Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Shieldhaven" data-source="post: 3293931" data-attributes="member: 23427">I think the problem of power creep is brought into focus by comparison to another game a few of us may have played - World of Warcraft.&nbsp; When introducing a new bit of crunch, there are basically three possibilities. 1. The feat, spell, whatever, is a little too weak.2. The f/s/w is spot-on in its power.3. The f/s/w is a little too powerful.In D&amp;D, if the game designers publish a rule that they later discover is overpowered, they have the option of publishing errata, which people may or may not even know about (since awareness of the Wizards website is less than 100% of all book-buyers, I would imagine).&nbsp; By contrast, the designers of an MMO have the option of annoying the players to some extent by just changing the rule the next time they release a patch.&nbsp; The only time the D&amp;D designers can release a truly far-reaching patch is in changing to a new edition of the game.For both the D&amp;D designer and the MMO designer, possibilities 1 and 2 are total non-issues, because they can just publish more text later.&nbsp; But that points to another problem that the D&amp;D designer faces - even an errata cannot take an option away, and the flexibility of options is, in and of itself, a kind of power creep.&nbsp; These factors, taken together, essentially mean that power creep is inevitable within an edition of the game.&nbsp; DMs are then faced with an unenviable choice: declining to purchase more books, creating their own errata to rules they believe are overpowered, or running a game with RAW that is too high-powered for their tastes.This does, incidentally, tell me that a 3.75 or 4.0 edition is inevitable, but then that isn't a bad thing in my estimation.Haven</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Shieldhaven, post: 3293931, member: 23427"] I think the problem of power creep is brought into focus by comparison to another game a few of us may have played - World of Warcraft. When introducing a new bit of crunch, there are basically three possibilities. 1. The feat, spell, whatever, is a little too weak. 2. The f/s/w is spot-on in its power. 3. The f/s/w is a little too powerful. In D&D, if the game designers publish a rule that they later discover is overpowered, they have the option of publishing errata, which people may or may not even know about (since awareness of the Wizards website is less than 100% of all book-buyers, I would imagine). By contrast, the designers of an MMO have the option of annoying the players to some extent by just changing the rule the next time they release a patch. The only time the D&D designers can release a truly far-reaching patch is in changing to a new edition of the game. For both the D&D designer and the MMO designer, possibilities 1 and 2 are total non-issues, because they can just publish more text later. But that points to another problem that the D&D designer faces - even an errata cannot take an option away, and the flexibility of options is, in and of itself, a kind of power creep. These factors, taken together, essentially mean that power creep is inevitable within an edition of the game. DMs are then faced with an unenviable choice: declining to purchase more books, creating their own errata to rules they believe are overpowered, or running a game with RAW that is too high-powered for their tastes. This does, incidentally, tell me that a 3.75 or 4.0 edition is inevitable, but then that isn't a bad thing in my estimation. Haven [/QUOTE]

Verification