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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4656575" data-attributes="member: 2067">Balance is good.Hegemony is not.EDIT: To elaborate a little, the Superman idea and the Shadowrun idea all rely on balance being different in different situations. In part, this is the same thing that earlier editions did: Fighters were good in combat, Rogues were good at exploration, Wizards were good at everything (but less reliably than either of those), and Clerics were good at nothing (maybe negotiations?), but could keep the Fighters and Rogues on their feet. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> 4e is all about the combat. Exploration, negotiation, and whatnot, are considered entirely secondary to beatin' on the goblins. Combat balance is the ONLY balance, and it's the only place that allows for some variety (the four roles, for instance).Other resolution mechanics do not have the same focus, the same concerns, or the same detail, so balance in those ways is enforced by making everyone the same -- hegemony.There's not a lot of hegemony in combat in 4e (especially compared with earlier editions!), but when the swords are sheathed, everyone is pretty much identical. This is born out of a very good philosophy, one that 3e began: the idea that story and fluff should not influence combat balance. You can't balance something with &quot;rarity&quot; in the campaign world. You can't balance something with roleplaying restrictions. This is a very good idea, and 4e silo'd it even harder away. My post in the Noncombat Roles thread from a while ago went into this: the idea that combat is just one extended resolution mechanic, and that 4e could benefit from having more than the deeply flawed &quot;skill challenges&quot; as a way to figure out what happens with the kinds of challenges that don't require dead goblins.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 4656575, member: 2067"] Balance is good. Hegemony is not. EDIT: To elaborate a little, the Superman idea and the Shadowrun idea all rely on balance being different in different situations. In part, this is the same thing that earlier editions did: Fighters were good in combat, Rogues were good at exploration, Wizards were good at everything (but less reliably than either of those), and Clerics were good at nothing (maybe negotiations?), but could keep the Fighters and Rogues on their feet. ;) 4e is [B]all about the combat[/B]. Exploration, negotiation, and whatnot, are considered entirely secondary to beatin' on the goblins. Combat balance is the ONLY balance, and it's the only place that allows for some variety (the four roles, for instance). Other resolution mechanics do not have the same focus, the same concerns, or the same detail, so balance in those ways is enforced by making everyone the same -- hegemony. There's not a lot of hegemony in combat in 4e (especially compared with earlier editions!), but when the swords are sheathed, everyone is pretty much identical. This is born out of a very good philosophy, one that 3e began: the idea that story and fluff should not influence combat balance. You can't balance something with "rarity" in the campaign world. You can't balance something with roleplaying restrictions. This is a very good idea, and 4e silo'd it even harder away. My post in the Noncombat Roles thread from a while ago went into this: the idea that combat is just one extended resolution mechanic, and that 4e could benefit from having more than the deeply flawed "skill challenges" as a way to figure out what happens with the kinds of challenges that don't require dead goblins. [/QUOTE]

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