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This really is starting to feel like grog bingo. TKIY posted:Sorting out maximum damage for n Skeletons versus a fighter swining a +n sword is great unless the critter has DR, is standing in a flame pit, is immune to normal weapons, etc. My point isn't that your numbers are flawed, it's that those perfect scenarios don't always occur in a game. It doesn't have to be perfect to come up, stop with the pedantry. TKIY posted:Our goal is to game not to win. Hard to put it any more precisely than that. One class has very limited options and minimal ways to affect the game world. The other class has vastly more options and almost unlimited ways to affect the game world. One type of class (martials) have a handful of pages devoted to them, one type of class (casters) have half the book devoted to them. Are you honestly saying, that you both don't see why people feel casters are vastly more versatile and have an increased chance of getting to meaningfully use their abilities (and in so doing affect the game) than a fighter and that you're not just trolling, because I really fail to see how you could have read this entire thread and still be trotting out the same tired defences of caster supremacy.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:37
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OtspIII posted:I do think that non-quantitative design choices are a little undervalued in this thread, but it is a solid point that a lot of the 'fun' that you feel from a game is coming from your friends/etc and that you'll be able to have fun even when the game's rules are actively working against you. A lot of the time even the things that seem most fun short-term end up sapping way more fun away long-term. That's the thing, if random rolling answers the question "What sort of fun, interesting character will I be?" it can be awesome. Hell, you can sort of do this in 5e by rolling on the backgrounds tables. None of the results are objectively better or worse than any of the others, and it may give you ideas you wouldn't have come up with on your own. The only question randomly rolling attributes in D&D answers is "How arbitrarily more or less effective will my character be?"
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Sep 1, 2014 20:43
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Oh yeah, well-made random generation can be quite fun. But rolling the core stats in modern D&D is not that.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:45
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TKIY posted:What feels like an RPG? Tough question. For us, it's sitting around, unwinding and pretending to be someone else for a while. Rules are good, but they are guidelines to point in some sort of direction and provide a setting for a fun time. Then, honestly, you'd probably be better off playing something extremely rules-light. I believe *World has come up; I run Fate and that's pretty much narrative-first.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:47
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TKIY posted:Our goal is to game not to win. Hard to put it any more precisely than that. And the problem isn't that casters "win," it's that they get five times as much game as the sword-swingers and door-openers.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:54
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Stephen King once said that the thing that matters in a story is for it to keep the reader interested and everything is secondary. That's pretty much the same on games. My 'rulebook' is actually just an album of titty animes. They'll be none the wiser!!
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Sep 1, 2014 21:00
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Really Pants posted:And the problem isn't that casters "win," it's that they get five times as much game as the sword-swingers and door-openers. They are more versatile, sure. But they can't cover all the bases by themselves all the time unless you are giving constant short rests and you are designing scenarios that don't include the unique abilities and traits of the other characters in the party. PST posted:This really is starting to feel like grog bingo. 4e grog is pretty thick here too, don't you think? PST posted:
I'm not saying it has to be perfect, I'm saying that you can't take into account all the variables when doing strict numerical comparisons, so they don't always represent the whole picture. Surely you can agree with that? PST posted:One class has very limited options and minimal ways to affect the game world. The other class has vastly more options and almost unlimited ways to affect the game world. One type of class (martials) have a handful of pages devoted to them, one type of class (casters) have half the book devoted to them. No, I'm saying that a versatile caster doesn't make the game un-fun for everyone else, unless you and your group plays in such a way that only best character wins. Why is it trolling to disagree? Yeah Fighters are more limited than mages in many instances, but Fighters aren't mages. They have a different role and sometimes people want to play that role regardless of how much the damage per round numbers work out.
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Sep 1, 2014 21:02
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TKIY posted:the unique abilities and traits of the other characters in the party. Good one.
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Sep 1, 2014 21:04
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TKIY posted:They are more versatile, sure. But they can't cover all the bases by themselves all the time unless you are giving constant short rests and you are designing scenarios that don't include the unique abilities and traits of the other characters in the party. What unique abilities do martials have that a group of just casters can't accomplish?
