Meaning many RPGs were designed with mechanics and incentives that don't match the style of play they portray themselves as. Then once enshrined as traditional, adjustments are resisted.
D&D 5E The Fighter/Martial Problem (In Depth Ponderings)
- Thread starter Zardnaar
- Start date
Vaalingrade
Legend
What if Cavalier was done like... better?
James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
I don't think there's anything wrong with the subclass as it is. Compare and contrast other Defender abilities, like this one, from the Totem Barbarian:
"Bear. While you're raging, any creature within 5 feet of you that's hostile to you has disadvantage on attack rolls against targets other than you or another character with this feature. An enemy is immune to this effect if it can't see or hear you or if it can't be frightened."
Wow, that seems like a fairly decent defender power...too bad you get it at LEVEL 14!?! At least the Cavalier gives you Unwavering Mark right away!
Some have argued the Cavalier has a branding problem, which is why people don't play it. I don't know. I just know that given a choice, few players select this subclass.
Tony Vargas
Legend
So, in 2e, the game did not enforce the style, but the attendant culture did?
The vulnerability of magic-users in the early game was a mechanical feature tho, and probably did help establish that culture.
The other big difference between TSR & 3e culture was that the latter became very RaW driven and had an on-line consensus of what was RaW, while before that, D&D had always been very DM-driven, with little agreement what RaW was, and each DM being the final arbiter of what the rules were, and how they'd be changed.
Putting that in the mouth of a TSR-era D&Der is a leap, IMHO.
It's more of an MMO attitude, since MMOs had to actually implement a mechanic to do what DMs had been doing for decades, before, making it explicit.
TBH, I didn't even hear of the Cavalier until recently, I feel like it's a tad obscure - and, while it might be the best basic defender on offer in 5e, it's still well below the 4e standard, and stuck in a game where melee is generally a bad idea and casters don't much need protection.
TBF, balance does support or enable a lot of other design goals.
Funny, I see it as the opposite. 4e was better balanced, and it therefor worked with a wider range of 'playstyles' - more viable choices, more ways to play.
Sacred Cows - like Vancian - had long locked the game into very specific, distinctly-D&D styles.
At a given table, the GM aiming for and achieving a given playstyle could certainly be helped along by a game that over-rewards that style and punishes others. But, simply getting to know players and gathering a group that has fun together, could work, too, without so much as identifying, let alone enforcing a specific 'style.'
It really doesn't matter if a game encourages or enforces a playstyle, or works only for a narrow range of playstyles, or, y'know, can be readily run/played in a wide variety of styles - as long as that game is not the current edition of D&D.
The current edition of D&D is the typical entry point to the hobby. So, if it presents a particular style or narrow range of styles then players who can't stand that are deflected from the hobby, they try D&D, find it terrible, and figure TTRPGs just aren't for them, while players who can at least tolerate are taught it's just how D&D, and by extension RPGs, are. The latter players, some of them, may eventually grow dissatisfied and seek alternatives, giving rise to the typically very niche non-D&D side of the hobby.
So, if it's important, to you, that you have a stream of new players acclimated to your preferred style of play, assuring that D&D enforces that style (and few or no others) must seem very important.
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James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Listen, as an AD&D player myself, I can't tell you how many times I heard the line "Wizards need Fighters to protect them" from people. Surely someone had to be surprised to find out that Fighters completely lack any ability to do so!So, in 2e, the game did not enforce the style, but the attendant culture did?
The vulnerability of magic-users in the early game was a mechanical feature tho, and probably did help establish that culture.
The other big difference between TSR & 3e culture was that the latter became very RaW driven and had an on-line consensus of what was RaW, while before that, D&D had always been very DM-driven, with little agreement what RaW was, and each DM being the final arbiter of what the rules were, and how they'd be changed.
Putting that in the mouth of a TSR-era D&Der is a leap, IMHO.
It's more of an MMO attitude, since MMOs had to actually implement a mechanic to do what DMs had been doing for decades, before, making it explicit.
TBH, I didn't even hear of the Cavalier until recently, I feel like it's a tad obscure - and, while it might be the best basic defender on offer in 5e, it's still well below the 4e standard, and stuck in a game where melee is generally a bad idea and casters don't much need protection.
At a given table, the GM aiming for and achieving a given playstyle could certainly be helped along by a game that over-rewards that style and punishes others. But, simply getting to know players and gathering a group that has fun together, could work, too, without so much as identifying, let alone enforcing a specific 'style.'
It really doesn't matter if a game encourages or enforces a playstyle, or works only for a narrow range of playstyles, or, y'know, can be readily run/played in a wide variety of styles - as long as that game is not the current edition of D&D.
The current edition of D&D is the typical entry point to the hobby. So, if it presents a particular style or narrow range of styles then players who can't stand that are deflected from the hobby, they try D&D, find it terrible, and figure TTRPGs just aren't for them, while players who can at least tolerate are taught it's just how D&D, and by extension RPGs, are. The latter players, some of them, may eventually grow dissatisfied and seek alternatives, giving rise to the typically very niche non-D&D side of the hobby.
So, if it's important, to you, that you have a stream of new players acclimated to your preferred style of play, assuring that D&D enforces that style (and few or no others) must seem very important.
Crimson Longinus
Legend
A lot of people see mounted combat stuff as waste as there are a lot of situations where you can’t use them. And of course “ knight” is way cooler name than “cavalier”.
James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Sure, but the Cavalier has only one ability that deals with a mount specifically, gained at level 3 along with Unwavering Mark. All the other abilities can be used with or without a horse.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Hey, I'm right there with you on that. It was SOP for the 'fighter wall' at the front to protect the ranks behind, with MUs as safely as possible ensconced in the center of the marching order.
It's the jump to expecting mechanical enforcement that I see as odd. I saw it in online discussions (TBF, I played a reach/combat-reflexes fighter in our regular campaign, so we did have a fighter efficiently protecting allies, at least at low level, when I could find a choke point as narrow as 25') and the idea seeemed, very obviously, to come from the MMO side, it was generally phrased "Fighter needs Aggro" (when not simply "Fighter SUX," anyway).
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
How I despise the idea of non-supernatural aggro. In the old days, you used the terrain to protect your squishier members behind a wall of steel. Your class features didn't just do it for you, with no explanation needed.
Tony Vargas
Legend
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