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Message: <blockquote data-quote="schnee" data-source="post: 7171790" data-attributes="member: 16728">You're right, I should have put a smiley face or two in there, and I was using my over-dramatic 'voice' because sometimes I like to hear myself write. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />  I'm saying it as one grog to another, really. I went back and softened it a bit.But, beyond my unfortunate tone, I think my point stands...The idea of balance over the length of a campaign is really hard to pull off, and having it be built in to certain races or classes is passé.Not that modern gamers don't like having different power levels or imbalances, that would be incredibly presumptuous (and wrong) to say; the difference is the modern taste for narrative balance. In LOTR, the Hobbits only got 'balance' in their story influence when the parties split up, so they could make do in their own clever, make-do ways and stop being saved by the powerful Humans all the time. With D&D, that's hard when it's a drag to split the party. (In fact, that was true of my Hobbit character as well - the only time I really got to 'shine' was when I was able to go off on my own, and do things that wouldn't have worked with other characters in the mix. I ended up using mischievous tactics to delay reinforcements, and not a single HP of damage, but that meant our fighters took down a string of giants one at a time instead of all at once.) (I think the rise of story games is due to that; you can have Gandalf and Pippin in the same party, but they get equal time in the story because the mechanics force it. Fiasco is a great example; you can play a character that literally says 'I suck and everything I ever do go wrong' and make it happen, but instead of being sidelined immediately due to dice, you can play it out and the 'wrong' things have impact. Not so with a 1st level Rogue alongside Gandalf.)Old D&D had a lot of meaning and interest due to the asymmetry, but the problem was it was too asymmetrical. Certain character types just sucked to use because the game nerfed them too much. I'd rather the mechanics support a wider variety of characters, and the flatter ability scores do that.That said, a few of my players have re-created that old school feel quite often with their choices. Like, at my table, 'I want to be an Illusionist, and I have an 8 ability score I have to explain somehow... OK, I'm a slight little Forest Gnome, so I'll put in in Strength'. That's perfectly in line with old school.But, another player can now say, 'I'm a legendarily strong Halfling Barbarian, the Heracles of my people, so I'm as strong as the strongest Human!' and have a hell of a lot of fun with hit. You can't do that with the old game. You can with the new. That's why I'm glad they're gone as rigid rules.</blockquote>

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