D&D 5E So what's the problem with restrictions, especially when it comes to the Paladin?

[Libramarian]

If Next really is modular, this could be an interesting module - Advanced Alignment or some such. Sadly, the modular approach in Next seems to be an utopia that's just too hard to achieve.

I like this post, I really do, and agree with most of it. But I cannot agree with the last part. Making the Paladin a balanced class in no way makes it bland to me. But I think that is because we have different ideas of what classes are. To me, they are building blocks from which you build a character. Tools used to manifest an archetype. Perhaps to you classes are more like archetypes in themselves?

For this reason, I'd also like a paladin class that works with multiclassing - unlike the present Pathfinder paladin that does allow a dip for the early bonuses, but if you are a serious paladin it is just too costly to even dip into another class, much less seriously multiclass. With my approach to classes, multiclassing is a natural tool to use, and I sort of dislike how Pathfinder made multiclassing less attractive. This is a tangent to this thread, however. A serious discussion of this would need its own thread.

I identify my preferred mode of play as gamist in GNS terms, so according to that I would say a Paladin is like a toolbox of game abilities with some strengths and some weaknesses. In this sense, I don't mind the idea of balancing mechanical power with a roleplaying restriction. I think most other D&D gamists are more used to 3e-style gamism, where it's kind of boxed in to the charop subgame ("building a hot rod"), and the rest of the game is more story-oriented. In that case, I can see why using roleplaying restrictions as a balancing factor feels like mixing oil and water. I like 1e-style gamism, where you're scraping and clawing for advantage throughout the whole game however you can, mechanically and in terms of interacting with NPCs. There's less of a distinction made between mechanical gamism and role-playing gamism.

That said, using GNS terms tends to paint people with a broad brush and make their preferences seem more hardcore and extreme than they are. I do like the flavor of the paladin class and in those terms I think of it as more of an archetype rather than an element for building to a concept, yes. I don't see the appeal of multiclassing here. As opposed to adding more classes instead.

I don't want to play a character with your definition of the guidelines of a paladin. That would be the difference. I'm perfectly capable of playing a character without having the DM play Big Brother and watch over how I play my own character.

As I've been saying, I can make sense of this if you want to use your additional freedom to develop a more interesting character, but that would still involve the DM "watching over" how you play, and in fact judging the quality of your contribution to the game, and maybe concluding that it was trite or inane or insensitive or melodramatic--maybe it's just me but I feel like this sort of judgement is if anything more personal and intrusive than just the judgement of a referee watching to see whether or not you break a game rule.

I think if a player just wants to pretend to be a Paladin with no reponsibilities at all to the other people in the game, they should do that on their own time. That's not a game.

I've never personally read an example, but according to Ron Edwards (in his "Step on Up" Essay) the TSR Marvel Superheroes game canvassed two modes: "Power and Responsibiity", for narrativist players; and "Clobberin' Time" for gamist players. So it wouldn't be a first, publishing wise, though it would be rare.

Oh yeah! I recall that comment. Looking it up it's in the Story Now essay, but yep that's a good example. They could totally do something like that for D&D--"Clobberin' Time" is the dungeon crawl.

I mostly know him through his RM stuff, which was simulationism (process sim in service of genre gaming - before his organic tech stuff for d20 he released an organic tech sci-fantasy supplement for RM); and through Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, which reads, at least, pretty high concept sim.

Tell me more about his gamism.

I'm thinking of three things: his infamous (to people who dislike charop gamism) "Ivory Tower Game Design" article, where he admits that he and the other designers of 3e intentionally seeded the feats with "trap" options that look more powerful than they are in order to reward system mastery (looks like it's been deleted from his site :/). Also his Dungeon-a-Day megadungeon design assumptions, and one of the earlier Legends & Lore articles for Next where he talks about magic items (especially "Those that succeed at greater challenges will be more powerful than those that don't. That seems to be a bit of the heart and soul of D&D that has somehow become lost.").

 

[Starfox]

"Those that succeed at greater challenges will be more powerful than those that don't. That seems to be a bit of the heart and soul of D&D that has somehow become lost.").

