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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Brother MacLaren" data-source="post: 3930795" data-attributes="member: 15999">I would worry about the designers' focus on "Your PC should be able to do something cool in every round of every fight."  If "fun" is defined by how much your own PC gets to shine, then you might be resentful at times when you should be happy for your team succeeding due to a teammate's daring, cleverness, or luck.In American football, a wide receiver (WR) is often a star player.  But sometimes, one will go an entire game without scoring or making a big play.  "Teamwork" doesn't mean "everybody gets the spotlight every game."  That said, 3.5 is designed so that there are no offensive linemen (a position that basically never makes the highlight reel) -- everybody does have a real chance of being a star at least some of the time.  In my experience with MarauderX's gaming group in VA, some of my most memorable moments were watching other PCs shine, and some of the other players' most memorable moments were watching my PC shine.  It was just as cool and exciting to see them do cool stuff as it was to see my PC do that cool stuff.  We root for one another.  When everybody was incapacitated except for the bard, who was fighting for all of our lives against two liches and a death knight... that was exciting.  When the TWF rogue's Cuisinart of Doom is more effective than anything a Drd20 can do (as it has been sometimes), I happily play healer and keep him on his feet.  When the arcane trickster was having fun with Magic Jar infiltration, we all sat around and enjoyed the spectacle.  This campaign is like watching a great TV series for which I am both an actor AND a fan.  I just love to watch it, even the scenes I'm not in.  By contrast, in other groups I've been in, some players ended a session unhappy if the party did amazingly well but their PCs didn't get to do as much cool stuff, whether because they had bad luck with the dice, they had some idea that didn't work out, or whatever.  That kind of player is just concerned with what *their* PC gets to do.  And I think that's missing the point of teamwork.  It'd be like a WR sulking after a playoff win because his plays didn't get called.Earlier editions kept this mentality at bay with their resource management mechanic.  If you were the fighter with a wizard in the party, you'd know that you would get to shine most of the time, but it would be his turn when he decided to bust out his big spells.  If you were playing the wizard, you'd accept that in many combats, you'd do little or nothing, but once in a while you'd get your big moment.  There was no expectation that everybody would contribute equally in every combat.So, I worry that an increased emphasis on what YOUR PC gets to do each round of each combat is going to be detrimental to the game.  Players will still have sessions when their PC is incapacitated or less than useful, will still have opponents against whom they are sub-optimal, and they'll be less happy than they would be if they were to look at the game from a team-oriented point of view.</blockquote>

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