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Worlds of Design: A Question of Balance
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 7908540" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>I actually don't--my players can be frustratingly passive. It's an issue...mostly for <em>me</em>, ironically. The players are having a blast. I'm frustrated, 'cause I feel like I dangle interesting, relevant plot threads, opportunities, and intrigue and it...doesn't get investigated until I force the issue. We're working on it.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Why is it the Rogue's fault that (as Hussar noted above) undead and plants aren't subject to Sneak Attack, and thus the awesome Shadow Druid dungeon I've put together will <em>completely shut them down</em> through no fault of their own? (And, as a related issue, why is it that it's always a specific type of preference that gets shunted into the "well YOU <strong><em>have</em></strong> to be creative just to make sure you justify your presence. The people who don't have this preference just <em><strong>benefit from</strong></em> being creative; the game automatically justifies their presence." Isn't that a mean thing to enforce on people?)</p><p></p><p></p><p>Uh...no? 4e absolutely has a reasonable amount of niche protection, and is <em>by far</em> the most overtly team-oriented D&D made since WotC took up the game, and possibly earlier. (I have argued elsewhere that, at least in 3e and to some extent 2e, playing D&D was not a teamwork game, but rather a game of 4-6 people who happen to be adventuring in the same place at the same time. It was <em>painfully</em> true in every version of 3e, and my experience has shown it remains true in 5e, albeit to a slightly lesser extent.) Picking up a second full-time role in 4e is not trivial--it's not <em>impossible</em> either, to be sure. But taking (say) a non-Leader and building it to do even <em>most</em> of what a Leader does requires investment, usually by way of taking features from a Leader class (e.g. a multiclass feat at least). What a well-balanced game does is making sure that, whichever niche you pick, <em>that niche has something to contribute to every essential experience</em>.</p><p></p><p>4e's combat roles are an obvious example, but its skills are another. 4e has a short list of broadly-applicable skills, which individual player characters can (usually) only access a small subset of. If you want to succeed at skill challenges, you need a relatively diverse set of trained skills in the party, and bringing a mix of classes is exactly how one does that--the game furnishes interesting and appropriate opportunities (skill challenges), for which PC abilities (trained skills) interlock both with those opportunities <em>and</em> with one another's abilities, <em>unless</em> the players specifically choose to avoid the advice that a group be made that covers a diversity of options. (Frex, a "Radiant Mafia," which usually means an all/almost all Divine party, and thus an overemphasis on Religion and Insight and a weakness with more skullduggery type skills like Bluff, Streetwise, Thievery, and Stealth.)</p><p></p><p>For a completely different example, Dungeon World's classes are all very different (with one very specific exception: all the baseline "divine" classes use the Cleric's spellcasting mechanic <em>if</em> they opt into it, only Clerics get it by default) and feature major, defining elements baked into each of them that produces a very different experience. Yet these baked-in elements also give every player something to contribute. Fighters are actually GREAT for exploration, particularly urban exploration, because of their <em>Bend Bars, Lift Gates</em> move (essentially: feats of strength to overcome environmental obstacles, but potentially with down-the-line consequences). Paladins are great for nearly any challenge, as they have the Quest move; it lets them set a Quest for themselves, granting divine boons while they pursue that quest, but also inducing divine vows (like "don't use underhanded tactics" or "always give aid to those in need"), and these divine boons can be ENORMOUSLY helpful if chosen carefully (examples include "immunity to <type> damage" e.g. fire or slashing, "an unerring sense of direction toward <target>," "senses that pierce lies," etc.) Clerics and Wizards have their spells they can prepare, of course. Druids aren't natively spellcasters, but their shapeshifting is hugely diverse. Etc. Dungeon World emphatically <em>does not</em> have <s>samey classes</s> a lack of "niche protection and interdependence."</p><p></p><p></p><p>What? Why on earth would that be the case? I must be misunderstanding what you mean here.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Nope! I honestly have no idea how you got to that given I've been talking about 4e. 4e tells you what is expected, and offers a wide variety of options for what to pick to meet that--this is something that has been understood since time immemorial, hence the "alright, who's gonna play our <s>Brother Bactine</s> <s>healbot</s> <em><em>AHEM</em></em> cleric?" problem that 3e tried to solve by making Clerics <em>ridiculously powerful</em> so people would <em>want</em> to play one (and then with the whole "optimize your personal performance" thing, this quickly became "why ever play a Fighter when you could be a Cleric???")</p><p></p><p></p><p>I completely agree that <em>completely equivalent</em> classes, inability to highlight particular character focus, and/or "do whatever, it never matters" would be problems. Literally none of that is true of any of the games I described. The 4e Sorcerer is balanced with the 4e Rogue, but the two do different things, and the party will play and feel and (perhaps most importantly) <strong>achieve</strong> <em>differently</em> if it has the former vs. the latter. A 4e party that has {[Defender class], [Leader class], [Striker class], and [Controller class]} is essentially guaranteed to be competent unless the players actively ignore the fundamental class advice (e.g. dumping Intelligence as a Wizard), regardless of what choices the party made for each of those things. But the <em>experience</em> of their success, and more importantly the <em>direction</em> of their success, will differ greatly between {Fighter, Warlord, Ranger, Druid} and {Paladin, Shaman, Rogue, Wizard}, even though both parties are well-equipped for a fairly diverse field of challenges, both combat and non-combat (the former leans more into exploration, hunting, and survival; the latter leans more into intrigue and magic).