# The danger of the Three Pillars of D&D



## Zaruthustran (Feb 13, 2012)

At the DDXP "class" seminar (transcript here), Monte brought up the Three Pillars of D&D: Roleplay/Interaction, Combat, and Exploration. And the idea that classes would be balanced by their ability to interact with/excel at those three pillars.

I think this is a terrible idea.

It goes back to a post I made at the advent of 4th Edition (Roles in RPGs - EN World: Your Daily RPG Magazine). Essentially: my choice of how I participate during combat should not impact my ability to participate out of combat.

For example, the rogue. The rogue traditionally has fewer hit points and a worse attack bonus than the fighter. This is "balanced" by the rogue's more interesting and diverse skill selection. 

Again: terrible idea. 

I want to play a game where every class can contribute in every situation: combat, exploration, social interactions. Just because a character can wear armor and skillfully fight doesn't mean that he should be incapable of holding a conversation (3E and 4e fighter, I'm looking at you).

No. 5E should balance classes *within* each of those three pillars. And not try to balance strength in one pillar via a deficiency in another.


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## JRRNeiklot (Feb 13, 2012)

I disagree.  If I can play Autolocus, King of Thieves and still fight like Xena, why would I want to play Xena?  Well, other than my Lucy Lawless fantasies....


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## n00bdragon (Feb 13, 2012)

Because Xena can check for traps without using her feet all the time. It goes both ways.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 13, 2012)

A subtle distinction: The existence of the Three Pillars doesn't mean that you have to suck at two and rock at one (or even that you have to suck at one and rock at two, or even that you have to suck at any).

You can easily have a game where every character can contribute meaningfully in each area of the game. 

However, the counterpoint to this is that if everyone is good at everything, there's no meaningful character distinction: Every mage can climb walls and every cleric has a fireball-equivalent and every fighter can interact as well as any paladin.

That's less than satisfying.

Like with anything, the best idea is usually somewhere in the middle. In this case, the answer is twofold. First, you give each character a sort of  "minimum competency" in all three areas: Even idiot barbarians can Intimidate some critters, even if they don't invest much in it. They'll be able to do SOMETHING in a social encounter, even if it's the functional equivalent of a basic melee attack. On the A to F scale, every heroic character is at least a D. 

You then provide meaningful distinction in how you raise that D to an A (or not). 

The second prong is on the DM's side: you ensure that each adventure you design has all three pillars in it, as valid ways to overcome problems. You may lean more in one direction or another (some DMs may prefer combat, others might be more for the intrigue), but the three ways should all be present.

So, for instance, when dealing with the orcs attacking the town, you can go out and fight them, you can negotiate with their chieftain, or you can sneak into their camp and assassinate the chieftain in his sleep. Combat, roleplaying, and exploration.

Depending on your characters' builds, some ideas are better than others, and depending on the DM's design, some ideas might be better than others, but you leave the potential for all three ways to be potential solutions, and you leave the adventure open to whichever approach the party feels their characters are best at.

So, you give everyone a minimum competency, and then you present adventures in which the main conflict can be resolved using any of the three methods, and you don't have thieves struggling in a game that is all about combat, or fighters being gimped in a social game. 

Another point to ameliorate this is easy respeccing, something like what 4e offers as a default: if you find your Thief struggling in a combat-heavy game, maybe you retrain and become an Assassin instead. If your Fighter is flustered by the social-heavy game, you maybe become a Knight instead. If your cleric isn't faring well in the Exploration-centric game, maybe you become a Druid instead. Or whatever. 

It's not a universally horrible idea to trade one pillar for the other, you just need to sort of protect the game from binary results (Always Fails or Always Succeeds), and make sure that DMs include all three as valid playstyles (or are really clear about which ones they are excluding from their game -- a dungeon crawl game might not have room for much social interaction, so the DM might say "don't bother to play a bard or a paladin, they will suck at this.").


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## Spatula (Feb 13, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> You can easily have a game where every character can contribute meaningfully in each area of the game.
> 
> However, the counterpoint to this is that if everyone is good at everything, there's no meaningful character distinction: Every mage can climb walls and every cleric has a fireball-equivalent and every fighter can interact as well as any paladin.
> 
> That's less than satisfying.



Seems like a bit of a strawman to me. The three categories of play are sufficiently broad that everyone could be able to contribute without contributing _in the same way._

Much like combat roles in 4e (the rogue and wizard are both useful in combat, but in different ways), each class could have some core competency in both social and exploration sessions. A druid or ranger would excel at dealing with outdoor situations, while a rogue would be better suited to trap-filled environments. But they all have the ability to utilize their class abilities in "exploration" play, which covers travel through both environments.


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## ppaladin123 (Feb 13, 2012)

Roleplay should also occur during combat and exploration so I don't like seeing it grouped in with the "interaction" category. Hopefully this is just a naming short cut and not evidence of the belief that these things are truly orthogonal.


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## Ahnehnois (Feb 14, 2012)

Zaruthustran said:


> I want to play a game where every class can contribute in every situation: combat, exploration, social interactions.



I don't. I want to play a game where my character choices matter, where some choices are better than others, and where different characters are meaningfully different from one another. I also want to play a game that does not assume that every character of adventuring quality is interested in or proficient at combat (in any way). Neither do I want it assumed that those three domains have the same character and the same relative importance in my game as they do in anyone else's.



> Just because a character can wear armor and skillfully fight doesn't mean that he should be incapable of holding a conversation (3E and 4e fighter, I'm looking at you).



This much is true. Class skills and similar restictions are a pain. If people want to play a charismatic fighter (or a sneaky one, or one who dabbles in alchemy in his spare time) this should be more feasible than it has generally been in D&D. Restrictions are bad.



> No. 5E should balance classes *within* each of those three pillars. And not try to balance strength in one pillar via a deficiency in another.



5e should try to make classes that describe interesting characters first, and think about balance second. Some characters should be good at some things, and others at other things, and balance should only refer to the ability of each character to be meaningfully good at something.


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## Leatherhead (Feb 14, 2012)

Where I agree everyone should be able to perform in any arena, bit it political or gladiatorial, I don't like the idea that every _HAS_ to perform in every arena.

I'm going to go with an anecdote here, from my 4e game. It's a fairly casual beer and pretzels style game.

The party walks up to the King of the land, and starts up a conversation to help them on their quest to save the land from the evil magic doohickey. Standard stuff you know. We go into skill challenge mode and everyone does their thing: The paladin schmoozes, the wizard and the ranger give a detailed report on the threat, and then comes the Fighters turn. The Fighter decides this is a very important role to win, so he looks over his skill list to pick out the skills that would most likely pass a check.

