What does Veeky Forums think about character abilities that can seem "gamist" and break a sense of verisimilitude but give your character more options in combat? Like 5e's "second wind" where you simply regain hitpoints in battle.
On one hand I like them because they give characters more to do and think about than "i attack with my sword" but at the same time I hate it because I feel like it keeps my players glued to their character sheets as if everything they can possibly do is on there.
Second wind is perfectly immersive. HP is a measure of stamina as well as health in practice and getting a second wind is a real phenomenon. Makes about as much sense as the barbarian getting temp HP because he's rather miffed
You mean like magic? You just point and an orphanage explodes.
Thats whats meant by verisimilitude in this case. Magic works by the rules of the setting and the established world. A fighter just a skilled warrior. Maybe second wind was a bad example (although I've never heard of people healing their wounds with it, temp health would make more sense in that case) but sort of supernatural seeming abilities that "mundane" classes get is more what I am referring to. They can add options to classes but some feel that they can make a system feel more like a videogame.
Okay I know what you mean, but you said it in a really bad way. Like, you're just asking for "FIGHTERS ARE NOT JUST SKILLED WARRIORS, THEY ARE SUPERNATURAL REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
But you're talking about shit like luck points or something, abilities that the PC doesn't consciously use, but which the player does.
I'm ambivalent to them, I don't mind.
I don't really have a problem with these. In fact I was hesitant to comment here because I've -never- understood the problem with them. To me it's just part of what makes the game a game. It isn't your character's class abilities that immerses you in the game, it's the story you're carving out for you and your allies, the adventures you get up to, the world you're changing with your exploits.
Then again, I like and continue to play 4e so I'm a filthy heretic.
Its a matter of gameplay. Some people like it where every ability they have as a player, is actually an ability the character has.
That is to say, abilities that alter the story that the player chooses to use, but which seem as just happenstance to the character, russle some people's jimmies, and breaks their immersion.
I understand the argument, even if I don't agree with it. I'm fine with players having powers that aren't all IC abilities.
I dont really mind 4e's powers in and of themselves so much that I minded how the entire game seemed to revolve around what you could do in a combat context.
Martial classes can do loads even in 3.5.
The problem is 3.5 actively limits those things.
Lifting, Pinning, Tripping and holding are all actions a martial SHOULD be good at, so I just remove the limits.
If a Level 20 Wizard with 20 int can cast doomsday spells, a Level 20 Fighter with 20 strength can perform Doomsday chokeholds.
I agree with this. Skilled warriors shouldnt have to take specific feats to trip and pin people. The thing is that when you codify these things on to a character sheet into abilities like "leg sweep" or "warriors grip" it carries an implication of finality. That these arent just things you could just think to do and dot them you have to use the "ability" you have on your sheet. Which is more of a psychological problem my players seem to have, idk how universal it is.
Like I said, if for some reason I am told to DM a 3.5 game, I simply remove all limits to these abilties.
Giants are toppled and shanked in the neck. Dragons are smashed to the ground
Devils are powerbombed.
If one class gets to break the laws of reality to the point where they break the game so do the other classes.
GNS theory is bullshit.
Thread moot.
Easy solution: have a power that says "do something not covered by your powers, or use one of your powers in a way that's not covered by its rules text" and assure your players that you'll reward them fairly if they do something with that.
Hit points are in a weird place in D&D but they were never really meant to be meat points.
Why? A fighter is a class which is all on a 'normal' paradigm. It's unrealistically competent but still bound by at least theoretical human limitations - like a Conan figure. The wizard isn't, magic *should* be overpowered.
>magic *should* be overpowered.
Depends on the setting.
Well I'm a fan of 4e, it's my favrite edition, so I like them. Actually, if you look at the game as genre-simulation, rather than reality-but-with-magic simulating, it can actually be immersion-enhancing, actually.
Then don't have levels.
Why? Nothing says levels have to have the same value for each character class.
I mean, aside from the definition that being level means that you are on an equal field.
