D&D 5E D&DN going down the wrong path for everyone.

[pemerton]

the idea that all these character creation choices should be equal originated with 4e

I replied to this upthread, but reading AbdulAlhazred has motivated me to come back to it again.

What do you mean by "all these character creation choices"? 4e has very complex PC generation - you have to choose feats, powers, skills and equipment. And it is possible to make choices that are more or less effective under various conditions.

For instance, it is possible to build a PC who has STR as his/her highest ability, but who chooses as attack powers ones that rely on CHA as an attack stat. Obviously that choice is not "equal" (in any straightforward sense, at least) to the choice of attack powers that rely on STR as an attack stat. The game rules recognise this, and hence are peppered with advice, in each class description, on how to allocate stats, and how to choose a race that will work well with that class.

There are other choices, however, which aren't so obviously flawed for the typical player. For instance, which is a better feat - a Focus feat that will boost my damage via a feat bonus? a Skill Training feat that will give me a +5 bonus to a new skill? a Linguist feat that will give me 3 additional languages? There's no obvious sense in which these feats are "equal" - each operates in a different mechanical domain, and enhances the players' resources in a different way. As it happens, of the 5 PCs in my 4e game four of them have taken feats that grant a feat bonus to damage; one has not, and instead has the Linguist feat plus 3 Skill Training feats. Are these equal? In play, it is fairly obvious that the one with the non-combat feats does less damage (though the fighter is not far behind in the low-damage stakes, being mostly a control fighter); but that same PC does all the rituals, which are pretty important, plus during combat does a lot of battlefield control and party-movement buffs (slides, teleports etc).

What I would say about 4e is that provided you follow the advice (eg don't make INT your wizard's lowest stat) it is fairly hard to build a PC who, in a typical ingame situation, gives you no resources as a player for meaningfully tackling that situation. That's an interesting goal for an RPG, and one that not every RPG aims at (including past versions of D&D); but I don't think it is best described as "all character creation choices being equal".

 

[Ahnehnois]

Odd how you talk about maximizing choices, yet anything that falls out of your very narrow process sim agenda is instantly rejected. Where did the breadth of options go there?

I don't see anything in my post about process sim, or that it's particularly narrow. That being said, if one doesn't want to make meaningful choices in character creation, anything from starting kits to pregens can ameliorate that. There's also a niche for guides that tell you how to build characters if you don't want to. However, if the system simply doesn't support those choices (for example, if a player doesn't want a combat role for their character or doesn't want their abilities within a particular silo), there's not much to be done.

Nonsense. The idea existed from the very first in D&D. The mere fact that Gary had to constantly try to defend the flaws in his game design WRT balance clearly shows that it was both desired and considered from the very beginning of the game. I was there playing in 1975, I can tell you without any shadow of a doubt the question that arose first was "why should I play a human wizard when an elf would be better?"

Again, that's fair enough. But now, the question is "why would I play a 4e wizard when a 3e one would be better?" (or any other character). I'm not dismissing the notion of balance, merely the 4e definition of it, which I don't think has exactly satisfied those people.

 

[Ahnehnois]

What I would say about 4e is that provided you follow the advice (eg don't make INT your wizard's lowest stat) it is fairly hard to build a PC who, in a typical ingame situation, gives you no resources as a player for meaningfully tackling that situation. That's an interesting goal for an RPG, and one that not every RPG aims at (including past versions of D&D); but I don't think it is best described as "all character creation choices being equal".

I think that's a more nuanced description of the issue. And indeed I'm overstating the issue; it's not a literal truth that all character creation choices are equal.

But I wouldn't call that "balance" either.

I see no reason why a player shouldn't be able to build a character who is completely useless in certain in-game situations. For example, if one player builds a character as a war hero and leader of men, another builds a warrior priest, and the third builds an adventuring professional musician, and all of them are built generally well, I don't think they should be equally capable in combat. In 4e, those are all leaders and are all mandated to take the same number of combat powers and have basically the same numerical bonus (standard modifier) to all combat and noncombat effects. In any other version of D&D, the first one is a fighter who is pretty good at killing things whose leadership has limited mechanical benefits, the second is a cleric whose spell selection and tactics can produce a wide range of playstyles, and the third is a bard whose character is mocked by the other players (as bards have always been). The first is mechanically well supported only in killing things, the last only in a limited set of magical abilities and noncombat skills, and the middle one can be supported in any venue.

