Unpopular opinions go here

[Micah Sweet]

You could design a fun game that’s actually balanced without resorting to making gameplay tedious for some players as the means of “balancing” things. Just sayin’.

What game is that? Is it 4e? Bevause I'm not sure how popular that opinion is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yep. The only place character options should be balanced is mechanics and effectiveness. Not how tedious it is to play the option. Everything in a game should be fun otherwise it should be changed to make it fun. Is your game about fighting monsters like D&D? Then every option should be fun when fighting monsters. If some options are just better than others (cough casters cough), then you have a badly designed game.

And I'm sure fun means the same thing to everyone too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, it's about the results. If the approach produces bad results, it's bad. Starting from the fiction, i.e. deciding everything that's true in the world first, then trying to design classes (or any other element for that matter) will give you nothing new. You'll just get the same old same old every time. The mechanics might be minor variations on what's gone before, but they generally won't be new. Write new mechanics, then write new fiction to justify those mechanics.

Awesome. Let's do that. I loved that about 4E. Anyone can cast ritual magic. Sounds perfect. Great way to boost up the boring non-casters. Now just strip out rituals from slot-based casting. Love it.

Again, mechanics then fiction. Why? Because, again, if you start from the fiction you established years ago you're artificially restrained to following that fiction, i.e. nothing new gets to happen because it doesn't follow the old fiction. That's bad.

Only if they produce good results. The only thing that matters is the results. Does your approach produce nothing new? Then it's bad.

"But the established fiction..." is just a roundabout appeal to tradition. We can do better.

Couldn't disagree more. Fiction first, then mechanics to suit. 4e blatantly focusing on the reverse is the main reason I bounced off it so hard.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You might not. I do.

Do you run your AD&D game raw or have you built up house rules and subsystems and added classes and spells over time?

Why? Maybe you don't need anything new. The answer to that is likely the same as my answer to your questions.

Or it's a sign of stagnation.

You don't need backwards compatibility in an RPG. At all. Internal consistency within an edition of a game, sure. Internal consistency across every edition of the game? No thanks. At that point there's no reason to make anything new. But maybe that works for you as you're still rocking AD&D. That doesn't work for me. I want something a bit more recent and updated.

Because stagnation is bad.

No, new for the sake of interesting things to do and play. I've been playing AD&D for almost 40 years. I'm tired of it. I've played 5E from the playtest until a few months ago. I'm tired of it. Better mechanics. Newer inspirations. Not something half stuck in the past, unable to change and grow and evolve.

Feel free to play your own game then. I still design fiction first.

 

[Weiley31]

The whole "Bag of Rats" tactics is the STUPIDEST thing ever and I have no probs having the deity of whatever animal or what not appear right on the spot and auto smite the PC of the player who insists on doing it all the time.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't know. Plenty of fantasy and science fiction settings have a lot of languages and seem to make it work.

That's because there's a writer that can make it inconvenient for the characters only to the degree it serves the plot, rather than what it will tend to do in the game which is usually a binary between "doesn't matter at all" and "is a constant pain in the behind without adding anything to play".

 

[Pedantic]

That's because there's a writer that can make it inconvenient for the characters only to the degree it serves the plot, rather than what it will tend to do in the game which is usually a binary between "doesn't matter at all" and "is a constant pain in the behind without adding anything to play".

I think the best take on languages for adventure games is Stargate SG-1. Everyone speaks the same language (except for that one society inherited from the movie) old mysterious texts are written in "ancient language" and "ancient languages" can be decoded by "linguists" with some amount of time/effort.

Fundamentally, having a bunch of different languages going around rarely makes for interesting gameplay.

 

[Faolyn]

You realize a 1e hill giant has 40(ish) hp right? And that’s one of the more powerful monsters. Ogres can be dropped by a fighter in one round without even a strength bonus.

Did you miss where I listed the giant's hp? And I'm well aware that few people back then used average hit points the way they do now. From what I recall of modules at the time (at least from Dungeon mag), you were as likely to find a hill giant with 60 hp as it was to find one with 20.

Also, unless you have that super-high Strength, most powerful magical weapon, were at least 7th level, and access to a book that, IIRC, was often considered to be a bit OP at the time, you're not doing anywhere near the amount of damage I mentioned.

So sure, you could bring down an ogre or even a giant in one round... but I doubt that was the norm.

 

[Emberashh]

Some OSR fans may not want to hear it but emphasizing player skill IS video gamey, not emphasizing character skill.

Theres a reason the only video game holdouts on character skill are almost always cRPGs.

 

[Cadence]

Some OSR fans may not want to hear it but emphasizing player skill IS video gamey, not emphasizing character skill.

Theres a reason the only video game holdouts on character skill are almost always cRPGs.

Is it player skill if you keep getting to respawn and try again with the same character?

(I ask for permission to reserve the right to amend and correct if my impression of video games is multiple decades out of date and incorrect now).