NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GlaziusF" data-source="post: 4462705" data-attributes="member: 74166">d20 Modern? REALLY? Maybe you missed the part where I said there was such a thing as "bad crunch". d20 Modern introduced a new mechanic, Wealth, which doesn't do at all what it says on the label (model gear progression). It also tried to make two creaky mechanics from 3E even more load-bearing: the "pick what you suck at" skill system with the addition of "skill encounters" without even any guidelines for setting the right difficulty, and the multivariate calculus of multiclassing which was both made mandatory and given a third tier. "4E Modern" would beat d20 Modern like a redheaded stepchild.Also, the very notion of IP doesn't have much if any room in it for crunch. You can't copyright math. Not that this has stopped people from trying.Something I didn't address in the discussion of how both crunch and fluff reflect ideas was the role of uncertainty in gaming, and entertainment in general. Entertainment simulates something you would actually get a big kick out of doing but eliminates most of the risk. It'd be a real rush to take a skateboard to rollercoaster tracks but you get a decent approximation of that rush in the coaster without the risk of caving your skull in when the board jumps a rivet.It's possible to make mechanics so comprehensive, which "collapse" to something elegant, that there isn't much room in them at all for uncertainty. In fact, the less uncertainty there is the more easily you can make something elegant. Why is mathematics full of talk of the 'elegant proof'? As a formal and abstract system there's nothing uncertain at all unless it's deliberately put there. But the resulting system of mechanics becomes like a modern art "chair" - nice to look at but not useful as a thing to sit in. It's satisfying to read and think about but you can't actually PLAY with it.Actually, eladrin, dragonborn, and tieflings all solve common problems.Eladrin: Okay, so somehow Galadriel is Legolas's mum and they live in an ancient towering mystic city perfectly attuned to the forest. Um, er. Eladrin are a way to remove this cognitive dissonance by separating elves into the two fundamental components of Sparkly Elves and Woodsy Elves, each of which do appropriately different things.Dragonborn: You want to play a dragon? Okay, how about this guy. He's all covered in scales, he's got dragonbreath - pick your own flavor - and best of all he's a standard bipedal humanoid so I don't have to bother coming up with special dragon equipment or worrying about your gear progression.Tiefling: You want to play a "good bad guy"? Okay, how about this guy. He's got giant demon horns, his name is "Misery", and when somebody hits him, he shouts "You DARE!" and backfists them. Eventually the backfist is flamesplosive. As ready answers to common problems, they ALL belong in the implied setting."So long as they were consistent it wasn't a problem" - so if there were some standard guidelines so the DM wouldn't have to worry as much about consistency, wouldn't that be better?Also, concerning house rules, they generally serve one of two purposes. Either they're a patch for some terrible problem in the rules that the DM has encountered in the past, or they're ideas the DM wants to try out which may have their own terrible problems in the future. In the former case it would be better if that problem never happened - in the latter, the DM would be well-served by a few "best practices" to help him realize his ideas with less worry that they won't survive exposure to the players.</blockquote>

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