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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1851417" data-attributes="member: 10201">I don't have time right now for a full response--you raise some good points i'd like to respond to. But, i wanted to point out an important qualifier that i perhaps didn't make explicit: whipping up balanced, fun, workable rules for the particular group you're playing for is, at least for me, very easy. This is not the same as claiming that these same rules would be balanced and fun and workable for any other group or GM, much less for D&D-players or gamers in general. The art of writing a set of rules for publication is much more demanding than doing the same for your familiar group. To make a concrete example: if i know that none of my players would even think of trying to multiclass a barbarian and a spellcaster that has con-based spell stats, i don't have to worry about whether the raging ability is too much of a boost for that particular spellcasting class. But, for a general set of rules, like D&D3E, i *do* have to watch out for such combos. And so on. So, i'm not claiming that i can out-design the vast majority of RPG authors out there, with trivial effort; i'm saying that you don't need to be a world-class RPG designer to houserule competently. Also, i think i'm a mediocre GM, not an awesome GM--i'm a pretty good game designer, however. Thus, i frequently rely on others' work for a lot of the GM-type chores (specifically, scenario/NPC development), but have no problem doing the rules myself.   One further point on the "whipping up balanced rules" thing: if you assume that the rules have to do all the work, yes, it's very hard. If you assume that the players do a large chunk of the work (i.e., simply choosing not look for loopholes), then the rules don't need to do as much of the work. Similarly, if the rules are just plain simpler, they become that much easier to do. Writing a good system on the order of complexity of, say, BESM--or adding new bits to it--is way easier than writing one on the order of D&D3E (or adding new bits to it). The other important point to keep in mind is that balance is, at best, subjective. Frex, many/most consider D&D3E well-balanced. It has never been well-balanced for the games i've played in or run, however, because i'm used to social-heavy, combat-light games, and the classes are balanced primarily on combat-effectiveness. Given that a simple shift of focus can totally mess up balance, i think expecting the rules to do all the work of balancing to be impossible.</blockquote>

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