Is there room for improving that scenario? Yes. Specifically in terms of balance? Yes. Does redefining those three characters so they perform the same basic combat role help? I don't see that is does. When I revised those classes, I enhanced the differences between them.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Nonsense. The idea existed from the very first in D&D. The mere fact that Gary had to constantly try to defend the flaws in his game design WRT balance clearly shows that it was both desired and considered from the very beginning of the game. I was there playing in 1975, I can tell you without any shadow of a doubt the question that arose first was "why should I play a human wizard when an elf would be better?"

Better at what, statistically? Not everyone chooses that perfect combo or even one that synergize well. Some people, myself included, make choices based on concept. Gary relied on the DM actually having a pair and saying no again keeping the balance.

I would rather have a game that allows me to play what I want to play with the DM having to police when necessary than to have a game that is so worried about balance, and one that shoves it's take on balance, down our throats to the point where it is so boring that I would rather watch paint dry.

 

[pemerton]

I see no reason why a player shouldn't be able to build a character who is completely useless in certain in-game situations.

My phrase that you quoted was "typical ingame situation". What is the overlap between "typical" and "certain" in-game situations?

Making this harder is that, if my recollection is correct, you have litte play experience with 4e. If this is correct, it may be distorting your impression of what the game permits.

For example, if one player builds a character as a war hero and leader of men, another builds a warrior priest, and the third builds an adventuring professional musician, and all of them are built generally well, I don't think they should be equally capable in combat. In 4e, those are all leaders and are all mandated to take the same number of combat powers and have basically the same numerical bonus (standard modifier) to all combat and noncombat effects.

That's not really true, though, at least until we get some more precision on what is meant by "basically the same numerical bonus".

They will have different skills, and different skill bonuses (on the whole the bards will probably be better). Both the bard and the cleric can be built to have little to no prowess in melee combat. The warlord probably has combat-oriented utility powers, whereas the cleric might be a healer, and the bard an illusionist. Only the bard will have enchantment magic.

In any other version of D&D, the first one is a fighter who is pretty good at killing things whose leadership has limited mechanical benefits, the second is a cleric whose spell selection and tactics can produce a wide range of playstyles, and the third is a bard whose character is mocked by the other players (as bards have always been). The first is mechanically well supported only in killing things, the last only in a limited set of magical abilities and noncombat skills, and the middle one can be supported in any venue.

A complication here is that a significant range of approaches to the D&D cleric (especially more spell-oriented, less melee combat oriented priests of the 2nd ed era) are in 4e captured by the invoker class.

But even within the parameters of the leader role, I think you are exaggerating similarities. A warlord and a bard are not going to play all that similarly.

 

[Balesir]

First, character creation is "during play". If you're sitting with an open rulebook, making decisions and writing things down, you are participating in the game.

Still, there is a distinction between a one-time prep and the regular recurring game. But I would say that many games other than D&D rely on that one-time event. If you're playing Civilization, it matters which civilization you choose. If you're playing Madden, it matters how you choose and construct your team. They're not all equal. If you're playing Magic, you have to create a good deck before the game starts. If you're into miniatures wargames, you have to create an army. In any of those examples, actual gameplay is dependent on effective preparation, and a wide range of power levels can be created. So clearly this paradigm can create a satisfying game experience.

But there's also the verisimilitude factor. Does your character have to live with the character creation choices you've made? Yes. But so does a person. The genes you have and your early life experiences and social upbringing absolutely affect your level of opportunity in later life. And good fiction grabs those inequalities and runs with them.

I also don't see how the first example affects the range of choices later on. AFAICT, even in the second example, people have a pretty full range of choices later on.

As far as I can tell, the idea that all these character creation choices should be equal originated with 4e, and I'm hard-pressed to find any other examples, nor do I see why it would be desirable (nor do I like that the term "balance" has been co-opted to mean that").

You mix up rather dissimilar points, here, so I'm going to separate them out and comment by "topic".