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Sep 1, 2014 21:05
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Jesus christ this thread is a trainwreck.
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Sep 1, 2014 21:05
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Yeah sorry, I'm not going to continue this. It's pretty clear that you aren't allowed to enjoy the game because a Wizard breaks everything. Is there a thread somewhere to discuss the game for those that want to actually play it?
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Sep 1, 2014 21:16
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TKIY posted:Yeah sorry, I'm not going to continue this. It's pretty clear that you aren't allowed to enjoy the game because a Wizard did it. You won't be missed.
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Sep 1, 2014 21:18
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Slimnoid posted:You won't be missed. This is my point exactly. This thread is essentially 4e grog defender HQ now.
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Sep 1, 2014 21:19
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TKIY posted:Yeah sorry, I'm not going to continue this. It's pretty clear that you aren't allowed to enjoy the game because a Wizard breaks everything. Again, nobody has said that you can't have fun playing this game. I'm having fun playing this game with a warlock, I'm just not pretending that this game is actually balanced or that well designed.
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Sep 1, 2014 21:21
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TKIY posted:Stupid enemies are pretty common. Animals, beasts, undead, many humanoids are all stupid and generally hit the thing closest to them. I expect intelligent enemies to be harder to fight, and they will hunt down the Wizard when they can sure. 1: No, it really isn't. Maybe not at low levels, but past about 5th level they have enough game-breaking poo poo available to make other players very overshadowed. Cf Animate Dead. 2: Not... remotely, whatsoever. 'the GM can wing it' isn't an answer to 'one class has to ask the GM to wing it and the other doesn't'. That disparity is the problem, not the central concept of the GM winging it. Some of the best RPGs (pbta games, basically) are fundamentally built around the DM winging it, just *the same amount for every player*. The problem, to exaggerate slightly, is that the Breather has to ask the DM's permission for his character to not die of suffocation, whilst the Author Avatar can just write the entire plot himself by RAW. Elmo Oxygen posted:Jesus christ this thread is a trainwreck. 3: Maths, yes, as well as balance, equal treatment of the players (exposing them to broadly the same play experience, levels of randomness (and here's where rolling for stats falls down long-term, because it radically alters the amount of impact chance has on a character when one bad roll affects the entire life of the character forever), ability to influence the narrative, ability to do things without DM permission, etc), and to some extent, heuristic assessments of goodness. Yes, good is a matter of opinion, I wouldn't deny that.
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Sep 1, 2014 21:23
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Elmo Oxygen posted:Jesus christ this thread is a trainwreck. Part of it is what someone said earlier. There's two different conversations going on and people don't realize it. Part of it is people come in without reading it and the same cycle of conversation starts all over, with exactly the same misunderstandings and semantic problems &etc&etc. Every time someone comes in and says "5E is a good/better game because -" there's a problem, since ultimately they're using completely different criterion from the 5E criticisms and in order to explain that people have to recapitulate the entire thread or just butt heads forever because they aren't talking about remotely the same things. Daetrin fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Sep 1, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 21:25
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TKIY posted:Is there a thread somewhere to discuss the game for those that want to actually play it? Yeah, but its on enworld and gitp and several other places.
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Sep 1, 2014 21:25
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TKIY posted:Yeah sorry, I'm not going to continue this. It's pretty clear that you aren't allowed to enjoy the game because a Wizard breaks everything. There have been plenty of posts by people discussing it, saying they had fun etc. You didn't come in and do that though. TKIY posted:1. Why flip out about balance in a co-operative game? With my group, if the Wizard manages to save the day with a well timed spell, everyone is happy, even the Fighter. Are your groups that adversarial that DPS actually matters to anyone? If you'd actually read the whole thread, as you claimed, then you'd know that DPS has very little to do with the issues in balance between casters and non-casters. So no, I don't think you came into the thread to discuss the game, you wanted to tell people they were wrong and you were right and unsurprisingly that's not going well for you, so then it's 'take my ball and go home' along with trying to claim bad faith arguments from the people correcting you.
