D&D 5E Why the claim of combat and class balance between the classes is mainly a forum issue. (In my opinion)

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

I wonder if you add up the "success" he had as a designer and compair it to the worst or least succesful D&D or OWOD what that would look like..

Doesn't matter, his opinion is still an opinion at the end of the day.

Would you listen to Lucas or Speilberg if they told you certain movies were crap or would you find out for yourself?

 

[SteveC]

It's not that I don't understand that perspective, it's that I think the expectations you're outlining are unrealistic. If you're playing a roleplaying game and your expectations are centered around your mechanical effectiveness, there's something wrong, regardless of whether those expectations are met.

If we were playing a modern rpg, we would never expect that a doctor character have the same mechanical usefulness as the hospital janitor. In fact, we wouldn't even expect that every doctor be the same. That doesn't stop some people from wanting to play the janitor. But in D&D, we already have unrealistic and very harsh strictures forcing everyone to essentially play professional adventurers of roughly equal effectiveness. That this isn't more than enough to satisfy those expectations on account of some relatively trivial and nuanced (and entirely justifiable) variations between character types is pretty mind-boggling to me.

That, and the other problem would be if you don't understand that you're only a few relatively small playstyle differences away from a scenario where the "Angel Summoner" is a cute distraction for the badass dude with the sword.

And the notion that my expectations are unrealistic is the problem here. They're not. For D&D, which is the game we're talking about, right?

Roleplaying games are about several things, but let's divide them neatly into two parts by the name: roleplaying and game. Two parts. I love the roleplaying aspects to RPGs, and play in a lot of games where that's the most important thing that we do. The 4E campaign I just finished up was largely about political maneuverings in the takeover of a country, and we'd go multiple sessions with no combats. No problem with that. (As an aside, the 4E system had no problem with that either, nor would I expect that any edition would). The roleplaying part of RPG doesn't have or need rules: you tell the GM what and how you want to do something, and most of the time it just happens. I daresay that 90% of the things we talk about doing in an RPG don't need dice and just happen.

When we get into the other part of the term, the game part, mechanics are important. The Next designers have spoken about three pillars to the game, and this is one of the best ideas they've brought forth in my opinion, since it's giving us insight into what the game is about. D&D is different from other games in that they'll likely have different pillars and focus on different things.

So Next, in theory is centered on three concepts: social encounters, exploration and combat. That's telling us what are game is going to be about, and the goal (again, the goal the designers have stated) is that each character will have something to do in each of those areas.

What that tells me is that if I pick a basic character, they will have something to contribute to each of the main parts of the game. I might be better at one than the other, but the expectation is that I can do something useful in each part. How do I do that? Mechanics.

So if I'm a fighter, to give the rogue a break, and I find that I can't contribute to the group when we're exploring or socializing, I have the right to say "what gives here?" It's not poor playing, it's not unrealistic, and it's not a sign of being an immature roleplayer. It's actually bad mechanics, given that we started with the premise that characters can do something in a core element, and find that game doesn't let us in practice.

As you say, in D&D there is an expectation that you're playing a competent adventuring person. That's the default for the game. D&D really isn't intended to be a game where you play the equivalent of doctors and janitors. If you try to do so, you will be disappointed, and here's the key: it's not the game's fault. The game told you what it was about (three pillars, right?) and that you would be able to do something in each of those parts. What would be bad design is if your expectations of being able to contribute in each part of the game weren't met.

There are games where you have janitors and doctors interact and no one seems to mind. I think the zombie survival genre is the best example. In that case, I'd expect the janitor to be just as useful as the doctor if not more so, outside of when people getting hurt. The thing is, healing injuries would not be, in my expectation, one of the core "pillars" of the zombie survival genre. I'd expect that keeping the group healthy, overall, would be. The doctor would contribute by medical skill, while the janitor would (for example) scrounge for supplies. Different actions, but part of the same overall game pillar.

That would make for a good zombie game: the two characters are different, but each one contributes to the core parts of the game, just in different ways.

In D&D, this means that each character does something to contribute to combat. That doesn't necessarily mean "a lot of damage," but they each get to do something during that part of the game, as with social and exploration encounters. I don't think that's a radical notion or anything.

 

[Ahnehnois]

In D&D, this means that each character does something to contribute to combat. That doesn't necessarily mean "a lot of damage," but they each get to do something during that part of the game, as with social and exploration encounters. I don't think that's a radical notion or anything.

I do. I'll bite that D&D is roleplaying and also a game, but to me it has a lot more in common with freeform games like children playing house or running around on the playground shooting pretend guns at each other than it does with tactical or competitive games.

