Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oofta" data-source="post: 9185501" data-attributes="member: 6801845">It's funny some of the things that people assert as fact that simply are not. For example that more character mechanical options are inherently better, or more balanced.  That balance in and of itself, for that matter, is better for the game. I think the claims are baseless.First it assumes that all the important contributions that a player can make to the game do so through what is written on their character sheet as if D&D were some glorified chess game. That may be true in some games,  especially hack-and-slash games. Of course there's always going to be the litany of responses that "everybody can do stuff outside of their character abilities".  But to me there's two factors here.  One is that if you have 1 person in the party who is good at persuasion, do you really need 2?  Or 3?  There's nothing wrong with contributing in different ways than others.  Those other factors may not be as flashy, doesn't mean they aren't important.  If you want flashy, if it makes the game more fun for you, there are plenty of options.  But the other thing which is just as if not more important is that most of the truly critical things that happen in games I've played have little to do with character abilities.  It's all about the decisions the player makes.Second it assumes that more options are inherently better.  I disagree.  More options just mean more complexity.  I don't care about "balance" which does not mean "equal amount of complexity".  I care about "Does the person playing the character have fun".  From my perspective and from what I've seen in actual play and, even if people don't accept that it's supported by popularity, what people actually play certainly does not contradict that many people enjoy playing characters with fewer mechanical options.  D&D is a game.  People have different reasons for playing, different capabilities and inherent capabilities.People playing in any games I've played have enjoyed classes of all stripes, some with more complexity and options, some with fewer.  So balance to me is a red herring that's pretty much meaningless.  I have enjoyed in the past and would have no issue with playing a bog standard champion fighter if it made sense for the character.  Meanwhile playing a wizard can be distracting and lead to higher anxiety levels and therefore less fun, wondering if I have the right spells, what should I do next, if only I had that one spell available, etc..  I enjoy playing wizards but because I DM so much, when I do get to play sometimes I just want simple.  For a fair number of people, fewer options will be better depending on what they want out of the game.</blockquote>

Verification