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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 7908081" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Sure. I just wish we would actually try to design games that way, instead of insisting that no-testing hobbyist game design is always the end-all, be-all.You're still talking about a spotlight. That is the very problem I'm talking about. There is no need for a spotlight when the rules inherently furnish opportunities and effects that interlock with one another. The DM's job thus becomes purely focusing on which interesting opportunities they wish to furnish--which is a much more productive use of the limited time available to many DMs.And yes, I can think of such games. They were badly-designed games, and thankfully, I don't play them very often. In any game I would call even remotely well-designed (and, I admit, I have high standards here!), this doesn't happen. I have had games where I wanted things that just weren't in the rules, but that is an entirely different problem--one of my tastes being different from those catered to by the game's design. (We do not call a minivan badly designed solely because it cannot function as the pickup truck needed for hauling large furniture; we simply say that its design and our "need to move furniture" desire don't match.) But every game I've played that I considered well-designed--4e D&D, 13A, Dungeon World (and other PbtA systems), Fate, Dogs in the Vineyard--was specifically designed to make it really really really easy for DMs to furnish interesting opportunities (e.g. top-notch encounter-design rules, fiction-first mechanics, One Unique Things, and other rule structures), to the point that some of them (mostly 4e, sort of 13A) have been mocked for "removing the DM entirely" or the like. And every single one of those games also makes it easy for players to engage with those opportunities in dynamic, fluid, interesting ways on a regular basis just by following the rules as written.A well-designed game doesn't need a DM constantly on the lookout for "wow, I accidentally let the Rogue do nothing at all last session, I have to fix that." Instead, it has every class designed so that, unless you actively and intentionally ignore the rules and guidance, simply providing a challenge at all will give the Rogue a chance to Do Their Thing and meaningfully participate. Will they always participate at absolute peak performance, killing it every single session guaranteed no question perfectly forever? No. That's an impossible, foolish, and most importantly strawman goal, one I never stated and would never state. Instead, a well-designed game makes it so that every major player option (like Classes and perhaps Races, for games that have those mechanics) always has something at least moderately cool to do, no matter what situation you throw at them.You're talking about pushing everyone to the ceiling 100% of the time. I'm talking about raising the floor. It really isn't that hard to create a game with a much, much higher participation floor than (for a common example) 3.5e D&D. Sound game design--which involves the stuff I described above--builds that floor so that you never have those "uh oh, Barbarian got completely left behind last time" moments.  4e, 13A, and DW all accomplished these things. It's not a one-off or system-specific or even designer-specific thing. It's just a product of really good, really serious design. Most tabletop designers are not serious.</blockquote>

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