Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Does 4e limit the scope of campaigns?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 4670043" data-attributes="member: 58197"><p>The way I see it, there are really only three levels of skill that 99% of players care about. Either you don't care about a skill; or you want to be reasonably good at the skill, since it's appropriate to your character; or you want to be <em>really</em> good at the skill, since it's central to your character.</p><p></p><p>4E recognizes this by having three levels of skill training: Untrained, Trained, and Trained + Focus. By default, everybody has some class-appropriate skills trained. If you just want to be good at things that your character would logically be good at, that's all you need. If you want to stand out, even among other trained characters - to the extent that you're willing to pay for the privilege - you pick up Skill Focus.</p><p></p><p>(And before anyone asks, yes, I pick up Skill Focus quite often. My current character has Skill Focus in both Perception and Arcana, and after three gaming sessions the investment has already paid for itself IMO - I've spotted clues pointing us toward a traitor in our ship's crew, and my ritual magic has been a major boon to the party. In a pirate campaign, Phantom Steed with 30+ on the Arcana check is a seriously awesome spell, especially if your DM lets you tie ropes to them and use them to pull your ship when you're becalmed.)</p><p></p><p>I would argue that this is all the granularity the system requires for the vast majority of players. In my experience, the granularity of 3E is not merely un-useful but actively bad; it steepens the learning curve, lengthens the character creation process, and lures inexperienced players into making choices they will later regret.</p><p></p><p>One thing that I have learned, painfully, from being a software developer: <strong><em>Not only is more options not always good, it is frequently bad.</em></strong> The cost of making decisions is non-trivial, as is the cost of people occasionally making the wrong decision*. Both of these costs must be counted against the benefit of having the option. Quite often, the cost exceeds the benefit.</p><p></p><p>[size=-2]* In this case, the "wrong" decision is "the decision which will lead to the character not performing, in-game, the way the player wants him/her to perform."[/size]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 4670043, member: 58197"] The way I see it, there are really only three levels of skill that 99% of players care about. Either you don't care about a skill; or you want to be reasonably good at the skill, since it's appropriate to your character; or you want to be [I]really[/I] good at the skill, since it's central to your character. 4E recognizes this by having three levels of skill training: Untrained, Trained, and Trained + Focus. By default, everybody has some class-appropriate skills trained. If you just want to be good at things that your character would logically be good at, that's all you need. If you want to stand out, even among other trained characters - to the extent that you're willing to pay for the privilege - you pick up Skill Focus. (And before anyone asks, yes, I pick up Skill Focus quite often. My current character has Skill Focus in both Perception and Arcana, and after three gaming sessions the investment has already paid for itself IMO - I've spotted clues pointing us toward a traitor in our ship's crew, and my ritual magic has been a major boon to the party. In a pirate campaign, Phantom Steed with 30+ on the Arcana check is a seriously awesome spell, especially if your DM lets you tie ropes to them and use them to pull your ship when you're becalmed.) I would argue that this is all the granularity the system requires for the vast majority of players. In my experience, the granularity of 3E is not merely un-useful but actively bad; it steepens the learning curve, lengthens the character creation process, and lures inexperienced players into making choices they will later regret. One thing that I have learned, painfully, from being a software developer: [B][I]Not only is more options not always good, it is frequently bad.[/I][/B] The cost of making decisions is non-trivial, as is the cost of people occasionally making the wrong decision*. Both of these costs must be counted against the benefit of having the option. Quite often, the cost exceeds the benefit. [size=-2]* In this case, the "wrong" decision is "the decision which will lead to the character not performing, in-game, the way the player wants him/her to perform."[/size] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Does 4e limit the scope of campaigns?
Top