He picks athletics, because that is what the character was good at. To win the king over, he decided to start doing backflips in as a display of his prowess. This, of course, totally breaks the mood and everyone bursts into laughter. It soon became the running gag of the campaign.

While this kind of situation could have been avoided if the character was good with social skills, but that wouldn't have fit the character. And in a more serious kind of game it wouldn't have cut the mustard at all. The fighter would have naturally preferred to let the "smooth-talkers" handle the situation, rather than delve into absurdity in order to help win the encounter, but the party really needed a solid success on the challenge at that point.


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## FireLance (Feb 14, 2012)

Shouldn't it be the player's choice, though? And if the system is flexible enough, I think it would be possible for the players to have characters that are as balanced or as specialized as they want.

At its crudest, I can see it working something like this: At first level, each character gets a handful of abilities distributed into the combat, roleplaying and exploration silos.  Maybe a fighter gets 2/1/1, a bard gets 1/2/1 and a rogue gets 1/1/2. There is some scope for customization, so the player can choose two additional abilities from any silo. So, a first level fighter could start the game with 4/1/1, 3/2/1, 3/1/2, 2/3/1, 2/1/3, or 2/2/2 as he desires.

At every level, he gets to choose an additional ability. For most levels, he can choose from any silo, but maybe his choice gets restricted to specific silos at particular levels (say, fighters, bards and rogues must pick an ability from the combat, roleplaying and exploration silos respectively every three levels). 

Such an approach allows for a wide variety of characters with different levels of generic competence and specialization, while ensuring that characters of specific classes retain a minimum level of ability in the areas they are supposed to be good at, and at least a very basic level of ability in every area.


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## Lanefan (Feb 14, 2012)

Zaruthustran said:


> I want to play a game where every class can contribute in every situation: combat, exploration, social interactions. Just because a character can wear armor and skillfully fight doesn't mean that he should be incapable of holding a conversation (3E and 4e fighter, I'm looking at you).
> 
> No. 5E should balance classes *within* each of those three pillars. And not try to balance strength in one pillar via a deficiency in another.



And that way lies the road to homogeniety, with all its attendant boredom.

That said, it should really be up to the *player* how - and how well - their character(s) interact with others, be they other party members, NPCs, captured monsters, whatever.  As long as it's kept vaguely in character (with Cha and Int scores in mind) a Fighter should be able to carry on a conversation just as well as a Wizard or a Thief.

They only need to balance combat and exploration, and even then it's not that big a deal if the balance isn't perfect.

Lan-"a Fighter that talks, sometimes way too much"-efan


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## BobTheNob (Feb 14, 2012)

Utterly disagree.

What does a fighter do...he fights! What does a rogue do : all that handy "adventuring" stuff.

The more you try to blur this (fighters highly skillful outside of the fight, rogues really good in a fight) the more the game moves to the very thing which made 4e loose its shine for me. Our party basically ended up as six mages!!! They werent, their fluff was different, but when it came time for a fight, they all basically made the same contribution with minor variations. The power system, designed to enable balance, just created no division.

This is why Im delighted that the designers are looking back in time. To when we werent trying to make everyone capable of everything. When classes had clear ideas of what they did and their role (and no, Im NOT talking "combat" roles, which are just a statement in "this is an mmo/wargame, not an rpg"). Where characters were different and a player could learn to love it for being so, rather than being in a constant arms race with the guy next to him.

You have to go back a fair ways to find that charm (pre 3e min) but it was there. Im hoping they can re-find it, and figure out how to take the tactical elegance of the later editions and marry them with the unbalanced charm of the early days.

I hope they can pull it off, because if 5e is as technically correct as 4e was (I consider 4e the finest edition in terms of rules eloquence) there is no chance our group will play it (and we played 4e for 2+ years).


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## Transformer (Feb 14, 2012)

> Shouldn't it be the player's choice, though?




I'm with this guy, at least on a very abstract level. I want a system where I can choose to be good at or suck at any of the three pillars, in any combination. I can be a fighter who fights and tracks but sucks in social encounters. I'll be good at both, but not as good as a pure combat fighter, or pure exploration ranger or rogue. I could play a wizard with some combat spells, some utility spells, and some resources invested in social skills and a social theme. I'm proficient at all 3 pillars, but not as good at any one of them as somone who specialized in only one or two.

A few problems immediately present themselves:

1. It would be nice if--as a pure fighting fighter--even if I'm no good outside of combat, I still have _something_ to do when the group isn't engaged in combat. I want to be able to support others, make auxiliary search checks, maybe have one applicable social skill (intimidation).

2. We don't want to trap noobs in characters that are more limited than they wanted. The rulebooks need to make it clear, if you're building a fighter who sucks at everything but fighting, that you will suck at most everything but fighting. We also don't want any clearly inferior options, be they skills, themes, or whatever. Perfect balance is impossible, of course, and no one's denying it, but Wizards needs to at least have a go at making everything reasonably equitable and useful. No trap options that are obviously trap options to the designers and to experienced players but that screw over noobs.

Anyway, this is awfully abstract. But it's my ideal theorycraft framework.


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## Tony Vargas (Feb 14, 2012)

Wow, strangely devisive issue.  Another angle:

3 'pillars' or not, not every campaign will rest equally on each one, nor do so consistently.  A game concieved as bysantine political intrigue will be different than one concieved as a series of battles and manuevers in wartime.  The one might lead to the other, too, even the DM might not know for sure when the campaigns starts how it will end up being distributed over those 3 broad categories of adventuring - not unless he plans on a fair bit of railroading, anyway.

In light of that, 'balancing' classes across those pillars rather than on each individually, will fail to remain balanced from campaign to campaign.  If the fighter is a combat-heavy character and sucks at exploration, and the game becomes an extended exercisse in spelunking with little combat, the fighter radically underperforms.  (Probably a bad example, since a fighter can at least climb ropes, and has even weaker areas, but whatever).  If a campaign is to be free to develop, and players free to choose the concepts they like, then it can't rest class balance on having some roughly-equal proportion of different types of adventuring.

So, yes, each class should contribute in each of the three pillars, albeit, in very different ways.  Inevitably, one character may shine a bit brighter in one situation than another, that's not something that needs to be built in, nor that could be prevented entirely, even if you made each character mechanically absolutely identical (player decisions still matter, afterall).


