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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8748712" data-attributes="member: 6790260">[USER=7023840]@Snarf Zagyg[/USER] I know that you and I often do not see eye to eye, but I was surprised to find myself agreeing with many of your conclusions (despite some more-than-slight disagreement with your premises, but honestly I don't care to litigate that.)However, I think there's an additional factor involved here that complicates matters. It isn't, strictly, part of "context-switching paralysis," nor is it strictly part of either classic and well-done Old School Style nor modern and well-done New School Style. Instead, it's a creeping issue that can affect anyone of any style, but which becomes heightened significantly by context-switching paralysis or even just context-switching inertia.I'm not sure quite what I'd call it, in terms of pithy phrases. Perhaps someone else can come up with something better, but my first stab would be "awesomeness aversion." There's a pattern I've seen, one that seems to be a creeping issue that even Gygax himself encouraged with some of his writing (despite at the table apparently being the exact opposite): the reluctance on the part of designers and DMs to just allow players to do crazy impressive things. There's this desire, this thirst for awesome behind a steep barrier, ever and always, that must be arduously overcome before the awesome will be allowed. This manifests in a variety of ways. For the 3e-style DM, it takes the form of the anti-rules criticism discussed in this thread, where the existence of an awesome thing axiomatically precludes the permission to do that thing unless you have that awesome thing to begin with. The barrier that must be surmounted is the possession of the specific chain of feats or sequence of class levels or whatever which "unlock" the awesome. Some fans find this invigorating, giving them specific targets to shoot for and goals to reach that they can have certainty will "pay off" in the end. Other fans find it absolutely dull as dishwater, a purely transactional, lifeless affair. Other forms of "modern"-style "awesomeness aversion" include hyperspecificity of rules (e.g. Swim, Climb, and Jump are different skills; Use Rope is its own skill; etc.), weird baked-in disadvantages for specific archetypes (Fighters only get 2+Int modifier skill points per level, Barbarians are illiterate, etc.), the example I gave in the other thread of DMs essentially forcing Paladins to fall because choosing good over law or law over good means instant failure, and the rather painfully punishing "level adjustment" mechanic, to name a few. (I'm sure if I thought more deeply about it, I could find more.)For the OSR-style DM, this "awesomeness aversion" sometimes takes the form of "MMI," "RL/GL," the "Viking Hat," etc. That's already been discussed at length in another thread, so I won't delve deep into it here--just leaving it as a noted example. There's a different example I'd like to consider: the (allegedly) "old-school" antipathy for races (and occasionally classes) that invoke such things. Because this "awesomeness aversion" issue would go a long way toward explaining why allegedly "old-school" folks are so antagonistic toward the idea of playing a dragon-person or a part-werewolf or something, despite the fact that the actual early days of D&D embraced the wild and the weird and, yes, things like <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/dragon-reflections-53.685512/" target="_blank">inherently-powerful dragon-people</a>. Gygax let players play a balrog or a legit actual dragon at his table, they just had to abide by the fundamental rule: you must always grow into your power.That spirit has...shall we say, rather waned in the intervening years. And I really think "awesomeness aversion" is to blame. The idea that you have to reach high and far to have anything awesome whatsoever, not just that you must reach high and far in order to have power. Because, don't get me wrong, power is pretty awesome! But it's not the only form of awesome...and conflating "you should earn your power" with "you should earn any awesomeness you might ever have" can have serious, deleterious effects on the overall experience of the game.</blockquote>

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