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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4730667" data-attributes="member: 54707">That statement implies a lot. Not just about gaming per se but about how the real world constantly overlaps the game and vice versa due far superior modern forms of mass communication.It also subtly transforms the way many look at the game in relation to the real world. When we first started playing it was typical to communicate by post (a letter, especially to other parts of the world - at one time I had some buddies at the University of Leningrad back during the Cold War and I had to communicate with them by mail which was intercepted by the FBI on our side, and the KGB on their side) or telephone.Nowadays people have the internet and SAT phones and cell phones and because there are so many modes and methods of mass communication people expect two things simultaneously, a fair degree of personal privacy (unless you live in a tyranny or dictatorship) and for communications, like a convenience, to be mass-employable, instant, cheap, reliable, and immediately accessible.I suspect that whether people stop and think about this much at all or not, it has radically changed the perceptions of what a fantasy game world actually is, can be, or should be. People start automatically, subconsciously or not, interjecting their "real world concepts" into their gaming situations and milieus, making assumptions that a fantasy game world would have an equivalent to their real world technologies and devices "in some manner or fashion."But if you lived in a world where there were no personal computers (I remember the first magnetic tape reel computer I saw at Johnson and it was as big as a freaking house - the very first computer I ever saw was punch card and had to be reprogrammed every time you turned the freaking thing on - and the first PC I saw could barely do anything beyond simple calculations and typing) and most long distance communication was done by post, and so forth and so on, then people's conception of their fantasy world is also much, much different. (As is their conception of sci-fi worlds, or current military capabilities, or whatever the case may be.)The real world overlaps the imagination of what is possible, and in-game, the imagination overlaps the real world.This implies an awful lot beyond just the immediately apparent implications.One important thing implied to me though is "lag-time" as Hussar implied. Concept sand expectations suffer from extremely small lag-times between the point of conceptualization and employment and re-interpretation. That's good sometimes, but it is also sometimes bad.But one thing it definitely does is that it changes how men think, and what they imagine, and how they imagine the things they think about. And how they draw conclusions not just based upon what they know and expect, but on what they can imagine and desire/demand to be.Well, that really wasn't my point V. I wasn't saying only one character, class, or individual should be the extraordinary individual, but rather that all can be extraordinary in certain circumstances. I personally don't think that "the fight" is the game though. Combat is an important aspect of heroic fantasy but it is far from all consuming, unless one is playing in a combat-only setting.I do though think that is a DM problem and issue, not a game designer one. That is to say it is not the job of the game designer to create opportunities for all characters to thrive but it is the job of the game designers to provide designs where it is possible for all characters to have a chance to thrive.The game designer provides the chance, the DM the actual opportunities, and then the players through their characters have to exploit those chances and opportunities.I'm not dismissing your point, by any means, merely saying I have a different view of whose job is what exactly.You've got a point here if every fight is against a Cosmic bad-guy, and..., and this is a very big if, fights are won only by raw power.I've seen a lot of fights that get concluded in the real world though not by firepower, but by potent application of capability. A smart, clever, cunning, original, innovative, and fearless man is often a far more dangerous man than the man with the most armor or the longest spear shaft.Yeah, a man with an RPG is theoretically far more dangerous than a grunt with a rifle. But if the guy with the rifle knows his job, is patient and waits for his shot, then it just takes one well aimed round to the head and Mr. RPG is no longer bad man on the block.If every fight were a "I'm gonna run up straight into your face and we're gonna have a slugfest fight" then physical power and raw combat capability might, or might not, always reign supreme. If every fight went only to the apparently strongest side then the strongest side would win every fight. But it just don't really work that way. The mind is a far more potent weapon in most fights than is mere muscle. Or men would kill by tooth and claw, instead of by blade, bullet, missile, and guile.Personally give me guile any day on the potency chart.You kill one man at a time with muscles.But with guile and cunning you're really dangerous.But I will also say this about your point. I think it is the job of the DM in designing adventures or scenarios to give his "Green Arrow players" opportunities to do far more than just wisecrack and dodge. If I were Green Arrow I'd want an opportunity to exploit my real capabilities, both in a fight and outside of one.</blockquote>

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