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Iron Lore: Malhavoc's Surprise?
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<blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 2251401" data-attributes="member: 10201"><p>One: IME, Mearls is an excellent game designer, but sometimes a bit narrow-minded in exactly this way (focusing on a single playstyle). He is, in general, not a good persuader. His rules, luckily, do the work for him, because i don't think i'd ever have bought one of his books based on his trying to persuade me [that is to say, potential customers in general] to do so.</p><p></p><p>Two: Your description of the perceived tone of IL pretty much matches, IMHO, the tone that D&D3[.5]E conveys. On the one hand, that's to be expected: i hear a *lot* more complaints about D20 System stuff that isn't balanced for violent encounters than stuff that isn't balanced for, say, royal court encounters. On the other hand, people certainly play D&D3E games in other ways, so i don't see why the same can't be true of IL.</p><p></p><p>And, in this sense, it may actually be a good thing. One of the problems of D&D3E, where balance is concerned, is its reliance on a certain playstyle to maintain that balance. Switch to a heavily-political, almost-no-combat game, and any semblance of balance in D&D3E disappears. That's because some of the classes have exceptional non-combat abilities while othres have essentially none, and the system assumes a balance where a small bit of combat ability is equivalent to a large bit of social ability. If IL balances all the classes around just <em>one</em> area (physical/combat ability), and gives them all equal (if secondary) access to other types of ability, it may improve balance, regardless of playstyle. IOW, everybody gets an equal share of spotlight in combat. And now, everybody is equally well-equipped (which is to say, not very) in non-combat areas, too. If you're playing an IL game, and it moves into some palace intrigue, true, all of the characters will be a bit out of their depth. But it'll be <em>all</em> of them--there won't be one character who totally outshines all the rest, with tons to do while the rest are bored.</p><p></p><p>Not to mention, i've known quite a few RPers who run very RP-intensive games with little or no combat, and <em>prefer</em> a ruleset that only handles combat/physical things, because they feel that rules for social stuff just get in the way of RPing, and that the rules should only handle the parts that can't be acted out by the players.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="woodelf, post: 2251401, member: 10201"] One: IME, Mearls is an excellent game designer, but sometimes a bit narrow-minded in exactly this way (focusing on a single playstyle). He is, in general, not a good persuader. His rules, luckily, do the work for him, because i don't think i'd ever have bought one of his books based on his trying to persuade me [that is to say, potential customers in general] to do so. Two: Your description of the perceived tone of IL pretty much matches, IMHO, the tone that D&D3[.5]E conveys. On the one hand, that's to be expected: i hear a *lot* more complaints about D20 System stuff that isn't balanced for violent encounters than stuff that isn't balanced for, say, royal court encounters. On the other hand, people certainly play D&D3E games in other ways, so i don't see why the same can't be true of IL. And, in this sense, it may actually be a good thing. One of the problems of D&D3E, where balance is concerned, is its reliance on a certain playstyle to maintain that balance. Switch to a heavily-political, almost-no-combat game, and any semblance of balance in D&D3E disappears. That's because some of the classes have exceptional non-combat abilities while othres have essentially none, and the system assumes a balance where a small bit of combat ability is equivalent to a large bit of social ability. If IL balances all the classes around just [i]one[/i] area (physical/combat ability), and gives them all equal (if secondary) access to other types of ability, it may improve balance, regardless of playstyle. IOW, everybody gets an equal share of spotlight in combat. And now, everybody is equally well-equipped (which is to say, not very) in non-combat areas, too. If you're playing an IL game, and it moves into some palace intrigue, true, all of the characters will be a bit out of their depth. But it'll be [i]all[/i] of them--there won't be one character who totally outshines all the rest, with tons to do while the rest are bored. Not to mention, i've known quite a few RPers who run very RP-intensive games with little or no combat, and [i]prefer[/i] a ruleset that only handles combat/physical things, because they feel that rules for social stuff just get in the way of RPing, and that the rules should only handle the parts that can't be acted out by the players. [/QUOTE]
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