How do you define character "weakness?"

[Wolfpack48]

oohhhh... I want to see a thread on this one! = "Smart planning doesn't reward any bonuses or advantage"


So... I am old fart and have been playing games for 30+ years. And one of the biggest complaints, across soooo many peoples = "I hate the tactical planning part of a game".

And I mean they hate this by a BIG amount.

Players complained 100% of the time that "before we go into the orc camp, we debate for hours on how we could do this, and what each character should do, and all the possible side cases." and it got worse for big dungeons, and big campaign areas.

When we switched to the Blades in the Dark model of "jump right into the first challenge, and flash back to any preparations the characters may have done when they encounter a block" = we thought angels had come down from on high and gifted us with super powers of gaming!

Never, not even once, was any dungeon crawl, orc camp, castle raid, dinner soiree, king's ransom deal, etc etc = anywhere near as fun as it is now that we do this.

I can't imagine the pain and misery of going back to "let's argue for 2 hours , then the GM just sidelines our ideas with their own clever points" junk..

....

Now some may say "Well, what about being clever in the moment?". "I see a problem and I attempt to overcome it in clever way, give me +1!" = why don't some systems do this?

Good question!

I dunno the answer.

My initial gut reaction is = "because most of the time its a player trying to be a rule/bonus weasel and not really embracing the roleplay." but , then again, maybe not. maybe the player is just being clever. But in that case I still say, "ok, but the rules assume that is always the case, thats why you get to roll at all. You are just being extra in your description of your action. No bonus deserved." again, dunno... not sure on that either..

Old fart myself, but we never experienced 2 hour planning sessions luckily. I’m not sure exactly how it would play out in the rules, but I think the general idea is that if a player or the group has a good idea, it may affect the outcome in some way way. Fair GM required of course and perhaps guidelines in the rules but not specifics. Specific rules might lead to, as you say, bonus fishing.

In any case, hope there could be a good place between an ugly 2 hour planning session and benefits for good ideas and (hopefully short) planning.

 

[aramis erak]

In regards to the part above....
= Any game system that thinks a 'competent skill' of the character is below 70% chance of roll success base.

Don't waste my time with characters who can't roll a success to do their designated job...

Unless the character is punching meaningfully above their ability/skill/danger set, rolling should be to see how things get interesting, not to see if nothing happens...

What most gamers think of as combat competence is a rather high bar... especially since hit rates are under 40% for most actual uses of ranged lethal force.

Armed melee, well, it's pretty rare, except for the Indo-Chinese border incidents... melee combats by actual army personnel of both sides... The battle I saw a report on (late 2023) was about 10 dozen total troops, and only about 4 dozen casualties, no immediate fatalities. (no report at the time on eventually fatal wounds.) In a battle lasting about half an hour.

Yeah, half an hour, and 40% casualties... no on-the-field fatalities reported.
Skirmishes at that valley were ongoing from 2020-2023. (Both nations claim it as their own.)

 

[CleverNickName]

I've never played a character that I would consider "weak," certainly not to the point where it felt like it was "struggling like worms in the darkness." It sounds miserable.

Now I have asked my DM to let me roll up a different character because the one I had rolled up turned out to be really boring to play, in spite of being very strong and effective in combat (a dwarven fighter, champion subclass). So we retired that character, I rolled up a Hexblade instead, and the rest is history.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My main answer was:

It's hard to succeed in checks in my character's profession​

My other answers were similar.

When your PC can’t do things within their area of expertise, it’s problematic. I’m not saying fighters should hit every attack, but they shouldn’t be Masters of Whiff. Scientists should be knowledgeable within their fields.

 

[Wolfpack48]

I've never played a character that I would consider "weak," certainly not to the point where it felt like it was "struggling like worms in the darkness." It sounds miserable.

Now I have asked my DM to let me roll up a different character because the one I had rolled up turned out to be really boring to play, in spite of being very strong and effective in combat (a dwarven fighter, champion subclass). So we retired that character, I rolled up a Hexblade instead, and the rest is history.

It is an interesting point that old school techniques (random character generation, "make the best of what you get, buddy") have largely been replaced by picking what you want to play. Even in the old days, we tended toward this later method because players had an idea for their character pretty early on.

As part of the that old school random character generation, only if you got lucky did you "get to" play one of the higher-powered classes (ranger, paladin, bard). Later on, allowing players to pick any class also meant making sure all the classes are "balanced." A "lowly" fighter had to be as good as that shiny paladin.

Just saying the general question of what an individual player perceives as weakness and power is also relative to the balancing act systems now need to provide.