This is alive and well in computer MMOs, which seems to be the spiritual successors of 1E power gaming and charop. As a storytelling player, I naturally look down a bit on this, but I can see how others like it (and I shamelessly indulge it when I play MMOs).

 

[pemerton]

Not familiar with it. Can you sum it up

A BW character has 3 Beliefs. When you manifest a Belief in play, you earn a Fate point. For roleplaying out the conflict between 2 Beliefs when they come into conflict, you earn a Persona point (which is a more powerful form of fate point). So players are meant to give their PCs Beliefs that may come into conflict, and players and GM are both steering towards such conflicts in play.

 

[JamesonCourage]

A BW character has 3 Beliefs. When you manifest a Belief in play, you earn a Fate point. For roleplaying out the conflict between 2 Beliefs when they come into conflict, you earn a Persona point (which is a more powerful form of fate point). So players are meant to give their PCs Beliefs that may come into conflict, and players and GM are both steering towards such conflicts in play.

Is this the "Mouldbreaker"?

 

[pemerton]

Is this the "Mouldbreaker"?

Yes - earning a Persona point for playing out the conflict between Beliefs.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Yes - earning a Persona point for playing out the conflict between Beliefs.

Okay, thank you for defining that for me. As always, play what you like

 

[Hussar]

Let's see if I can get my thoughts down coherently.

Take a group. The group has a paladin in it. The group is playing a module. The group plays in a library.

Now, take that same group, same setup, same place, same module, but change the DM.

In my view, those two groups should have fairly similar experiences when playing. Not the same, obviously, but, similar. The only thing different here is the DM.

Yet, people are advocating mechanics where in the above two situations, I can get mutually exclusive results and both DM's are playing by the rules. No one at either table is being a jerk. Both DM's are good. All the players are good. Everyone is trying their best.

But, I get completely opposite results. Despite the fact that both DM's are reading exactly the same rules and both can reasonably point to the mechanics and justify their rulings, they give opposite rulings.

To me, that is very poor game design. You should not get mutually exclusive results from the same input.

 

[JamesonCourage]

But, I get completely opposite results. Despite the fact that both DM's are reading exactly the same rules and both can reasonably point to the mechanics and justify their rulings, they give opposite rulings.

To me, that is very poor game design. You should not get mutually exclusive results from the same input.

I agree with the sentiment. But, this doesn't mean "there should be no code" (even if that's your preference). It means that "the code should be well-defined." Rework the code, in my opinion. Make it less ambiguous. The big catch, of course, is "a Paladin must always be Lawful Good" part, but that's not the code, so much as an alignment restriction, and that's a whole separate issue. As always, play what you like

 

[jadrax]

In my view, those two groups should have fairly similar experiences when playing.

I do not really see what anyone would gain from that being the case.

I want my game group to be tailored to providing the most fun for the people in it - how some people are playing elsewhere is utterly irrelevant to me.

 

[Hussar]

I agree with the sentiment. But, this doesn't mean "there should be no code" (even if that's your preference). It means that "the code should be well-defined." Rework the code, in my opinion. Make it less ambiguous. The big catch, of course, is "a Paladin must always be Lawful Good" part, but that's not the code, so much as an alignment restriction, and that's a whole separate issue. As always, play what you like

Totally agree with this.

I'd almost go so far as to remove the alignment part of the code and substitute a shopping list of Thou Shalts/Shalt Not type lines that the DM and player can work together and create a code that is coherent and fairly concrete.

I do not really see what anyone would gain from that being the case.

I want my game group to be tailored to providing the most fun for the people in it - how some people are playing elsewhere is utterly irrelevant to me.

You don't think that the same group of players, playing the same module, with the same characters, in the same room, but with two different DM's, would have fairly similar experiences? You think that their experiences would be so radically different that rulings in one would be mutually exclusive from the other?

If that's true, then why have any rules in the first place? If tables are so different that simply plopping down a different DM, is going to completely change the experience to that extent, why waste time with all these rules? It's not like there's any consistency anyway.

Of course, this completely ignores organized play.