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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6028604" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't undestand your apparent obsession with combat, and your tendency to bring everything back to it.Suppose the aim of the RPG is to make a range of archetypes viable - say a somewhat likeable rogue (think perhaps the Grey Mouser, or Cugel the Clever), a charismatic paladin (think Galahad, or under some readings Lancelot), a swashbuckler (think Dumas or The Princess Bride) and a magic-user (think perhaps Merlin or Gandalf).If all these archetypes are to be viable, then all should have a meaningful chance of engaging in the social challenges the game will throw up - negotiating terms with black knights, wooing maidens, conning the careless out of their wealth, persuading kings, etc.If the game makes one of the archetypes a clearly superior choice for such purposes, then it has failed as a game in a way that has nothing to do with killing. For example, if taking the Linguist/Speak languages ability grants mastery of fewer languages than the Tongues spell, yet consumes more PC build resources, than the game has failed! A player might still take the Linguist ability simply because s/he like the flavour/colour of his/her PC being fluent in many languages, but the game is punishing her - and pointlessly so - for making this choice.Exactly! I could compare the Craft skill with creation magic, or the Diplomacy skill with charm magic. These are options that can be mechanically balanced or unbalanced, and that have nothing to do with killing.The game also has to take a view about what sorts of activities are within its purview, and which are not. D&D traditionally has approached the resolution of combat in a more fine-grained way than its resolution of other activities, and its PC build rules reflect this: there are rules which reflect the difference between training in a shortsword and a rapier, for example, whereas there are no rules that reflect the difference between training in jazz or classical clarinet (there is simply Perform (Clarinet), or perhaps even Perform (Woodwind)), or that reflect the difference between expertise in the history of Greyhawk and the history of Dyvers (there is simply Knowledge (History)).A game which cares more about whether your swordsmanship is with rapier or shortsword, than your style of musical training, is not treating those two domains of endeavour equally. And it is folly to pretend otherwise. Rather, the game should make its expectations and focus (for PC build, for scene framing, for action resolution) clear. If players then want to try and drift it in other directions (eg use 3E D&D to set up and run a game about a series of concert musicians scrabbling their way from gig to gig) that's up to them! - but the game shouldn't lie about what it was designed to handle.</blockquote>

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