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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8962643" data-attributes="member: 82106">But my response is that level limits for demi-humans in D&amp;D/AD&amp;D DO serve a design purpose! They act as a disincentive to play as a demi-human, which is otherwise in most cases a mechanically superior option. The designer of the game, Gygax, was not interested in a game which depicted bands of superior demi-human adventurers lording it over the human 'normals'. That simply wasn't the milieu/genre he was interested in producing, and thus he introduced mechanical constraints designed to make that outcome unlikely. My point being, there never was any sort of viable simulationist argument here, the rule is PURELY gamist, or at most could be seen as being part of a 'high concept' in which the genre is meant to be close to that of most S&amp;S from which he drew inspiration, where humans are the only/main protagonists (even Lord of the Rings is MOSTLY about humans in an overall sense, despite the main characters often being 'demi-human'). I am certainly willing to agree that if a game designer can construct their system in such a way that a significant segment of the gaming public is able to reason about it in 'simulationist' terms, and that makes them satisfied with the result, then the resulting game is probably going to be better received. In terms of the actual topic of the thread, I think this is a point which is likely to be important to someone including 'plot armor' of some sort into their design, or 'mook rules' like the 4e minion rule.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8962643, member: 82106"] But my response is that level limits for demi-humans in D&D/AD&D DO serve a design purpose! They act as a disincentive to play as a demi-human, which is otherwise in most cases a mechanically superior option. The designer of the game, Gygax, was not interested in a game which depicted bands of superior demi-human adventurers lording it over the human 'normals'. That simply wasn't the milieu/genre he was interested in producing, and thus he introduced mechanical constraints designed to make that outcome unlikely. My point being, there never was any sort of viable simulationist argument here, the rule is PURELY gamist, or at most could be seen as being part of a 'high concept' in which the genre is meant to be close to that of most S&S from which he drew inspiration, where humans are the only/main protagonists (even Lord of the Rings is MOSTLY about humans in an overall sense, despite the main characters often being 'demi-human'). I am certainly willing to agree that if a game designer can construct their system in such a way that a significant segment of the gaming public is able to reason about it in 'simulationist' terms, and that makes them satisfied with the result, then the resulting game is probably going to be better received. In terms of the actual topic of the thread, I think this is a point which is likely to be important to someone including 'plot armor' of some sort into their design, or 'mook rules' like the 4e minion rule. [/QUOTE]

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