GNS theory?
>magic *should* be overpowered
Um, no. Perhaps we're working off of different definitions of overpowered, but making magic more powerful than swinging a sword across all levels is the biggest contributor to how broken 3.5 is. Magic should be a versatile, powerful force that can do a lot of different things. It should not be an "I win" button for every conceivable scenario with the only justification being "It's magic, it should be strong".
I've noticed a lot that's the justification people give for magic being powerful: more or less "Because it's reality warping, it should be powerful!"
Except it's not. By the rules of the setting, magic isn't warping reality any more than science is. Higher-level magic like Wish is warping reality. But casting Shocking Grasp isn't really bending reality in any meaningful way, it's following it. That's how spells work (at least in D&D). Wizards memorized rituals and steps to unlock this power, steps they have to follow when casting the spell to make it actually happen. They're following rules, not breaking them,
I more or less hate ANY "speshul abilities" I don't see any need for them. I'd rather have list of numerical values assigned to skills that are generalized proficiencies in some spheres of activity.
When player want's to do something, DM just assigns difficulty for that action based on some guidelines and his own common sense.
Now, "special abilities" make it stiff and more like wargame/cardgame/video game than a rpg
The only exception I'd make for very special, "signature" abilities, like berserker's rage
Then you're missing some of the point of levels. Part of having a leveling system is to allow characters to have a reference as to how powerful they are, and if you start breaking that then neither the players nor the GM have any idea as to where the characters sit on the power scale relative to each other. That makes encounter design incredibly difficult.
>it's unrealistically competent but still bound by at least theoretical human limitations
Why? Why not be like Achilles or Odysseus or Heracles?
Don't compare some random soldier to Gandolf, don't compare heracles to someone pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
You could just as easily argue martial *should* be overpowered. You thrust a sword through someone and they're going to die. Magic only lets you pour milk into rolled up newspaper.
Go play GURPS grandpa.
Special abilities are ok. When I have a hard time explaining them in fiction though, yeah, I'm not a fan of these. It's not a problem to have competent martial characters without using dissassociative mechanics. Still, I'm also a fan of less-is-more these days. Requires trust between GM and a player to work out reasonable chances for various stuff, but then again, I wouldn't want to play or run the game where there's no trust. It's incredibly freeing.
Meanwhile
It's amazing how retarded it is. And I don't even play GURPS.
Games that aren't D&D don't have this problem. In the first place, using D&D as anything more than the shitty bastardized wargame that it is will only bring you trouble. It's like you're trying to use an active chainsaw as a footstool. Why don't you just get a footstool, or really anything else?
you have just hit the nail on the head as to why class balance matters.
"Reality" in fiction is whatever the creator says it is, not what you think it is.
Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist. A theory that failed because shoving things into three broad categories never works. Basically stating that all games can be described as either one of the three, and it sounds smart until minimal thinking tells you any game can be all three at any given point depending on what you're doing.
But a wizard's levels can just be more significant than a fighter's
Well, that's sorta just 'D&D' in a nutshell. No edition had a good non-combat.
But your character can't know that he'll get it, while the player plays the character with SW in mind.
They can, but there is no real reason why they SHOULD. While there is one big reason why they shouldn't. It's called "balancing the game so everyone can have fun no matter what class they choose".
I'd prefer BRP, or even better, some rules-lite narrative game, but thanks.
>But your character can't know that he'll get it
Why wouldn't he? If he actually experienced fights numerous times, he knows he has hidden reserves he can call on to recover a bit of lost stamina. So he takes a breather (uses the action for second wind) and does so.
I keked
Yes, but then that isn't elegant game design. If your game uses levels as general gauge of the character's capabilities then they should be equivalent regardless of class, to make the game run smoother.
To what abilities? The list goes on for quite a while in 3.5 - although most of them you can actually use without a feat. It's just that there's never any point to using an ability you haven't optimized for.
>elegant game design
I don't see how that follows. Why is equal 'elegant'?
