D&D (2024) Do players really want balance?

[Micah Sweet]

Is 'actor-stance' some known thing or is it new as of this thread?

It's not new (@pemerton can explain it better than me), but it is a kind of jargon not known to everyone in the RPG community by any means.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Kind of my thought too. That's a cool specific setting.

I think there's a defense that it simply makes visible a number of not-called-supernatural abilities various avowed non-spellcasters in D&D have had pretty much from day one (the hit point thing being the most blatant one, and no, I'm not going down that rabbithole again, but I don't think any official explanation of those as expressed has worked). The main difference is they're acknowledged as supernatural in that setting.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't see that having the will to live need be any more meta than evoking anger in oneself.

If it was a highly unusual ability a character would have, that would require them to be conscious when they evoke it, then perhaps. But I didn't get the impression that this is what it was.

 

[pemerton]

in-universe, which for this argument is the only position that matters IMO, zoro's sword abilities are not presented as any kind of supernatural, extraordinary perhaps, in the same way IRL that olympic athletes' feats are extraordinary, but not supernatural, people can just DO THAT in the world of one peice with no magic or special powers if they put in enough effort, zoro isn't using some special sauce to pull off his techniques except a hell of alot of weight training.

In the fiction, neither Zorro nor Batman nor Indiana Jones nor Boromir nor Green Arrow nor Conan nor . . . has magical or supernatural power.

If we want a RPG that permits a player to play a PC whose adventures are likely to unfold in a similar fashion to any of these characters, we will need something that works pretty differently from low and probably even mid-level D&D. And if we want it to be an entertaining game to play, we will probably want rules for failure and success that are different from typical D&D - for instance, emulating one of these characters by simply stepping up their numbers so that victory against "mundane" obstacles is more-or-less guaranteed may not make for very satisfactory play.

 

[pemerton]

When saying "AD&D" do you mean 1e or 2e here?

The core is the same in both, I'm pretty sure: 2 attacks, -2/-4 to attack but with DEX bonuses off-setting the penalty.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In the fiction, neither Zorro nor Batman nor Indiana Jones nor Boromir nor Green Arrow nor Conan nor . . . has magical or supernatural power.

If we want a RPG that permits a player to play a PC whose adventures are likely to unfold in a similar fashion to any of these characters, we will need something that works pretty differently from low and probably even mid-level D&D. And if we want it to be an entertaining game to play, we will probably want rules for failure and success that are different from typical D&D - for instance, emulating one of these characters by simply stepping up their numbers so that victory against "mundane" obstacles is more-or-less guaranteed may not make for very satisfactory play.

You're talking about a supers game. I'm all for that, but they as you say follow different rules.

 

[TwoSix]

"I love actor stance - provided that the character whose motivations I instantiate has none, other than to hang out with like-minded ciphers who enjoy meeting quest-givers and taking on their quests, adopting the most tactically effective means to succeed at those."

When I think of actor stance play, I think of it in the context of characters who have commitmets, relationships, things they love and hate, which may - as is human nature - bring them into conflict with other people, even ones they are close to.

The whole hive-mind adventuring party trope is already off the table, if actor stance is what we are hoping to emphasise in our RPGing.

Well, they might also dislike gnomes, or really like drinking.

I think you called this “invocations of color”, in a long-ago thread when this topic came up.

 

[Oofta]

In the fiction, neither Zorro nor Batman nor Indiana Jones nor Boromir nor Green Arrow nor Conan nor . . . has magical or supernatural power.

If we want a RPG that permits a player to play a PC whose adventures are likely to unfold in a similar fashion to any of these characters, we will need something that works pretty differently from low and probably even mid-level D&D. And if we want it to be an entertaining game to play, we will probably want rules for failure and success that are different from typical D&D - for instance, emulating one of these characters by simply stepping up their numbers so that victory against "mundane" obstacles is more-or-less guaranteed may not make for very satisfactory play.

I don't know, kind of seems like Batman has some pretty powerful plot armor.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You're talking about a supers game. I'm all for that, but they as you say follow different rules.

A number of people would find requiring "a supers game" to represent Indiana Jones or Conan kind of an odd perspective.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It would be trivial to make martials more in-line with what pemerton is talking about.

You just watch a night of 80's movies, design some discrete abilities for the rogue (all those guys are rogues) based on them and then ignore any critique that starts with 'um, actually...'