Majoru Oakheart
Adventurer
As I've replied in other threads of this nature, it comes down to this:
Either the game is fun because the rules come support the playstyle of D&D really well and the math works well OR the game is made to make complete sense in which case you are going to run into game balance problems due to changing the rules to "make sense".
Examples:
Game Focus: "Fighters can only use their abilities as often as Wizards can."
Makes Sense: "Fighters can use their abilities infinite times since there is no reason to limit them. Either fighters are more powerful than everyone else or their abilities are all weaker than wizards to make up for it."
GF: "Everyone can heal in 6 hours so that adventures will not be derailed by taking damage and needing to rest for a week AND keeps the focus on the action part of the game instead of the 'boring' parts of resting and recovering."
MS: "People take days or weeks to recover from injuries. If adventures relied on PCs getting to a certain place at a certain time, they either cannot be played in this system or that is the player's punishment for not rolling well enough."
GF: "What hitpoints are doesn't matter. It only matters out of game as a way to prevent you from dying in one hit and to provide tension and risk to combat. It keeps the game moving, reduces unpredictable death, etc."
MS: "If the PCs are taking damage, there should be minuses to being hurt. Possibly with negatives on die rolls. If they aren't taking damage then there should be a separate set of rules to keep track of what happens when they DO take damage. There should be a way for people to bypass hitpoints so that they can still take damage no matter how many hitpoints they have. This means a risk of death in one hit and keeping track of a lot of 'subsystems'. This also means an adventure being derailed because a hit went directly to 'wounds' and killed 3 out of 5 party members making everyone stop while new characters were created."
GF: "Rings all give the same bonuses that allow you to stack modifiers onto what you already have. In order for characters to advance smoothly and make the underlying math work at all levels of the game we need to restrict them to 1 at 11 and 2 at 21. This creates the advancement curve we want and stops situations where a player auto hits on a 2 or misses on a 19 by keeping the numbers in line. This means that all players feel they can contribute at all times and no one feels left out or useless."
MS: "Anyone with fingers can wear a ring. If a player manages to get 2 of them at level 1 and increases his modifier in one area high enough he may always hit on a 2. This may make the rest of the players feel useless since they can't compete with the character with the rings. If ALL the players get rings, the monsters aren't a challenge anymore in one area. Using more powerful monsters still kills all the characters as it is too powerful in other areas."
GF: "We want players to continue adventuring past the first encounter every day while still feeling like each encounter is difficult. We don't want them to continue FOREVER without resting though. We also don't want them to HAVE to rely on a cleric. Giving them enough hitpoints to survive more than 1 encounter without healing means that they aren't worried about any encounter until their hitpoints get low. Keeping the hitpoints low means they stop to rest after every encounter. The best of both worlds is to give them low hitpoints while giving them the ability to restore themselves to full only a certain number of times per day."
MS: "People can't just heal themselves. If there is a class that can cast magic to heal someone, then that makes sense. This means that someone HAS to play a cleric or the monsters have to be easy enough to survive without one. This means people have to rest after EVERY encounter or there has to be no tension in most of battles since the PCs know they are going to win until they start to get low on resources. Then they rest when that happens."
GF: "Each character doing something different every round is interesting since it adds variety. However, there will always be a clear 'best' option unless we restrict how often each option can be used in order to enforce variety."
MS: "Restricting how often something can be done makes sense for spellcasters but for non-spellcasters it is not an option. Fighters SHOULD be boring to play, since otherwise it wouldn't make sense. If they wanted a more interesting class, they should be playing a Wizard."
Now, all of the game focused thoughts up there create a balanced game with numbers in the right spot to create a good chance of success without an excessive chance of failure, where each character gets to contribute, it is easy to write adventures for, easy to run, etc.
However, it may be lacking in explanations. This gives you a chance to shine and be creative with your own innovative explanations OR it lets you ignore the explanations without interfering with the game(as the game can be played perfectly by saying "You take 12 damage. You spend a healing surge and gain 6 hitpoints. You rest the night and get it all back. You continue into the Cave of Dread the next day." without ever needing to bring up the explanations for it at all).
You can't have it both ways, I don't think. Things that make sense will always have imbalances in them since real life isn't balanced. Real life is filled with boring parts and annoying parts. When things make sense you need to put up with those boring and annoying parts. To get rid of those things, sometimes you just need to say, "that's the way it works because it's more fun."
