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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6001558" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think Jonhnny3D3D may be thinking of RPGs in which one or two of the following is true: (i) what counts as a viable "solution" to any given problem is itself up for grabs, and to be worked out in part via the participants in the course of actually playing the game; (ii) the range of options, in terms of mechanics and associated player input and GM adjudication, is sufficiently varied (and subject to sophisticated feedback mechanisms coming out of the products of play itself) that calculating an optimum is not practically (or even, perhaps, theoretically) feasible.D&D combat looks like a domain in which calculated optimisation might be possible. But once you allow for the impact of 4 other players at the table, plus the various story elements their PCs bring into play, calculability decreases: for example, having a PC who is strong at research may create opportunities, in play, to acquire additional information that permits combat encounters to be tackled with information-based advantages (about enemey tactics or vulnerabilities, for example); or having a PC who is notorious for keeping to oaths sworn may create the opportunity to negotiate non-fatal conclusions to fights, which in turn open up the viability of a range of PC builds that may not be viable in circumstances of different party composition.This is not about randomness. It is about the complexity and highly choice-dependant character of the choice situation.I hope we can all agree that this is obviously bad design. (I personally think the whole "disarm via skill challenge during combat" thing for traps was a bit half-baked, beyond the reason you give.)As the first part of this post hopefully indicates, I agree. (Although I personally haven't found 4e D&D to have the problem you identify: for example, the player of the ranger-cleric in my game just recently retrained Stealth into Diplomacy so that his PC could play a bigger role in social encounters.)You can push it even harder with a game like (say) HeroWars/Quest. Mathematically, PCs are virtually identical. Where they differ is in their descriptors, and this matters to the sort of fiction they can meaningfully engage with, and will in turn generate via play.On another thread, I saw a complaint that the Artisan background (from the playtest) is not as viable as the Bounty Hunter background. My response to this is: if you are going to have a game with backgrounds, then the player who chooses for his/her PC to be an Artisan knows what s/he is getting into, and should be prepared, in play, to make being an artisan matter. I have GMed for such a player in a previous Rolemaster game: the player did find ways to make it matter that his PC was, as well as being a formidable warrior, a skilled armourer and weaponsmith.Well, the Vancian wizard with the big spell book is the utlimate "retrainer" - every day I have a new suite of abilities!But retraining for martial PCs seems fine to me provided that it is understood in the right way - as metagame tweaks, or highlighting formerly-negelected aspects of the PC, rather than as a change in the PC from the ingame perspective.</blockquote>

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