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Why does 5E SUCK?
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6667385" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>Nope, they're games. </p><p></p><p>If anything, cooperative games need balance even more critically than competitive ones. Competitive games can get by on fairness. Imbalance still looks bad, but it doesn't necessarily hurt play, and it can even enhance it, in that figuring out the best choices becomes part of the challenge of mastering the game - so long as the same imbalanced choices are available to all players, it's "fair."</p><p></p><p> In traditional D&D there often was. Tournament play was around from very early, so there could be victory conditions. Even if there weren't, there was often an implicit competition to survive, get the most treasure, the best items, the most exp, or otherwise emerge from the dungeon with the best character. </p><p></p><p> Adversarial DMing's a thing. From the Killer DMs of the early hobby to those who want to 'challenge' their players, today. It's only as fair as the DM chooses to make it, and balance on the PC class side still only matters in the cooperative context...</p><p></p><p> Because, in spite of the above, D&D is mainly a cooperative game. Whether the players are cooperating just as much as necessary to 'win' the most treasure/exp/whatever individually, cooperating to tell an epic story, cooperating to beat the level-appropriate challenges presented by the DM, cooperating to meet some campaign objective, or just to explore an imaginary world, what each PC brings to the party (npi) is critical to the player contributing and even participating in the game meaningfully. Class balance is thus absolutely critical to a decent play experience. Even versions of the game, like 5e, that don't build class balance into the rules expect the DM to impose it from above by tailoring challenges to give each PC time in the metaphorical 'spotlight.' </p><p></p><p> I'm not sure it was originally designed with a playstyle in mind. Perhaps it happened organically. Gygax & Arneson played the game as they were creating it, and it ended up a certain way (a treasure-hunting game suitable for tournament play). People got ahold of it and created variations that played differently - though, again, probably not with a conscious design intent. By the 90s, there were lots of games that did aim for very specific modes of play, like 'troupe style play' or 'storytelling,' and 2e D&D did edge towards getting with that program, a bit. 3.0 turned away from it, and 3.x because about a very specific style of play emphasizing RAW and system mastery.</p><p></p><p>When D&D did break out of that mold and present a more flexible, balanced <em>system</em>, it didn't go so well, it was too unfamiliar, and enacted at the price of invalidating all that 3.x system mastery. So 5e is back to being balanced & flexible in the traditional way - through DM interventions & customization, preferably via informal and ad-hoc, rulings not rules modifications.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 6667385, member: 996"] Nope, they're games. If anything, cooperative games need balance even more critically than competitive ones. Competitive games can get by on fairness. Imbalance still looks bad, but it doesn't necessarily hurt play, and it can even enhance it, in that figuring out the best choices becomes part of the challenge of mastering the game - so long as the same imbalanced choices are available to all players, it's "fair." In traditional D&D there often was. Tournament play was around from very early, so there could be victory conditions. Even if there weren't, there was often an implicit competition to survive, get the most treasure, the best items, the most exp, or otherwise emerge from the dungeon with the best character. Adversarial DMing's a thing. From the Killer DMs of the early hobby to those who want to 'challenge' their players, today. It's only as fair as the DM chooses to make it, and balance on the PC class side still only matters in the cooperative context... Because, in spite of the above, D&D is mainly a cooperative game. Whether the players are cooperating just as much as necessary to 'win' the most treasure/exp/whatever individually, cooperating to tell an epic story, cooperating to beat the level-appropriate challenges presented by the DM, cooperating to meet some campaign objective, or just to explore an imaginary world, what each PC brings to the party (npi) is critical to the player contributing and even participating in the game meaningfully. Class balance is thus absolutely critical to a decent play experience. Even versions of the game, like 5e, that don't build class balance into the rules expect the DM to impose it from above by tailoring challenges to give each PC time in the metaphorical 'spotlight.' I'm not sure it was originally designed with a playstyle in mind. Perhaps it happened organically. Gygax & Arneson played the game as they were creating it, and it ended up a certain way (a treasure-hunting game suitable for tournament play). People got ahold of it and created variations that played differently - though, again, probably not with a conscious design intent. By the 90s, there were lots of games that did aim for very specific modes of play, like 'troupe style play' or 'storytelling,' and 2e D&D did edge towards getting with that program, a bit. 3.0 turned away from it, and 3.x because about a very specific style of play emphasizing RAW and system mastery. When D&D did break out of that mold and present a more flexible, balanced [i]system[/i], it didn't go so well, it was too unfamiliar, and enacted at the price of invalidating all that 3.x system mastery. So 5e is back to being balanced & flexible in the traditional way - through DM interventions & customization, preferably via informal and ad-hoc, rulings not rules modifications. [/QUOTE]
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