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 14, 2012)

Spatula said:
			
		

> Seems like a bit of a strawman to me. The three categories of play are sufficiently broad that everyone could be able to contribute without contributing in the same way.




That doesn't make my argument a strawman. A strawman argument is a deliberately weak, insincere argument posited just for the purpose of knocking it down. Since I actually *do* think that's less than satisfying, it's kind of impossible for it to be a strawman. 

But to your broader point, it's true, they can contribute in different ways.

However, that is still less than satisfying, for a few reasons. The one I want to talk about now involves dragging in a separate area of class design methodology: character archetype.

Any robust character archetype involves strengths and weaknesses inherent in the concept. For example, your typical "Dumb Muscle" character is very strong, but not so smart. Your typical "antihero" character is quite efficient, but not so likable. Your typical "Dapper Assassin" character is best when he only has to lift a finger if it results in someone getting a poisoned dart in the neck. One of my current characters is a gnome artificer who is great with machines, but who can't figure out people. I deliberately didn't invest a THING into her social skills, and it's great fun when I am forced into a social situation with her.

To not be able to model those weaknesses -- to be unable to make them "fun failures" -- would be a problem for a system.

So, weaknesses are _desirable_, from a character-building standpoint. 

The challenge, from a game-design standpoint, is to make the weakness notable, without unintentionally crippling a character.

Which is why you assure some sort of basic level of competency -- nothing is an Always Fail or Always Succeed situation for a character. 



> Much like combat roles in 4e (the rogue and wizard are both useful in combat, but in different ways), each class could have some core competency in both social and exploration sessions. A druid or ranger would excel at dealing with outdoor situations, while a rogue would be better suited to trap-filled environments. But they all have the ability to utilize their class abilities in "exploration" play, which covers travel through both environments.




Sure. But what use should a druid be in an urban intrigue campaign? Personally, I'd prefer if a DM just told me right out: "This is going to be an urban intrigue campaign, don't bother to roll a druid or a ranger or a barbarian, because they will suck at what this campaign is about," rather than somehow forcing the DM to shoehorn barbarians and druids into his urban intrigue campaign, and giving druids and barbarians useful urban intrigue skills that make little to no sense as their character archetypes are really NOT in that vein. 

In other words, not every character archetype is or should be valid in every kind of campaign. Though I'd prefer the "default" game should be big enough to have moments of exploration, roleplaying, and combat, I want each class to hit some minimum competency in all those areas, and I want the game to be clear about what each class is good at and what it is not so good at, DMs should also be able to take their games in one direction, featuring one or the other more prominently. And players should, too -- a DM who didn't put any limits in before character generation, and whose players all pick combat-heavy classes would be remiss if they didn't include a bunch of combat stuff for those characters to do. 

I think it's pretty unsatisfying to force everyone to be equally competent at all areas of every kind of challenge.


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## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> if everyone is good at everything, there's no meaningful character distinction: Every mage can climb walls and every cleric has a fireball-equivalent and every fighter can interact as well as any paladin.
> 
> That's less than satisfying.





Spatula said:


> Seems like a bit of a strawman to me. The three categories of play are sufficiently broad that everyone could be able to contribute without contributing _in the same way._



I agree with Spatula. Meaningful character distinction can rest on the manner of contribution - both its mechanical nature (eg ranged vs non-ranged attacks) and it's fictional/story nature (eg shooting arrows vs summoning spirits of the dead).



Ahnehnois said:


> I want to play a game where my character choices matter, where some choices are better than others, and where different characters are meaningfully different from one another.



Provided that "better" in the second clause means "better for the purposes of realising my PC", then I agree. But this is orthogonal to the issue of whether each PC is competent in a range of typical adventuring contexts. If (for exampe) one PC is good at wooing maidens, and another at scaring them, then we have a situation in which choices mater, and produce meaningfully different PCs, although both may be equally able to have an impact on social situations.

A bit of speculation: both KM and Ahnehnois seems to be equating "equally able to contribute" with "equally likely to win", as if "winning" had some predetermined value. I want a game where what counts as "winning" is determined by the players, not the GM, and is worked out in the course of play; and where all the players are, via their PCs, able to have a meaningful impact on any given situation.

Consider the PC who can woo maidens, and the PC who can scare them. It's not the case that both of these PCs are equally good at "winning" - if the first is wanting to woo the maiden, then the scary one is likely (everything else being equal) to be an obstacle to that goal. The point is that both are able to make a meaningful difference in an encounter with maidens. Which is what I want out of an RPG.


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## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

Leatherhead said:


> I'm going to go with an anecdote here, from my 4e game. It's a fairly casual beer and pretzels style game.
> 
> The party walks up to the King of the land, and starts up a conversation to help them on their quest to save the land from the evil magic doohickey. Standard stuff you know. We go into skill challenge mode and everyone does their thing: The paladin schmoozes, the wizard and the ranger give a detailed report on the threat, and then comes the Fighters turn. The Fighter decides this is a very important role to win, so he looks over his skill list to pick out the skills that would most likely pass a check.
> 
> ...



It's hard to know without having been there, but that sounds like either (i) poor encounter design by the GM, or (ii) poor adjudication by the GM. What was the king (played by the GM, presumably) saying to the fighter PC such that the fighter responded by doing backflips? And if doing backflips is an absurd thing to do in the situation, then how is it contributing a success to the skill challenge?

If the other players think it is important for the fighter PC to be part of the scene, then they need to be doing their bit to set up a situation in which the fighter's physical prowess _can_ plausibly make a contribution. Or the GM should frame the encounter in that way in the first place.


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## Mercule (Feb 14, 2012)

BobTheNob said:


> The more you try to blur this (fighters highly skillful outside of the fight, rogues really good in a fight) the more the game moves to the very thing which made 4e loose its shine for me. Our party basically ended up as six mages!!! They werent, their fluff was different, but when it came time for a fight, they all basically made the same contribution with minor variations. The power system, designed to enable balance, just created no division.



Agreed. When they introduced the feats in PHB2 (I think) that let you use pretty much whatever stat you wanted for your normal attacks, I knew the game was going off course (by my definition).

Rogue is my favorite class. I'm actually pretty okay with the rogue not being as awesome as the fighter, in combat. It also doesn't bother me if the wizard spends more rounds looking for his golden opportunity than he does actually nuking stuff. That's part of what drives the feel of each of the classes. It's also what balances them.

