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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 5913378" data-attributes="member: 85870">I'm really enjoying this discussion so far. It will be very interesting to see how the 5e playtest works in terms of "style." If I were to define 3.x's style, I'd say its "coherence" is character-centered, in the sense that it places "character" as an interactive entity within the game world. It attempts to balance game "rules" and "world" as being functionally equivalent (with some obvious exceptions)--moderate "simulationism" backed by crunch. In other words, it was about the character being represented as a "unique" entity in the game world. Some of the "gamist" challenge of 3.x is very much tied to this as well, since it's assumed that NPCs are built exactly like the PCs. I actually think that party imbalances due to the character-building "arms race" is actually more of a side effect of this reality. If characters are overly optimized, it's partially caused by players who enjoy doing it, but in some ways it's also a reflection of the game world--If a player can build a character that powerful, you can bet your hiney that the GM is probably building adversaries that powerful too. The assumed game world implies that threats within the world are at least as dangerous as you, and the player / character has to be prepared for it. Recent statements about speeding up gameplay in 5e, and the recognition that not every character has to shine in every encounter, seems to imply that 5e is going to try and be more "coherent" not in terms of "character within the implied game world," but "character within the adventure setting." This seems to be somewhat of a middle ground, in the sense that character actions are represented in "game world" terms, but the economy of action doesn't have to be nearly as "simulative." In other words, "Let's give everyone something to do over the course of an adventure (play session), but balance the economy of those actions in ways that make sense as a game, with as much nod to realism as we can manage."</blockquote>

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