D&D 5E Why the claim of combat and class balance between the classes is mainly a forum issue. (In my opinion)

[Bedrockgames]

I would use "player empowerment" here as well. What I was trying to convey above (with "if I was forced to use") was basically the fact that I think (a) the term "player entitlement" is (at least in part) a confused term and (b) a proxy for "player empowerment" (as its component parts lead to that).



I think the two (entitled to receive and things you can then do as result) are inextricably linked in RPGs as they correlate fictional positioning. For instance, in AD&D2e you are "entitled" (using the pejorative nature of that word as a framing mechanism for this dialogue seems pretty instructive to me, to be quite honest) to spells if you're a spellcaster or weapon spec/heavy armor/great thac0/great saves if you're a fighter. You didn't "earn" these things. You get them just by showing up and making a character. Is this "player entitlement" to the fictional positioning of your character that the game defaults to?

i never really saw these as entitlement issues. All games give players things as they gain xp (at least all games with an xp system do). These could be skill points, powers, hit points, spells, etc. I do not see any of that stemming from a sense of entitlement. When it comes to stuff like magic items parceled by level or wishlists, again i do not see this as players having a sense of entitelement, i just see it as an approach thay doesnt work for me becuase magic items are things i consider more part of the setting than my character (and something i would rather acquire through exploration with some suprise involved than get automatically....or at the very least i need to make them). The same with magic. I am okay with getting a handful of spells the character discovered on his own, but i like the fact that other spells need to be found in the form of scrolls and spell books (at least for mages). To me that isnt just a huge balancing factor, it is also part of the thrill of playing.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I would like to propose the possibility that this might not be a 4e thing, but a modern/younger gamer thing - maybe players who came to D&D from video games and WoW are more prone to this behavior, and that it's not caused by the rules system at all.

It could even be that 4e (and even 3e) are designed for that kind of play is because of the kind of players they were seeing.

Just a thought.

In defense of Gen Y, I don't think that's true. We're the ones who grew up on a steady diet of terrorism and economic collapses. Not surprisingly, we're the ones that like all those "gritty", "realistic" shows. Instant gratification is overrated.

i never really saw these as entitlement issues. All games give players things as they gain xp (at least all games with an xp system do). These could be skill points, powers, hit points, spells, etc. I do not see any of that stemming from a sense of entitlement.

I kind of do. Advancement in D&D lacks the nuance of growth and learning over time. In fact, people grow old, and get worn down as well, but rpg advancement by and large just makes you better. In a way, the notion that barely surviving a ferocious battle with a terrifying monster makes you better instead of giving you PTSD is an entitlement.

However, that is, as you note, enumerated in the rules. A lot of these other things I'm talking about aren't.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I kind of do. Advancement in D&D lacks the nuance of growth and learning over time. In fact, people grow old, and get worn down as well, but rpg advancement by and large just makes you better. In a way, the notion that barely surviving a ferocious battle with a terrifying monster makes you better instead of giving you PTSD is an entitlement.

However, that is, as you note, enumerated in the rules. A lot of these other things I'm talking about aren't.

I never suggested they are realistic, they are just a simple method for emulating learning and advancement. But being unrealistic doesn't make them entitement issues of players. Entitlement is a pretty strong word in my opinion. While some players may approach these rewards with a sense of entitlement, i dont think the existence of parceled equipment or powers or class skills automatically corresponds to it. Not wanting PTSD rules for facing ogres, doesn't suggest entitlement issues to me. It suggests people just are not as interested in gritty realism.

also many games, D&D included have ageing rules.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Did you cut-and-paste this from a previous post? It sounds like I've read this before.

A lot of these edition war threads are the same talking points repeated again and again. But, I've never seen anyone copying and pasting. It's easy to check.

Indeed. I didn't cut and paste but may have either read or said something similar before. The same arguments phrased only slightly differently come around again and again.

 

[Sadras]

I just don't find "player entitlement" a very clear description of the objection. If the issue is that you don't want players to be able to make choices that effect the ingame fiction beyond their PCs (like the location of valuable magic items) just say that.