The roleplaying part of RPG doesn't have or need rules: you tell the GM what and how you want to do something, and most of the time it just happens. I daresay that 90% of the things we talk about doing in an RPG don't need dice and just happen.

When we get into the other part of the term, the game part, mechanics are important.

This is where I think you and I are going to differ. I agree that 90% of things don't practically require dice rolls, and I agree that mechanics are important, but to me the point of the mechanics is descriptive. They explicate the rules of a shared world that the players play in and the DM controls.

So when I think about mechanics being important, I think it's important that they are logical and consistent world-building tools. The notion of balance between different character concepts is almost irrelevant to this end; that's a metagame goal that to me is something to be tacked on to a functioning rules system as an element of style, not a fundamental precept that gets built in from the start.

For example, to me, performance skill and arcane knowledge are clearly different domains. However, it's important to represent them in a comprehensible way, which the d20 skill system does. Any moderately competent modern D&D player has a basic understanding of skill bonuses and DCs and the probability distribution of the d20, so they know what their character's skills mean. A +5 in Perform means the same thing as a +5 in Knowledge: that the character is 25% better than a completely average schmuck on that probability scale when attempting tasks using that skill. The skill points and ability score generation resources used to get those bonuses represent how rare the aptitudes are and how much work it takes to learn these things. The DCs control how frequently the requisite tasks are accomplished and represent how hard those tasks are. There, done.

It's essentially irrelevant that arcane knowledge is much more useful in a typical game than stage performing. It's also irrelevant that some circumstances or class abilities turn the tables and make performance much more useful. The only place balance really comes in is in determining the scope of the skill. For example, a knowledge skill that let you know every type of fact equally well is clearly broken (though even this concern is secondary to the fact that "blanket knowledge" fails to meaningfully describe the character's expertise).

The same logic applies, scaled up to other mechanical elements such as classes. It matters how good of a bard the bard is, but not whether the bard is equally useful to the wizard. Because singing is not equal to arcane knowledge, and, scaling up, bards are not the same thing as wizards. To me, saying mechanics matter means that it matters if the bard fails as a performance artist dilettante, not if he fails at being equally useful in combat to an evoker.

The player's experience is completely irrelevant in my picture of it; the point is for the rules to define a set of characters and situations that make up the game world, of which the players are only responsible for an infinitesimal portion of. Not a line of reasoning that you are mandated to agree with, but one which to me is pretty essential and is an explicit assumption of quite a few D&D texts I've read.

 

[Neonchameleon]

OK, so you houseruled lava as a SoD-type effect rather than a source of hit point loss. I don't see what would stop you doing much the same in 4e.

From memory that is the actual rule in 4e.

My query with gamist 4e is: where is the challenge? The answer as I see it (from your posts, and from many earlier and lucid posts by @Balesir ): in playing your PC well to overcome the encounters. The point of the transparent PC and encounter build then becomes to make sure the "field of battle" is as fair as possible, so all success or failure is due to the players' skill.

It's not about winning. It's about winning with flair, style, and elegance most of the time. Using a finite set of rules to make the monsters look ridiculous.

Is this roughly right? If so, I see it as a fairly light gamism, because it's really not very demanding. Provided you're actually into the whole apparatus of mathematical manipulations as a passtime, I think you have to misplay pretty badly to lose.

Indeed. It's more along the lines of a Sudoku challenge. I know that when I start a Sudoku I'm going to succeed almost inevitably. But not how fast.

I wrote a reply to all this pro-Forge "stuff", but nothing could come out that wasn't insulting. So, let me just said I disagree, with just about everything you said, and leave it at that. Fortunately for the industry in general, the Forge has failed, and is now mostly defunct.

Fortunately for the industry the Forge has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its founders. The most popular non-D&D game on the market right now (Fate) comes from deep within the Forge. The Forge did a lot of good and some harm. The harm is being buried with it. The good (Fate, Fiasco, Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World -> Dungeon World etc.) is thriving.

Perhaps you mis-typed earlier? You didn't say that the forge wasn't anti-D&D "as such", you said that they weren't anti-D&D "at all".

I agree that not everyone involved with the forge is hostile to every type of D&D.

The Forge came originally from World of Darkness players who found the Storyteller system not fit for purpose. Now I don't know if you remember the average WoD opinion of D&D in the 90s. But I do. It wasn't polite. The Forge's entire approach to gamism was telling WoD players that "What D&D players do is actually pretty cool. It's not what we want to do - but that doesn't stop oD&D and 1e from being cool at what it does. This town's big enough for all of us." Remember that WoD was putting notes in their books about "Rollplaying not Roleplaying".

