Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="BiggusGeekus" data-source="post: 3864958" data-attributes="member: 1014">Exactly.Back in the day, we had these wandering monster tables.  You could have a cave of hobgoblins and all of the sudden a green slime would come bubbling down the corridor.  No story, no roleplay, just an attack.  MMOs and CRPGs have plenty of these kinds of things, monsters standing around as filler.  I think that's encouraged RPG designers to pay more attention to the story and the action because if they have a "monster zoo" then they really aren't doing much better than a randomly generated dungeon.I think the MMO community goes overboard with game balance, but there is a point to it.  My group has an amateur actor who performed in college and does the rare local community  theater role.  We also have an accountant.  The accountant doesn't try to power-game, he's just very good at numerical assessments.   The actor sucks at that, but there isn't any question he's a better role-player.  The problem occurs when both guys get even vaguely similar character ideas.  The actor wanted to play a dashing swordsman and the accountant wanted to play a paladin.  But the accountant had a better grasp of feats and equipment and tactical positioning, so the dashing swordsman was completely outclassed in his own specialty.  There wasn't any bad feelings about it between the players, but the actor had understandably mixed feelings about essentially having to create his character last so he could find his own niche.  Game balance does serve a purpose.  A point where I think I strongly diverge from the MMO-influence-concerned folks is that I tend to assume that DMs buying a product aren't good DMs.  This is not saying that all DMs who buy products are bad.  I am saying that the products should assume that.  A good DM can survive poor rules and will excel in situations calling for DM judgment.   A bad one won't.  What I like about the MMO influence is that it leans to supporting the bad DMs (or good DMs who are having a bad day).  Maybe this is catering to the lowest common denominator, but I don't think that's so horrible.  Happy gaming!</blockquote>

Verification