 

[payn]

It is an interesting point that old school techniques (random character generation, "make the best of what you get, buddy") have largely been replaced by picking what you want to play. Even in the old days, we tended toward this later method because players had an idea for their character pretty early on.

As part of the that old school random character generation, only if you got lucky did you "get to" play one of the higher-powered classes (ranger, paladin, bard). Later on, allowing players to pick any class also meant making sure all the classes are "balanced." A "lowly" fighter had to be as good as that shiny paladin.

Just saying the general question of what an individual player perceives as weakness and power is also relative to the balancing act systems now need to provide.

This reminds me of the Family Guy skit where in the post apocalypse everyone draws a job from a hat despite what they need want.

If balancing the classes to avoid dice gating, I’m absolutely missing the down side.

 

[Wolfpack48]

This reminds me of the Family Guy skit where in the post apocalypse everyone draws a job from a hat despite what they need want.

If balancing the classes to avoid dice gating, I’m absolutely missing the down side.

Did you get the impression I was advocating for the older method? I wasn't.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

What most gamers think of as combat competence is a rather high bar... especially since hit rates are under 40% for most actual uses of ranged lethal force.

Armed melee, well, it's pretty rare, except for the Indo-Chinese border incidents... melee combats by actual army personnel of both sides... The battle I saw a report on (late 2023) was about 10 dozen total troops, and only about 4 dozen casualties, no immediate fatalities. (no report at the time on eventually fatal wounds.) In a battle lasting about half an hour.

Yeah, half an hour, and 40% casualties... no on-the-field fatalities reported.
Skirmishes at that valley were ongoing from 2020-2023. (Both nations claim it as their own.)

I'll be honest, I have no idea what you are driving at here with all that. But it sounds neat so...

As a guess.... it sounds like there is a typical wargame problem here, not a roleplaying game issue. D&D and Pathfinder tend to create these problems that are not real problems.

For example, in D&D, the situation of troops and casualties you mention = is a problem. Because D&D is a nonsense combat game where full death/ murder is required due to 1 hp and 1000 hp being the same level of functionality.

Where as in a roleplaying game, like say, PBTA, actors in a fight Suffer Harm/complications, which can take them out of the fight without full death, or simply reduce their effectiveness = which is 100% what real-world war/battle/skirmish is about and does. You don't need to utterly murder or kill the enemy, you just need to remove their effectiveness or fight capacity such that they fall back. = that kind of battle can't be done in D&D or Pathfinder or most other wargame rpgs.

...

So with that said, even still, a better system can make a "Soldier character" feel competent without "1 shot 1 full murder kill" nonsense - if they are able to do various soldier stuff well (endure fatigue, take out enemy strong points, neutralize targets, wound or route enemies, reduce enemy target fighting force numbers through wound/scatter/smoke/psywar/etc)

TL/DR
Being competent does not mean wiping the board or fully flawless victories.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It is an interesting point that old school techniques (random character generation, "make the best of what you get, buddy") have largely been replaced by picking what you want to play. Even in the old days, we tended toward this later method because players had an idea for their character pretty early on.

As part of the that old school random character generation, only if you got lucky did you "get to" play one of the higher-powered classes (ranger, paladin, bard). Later on, allowing players to pick any class also meant making sure all the classes are "balanced." A "lowly" fighter had to be as good as that shiny paladin.

Just saying the general question of what an individual player perceives as weakness and power is also relative to the balancing act systems now need to provide.

I had been in the hobby many years before I got to play a PC that wasn’t generated largely by random chance in any system.

I’ll say that, while my favorite system (HERO) removes randomness in PCGen, I think PCs I played when randomness ruled had a net positive effect on my skills as a gamer- especially when it comes to roleplaying. And I have definitely used randomness in PCGen even in some of the most recent PCs I’ve played. One of the last 3.5ED PCs I played- a Ftr/Th- was created using 4d6 drop lowest, in order.

 

[Wolfpack48]

I had been in the hobby many years before I got to play a PC that wasn’t generated largely by random chance in any system.

I’ll say that, while my favorite system (HERO) removes randomness in PCGen, I think PCs I played when randomness ruled had a net positive effect on my skills as a gamer- especially when it comes to roleplaying. And I have definitely used randomness in PCGen even in some of the most recent PCs I’ve played. One of the last 3.5ED PCs I played- a Ftr/Th- was created using 4d6 drop lowest, in order.

I suppose you could argue that random chance forces players to deal with perceived weakness and outside their comfort zone, but most of the time it seems to just discourage players. Maybe in the old days it mattered less because everything was new, and nobody had thought of any other way.

There’s something there about “attaining” the right to play a ranger though. I just don’t think a throw of the dice should be what determines it.