Edwards essentially shut down the Forge, and he gave up and slinked away with his tail between his legs after every game he developed, one of which he went on a costly European tour to promote, all failed. Fewer people know of the Forge now than did 5 years ago. They tried to create a cultural movement, and utterly failed to do so. You are citing "influence" from about 8 years ago on a couple D&D guys, and those authors no longer talk about the Forge anymore. Indeed, after Edwards argued D&D players were literally brain damaged by playing D&D, pretty much every legit D&D author slowly backed away from the crazy that was Edwards.

The games I've cited above came out of the same group that was the Forge. Edwards himself is notable for creating The Forge out of which the Indy RPG movement grew. He himself was not one prone to polite measures or half measures - and closed the Forge when the problems it was creating were getting in the way. Meanwhile the Indy Games movement thrived (aided by the collapse of the nWoD and later the D&D edition war).

And, for the record, Edwards was talking about WoD players there far more than D&D players. And you'll note was almost ignored in the discussion itself - and the marginalia was not positive.

Anyway, again this is not a topic I want to debate. If you insist on debating it, I will just direct you over to TheRPGSite.com, where they will be happy to discuss in intricate detail why The Forge was very harmful to the RPG industry in general, and how they've failed.

Are you trying to create cross-board drama? Especially linking to that site? If you don't want to discuss the topic, don't.

Yeah, I think that's right. It took me years to work it out, with the benefit of having read
@pemerton . My first attempt to run 4e 2009-2011 attempted to
shoehorn it into a Gygaxian Naturalism type style, and that worked very poorly.

I don't think the 4e designers understood what 4e was good at.

From what I've read, I think Heinsoo understood what 4e was good at. I think he was in a small minority.

No, Edwards calls old pre-2e D&D a game aimed at "step on up Gamism" and is ok with that. It's 2e AD&D incoherence he hates - using a Gamist engine but drifting it towards simulation & dramatism.

This reminds me of the guys on therpgsite conflating Forgeists with White Wolfers as "storygamers", even though the Forge's "Story Now" was specifically a reaction against WW style "Story Already Written" Railroading. The Forgeist agenda is very hostile to something like Paizo Adventure Paths, but is fine with pure Gamist play, which is how it characterises Tomb of Horrors and suchlike Gygaxian stuff.

Edit: As for Moldvay, the problem is that it's a Gamist game that does not allow for the creation of the dragon-slaying scene described in the intro. It could have done that by being Dramatist in design - intended to create something like a story - or through the possibility of good Gamist play (Combat As War, maybe?) resulting in that scene. But it doesn't do either. You can only get to that scene by the GM not using the rules provided re dragon hp, sword damage etc.

QFT. All of it.

There is a term for such people: Rules Lawyers. They are a bane to any table, and abound on forums. Fortunately, they don't get out much.

And fortunately the games that enable them are no longer being produced in great numbers.

 

[Imaro]

Fortunately for the industry the Forge has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its founders. The most popular non-D&D game on the market right now (Fate) comes from deep within the Forge. The Forge did a lot of good and some harm. The harm is being buried with it. The good (Fate, Fiasco, Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World -> Dungeon World etc.) is thriving.

I'm sorry but what?? Citation, proof or some evidence to support your claim that Fate is the most popular non-D&D game on the market...

 

[Neonchameleon]

The hot games listing tab. Fate is far ahead of anything noelse n-D&D (and WoD is a blip due to having given away some of their games on Drivethru earlier this week.

 

[Imaro]

The hot games listing tab. Fate is far ahead of anything noelse n-D&D (and WoD is a blip due to having given away some of their games on Drivethru earlier this week.

That in no way proves the particular assertion you made. that includes everything from Sell me/unsell me threads by people who know nothing about Fate to people posting why they will never play fate again on blogs... it doesn't discern whether the discussion about the game is good or bad. In other words that's not proof that Fate is the most popular roleplaying game next to D&D on the market right now, which is what you stated. It just proves it's being talked about (for good or bad) alot right now on the internet...

Also how do you know the exact reasons why WoD is or isn't at a certain point??

 

[S'mon]

That in no way proves the particular
assertion you made.

It wouldn't get FATE convicted in criminal court, but IMO it's good enough for bulletin board yakking!

 

[Imaro]

It wouldn't get FATE convicted in criminal court, but IMO it's good enough for bulletin board yakking!

Of course you see it that way... I guess I disagree, when you make broad claims like that, you should be able to back it up with real proof... Just saying.

 

[Derren]

The hot games listing tab. Fate is far ahead of anything noelse n-D&D (and WoD is a blip due to having given away some of their games on Drivethru earlier this week.

And yet when comparing amazon sale ranks, the fate core rules rank way behind things like Numenera, Shadowrun, GURPS or Rogue Trader and is comparable to WoD.
Even the barely a month old System Toolkit ranks behind many of them.