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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 3838051" data-attributes="member: 710">The question is, what kind of choice do I enjoy more when playing a game? Do I prefer to pretend being a swashbuckler and describing my attacks as daring moves and attacks missing me due to my superior reflexes, or do I prefer expressing this character by game mechanics? What should a game support? D&D isn't just role-playing, and it is not just some random type of game, it is a Role Playing Game. Therefore, the rules of the game should relate to the role you play. If you see your character as a tank, you should probably have the ability to make mechanical choices that can express this feature of your character. If you see your character as a swashbuckler, you should probably have the ability to make choices that can express this feature.And, more difficult, if you see your character as a Diplomat, you should probably have the ability to make mechanical choices that can express this feature of your character.The ability to express your character in game terms comes at the cost of you usually _having_ to use these game terms to express a character. When expressing your character in game terms, you will also hope that you get to use your character in the game. If a major time of the game is devoted to combat, this requires the game to ensure that all characters can take part in combat, and all are equally interesting in this combat. So Swashbuckler, Tank, Diplomat, all need abilities that are devoted to that part of the game that is the most time-consuming. What computer games usually get right is ensuring that every character can participate in combat. That's what RPG designers learn from these games. And they try to rip out the things that, in these computer games, achieve these results, and incorporate them inside your game.The encounter is a building block for any type of adventure or campaign. An adventure consists of a serious of encounters (not all of them combats, maybe even very little of them, and probably every campaign consists of a series of adventures). The question is, how should your building block look like? Should it be a brick, from which you can place any number together to build your adventure. Or should it more be like the various Tetris shapes, so you have to use specific combinations to build one? Should it be a puzzle, with many different shapes?The 4th edition approach seems to be that its based on bricks (but maybe more like several sizes of bricks, but all of them rectangular that you can easily fit them together to build your adventure or campaign). This might sound boring (but remember, it's only an analogy), but it (ideally) should give you ultimate flexiblity to build your adventure or campaign. In 3rd edition, the building blocks were a bit less fitting. For example, you couldn't fit more than 4 average sized blocks (EL = PL encounters) to build a day of your adventure or campaign. Now, how much importance you (or your group) sets on the XP gaining aspect of encounters, and how much of the story-advancing aspect of an encounter depends entirely on you (or your group).</blockquote>

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