Payn's Ponderings; System mastery and the concept of fair fight.

[FrogReaver]

Yes, of course, what's the right mix for you?

Despite the premise of your OP, the 2 aren’t in any kind of conflict. I want 100% fairness and 100% system mastery. IMO of course.

 

[Emerikol]

One of my biggest complaints about system mastery is ability scores. I hate that every fighter has a low int. Every wizard is a weakling. Now I do think it is likely that classes will have a good score in their prime requisite. I also hate everyone seems to have an 18 in their prime.

Instead of traditional rolling I've considered something like this...
7d6 take best 3
5d6 take best 3
5d6 take best 3
4d6 take best 3
4d6 take best 3
3d6

The player then assigns those rolls where he wants BEFORE rolling. That means a fighter has a higher likelihood of being dumb but he could still roll an 18.

 

[Emerikol]

Despite the premise of your OP, the 2 aren’t in any kind of conflict. I want 100% fairness and 100% system mastery. IMO of course.

If the system is perfectly balanced, then whatever you chose as a player would be equally good with every other choice. That would be an impossibility to me but that is what it would mean.

 

[TiQuinn]

One of my biggest complaints about system mastery is ability scores. I hate that every fighter has a low int. Every wizard is a weakling. Now I do think it is likely that classes will have a good score in their prime requisite. I also hate everyone seems to have an 18 in their prime.

Instead of traditional rolling I've considered something like this...
7d6 take best 3
5d6 take best 3
5d6 take best 3
4d6 take best 3
4d6 take best 3
3d6

The player then assigns those rolls where he wants BEFORE rolling. That means a fighter has a higher likelihood of being dumb but he could still roll an 18.

I think rolling scores is a nice encapsulation of the difference between the two play styles. I love rolling ability scores. It is part of the thrill of character creation - the big moment where you find out what kind of PC you were gonna have and you don’t really know how it’s going to turn out. The system mastery folks would turn towards optimizing or planning for the highest ability scores in whatever abilities they need it, the fair play didn’t NOT do this to an extent but they always seem more cool with variation.

 

[FrogReaver]

If the system is perfectly balanced, then whatever you chose as a player would be equally good with every other choice. That would be an impossibility to me but that is what it would mean.

I don’t believe you need ‘perfectly balanced’ to achieve ‘perfectly fair’.

Do you?

 

[payn]

One of my biggest complaints about system mastery is ability scores. I hate that every fighter has a low int. Every wizard is a weakling. Now I do think it is likely that classes will have a good score in their prime requisite. I also hate everyone seems to have an 18 in their prime.

Instead of traditional rolling I've considered something like this...
7d6 take best 3
5d6 take best 3
5d6 take best 3
4d6 take best 3
4d6 take best 3
3d6

The player then assigns those rolls where he wants BEFORE rolling. That means a fighter has a higher likelihood of being dumb but he could still roll an 18.

This is an interesting bit. I dislike rolling ability scores becasue of the unfairness that results for players. I found it very challenging to build encounters as a GM for a varied party. One person rolls very well, and thus needs more challenging encounters. It's either too hard for the others, or a cake walk for the above average. Then, of course, the next step was to build in a ton of fail safes in stat gen so that this didnt happen. Problem is it stops feeling random at all and is more illusory at that point. I've come around to point buy in crunchy games like D&D. For me this hits the fair match motivation for me.

That said, I do also dislike the SAD design modern fantasy RPGs seem to have taken. Time for the system master in me to step forward. I like classes MAD where you need to diversify stats. Also, you can build any number of fighters and they will work differently from one another. No more pump str and con then dump everything else, for every single fighter.

 

[payn]

Despite the premise of your OP, the 2 aren’t in any kind of conflict. I want 100% fairness and 100% system mastery. IMO of course.

Thanks for sharing. Also, from the OP;

Let me note here that I am not making the case that these motivational subjects are opposed, or that can only exist singularly, many players such as myself are appealed by both concepts.

 

[FrogReaver]

Thanks for sharing. Also, from the OP;

I took you to mean there that there could be a mix, but that fundamentally you would be trading some of one for some of the other.

Further, if you agree we can have total fairness and total system mastery present then I’m really not sure what the rest of your OP was getting at?

 

[payn]

I took you to mean there that there could be a mix, but that fundamentally you would be trading some of one for some of the other.

Further, if you agree we can have total fairness and total system mastery present then I’m really not sure what the rest of your OP was getting at?

It differs for some folks. Some people may dislike system mastery, others may only care about system mastery. I was avoiding generalizations and asking folks what they individually think and prefer from these two (of many) game motivations.

 

[FrogReaver]

It differs for some folks. Some people may dislike system mastery, others may only care about system mastery. I was avoiding generalizations and asking folks what they individually think and prefer from these two (of many) game motivations.

Which drives right back to my challenge. Everyone wants both system mastery and fairness.

Now there are times to dial back system mastery in favor of other considerations, say verisimilitude or preventing a never ending arms race between dm and player, but why would system mastery ever interfere with fairness?