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Message: <blockquote data-quote="B.T." data-source="post: 5898857" data-attributes="member: 84465"><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-horizons-upcoming-edition-d-d/322526-d-d-next-blog-avoiding-choice-traps.html" target="_blank">Inspired by this thread.</a> This whole "pillars" paradigm is worrisome to me.  It reminds me too much of "roles" in 4e, where a class is defined by a metagame concept and not how it exists within the game.  The idea itself is not problematic, but I see the developers attempting to codify elements of 5e which resist codification.  You can attempt to break a game down into singular data points--Roleplaying, Exploration, and Combat--but it will fail in the same way that attempting to classify a game as Gamist, Narrativist, or Simulationist fail. The reason it fails is because it is an artificial form of game design.  It excises the creative process in favor of a logical, analytical construction of ordered game mechanics producing a sterile result.  A game ought to arise naturally and organically.  It can be analyzed and refined once it has been created, but to attempt to create a game out of preconstructed building blocks that fit together perfectly will result in a stale, uninteresting game.  Can you imagine a movie that was created in that sort of manner?  The director saying, "This scene will have one-fourth of our total Emotional Drama Quotient.  I require at least one character crying, but no more than two.  Next we will have Action Scene #2.  This will need five gunshots and one explosion.  Our surveys show that if we do less than this, people won't stay interested, but if we do more, they'll get bored." Ridiculous.  And yet, I fear, this is what 5e is going to do with the paradigm of pillars: "This is an Exploration option.  It should not increase your ability to explore by more than 1.75, which we have calculated by averaging the possible number of scenarios that it might apply and then dividing it by pi." The reason that this will fail is because things do not fall into discrete packages in role-playing games (or life in general).  When my thief decides to hide from some orcs, sneak behind one, and backstab him, is he exploring (because he's scouting the area), is he roleplaying (because he's afraid to enter direct combat with them), or is he having a combat encounter (because he's sneak attacking them)?  If we're fighting and I convince the guards to surrender, am I roleplaying (because I used a social skill) or am I having a combat encounter (because we were fighting)?  If I use magic missile to break the lock on a prison cell, am I exploring (because we're in a prison cell) or am I having a combat encounter (because I used a combat ability and potentially used up a daily combat resource)?  The above questions are rhetorical.  (Given this is the Internet, I feel compelled to point this out, lest the forest be missed for the trees.)  The point is, an entire game session will have encounters that are blends of the three.  Attempting to rigidly define them and shoehorn classes into one of the three pillars--and trying to balance them around this, no less!--cannot succeed.</blockquote>

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