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'To play' may not be the only point of playing. Beyond such ephemerals as 'spending time with your mates', games may offer more specific points. Take CCGs for example. You have to build a deck from your collection of cards, then (separately) play it against someone else's deck. Both things are 'the point' of the game, both require different but related skills, both are fun (though you may prefer one over the other), but being good at deck building really helps your play versus an opponent. Sure, it's possible to play the starter deck straight out of the box and never change it, but if you insist that all players must do this then you're taking half the game away, and that half is enjoyed by most players.
I am not convinced that this analogy really works. I don't think part of the game is building your character. It can be fun for some people, but it's not really a "part" of the game. To me, that's like saying setting up the monopoly board is part of the game.
To play D&D, you are first expected to create a character, then to play it. Both things are enjoyable. In 35+ years of role-playing, I must have created 20 unplayed characters for each 1 that I've played. I enjoy it. Some people don't. But half of the game would be lost to me if I were forced to only play pre-gens just because one player couldn't be bothered to make his own.
I wouldn't be saying you have to run pre-gens. I'm just saying that, if you sit at my table, one small optional rule is not allowed. We use other rules. My table has a different flavour than yours. this is a strength of D&D, not a bug.
BTW, you can't stack hex/hunter's mark because each requires your concentration.
Which illustrates that the DM is required to check these things out. It's work, but that's part of the DM job.
Sure. I was just drawing upon things off the top of my head. You get what I was trying to reference, though, I hope.
That's why I hated BECMI! I once joined an ongoing game at a club, decided to play an elf (a fighter/mage by default), and since there was already an elf in the party and realising that it takes effort to make two elves (or ANY class in that game) different from one another, I asked her what weapon she was using so that I could make sure to choose different weapons. Her answer? "I don't know what weapon I'm using, but it does 1d8 damage".
Was she having fun? Was the rest of the group having fun? Because some players don't want rules granularity. It doesn't mean they're doing it wrong. For what it's worth, most of the fun I've had playing D&D was with BECMI, for almost precisely the reason you hate it.
Having the ability to choose what rules go in and out in 5e is great, because it lets people like me have fun in our way, and people like you have fun in your way, without having us play entirely different games.
Somebody gave me the D&D Rules Cyclopaedia, and then I saw the rules for weapons that basically gave each weapon different stats and abilities as you put more proficiencies into it. That's a great idea, but by the time I got that book, nobody played it and there were better games anyway.
There are few better products than that one, and if you don't want it, send it my way. I've wanted a print one for years.
Interestingly, most players of BECMI I know refuse to use those rules. They hate them. So we've established BECMI isn't for you.
You're not telling them they're wrong, you're just forbidding them from playing the game 'their own way'! I'm not convinced that this is better!
I'm sorry, but if you're playing in a game I GM, you're not playing the game "your own way". You're playing it MY way. You want to play it your way? Run your own game.
I don't want the headache of the rules. I don't want player discrepancies. And I don't want rules lawyers taking apart the rather weak rules texts for loopholes. The game works better (for me!) without them. I GM. We play it *my* way.
The use of feats/MCing in the game does not prevent arguing over Dolly Parton's boots.
Technically, they were "Delmiondias' Boots", Delmiondas being an old 1e illusionist I played who wore a tiger stripe jacket, a feather boa, and those boots. His name, by the way, is an anagram of a famous 70s singer. I'll let someone else figure out who.
But what I was saying, and what you're ignoring, is that if there were rules elements attached to those boots, they would have been at the forefront of the treasure division. Since there were no rules, they became an RP object that wound up being a lot more fun than any pair of magical boots I gave out in, say, Pathfinder.
Likewise, with Multi-classing, if that rule is in play, it gets one more thing that will take precedence in some players' minds over characterization. Ie, "I want to be a two weapon barbarian criminal guy, but the best mechanical choice for that says I need a few levels of fighter, so I guess I need to go build path X" instead...."
I don't really like that. I've seen it happen. I'm not a fan.
Me too, actually. Which illustrates that characterisation and optimisation are unrelated, therefore demonstrating the fallacy.
No. You said in an earlier paragraph that optimization does not mean you don't roleplay. I agreed. In your next paragraph, you said that people that optimize are more likely to care about their PCs and put more work into them. Basically, you argued the exact same thing as your fallacy, just the inverse. And it's just as untrue.