Take the wizard, for example. The classic vision of the wizard (at least to me) has been the guy who just blows everything to kingdom come, when he decides it's time to act. If the wizard has round-to-round output that's reasonably close to the fighter's, then allowing them to have nukes totally unbalances the wizard. The key to the balance is in the lack of equality. Include limited spells for the wizard and you get them behaving like Merlin or Gandalf, who were both much more contemplative and selective about when they used magic.

Additionally, having the spotlight when the party could have made it through without you is a bit uninspiring. There should be a lot more to differentiate the fighter and the rogue than the fighter getting a high-damage attack from using a big weapon and a rogue getting high-damage from a preponderance of well-placed strikes.

And that's just combat. When you include the rogue's ability to climb like a monkey, steal stuff, and just plain dazzle with non-magical tricks, who really cares if the fighter gets to showboat in combat?


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## Ahnehnois (Feb 14, 2012)

pemerton said:


> A bit of speculation: both KM and Ahnehnois seems to be equating "equally able to contribute" with "equally likely to win", as if "winning" had some predetermined value. I want a game where what counts as "winning" is determined by the players, not the GM, and is worked out in the course of play; and where all the players are, via their PCs, able to have a meaningful impact on any given situation.



I agree that D&D isn't a game that is "won" in the normal sense. and I share the related sentiment.

The idea I'm getting at is the "gladiator theory". Some people seem to expect that if I take any two PCs created using similar parameters (level, ability scores, items), and have them fight to the death in a controlled environment, every PC should have a 50% chance of defeating every other PC. I, OTOH, expect that the average fighter would beat the average rogue in that situation more often than not, because he is a fighter. I don't advocate that this ridiculous setup is the way the game is played or the way it should be balanced, so I'm trying to countermand that notion.

Thus, I want to play a game where I can choose what I want my character to be good at and focus on that, without the expectation that my character will necessarily be good at things I do not choose to focus on.


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## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Any robust character archetype involves strengths and weaknesses inherent in the concept.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Your typical "antihero" character is quite efficient, but not so likable.



But the non-likeability of the antihero has an impact on social situations. It's a mode of contribution.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> your typical "Dumb Muscle" character is very strong, but not so smart.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Your typical "Dapper Assassin" character is best when he only has to lift a finger if it results in someone getting a poisoned dart in the neck. One of my current characters is a gnome artificer who is great with machines, but who can't figure out people. I deliberately didn't invest a THING into her social skills, and it's great fun when I am forced into a social situation with her.



I don't want to pass judgement on your gnome PC, but neither the dapper assassin nor the dumb muscle strikes me as ideal PCs for an RPG based on the so-called 3 pillars. If the dapper assassin is in a melee, something has gone wrong. If the dumb muscle is trying to make friends at the ball, likewise something has gone wrong. (In fiction, the dumb muscle generally would be a sidekick or a hencman.) 



Kamikaze Midget said:


> To not be able to model those weaknesses -- to be unable to make them "fun failures" -- would be a problem for a system.
> 
> So, weaknesses are _desirable_, from a character-building standpoint.
> 
> The challenge, from a game-design standpoint, is to make the weakness notable, without unintentionally crippling a character.



One approach - which has some merits, and is underexplored - is the lazy warlord from 4e. Another approach - which has been explored extensively, but only in the context of one archetype (the wizard) and has some issues but probably not insoluble ones - is the magical summoner. A third approach, which has also been explored but probably inadequately in the context of a contemporary D&D game, is the sidekick/henchman (eg why can't the dapper assassin have the dumb muscle take part in combat for him?).



Kamikaze Midget said:


> But what use should a druid be in an urban intrigue campaign? Personally, I'd prefer if a DM just told me right out: "This is going to be an urban intrigue campaign, don't bother to roll a druid or a ranger or a barbarian, because they will suck at what this campaign is about,"



Well, here's where we discover (once again) that D&D, played straight out of the rulebooks, is not a generic fantasy system. If three out of ten core classes are about wilderness exploration, the game is going to _have_ to be tweaked or drifted in some way to support urban intrigue. This isn't an issue for class design or the three pillars (a ranger, barbarian or druid can be as strong as you like in each pillar and still suck for an urban intrigue campagin). As you say, it's about setting the parameters at the start of a campaign.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 14, 2012)

pemerton said:
			
		

> A bit of speculation: both KM and Ahnehnois seems to be equating "equally able to contribute" with "equally likely to win", as if "winning" had some predetermined value.



I'm not sure what you mean by the "winning." Mostly, I'm talking about an equal mathematical ability to be successful at a given task. There are character types that SHOULD fail (in an entertaining way) more often than not when attempting challenges involved in role-playing or exploring or direct combat. In d20 vs. DC terms, they should have a lower bonus (or even a slight penalty at low levels). 



> I want a game where what counts as "winning" is determined by the players, not the GM, and is worked out in the course of play; and where all the players are, via their PCs, able to have a meaningful impact on any given situation.




I think this would call for a classless game -- one where you determined your character's progression through play rather than via a choice at character creation. Thus, your strengths and weaknesses emerge organically. 



> Consider the PC who can woo maidens, and the PC who can scare them. It's not the case that both of these PCs are equally good at "winning" - if the first is wanting to woo the maiden, then the scary one is likely (everything else being equal) to be an obstacle to that goal. The point is that both are able to make a meaningful difference in an encounter with maidens. Which is what I want out of an RPG




Successfully wooing a difficult maiden, or successfully scaring a brave maiden, isn't something that a character who isn't skilled at social interaction should be able to do as easily as a character who is skilled at social interaction. Controlling how NPC's view you is the main ability for those skilled at social interaction. And if it's not a challenge, they should just be able to do it pretty simply, without bothering to roll for it.


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## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

Ahnehnois said:


> The idea I'm getting at is the "gladiator theory". Some people seem to expect that if I take any two PCs created using similar parameters (level, ability scores, items), and have them fight to the death in a controlled environment, every PC should have a 50% chance of defeating every other PC.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I don't advocate that this ridiculous setup is the way the game is played or the way it should be balanced, so I'm trying to countermand that notion.



I didn't get that vibe from the OP, but it's possible that I misread/misunderstood.

I certainly don't see "equal contribution" in these gladiatorial terms.



Ahnehnois said:


> I, OTOH, expect that the average fighter would beat the average rogue in that situation more often than not, because he is a fighter.



I would put it slightly differenlty - the fighter should win because the fight is one that gives the fighter every advantage that s/he needs - a single target whose presence and location is unambiguous, controlled terrain, etc; while the rogue is robbed of all his/her advantages - the confusion of melee, the viability of hit-and-run tactics, the possibility to strike from surprise, etc.



