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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dkyle" data-source="post: 5897851" data-attributes="member: 70707">It's a trap if they expected to have an effective character, in comparison to their peers, and don't.I simply do not buy this notion that all theses people who want simple characters don't care how effective their characters are.That's clearly not a "trap" by common usage of the term.  A Trap is something that looks good, is treated as good by the rules text, but is clearly not, once you gain a degree of system mastery. It does not simply mean "not the absolute most optimal".But really, what is and is not a "trap" is besides the point.  Bad design should be avoided, period.  From overpowered combos, to underpowered Themes. One instance of bad design mistakes does not justify another.Makes it easy for beginners to get disappointed when their characters suck at doing what they want them to do. This is nothing more than rewarding system mastery, and punishing new players.Having mechanics that are "easy and simple" is not enough.  The "easy and simple" must be balanced with the customizable options. Otherwise, as far as I'm concerned, 5E will have failed in its goal of modularity.Uniqueness in personality or decisionmaking, sure.Uniqueness in capacity to interact with the world, no.  That's determined by mechanics (or DM fiat).When playing a game, a character's ability to interact with the world is pretty darn important.Both are roleplaying. The first is a narrative roleplaying style, the other is a declarative style. As in, narrating what your character is doing, as opposed to declaring what he is attempting to do (with the assumption that the character's knowledge and training fills in the details). Both are in-character decisions. Which one is more desirable depends on the tastes of the group.It has nothing to do with trust. I've DM'd D&D much more than I've played it, and I reject DM fiat just as soundly as a DM as I do as a player. To me, the more a world operates on well defined mechanics, the more "real" and immersive it is.This isn't really the place for that discussion, but my point is mainly that I disagree with the defeatist attitude I keep seeing, that optimizers will inevitably break games, so why bother trying to balance them in the face of that?There was a lot of improvement in this area from 3.5 to 4E. 4E's not perfect, of course, but that just means 5E should aim to be even better.</blockquote>

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