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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8039753" data-attributes="member: 87792">You say "go into story arcs naturally without any mechanics needed"; oD&D forces the Adventurer/Conqueror/King story arc on people while more modern editions of D&D actively inhibit story arcs because of the fixed nature of classes. Points based rather than class based games allow for a natural sprawl; my current character in a Babylon 5 RPG started off as an unmemorable (as in specialising in not being memorable) thief with expertise in jury-rigging ships and making them work with components that really shouldn't. Because we're using WoD rules and becuase of what the party needed he's ended up specialising hardcore in the tech and repairs side of things to the point that he's probably the leading expert in First One tech among the younger races in the galaxy, having dumped most of his XP into crafts, lore, and psionics (and not a single one into the stealth, larceny, and hacking he was initially hired for). Meanwhile if we'd been playing D&D he'd probably have been levelling up in rogue every time.Vampire for its time was a revolution - but its time was 1991. The Blackberry Pearl was a revelation in 2006 - but compare that to the smartphone in my pocket and it too is crude and clunky.As for Apocalypse World punishing you for not choosing defined arcs, this simply isn't true. Apocalypse world has no rules at all for character arcs. They aren't mentioned in the system. All Apocalypse World provides is a lot of options as to how to grow your character, and a lot of consequences stemming from a success-with-consequences resolution sytem. And this is how you produce story arcs naturally - consequences, choices, and non-linear opportunities for growth and enabling characters to change. This makes character arcs flow from the system.D&D by contrast has almost railroaded character growth thanks to the class system (which 3.X tried to mitigate through multiclassing and prestige classes and 4e did through choices as you level up, retraining, Paragon Paths, and Epic Destinies), a skill system that's a simple pass/fail, and a damage system that's pretty close to consequence free.</blockquote>

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