Abstract versus concrete in games (or, why rules-light systems suck)

[John Morrow]

You're right. Zorro and the three musketeers obviously didn't know what they were doing.

To state something that I'll assume is obvious to you, Zorro and the Three Musketeers are not real.

Above, you claim,

But most people are probably familiar with people who are fast, and people who are strong. I suppose the idea that the fast guy and the
strong guy are evenly matched fighters is debatable,[...].

As various people have pointed out, it's not really all that debatable. In the real world, strong beats fast almost every time and brute strength strongly corresponds to size in athletic people. So you really aren't appealing to the fact that people are familiar with reality but with the genre convention of action movies like Zorro and The Three Musketeers.

the idea that you can abstract "fighting" into a single attribute (as Kamikaze Midget is suggesting) is a little hard for me to swallow.

If you think two fighters should have equal combat abilities regardless of whether they are strong or fast, that's incredibly easy to abstract. All you need is a system like Fudge that detaches attributes from skill and your Superb young woman will have the same chance to hit as a Superb hulking monster. And if you give all your weapons the same damage and don't factor strength into damage, they will, in fact, be exactly equal.

Ultimately, you want the characters to be equal. You can either achieve that by adding more and more details that ultimately just cancel each other out, anyway, or you can just cut to the chase and say they are both equal and not worry about why.

(EDIT: Too many spelling mistakes to ignore.)

 

[Akrasia]

I'd design my own class for this character. That's easy enough in C&C....

This is what I would do, and is one of the virtues of C&C IMO.

 

[gizmo33]

I can rationalize a Wisdom bonus for armor class. I can rationalize an Intelligence score bonus for pick pockets. Do you really want a game system where you have a number of feats equal to number of ability scores multiplied by all possible actions? Do even rules heavy games have that?

Perhaps the problem is that "strength" and "dexterity" mean one thing to you in your character concept, but another with regards to the rules. Your noblewoman character could be breaking out of talons because she was so small and fast that the monster never got a good grip on her to begin with. I recommend that you give her 16 Str and describe her as small and fast. All that ability scores have to mean is what you get bonuses towards.

 

[der_kluge]

Ummm ... all PCs in C&C get to choose at least one additional prime attribute (humans get to choose two).

There is nothing stopping you from choosing Dex as your extra prime.

Done, and done. I just *didn't* want str. I didn't have any choice in the matter on that one.

 

[der_kluge]

I can rationalize a Wisdom bonus for armor class. I can rationalize an Intelligence score bonus for pick pockets. Do you really want a game system where you have a number of feats equal to number of ability scores multiplied by all possible actions? Do even rules heavy games have that?

Perhaps the problem is that "strength" and "dexterity" mean one thing to you in your character concept, but another with regards to the rules. Your noblewoman character could be breaking out of talons because she was so small and fast that the monster never got a good grip on her to begin with. I recommend that you give her 16 Str and describe her as small and fast. All that ability scores have to mean is what you get bonuses towards.

I'd be cool with that, but then I don't qualify for two-weapon fighting. The GM does use feats, so that wouldn't be an option if I swapped my str and dex.

 

[The Shaman]

I can appreciate the simplistic, streamlined, fast approach, but it tends to make the game kind of generic, I think.

I disagree.

It's a perfectly viable character build, and should be able to stand toe-to-toe with anyone of her level who is "strong", but not fast. I don't see it was weaker. I see it as different.

Well, it's still swordsmanship, and it's not entirely out of place in a D&D campaign.

Says you.

The idea that all characters options must be equally viable is a gaming conceit I don't understand - it's one of the things that drives me absolutely up the wall with 3e D&D. Don't like the fact that your rapier-wielding swashbuckler or dagger-wielding knife-thrower or unarmed matial artist can't be the mechanical equal of the guy in plate mail with a longsword? Welcome to showbiz, kid.

That said, in C&C, you absolutely can play this kind of character if you let go of your hang-ups regarding mechanics, as has been described for you numerous times in this thread already.

But yea, I may talk to him about going with a d8 HD build, in exchange for an AC boost of +2 or something. That might be fair.

As your GM I'd certainly consider that. I'm all for this kind of personalization, which is one of the strengths of a rules-lite game system, by the way...

 

[gizmo33]

I'd be cool with that, but then I don't qualify for two-weapon fighting. The GM does use feats, so that wouldn't be an option if I swapped my str and dex.

Your character concept says "fast", so what does that have to do with two weapon fighting? Sounds like you want everything that DnD defines as "dexterity" but then want the strength bonuses as well.

 

[Particle_Man]

Not my choice to make.

It seems you have three choices, if you insist on this character concept:

1) Find a new DM with a different game that will let you play a high dex fighter. If you really hate the game that much, play a different game. Or does someone have a gun to your head?

2) Put the high stat in str and call it something else, like "muscle reaction speed" and run with that. "Fast Fighter" would work, divorced of the rules that say strength has to be called strength. Is that really so hard a mental leap? You could erase "str" from the character sheet and call it "spd" for speed, if that helps.

3) Suck it up! If you insist on putting the 11 in strength, then you won't be as tough a fighter in C&C. Asking to be as tough a fighter as the str 16 guy in C&C would be like asking to play a martian with a laser pistol. It doesn't fit the game. C&C is built on medievalish archetypes, and the swashbuckler just doesn't qualify. If you insist on a swashbuckler anyhow, you will have to do something like option #2.

Anyhow, you were describing a Noble. Sounds like the Knight class would fit. It uses Chr as one of its primes, which is also one of your ideal character's primes. Nobles know about horses and about inspiring troops. If your character is a noble, it is not a stretch to hold that she would know this stuff too. Voila. Background of character, meet the Knight class.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

2) Put the high stat in str and call it something else, like "muscle reaction speed" and run with that. "Fast Fighter" would work, divorced of the rules that say strength has to be called strength. Is that really so hard a mental leap? You could erase "str" from the character sheet and call it "spd" for speed, if that helps.

Unfortunately, the DM seems to have included D&D-style feats, and appears to be inflexible as to their requirements. Thus, if DK *did* make the Rules Light leap and change Str to "Spd" and put his 16 there, he wouldn't qualify for the Two-Weapon Fighting feat he's also trying to get.

In other words, he is currently caught on the horns of a dilemma which would be solved quite easily by either going rules-lighter or rules-heavier.

I am, however, waiting for Akrasia to point out that this is simply not true.

 

[National Acrobat]

I like C&C better, because a more light system is what I need.

I run a game for 4 hours, once a week with 10 players.

10 players with 3.0 was a tad tedious, since I tend to DM on the fly. I mean, my campaign is basically written on the back of a napkin and I don't have a lot of prep time. Plus we were getting into battles that were taking an entire session, and not getting finished because our group is so large.

We have a simple crit houserule. All natural 20's do double damage. Everything is doubled.