The type of player who uses the word "versimilitude" in any seriousness is generally not the type of player I would like to play with.
The nature of hidden reserves are that they are hidden. He cannot rely on them being there, as he cannot be sure that they are. Granted, SW is a fairly minor offender but a stronger element of uncertainty for the player (as in SW having a significant chance to fail and do nothing) would represent the uncertainty for the character.
When in fiction does a character ever fail at trying to get a second wind? I don't think I've ever read a story where someone had a dramatic attempt to soldier on...then just fell over.
it's called transparency. RPGs are easier to run if they make things clear and obvious to the players, rather than obsfucating things. if a level 7 mage is equal to a level 13 warrior is equal to a level 17 thief, and this fact isn't made obvious to anyone, the players will struggle to figure out their relative strengths and weaknesses. if the DM wants a game where everyone is on a roughly even playing field at any given point, he can only do that if he figures out the magic sweet spot hidden in the rules, if it even exists. likewise if a player wants to play a thief and expects to keep up with his mage and warrior friends, he might be in for a nasty surprise. on the other hand, if you have a game where a level 5 mage = a level 5 warrior = a level 5 thief, the DM very easily knows the relative power of his players, and the players don't run into any unpleasant suprises.
it works the other way too. if your a DM and you want to run a game where mages are deliberately more powerful than other players, in a balanced system you can simply start them 5 levels ahead and that will have exactly the effect you would expect. but in a system where a level 1 warrior is more powerful than a level 5 mage, you might not even get the result you want. regardless of the approach you want to take as a DM, a more transparent system makes it easier, because the information is readily avaliable to you.
True Detective season 2, last episode.
Because the thought that two level six characters are not on equal footing is quite inelegant. If you're going to use levels to allow players and GMs to compare their levels of power to one another than it would follow that players of the same level should be of equal power. To obscure this by adding more to the equation, in this case it would be class, would to be to make the game less elegant in its design by adding unnecessary complexity.
34 pages for you
There are a lot of 'if' statements there. Do you think players and DMs are incapable of handling that classes may not be equal? Do you think the huge number of discrete options in an RPG system like D&D can ever be made equal?
I played and DMd 4e for almost all of its run up to Essentials, and I used to argue a lot for balance in 3e. But honestly since then, and coming from my experience actually playing many more games, I've come to regard balance as not that important. To me it's something that people like to bitch about a lot in videogames, that's pulled over to TTRPGs.
I find a lot of real game balance complaints come in games where people have fine-tuned their characters for power and are pushing towards exploits in the system. So you end up in a bizarre situation where the people whining about balance are the ones trying to upend it.
>Do you think players and DMs are incapable of handling that classes may not be equal?
In quite a few cases? Yes. A lot of GMs are GMing for the first time. Not everyone is experienced in changing the rules or understands a system well enough to make good judgements to do so.
>Do you think the huge number of discrete options in an RPG system like D&D can ever be made equal?
I think that it should be attempted at least. Perfection is a goal you seek to get closer to.
I don't see how most of the statements you're saying follow do follow to be honest. I don't think you've really answered the question of elegance, and have just posed further ones about 'necessity' and 'complexity'.
I actually think there's a question about whether aiming for elegance in game design is true for all games. There are some games that I think, even just aesthetically, would not aim for that.
At the risk of coming over like a broken record, why is that perfection?
I think there's room in the world for games that aren't equal, that in practice every single real game ever run has inequalities, and that class and level systems do not in themselves have to indicate or be made for equality. Whether D&D should be one that does is a different question I'm less sure of.
Then why have a level system if the levels are completely non-indicative of actual power? They are basically meaningless at that point.
Because people like to level up? Because it offers a path of progression for the particular class? Because it progresses certain universal abilities (like hit dice) without indicating an overall equality?
I think there's definitely more arguments for a level up and class system than the one about it being a measure of equality. I mean, I don't think that was the original design goal in D&D. Different classes have different level caps, different xp required to go up a level and different levels of base power. It's 3.x that really started to mesh things together towards an ideal of (failed) equality.
