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<blockquote data-quote="Brother MacLaren" data-source="post: 3756433" data-attributes="member: 15999">I recall players with a certain mindset enjoying being the wizard.&nbsp; Strategic, offering advice, playing their character's Int, and being very content to sit back and watch when not needed.&nbsp; &quot;Help us out here!&quot;&nbsp; &quot;It looks to me like you have things well in hand.&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Grr....&quot;[some time later]&quot;Zzzz...&quot;&nbsp; &quot;See?&nbsp; Aren't you glad I saved that Sleep spell for the orcs rather than the goblins?&quot;[a few levels later]&quot;BOOM!&nbsp; That's it for the trolls.&quot;&quot;Wow, I'm glad we carried your sorry self through Keep on the Borderlands.&quot;Wizards were run by players who knew and appreciated their role.&nbsp; They could enjoy being super-effective during some combats and observers in others, and knew that they would ultimately be rewarded with amazing power if they should survive long enough.&nbsp; Why be unhappy about it, when they chose to play this character in this game knowing how it was set up?&nbsp; A forward in soccer doesn't complain that he can't use his hands, and a goalie doesn't complain that he never gets to score goals. Monte Cook makes the point that they deliberately chose to alter this paradigm in 3E (more spells, but toning down spell power), but didn't go far enough. As to the general point of being an observer not being &quot;fun&quot;... if you have a game with a good group of people and you like the characters, it can be a LOT of fun to watch your allies succeed.&nbsp; We had a situation in MarauderX's game where the Arcane Trickster was body-hopping into orcs with Magic Jar and using their bodies to Sneak Attack one another as she tried to gain some information.&nbsp; The other PCs weren't involved and this scene took a while -- but none of us complained.&nbsp; We enjoyed watching.&nbsp; It was a lot of fun, the player was brilliant, and we cared about the information she was obtaining.&nbsp; It's not like other games I've been in where everybody is just painting minis waiting for their turn to come around.&nbsp; My druid is sometimes the only one acting (Control Winds to destroy an army leaves relatively little for the rest to do), and other times he'll just pass if the fight is well in hand.&nbsp; So I'm not on board with the idea that you have to be doing something to have fun -- at least not if the story and the party are compelling.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Brother MacLaren, post: 3756433, member: 15999"] I recall players with a certain mindset enjoying being the wizard. Strategic, offering advice, playing their character's Int, and being very content to sit back and watch when not needed. "Help us out here!" "It looks to me like you have things well in hand." "Grr...." [some time later] "Zzzz..." "See? Aren't you glad I saved that Sleep spell for the orcs rather than the goblins?" [a few levels later] "BOOM! That's it for the trolls." "Wow, I'm glad we carried your sorry self through Keep on the Borderlands." Wizards were run by players who knew and appreciated their role. They could enjoy being super-effective during some combats and observers in others, and knew that they would ultimately be rewarded with amazing power if they should survive long enough. Why be unhappy about it, when they chose to play this character in this game knowing how it was set up? A forward in soccer doesn't complain that he can't use his hands, and a goalie doesn't complain that he never gets to score goals. Monte Cook makes the point that they deliberately chose to alter this paradigm in 3E (more spells, but toning down spell power), but didn't go far enough. As to the general point of being an observer not being "fun"... if you have a game with a good group of people and you like the characters, it can be a LOT of fun to watch your allies succeed. We had a situation in MarauderX's game where the Arcane Trickster was body-hopping into orcs with Magic Jar and using their bodies to Sneak Attack one another as she tried to gain some information. The other PCs weren't involved and this scene took a while -- but none of us complained. We enjoyed watching. It was a lot of fun, the player was brilliant, and we cared about the information she was obtaining. It's not like other games I've been in where everybody is just painting minis waiting for their turn to come around. My druid is sometimes the only one acting (Control Winds to destroy an army leaves relatively little for the rest to do), and other times he'll just pass if the fight is well in hand. So I'm not on board with the idea that you have to be doing something to have fun -- at least not if the story and the party are compelling. [/QUOTE]

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