Whereas the language of "player entitlment" I tend to find overly moralised (and often connected to broader lectures about the inability of conteporary people to engage in delayed gratificatin etc - all of which strikes me as completely misplaced in the analysis of hobby gaming mechanics).

Well then, it depends if one does associate it (player entitlement) with as you said 'the inability of contemporary people to engage in delayed gratification' and if hobby gaming mechanics aggravate said inability by the players. I do, I'm sure others do not.

That depends what you mean by "judge those mechanics as wrong". If mechanics work well to their intended effect and the effect is worthwhile for some groups while not contributing to social problems then no you can't judge them as wrong. You can however say that they are not something you personally like because they don't fit with the way you want to play. And that's absolutely fine.

I'm all for 'political correctness' and for everyone to state their opinions with the likes and dislikes of a game/system, however for someone who has had experience with previous D&D editions a fundamental change to the mechanics which affects the historical base of all D&D and which change is part of the core system and not reflected as the optional system, then I feel I have every right to judge it as wrong, regardless of whether the math works, or who likes it. Inherent plusses are all settings inclusive, treasure parcels are not. The inherent system should have been core.
Changing a saving throw system does not affect D&D's narrative, Vancian spells still exist 4E they just have faster refreshment rates, combat is still the same it has just been codified with powers - sure on those mechanics one can judge as like or dislike and not judge the mechanics as wrong.

 

[Hussar]

Why the claim of combat and class balance between the classes is mainly a for...

It's funny the minute a DM steps outside the XP guidelines or even sometimes if a fight turned out harder than the players felt it should have been "for 4e"... I've seen this behavior from 4e players. On another note doesn't 3e promise Zero to Hero play... as opposed to Big Damn Hero? I feel like 4e is the only edition who promised this as the default (from level 1 onward).

Yes but let's be honest here. All you have to do is start at the earliest posts on EN World and you'll see exactly the same thing said about 3e ten or more years ago.

The idea of player entitlement is hardly a new one.

 

[Balesir]

I don't think it's particularly feasible for any playing group not to be generally on the same page. I also suspect that most every group approaches the game from a general understanding that the players are their characters and the DM is in charge, and then riffs off of that to their taste.

Way back when you may have been right, but these days I would guess that, although a majority probably still take this view (tradition dies hard), saying "most every group" is an overstatement. There is a significant and growing minority that realise that this pattern is just one possible way to approach things.

Well, for those of us who bought our games from retail stores and depended on a community to furnish players, being a connoisseur of rpgs isn't really viable.

Not that it isn't an interesting list, but without a reservoir of books to browse through, a bunch of money to buy some of them, and a ton of free time, it's not much good to me personally. And what does do fine for me is the version of 3.X mishmash I run now.

I think you overestimate how hard it is/would be. Not every system is as sprawling and splatted out as D&D; the complete DragonQuest system is contained in one book (albeit there are three versions, due to its history). Noble Knight games has the 3rd edition (the TSR one - decidedly not the best, but not that far different from 2nd) for ten bucks here. The whole of second edition is available on Scribd here, including the Arcane Wisdom supplement (the only supplement ever written for DQ, and mostly included in 3rd Edition, never published as a supplement and downloadable for free here - a page that has other good stuff besides).

HârnMaster Gold is $20 for the full player rules (like D&D's PHB) in PDF here. $85.50 gets you all the rules for HMG, complete.

My suggestion would be either to join Scribd and grab the full DQ 2nd Edition Revised or get the 3rd Edition for $10 and copy-paste from Scribd the bits that were cut (Black Magics and Demon Summoning, for political correctness reasons, basically - the full differences are listed on the fan page I linked above). That and the Arcane Wisdom download (free - from the fan page) and you'll have everything "official" for the rules system.

I also don't see that immersion and naturalism contradict the idea of "escapist action movie fun". That's just another thing one can immerse oneself in. Those ideas don't mandate "realism" per se, and indeed the D&D world is clearly not real.

Yes, you can explore action adventure immersively, but IME it has some issues. Immersive play does not require close-to-realworld physics, but it can have problems if the GM's conception of how the world works is significantly different from that of the players. Using real world physics helps, because most folks are acquainted with how they work (even if they have a range of misconceptions and don't really understand them in any depth). You can get over this problem through communication; this generally requires one of two things - comprehensive rules (that all can read to understand how things work in the game world) or time for the GM to reveal the world's nature to the players gradually.

