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<blockquote data-quote="Ridley's Cohort" data-source="post: 1912572" data-attributes="member: 545">We play this game for fun.&nbsp; My experience is that what is most important is that each player gets a chance to have his PC strut his stuff.&nbsp; Now &quot;stuff&quot; might be combat prowess or good negotiating skills or sneaking into the castle to steal the map.&nbsp; It could also mean character quirks and well roleplayed jokes put in the spotlight of the session.D&amp;D out of the box encourages similarly levelled characters that will see regular doses of combat.&nbsp; If opposition is an interesting mix, the PCs will naturally shine to different degrees in different encounters.&nbsp; And those with more skills who are probably a little weaker in combat, will get more spotlight time outside of combat.&nbsp; It works out pretty well on its own so that everyone will usually have fun with little or no planning.If there are level disparities of two levels or more between characters, you are in danger of seeing the &quot;everything you can do, I can do better&quot; syndrome.&nbsp; In its more pathological form it becomes &quot;anything that will not bore you, will kill me instantly.&quot;&nbsp; From a player POV, that can get very old after a couple sessions.&nbsp; It is just not fun for most players.Now there are roleplaying routes around this problem.&nbsp; But it does not usually happen on its own.&nbsp; Someone has to make extra effort, be it the DM or the player of the weak/strong PC or the players as a group.&nbsp; This is too much of a can of worms for most DMs to bother with on top of their normal gaming workload.&nbsp; The easiest choice is to make sure PCs are within ~1 level of each other.&nbsp; If you want try an imbalanced game, you should definitely go into it with your eyes open...</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ridley's Cohort, post: 1912572, member: 545"] We play this game for fun. My experience is that what is most important is that each player gets a chance to have his PC [i]strut his stuff[/i]. Now "stuff" might be combat prowess or good negotiating skills or sneaking into the castle to steal the map. It could also mean character quirks and well roleplayed jokes put in the spotlight of the session. D&D out of the box encourages similarly levelled characters that will see regular doses of combat. If opposition is an interesting mix, the PCs will naturally shine to different degrees in different encounters. And those with more skills who are probably a little weaker in combat, will get more spotlight time outside of combat. It works out pretty well on its own so that everyone will usually have fun with little or no planning. If there are level disparities of two levels or more between characters, you are in danger of seeing the "everything you can do, I can do better" syndrome. In its more pathological form it becomes "anything that will not bore you, will kill me instantly." From a player POV, that can get very old after a couple sessions. It is just not fun for most players. Now there are roleplaying routes around this problem. But it does not usually happen on its own. Someone has to make extra effort, be it the DM or the player of the weak/strong PC or the players as a group. This is too much of a can of worms for most DMs to bother with on top of their normal gaming workload. The [i]easiest[/i] choice is to make sure PCs are within ~1 level of each other. If you want try an imbalanced game, you should definitely go into it with your eyes open... [/QUOTE]

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