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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6240318" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think looking at those other systems is helpful - important, even - to avoid getting stuck in too narrow a conception fo what an RPG can look like in mechanical terms. I think it's obvious that D&Dnext won't look like any of them (4e doesn't look like any of them either - the closest it comes is in its skill system, but that is only part, and perhaps a lesser part, of the 4e build and resolution mechanics); but looking at those games can help us appreciate the consequences and implications of various design choices.A couple of examples to help explain what I mean:In discussions of class balance it is very common to focus on the PC build rules, and ignore the encounter building and action resolution rules - whereas the encounter building and action resolution rules, and the way they integrate with the PC build rules, are pretty crucial to balance (and I think this is part of what explains the disparity between "reading" and "playing" that  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] mentions in his post upthread). HeroQuest revised has some of the tightest integration of these various elements of an RPG ruleset that I know of, and that integration is crucial to its paticular solution to the balance problem.13th Age keeps character build rules that are much closer to traditional D&D than to HeroQuest, but therefore - in order to solve the balance problem - takes a very drastic approach in encounter building: the daily cycle is defined by the game not in terms of ingame passage of time, but in terms of number of on-level encounters faced by the PCs.Both Essentials 4e and D&Dnext (as per the playtest) have traditional D&D PC build rules (ie different resource suites, like 13th Age and unlike the 4e PHB), but no hard constraints around encounter building. This then puts a lot of pressure on the action resolution rules to produce "balance" as an emergent quality (eg in D&Dnext the Concentration mechanic has to put a brake on caster nova-ing, in order to avoid a 5-minute day approach making casters overpowered relative to those classes with "at-will" suits of resources). Assuming that D&Dnext in its final version contains class design and a Concentration mechanic somewhat comparable to the current playtest version, I think we can anticipate over the life of the edition ongoing debates about whether various spells have been mis-designed, and should have Concentration as a limitation but don't, and thereby give rise to an imbalance of mechanical effectiveness across different PC classes.D&Dnext's design also puts a lot of pressure on NPC/monster design, I think: if these opponents have too great a capacity to focus-fire the PC fighters and thereby drain them of hit points, thus causing the clerics to run through their healing spells too quickly, thus creating 5-minute day pressures which also then encourage the wizards to nova, there is the danger of a positive feedback loop pushing towards imbalance of effectiveness across the various classes. (Arguably 3E above mid-levels suffers from a vesion of this feedback loop - I say this not on the basis of my own play experience, which is very limited, but on the basis of the large amount of commentary that I have read.)These comments aren't intended as objections to D&Dnext: just observations about some of the design pressures it is under given some of the (other) design choices that have been made. And looking at other examples of RPG design, which deal with these issues in other ways, I think can help make these pressures easier to identify and analyse.I completely agree that "balance" can have different, perhaps mutually exclusive, meanings. In the other thread I posted a passage from Ron Edwards running through a dozen or so different notions of "balance" and making exactly that point.As to the comparison between classic and contemporary D&D, I think there is a logic to the change in focus - it is not simply changing tastes (although these are part of it).The innovation of RPGing compared to wargaming is the one-to-one ratio of players to figures. This fairly naturally promotes a focus by the player upon the PC, who therefore evolves in play from a mere "figure" to a full-fledged "character", who has a backstory, a personality, and a potential story-arc. There are aspects of taste in this change of orientation towards the PC, but I think it is not merely taste: the basic logic of RPGing - that one-to-one ratio - encourages this sort of dramatic identification of player with character.Once the dramatic identification has taken place, it then creates a degree of pressure on play itself, and the design of the fictional situation in which the PC finds him-/herself, to express and develop that potential story-arc. The end-point of this pressure is the "encounter as the locus of play" found in 4e, but the pressure can express itself in many ways falling short of that end-point. It's most basic expression is found in the PC, as played by the player, not seeking to avoid conflict but rather to take part in it: because it is conflict, and the resolution of conflict, that expresses the personality of the PC and (over time) yields the PC's story arc.There is no essential connection between conflicts and story arcs, on the one hand, and combat on the other: but here two other factors come into play. First, with its mechanical origins in wargaming, D&D has always had reasonably robust conflict resolution mechanics for combat, while being much more rough-and-ready for other dimensins of conflict resolution. Second, a lot of fantasy fiction and heroic fiction emphasises conflict as the ultimate site of coflict resolution. These two factors have tended to mean that the seeking out of conflict and resolution for the PC becomes the seeking out of combat.There is a fairly well-known division in D&D gaming, dating back at least to the late 80s, between those who emphasise "story" and "roleplaying" and downplay combat, and those who emphasise player empowerment via the mechanics, and (as something of a side effect, given D&D's mechanical emphasis on combat) thereby do not downplay combat to the same extent. (This division doesn't cover all D&D players, obviously - eg it doesn't cover those who are still playing in a classic Gygaxian/wargaming style.)Speaking at a high level of generality, those in the first camp don't particularly care about mechanical balance, because they are not generally relying heavily upon action resolution mechanics for resolving the conflicts in their games: that is mostly the role of the GM/storyteller. (A side effect of this is that those who don't like this approach are likely to characterise it as railroading and/or GM-force illusionism.) Those in the second camp, who rely heavily on the action resolution mechanics, are likely to care quite a bit about some form of balance of effectiveness. And because D&D has traditionally emphasised combat in its action resolution mechanics, they are likely to care about this not just across all "pillars" but within the combat pillar in particular.I personally think these differences of approach can be seen pretty easily in the current balance threads. Though I also accept that I may be projecting my own analytical framework onto what I read in them.</blockquote>

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