Ahnehnois said:


> Thus, I want to play a game where I can choose what I want my character to be good at and focus on that, without the expectation that my character will necessarily be good at things I do not choose to focus on.



This strikes me as something different again, and likewise goes to the question of "what is D&D?" If the designers are correct that D&D is about the three pillars, then I think that PC build will (and should) oblige you to focus on all three of those pillars - though, as per my reply to KM, I think there are a range of ways that this might be done (the three examples I gave were "lazy" builds, summoner builds and henchman builds).


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## Leatherhead (Feb 14, 2012)

pemerton said:


> It's hard to know without having been there, but that sounds like either (i) poor encounter design by the GM, or (ii) poor adjudication by the GM. What was the king (played by the GM, presumably) saying to the fighter PC such that the fighter responded by doing backflips? And if doing backflips is an absurd thing to do in the situation, then how is it contributing a success to the skill challenge?




I think it had more to do with the choice of beverages at the table. 



> If the other players think it is important for the fighter PC to be part of the scene, then they need to be doing their bit to set up a situation in which the fighter's physical prowess _can_ plausibly make a contribution. Or the GM should frame the encounter in that way in the first place.




It's was more of an attempt at a clutch play. But here is the point if it wasn't clear:

The skill challenge system was designed and intended to include the entire party. Everyone needs to generate successes (or at least non-failures), so everyone did what was most likely to succeed. The fighter, in particular, was forced into an extremely awkward position due to the fact that he needed to generate a success, and his scores with skills that would have been traditionally used in such an encounter were rather underwhelming. So, he improvised with the only thing that might work.


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## Ahnehnois (Feb 14, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I didn't get that vibe from the OP, but it's possible that I misread/misunderstood.
> 
> I certainly don't see "equal contribution" in these gladiatorial terms.



I'm not targeting the OP, just the idea in general. I've seen it raised explicitly sometimes and implicitly often.



> I would put it slightly differenlty - the fighter should win because the fight is one that gives the fighter every advantage that s/he needs - a single target whose presence and location is unambiguous, controlled terrain, etc; while the rogue is robbed of all his/her advantages - the confusion of melee, the viability of hit-and-run tactics, the possibility to strike from surprise, etc.



True; that's why the gladiator model doesn't represent most of actual play.



> This strikes me as something different again, and likewise goes to the question of "what is D&D?" If the designers are correct that D&D is about the three pillars, then I think that PC build will (and should) oblige you to focus on all three of those pillars - though, as per my reply to KM, I think there are a range of ways that this might be done (the three examples I gave were "lazy" builds, summoner builds and henchman builds).



That's a big "if". That being said, your point is essentially the same as the one I made upthread to the effect that I don't want the designers assuming or dictating very much how my group deals with social encounters or combat encounters or exploration. In other words, I agree.


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## Crazy Jerome (Feb 14, 2012)

FireLance said:


> At its crudest, I can see it working something like this: At first level, each character gets a handful of abilities distributed into the combat, roleplaying and exploration silos. Maybe a fighter gets 2/1/1, a bard gets 1/2/1 and a rogue gets 1/1/2. There is some scope for customization, so the player can choose two additional abilities from any silo. So, a first level fighter could start the game with 4/1/1, 3/2/1, 3/1/2, 2/3/1, 2/1/3, or 2/2/2 as he desires.
> 
> At every level, he gets to choose an additional ability. For most levels, he can choose from any silo, but maybe his choice gets restricted to specific silos at particular levels (say, fighters, bards and rogues must pick an ability from the combat, roleplaying and exploration silos respectively every three levels).




The way I'd do it is provide the opportunity for balance, but in no way enforce it. By all means, have clear silos for each of three pillars, and make the choices available to characters at a given level roughly equal in that pillar. If the fighter has 3rd level choices in the "roleplaying" pillar (I hate that name for the "social" pillar, as its all roleplaying, but whatever) that involve diplomacy, intimidate, or some kind of crafting, then those choices are roughly equal to what the wizard is getting with some utility magic or skills. 

The idea being that,* IF* a casual player of a 3rd level fighter is feeling a bit left out in the social scenes, and decide to spend character resources on shoring that up, he can pick from the appropriate category and not get totally messed up. OTOH if he decides that his deficiences in that regard are fine in return for more exploration or combat ability (and the group is ok with such specialization), he knows what he is getting/giving up with that choice, too.

So balance the pillars and abilities within them so that people who want straight balance can get it. But in no way enforce that balance via the classes picks or restictions. Those restrictions are campaign-specific.


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## Tony Vargas (Feb 14, 2012)

pemerton said:


> It's hard to know without having been there, but that sounds like either (i) poor encounter design by the GM, or (ii) poor adjudication by the GM. What was the king (played by the GM, presumably) saying to the fighter PC such that the fighter responded by doing backflips? And if doing backflips is an absurd thing to do in the situation, then how is it contributing a success to the skill challenge?



Skill Challenges get run different ways by different DMs, but many require everyone to roll, so if you can make a case for it, you try to roll a skill you're good at.

Fighters have crap for social skills.  The one social skill they have in class - Intimidate - is used in sample social SCs as an example of an automatic failure.   Fighters are still pretty hosed.

That could use some improvement:  better skill lists for fighters that give them something to do in each of the other two pillars, at least some of the time.  

Also, a 'they also serve who merely stand and wait' clause for SCs might be called for - especially if they go through with balancing across pillars, so you have characters who must suck at exploration or interaction or both to be good at combat - SCs in such a system would be horrid failures if the dead weight wasn't allowed to, well, wait.


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## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> I think this would call for a classless game -- one where you determined your character's progression through play rather than via a choice at character creation. Thus, your strengths and weaknesses emerge organically.



I don't think so. I'm not saying that it _couldn't_ be done in such a game. But it can be done in a classed game also, provided that the classes are well-designed relative to the range of situations/challenges that the game expects players to confront via their PCs, and the GM has good mechanics (and advice on how to use them) for setting up those situations.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by the "winning." Mostly, I'm talking about an equal mathematical ability to be successful at a given task.



But what is the task? And I'm thinking particularly in the context of social interaction. Is the task wooing the maiden? Or scaring her?



Kamikaze Midget said:


> Successfully wooing a difficult maiden, or successfully scaring a brave maiden, isn't something that a character who isn't skilled at social interaction should be able to do as easily as a character who is skilled at social interaction. Controlling how NPC's view you is the main ability for those skilled at social interaction.



