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How much should 5e aim at balance?
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5984926" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Not predetermined - quests may go unfullfilled (eg if the players have two goals for their PCs, or even conflicting goals, and go one way rather than another), and player choices about action resolution happen in the course of play, not before play - and are the single biggest shaper of plot.</p><p></p><p>Otherwise, thanks for the reply, you'll get some more XP when the tap is turned back on!</p><p></p><p>Agreed. I find it strange that it's sometimes presented as a holy grail to which we can only aspire after much questing, but never actually reach.</p><p></p><p>I think this is a good point, but one which the game could be more upfront about.</p><p></p><p>In AD&D, the rulebooks just came right out and send "If you choose to play a magic-user, it will be hard at first but you'll end up dominating the game." (Mearls had <a href="http://wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20110412" target="_blank">a good post</a> on this in the early L&L days.)</p><p></p><p>Modern D&D rulebooks seem much shyer about saying "Take this if you want to be broken, but take this other thing if you want to be challenged". It would be good to go back to the more old-fashioned transparency.</p><p></p><p>Is there more than a semantic difference between "comparison" and "competition" in this context? I'm not sure, but if I had to choose one of those two words I'd choose "comparison" - the two PCs aren't in <em>competition</em>, but in comparison between the two the one fighting the orc seems like a sidekick to the one fighting the ogre.</p><p></p><p>I think one reason for that is that, in an RPG, fiction matters: althoug mechanically and mathematically the tougher PC vs ogre may be no different from the lesser PC vs orc, in the fiction one battle is more significant than the other, because against a more serious threat.</p><p></p><p>I think the same comes up in the "good at different time" issue. I've got nothing against that - although in a game in which combat is significant, I want to parse "different times" as "from round to round" rather than "outside combat". But different systems, which don't give combat such priority, can take a broader view of what "different times" means. Anyway, however exactly "different times" is cashed out, I want it to be the case that, overall, when a comparison is made, no PC obviously dominated the contributions made to the game.</p><p></p><p>If I've read you right, I don't think we're very far apart on the principles here, though we may have different preferences about the details and techniques of implementation.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5984926, member: 42582"] Not predetermined - quests may go unfullfilled (eg if the players have two goals for their PCs, or even conflicting goals, and go one way rather than another), and player choices about action resolution happen in the course of play, not before play - and are the single biggest shaper of plot. Otherwise, thanks for the reply, you'll get some more XP when the tap is turned back on! Agreed. I find it strange that it's sometimes presented as a holy grail to which we can only aspire after much questing, but never actually reach. I think this is a good point, but one which the game could be more upfront about. In AD&D, the rulebooks just came right out and send "If you choose to play a magic-user, it will be hard at first but you'll end up dominating the game." (Mearls had [url=http://wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20110412]a good post[/url] on this in the early L&L days.) Modern D&D rulebooks seem much shyer about saying "Take this if you want to be broken, but take this other thing if you want to be challenged". It would be good to go back to the more old-fashioned transparency. Is there more than a semantic difference between "comparison" and "competition" in this context? I'm not sure, but if I had to choose one of those two words I'd choose "comparison" - the two PCs aren't in [I]competition[/I], but in comparison between the two the one fighting the orc seems like a sidekick to the one fighting the ogre. I think one reason for that is that, in an RPG, fiction matters: althoug mechanically and mathematically the tougher PC vs ogre may be no different from the lesser PC vs orc, in the fiction one battle is more significant than the other, because against a more serious threat. I think the same comes up in the "good at different time" issue. I've got nothing against that - although in a game in which combat is significant, I want to parse "different times" as "from round to round" rather than "outside combat". But different systems, which don't give combat such priority, can take a broader view of what "different times" means. Anyway, however exactly "different times" is cashed out, I want it to be the case that, overall, when a comparison is made, no PC obviously dominated the contributions made to the game. If I've read you right, I don't think we're very far apart on the principles here, though we may have different preferences about the details and techniques of implementation. [/QUOTE]
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