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<blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 8410973" data-attributes="member: 7023887"><p>Okay. This is basically the same argument as "failure is more interesting than success", you saying that powerful characters makes the game less interesting and somehow ruins roleplay. </p><p></p><p>This is wrong, because of one major reason: "failure is more interesting success" is wrong. The real, correct phrase is "Overcoming failure is more interesting than effortless success". Being flawed isn't what makes you interesting, it's overcoming those flaws that does. Being less powerful doesn't make you a better character and certainly doesn't make the game more interesting, it just makes you fail at what you try to do more often. </p><p></p><p>"If everyone is awesome", everyone is awesome. When everyone is super, everyone is super. Everyone having something doesn't suddenly make them not have that thing. Syndrome was wrong, as are you. This sounds a lot like "those dang participation trophies, sheltering our children from failure!!! <em>shakes fist at cloud</em>", and they're equally nonsensical. Your characters should be capable. They're adventurers. If they're not capable, they're likely to die, and stop being adventurers <em>due to them being dead</em>. Which is more interesting: being dead and not being able to go on adventures because of it or being alive and going on adventures and beating your enemies? The former could be cool in a game that focuses on the Afterlife, but the latter is more interesting 9 times out of 10. You need to be capable in order to be interesting and have interesting adventures, because otherwise you're not going to be an adventurer for very long. </p><p></p><p>Now, I'm not saying that players should never fail. I'm a strong believer of players having to learn a lesson every now and then if they get over their heads (try to kill a god/demigod at level 7, offend random people for no reason, murder hobos, etc). The PCs should absolutely be tested and not get too confident of their own abilities, because that can lead to their deaths just as swiftly as incapability can in a campaign. I've thrown obviously unbalanced encounters at my players' characters time and time again to make sure they know that they can get in over their heads. I've let my players' characters die or be kidnapped, I've let them fail at parts of the main plot without that ending the campaign, I've had their magic items destroyed or taken away, their abilities nullified by enemies or the environment, and so on. You can have effective and compotent PCs and still challenge them and have them fail. And you know what makes the characters and the campaign even more interesting when this happens? Them overcoming the failures. Not them failing, not them losing power, not them sucking, but them overcoming the hurdles in front of them and surviving, and becoming better characters because of it. Adversity doesn't build character, overcoming adversity does. Dying doesn't make your characters more interesting or better at roleplay, surviving and learning from it does. There are plenty of people, fictional or real, that have a ton of adversity, but aren't any more interesting than anyone else. </p><p></p><p>Character development happens because of failure, but the failure isn't the thing that makes them more interesting. Powerful characters don't get in the way of roleplay, and being a weaker character (such as a wizard with a d4 hit die, or having a lower AC, or rolling your ability scores 3d6 in order, or any other example from previous editions of players having weaker characters) doesn't mean that you're any better or more interesting than anyone else's character. </p><p></p><p>Everything (and everyone) is awesome, and characters can all be super-powerful heroes without somehow being worse characters. Overcoming adversity is what makes you interesting, not the failure itself.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Levistus's_Leviathan, post: 8410973, member: 7023887"] Okay. This is basically the same argument as "failure is more interesting than success", you saying that powerful characters makes the game less interesting and somehow ruins roleplay. This is wrong, because of one major reason: "failure is more interesting success" is wrong. The real, correct phrase is "Overcoming failure is more interesting than effortless success". Being flawed isn't what makes you interesting, it's overcoming those flaws that does. Being less powerful doesn't make you a better character and certainly doesn't make the game more interesting, it just makes you fail at what you try to do more often. "If everyone is awesome", everyone is awesome. When everyone is super, everyone is super. Everyone having something doesn't suddenly make them not have that thing. Syndrome was wrong, as are you. This sounds a lot like "those dang participation trophies, sheltering our children from failure!!! [I]shakes fist at cloud[/I]", and they're equally nonsensical. Your characters should be capable. They're adventurers. If they're not capable, they're likely to die, and stop being adventurers [I]due to them being dead[/I]. Which is more interesting: being dead and not being able to go on adventures because of it or being alive and going on adventures and beating your enemies? The former could be cool in a game that focuses on the Afterlife, but the latter is more interesting 9 times out of 10. You need to be capable in order to be interesting and have interesting adventures, because otherwise you're not going to be an adventurer for very long. Now, I'm not saying that players should never fail. I'm a strong believer of players having to learn a lesson every now and then if they get over their heads (try to kill a god/demigod at level 7, offend random people for no reason, murder hobos, etc). The PCs should absolutely be tested and not get too confident of their own abilities, because that can lead to their deaths just as swiftly as incapability can in a campaign. I've thrown obviously unbalanced encounters at my players' characters time and time again to make sure they know that they can get in over their heads. I've let my players' characters die or be kidnapped, I've let them fail at parts of the main plot without that ending the campaign, I've had their magic items destroyed or taken away, their abilities nullified by enemies or the environment, and so on. You can have effective and compotent PCs and still challenge them and have them fail. And you know what makes the characters and the campaign even more interesting when this happens? Them overcoming the failures. Not them failing, not them losing power, not them sucking, but them overcoming the hurdles in front of them and surviving, and becoming better characters because of it. Adversity doesn't build character, overcoming adversity does. Dying doesn't make your characters more interesting or better at roleplay, surviving and learning from it does. There are plenty of people, fictional or real, that have a ton of adversity, but aren't any more interesting than anyone else. Character development happens because of failure, but the failure isn't the thing that makes them more interesting. Powerful characters don't get in the way of roleplay, and being a weaker character (such as a wizard with a d4 hit die, or having a lower AC, or rolling your ability scores 3d6 in order, or any other example from previous editions of players having weaker characters) doesn't mean that you're any better or more interesting than anyone else's character. Everything (and everyone) is awesome, and characters can all be super-powerful heroes without somehow being worse characters. Overcoming adversity is what makes you interesting, not the failure itself. [/QUOTE]
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