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Sep 1, 2014 21:42
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You you think 'You won't be missed' is in good faith? I've been accused of trolling a couple of times now, so whatever. Really, my point in my original post was trying to figure out why people think the class balance is such a big issue in a cooperative game experience. My group hasn't experienced this as an issue in 3/3.5/Pathfinder or 5e so far, and I wanted to explore that but trying to do that turns into a shitfest which I should have expected. I'm going to let it go simply because it's not worth tying up the thread with a rehash of the same points. I'll check on those other sites then Ritorix, thanks.
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Sep 1, 2014 21:50
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I for one can't wait to see all the best edition war talking points of 2008-2009 experience a resurgence for the next however many years it takes for WotC to decide it's time to recapture the true feel of D&D with another edition.
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Sep 1, 2014 21:53
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Class balance is an issue in a co-operative game because, at heart, most people want to feel like they're contributing the same amount as each other. I know, for instance, that in games where I've played a strong face character and the adventure's turned out to be a delve in which CHA skills didn't once come up, I've found myself feeling a bit useless, and conversely when I've played a 3-skill STR/DEX Slayer and found myself in investigation and intrigue situations, I've found myself getting a bit bored. The problem's only exacerbated when one guy has access to a toolkit of things that by RAW do basically everything, albeit, less often. But the thing is, in practice for a lot of groups the 'less often' is irrelevant, because the problem with it is that once those daily spells are gone... that guy now has very little to contribute and starts to feel overshadowed, and the group winds up resting and regaining his spells again. None of which is to say you shouldn't play 5e if you're having fun with it, or if you're having fun with 3e. Feel free.
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Sep 1, 2014 21:55
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TKIY posted:You you think 'You won't be missed' is in good faith? I've been accused of trolling a couple of times now, so whatever. Surprise, when you post opinions that most people on this forum disagree with, you get people disagreeing with you. Andrast fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 21:56
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Andrast posted:Surprise, when you post opinions that most people on this forums disagree with, you get people disagreeing with you. It doesn't mean that I'm trolling though.
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Sep 1, 2014 21:58
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TKIY posted:It doesn't mean that I'm trolling though. Discussions like this always have people calling other people trolls just for disagreeing with them,. It's better to just ignore them and continue the discussion with the other people who aren't asses.
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Sep 1, 2014 22:01
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Andrast posted:Discussions like this always have people calling other people trolls just for disagreeing with them,. It's better to just ignore them and continue the discussion with the other people who aren't asses. Fair enough. I'm content with realizing that my group is generally a pretty amazing group of dudes and dudettes and that gives us a benefit with lovely rules that can skew my perspective.
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Sep 1, 2014 22:10
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TKIY posted:Maybe I am 2e/3e grog as all hell, but there is some serious 4e grog coming back the other way you must admit. TKIY posted:This thread is essentially 4e grog defender HQ now. Grog essentially comes down to having a tummyfeel opinion so strong that you distort / ignore reality to justify it. This isn't a thing this forum has much patience with, regardless of its source. (As you've hopefully noticed.) It's easy to misbrand 5e criticism as Some Other Game's sour grapes! But I've found 4e players have been exceptionally lenient when talking about Next, if only to avoid any association with the baseless, raging hate-on they faced. In fact, some people even exploit this by decrying any Next criticism as Edition Warring! What a hilarious, lovely thing that isn't happening here even a little, right?
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Sep 1, 2014 22:12
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I don't really get what's at odds between "cooperative gameplay" and "class balance." The two aren't mutually exclusive and it seems based on the assumption that group victory is the only factor that anyone in an RPG ought to be concerned with. Like, if you're on a sports team with some superstar player who largely carries the team on his shoulders while you get put in for five minutes a game just so your rear end doesn't wear a hole in the bench and your team winds up winning the championship I'm sure it's rad to have a ring and all but at the end of the day the superstar player is the one everybody remembers and adulates while the guy warming the bench isn't, even though they both get a ring.