The danger is always that the player has their character try something that they think they should be quite capable of, but the GM takes a different view... Alternatively, the GM puts the characters in a situation that requires capabilities that the GM, but not the players, view the characters as possessing.

In fact, if I were going to try something new, I'd purposefully not do another fantasy simulation engine, I'd go somewhere very different.

OK - try Daredevils - $14 here. The complete system is in one book - the other publications are adventures.

As to D&D, real castles were inhabited by inbred dilettantes, not the best and the brightest. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the D&D world is likewise not a meritocracy, and that complex social forces keep everything in balance. D&D also has a strong tradition of humanlike interventionist deities, so deus ex machina is hardly out of the question.

It's not a question of merit - it's a question of power. Those who took castles (who weren't inbred until considerable time had passed, incidentally) were the ones who led armies, but when one individual can wipe out that army the system breaks down, somewhat. Real world history relies on the fact that, physically, one human being is pretty similar in capability to any other. Even record-breaking athletes can't act at twice the speed of everyone else; even top martial artists don't expect to take on a regiment and win.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Way back when you may have been right, but these days I would guess that, although a majority probably still take this view (tradition dies hard), saying "most every group" is an overstatement. There is a significant and growing minority that realise that this pattern is just one possible way to approach things.

To the extent that this minority exists, I think it's been driven specifically by disenchantment with D&D. I see plenty of people holding on to older editions of D&D, and some who started with D&D but have moved on to other games, which don't carry the same expectations.

I think D&D very specifically has the connotation of limited knowledge and power for the players and a very active DM; the word "Dungeon Master" is one of the few things that casual players or general gamers who don't know much about roleplaying understand.

Certainly, I'm nowhere near the end of that spectrum; authoritarian and even adversarial DMing are significant schools of though in the community, as is method acting roleplaying. I once had a DM who banned the players from owning a DMG because he didn't want us to know what was in it. Never mind people who use pregenerated characters or otherwise take away parts of the one avenue the players do have to influence the world: their characters.

I think you overestimate how hard it is/would be.

These days, what I think about when I'm actually preparing for a game is not the mechanics. Conversely, I spend a lot of effort tackling some really exciting creative goals. I'd really like to keep it that way.

The only thing that would shake me from that is a transition as compelling and as easy as moving from 2e to 3e, and even then only maybe.

Yes, you can explore action adventure immersively, but IME it has some issues.

Not playing it immersively has some issues as well. It's very difficult to create a sense of stakes if the players aren't feeling the same emotions as their characters on some level.

It's not a question of merit - it's a question of power. Those who took castles (who weren't inbred until considerable time had passed, incidentally) were the ones who led armies, but when one individual can wipe out that army the system breaks down, somewhat. Real world history relies on the fact that, physically, one human being is pretty similar in capability to any other. Even record-breaking athletes can't act at twice the speed of everyone else; even top martial artists don't expect to take on a regiment and win.

I believe this is the rationale for E6. It's true that the power curve of D&D has always been sharp. And this is an expectation that I think is baked in for most of us. If you're playing, you deserve rewards, and they'd better be tangible and large. I found that in running D&D, if the characters went more than a couple of sessions without gaining a level, the players start complaining. However, this rate of advancement leads to arguably untenable game world implications.

Those implications aren't any more damaging than is inherent in any setting where people have large power differences, including various comic book, sci fi, and fantasy works. Authors of genre fiction all have their own means of tackling the power difference issue.

 

[Ratskinner]

I never suggested they are realistic, they are just a simple method for emulating learning and advancement.

I agree with most of what you said, but I'm not sure how accurate this is. It seems to me that in the games earliest incarnations that XP and leveling are more directly a reflection of rewarding the player for "skillful play" and all that. Much more of a running "score", than representing something in the fiction of the character. As with many things D&D, as a simple method for emulating something....well its just too simple to do the job well. It doesn't even emulate how things work in fiction most of the time (where character development rather than advancement is far more often the rule of the day.) Nonetheless, even early in the game's history, as people started to push it towards a more story-focused mode of play, people began to interpret XP and advancement in this way.

