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*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Rogue Design goals . L&L May 7th
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<blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 5905242" data-attributes="member: 3424"><p>I was going to post something about an excluded middle when it dawned upon me that there is no middle to exclude. </p><p></p><p>Part of the discussion so far has focused on two elements that I agree are undesirable in an RPG. The first is a lack of distinctiveness amongst the PCs. The second is player non-participation. That said, there is no middle to exclude because they are not opposites of each other. You do not have to choose whichever you view to be the lesser of the two evils. You are able to choose neither.</p><p></p><p>However, you can choose how much distinctiveness you want. At the most basic level, characters are distinguished only by flavor: one character may be decribed as an archer and another as a wizard, but they both make ranged attacks that have the same chance of hitting and deal the same amount of damage. At the second level, there are mechanical differences between the characters, but they are still approximately as effective as each other: one might have a 50% chance of hitting, and another always hits, but the one that has a 50% chance of hitting deals twice as much damage as the other. Finally, characters may also have varying levels of effectiveness, but even in this situation, the characters might all be in the same ballpark (if the best is a 10, the others range from 9 to 7), there might be middling differences (if the best is a 10, the worst ranges from 6 to 4), or there might be overwhelming differences (if the best is a 10, the worst ranges from 3 to 0). Only in the "overwhelming differences" case do you run the risk of player non-participation.</p><p></p><p>And yes, I would argue that player non-participation should be avoided whenever possible. Yes, shortening the periods of non-particiation makes it more tolerable. And yes, players should be mature enough not to complain if they were unable to participate due to their own choices and patient enough to wait for an oppotunity to get involved with the game again. However, none of the above turns a bug into a feature.</p><p></p><p>So you don't have to choose between either identical PCs or not being able to participate in certain aspects of the game. You can choose PCs that are able to contribute to all aspects of the game, but in different ways and at different levels of effectiveness.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FireLance, post: 5905242, member: 3424"] I was going to post something about an excluded middle when it dawned upon me that there is no middle to exclude. Part of the discussion so far has focused on two elements that I agree are undesirable in an RPG. The first is a lack of distinctiveness amongst the PCs. The second is player non-participation. That said, there is no middle to exclude because they are not opposites of each other. You do not have to choose whichever you view to be the lesser of the two evils. You are able to choose neither. However, you can choose how much distinctiveness you want. At the most basic level, characters are distinguished only by flavor: one character may be decribed as an archer and another as a wizard, but they both make ranged attacks that have the same chance of hitting and deal the same amount of damage. At the second level, there are mechanical differences between the characters, but they are still approximately as effective as each other: one might have a 50% chance of hitting, and another always hits, but the one that has a 50% chance of hitting deals twice as much damage as the other. Finally, characters may also have varying levels of effectiveness, but even in this situation, the characters might all be in the same ballpark (if the best is a 10, the others range from 9 to 7), there might be middling differences (if the best is a 10, the worst ranges from 6 to 4), or there might be overwhelming differences (if the best is a 10, the worst ranges from 3 to 0). Only in the "overwhelming differences" case do you run the risk of player non-participation. And yes, I would argue that player non-participation should be avoided whenever possible. Yes, shortening the periods of non-particiation makes it more tolerable. And yes, players should be mature enough not to complain if they were unable to participate due to their own choices and patient enough to wait for an oppotunity to get involved with the game again. However, none of the above turns a bug into a feature. So you don't have to choose between either identical PCs or not being able to participate in certain aspects of the game. You can choose PCs that are able to contribute to all aspects of the game, but in different ways and at different levels of effectiveness. [/QUOTE]
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