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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 8638262" data-attributes="member: 7023840">So, in the instant example that you are replying to, notice that I explicitly compared "power creep" to "high inflation." (Not deflation, not stagflation, and not small and healthy amounts of inflation indicating a robust and growing economy)Why did I do that?With high inflation, you have the situation where a given object is suddenly "worth" more.T0: Eggs cost $1T1: Eggs cost $2T2: Eggs cost $3From one perspective, maybe it seems great? Maybe you're the egg producer, and your eggs are "worth" more.Of course, the eggs are the same. The consumer is just paying more for them. In order to pay more for them, consumers are going to have to get paid more, so ideally consumers' wages in T1 are twice as much, and in T2 they are three times as much. (In the real world, there is a lot of stickiness that makes high inflation much more painful, not to mention issues regarding the distortion of consumption and savings etc.- that's why this is an analogy, which is imperfect)In effect, you're on a treadmill. There is no value being created.Now, think about one way to "power creep." Imagine a campaign where, instead of every person starting at 1st level, they start at 4th level. That's more power, right? But the obstacles they face are also more difficult. What about 10th level? Same thing. You can keep upping the "power" in your game, but in order to get the challenge right, you have to keep upping the difficulty you are facing.Because if you simply upped the power to 10th level, and kept the challenge the same as it was at 1st level, it would likely be an unsatisfying experience.This loop, the leveling loop, is part of the normal D&D experience. The DM dynamically is adjusting difficulty (or choosing adventures) to make the game appropriately challenging (aka, "fun") for players.Now repeat the same experience, but substitute "power creep" expansions. There, the problems become greater. Moving back to the inflation/treadmill example-Player A is using the core rules (wages at T0).Player B is using fancy supplement (wages at T1).Player C is using super fancy supplement plus all optimization guides (wages at T2).Given these issues, where does the DM set the price of the eggs that the party is buying? T0, T1, or T2? More importantly, what type of pressure is there going to be on Players A and B to move to T2?But wait, why not just have everyone more to T2? No problem, right? Okay, but then that's the nature of power creep. If everyone is at T2, then there's going to be a T3. And a T4. And a T5.You get to the point (either slowly or quickly) where the materials at T0 are unusable for many people, because you have so many using T3, T5, T8, etc. More importantly, the whole system begins to buckle, because ...Power creep is always a player-side option (by definition). Do you know who is not getting power creeped? Mr. Monster. So in this example, the wages go up, but the price of eggs stays the same. Which makes the DMs life harder and harder, because not only are they dynamically adjusting things to the intra-party differences, but they also have to account for the fact that the prior encounters are no longer working as expected.And just like with high inflation, eventually you need a shock to the system. Or, in the case of TTRPGs, you need a new edition. You need to start over. Which ... I mean, I prefer to keep that away for as long as possible.So no- I don't like power creep very much. I think you can try and define it away (It's not power creep, it's errata! It's not power creep, it's just realizing the true intent of the designers to give every Paladin a Holy Avenger!).In essence, though, it's just a treadmill. Unless you're just playing so you can be a 20th level character smiting bullywugs, power creep (as most people understand) is not the same thing as options, instead it's an escalation that doesn't improve the game experience and inevitably leads to more difficulties for DMs, and eventually tossing the edition and starting from scratch again.ETA- now, this doesn't mean that you have to agree with me. I know there are many people that absolutely LOVE the addition of more powerful options, and don't much care if it will lead to a new edition (they probably like that as well). But that's my take on it. Been the same ever since I saw 1e UA and knew that edition was effectively dead.</blockquote>

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