Jester David
Hero
A couple days back I was engaged in one of the regular battles over on the WotC Community Forums, discussing the trifecta of inevitable threadlocking: Quadratic Wizards/ Linear Fighter (with a side of Damage on a Miss), Fighter Powers, and Balance. The thread was peppered with references to “modern game design”.
Meanwhile, between replies, I was reading Shadows of Esteren - my Kickstarter copies having arrived last week.
I began to wonder if these controversial topics were D&Disms. While regular debates for D&D, they seem less present in almost every other RPG I’ve played or own.
Just like you have First World Problems that are “problems” only when you live in a rich affluent country you have D&D Problems that only exist when playing a tabletop role-playing game that is like D&D.
I have quite a few RPG games on my bookshelf (both the physical shelf in my basement and the digital one on my computer). To name a few there’s FATE, assorted Cortex (Firefly, Marvel, and plain ol’ Cortex), some World of Darkness, a few Palladium books (mostly Heroes Unlimited, Nightbane, and Dead Reign) Eclipse Phase, and the aforementioned Shadows of Esteren. This is in addition to the metric poop-ton of d20 books (three flavours of Star Wars, Pathfinder, a few other campaign settings), and the five and two-half versions of D&D.
There’s a mix of old and new RPGS, of fantasy and sci-fi, and of crunchy and rules lite.
Most systems I own do not include martial powers, the burning need to have fighter-type characters do more than swing and deal damage. Systems occasionally add universal rules for some combat actions like charging, aiming, rapid fire, or recklessly attacking; however, just as often it’s just roll attack and deal damage. Or, for a few systems, just attack with the success of the hit determining damage. A couple systems don’t even have powers for wizards with the overt mechanical effects of spells being limited.
Other game systems offer a different perspective on the power discrepancy between fighters and spellcasters. While a D&D fighter only increases in power along a linear progression contrasted with the parabolic power spike of the wizard, in other systems it’s possible to make a character with no combat skill progression or that lacks a line on the graph, being possible to make a character with no combat functionality at all.
Balance is often held as paramount, the most important thing for a game system: classes balanced against each other, powers that are balanced, balanced monsters, balanced encounters, etc. While imbalance has decreased across most game systems, few other systems seem to prize balance as highly. As mentioned, characters can be incredibly unbalanced and encounters seldom have the same level of balanced design. Other than d20 games, I haven’t seen many systems that even try to balance encounters.
This is interesting when paired with the insistence that D&D conform to “modern game design”. However, when I think of modern RPG games I think of Fiasco, FATE, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. These games are much more freeform and narrative, with fewer overt powers for everyone.
However, I don’t own the any of the new D&D-esque systems (Dungeon World, 13th Age) or Numenera. So I don’t know where they fall in the spectrum. I’ve heard Dungeon World forgoes basic attacks in favour of only having powers, and13th Age strikes me as likely to have an assortment of martial powers. But I am curious how they fall in the discussion.
Thoughts?
Meanwhile, between replies, I was reading Shadows of Esteren - my Kickstarter copies having arrived last week.
I began to wonder if these controversial topics were D&Disms. While regular debates for D&D, they seem less present in almost every other RPG I’ve played or own.
Just like you have First World Problems that are “problems” only when you live in a rich affluent country you have D&D Problems that only exist when playing a tabletop role-playing game that is like D&D.
I have quite a few RPG games on my bookshelf (both the physical shelf in my basement and the digital one on my computer). To name a few there’s FATE, assorted Cortex (Firefly, Marvel, and plain ol’ Cortex), some World of Darkness, a few Palladium books (mostly Heroes Unlimited, Nightbane, and Dead Reign) Eclipse Phase, and the aforementioned Shadows of Esteren. This is in addition to the metric poop-ton of d20 books (three flavours of Star Wars, Pathfinder, a few other campaign settings), and the five and two-half versions of D&D.
There’s a mix of old and new RPGS, of fantasy and sci-fi, and of crunchy and rules lite.
Most systems I own do not include martial powers, the burning need to have fighter-type characters do more than swing and deal damage. Systems occasionally add universal rules for some combat actions like charging, aiming, rapid fire, or recklessly attacking; however, just as often it’s just roll attack and deal damage. Or, for a few systems, just attack with the success of the hit determining damage. A couple systems don’t even have powers for wizards with the overt mechanical effects of spells being limited.
Other game systems offer a different perspective on the power discrepancy between fighters and spellcasters. While a D&D fighter only increases in power along a linear progression contrasted with the parabolic power spike of the wizard, in other systems it’s possible to make a character with no combat skill progression or that lacks a line on the graph, being possible to make a character with no combat functionality at all.
Balance is often held as paramount, the most important thing for a game system: classes balanced against each other, powers that are balanced, balanced monsters, balanced encounters, etc. While imbalance has decreased across most game systems, few other systems seem to prize balance as highly. As mentioned, characters can be incredibly unbalanced and encounters seldom have the same level of balanced design. Other than d20 games, I haven’t seen many systems that even try to balance encounters.
This is interesting when paired with the insistence that D&D conform to “modern game design”. However, when I think of modern RPG games I think of Fiasco, FATE, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. These games are much more freeform and narrative, with fewer overt powers for everyone.
However, I don’t own the any of the new D&D-esque systems (Dungeon World, 13th Age) or Numenera. So I don’t know where they fall in the spectrum. I’ve heard Dungeon World forgoes basic attacks in favour of only having powers, and13th Age strikes me as likely to have an assortment of martial powers. But I am curious how they fall in the discussion.
Thoughts?