A game like that shouldn't pretend like everything is equally viable in that case. If a class is shitty and something else is better, say so to the players.
I am not sure I can help you if you do not know how necessity and complexity are related to elegant game design. I would like to try but I am just not sure that I can since the two former help to create the latter. The refinement of the former creates the latter thus, the refinement of complexity and the inclusion of only what is necessary make a game more elegant in its design.
Different level caps is elegant.
Different XP amounts to level works, but is not obvious and requires NPCs to have their own level system.
Sure, I don't disagree with that. Classes that aren't equal shouldn't be presented as equal - but they can't really be in the rules. I take it you're more meaning statements to the effect of "X class and Y class will at the same level be exactly as powerful as each other" written down somewhere in the book? I don't know if D&D 5e has that at any point, maybe you do.
I don't think I have ever had a real, actual game where everyone at the table was playing a character of equal strength and capability. That actually just comes naturally from characters being played by different human beings who make different decisions. I don't think you can avoid it entirely, ever.
But like your big unanswered question there is "what is necessary?" A lot of RPGs are chaotic in their design and the chaos adds to the game and experience.
I think elegance is A design goal, not THE design goal if we're talking about the entire field of TTRPGs.
At that point then, what is the point in the "Normal" and "Realistic" classes then?
I'm not sure what you mean. Could you elaborate? I have to confess at this point that was just trolling, but when I came back to the thread I found some of the responses interesting so I started to post sincerely. I do think balance is overrated and over-emphasised; I don't personally care if martial characters are capable of fantastic feats nor do I have any preference towards magic being the most powerful option by default - but I'm fine with the game and/or players wanting that.
Not him, but I feel like the issue isn't that folk want absolute equality. Of course there are going to be differences, thanks either to player capabilities or the vagaries of rolled stats. The issue is that, generally speaking, classes are sold as being equivalent at most levels - any given lvl 5 Wizard will be of equivalent utility as any given lvl 5 Rogue. Might the Rogue feel left out when it comes to riddles? Sure. Might the Wizard have to sit outside and twiddle his thumbs when infiltration is called for? Of course. But the GM shouldn't need to dumb the encounter down so the Rogue isn't dead weight / boost the encounter so the Wizard doesn't end it immediately with a Save or Suck, because they are both lvl 5 and can thus be expected to have roughly the same difficulty in solving the encounter.
I think the best example is thieves and bards.
What the hell can a thief do that a Bard can't do better and provide more utility. Pick locks? Bards can have a spell for that? Stealth? Barbs can have a spell AND do that naturally Fight in Elaborate fencing skills like Zorro? Bards can do that.
The bard basically makes the entire thief class a niche because basically, everything a thief can do, a Bard can do better.
This causes a nightmare when they're in the same group. Now you're making high DCs for locks so the Bard doesn't just unlock them with ease, You're adding more traps so the Bard will eventually fuck up.
The Bard basically, by it's very design, means you need to compensate for the thief.
"What is necessary?" wasn't a question which I was setting out to answer and so isn't particularly a point against my statement.
Second, the need for elegance was also not my particular goal either and thus, again doesn't particularly stand against my statement in any way.
The original question was
>Why is equal 'elegant'?
And my answer is because it removes unnecessary complexity. It does this by refining what the level means for everyone so that the level system is simply that, one system. The system denotes the power level of the players in regards to each other as well as other opponents in the game and can be used to gauge the difficulty of encounters without having to add in another factor, such as class, to do so.
(You)
4e's game design philosophy seems to be 'heavy combat rules, lite non-combat rules'. There are rituals, martial practices, and skills you can use outside of combat along with your powers. The books have guidelines for if you want to do something not covered and the non-combat rules tend towards flexible outcomes. The problem is that the game feels too combat focused since combat has a lot of rules whereas other parts have more leeway.
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