Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Xetheral" data-source="post: 7918416" data-attributes="member: 6802765">From my standpoint, when I sit down to play, the &quot;game&quot; I'm playing is the campaign, not the system. I see the system as a tool for running that campaign. Like any other tool, it has strengths and weaknesses, and what's a strength in the context of one campaign may be a weakness in another.For the campaigns I run, strong class identities would be a weakness. I heavily emphasize verisimilitude, and for me that goal is best realized by characters whose depth and complexity reflect the diversity seen in the real world. A character whose identity can be defined by their class (or even by their race/background/class/subclass combination) would stick out in my campaigns like a caricature rather than a character.At the same time, the class structure of D&amp;D 5e is a strength in my campaigns. In comparison to a point-based system: character creation is simpler and faster, there is less tension between specialization and breadth (e.g. you can't trade in a fighter's skill proficiencies to get more points to spend on their sword skill), and character creation is less impacted by the point cost the developers chose to assign to each ability.When class identity gets in the way in my campaigns, it's simple enough to ignore without losing any of the benefits of the class structure. So ultimately, I choose to use 5e for my campaigns because the strengths outweigh the weaknesses, not because I universally appreciate all the aspects of a class-based system.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Xetheral, post: 7918416, member: 6802765"] From my standpoint, when I sit down to play, the "game" I'm playing is the campaign, not the system. I see the system as a tool for running that campaign. Like any other tool, it has strengths and weaknesses, and what's a strength in the context of one campaign may be a weakness in another. For the campaigns I run, strong class [I]identities[/I] would be a weakness. I heavily emphasize verisimilitude, and for me that goal is best realized by characters whose depth and complexity reflect the diversity seen in the real world. A character whose identity can be defined by their class (or even by their race/background/class/subclass combination) would stick out in my campaigns like a caricature rather than a character. At the same time, the class [I]structure[/I] of D&D 5e is a strength in my campaigns. In comparison to a point-based system: character creation is simpler and faster, there is less tension between specialization and breadth (e.g. you can't trade in a fighter's skill proficiencies to get more points to spend on their sword skill), and character creation is less impacted by the point cost the developers chose to assign to each ability. When class identity gets in the way in my campaigns, it's simple enough to ignore without losing any of the benefits of the class structure. So ultimately, I choose to use 5e for my campaigns because the strengths outweigh the weaknesses, [I]not[/I] because I universally appreciate all the aspects of a class-based system. [/QUOTE]

Verification