But D&D has, for the past two editions, taken for granted that there is a difference between being able to make NPCs think you're sincere (Bluff), making NPCs think you're nice and/or worth treating with (Diplomacy) and making NPCs think you're scary (Intimidate).

My point is that a PC who is good at Intimidation doesn't play at all like one who is good at Bluff, across a whole range of social situations. Unless we are looking at very simple situations where either might do ("Do we lure the guard away with a distraction, or scare the guard away with our fierceness?"), we are talkiing about PCs who contribute to situations in very different ways, being good at pursuing different goals through social means. 

I assume that when the designers talk about the three pillars, they are suggesting that all PCs should be able to do something meaningful in a social situation. The point I wanted to make was, from the fact that all PCs are able meaningfully to contribute to social situations, it doesn't follow that they are all the same, or that meaningful difference has been erased. The contrast between a maiden-wooer (say, your dapper assassin) and a maiden-scarer (say, a variant on your dumb muscle) is simply intended to illustrate that point.

I personally think that this sort of design actually makes for better play, because it puts the players into a degree of tension with one another, and (if they want their various skills to synergise) requires them to engage cleverly with the fiction (much as, in combat, players use a range of clever techniques to try and protect the squishies, bring their artillery to bear without killing their front-line fighters, etc).



Kamikaze Midget said:


> There are character types that SHOULD fail (in an entertaining way) more often than not when attempting challenges involved in role-playing or exploring or direct combat.



It is possible to ensure failing in entertaining ways, however, without having PCs who are not effective at one of the three pillars. If the party decides to woo the maiden, then the maiden-scarer may fail in an entertaining way. Just as if the party decides to challenge the orcs to a series of man-to-man fist fights, the wizard or the rogue may fail in an entertaining way (being powerful combatants in the abstract, but weak pugilists).

But these sorts of entertaning failures will result from choices the players have made, about how best to bring their PCs' disparate abilities to bear upon the situations confronting them.

*TL;DR: the issue of homogeneity/entertaining failure is more-or-less orthogonal to the issue of "three pillars". *PCs who don't perform in all three contexts may nevertheless be homogenous/never fail entertainingly (the players build a dapper assassin each and only ever play society murder scenarios). PCs who do perform in all three contexts may nevertheless be non-homogenous and frequently fail entertainingly (see examples above).

And if the designers want to build a three pillars game, then I think it would be a mistake to permit the building of PCs who will not be able to meaningfully contribute.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> In d20 vs. DC terms, they should have a lower bonus (or even a slight penalty at low levels).



I think that 4e has shown that going this way is design catastrophe, because of the spread of bonuses (and hence need for DCs) that make simultaneous meaningful contribution almost impossilbe (the Essentials patch for this in the skill challenge rules is the under-explained system of "advantages").

Rerolls, or perhaps a broader range of aptitudes ("My guy can both woo maidens _and_ scare them") seems a much better way to go.


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## ExploderWizard (Feb 14, 2012)

Zaruthustran said:


> I want to play a game where every class can contribute in every situation: combat, exploration, social interactions. Just because a character can wear armor and skillfully fight doesn't mean that he should be incapable of holding a conversation (3E and 4e fighter, I'm looking at you).
> 
> No. 5E should balance classes *within* each of those three pillars. And not try to balance strength in one pillar via a deficiency in another.




Every class can participate in every situation. What every class is not going to have is equal_ impact_ in all situations, nor should they. 

All strengths and no weaknesses makes Jack a dull character in party full of equally dull characters that all rock at combat, exploration and interaction. 

Not participating in a facet of play because another character type does something better than your character is being churlish.This is the every kid at the party needs a present because the birthday kid gets one syndrome. 

In a game with choices, it is pointless to offer them if they all lead to the same destination.

It leads to bland vanilla abilities that only have the barest fluff to separate them because they are all very much alike in form and function. 

That game has been made already. We don't need another one.

Is a thief going to kick as muck butt in a fight as a fighter? Nope.
Is a fighter going to have as much to contribute to exploration as a thief?
Nope.  They can both participate in these activities but each will have the aspect that they are better at.


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## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

Leatherhead said:


> The skill challenge system was designed and intended to include the entire party.





Tony Vargas said:


> Skill Challenges get run different ways by different DMs, but many require everyone to roll



I don't want to derail too much, but this reminds me of why I think the skill challenge guidelines are so poorly written.

In combat, the reason that every player rolls is (i) his/her PC is under attack, and (ii) his/her PC has something to offer to improve the situation, both for him-/herself, and for the party as a whole.

A GM who wants everyone to take part in a skill challenge should, in my view, be framing the situation so that (i) every PC has a reason to do something - is under some sort of pressure - and (ii) every PC has something viable to do to relieve that pressure, and the pressure on the party in general. (Even if that viable thing is only stalling until another, defter PC can extricate him/her from the situation - in one social skill challenge I ran, which took place at a dinner party, the smooth-tongued sorcerer said to the dwarf fighter, who was doing a lousy job of trying to keep secrets, "Derrik, time to take a piss!" - thereby defusing the situation, at least temporarily.)



Tony Vargas said:


> Fighters have crap for social skills.  The one social skill they have in class - Intimidate - is used in sample social SCs as an example of an automatic failure.   Fighters are still pretty hosed.



A complexity 5 skill challenge is only likely to involve 20 rolls or so (up to 14 primary checks, plus whatever secondaries are used).  In the challenge I mentioned above, the fighter only made three checks, I think - a failed social check early on, the Intimidate check that ended the challenge (he goaded an oppposed NPC into attacking rather than just leaving the dinner party), and an Athletics check - made while agreeing with the host's remark that "I am a man of action, not words".

I'm not saying that fighters couldn't benefit from a better range of skills, but even with a very short list it should still be possible to play a meaningful role, provided (i) that the GM frames scenes with the party's capabilties in mind, and (ii) that players are prepared to engage the fiction rather than try and run mechanical roughshod over it.



Leatherhead said:


> Everyone needs to generate successes (or at least non-failures), so everyone did what was most likely to succeed. The fighter, in particular, was forced into an extremely awkward position due to the fact that he needed to generate a success, and his scores with skills that would have been traditionally used in such an encounter were rather underwhelming. So, he improvised with the only thing that might work.



I understand this. I just don't think it sounds like very good scene-framing or adjudication. I mean, why (in the fiction) did it matter that the fighter do something? What bad thing was going to happen if he didn't?