1) On balanced "sides" and the preparation/in-play decision split in non-RPG games:

I can think of many and several games that have a very strictly balanced start position; miniature wargames usually have points systems and De Bellis Antiquitatis just has "pick 12 units", the various units being balanced due to the design of the game overall. Most boardgames have similar or balanced starts and, lest we forget, (computer) Civilisation starts each player with a settler and a military unit.

I don't think any of this is particularly relevant for RPGs, save to say that balanced start positions with simple decision trees to select them are far from an RPG only concept.

2) On "real life" not having a balanced start position:

In the game we call "real life", play started generations ago. There is no "pre-game". This is one reason we play RPGs.

Certain "live the alternate life" RPGs have random character generation and all character 'life' to a certain extent "in play". These are very fine - I love the Hârn game world for it, myself - but are a rather long way from the "adventure party looting" game that D&D has always aimed at.

3) On "all character creation choices (in 4E) are (supposed to be) equal":

They're not. What gave you that idea? They are all supposed to give you a character that can usefully contribute to adventuring (which is what the game is supposed to be about), with cool stuff to do in adventuring situations. But to say that they are "equal" ignores major differences in play style and capabilities. "Equally useful", on the whole, maybe - but not "equal in effects or capabilities" or even "equal in natural feel and flavour".

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't see anything in my post about process sim, or that it's particularly narrow. That being said, if one doesn't want to make meaningful choices in character creation, anything from starting kits to pregens can ameliorate that. There's also a niche for guides that tell you how to build characters if you don't want to. However, if the system simply doesn't support those choices (for example, if a player doesn't want a combat role for their character or doesn't want their abilities within a particular silo), there's not much to be done.

Again, that's fair enough. But now, the question is "why would I play a 4e wizard when a 3e one would be better?" (or any other character). I'm not dismissing the notion of balance, merely the 4e definition of it, which I don't think has exactly satisfied those people.

I'm not understanding what the issue is here: First of all D&D, in ALL its forms, is unabashedly a game in which fighting, exploring, negotiating, etc, but most consistently fighting, are big parts of the game. In OD&D, B/X in all its iterations, and AD&D, there was NO option to not be a effective in combat, and in fact every single classes major primary features in those games are exactly about describing the way that class fights, etc. You don't GET choices in these games, aside from possibly if your DM decides to allow it arranging your stats (IE you might build a 1e/2e character with a high CHA and WIS for instance and make said character a Bard, which will in some fashion minimize your combat ability. You could of course do exactly the same in both 3e and 4e. It IS, granted, POSSIBLE to create wizards and clerics who's spells have very little direct combat applicability, but it isn't really all THAT easy. The cleric is perhaps easiest in the narrowest "I won't actually attack anything directly" but a 2e cleric built this way is STILL ignoring all his armor and weapon capabilities and his fairly good THAC0. How is that different from say making a 4e character with a lower primary stat and ignoring some of your powers (presumably selecting others which have maximum utility aside from directly attacking).

So, the real question is, A) "what edition of D&D" is it where the game goes out of its way to support non-combatants" and B) "what edition is it where you cannot create a useful non-combatant character" and C) "in what edition is such a character really on a par with the other characters". Frankly I don't see where ANY edition does A, ALL of them ALLOW B, and in NONE of them is C generally true.

You again, as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has pointed out I believe, seem to conflate "no meaningful choices" with "unequal character resources". Choices that don't make one character short of resources WRT others are NOT MEANINGLESS!!!!!!! You are seriously going to set there with a straight face and tell me that 4e character generation choices are meaningless because wizards can't end up super powered WRT fighters???!!!! IMHO there's not even a basis for a discussion in that, call me when we are back in the real world talking about real games.

