D&D 5E You can't necessarily go back

[ForeverSlayer]

2012.
Thinking personal opinion reflects reality as if it were fact. Then acusing other people about making claims from an ivory tower.

Unfortunately, in the world of business it's popularity over quality. Now if you are lucky enough to get both then you are in great shape but if not then money comes from popularity.

 

[triqui]

There's an awful lot more which could be taken from videogames, though not necessarily from cRPGs. Visibly, some of the Pathfinder "Nation-building" mechanics in their Kingmaker path are so much like some RTS/TBS mechanics as to make it look like they come from a videogame. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, considering how much playtesting videogames get compared to tRPGs.

Even computer science as a whole has given things to RPG. Things like modular approach, exception based design, object oriented programming, etc.

Ford sell a lot more than Rolls Royce. This is not necessarily because Ford make higher quality vehicles.

No, but it takes something more than an armchair engineer to convince me that Ford engines are subpar. They might not be the best in the world, but I'm quite confident they are much better than anything theorycrafted from an armchair.

 

[Argyle King]

It does not. Whenever you have more than one way to solve a problem, you are going to have a ranking of solutions, and one of those is the best one. The thing about "right" builds is efficiency. You can have a D&D fighter which is "right", and gets the job done, but then that other fighter over there went to Char Op forum and gets the job done better. Just like in videogames. It's not that you can't play the game with whatever build you want. It's that other builds are better.

That's true for videogames, rpg, rock-paper-scissors, poker, magic the gathering, chess, and any other games where you have options. Whenever you have to make choices, some choices are marginally better than others, and therefore there is an optimal subset of choices that is better than the suboptimal ones. The only way to avoid that, is making a game where choices don't matter (pure random games) or making a game with so little popularity nobody cares about it high enough to study it's math and find a minmaxing.

You're right, you will have a ranking of solutions. The problem -as I see it- is when one particular solution always seems to be at the top of the list. The builds which focus on that one solution are going to be stronger because they'll be stronger in virtually every situation.

An example I can think of during my time playing a 4E campaign was disarming a trap during an encounter. My choices were to either engage in a skill challenge to disarm the trap or to simply use my powers and destroy the trap. Because the numbers (damage in this case) my PC was capable of generating were so high compared to everything else the game world was built upon, "just smash it" was very often the best answer. I could have engaged in the skill challenge, but doing so would have been a very poor decision; the only reason I would have done so would be if I had no other option.

That's part of what I'm trying to get at. If there is a certain aspect of the game which is given more prominence than other things, options which make my character better at that aspect are going to be better choices. I feel that is especially true when PCs can get to a level where they can use that one aspect (in this case, combat power) to muscle through everything else.

In contrast, it is my belief (as said already) that a game which isn't so centered on one thing and has a 'physics engine' (for a lack of better words) which reacts more consistently to the numbers PCs and other entities in the game world generate makes for a game in which there are less builds that are considered "the right way" to approach the game. Yes, there might very well be a 'right' answer to a problem and/or one that is more right than something else. However, there is -in the experience I've had with other games- less of a problem with one particular answer seeming to be the right answer so much of the time.

You brought up paper, rock, scissors. Let's say a new edition of that game was released. The rules of the new edition state that rock beats both paper and scissors. While scissors most certainly can still defeat paper, why would you still choose that over rock? In contrast, while rock could be the right answer for you in the previous edition, it wasn't the right answer the majority of the time.

 

[triqui]

You're right, you will have a ranking of solutions. The problem -as I see it- is when one particular solution always seems to be at the top of the list. The builds which focus on that one solution are going to be stronger because they'll be stronger in virtually every situation.

An example I can think of during my time playing a 4E campaign was disarming a trap during an encounter. My choices were to either engage in a skill challenge to disarm the trap or to simply use my powers and destroy the trap. Because the numbers (damage in this case) my PC was capable of generating were so high compared to everything else the game world was built upon, "just smash it" was very often the best answer. I could have engaged in the skill challenge, but doing so would have been a very poor decision; the only reason I would have done so would be if I had no other option.

That's part of what I'm trying to get at. If there is a certain aspect of the game which is given more prominence than other things, options which make my character better at that aspect are going to be better choices. I feel that is especially true when PCs ct to a level where they can use that one aspect (in this case, combat power) to muscle through everything else.

I think we are dancing around the same idea, but I don't get my point across.

I agree that the game shouldn't be combatcentric. What I'm saying is that there WILL be optimizated builds for exploration an social interaction. There are already such builds ( http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Politico_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Build) ), they aren't very prominent because those legs of the game are minimal currently, and combat trumps all. But there'll be a "best way to build a social character" and a "best character in exploration and trapfiniding" builds, just like there are now "best tanky build" and "highest AOE dpr", or whatever. There will be a "best all around character" too. When you have a combination of choices (like class, race, theme, background, feats, spells), some of them are going to be mathematically better than others. For example, is probable than an Fighter - Archer elf with long bow is matthematically better at long range DPS than a halfling Paladin- Peasant with shortbow. Nothing stops you to play a halfling ranged paladin if you have fun with it, but it'll be subopimal. However, the same is true in videogames. Nothing stops you to go play WoW or Diablo 3 and build whatever character you like, within the rules. You can go and build a D3 melee Demon Hunter, for example. There are bilds like that in youtube. It's going to be inferior to the cookie cutters, though.

