NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6112138" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Yup. I agree with this in degree, but I think you'll agree that there is a breakpoint whereby when the designers offload too much responsibility for balance (dealing with Generalist Wizard and Druid niche invasion and extreme power disparity), pacing (top-down, adventuring day encounter math or all over the place resource duration scribed under the varying auspices of 10 minutes/level and 1 hour/level rather than 1 scene/action) and fundamental game functionality (figuring out what the designers intended when two important rules or two sub-systems violently butt heads) to the individual table, it is time to play a different system.This is why I prefer unified resource schemes and a unified, conflict resolution framework as closed-system. Everyone has the same abilities to affect ends and plays the same tactical mini-games (step down Sorcery d8 for a plot point or step-up Acrobatics to d10 by handing in a plot point) for the right to impose their vision upon the narrative. Balance, pacing and fundamental game functionality exist in a persistent state and narrative dynamism is implicit because the system demands that you invoke the amplitude, effect and 2nd order interactions of your resource deployment or "nothing happens"; the abilities themselves have thematic guidelines but they are not prescriptive.Some people hate this, however. You see this complaint with Skill Challenges: Why do we have to play out this conflict resolution mini-game to resolve complex matters within the fiction? I expect to press my "but magic" button and win the <investigation, parlay, chase scene, lost in the frozen tundra without resources> conflict. Stepping up Sorcerey from d8 to d10 or using Arcana in a single "panel" amongst many "panels" to drive the ultimate conclusion within the conflict resolution framework is gamist rubbish. This tactical mini-gaming doesn't make sense from a causal-logic perspective (from my character's actor point of view) and it is dissonant with respect to my expectation of strategic power-play (typically underwritten by "but magic") as conflict resolution. As you know, that argument doesn't ressonate with me or my table. They won't like my game so I shouldn't have those people at my table (for my regular game...I can please them in one-offs no problem) and I shouldn't be at theirs. Neither of us is right or wrong but its not bridgable by social accord; its "system matters" and technique that will color play from start to finish. And its why I'm more likely to continue playing 4e or hacking a Cortex Plus version of D&D as my default system for a long-term campaign rather than play 5e.</blockquote>

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