Thomasson on character creation

[Celebrim]

Good point. The more options players have, the bigger the gulf between the powergamer and the non-powergamer. Increasing the level increases options, so the gulf is wider at level 15 than at level 5. (Another reason for the 'sweet spot' perhaps.) Using splatbooks also increases options.

All of which is certainly true.

But if you want to support a wide range of character concepts mechanically, you need those options.

Well, yes, but you've created a bit of tautology there. Compare that sentence to this one:

"But if you want to support a wide range of character concepts, you need those options."

Your sentence is true almost by definition. If you want to support a wide range of mechanics, you need alot of mechanical variation. But if you drop the 'mechanically' from the sentence, it becomes much less clear that it is true.

Alot of 3.X seemed focused on giving access to additional mechanics rather than to additional concepts. (I could be even more cynical than that. Alot of 3.X seemed focused on upping the page count of supplements and not on improving the game.) I'm not sure that the total range of concepts opened up any, rather all that mechanical variation mainly seemed to open up the range of implementation of a concept. I was particularly annoyed by the apparant need to strengthen and increase the number of options available to concepts that were already viable under the core rules. This led to something which looked alot like an arms race, where every concept needed more options and bigger options to compete with the other options latest and greatest possible powers, while options that were less viable had no net gain in viability because the initially strong options were also stronger.

Very very few of the feats, classes, alternate classes, PrC's, and so forth really opened up conceptual space. Mostly they were minor changes in how that concept was implemented. 3.5 tended to encourage players to see thier concept not in terms of a narrative concept or a character concept, but rather in terms of a particular package of mechanical goodies and bonuses that they wanted to collect.

 

[delericho]

The idea that being able to cast divine spells marks one as "special" among the clergy was part of the gamemasters world, which has NPC leaders of the religion who are often just religious Experts. My character was a priest of the former ilk (making his turning his back on the religion more meaningful.) Just a couple skill of ranks wasn't going to cut it. And I'd hate to have to change the eight pages of backstory on this guy due to the mechanical limitations of the class system.

Isn't there some overlap between the Cleric and Gunmage spell lists? Why not just assume that those were the 'divine' spells that the character was previously able to cast? Really, from the outside, who's to know?

Again, not quite there. A barbarian-type definitely wasn't what I was going for. The DM informed us that creatures of type "Dragon" were going to be encountered at all levels, which made them a perfect and logical favored enemy for an oppressed dwarven ranger. I also liked the idea of a throwing axe character, using the ranger's TWF abilities (though this turned out to be another subpar choice - another archetype not fully supported by the mechanics.) Everything about the character concept shouted "Ranger!", except the actual class came with some extra baggage features I didn't really want to include.

Why not go for Ranger 3-5/Rogue X/Fighter Y/Scout Z? There's no spellcasting there, the animal companion is either minimal or non-existant, the Fighter levels can be used for feats to make him wicked with the bow (and keeps the BAB high), and the Rogue/Scout levels give additional skills and extra damage that applies in certain circumstances.

 

[BryonD]

Your sentence is true almost by definition. If you want to support a wide range of mechanics, you need alot of mechanical variation. But if you drop the 'mechanically' from the sentence, it becomes much less clear that it is true.

But isn't that why you buy a book?
I mean, I can play pretend with a virtually infinite number of concepts without ever paying a penny. What I spend money on is a solid system that will mechanically simulate the things my imagination dreams up for free.

As far as 3X goes, I don't know of any concepts that it didn't support. At least not within the genre that 3X emulated. Sure, there were issues with simple multiclassing, but those were managable. In the extreme a homebrew feat or PClass did the job. But even that was needed infrequently.

I think it is unfair to expect 3X splats to open new conceptual ground when they didn't need to and weren't really intended to. And I'd expect the same pattern will be seen in 4E.


On the main topic: I'm still holding judgment, but this is the most encouraging tidbit I have read in like two months.

 

[Celebrim]

I don't think any game can prevent powergaming.

I don't think I said that it could. In fact, I pretty much implied that it shouldn't try.

But I do think that a game can mitigate how badly powergaming effects the game's play experience, and that most games try to do this to some extent. I think that 3.5 is characterized by an extreme range in power between heavily optimized builds and 'average' builds in a way that makes it somewhat unique amongst editions of D&D.

 

[Celebrim]

But isn't that why you buy a book?

Yes, and no. The fact that I didn't buy alot of 3.5 splatbooks is indication that I didn't think they were largely achieving that goal.

What I spend money on is a solid system that will mechanically simulate the things my imagination dreams up for free.

Yes, but what I just said is that that really wasn't want 3.5 was about. 3.5 mechanics didn't exist to help you mechanically simulate things that your imagination dreamed up. 3.5 mechanics weren't IMO largely inspired by the imagination, but rather by other 3.5 mechanics. Nor were 3.5 mechanics largely chosen by players according to thier imagination, but typically by a process that was more like comparison shopping. You'd comb through the mechanics looking for ones that enhanced your build, and not so much let you do things that you couldn't do with core rules.

This is I admit a somewhat subtle distinction, but my point is that a smaller set of mechanical variation if well done could span an equally large imaginative space. Of course, given the expectations that they have from 3.5 alot of players would mourn missing mechanics, but that's precisely what they would be mourning - a mechical advantage - and not an imaginative concept.

 

[BryonD]

Yes, and no. The fact that I didn't buy alot of 3.5 splatbooks is indication that I didn't think they were largely achieving that goal.

Well then you probably just are not representative of the market.
I don't mean that as an offense. But it just seems self evident.

