NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7826191" data-attributes="member: 6696971">So here was the initial question:Note:1)  This was a design challenge.2)  We aren't iterating D&D.3)  We aren't hacking D&D 5e.4)  We don't have to be concerned about markets or zeitgeist (which seems like every_single_bloody_thread wants to conform to).We just have to answer the above design challenge.So I would need to know (a) what games you played and (b) were they run skillfully and by the book.Because I can name several games (which, curiously enough, hook into my post on page 2 in how you do this) that afford all 3 simultaneously:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dungeon World</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Torchbearer</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Strike(!)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">D&D 4e</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">13th Age</li> </ul>All of these possess:1)  Predefined abilities/playbooks/moves for all classes/archetypes whether you're a spellcaster or not.2)  The lack of requirement for GM curation of play with the specific intent of spotlight dissemination.  In fact, some of these systems will actively fight you if you try to tailor play (or just run better if you don't).3)  Rough (or strident) cross-class/playbook balance across a variety of challenges (without 2 being in play).They achieve this in a variety of ways.  A few common features are (a) Fail Forward action resolution and/or (b) conflict/scene resolution in dealing with threats/obstacles.Other features are things like (c) codifying what is necessary for play and making it player-facing, (d) a GM ethos of "play to find out what happens" and core mechanical machinery that enables a GM to engage the game from this vantage, (e) all moves are rolled for to find out cost/consequence (including spellcasting), (f) both breadth and apex power of spellcasters are toned down while breadth of martial characters is amped up (and codified where needed), (g) reward cycles are fundamentally different from D&D (play incentives are realigned; xp on failure or xp, xp on discovery, xp on thematic thing x resolving in play), (h) different threat machinery changes the cognitive workspace inhabited by players (eg Torchbearer's simultaneous ticking clocks for both Light and accrued Conditions as play progresses through turns...spellcasters can't just fiat these concerns away with powerful spells...they've got to be resolved through mundane means and you have decision-points based on time + threats + your collective gear loadout as a group), (i) martial characters have codified "moves" that they can rely upon to consistently materialize within the fiction the same way that D&D spellcasters do (again, this changes the cognitive worksplace of all of the players playing the class, his/her compatriots, and the GM who is presenting the obstacle/situation for the players to deal with).So...again...as a design question (how do we solve this stuff [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] brought up but without the sort of intense GM curation of play that affords them a vastly disproportionate affect on the trajectory of play than the other participants at the table?)...this has been solved through the means presented.Whether or not this is kosher for casual players or traditionalists or granular task resolution governed by x person's sense of realism proponents is a different question (one that we don't HAVE TO ANSWER IN EVERY SPECULATIVE THREAD...and one that wasn't asked in the opening of the thread).If it seems like I'm cynical about the fact that we have to engage with the but traditionalists, but casuals, but granular task resolution governed by x person's sense of realism...its because I am.  Why do we have to do that_every_single_thread?We aren't actually making WotC's next version of D&D.</blockquote>

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