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Sep 1, 2014 22:17
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Ironically, games that balance the classes, either by giving each a complementary tactical toolbox (4e) or by putting them on a more equal narrative footing (DW) actually facilitate cooperation and player engagement. The argument that 'the wizard and his minions' party dynamics doesn't matter because it's a ~~cooperative game~~ is pure bs.
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Sep 1, 2014 22:21
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Kai Tave posted:I don't really get what's at odds between "cooperative gameplay" and "class balance." The two aren't mutually exclusive and it seems based on the assumption that group victory is the only factor that anyone in an RPG ought to be concerned with. I think the big issue is between class niches and class balance. It's naturally appealing to have your character have a type of moment where they really shine, but that means basically by definition that in games where that type of situation is more common your character becomes more powerful. I feel like one of the big 3e/4e divides is in how the games try to manage those issues. 4e massively cuts down on the scope of niches--they're all pretty combat focused, and because combat is so heavily designed they're set up in a way that they all work really well together simultaneously--one character defends the front line while another does high DPS and another keeps everyone healthy. You might get a little situational advantage for one type over another (maybe you specialize in AoE attacks and your DM uses tons of minions), but it's not all that bad. I think this approach cuts out most of the disadvantages of class nichedom, but I feel like it dulls some of its strengths, too. Characters feel very different within combat, but outside of it they start to turn a bit samey--I think this is what people are complaining about when they say the characters seem to similar. I think 3e/5e/etc try to give characters their niche moments to shine throughout the three pillars in way that is (theoretically) a bit more compelling for me, despite its inherent problematic aspects. That said, 5e ain't doing a great job of this. The wizard's out of combat niche is 'do everything' and the fighter's is 'maybe jump kind of far'.
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Sep 1, 2014 22:41
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OtspIII posted:That said, 5e ain't doing a great job of this. The wizard's out of combat niche is 'do everything' and the fighter's is 'maybe jump kind of far'. So what's the immediate solution in most peoples opinion? If it's not in the game mechanics I think that's where having a bunch of DM fiat isn't a terrible thing, it gives some leeway on creating or supporting either GM designed or player posited scenarios on the fly. I guess a ruleset doesn't have to be terrible abstract for that but it doesn't hurt either. There were quite a few posts earlier about much more effective feats/abilities for martial-types. I assume there will be splatbooks like Complete Warrior at some point.
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Sep 1, 2014 22:49
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TKIY posted:So what's the immediate solution in most peoples opinion? If it's not in the game mechanics I think that's where having a bunch of DM fiat isn't a terrible thing, it gives some leeway on creating or supporting either GM designed or player posited scenarios on the fly. I guess a ruleset doesn't have to be terrible abstract for that but it doesn't hurt either.
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Sep 1, 2014 22:51
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TKIY posted:So what's the immediate solution in most peoples opinion? I was wondering about that too, my group hasn't started our game yet but seeing all the caster supremacy stuff in the thread I don't want the martial player fighter to feel left out. DM and me thought giving him the martial feat that lets him have maneuvers would help but I don't know how affective it is.
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Sep 1, 2014 22:53
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Andrast posted:What unique abilities do martials have that a group of just casters can't accomplish? Not die before they get anywhere. Because a group of casters will get slaughtered.
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Sep 1, 2014 22:59
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Take Dungeon World's default fighter, port the narrative abilities over the fighter class? Although, that would be a huge pain, since it's still a bit of "DM may I..." and not coded instant spells.
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Sep 1, 2014 23:02
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MonsterEnvy posted:Not die before they get anywhere. Because a group of casters will get slaughtered. Clerics and Druids are casters.
