Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 4654280" data-attributes="member: 59082">This is semi-forked (sporked?) from the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/249753-worst-4th-ed-class.html" target="_blank">Worst 4th Ed Class</a> thread, in which one of the poll options is &quot;None, all are awesome and balanced.&quot; It reminded me of an ongoing mild irk with D&amp;D and role-playing games in general: that everything must be &quot;balanced&quot;--in particular the fact that all races and classes must be equally powerful. While I can understand this on a practical level, the &quot;fantasy traditionalist&quot; in me has never liked it, especially if you take a fantasy world like Middle-earth into account, where in 4E (and other forms of D&amp;D, not to mention other RPGS) a starting hobbit thief and a Noldor wizard apprentice would somehow be roughly equal. Or think of the 3E version of Robert Jordan's the Wheel of Time: the only way to make Rand and other channelers more powerful was to increase their level; yet in the stories, even from the beginning Rand was more dangerous than most seasoned warriors.There is one game that consciously--even deliberately--bucks this sacred cow of gaming, and that game is the wonderful Talislanta, in which archetypes (race+class combos) vary widely in power, the idea being to pick something that you want to play based on the idea of it, rather than on how powerful it is. In a sense Talislanta gets around min-maxing by completely eschewing the necessity to min-max: by not trying to balance everything out, min-maxing is unnecessary because it is obvious. You just play what sounds intriguing on the conceptual level (&quot;role&quot;), not the tactical level (&quot;roll&quot;).Ars Magica also comes to mind, but you're supposed to play a Mage; Companions are pretty powerful, but not on par with Magi. And in some sense Ars Magica presents the perfect example for this discussion, because it is very &quot;classic&quot; fantasy: Magi are more powerful than warriors and other professions, but much more rare.So that little poll option started a short and quick idea tree in which the following inquiry came up: How could one eschew game balance while still using 4ed rules and the &quot;D&amp;D feel&quot;, albeit necessarily modified? In other words, what if wizards were ridiculously powerful, more powerful than any other class (but also more vulnerable)? And, perhaps most importantly, how could you encourage people to play non-wizards when D&amp;D is so built around dungeon-crawling, levelling up, and treasure accumulation? To put it another way, how could you take &quot;game balance&quot;--in terms of classes and races--out of 4E, but still keep it D&amp;D, and still make it enjoyable and playable?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mercurius, post: 4654280, member: 59082"] This is semi-forked (sporked?) from the [URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/249753-worst-4th-ed-class.html"]Worst 4th Ed Class[/URL] thread, in which one of the poll options is "None, all are awesome and balanced." It reminded me of an ongoing mild irk with D&D and role-playing games in general: that everything must be "balanced"--in particular the fact that all races and classes must be equally powerful. While I can understand this on a practical level, the "fantasy traditionalist" in me has never liked it, especially if you take a fantasy world like Middle-earth into account, where in 4E (and other forms of D&D, not to mention other RPGS) a starting hobbit thief and a Noldor wizard apprentice would somehow be roughly equal. Or think of the 3E version of Robert Jordan's the Wheel of Time: the only way to make Rand and other channelers more powerful was to increase their level; yet in the stories, even from the beginning Rand was more dangerous than most seasoned warriors. There is one game that consciously--even deliberately--bucks this sacred cow of gaming, and that game is the wonderful Talislanta, in which archetypes (race+class combos) vary widely in power, the idea being to pick something that you want to play based on the idea of it, rather than on how powerful it is. In a sense Talislanta gets around min-maxing by completely eschewing the necessity to min-max: by not trying to balance everything out, min-maxing is unnecessary because it is obvious. You just play what sounds intriguing on the conceptual level ("role"), not the tactical level ("roll"). Ars Magica also comes to mind, but you're supposed to play a Mage; Companions are pretty powerful, but not on par with Magi. And in some sense Ars Magica presents the perfect example for this discussion, because it is very "classic" fantasy: Magi are more powerful than warriors and other professions, but much more rare. So that little poll option started a short and quick idea tree in which the following inquiry came up: How could one eschew game balance while still using 4ed rules and the "D&D feel", albeit necessarily modified? In other words, what if wizards were ridiculously powerful, more powerful than any other class (but also more vulnerable)? And, perhaps most importantly, how could you encourage people to play non-wizards when D&D is so built around dungeon-crawling, levelling up, and treasure accumulation? To put it another way, how could you take "game balance"--in terms of classes and races--out of 4E, but still keep it D&D, and still make it enjoyable and playable? [/QUOTE]

Verification