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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7158323" data-attributes="member: 996">Exactly.  Balance is just a quality that games have to varying degrees.  It's placing in a qualifying round, not crossing the finish line in the finals. Meh, other terms get hammered out.  I'd be happy to use a different term.  I do get tired of the retreat into subjectivity and 'opinion' cards being played to shut down discussion, though.   The genius of it is deeper than that.  <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    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  3e wasn't exactly a lot harder to modify than 5e is, in the technical sense of the design chops needed to come up with a variant that'd make some aspect of it a little better, or a little more in line with the campaign you want to run.  The big difference is in the likelihood your players would lynch you for doing it.  OK, literally lynch was pretty unlikely, I'm sure it never actually happened.  Point is, the acceptance of variants & house-rules was at an all-time low in the 3.x era, it was all about the RAW, even though 3e, up front, presented Rule 0 as the no-law of the land, just like freak'n Storyteller's 'Golden Rule.'  Over years, a few variants of 3e emerged, E6 and 'Core Only,' being the two that leap to my mind, both merely limit the game to a sub-set of itself, and both are nailed down, up-front, so the campaign still respects a RAW, just a different RAW.5e doesn't just give Rule 0 lip-service early on and forget about it, WotC doesn't just mouth 'Rulings not Rules' as a platitude on-line.  The central role of the DM in every facet of the game from the core resolution mechanic on out is relentlessly emphasized.  It creates an expectation that the DM /will/ be changing things, not merely that he is able to.And, you can't easily ignore it.  The game /needs/ the DM there, making rulings, to work.  There's no D&D without the DM. Heh, OK, for that definition of 'odd.'  <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    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />This thread, though, is just discussing balance (and, I suppose, the lack thereof in 5e, specifically), rather than demanding WotC-enforced solutions to the 'problem.'  Now, over in another thread, one of the board Cptns, is going on about how WotC just has to change things to 'fix' the resting elephant problem, and the solution I think he's advocating for (or maybe I'm projecting, because it's one I've used myself), is for the DM to rule whether and how often rests can be taken, and how long they take, based on the nature of the campaign at that point.  (ie you explore a densly-populated dungeon, 'short' rests are genuinely short, taking minutes as you catch your breath but continue running on adrenaline; while long rests require returning to the safety of town; or you trek across a desert, you can benefit from sleeping 6+hrs once per day but the benefit is only that of a short rest, long rests are available only if you spend a full day in an oasis)  Thing is, that's not counter to the intent of 5e design, at all.  It's rulings-over-rules, just like the core resolution mechanic.I guess the takeaway on that digression is that there's some reflexive defensiveness against any criticism.</blockquote>

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