Yes, but what I just said is that that really wasn't want 3.5 was about. 3.5 mechanics didn't exist to help you mechanically simulate things that your imagination dreamed up. 3.5 mechanics weren't IMO largely inspired by the imagination, but rather by other 3.5 mechanics. Nor were 3.5 mechanics largely chosen by players according to thier imagination, but typically by a process that was more like comparison shopping. You'd comb through the mechanics looking for ones that enhanced your build, and not so much let you do things that you couldn't do with core rules.

This is I admit a somewhat subtle distinction, but my point is that a smaller set of mechanical variation if well done could span an equally large imaginative space. Of course, given the expectations that they have from 3.5 alot of players would mourn missing mechanics, but that's precisely what they would be mourning - a mechical advantage - and not an imaginative concept.

My experience and resulting opinion differ wildly.

 

[FadedC]

I think the splatboot classes were a combination of imagination and trying to give support to character options that sounded cool in concept but were either poorly supported or just played horribly in practice.

3.X definitely did a vastly better job of allowing for different character concepts compared to 2E. Not just by allowing for more options, but also making more of those options work. 2E had some options, it's just there was almost always a clearly "best" choice. 3.X has that problem too, but there are far more viable builds and the line between best and subpar blurs a bit more. All we can hope is that 4E will continue this trend.

Ultimately it's not just about giving choices, but also not railroading people into certain selections by making it required if you want to be effective. Even GURPS was guilty of that to some extent.

 

[JohnSnow]

This is I admit a somewhat subtle distinction, but my point is that a smaller set of mechanical variation if well done could span an equally large imaginative space. Of course, given the expectations that they have from 3.5 alot of players would mourn missing mechanics, but that's precisely what they would be mourning - a mechical advantage - and not an imaginative concept.

From what they've said, one of the designers' and developers' expressly stated goals was to "make the mechanics of 4e reflect conceptual differences." So, in other words, there will be mechanics to back up the notion of goblins being sneaky little buggers, or that a group of gnolls fights like a hyena pack. I assume that applies to characters as well.

You can have conceptual differences all you want, but if there's a conceptual difference that isn't reflected mechanically, its very existence is an illusion. As an example, people often say that in Castles & Crusades, you can choose to imagine your character doing all kinds of fancy maneuvers in combat. But if there's no mechanical difference between a straight-forward attack and a flashy one, what's the point?

I want the game rules to reflect meaningful choices I make. Fighting with a mace and shield should "feel different" at the table than fighting with a sword and shield. If that's not a meaningful choice, it shouldn't be a choice at all. At that point, they should go the Warhammer route and let each PC choose a "hand weapon," and have them all do the same damage and cost the same. Because if there's no meaningful difference, why do we have game statistics for two weapons?

Choices should matter and be reflected in mechanics. Choices that aren't mechanically significant are relevant to characterization and roleplay, but not much else. And you don't need rules for imagining things.

Hopefully, 4e will make it easier to follow the line from concept through to mechanical execution. That would definitely be an improvement.

 

[pemerton]

I'll be bluntly honest here and say that, for a beginner, it is better when he starts with a "class first" angle to character creation...at least in my opinion. And at least when the group per se is relatively new to RPGs. Trying to get the concept of a new player into a rules translation takes at least an experienced DM.

The blog post suggests that it is a design goal, in 4e, to make it possible for even a beginning player to translate a character concept into a mechanical realisation.

Changing the game to 'concept, then mechanics' from 'mechanics, then concept' really need be about nothing but changing the presentation of the rules.

But that's not necessarily nothing.

I don't think any game can prevent powergaming. As long as it contains meaningful choices, there will always be choices that are better than others. Then there will be someone who will be able to squeeze more juice out of that system. A related thing is that people who are interested in how the rules work and who learn the rules will always be able to create a substantically better character than the 'casual gamer'.

Different mechanics can support powergaming to a greater or lesser extent. Part of this is the dimension in which meaningful choices operate - it is possible for these to make the character broader (eg able to meet a wider variety of challenges, operate effectively in a wider range of environments, etc) rather than just increasing the character's raw damage-dealing capacity.

 

[Celebrim]

Fighting with a mace and shield should "feel different" at the table than fighting with a sword and shield.

But that just it. Maces and swords already have distinguishing features. One will feel very different than the other if you are fighting skeletons, for instance.

What you really mean is that they should feel "more different". But there is a limit to how far you can take that. In 1st edition, fighting with a mace and fighting with a sword felt very different because of thier different to hit AC modifiers vs. different sorts of armors, and thier different relative effectiveness vs. large creatures. But, this was found to be too complicated. Maybe that was so but part of the difference in feeling has never been recaptured. Maces and swords have never been so different since.

UA brought us 'specialization' rules which gave us the idea that you could have a fighter who was 'really good with the bow' or 'really good with a military pick'. That was a mechanical distinction. A person who was really good with a bow and one really good with say a Halbred would feel different. There was however something lost with this. Previously, fighter's would switch between longswords and military picks, between halbreds and daggers. Prior to weapon specialization, if you found a +5 bohemian ear spoon there was a good chance your fighter would use it. After specialization, your fighter only used the weapon he was specialized in. Especially by 3rd edition, there was the expectation that if you specialized in a weapon you'd be given or allowed to procure your specialty weapon. So there was a trade off.

3.5 has been snowballing in one direction. Not just toward more choices and more variaty, but to more pointless choices. The choices are no longer about making a character unique, they are about choosing between two mechanics. The keep piling on choices of mechanical differences instead of consolidating them into something more flexible. I'd like to think that the main good thing that could come out of 4e is some better designed choices so that it wasn't necessary to have as many choices to span all the possible ideas in a meaningful way.