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<blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 7701543" data-attributes="member: 19857">I suspect that this is largely due to the power curve on non-D&amp;D games (or really, non-d20 family games).&nbsp; The power curve on most non-D&amp;D games is fairly flat.&nbsp; Your Star Wars or WOD or Cortex or Icons characters generally stay within a certain bound of power and never leave it.&nbsp; Essentially most games have solved the &quot;sweet spot&quot; problem by having a much narrower band of power levels for characters to act in.&nbsp; (Even superhero games generally follow the pattern of setting a power level at character creation and then if your power level ramps up at all during play it does it fairly slowly).You don't need fancy encounter building guidelines when the characters stay at roughly the same power level through the course of a campaign.&nbsp; The only reason D&amp;D has ever needed any guidance at all on what to throw at the party is because when you first start playing throwing 6 orcs at a party of 4 characters might slaughter them, while a month later 6 orcs against the same party is going to be too easy.&nbsp; You don't get that in a Star Wars game - if 6 storm troopers are a challenge for a party when they first start playing, they're probably only a slightly smaller challenge a month later.&nbsp; And even a year later you might only need to add 1 or 2 more to keep the encounter interesting.(Also, of course, the emphasis on combat in the D&amp;D family of games probably has an impact here as well.&nbsp; Encounters need to be balanced to a large degree because players will play through so many of them in the course of a story.&nbsp; In games that are less combat heavy there's less of a need for balance because there's an assumption that the GM will adjust on the fly if it turns out that his/her assumptions about power level were off because the combat is filling a narrative need and a TPK rarely fulfills a narrative need outside of a Call of Cthulhu or similar scenario.&nbsp; Of course experienced DMs do that with D&amp;D as well, but it's hard to impart experience in a rule book to people trying to learn the game from the book.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jer, post: 7701543, member: 19857"] I suspect that this is largely due to the power curve on non-D&D games (or really, non-d20 family games). The power curve on most non-D&D games is fairly flat. Your Star Wars or WOD or Cortex or Icons characters generally stay within a certain bound of power and never leave it. Essentially most games have solved the "sweet spot" problem by having a much narrower band of power levels for characters to act in. (Even superhero games generally follow the pattern of setting a power level at character creation and then if your power level ramps up at all during play it does it fairly slowly). You don't need fancy encounter building guidelines when the characters stay at roughly the same power level through the course of a campaign. The only reason D&D has ever needed any guidance at all on what to throw at the party is because when you first start playing throwing 6 orcs at a party of 4 characters might slaughter them, while a month later 6 orcs against the same party is going to be too easy. You don't get that in a Star Wars game - if 6 storm troopers are a challenge for a party when they first start playing, they're probably only a slightly smaller challenge a month later. And even a year later you might only need to add 1 or 2 more to keep the encounter interesting. (Also, of course, the emphasis on combat in the D&D family of games probably has an impact here as well. Encounters need to be balanced to a large degree because players will play through so many of them in the course of a story. In games that are less combat heavy there's less of a need for balance because there's an assumption that the GM will adjust on the fly if it turns out that his/her assumptions about power level were off because the combat is filling a narrative need and a TPK rarely fulfills a narrative need outside of a Call of Cthulhu or similar scenario. Of course experienced DMs do that with D&D as well, but it's hard to impart experience in a rule book to people trying to learn the game from the book.) [/QUOTE]

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