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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6069137" data-attributes="member: 42582">&quot;Natural&quot; in the sense of the obvious, and only known, game design&nbsp; solution to the instanced problem, namely, of rendering two PCs - one with high&nbsp; ingame effectiveness and one with low ingame effectivenss - mechanically balanced&nbsp; as player choices.&nbsp;The whole character sheet is a suite of player resources. The action econononmy is&nbsp; a suite of player resources. Some of those player resources (eg the equipment&nbsp; list, a D&amp;D wizard's spell list) also represent PC resources, but D&amp;D has always&nbsp; been happy to blur that line (eg not all hit points are PC resources, on the&nbsp; standard Gygaxian interpretation) and leave it to turn on narration at the time of&nbsp; expenditure by the player of his/her relevant mechanical resource.Even a Fate Point or Action Point in a game that expressly labels such things as&nbsp; metagame resources sometimes corresponds to a character resource, for instance if&nbsp; it is narrated as a spurt of adrenaline.The answer to your question, as a player, is that your PC could do that, but won't. That's the&nbsp; general nature of metagame abilities. (Just like, in a points-buy game, the world&nbsp; couldcontain a 1st level PC with straight 18s - say, Bruce Wayne - but no&nbsp; player will get to play that PC.)This approach makes it impossible to use&nbsp; metagame effectiveness to balance ingame effectiveness, though. Whereas that sort of balancing manoeuvre is what's at issue in this thread.Neonchameleon's point is a more general version of my own.If you are not going to nerf the casters, and you are not going to give the&nbsp; noncasters cinematic or mythic abilities, then metagame powers is one obvius way&nbsp; to go. Weapon specialisation and multi-attack abilities of the UA/2nd ed AD&amp;D may&nbsp; be another (and I think the Lamentations of the Flame Princess retro-clone does&nbsp; something similar too) - arguably these are metagame too (tweaking the action&nbsp; economy and damage rules to ensure that players of fighters stay on top in combat)&nbsp; although in the D&amp;D tradition they are not expressly called out as such.This sort of approach can work if the dreams/wizard mentors/items etc are&nbsp; part of the fighter player's resources. This would be one way - either&nbsp; Conan-esque or Arthurian, depending on how the player flavours the ability for&nbsp; their PC - of giving the fighter the metagame resources to keep up with the mage.Two things.First, CaGI need not be visible within the narrative, or &quot;I know this trick&quot;. It&nbsp; can be declared and adjudicated as purely metagame.Second, in effect what you're&nbsp; saying here is that you object to non-spellcasters having fiat, given you object&nbsp; to any fiat that is not explained, ingame, as magic. That's fair enough, but the&nbsp; whole premise of&nbsp; [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION]'s OP is to explore different ways of giving the fighter&nbsp; player fiat.Why? It's pretty much of the essence of metagame abilities that what is&nbsp; good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander.Thank you for explaining this. It makes the comparison&nbsp; between the two games much clearer.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6069137, member: 42582"] "Natural" in the sense of the obvious, and only known, game design solution to the instanced problem, namely, of rendering two PCs - one with high ingame effectiveness and one with low ingame effectivenss - mechanically balanced as player choices. The whole character sheet is a suite of player resources. The action econononmy is a suite of player resources. Some of those player resources (eg the equipment list, a D&D wizard's spell list) also represent PC resources, but D&D has always been happy to blur that line (eg not all hit points are PC resources, on the standard Gygaxian interpretation) and leave it to turn on narration at the time of expenditure by the player of his/her relevant mechanical resource. Even a Fate Point or Action Point in a game that expressly labels such things as metagame resources sometimes corresponds to a character resource, for instance if it is narrated as a spurt of adrenaline. The answer to your question, as a player, is that your PC [i]could[/i] do that, but [i]won't[/i]. That's the general nature of metagame abilities. (Just like, in a points-buy game, the world [i]could[/i]contain a 1st level PC with straight 18s - say, Bruce Wayne - but no player will get to play that PC.) This approach makes it impossible to use metagame effectiveness to balance ingame effectiveness, though. Whereas that sort of balancing manoeuvre is what's at issue in this thread. Neonchameleon's point is a more general version of my own. If you are not going to nerf the casters, [i]and[/i] you are not going to give the noncasters cinematic or mythic abilities, then metagame powers is one obvius way to go. Weapon specialisation and multi-attack abilities of the UA/2nd ed AD&D may be another (and I think the Lamentations of the Flame Princess retro-clone does something similar too) - arguably these are metagame too (tweaking the action economy and damage rules to ensure that players of fighters stay on top in combat) although in the D&D tradition they are not expressly called out as such. This sort of approach can work if the dreams/wizard mentors/items etc are [I]part of the fighter player's resources[/I]. This would be one way - either Conan-esque or Arthurian, depending on how the player flavours the ability for their PC - of giving the fighter the metagame resources to keep up with the mage. Two things. First, CaGI need not be visible within the narrative, or "I know this trick". It can be declared and adjudicated as purely metagame. Second, in effect what you're saying here is that you object to non-spellcasters having fiat, given you object to any fiat that is not explained, ingame, as magic. That's fair enough, but the whole premise of [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION]'s OP is to explore different ways of giving the fighter player fiat. Why? It's pretty much of the essence of metagame abilities that what is good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander. Thank you for explaining this. It makes the comparison between the two games much clearer. [/QUOTE]

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