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*Dungeons & Dragons
Legends & Lore 4/1/2013
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6112667" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>As I and some others pointed out upthread of your post, this looks like an attempted mixture of oil and water.</p><p></p><p>A certain sort of "old schooler" wants to play a low-complexity, low hp PC. Fine. But newbies should not be let anywhere near such PC builds! Newbies should not be using the system where you find out whether or not your PC lives as part of gettting a feel for him/her. If anything, newbies need <em>more</em> hit points, because they have less sense of what is required to avoid losing them and thus are in greater danger of doing so.</p><p></p><p>I was the one who introduced the idea of "fate points" into the discussion.</p><p></p><p>Newbies need a system with (i) less complexity in player options, and hence in PC build, but (ii) more survivability than an experienced player typically needs in a starting PC. Those needs are not served by the system Mearls is proposing, because his system is based on the level paradigm, where low complexity is anchored to low level, which is in turn anchored to low hit points, which means the a newbie's first experience is likely to be having his/her PC die.</p><p></p><p>Hence my suggestion - newbies need a <em>non-level based</em>, parallel approach to simplying their PCs while preserving survivability; and one way to do that is to grant rerolls, Fate Points or something similar in lieu of PC abilities, because these are easy to use and improve survivability. The newbie can then trade these in for real class abilities as s/he gets a feel for the gameplay, but this can be done independently of levelling.</p><p></p><p> [MENTION=14391]Warbringer[/MENTION] made the additional observation that, in practice, many GMs of new and/or young players allow rerolls, fudge dice etc. And my suggestion would be a way of formalising that while shifting power over the PC from the GM to the player, and hence giving the newbie a truer taste of what RPGing is about.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6112667, member: 42582"] As I and some others pointed out upthread of your post, this looks like an attempted mixture of oil and water. A certain sort of "old schooler" wants to play a low-complexity, low hp PC. Fine. But newbies should not be let anywhere near such PC builds! Newbies should not be using the system where you find out whether or not your PC lives as part of gettting a feel for him/her. If anything, newbies need [I]more[/I] hit points, because they have less sense of what is required to avoid losing them and thus are in greater danger of doing so. I was the one who introduced the idea of "fate points" into the discussion. Newbies need a system with (i) less complexity in player options, and hence in PC build, but (ii) more survivability than an experienced player typically needs in a starting PC. Those needs are not served by the system Mearls is proposing, because his system is based on the level paradigm, where low complexity is anchored to low level, which is in turn anchored to low hit points, which means the a newbie's first experience is likely to be having his/her PC die. Hence my suggestion - newbies need a [I]non-level based[/I], parallel approach to simplying their PCs while preserving survivability; and one way to do that is to grant rerolls, Fate Points or something similar in lieu of PC abilities, because these are easy to use and improve survivability. The newbie can then trade these in for real class abilities as s/he gets a feel for the gameplay, but this can be done independently of levelling. [MENTION=14391]Warbringer[/MENTION] made the additional observation that, in practice, many GMs of new and/or young players allow rerolls, fudge dice etc. And my suggestion would be a way of formalising that while shifting power over the PC from the GM to the player, and hence giving the newbie a truer taste of what RPGing is about. [/QUOTE]
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