NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9077552" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Is it that different, though? I mean that. Is it really that different?Because it seems to me that this is highly, highly comparable to the difference between running a single character 17 times until you finally get one that survives the early levels, vs playing 17 characters all at once and taking the single survivor as your "proper" character. That is, it's a mechanical contrivance, designed to reduce a sometimes-tedious burden, in order to increase the focus given to and time spent on a more desirable portion of the game.Mechanical contrivance alone cannot be the problem, because D&D is riddled with those. HP and AC alone cover that--as Gygax himself pointed out years ago, HP are inherently unrealistic/ungrounded, involving something unphysical like "luck" or "divine favor," and we just sort of roll with it because they're too convenient not to. Reducing or simplifying tedium cannot be the problem, that's been the watchword for all of 5e's existence, anything even remotely looking like tedium must be destroyed with great prejudice no matter what other costs that might have. Amplifying focus on specific experiences or interests can't be the problem either, because many highly-beloved mechanics do that too. Heck, many overtly old-school mechanics do exactly that, e.g. XP=GP.So I'm left asking, what exactly is the difference here? It isn't abstraction, mechanical contrivance, removal of ("realistic") tedium, nor amplifying focus. And it's not even that metanarrative concerns are unacceptable either! People are given plenty of free rein to invent backstory in games. Isn't that exactly what Conan has? Why should it just so happen that the bloodthirsty warlord who slaughtered his people would also be the snake-cultist sorcerer that has kidnapped the princess? Because it's a more interesting story that way--that's literally the one and only reason.</blockquote>

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