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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9478250" data-attributes="member: 42582">What do you mean by saying D&amp;D is designed that way?If a bridge is designed to be a pedestrian footbridge, but not a road traffic bridge, I know what that means (more-or-less): the bridge is not wide enough to take vehicles, the bridge is not strong enough to support the weight of, and forces/vibrations created by, vehicles, etc.If a game is designed to be played by two people, but not (say) five people, I know what sorts of tings that impllies: there are not five roles for players to occupy in the structure of the game; turns in the game take sufficiently long that, with a large number of players, play will drag out and/or become boring; etc.In the same vein, I know what it means to say that D&amp;D is not designed for solo play, but rather for play by multiple persons occupying asymmetric role: one who presents the situations of adversity/challenge/opportunity, and at least one who declares actions for a protagonist in that situation.Likewise I know what it means to say that D&amp;D is designed for party play: the play of the game orbits around certain bundles of abilities (melee fighting, ranged fighting, healing, &quot;exploration&quot;-oriented problem solving like opening locks and sensing hidden things, etc), and (outside, perhaps, or some upper-level spell-casters) it's not normally possible for a single character to exercise all those abilities and perform all those functions.A bit more controversially, I know what it means to say that 5e D&amp;D is designed around a multi-encounter &quot;adventuring day&quot;: this structure of the pacing of obstacles/challenges is what will engage the full range of resource expenditure and recovery rules in a systematic fashion. Without it, perturbances around &quot;nova&quot;-ing, intra-party imbalance, lack of attrition, etc are more likely to occur.But I don't know what it means to say that D&amp;D is designed for the GM to control the warlock PC's patron. What aspect of game play will misfunction, what perturbances will occur, if the GM offloads this to the player of the warlock?The fact that a certain approach is statistically typical doesn't, in itself, tell us that such an approach is a design feature of the game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9478250, member: 42582"] What do you mean by saying D&D is [I]designed[/I] that way? If a bridge is designed to be a pedestrian footbridge, but not a road traffic bridge, I know what that means (more-or-less): the bridge is not wide enough to take vehicles, the bridge is not strong enough to support the weight of, and forces/vibrations created by, vehicles, etc. If a game is [I]designed[/I] to be played by two people, but not (say) five people, I know what sorts of tings that impllies: there are not five roles for players to occupy in the structure of the game; turns in the game take sufficiently long that, with a large number of players, play will drag out and/or become boring; etc. In the same vein, I know what it means to say that D&D is not designed for solo play, but rather for play by multiple persons occupying asymmetric role: one who presents the situations of adversity/challenge/opportunity, and at least one who declares actions for a protagonist in that situation. Likewise I know what it means to say that D&D is designed for party play: the play of the game orbits around certain bundles of abilities (melee fighting, ranged fighting, healing, "exploration"-oriented problem solving like opening locks and sensing hidden things, etc), and (outside, perhaps, or some upper-level spell-casters) it's not normally possible for a single character to exercise all those abilities and perform all those functions. A bit more controversially, I know what it means to say that 5e D&D is designed around a multi-encounter "adventuring day": this structure of the pacing of obstacles/challenges is what will engage the full range of resource expenditure and recovery rules in a systematic fashion. Without it, perturbances around "nova"-ing, intra-party imbalance, lack of attrition, etc are more likely to occur. But I don't know what it means to say that D&D is designed for the GM to control the warlock PC's patron. What aspect of game play will misfunction, what perturbances will occur, if the GM offloads this to the player of the warlock? The fact that a certain approach is statistically typical doesn't, in itself, tell us that such an approach is a [I]design feature[/I] of the game. [/QUOTE]

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