Begin Ramble:

Honestly, I think its also one of those areas where D&D (and perhaps moreso all its computerized descendents) have colored the way we (even as a broader culture) look at the fiction. (Would tvtropes include "Took a level of 8@d@$$" without D&D?)

Many is the time, on this board and others, when I've witnessed rather tortured arguments about how XP or levels or HP or a particular class or a class' ability or a spell etc. does a good job emulating this or that about "the genre". I am often struck by how backwards the thinking is for would-be emulators. That is, if you want to emulate fiction, start with the fiction and work to produce mechanisms for the game....I very much doubt that anything of the kind happened with most of D&D's mechanics. Instead, the mechanics were adapted (from a naval wargame!?!) or developed for the skirmish game, and the fantasy trappings are added around them later. The fact that D&D doesn't address things at the story level is what makes very open-ended abilities like Illusions, Wildshape, or Charm so potentially game-breaking despite the fact that they are the stock and trade of legendary wizardry while artillery-ish* fireballs rarely make an appearance.

*I don't think I'm actually aware of anything like D&D's fireballs appearing until the advent of modern artillery had had time to infiltrate authors' minds. Plenty of other goofy fire magic, though.

 

[Balesir]

To the extent that this minority exists, I think it's been driven specifically by disenchantment with D&D. I see plenty of people holding on to older editions of D&D, and some who started with D&D but have moved on to other games, which don't carry the same expectations.

Hmm, can't really comment. I became disenchanted with D&D around 1980 or so, but not over DM/GM power assumptions. Indeed, I retained those assumptions, originally generated by D&D, I think, for many more years.

I don't think the "GM uber alles" approach is necessary or even particularly desirable for D&D, though. When I came back to 3.5e D&D with the GM-superiority "goggles" off, I was quite surprised (and pleased) with what I found. That sensation only increased with 4E.

I think D&D very specifically has the connotation of limited knowledge and power for the players and a very active DM; the word "Dungeon Master" is one of the few things that casual players or general gamers who don't know much about roleplaying understand.

It's implicit and explicit in much of the rules explanatory text, I agree, but it's not actually a useful part of the rules, as such - just a style thing. I think it originally arose due to a perceived need to "challenge" the players - if you are going to do that, you need some power to do it with, was the received wisdom. If you start with rules that create challenge by their nature, however, and teach players the joy of challenging themselves, then the GM dictat becomes a lot less necessary (and a lot less desirable for both GM and players).

These days, what I think about when I'm actually preparing for a game is not the mechanics. Conversely, I spend a lot of effort tackling some really exciting creative goals. I'd really like to keep it that way.

The only thing that would shake me from that is a transition as compelling and as easy as moving from 2e to 3e, and even then only maybe.

Well, honestly, transitioning to DQ would, I'm pretty sure, be every bit as simple as going from 2e D&D to 3e D&D. Take a look at the Scribd pages - those are, literally, all the "official" rules there are for DQ. They take up about the same page count as the 3e/4e PHB. True, you need to create/convert the more unusual monsters, but it's not that hard with a clear, coherent system to do that. And you lose all the difficulties with power curves, character classes, "hit points as dramatic immunity" and so on. It's the only system with which I have run a game where I set it up so the PCs got hold of a very powerful magical artifact, and they took it into the middle of a huge forest and buried it, placing wards to stop it being found!

Not playing it immersively has some issues as well. It's very difficult to create a sense of stakes if the players aren't feeling the same emotions as their characters on some level.

With action adventure? I find that the stakes in action adventure are pretty simple - the aim is to "win" (which might translate as simply surviving, or might mean defeating the BBEG), more often than not. The "stakes" are generally "the destruction of all you hold dear" - and that works with third person stances just as well as immersion.

Those implications aren't any more damaging than is inherent in any setting where people have large power differences, including various comic book, sci fi, and fantasy works. Authors of genre fiction all have their own means of tackling the power difference issue.

Ah, but authors' characters have the most awesome character "Power" of them all - it's called "Script Manipulation"!