In what way would it be better to prevent the rogue getting that fighter level? How does it negatively impact the fun of anyone else? Banning it would hurt one player but not help anyone.
It hurts the fighter. And if it makes every other player feel less powerful, it hurts them. If it turns the game into a mechanical one instead of the game I want, it hurts me.
No-one bullied her, they pointed out the option and its effects. She could still have chosen the +2 Str, and I would not have let anyone bully her.
Sure. But you can see how I'd get an opposite reading from how you wrote it originally.
The nature of the game is that there are limits. Making even more limits does have an effect.
Yeah. And that effect is that we are having a lot of fun. I still don't see why you feel the need to tell me I'm wrong for playing the game the way *I* like to play it.
So, instead of letting the good players have fun at the expense of the poor players, you're now letting the poor have fun at the expense of the good.
Where do you get that? I limit the rules to allow all players to have more fun. All players ARE having more fun. The only guy that wanted to multi-class said to me "I wish I could multiclass, but I understand why you did it. There are a LOT of ways to abuse the system. The game's better without it."
In other words, I listened to my players.
Also, why are the "good" players optimizers, and the "poor" ones those who don't like that style of play? Because, that's not how I see the game. The good players are the ones who show up, have fun, and contribute to everyone else having fun. The bad ones are the guys who get in the way of everyone else having fun.
Those bad guys are often also the ones who "check the math" on someone else's character and point out that they're doing it wrong.
I don't expect control of my environment or the adventure. I do expect to be able to play the (legal) character I want.
Then play Skyrim. Or another computer game. In an RPG, the adventures you go on should shape your character. Who your character becomes shouldn't be known to you when you start playing at first level. If you KNOW that at 10th level you're going to be awesome at killing giants and have all your feats and classes picked out... well, that's not the game I like running. I like to be surprised by who my characters become.
My first 5E character is a good example. When I first read the 5E PHB I was excited that I could finally play a Dex-based swashbuckler right out of the box. So I chose fighter to build toward Battlemaster so I could choose parry/riposte. I wanted to be unarmoured (to match the archtype), chose the Magic Initiate feat at 1st (variant human), chose mage armour, prestidigitation & ray of frost. This meant I could be unarmoured without committing suicide, could look good at all times, and gave me an idea to connect an attack cantrip to match the silver dragon trinket I rolled.
Sure. Funnily enough, none of that involves multiclassing! So it's just as doable in my own game. And you can absolutely make characters that way as well (although I don't allow feats at first level right now... as a result of a group vote). A lot of my players do.
Ideas inform mechanics which then inform more ideas which then suggest more mechanics which then present some ideas....and so on until I'm happy with my character in both characterisation and my ability to execute the kinds of moves I envision my PC doing.
See, in my games, players kind of actually swashbuckle. They take on actions as they need to be performed, and we figure out the mechanics as we go. Players that plan for specific action types get asked by me not to focus on just that move, or they'll be sorry. I don't like having players, for example, that trip a foe in every round of combat. It's frustrating. Instead, my players have general ideas of what they're capable of, and act broadly within that scope.
It's AWESOME when a player throws a crowbar at a goblin, kills it with a crit, and then finishes the fight using a door as a shield and the crowbar (with goblin bits on one end) as a club. I tend to encourage that sort of "spur of the moment" thinking. If the player had come up to me with a bunch of feats that allowed the same thing, I'd have yawned, let them do it once, and groaned every time they did something similar in play.
Loose mechanics, for me, are always better than tightly defined mechanics. Loose mechanics mean you can be imaginative and events are more open to interpretation. If I want a game with tight mechanics, I'll play a board game.
When I get another feat I'll choose Defensive Duelist. It perfectly fits my concept. Why would the game be better if my DM banned it? How would anyone else be hurt if I chose that feat instead of +2 Cha?
Well, feats are allowed in my game. So fill your boots. But if you're playing in a game that bars them, oh well. You knew what you were getting into. And let's look at the inverse? How does it really hurt YOU if you're instead taking +2 Dex? It achieves a similar end, is simpler, and is more open to interpretation. Some GMs love to run games in that vein.
Also- transmuter ... wizard... um, 1e is magic user. Not transmuter. And dual class meant that you wouldn't have any of your class abilties until you rose to the equivalent level, which meant that no one in your party would want to wait.
