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<blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 5166049" data-attributes="member: 85870">I both agree and disagree. I don't think most designers' motives are to&nbsp; directly please &quot;ego gamers.&quot; I think most designers want to embrace&nbsp; player diversity, and provide for a wide range of possible play styles,&nbsp; and allow players to enjoy their chosen games in a multiplicity of ways.&nbsp; However, the fact that many design motivations can reasonably be&nbsp; attributed to motives other than &quot;appeasing the ego gamers,&quot; doesn't&nbsp; necessarily mean that the designers accounted for the &quot;law of unseen&nbsp; consequences.&quot; Just because you thought that a particular gameplay style, or&nbsp; mode of thought/gratification/reinforcement was what you wanted to&nbsp; achieve, doesn't mean that it didn't have an unforeseen, or unintended&nbsp; effect. I think this thread has at the very least identified some&nbsp; evidences that D&amp;D 4th Edition may, in fact, have had an unintended&nbsp; &quot;move&quot; towards catering to &quot;ego gaming&quot; styles. As has already been&nbsp; pointed out, the &quot;Why Do Numbers Go Up?&quot; and the &quot;d20 vs 3d6&quot; threads&nbsp; are evidence that some players feel that 4th Edition didn't go quite far&nbsp; enough in the reward/gratification cycle based on the system's&nbsp; inherent math probabilities. A more interesting question might be why someone would feel the need to&nbsp; argue against it. If it's just an &quot;unintended design consequence&quot; of&nbsp; D&amp;D 4e, it just means that &quot;it is what it is.&quot; Is it necessarily a&nbsp; &quot;bad thing?&quot;The interesting issue to me is how far does a game go into this&nbsp; reward/gratification &quot;mode&quot; or &quot;playstyle&quot; before it is no longer a&nbsp; &quot;game we want to play,&quot; or no longer wholly resembles what we perceive&nbsp; to be a &quot;role-playing game?&quot; It's an interesting question to consider if&nbsp; design decisions by WotC, Paizo, White Wolf, Palladium, et. al., take&nbsp; this into account.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="innerdude, post: 5166049, member: 85870"] I both agree and disagree. I don't think most designers' motives are to directly please "ego gamers." I think most designers want to embrace player diversity, and provide for a wide range of possible play styles, and allow players to enjoy their chosen games in a multiplicity of ways. However, the fact that many design motivations [I]can[/I] reasonably be attributed to motives other than "appeasing the ego gamers," doesn't necessarily mean that the designers accounted for the "law of unseen consequences." Just because you [I]thought[/I] that a particular gameplay style, or mode of thought/gratification/reinforcement was what you wanted to achieve, doesn't mean that it didn't have an unforeseen, or unintended effect. I think this thread has at the very least identified some evidences that D&D 4th Edition may, in fact, have had an unintended "move" towards catering to "ego gaming" styles. As has already been pointed out, the "Why Do Numbers Go Up?" and the "d20 vs 3d6" threads are evidence that some players feel that 4th Edition didn't go quite [I]far enough[/I] in the reward/gratification cycle based on the system's inherent math probabilities. A more interesting question might be why someone would feel the need to argue against it. If it's just an "unintended design consequence" of D&D 4e, it just means that "it is what it is." Is it necessarily a "bad thing?" The interesting issue to me is [I]how far[/I] does a game go into this reward/gratification "mode" or "playstyle" before it is no longer a "game we want to play," or no longer wholly resembles what we perceive to be a "role-playing game?" It's an interesting question to consider if design decisions by WotC, Paizo, White Wolf, Palladium, et. al., take this into account. [/QUOTE]

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