Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Belen" data-source="post: 1403938" data-attributes="member: 1405">While participating in the &quot;what is 3e missing that other editions had&quot; thread, I started to wonder what others do in their games that help provide flavor.&nbsp; Sometimes, it feels that the rules set is so overpowering and &quot;balanced,&quot; that it becomes difficult to add flavor to spells, encounters etc.&nbsp; For example, has anyone ever built a monster/NPC/trap that the players decided to tear down in order to find the &quot;rules&quot; that allowed you to build it?&nbsp; I know that I have had players who speculated during combat regarding what additional classes such and such had in order to do something.For me, such speculations tend to suck the flavor out of encounters.&nbsp; I consider it just another way for players to figure out how to defeat an encounter based on their knowledge of rules, feats, and class abilities.&nbsp; It is a deadly and insidious form of meta-gaming.Personally, I tend to create rules and abilities that do not always fit the players existing knowledge of the game.&nbsp; I keep these creations private so that the players cannot use rules knowledge to &quot;win&quot; or &quot;beat&quot; the GM.&nbsp; Although, this does lead to cries of &quot;unfair&quot; or &quot;unbalanced.&quot;&nbsp; Am I the only one who has come to believe that 3e &quot;balance&quot; means &quot;balanced in favor of the players or PCs?&quot;The flavor abilities are never created to hose character abilities or defeat the party, instead, they are added to create a sense of mystery.&nbsp; In some cases, they are created in order to allow specific characters to shine by allowing certain character traits etc be the force that wins the encounter.&nbsp; Of course,&nbsp; no complaints are levied when that happens.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue&nbsp; &nbsp; :p"&nbsp; data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Personally, I have two types of players&nbsp; Gamists- the game should be balanced and encounters should run to code;&nbsp; Roleplayers- that was a fun and exciting encounter that we will remember. So.....How do you handle adding flavor to encounters etc?How do you manage the differing types of gamers?What are your philosophies?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Belen, post: 1403938, member: 1405"] While participating in the "what is 3e missing that other editions had" thread, I started to wonder what others do in their games that help provide flavor. Sometimes, it feels that the rules set is so overpowering and "balanced," that it becomes difficult to add flavor to spells, encounters etc. For example, has anyone ever built a monster/NPC/trap that the players decided to tear down in order to find the "rules" that allowed you to build it? I know that I have had players who speculated during combat regarding what additional classes such and such had in order to do something. For me, such speculations tend to suck the flavor out of encounters. I consider it just another way for players to figure out how to defeat an encounter based on their knowledge of rules, feats, and class abilities. It is a deadly and insidious form of meta-gaming. Personally, I tend to create rules and abilities that do not always fit the players existing knowledge of the game. I keep these creations private so that the players cannot use rules knowledge to "win" or "beat" the GM. Although, this does lead to cries of "unfair" or "unbalanced." Am I the only one who has come to believe that 3e "balance" means "balanced in favor of the players or PCs?" The flavor abilities are never created to hose character abilities or defeat the party, instead, they are added to create a sense of mystery. In some cases, they are created in order to allow specific characters to shine by allowing certain character traits etc be the force that wins the encounter. Of course, no complaints are levied when that happens. :p Personally, I have two types of players [I]Gamists- the game should be balanced and encounters should run to code; Roleplayers- that was a fun and exciting encounter that we will remember.[/I] So..... How do you handle adding flavor to encounters etc? How do you manage the differing types of gamers? What are your philosophies? [/QUOTE]

Verification