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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 6732038" data-attributes="member: 177">Well, here is the problem - &quot;smart play&quot; is largely defined by what gets a lot of bang for your buck under the rules.&nbsp; You don't choose to buy a notebook full of scrolls until *after* you realize that the rules make it possible, and that it is very economical.&nbsp; I think that we should differentiate between natural play and smart play.&nbsp; Natural play is the stuff you'd try to do just because it makes sense in the fictional framing.&nbsp; &quot;I draw my sword and try to stab it,&quot; is entirely natural, an common thing someone would try to do.&nbsp; &quot;I go out and buy three dozen scrolls,&quot; isn't really something you expect folks to try to do, just as a part of generic fantasy.&nbsp; I find it an issue if a bit of natural play is really broken, and I'm less concerned with play that comes after attempts to optimize are broken.I think this is a &quot;hindsight is 20/20&quot; thing. Today, in an age where we have RPG playtests that have tens of thousands of people, &quot;testing&quot; means something very different than what it did in 2000.&nbsp; Or, perhaps a bit of armchair QA-analysis.&nbsp; It is very easy, now, to say they *should have* caught it.&nbsp; But, have you ever tried to really test an entire RPG system, with only a handful of people?Taking a cue from software development - you will generally only catch failures for which you have an explicit test case.&nbsp; If, during the playtests, nobody really thought of trying that action - it was not *natural* play - then, yeah, they'd miss it.&nbsp; Yeah.&nbsp; Note how 13th Age had the opportunity to learn from 3.0's mistakes?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 6732038, member: 177"] Well, here is the problem - "smart play" is largely defined by what gets a lot of bang for your buck under the rules. You don't choose to buy a notebook full of scrolls until *after* you realize that the rules make it possible, and that it is very economical. I think that we should differentiate between natural play and smart play. Natural play is the stuff you'd try to do just because it makes sense in the fictional framing. "I draw my sword and try to stab it," is entirely natural, an common thing someone would try to do. "I go out and buy three dozen scrolls," isn't really something you expect folks to try to do, just as a part of generic fantasy. I find it an issue if a bit of natural play is really broken, and I'm less concerned with play that comes after attempts to optimize are broken. I think this is a "hindsight is 20/20" thing. Today, in an age where we have RPG playtests that have tens of thousands of people, "testing" means something very different than what it did in 2000. Or, perhaps a bit of armchair QA-analysis. It is very easy, now, to say they *should have* caught it. But, have you ever tried to really test an entire RPG system, with only a handful of people? Taking a cue from software development - you will generally only catch failures for which you have an explicit test case. If, during the playtests, nobody really thought of trying that action - it was not *natural* play - then, yeah, they'd miss it. Yeah. Note how 13th Age had the opportunity to learn from 3.0's mistakes? [/QUOTE]

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