 

[Argyle King]

I think we are dancing around the same idea, but I don't get my point across.

I agree that the game shouldn't be combatcentric. What I'm saying is that there WILL be optimizated builds for exploration an social interaction. There are already such builds, they aren't very prominent because those legs of the game are minimal currently, and combat trumps all. But there'll be a "best way to build a social character" and a "best character in exploration and trapfiniding" builds, just like there are now "best tanky build" and "highest AOE dpr", or whatever. There will be a "best all around character" too. When you have a combination of choices (like class, race, theme, background, feats, spells), some of them are going to be mathematically better than others. For example, is probable than an Fighter - Archer elf with long bow is matthematically better at long range DPS than a halfling Paladin- Peasant with shortbow. Nothing stops you to play a halfling ranged paladin if you have fun with it, but it'll be subopimal. However, the same is true in videogames. Nothing stops you to go play WoW or Diablo 3 and build whatever character you like, within the rules. You can go and build a D3 melee Demon Hunter, for example. There are bilds like that in youtube. It's going to be inferior to the cookie cutters, though.

I completely agree there are ways to optimize other things. However, the point I'm trying to make is that those characters are still poor in comparison to a character who can optimize combat and be so awesome at combat that he can just smash through traps and do everything that those other characters can do anyway. In a game where the other options are actual options, I feel there's more reason to have a wider variety of character types.

Optimization is not required to have fun. I myself have options I enjoy which are not optimal; I'd say I'm probably the least proficient at optimizing in the group I play D&D with. However, there are options in the game which are so obviously bad in comparison to other things that it would impact my ability to have fun if I chose them because the system currently expects my character to function a certain way at a certain level. I feel that a system in which there is less of a hard baked in expectation of how my character should function allows for more of the options to be actually legitimate options.

 

[Dannager]

>2012
>thinking that popularity reflects quality.

Says the guy who thinks his personal opinion of a developer's quality trumps the opinion of the gamers who have made them the present-day industry leader.

Popularity doesn't always reflect quality. For instance, an ignorant consumer market would potentially result in popularity reflecting something other than quality. But you would be really hard-pressed to argue that the sort of gamer who is not only aware of what Pathfinder is but also gives them money is largely ignorant of the gaming options available to them. The reality is that people purchase Pathfinder products because they like them, and that stems directly from their perception that Pathfinder is a high-quality product produced by a top-tier company that gives them what they are looking for.

 

[B.T.]

No, but it takes something more than an armchair engineer to convince me that Ford engines are subpar. They might not be the best in the world, but I'm quite confident they are much better than anything theorycrafted from an armchair.

Personal experience lets me know that Ford engines are subpar. Likewise with Pathfinder.

 

[slobster]

Personal experience lets me know that Ford engines are subpar. Likewise with Pathfinder.

sadface. Ford engines might not be quite Honda engines, but they beat the crap out of BMWs and Mercedes and VWs in terms of reliability and ease of maintenance.

Crap, that was off-topic ranting! Ummm . . . one place that P&PRPGs could take some inspiration from CRPGs is boss encounter design. Some already do. I'd like to see some cool, well thought out boss encounters released as part of a monster manual, encounters that could be slotted into any Underdark, or Abyss, or Farplane adventure that really show off a unique and terrifying bad guy. With cool mechanics like terrain puzzles integrated into the fights, charged attacks that broadcast when they are about to go off, transformations, and all the other tropes that adorn all of our favorite climactic video game fights.

I know that such things aren't for everyone, but you could always choose not to use them, right? And I think a lot of people would get good use out of them, even just as inspiration!

 

[ExploderWizard]

Even computer science as a whole has given things to RPG. Things like modular approach, exception based design, object oriented programming, etc.

Totally not needed to play pen & paper games on the tabletop.

Ummm . . . one place that P&PRPGs could take some inspiration from CRPGs is boss encounter design. Some already do. I'd like to see some cool, well thought out boss encounters released as part of a monster manual, encounters that could be slotted into any Underdark, or Abyss, or Farplane adventure that really show off a unique and terrifying bad guy. With cool mechanics like terrain puzzles integrated into the fights, charged attacks that broadcast when they are about to go off, transformations, and all the other tropes that adorn all of our favorite climactic video game fights.

I know that such things aren't for everyone, but you could always choose not to use them, right? And I think a lot of people would get good use out of them, even just as inspiration!

No thanks. Such things included in a D&D product are not what tabletop games need.

 

[slobster]

No thanks. Such things included in a D&D product are not what tabletop games need.

Fair enough, but I disagree. I think that a lot of people, especially those starting in the hobby, would get a huge kick out of epic, over the top boss battles. I've played a few games where I got to be on the playing end of such encounters, most notably in superhero RPGs, and they are some of my favorite RPG moments ever. I would be elated to see them get some official love in the core rulebooks!

Now I suspect that you will get your druthers and I'll be disappointed, but such is life, eh? It certainly won't ruin me for 5E if it doesn't happen . . . but it would be nice if it does.