DemoMonkey
Hero
"Doctors HATE it when you choose this Feat!"
But I will add this: I think they're in a bit of a bind in terms of loosening up race rules, since most races really don't have major features to distinguish them. Take away culture and ability mods and dwarves are left with poison resistance, at most. Elves don't sleep, but that's a ribbon. And orcs just have better eyes.
That was my sentiment the first time around as well. Just “yep, this seems well thought out and insightful. Nothing much else to say.”Posting a comment to say "I agree" seemed a bit excessive.
I've played games that were entirely point-buy, and there are different trade-offs there, and advancement is ... not really congruent with level-based advancement, most of the time.To be more clear, there is a distinction (IMO) between the following two things-
1. Choosing a name. Once you choose a name (Really, Derek, you're calling your character Heywood Jablowmi again?), you are foreclosed from choosing any other name.
2. Choosing a class. Yes, once you choose a class, you are foreclosed from choosing other classes. But that is a meaningful choice because it involves tradeoffs and restrictions.
If you had a class-less, pick an ability system, I think you remove a lot of the restrictions and tradeoffs that make it interesting for many players.
There are definitely trade-offs in point-based systems, but I think Snarf’s thesis is basically that having a few big choices that narrow your advancement path is D&D’s secret sauce. There’s something about your character advancing in ways other characters just can’t that is... if not necessarily more appealing than a more a-la-carte system, at least more “D&D”.I've played games that were entirely point-buy, and there are different trade-offs there, and advancement is ... not really congruent with level-based advancement, most of the time.
Yeah. I was really thinking that in a total point-buy system, advancement is an entirely different thing from in D&D, and hard to get right (some over-reward tight focus, others under-reward it, IMO). Of course, getting level-based advancement isn't bone-simple, either.There are definitely trade-offs in point-based systems, but I think Snarf’s thesis is basically that having a few big choices that narrow your advancement path is D&D’s secret sauce. There’s something about your character advancing in ways other characters just can’t that is... if not necessarily more appealing than a more a-la-carte system, at least more “D&D”.
I don't disagree, but the people I played 1E with treated alignment as descriptive, not prescriptive, and rarely if ever enforced it.A side factor to all this is game-mechanical enforcement - or lack thereof - of choices made.
Time was, you chose your alignment and then if you didn't play to it there'd be penalties to follow; and changing alignment also carried costs and penalties. Alignment now has been reduced to little more than fluff with few if any consequences for deviation or even outright change.
Similar arguments can be made around choice of class (much more overlap between classes, less niche protection, started with 3e) and race/species (fewer mechanical differentiators, starting quite recently).
Net result: a lot of the once-significant choice-making during char-gen has been either a) been made less important or b) delayed until later advancement. Whether this is good, bad, or neither is open for debate, of course, but it's worth noting regardless.
Thing is, Tasha's didn't "remove" ability modifiers it just made them entirely floating. So actually, some races (mountain dwarf and Half elf in particular) become even more attractive to optimizers not less. Tasha's changes the decision math it does not remove it.I've played games that were entirely point-buy, and there are different trade-offs there, and advancement is ... not really congruent with level-based advancement, most of the time.
I don't entirely agree with the idea that removing ability modifiers removes race as a decision. It just turns it into a decision of less mechanical import. The folks who are heavily into optimization will probably hate it; the people who are more interested in "what kind of story would emerge around, e.g., a Forest Gnome Berserker?" will probably not hate it.
There's definitely been a move towards making chargen rules more flexible so that people have an easier time realizing their vision, but not a similar move towards making the game point-buy instead of using classes. Classes definitely provide some utility, but I think a complete theory of why they're popular is difficult. I think it's because starting with a blank slate for a character is harder than riffing from a known concept.I think the changes are (and have been) more in a direction of allowing the player/s to define the character/s as they see fit. I think choices still matter, but I think they matter differently than they once did.