I'm sick of symmetries

[Cheiromancer]

You could have symmetries that also allow differences.

For example, take the elemental symmetries. I regard the energies of fire and lightning to be aspects of the element of fire. Force and sonic energies I assign to the element of air. Cold and acid are the purview of the element of water. And positive and negative energy are related to earth.

In a lot of ways the associated energies are opposites. Force is air that is rigid; sonic is air that is vibrating. Positive and negative energy are related to the earth in its dual aspect of womb and grave. Cold preserves (freezes) materials while acid destroys (melts) them.

Using arcane magic it is easiest to access the element of fire; that is why fireball and lightning bolt have been on the wizard's spell list since forever. Force and sonic effects are in many ways "better" (i.e. fewer creatures have resistance to sonic or force effects)- but these energies are harder to get access to in a useful way; the associated spells should generally be of higher level, have expensive components or have more limited effects. Positive and negative energy is basically the purview of clerical magic and is outside of the wizard's purview except for a few limited cases. Acid and cold are somewhere in between fire and air in terms of accessibility.

But I agree that the standard implementation erodes the distinctiveness of the members of a group by allowing too many symmetries. If every spell has all the elemental variants, then the elemental form is irrelevant, and elemental magic becomes bland. It is hard to reintroduce the distinctiveness again, since to do so you have to reduce the number of possibilities and variants allowed in the game.

p.s. I endorse the idea about areas of effect mentioned above!
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[Highlight]Tales of Wyre: Compiled Sepulchrave Story Hour (updated 05-15)[/highlight]
and associated Rogue's Gallery (master list of links)

 

[Turjan]

I guess I am in the minority, but recently I am become bored and annoyed by the "mandatory" symmetry of D&D. If there's a game idea for good characters, immediately there has to be the same correspondent for evil characters, and it better be as symmetric as possible or "it's not fair". Once good and evil are done, there has to be something exactly the same for law and chaos! If there is something related to fire, there has to be something equivalent to water/earth/air, or electricity/sonic/acid/ice...

Perhaps, you are in a minority, but your are not alone . This striving for symmetry was what made the BoED so boring and, in some places, ridiculous. I also understand your discontent with the elemental effect symmetries. This can be often seen in some supplements: first we get the 'fire' variant, and we already know what to expect for a whole lot of the next few page. Unfortunately, things like this are very likely to happen if balance is your foremost design goal, which isn't a bad thing. The art is to make things balanced and not bland at the same time.

I used to like these sort of things, especially the symmetries in planar cosmologies, but now I feel like it's so futile and it also somewhat lacks imagination.

I feel with you. Whenever I read the word "pantheon", I already cringe, because it's most probably more of the same. The problem is that the symmetries are often cleaned so much from distinctive quirks that the result loses character. In the beginning, I found the 'Great Wheel' a great idea, but in the meanwhile I grew tired of the consequences.

 

[Turanil]

Rant over

100% agreed with the rant. I also hate it.

 

[Psion]

I think some symmetries make sense and/or make for interesting structures.

I do not think, for example, that there needs be a "good" poison or "good" disease. Part of the reason to include symmetries is to create a beleivable logic into system constructs. It seems to me that these examples (and others I can think of) do the opposite by imposing symmetries on things that I have a hard time beleiving should have one.

 

[Turjan]

But dualism? Dualism is great. It's nothing like symmetry. It's asymmetry. The darkness is not the mirror image of light, it is the lack thereof, it's complete negation. Dualism is about how things are different, not how they are the same.

What you describe is also some kind of symmetry. It's a negative symmetry, but still symmetry. The words "different" and "same" don't allow any inference on whether something is symmetric or not.

Surely we want evil to be different from good in our games, no?

That good and evil are "different" is a given in this context. This has nothing to do with the topic.

 

[Voadam]

Plenty of asymetries in the game.

fiends and celestials have DR based on good evil, not law chaos.

Tons of fiends defined by their evil, fewer but still bunches of celestial types defined by their good. Very few defined primarily by their Lawful or Chaotic nature.

Paladin is a core class, blackguard is a prc.

Monks and paladins don't seem a true symmetry to bards and barbarians.

Compare protection from evil from protection from any other alignment for just what they keep out.

Detect evil picks up undead as well.

 

[lukelightning]

I am waaay tired of all the paladin variants. "Lawful good gets a champion, so should chaotic neutral!"

 

[Crothian]

I am waaay tired of all the paladin variants. "Lawful good gets a champion, so should chaotic neutral!"

they were going to but they couldn't agree on what he could do or be, and this one guy started being different just for the heck of...those CN guys can never agree on anything!!

 

[buzz]

The worst part of this symmetry fashion is with elemental effects. Fire orb, acid orb, lightning orb... ugh. Each of them the same, save for some special effect. Apparently, shooting energy, gas or fluid has no effect on the shape or range of the spell. Or the psion energy powers? One power, choose the damage type?

Those are really bad design from a RP point of view. They turn energy type into "just a word".

You should probably avoid systems like HERO or M&M, then. (Base power) + (some special effect) is a tested and valid design choice.

 

[Twowolves]

The opposite of Paladin is Assassin. Not exactly symmetrical, but opposite nonetheless.