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 7908540, member: 6790260"] I actually don't--my players can be frustratingly passive. It's an issue...mostly for [I]me[/I], ironically. The players are having a blast. I'm frustrated, 'cause I feel like I dangle interesting, relevant plot threads, opportunities, and intrigue and it...doesn't get investigated until I force the issue. We're working on it. Why is it the Rogue's fault that (as Hussar noted above) undead and plants aren't subject to Sneak Attack, and thus the awesome Shadow Druid dungeon I've put together will [I]completely shut them down[/I] through no fault of their own? (And, as a related issue, why is it that it's always a specific type of preference that gets shunted into the "well YOU [B][I]have[/I][/B] to be creative just to make sure you justify your presence. The people who don't have this preference just [I][B]benefit from[/B][/I] being creative; the game automatically justifies their presence." Isn't that a mean thing to enforce on people?) Uh...no? 4e absolutely has a reasonable amount of niche protection, and is [I]by far[/I] the most overtly team-oriented D&D made since WotC took up the game, and possibly earlier. (I have argued elsewhere that, at least in 3e and to some extent 2e, playing D&D was not a teamwork game, but rather a game of 4-6 people who happen to be adventuring in the same place at the same time. It was [I]painfully[/I] true in every version of 3e, and my experience has shown it remains true in 5e, albeit to a slightly lesser extent.) Picking up a second full-time role in 4e is not trivial--it's not [I]impossible[/I] either, to be sure. But taking (say) a non-Leader and building it to do even [I]most[/I] of what a Leader does requires investment, usually by way of taking features from a Leader class (e.g. a multiclass feat at least). What a well-balanced game does is making sure that, whichever niche you pick, [I]that niche has something to contribute to every essential experience[/I]. 4e's combat roles are an obvious example, but its skills are another. 4e has a short list of broadly-applicable skills, which individual player characters can (usually) only access a small subset of. If you want to succeed at skill challenges, you need a relatively diverse set of trained skills in the party, and bringing a mix of classes is exactly how one does that--the game furnishes interesting and appropriate opportunities (skill challenges), for which PC abilities (trained skills) interlock both with those opportunities [I]and[/I] with one another's abilities, [I]unless[/I] the players specifically choose to avoid the advice that a group be made that covers a diversity of options. (Frex, a "Radiant Mafia," which usually means an all/almost all Divine party, and thus an overemphasis on Religion and Insight and a weakness with more skullduggery type skills like Bluff, Streetwise, Thievery, and Stealth.) For a completely different example, Dungeon World's classes are all very different (with one very specific exception: all the baseline "divine" classes use the Cleric's spellcasting mechanic [I]if[/I] they opt into it, only Clerics get it by default) and feature major, defining elements baked into each of them that produces a very different experience. Yet these baked-in elements also give every player something to contribute. Fighters are actually GREAT for exploration, particularly urban exploration, because of their [I]Bend Bars, Lift Gates[/I] move (essentially: feats of strength to overcome environmental obstacles, but potentially with down-the-line consequences). Paladins are great for nearly any challenge, as they have the Quest move; it lets them set a Quest for themselves, granting divine boons while they pursue that quest, but also inducing divine vows (like "don't use underhanded tactics" or "always give aid to those in need"), and these divine boons can be ENORMOUSLY helpful if chosen carefully (examples include "immunity to <type> damage" e.g. fire or slashing, "an unerring sense of direction toward <target>," "senses that pierce lies," etc.) Clerics and Wizards have their spells they can prepare, of course. Druids aren't natively spellcasters, but their shapeshifting is hugely diverse. Etc. Dungeon World emphatically [I]does not[/I] have [S]samey classes[/S] a lack of "niche protection and interdependence." What? Why on earth would that be the case? I must be misunderstanding what you mean here. Nope! I honestly have no idea how you got to that given I've been talking about 4e. 4e tells you what is expected, and offers a wide variety of options for what to pick to meet that--this is something that has been understood since time immemorial, hence the "alright, who's gonna play our [S]Brother Bactine[/S] [S]healbot[/S] [I][I]AHEM[/I][/I] cleric?" problem that 3e tried to solve by making Clerics [I]ridiculously powerful[/I] so people would [I]want[/I] to play one (and then with the whole "optimize your personal performance" thing, this quickly became "why ever play a Fighter when you could be a Cleric???") I completely agree that [I]completely equivalent[/I] classes, inability to highlight particular character focus, and/or "do whatever, it never matters" would be problems. Literally none of that is true of any of the games I described. The 4e Sorcerer is balanced with the 4e Rogue, but the two do different things, and the party will play and feel and (perhaps most importantly) [B]achieve[/B] [I]differently[/I] if it has the former vs. the latter. A 4e party that has {[Defender class], [Leader class], [Striker class], and [Controller class]} is essentially guaranteed to be competent unless the players actively ignore the fundamental class advice (e.g. dumping Intelligence as a Wizard), regardless of what choices the party made for each of those things. But the [I]experience[/I] of their success, and more importantly the [I]direction[/I] of their success, will differ greatly between {Fighter, Warlord, Ranger, Druid} and {Paladin, Shaman, Rogue, Wizard}, even though both parties are well-equipped for a fairly diverse field of challenges, both combat and non-combat (the former leans more into exploration, hunting, and survival; the latter leans more into intrigue and magic). [/QUOTE]
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