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4e design in 5.5e ?
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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8417226" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>Thing is, I mean it. Personally I'd be quite happy if point-buy and standard array went away and never came back.</p><p></p><p>Yet at one time that group was the bulk of players. Something happened to change that view; I don't know what, but I do wonder how it can be reversed.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure it came quite that early. Even in 2e days there was still very much a sense of "play what the dice will give you"; though I suspect all the options in later 2e - and then, of course, 3e - tended to promote the "character build" side of the game, which got players thinking ahead of time as to what that build might look like and forced more focus onto mechanical character development.</p><p></p><p>Another aspect - and this might begin way further back, in the DragonLance era in 1e - is that players got a bit more precious about their characters; and thus wanted - and, later, came to expect - them to survive longer and further, to be in play more of the time. This expectation has been reflected in the design of 4e and even more so in 5e, where as written* it's more difficult to kill characters and there's far fewer opportunities to otherwise take a character out of the play for any more than a round or two.</p><p></p><p>* - yes, obviously a DM can ratchet up the difficulty if she likes; I'm just looking at the RAW.</p><p></p><p>And this points out another change in outlook over time. At one time the fantasy being brought to life <strong>was</strong> those stories and events, and the growth and (mechanical) development of individual characters - while welcome, of course - was more seen as a pleasant side effect rather than the main reason for play. </p><p></p><p>More recently there seems to be far more focus on the player's own character, with whatever stories or events that might happen relegated more to stage-setting and a reason for the individual character to shine.</p><p></p><p>Player entitlement is probably too harsh a term to put to all this, and player selfishness is definitely too harsh; but there's no denying the general shift of player-side focus from "party and what it does" to "own PC and what it does" over the decades.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 8417226, member: 29398"] Thing is, I mean it. Personally I'd be quite happy if point-buy and standard array went away and never came back. Yet at one time that group was the bulk of players. Something happened to change that view; I don't know what, but I do wonder how it can be reversed. I'm not sure it came quite that early. Even in 2e days there was still very much a sense of "play what the dice will give you"; though I suspect all the options in later 2e - and then, of course, 3e - tended to promote the "character build" side of the game, which got players thinking ahead of time as to what that build might look like and forced more focus onto mechanical character development. Another aspect - and this might begin way further back, in the DragonLance era in 1e - is that players got a bit more precious about their characters; and thus wanted - and, later, came to expect - them to survive longer and further, to be in play more of the time. This expectation has been reflected in the design of 4e and even more so in 5e, where as written* it's more difficult to kill characters and there's far fewer opportunities to otherwise take a character out of the play for any more than a round or two. * - yes, obviously a DM can ratchet up the difficulty if she likes; I'm just looking at the RAW. And this points out another change in outlook over time. At one time the fantasy being brought to life [B]was[/B] those stories and events, and the growth and (mechanical) development of individual characters - while welcome, of course - was more seen as a pleasant side effect rather than the main reason for play. More recently there seems to be far more focus on the player's own character, with whatever stories or events that might happen relegated more to stage-setting and a reason for the individual character to shine. Player entitlement is probably too harsh a term to put to all this, and player selfishness is definitely too harsh; but there's no denying the general shift of player-side focus from "party and what it does" to "own PC and what it does" over the decades. [/QUOTE]
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