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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8666698" data-attributes="member: 42582">I mean that it's not an inevitable feature of RPGing that the GM, or the table, have to work out how to resolve the issues I described.Consider the extended rest issue in 5e D&D. Depending on the rate (relative to encouners) at which players are allowed to regain all their resources, the game will play quite differently; and if daily-limited casters are allowed to regain their resources with the same frequency as short rest-based fighters, their nova-ing will overshadow or crowd out the fighters (and rogues) unless the GM uses various techniques (spotlighting, "job for Aquaman", etc) to deal with the issue.This is not inevitable. 4e D&D, for instance, doesn't have this issue. Burning Wheel is a very different mechanical chassis from 4e D&D, and in many ways is more traditional with "at will" warriors and recovery-based casters, but it doesn't have the issue either.Or consider the issue of players building PCs that will fit the GM's campaign and take up the GM's hooks. The AD&D 2nd ed PHB has no instructions or advice to players about how to build PCs that will (i) fit together (other than some light-touch stuff in the alignment section), and (ii) fit the GM's game. <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/" target="_blank">Edwards describes the phenomenon this way</a>:individually-conducted character creation often produces differing conclusions about the point of play from player to player, which is to say, the characters are fully plausible and created by the rules, but are also manifestly incapable of interacting in terms of any one person's desired genre/setting. The classic example in fantasy-adventure play is the party including a paladin and an assassin . . .And in the context of 5e play, I still see discussions online about players building PCs that don't fit the game or whose Backgrounds get ignored of whatever.This isn't inevitable either. The rulebooks can set out instructions differently, tell the GM to nominate the PC backgrounds to the players, etc. Eg Torchbearer tells each player to "write a goal" for their PC at the start of each session, which "should be appropriate to the adventure". And the sample adventure elaborates: "After introducing the rumor and framing the first scene, instruct the players to write their goals or choose from our examples". The basic procedures of the game make sure that there will be no mismatch between what the PCs' goals are, and the scenario the GM is framing them into.</blockquote>

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