Of course you may well be disturbed by the design of 5e within this context. Certainly from what I can see 5e will NOT allow for creating characters with concepts that contradict their archetypes too strongly. Every DDN character can fight, every DDN character has resources that apply to combat, to exploration, to interaction, etc. MAYBE in some cases you may be able to minimize one 'pillar' drastically in favor of others (make a fighter who is a combat god, barely competent in exploration tasks, and completely useless when dealing with NPCs in a peaceful way). I'd also note that DDN's notion of balance is the normal everyday notion AFAICT, that every PC is relatively similar in capability at any given time at the same level. Neither the fighter nor the wizard will totally dominate combat, though the fighter may be somewhat better at it, and the wizard may be somewhat better in the exploration area. These sensibilities actually sound VERY much like 4e. If it is actually accomplished (I have my doubts) then in this one respect I will find DDN satisfying.

 

[Balesir]

In OD&D, B/X in all its iterations, and AD&D, there was NO option to not be a effective in combat, and in fact every single classes major primary features in those games are exactly about describing the way that class fights, etc. You don't GET choices in these games, aside from possibly if your DM decides to allow it arranging your stats

Actually, this reminded me of the AD&D (I think) table where magic-users rolled for the spells they started the game with at 1st level; they got Read Magic and exactly one spell from each of three lists - Attack Spells, Defence Spells and Utility Spells.

Old School Attack and Utility powers, anybody?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My phrase that you quoted was "typical ingame situation". What is the overlap between "typical" and "certain" in-game situations?

Making this harder is that, if my recollection is correct, you have litte play experience with 4e. If this is correct, it may be distorting your impression of what the game permits.

That's not really true, though, at least until we get some more precision on what is meant by "basically the same numerical bonus".

They will have different skills, and different skill bonuses (on the whole the bards will probably be better). Both the bard and the cleric can be built to have little to no prowess in melee combat. The warlord probably has combat-oriented utility powers, whereas the cleric might be a healer, and the bard an illusionist. Only the bard will have enchantment magic.

A complication here is that a significant range of approaches to the D&D cleric (especially more spell-oriented, less melee combat oriented priests of the 2nd ed era) are in 4e captured by the invoker class.

But even within the parameters of the leader role, I think you are exaggerating similarities. A warlord and a bard are not going to play all that similarly.

This whole theme needs to be further developed when you talk about 4e-like class systems.

For instance, what is it that is essentially bard-like which one wants to capture in one's non-leader-like bard? The character's expertise with various types of lore and performance abilities? Coupled with rogue-like capabilities perhaps? In 4e one could approach this in several ways, but the most straightforward might be to just make a rogue that plays an instrument. Said character can still MC into the actual bard class to for instance get bardic rituals. A fighter, ranger, or barbarian could also be quite suitable depending. In fact realistically any class could be built in terms of 'operates as a bard by the colloquial meaning of the word'.

Again, my suspicion from what I've seen and read, is that DDN is aimed at a similar sort of capability. They seem to arrive there in a bit different way, and you might well build different options on top of the bard class instead of 'building sideways' as you do a lot of times in 4e, but I think the same goal is apparent. Characters will be pretty equal, and all basically competent. Class will define your core MO, and background will add in details or a secondary focus.

I'd just like to add, I don't understand why one would consider it to be a 'better' game with 'more options' where like in 2e every bard is just crappy. Sure, you now have the option to make a crappy sub-par character, so what? You also have no option to make a bard that actually kicks ass. This was the defining problem with 3.x, for all its vaunted flexibility only certain archetypes could be really powerful effective characters. Before ANYTHING else, DDN must insure that this NEVER happens again. If a lack of highly atypical combat ineffective PCs is the price for that, fine with me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually, this reminded me of the AD&D (I think) table where magic-users rolled for the spells they started the game with at 1st level; they got Read Magic and exactly one spell from each of three lists - Attack Spells, Defence Spells and Utility Spells.

Old School Attack and Utility powers, anybody?

Good point. The DMG did advise that the DM could allow some player choices, maybe for instance if the campaign was particularly brutal or something. You are correct that for Magic Users the default was random pick within categories. This did mean each PC ALWAYS had at least one combat spell at level one (though it could be a rather marginal one). Overall it was pretty hard for a wizard to permanently avoid learning spells with heavy combat applications, as most of what you could find later was going to be from enemy casters or scrolls, DM controlled sources. Clerics inherently could cast ANYTHING, so even if a character habitually only cast specific 'non-combat' spells there was nothing that could stop them from being able to cast others, like Harm or various words/glyphs.