Either the game is fun because the rules come support the playstyle of D&D really well and the math works well OR the game is made to make complete sense in which case you are going to run into game balance problems due to changing the rules to "make sense".
Examples:
Game Focus: "Fighters can only use their abilities as often as Wizards can."
Makes Sense: "Fighters can use their abilities infinite times since there is no reason to limit them. Either fighters are more powerful than everyone else or their abilities are all weaker than wizards to make up for it."
GF: "Everyone can heal in 6 hours so that adventures will not be derailed by taking damage and needing to rest for a week AND keeps the focus on the action part of the game instead of the 'boring' parts of resting and recovering."
MS: "People take days or weeks to recover from injuries. If adventures relied on PCs getting to a certain place at a certain time, they either cannot be played in this system or that is the player's punishment for not rolling well enough."
GF: "What hitpoints are doesn't matter. It only matters out of game as a way to prevent you from dying in one hit and to provide tension and risk to combat. It keeps the game moving, reduces unpredictable death, etc."
MS: "If the PCs are taking damage, there should be minuses to being hurt. Possibly with negatives on die rolls. If they aren't taking damage then there should be a separate set of rules to keep track of what happens when they DO take damage. There should be a way for people to bypass hitpoints so that they can still take damage no matter how many hitpoints they have. This means a risk of death in one hit and keeping track of a lot of 'subsystems'. This also means an adventure being derailed because a hit went directly to 'wounds' and killed 3 out of 5 party members making everyone stop while new characters were created."
GF: "Rings all give the same bonuses that allow you to stack modifiers onto what you already have. In order for characters to advance smoothly and make the underlying math work at all levels of the game we need to restrict them to 1 at 11 and 2 at 21. This creates the advancement curve we want and stops situations where a player auto hits on a 2 or misses on a 19 by keeping the numbers in line. This means that all players feel they can contribute at all times and no one feels left out or useless."
MS: "Anyone with fingers can wear a ring. If a player manages to get 2 of them at level 1 and increases his modifier in one area high enough he may always hit on a 2. This may make the rest of the players feel useless since they can't compete with the character with the rings. If ALL the players get rings, the monsters aren't a challenge anymore in one area. Using more powerful monsters still kills all the characters as it is too powerful in other areas."
GF: "We want players to continue adventuring past the first encounter every day while still feeling like each encounter is difficult. We don't want them to continue FOREVER without resting though. We also don't want them to HAVE to rely on a cleric. Giving them enough hitpoints to survive more than 1 encounter without healing means that they aren't worried about any encounter until their hitpoints get low. Keeping the hitpoints low means they stop to rest after every encounter. The best of both worlds is to give them low hitpoints while giving them the ability to restore themselves to full only a certain number of times per day."
MS: "People can't just heal themselves. If there is a class that can cast magic to heal someone, then that makes sense. This means that someone HAS to play a cleric or the monsters have to be easy enough to survive without one. This means people have to rest after EVERY encounter or there has to be no tension in most of battles since the PCs know they are going to win until they start to get low on resources. Then they rest when that happens."
GF: "Each character doing something different every round is interesting since it adds variety. However, there will always be a clear 'best' option unless we restrict how often each option can be used in order to enforce variety."
MS: "Restricting how often something can be done makes sense for spellcasters but for non-spellcasters it is not an option. Fighters SHOULD be boring to play, since otherwise it wouldn't make sense. If they wanted a more interesting class, they should be playing a Wizard."
Now, all of the game focused thoughts up there create a balanced game with numbers in the right spot to create a good chance of success without an excessive chance of failure, where each character gets to contribute, it is easy to write adventures for, easy to run, etc.
However, it may be lacking in explanations. This gives you a chance to shine and be creative with your own innovative explanations OR it lets you ignore the explanations without interfering with the game(as the game can be played perfectly by saying "You take 12 damage. You spend a healing surge and gain 6 hitpoints. You rest the night and get it all back. You continue into the Cave of Dread the next day." without ever needing to bring up the explanations for it at all).
You can't have it both ways, I don't think. Things that make sense will always have imbalances in them since real life isn't balanced. Real life is filled with boring parts and annoying parts. When things make sense you need to put up with those boring and annoying parts. To get rid of those things, sometimes you just need to say, "that's the way it works because it's more fun."
