D&D General Compelling and Differentiated Gameplay For Spellcasters and Martial Classes

Tony Vargas said:

Funny, they were still doing that in early LARPS, too.

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Still are or I have been assuming such, add in a some strategic resources like Fate Points / Hero Points or Some such and its not the worst. If you are only going 3 call em Direct(Rock), Deceptive(Scissors) and Reactive (Paper). 5 is even better though add in Analytical and Chaotic and you can imbalance the win conditions, ahem. Because the flavor of conflict is important. ... and RPS isnt great in that arena

Garthanos said:

i cant provide a decent analysis... for DW ... will have to do more analysis of the game itself. Especially with who is fans of the game. Basically if you have to decide to apply the roll without knowing if the roll succeeded in a sense it is wasted ... it might have been better to save it. There are abilities that let you know the roll you are aiding before you spend the resource. Like a bards inspiration die if I recall.

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That inspiration die is pretty damn bad-ass really its only positive for allies and I am not even sure why? seems like an alternative of demoralizing the enemy forces with charismatic influence could/should stand right alongside aiding allies.

Here is what the implications of "tightly balanced" means upon play:

1) Macro (at the overall conflict level and "workday" level, if the system involves such resources scheduling/recharge dynamics) play outcomes have a fairly high level of predictability for GMs.

2) Following from (1) above, GMs can enact mutivariate threats (conflicts with moving parts, stages, and/or short-term downstream effects) with consistent tactical depth (both GM-side and players'-side) and reliably avoid anticlimax.

3) Decision-points have a broad spectrum of action declarations that lead mechanical success.

4) Following from (3) above, a broader spectrum of action declarations leading to mechanical success means that more archetypes can put into action a positive gamestate change (achieving story-trajectory-impact-parity which emerges from gamestate change).

Campbell said:

but the more tactical characters should have access to gameplay that the more strategic characters do not.

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What that means is niche protection and I know PF2 is trying but honestly D&D always fails at this.... . The reward garnered by strategic is not just doing what others cannot but also doing what they can more extremely you really really have to remove the latter entirely AND as you say partition off what non-casters can do making it utterly unapproachable without sacrificing the ability to do what non-casters cannot. Basically if skills accomplish things casters cannot... Caster must be lacking access to the skills. (their skill slots are spent on spell casting). Also Note how roles are niches in the combat arena. So it can work. I am just saying it hasn't. These roles are defined in what they accomplish well but all of them work towards a rather singular end goal.

Then there is the very real ambiguity between what is accomplished and method of doing so. In martial arena I cannot teleport us out of danger no and I never will ... but can I warn the party and timed perfectly collapse the roof creating a perfect escape route (see my pet Engineering skill and a recent martial practice)

So far the only way we have had to embrace the above AND to actual balance was to allow everyone to dabble in both tactical and strategic choices and what is so bloody wrong with that? (one is really just a manifestation or implementation of the other sometimes in shorter term but time is arbitrary these are not actually vastly different arenas partitioning them off is artificial) and I think the real biggy is allow skill users the similar extremes of effect casters gain and yeah you might notice that went utterly missing from 5e, skills are now a mother may I game with presumptions of mundanity plastered all over them. Damn it I did it again.

Tony Vargas said:

nor is it even fair, as starting first is an advantage

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play to tie...