I've got nothing against running skill challenges that make everyone take part, but I think the fiction has to make sense of this. Otherwise how do the players know what the sensible options are? Without embedding the challenge in the fiction, I don't see how you avoid the notorious "skill challenges are just a dice-rolling exercise".

To put it another way - I don't quite see how the backflip episode fits in with what the DMG has to say about skill challenges:

You describe the environment, listen to the players’ responses, let them make their skill checks, and narrate the results...

When a player’s turn comes up in a skill challenge, let that player’s character use any skill the player wants. As long as the player or you can come up with a way to let this secondary skill play a part in the challenge, go for it…

However, it’s particularly important to make sure these checks are grounded in actions that make sense in the adventure and the situation… you should ask what exactly the character might be doing … Don’t say no too often, but don’t say yes if it doesn’t make sense in the context of the challenge.​
It doesn't sound to me like the performing of the backflips was "grounded in actions that make sense in the adventure and the situation", and that in turn sounds like it may have been because the GM had not "described the environment and narrated the results of previous skill chekcs".

Conversely, if I'm wrong about that, and the king had just said to the fighter "Why should I take you seriously as someone meriting aid?" and the fighter responds by performing some feat of physical prowess - thereby demonstrating that only he can do the tremendous thing that has to be done - then why _shouldn't_ that be viable? If that's what happens, then it sounds like the player of the fighter chose to do a silly feat of prowess - backflips - rather than something more fitting like (say) crushing a goblet in his fist.



Tony Vargas said:


> Also, a 'they also serve who merely stand and wait' clause for SCs might be called for - especially if they go through with balancing across pillars, so you have characters who must suck at exploration or interaction or both to be good at combat - SCs in such a system would be horrid failures if the dead weight wasn't allowed to, well, wait.



Personally, I would prefer that they pay more attention to advising GMs how to set up and adjudicate situations that don't require either waiting or absurdity to work. But given their inability to write effective guidelines for skill challenges to date, despite three attempts (DMG, DMG2, Essentials) and despite the existence of plenty of good models (HeroWars/Quest, Maelstrom Storytelling, and to a lesser extent Burning Wheel), I think they will probably go for the "wait" option instead.


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## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> Every class can participate in every situation. What every class is not going to have is equal_ impact_ in all situations, nor should they.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In a game with choices, it is pointless to offer them if they all lead to the same destination.



Agreed. But "three pillars" is not about each PC being able to have the same impact on each situation. It is about each PC being able to have a meanginful impact in each sort of situation.


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## Leatherhead (Feb 14, 2012)

pemerton said:


> stuff




I see that you understand the core of the problem: 
Forcing people to participate in every situation is bad.

But now it just seems that you are ignoring the forest for the trees.


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## ExploderWizard (Feb 14, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Agreed. But "three pillars" is not about each PC being able to have the same impact on each situation. It is about each PC being able to have a meanginful impact in each sort of situation.




This is where all the hairs get split. 

Define meaningful? 

In combat, a thief will be generally weaker than the fighter, but sometimes there may be an opportunity to get in a nasty backstab which could be pivotal in the outcome. 

What the thief does not have is the round in-round out staying effectiveness of the fighter. If we give the thief class this then they are really just a fighter who's into leather. 

Would you say the thief meaningfully contributes to combat?


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## Oni (Feb 14, 2012)

For me personally, as long as combat is quick and doesn't dominate play time it makes balancing between different areas of play seem feasible, and it no longer requires that everyone be equally good at any one area, just that they have enough baseline competence to contribute in a meaningful way even when it's not their moment to shine.


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## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> Define meaningful?



I think I'll skip any attempt at abstract definition, and move straight to your example.

Except maybe to say that "meaningful" means at a minimum that (i) it would have made a significant difference to the play had the PC not been there (ie mere kibbitzing and advice from the player doesn't count), and (ii) this is not just because, had the PC not been there, the other PCs would not have had to carry his/her sorry behind!



ExploderWizard said:


> In combat, a thief will be generally weaker than the fighter, but sometimes there may be an opportunity to get in a nasty backstab which could be pivotal in the outcome.
> 
> What the thief does not have is the round in-round out staying effectiveness of the fighter. If we give the thief class this then they are really just a fighter who's into leather.
> 
> Would you say the thief meaningfully contributes to combat?



Maybe. I guess I want to know a bit more.

How often can the thief backstab? And what is the projected length of the typical fight? Does getting in backstab require interesting play, that is _different_ from the interesting play that is needed to make a wizard or a fighter perform?

As to staying effectiveness - are we talking hit points? AC? mobility? AD&D has at least these three elements of staying power, and 3E/4e add more, like damage reduction and healing capabilities. Provided that a thief uses a different means to staying compared to a fighter - and something which is different not just at the level of colour ("I wear _leather_ armour!") but is different in some mechanically signficant ways - because they require different play - then we can have meaningfulness without overlap.

To give concrete examples: I think that a Basic D&D or 1st ed AD&D thief is either at the very bottom end of "able to contribute meaningfully to combat", or falls below the threshold. A bit depends on the individual GM - how hard is moving silently or hiding with that GM, and how generous is s/he with invisibility items? Also, in Basic a thief can use a two-handed sword, and may well have a STR bonus (starts at 13 rather than 16) and until 4th level has the same THACO as a fighter. So (other than the d4 hit points) a Basic thief is probably more meaningful on the offensive front than an AD&D one. (At higher levels, AD&D thieves get the benefit of bigger backstab multipliers.)

But neither sort of thief has the sort of mobility that would make for staying power. I think that is the biggest issue for classic D&D thieves.

But this then leads into other aspects of design. For example, mobility as a form of staying power that plays significantly differently from hit points will require an action resolution system that makes movement signficant. That need not be a grid-and-minis approach (Burning Wheel makes movement matter, for example, without grid-and-minis) but it is likely to be a module rather than core. Meaning that perhaps to get all PCs onto all three pillars we have to go beyond the core.


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## ExploderWizard (Feb 14, 2012)

Oni said:


> For me personally, as long as combat is quick and doesn't dominate play time it makes balancing between different areas of play seem feasible, and it no longer requires that everyone be equally good at any one area, just that they have enough baseline competence to contribute in a meaningful way even when it's not their moment to shine.





Thats a very good point. If a typical combat lasts 15 minutes or so and an exploration, and interaction segment a similar amount of time then its easier to balance the skill sets between the pillars. 

