D&D 5E Just One More Thing: The Power of "No" in Design (aka, My Fun, Your Fun, and BadWrongFun)

[DEFCON 1]

I thought you were being critical of people who decline to build mechanically ineffective D&D characters. Whereas I tend to sympathise with them - D&D places a heavy priority on mechanical effectiveness. And modern versions also tend both to permit and to favour specialisation.

I don't think there is anything wrong with choosing mechanical efficiency, and in point of fact I suspect the more you play the more you become accustomed to making selections based on it.

My only rolling of the eyes comes when players get upset that the designers release mechanics that they believe are too overpowered, and now they feel like they have no choice but to select those mechanics over any other "more fun" options. The whole 4E 'Weapon Expertise' fiasco for example. That it's on the designers to never release anything that could be considered "too good", because doing so shrinks player choice since now these options have to be selected since they are so good.

At some point, you have to take personal responsibility and decide that if you want to make a character choice for "fun" reasons, sometimes that means not making the "optimal" one. Because there is no single "optimal" path that is everybody's "fun" path too, which means WotC's job is impossible.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Fenris-77]

It helps for there to be a level of trust at the table too. If you trust the DM to run the game for the group he has, not some ideal group, you have more confidence that you can make a less optimized character and not just get your butt kicked every session.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Blue]

I thought you were being critical of people who decline to build mechanically ineffective D&D characters. Whereas I tend to sympathise with them - D&D places a heavy priority on mechanical effectiveness. And modern versions also tend both to permit and to favour specialisation.

Oh no - it's overwhelmingly common in D&D. The point that DEFCON1 originally made is that there's a set of reasonable-to-very efficient builds that tend to push out other builds.

Adding material doesn't do much to increase variation in play as it doesn't change the number of games/number of characters in play. What it does is either add more inefficient options that won't get played, or present some efficient options that bubble up and displace some of what was being played.

About the most that it adds in expanding options is when it's cherry-pickable, like many weapon CHR builds now sometimes looking at 1 or 3 levels of Hexblade. But cherry-picking has it's own issues to deal with.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I always thought that having damage determined by class rather than weapon would solve this.

This would roll all these factors into class choice. Then, once you’ve chosen your class, you could use whatever weapon you want and look cool and effective. Want to be a wnike fighter? No problem. Sword and dirk? Sure thing.

You could then have class options or feats that alter this a bit, depending on the weapon, but if the base damage is always the same, then at least all options seem viable.

 

[TwoSix]

I always thought that having damage determined by class rather than weapon would solve this.

This would roll all these factors into class choice. Then, once you’ve chosen your class, you could use whatever weapon you want and look cool and effective. Want to be a wnike fighter? No problem. Sword and dirk? Sure thing.

You could then have class options or feats that alter this a bit, depending on the weapon, but if the base damage is always the same, then at least all options seem viable.

There are certainly games that do that (like 13th Age), but it tend to provoke a fairly strong "that's not D&D!" response when the idea gets floated.

 

[Fenris-77]

A midrange option is to have certain classes do a higher die of damage with the same weapon. So a longsword does d10/d12 for a fighter and d8/d10 for a rogue. This could be for all weapons, or for a more limited set deemed 'class weapons'. Pertty much the same idea but I think it feels more like D&D.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Arilyn]

There are certainly games that do that (like 13th Age), but it tend to provoke a fairly strong "that's not D&D!" response when the idea gets floated.

That was my reaction when I first read 13th Age. Armour class is class dependent as well, but it only took one session to fall in love with the idea. It's freeing to be able to describe weapons and armour anyway I want.