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<blockquote data-quote="BryonD" data-source="post: 5270692" data-attributes="member: 957">I really cannot relate to this.&nbsp; I'm not saying it doesn't exist.&nbsp; But it is one of those statements that stuns me for a moment and then I am forced to re-remind myself that a lot of people simply play a very wildly different game than I do.When I was a &quot;brand new player&quot; the flood of character concepts bashing around in my mind was incredible.&nbsp; The idea of worrying about how the game mechanics reflected that character was really not in my thoughts.&nbsp; It is about &quot;play pretend&quot;.&nbsp; If you have to have any remote concern about builds, far far less feel anything that could possibly be called &quot;intimidation&quot; then the game is failing to be sufficiently invisible to the &quot;play pretend&quot;.&nbsp; I certainly understand that some people get much, if not most, of their fun from the &quot;game&quot; side, and that makes quality effectiveness choices important.&nbsp; And there is nothing wrong with that.&nbsp; But, it is a different kind of game.And, as an old hat now, I certainly appreciate the merits of balance between PCs and max/mining for fun, blah, blah, blah.&nbsp; But these are a secondary fun, well below the pure &quot;pretend&quot;.&nbsp; And I've played with two fairly new players recently, and both times we dispensed with all concerns of the rules and started by just finding out what character they thought was cool.&nbsp; The selection of character concept was complete before the difference between 3E or 4E or GURPS or Heroes, or whatever, even became a consideration.&nbsp; And there sure as hell was nothing remotely &quot;intimidating&quot; to either of them.&nbsp; What could possibly be intimidating about: &quot;Tell me what fantasy character sounds cool to you?&quot;.&nbsp; Then we banged out a character to match their preference and started playing.Intimidation comes from the possibility, and concern, of making an inferior choice in context of the rules of the game.&nbsp; Character concept should have nothing to do with anything between the covers of a book.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="BryonD, post: 5270692, member: 957"] I really cannot relate to this. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. But it is one of those statements that stuns me for a moment and then I am forced to re-remind myself that a lot of people simply play a very wildly different game than I do. When I was a "brand new player" the flood of character concepts bashing around in my mind was incredible. The idea of worrying about how the game mechanics reflected that character was really not in my thoughts. It is about "play pretend". If you have to have any remote concern about builds, far far less feel anything that could possibly be called "intimidation" then the game is failing to be sufficiently invisible to the "play pretend". I certainly understand that some people get much, if not most, of their fun from the "game" side, and that makes quality effectiveness choices important. And there is nothing wrong with that. But, it is a different kind of game. And, as an old hat now, I certainly appreciate the merits of balance between PCs and max/mining for fun, blah, blah, blah. But these are a secondary fun, well below the pure "pretend". And I've played with two fairly new players recently, and both times we dispensed with all concerns of the rules and started by just finding out what character they thought was cool. The selection of character concept was complete before the difference between 3E or 4E or GURPS or Heroes, or whatever, even became a consideration. And there sure as hell was nothing remotely "intimidating" to either of them. What could possibly be intimidating about: "Tell me what fantasy character sounds cool to you?". Then we banged out a character to match their preference and started playing. Intimidation comes from the possibility, and concern, of making an inferior choice in context of the rules of the game. Character concept should have nothing to do with anything between the covers of a book. [/QUOTE]

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