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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8253633" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think it has to be admitted that EVEN Gary saw the flaws in the original concept. His 1e DMG methods were an attempt to allow players to pick their class and race, nothing more or less. I don't think he cared much about 'power inflation', he just wanted it to be possible to say to someone "OK, lets see what sort of Ranger you can make, and then you can be recruited into The Order so we can do this adventure!" I mean, I don't know exactly what his motives and thinking were, maybe Rob does. I never really understood what the point of UA was, maybe he'd just got onto a kick to do high power S&S games and that was his way of doing it with D&D rules. Anyway, I never saw 1e as 'getting out of control'. UA was pretty ridiculous but the other books were pretty much inline with the original core rules, and those only 'powered up' some classes slightly WRT the original game (clerics got a substantial boost, and fighters got a smaller one). 2e did mark a lot of stuff as 'optional', but since most of what was optional in 2e was pretty much standard stuff in 1e (albeit some was option in the sense of being in later books, like NWPs). So we never really thought about what those "this is optional" flags said. I mean, when I started rolling up 2e PCs (and that was only after we'd played for a good long while using our existing 1e PCs) I don't recall ever thinking "Oh, gosh I have to use 3d6 in order" I just read down to 'Method V' and saw that it was the same as 'Method 1' in 1e DMG and went ahead and used it, because anyone would be crazy not to go with that, it was the basic standard! 1e never ever even mentions 3d6 straight. It isn't even an option. So, yeah, 2e gives some GMs license to put screws on everyone, but I bet that not 1 in 1000 campaigns ever used that 'standard option'. Frankly what annoyed me about 2e was that it STILL had all those other restrictions and minimums. I knew the style of play that theoretically supported them, but TBH I don't think troupe play NEEDS scarcity to work. I think experience has shown that players are a diverse bunch with a lot of different reasons why they want to play different things, and any option that is not truly stinky will see a fair amount of use. Moreover most players are more interested in using the standard archetypes much of the time. The logical outgrowth of that is to present the various options more as 'paths' that build on that. While 4e, for example, still has classes as archetypes, once you make a basic character it can incorporate a really wide variety of options to represent a unique vision. There is no such thing as "just a plain old fighter" at all.</blockquote>

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