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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BryonD" data-source="post: 4847672" data-attributes="member: 957">Your question assumes a lack of DMing skill to keep the system from breaking down.Honestly, if 3X was breaking down for you, then no.  The limitations of the math working are much better than being unable to manage the system.But speaking as someone with no "break down" concerns, the limitations of "the math works" are all cost for no gain.You question makes me think of someone who suggests that bikes with training wheels are better because they are far less worse than constantly falling over.  The assumption that everyone falls without them implicit in the position is absurd.  And the presumption of "break down" is just the same.Yes, if the game was constantly breaking down *for you*, then *you* are better off settling for something else.Honestly, the phrase "the math works" sounds nice in theory.  But in practice, I find it to be directly contrary to what I most enjoy in roleplaying.  I like being in a setting that feels like some kind of reality.  It doesn't need to be actual reality, and it doesn't need to be Middle Earth, or Hyperboria, or Camelot.  It doesn't have to be anything in particular, but it needs to feel like it is something like all of these, and many others.  And that you can customize to make your version feel more like whichever one you want.And a key factor is all of them, at least the one that "the math works" so jarring grates across, is that equity is not a part of any of them.  Heroes, villains, and supporting cast can all have widely varied strengths and weaknesses.  Everyone doesn't have 1/2 level +/- a limited window of modifiers for nearly everything.  Things are not all balanced cleanly into equitable percent chance ranges.   This, to me, is one of the key reasons 4E is so much less appealing as an RPG.  Of course I can role play to it.  But that isn't the point.  I find it much more enjoyable being in the position of a character with totally fantastic strengths, but still a real-ish feel of strengths and weaknesses and a need to find a way to exploit my strengths against my challenges weaknesses, rather than being a token carefully balanced for consistent challenge resolution.  Knowing that I'm a fighter and that evil wizard can charm me in an instant is great.  That's a problem that I have to deal with.  But if I can get his magic defenses down, I'll be able to grind him to a pulp in very short order.  Because I'm not balanced to fend off his mind control and he ain't balanced to deal with my blade in a straight up throw down. The math don't work.  And it feels right.  And it is great.  And I'm that guy trying to solve this problem. In 4E I can role play the exact same guy.  And I can go face the exact same evil wizard.  And then the math starts "working".  And the encounter doesn't play out the way it should.  The mechanics do not live up to the demands of my imagination and sense of being into a fantastic world.  Instead, everything is balanced.  I can still win, and I can still lose.  And putting my strengths against his weaknesses is still right there.  But it is all dampened.  All the numbers are in the same ballpark and I know it could be so much more.  But the damn training wheels are keeping the bike balanced.  My roleplay is exactly the same, but the feedback the pure mechanics of the system offer are so much less than what can be.</blockquote>

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