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Sep 1, 2014 23:03
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TKIY posted:So I've been playing since the red box, and so far my group is rather enjoying 5th, even though we are only playing the starter box at the moment. 1 is best answered by Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw Lack of balance makes for an intensely negative play experience in some groups (any that care about player skill, and any with slightly uncooperative members) while doing nothing to help anyone else. 2: DM Fiat in 5e is little different to DM fiat in a lot of 80s and 90s games. It's arbitary, which reduces immersion. It's got very little guidance, which means it's hard to learn to run. And it's there in a number of cases that don't need to be there. More modern and better designed games provide better mechanics and guidance, which means that the player (and hence the PC) can have a better understanding of the world. For games to look out for this way, Fate Core, Apocalypse World, and Leverage spring to mind. 3: You can have fun playing literally any game - and that includes Monopoly which was deliberately designed not to be fun (barely an exaggeration). Saying "There exists a group that had fun with it" is about the lowest possible bar there is.
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Sep 1, 2014 23:05
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TKIY posted:So what's the immediate solution in most peoples opinion? If it's not in the game mechanics I think that's where having a bunch of DM fiat isn't a terrible thing, it gives some leeway on creating or supporting either GM designed or player posited scenarios on the fly. I guess a ruleset doesn't have to be terrible abstract for that but it doesn't hurt either. I don't really think you're going to get a "solution" to this. The crux of the situation is that Next, in fine 3.X tradition, wants spellcasters and sword dudes to sit at the same table but play by significantly different rules and expectations and you can't really patch that by going "well maybe they'll add new stuff in a sourcebook." Spellcasters get a bunch of rad poo poo that breaks the rules and does all sorts of crazy stuff "balanced" by the fact that they can't literally do all of it all the time, but they still get plenty of spells and stuff like Arcane Recovery too, and in practical terms unless you're dragging your group through unending meatgrinders where they have no chance to rest or recover ever then spellcasters are rarely going to be stuck in a position where all they can do is shrug helplessly. Fighters, meanwhile, get an anemic set of abilities to choose from off a static list that doesn't gain anything new or exciting as they level up which means that higher level Fighters are increasingly picking through the stuff they didn't really want in the first place just to say they did, so they don't even get to look forward to crazy new stuff as they level-up. Fighter stuff is "attack more often" and "jump a little farther, but not TOO far because we don't want to get crazy with this poo poo" while spellcaster stuff is "raise an army of skeletons" or "turn into a dragon." There is no quick and simple hack that makes all this work the way some folks want it to all get balanced out somehow in the end. People spent literal years trying to hammer 3.X into shape while preserving the radically different sorts of games various categories of classes were playing at the same table but virtually all these attempts were just shuffling chairs around. What if we gave the fighter bigger numbers? No, more bigger? What if we took away these specific spells? Maybe these ones too? But it turns out that none of that really addresses the fundamental issue that some people get to just declare their own fiat while other people have to ask for it. Also if there's going to be a Complete Warrior then you know there's also going to be a Complete Wizard somewhere in there too.
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Sep 1, 2014 23:09
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Andrast posted:Clerics and Druids are casters. Clerics end up using a lot of magic for healing still. The short rest/hit dice stuff takes a chunk of that responsibility away but we've found they still end popping at least one cure off in any moderate sized fight. Our Cleric never really uses healing word though so that seems to balance out their fighting potential a bit. Druids at L18 seem really really good. Casting from wild shape was always a great ability.
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Sep 1, 2014 23:12
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TKIY posted:Clerics end up using a lot of magic for healing still. The short rest/hit dice stuff takes a chunk of that responsibility away but we've found they still end popping at least one cure off in any moderate sized fight. Our Cleric never really uses healing word though so that seems to balance out their fighting potential a bit.
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Sep 1, 2014 23:14
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neonchameleon posted:3: You can have fun playing literally any game - and that includes Monopoly which was deliberately designed not to be fun (barely an exaggeration). Saying "There exists a group that had fun with it" is about the lowest possible bar there is. Not going to rehash the first two since its dead horse territory, but here's a question. What is the high bar then?
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Sep 1, 2014 23:15
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