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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7726825" data-attributes="member: 996">I started with D&D in '80, but a few years later encountered Champions! and started playing it in '84, I think.  Champions! must have been somewhat revolutionary for it's day, it was this all-inclusive build system which used player-imagined 'special effects' to affix the 'table fiction' desired to the closest-match combination of mechanics.  I played a lot of Champions! through the rest of the 80s and 90s.  I also loved Mage: the Ascension in the 90s, and it's magic system also consisted of a variety of effects organized into 'spheres' to which the player appended not one but two table fictions: a magical effect in accord with the paradigm of their tradition, and either a 'coincidental' cover-appearance or a 'paradox' consequence.In between I also noticed and quite like the 2e Sense Shifting spell.  I made liberal use of re-skinning character and gear appearance in 3e, as well.So, come 4e, the idea of re-fluffing powers was noth'n, positively familiar, somewhat limited compared to Hero, even.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> 4e certainly had a higher production cost than usual.  There were just more plain many more folks working on it, for instance.  Hopefully never to return.  5e has very few people actually on Hasbro payroll working on it, it's on a slow release schedule - costs must be quite low.   Doubt that was the case with 4e.  I'm thinking it was appealing to the right target audience (new, younger players), but it too brutally alienated some of the existing ones, and they turned on it, viciously. I rather like the 13A solution, the 'campaign loss.'   Sure.  As they say in indie (now, apparently):  "to find out what happens." I'm not sure that's so different from 4e at low level.  You just might've started to notice it after playing for a year or two. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  The same might've been true if you'd played 1-10 twice in a year or two.Or, for that matter, from any other RPG.  4e, though, was dreadfully easy to run.  Pick up even an indifferent module, or just a sample encounter of the right level out of the MM(3!), and an indifferent DM could run an enjoyable enough little game for an hour or two.  A campaign calls for more creativity and interest, but more of it can be provided by the players, as well, both through the agency of the elaborate character-creation & advancement options, and just by being 'good players.'   That's a horrid formula considering the way D&D advancement has always worked:  more and more resources as you level, 'quadratically' more for traditional casters.  To support that kind of pacing, a fixed resource pool, upon which increasingly 'expensive' powers draw upon would make more sense.Take an old-school mana system, a simple one, casting a spell of level X costs X mana & spell levels are 1-9 over 20 levels, stats capping at 20 like in 5e... but mana is innate, it doesn't improve with level.  Say, it's set at Caster-stat mod + Con mod.  So probably 5 or so at first level, up to 10 (20 in each stat) at the highest levels.  At 1st level you'll likely be able to cast at least 3 spells/day, maybe 4 or 5.  But, at 20th, you'll be able to bust out just one 9th level spell, with a point left over for your morning application of Mage Armor.That would fit the (now that you mention it) very intuitive pacing implied by many, many things being a meaningful challenge to a 1st-level party -  "Oh no! A band of Kobolds!  Sleep!"  "Oh no!  Zombies!  Magic Missile!"  "Oh no, a 20' pit! Feather Fall!"  etc...  - yet very few meaningful challenges at higher level.  "Hmm.. A [/i]'Stone[/i] Giant?  If it's still alive on my turn, I'll cast Ray of Frost..." "</blockquote>

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