition again to me. "Your PC is twice as good as mine in combat".
Or you need to worry that you always present the Fighter with some weak opponent he can tackle while the real classes deal with the real foes. The Fighter player could still contribute more if he played a Druid instead of his subpar Fighter.It's more complex IMHO... if the Druid can fight as well as 2 Fighters then the game is still fine IF the combat is arranged so that while the Druid fights his 2orcs then my Fighter fights her own orc, and both players are challenged enough. If that's so, I don't see why I should be worried about playing the Fighter, except of the worry that in a fight me and the Druid make the mistake of engaging the wrong opponents, in case e.g. there's an orc and an ogre and the weaker PC takes on the ogre while the stronger PC mops the floor with the orc in a round.
It so far did never really achieve that. The Fighter is the simplest to play so shy or new players tend often to gravitate to it - but it's also the least effective to play.Well, what I wanted to say is that some group may actually use unbalanced options exactly to balance the best players against the beginners.
But how much fun is it for a player if you constantly suggest his course of action? Doesn't this just make it worse for him, constantly reminding him of his short-comings?If I am confident that I have mastered the rules and I have beginner players in the group, maybe it is better to take some subpar choices while suggesting the beginners which are the best choices.
If all choices were equal, the only way to balance the players to contribute equally would be to purposefully downplay my character which is much much less fun.