Is optimization on a common ground such as teamwork good for an rpg?

[xechnao]

Please clarify with an example. This is going over my head. The nearest interpretation I can make is as if you have a group of actors and each one of them wants to play Hamlet, but if you don't have someone playing Ophelia, Claudius, etc., you don't have the play.

Is that what you mean? A party where no one wants to play a Cleric, Warlord or Paladin, but someone makes the sacrifice in order to give the group healing ability?

Yep, this is what I mean. Perhaps we need more customization possibilities that happen to be both beneficial and restrictive to the party in the right balance along with encounter design that makes viable such a dynamic.

Ah, the DM. The solution to this problem! If players are dead set on their character concepts, then let the DM adjust the game world to accomodate them? Or are their character concepts logically incompatible "I am the only son of the Emperor of the World!" "No, I am!"?

Or perhaps you need a design that provides gameplay that deals with these problems instead of the DM.

Whose job is to play on a team.

I thought it was about having fun and not a job. Perhaps to have fun in my job I need a saying to (think about a council taking decisions).

PC's should cooperate in a fight if they want to survive.

They are free to pursue other goals once the fight is over.

Badly designed combat rules are not rightly considered a characterization aid...

Perhaps what is encounter and combat and what is not for the characters needs readdressing all together.

 

[The Little Raven]

This is why I tell you I do not think you have paid attention to what I am talking about.

Well, when you keep dancing around with semantics like "Groups cannot have fun," it makes me care less and less that you might actually have a point somewhere in all this song and dance.

Or perhaps you need a design that provides gameplay that deals with these problems instead of the DM.

There is no game design solution for "Lone Wolf in a Wolf Pack of One"-type players.

 

[xechnao]

There is no game design solution for "Lone Wolf in a Wolf Pack of One"-type players.

I am not sure about that.

 

[Mallus]

I thought it was about having fun and not a job.

Stop being so literal.

Perhaps what is encounter and combat and what is not for the characters needs readdressing all together.

What does this mean?

 

[xechnao]

What does this mean?

Many things
Ok, it is rather complicated what I have in my mind at this point. Let's say your character has his own agenda but still needs help of the team to fulfill it. Same for each other character of the team. Each character must have powers to model-direct the encounter for its own agenda but still need some help. These various influences of and from each character must eventually balance up to provide the challenge for each one of them.

 

[Umbran]

In rpgs a player must have some influence on the challenges he will face. If not we conclude that the rpg experience is just the DM's storytelling. This is a part of the problem I am talking about.

Some choice, sure. But not complete control, or you're looking at exactly the opposite - you'd be experiencing just the player's storytelling. And let's face it, a large part of the draw of the game is encountering things you don't expect.

Ergo, there should be a considerable amount of stuff you cannot plan for - and therefore cannot optimize for.

 

[Obryn]

Going back to my point - do you really think this is worse in 4e than in other editions?

Really, parties in 1e thru 3e were generally screwed unless they had both a cleric and a rogue. Particularly a cleric.

Sure, there were alternatives that eventually came out in splatbooks, but 4e at least shows you what can work for what.

-O

 

[MichaelSomething]

So teamwork is bad? If your not intrested in working with other people, why work with them in the first place? What's the point of being in a party then? Why play D&D if you don't want to play with other people? If being an individual is so important to you, play a single player game of some type. I guess I don't get it.

 

[xechnao]

Going back to my point - do you really think this is worse in 4e than in other editions?

Really, parties in 1e thru 3e were generally screwed unless they had both a cleric and a rogue. Particularly a cleric.

Sure, there were alternatives that eventually came out in splatbooks, but 4e at least shows you what can work for what.

-O

I don't know. Most probably not. But it seems to me that 4e design does not care about this. It is not designed this way. So it is not an evolution I have seen people talking about. It seems to me that it solves the balance problems of 3e in the wrong way for a tabletop rpg: instead of a tabletop approach it adopts and solves the problem through a singleplayer or even multi PvE videogame approach and I fear that in the long term its mechanics will end up boring or dull for the tabletop gamers -as it has been with 3e I guess.

So teamwork is bad? If your not intrested in working with other people, why work with them in the first place? What's the point of being in a party then? Why play D&D if you don't want to play with other people? If being an individual is so important to you, play a single player game of some type. I guess I don't get it.

No. I did not say that teamwork is bad. I say that if a design's focus is teamwork, then for a tabletop it is bad. I have addressed this in the thread. Please reread more carefully if you like and I think -I hope at least that my expressibility is not that bad- you will get what I am talking about.

 

[Incenjucar]

D&D is a multiplayer cooperative game, not a single player competitive game.

You are not one of five solo dudes, you are one fifth of a team.

D&D assumes at least some sense of altruism and generosity on the part of the players and the DM. The idea is that you derive some of your joy from showing how awesome you are to your friends, but that you are also deriving lots of joy from your friends getting to show you how awesome they are. Similarly, a DM is there to help all of you show off your collective awesome, while you bask in the DM's awesome design of opportunities for awesome showing off.

It's not a bunch of people showing up to watch you pose.

It's a bunch of people posing with you.

At the end of a good game, you should be slapping each other on the backs, bragging about someone else's character helping yours, and hurling congratulations everywhere.

If you don't start finding yourself saying "WE" more than "I," you aren't getting the full intention of the game.