An important facet of old school adventures is that they didn't dictate encounter types and players got to spend their adventuring time engaging the world in whatever manner was most fun for them. 

If the party loved to fight a whole lot then they kicked down doors and saved asking questions for someione else, if they enjoyed interaction then they could attempt to negotiate through many encounters. If they enjoyed exploration then they might do their best to avoid a fair amount of potential encounters. 

This is why a good adventure cannot dictate combat, negotiation, etc. The players have to figure out for themselves what approach is most fun for them.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 14, 2012)

pemerton said:
			
		

> But the non-likeability of the antihero has an impact on social situations. It's a mode of contribution.




Sure it as an impact. My gnome's inability to figure out what other people are thinking has an impact, too. The impact is mostly negative -- it reduces the chance of successfully getting an NPC to behave the way our party wants it to.



> I don't want to pass judgement on your gnome PC, but neither the dapper assassin nor the dumb muscle strikes me as ideal PCs for an RPG based on the so-called 3 pillars. If the dapper assassin is in a melee, something has gone wrong. If the dumb muscle is trying to make friends at the ball, likewise something has gone wrong. (In fiction, the dumb muscle generally would be a sidekick or a hencman.)




All these characters with strengths and weaknesses will inevitably enter a situation that features their weakness at some point. Otherwise, they functionally don't have weaknesses. For me, there's a lot of fun in having my gnome potentially screw up our social plans. It's not the best recipe for "winning the game," but chaos is awesome. 



> One approach - which has some merits, and is underexplored - is the lazy warlord from 4e. Another approach - which has been explored extensively, but only in the context of one archetype (the wizard) and has some issues but probably not insoluble ones - is the magical summoner. A third approach, which has also been explored but probably inadequately in the context of a contemporary D&D game, is the sidekick/henchman (eg why can't the dapper assassin have the dumb muscle take part in combat for him?).




Those all patch over the weakness - omitting the failure. The weakness *should be present*. Sometimes, you should have to roll a dice that you will likely not succeed on. The failure needs to be present. The essence of drama is overcoming a problem -- tension rises (and creativity balloons!) when the odds aren't so great. 



> Well, here's where we discover (once again) that D&D, played straight out of the rulebooks, is not a generic fantasy system. If three out of ten core classes are about wilderness exploration, the game is going to have to be tweaked or drifted in some way to support urban intrigue. This isn't an issue for class design or the three pillars (a ranger, barbarian or druid can be as strong as you like in each pillar and still suck for an urban intrigue campagin). As you say, it's about setting the parameters at the start of a campaign.




Tweaking and drifting are supposedly part and parcel of this 5e project -- making the game into a game you want it, rather than making you play it like anyone else wants you to play it. 

As long as the druid, ranger, and barbarian can meaningfully contribute to the occasional social interaction with a townsfolk (even at a C or D rank), it'll be fine in any campaign that features all three kinds of play (sucking once or twice a night isn't a problem; sucking constantly is). It's only when the campaign skews to one side that it'll skew the class selection. 

It's FINE to me that barbarians aren't valid characters in heavily social campaigns (for example). They're still valid characters in standard campaigns featuring a fairly even distribution of the three challenge types -- and they'll weight the game a bit more toward the combat/exploration side of the game. Which is appropriate -- that's kind of the archetype. 



			
				pemerton said:
			
		

> I don't think so. I'm not saying that it couldn't be done in such a game. But it can be done in a classed game also, provided that the classes are well-designed relative to the range of situations/challenges that the game expects players to confront via their PCs, and the GM has good mechanics (and advice on how to use them) for setting up those situations.




I'm just saying that if you want a character's traits to emerge through play rather than before they sit down at the table, it's probably better to have their play determine their traits rather than their pre-game choices determine these traits. 



> But what is the task? And I'm thinking particularly in the context of social interaction. Is the task wooing the maiden? Or scaring her?




It's either. Both. The task is the thing they want to achieve that has some significant chance of significant failure. Both of those tasks (wooing them or scaring them) fall under the heading of a social skillset.



> But D&D has, for the past two editions, taken for granted that there is a difference between being able to make NPCs think you're sincere (Bluff), making NPCs think you're nice and/or worth treating with (Diplomacy) and making NPCs think you're scary (Intimidate).




Sure, but that's not much different from using an axe, a sword, or a bow. The goal is the same regardless of the tool used for it. And in this case, it's actually even all governed by the same ability score: Charisma.



> My point is that a PC who is good at Intimidation doesn't play at all like one who is good at Bluff, across a whole range of social situations. Unless we are looking at very simple situations where either might do ("Do we lure the guard away with a distraction, or scare the guard away with our fierceness?"), we are talkiing about PCs who contribute to situations in very different ways, being good at pursuing different goals through social means.




Sure, just as bows and swords and axes all contribute in very different ways. 

But you're looking too closely at it, I feel. The three pillars are broad things. I can imagine a character who is not good at using any weapon -- just as I can imagine a character who is very good at using almost any weapon. 

So a character that isn't good at social situations is not great at any of those. Of course, maybe they can try for a successful Intimidate anyway, even when their chance of success isn't that great, or their effect isn't that strong. It's like a 4e character with only a melee basic attack. Useful, just not as useful as a character with more stuff.



> The point I wanted to make was, from the fact that all PCs are able meaningfully to contribute to social situations, it doesn't follow that they are all the same, or that meaningful difference has been erased. The contrast between a maiden-wooer (say, your dapper assassin) and a maiden-scarer (say, a variant on your dumb muscle) is simply intended to illustrate that point.




Sure, but it should also be possible to have a character who sucks at ALL those things.

A druid who has spent her entire life in the forest isn't going to be good at any of those things, except perhaps with regards to wild animals (where she'll be VERY good!). She shouldn't be forced to pick a method to contribute if part of her archetypal weakness is that she CAN'T very effectively contribute to a social challenge. She can make a skill check like anyone else, but she's not as effective as the bard or the paladin or the cleric (who all have more options and varied abilities to use in that context). 



> I personally think that this sort of design actually makes for better play, because it puts the players into a degree of tension with one another, and (if they want their various skills to synergise) requires them to engage cleverly with the fiction (much as, in combat, players use a range of clever techniques to try and protect the squishies, bring their artillery to bear without killing their front-line fighters, etc).




I've found that for me, there is a distinction between major and minor encounters. Major encounters require the whole party to contribute something strategically. Minor encounters can be solved with about 2-3 quick die rolls. It's OK to have a character mostly sit out, suck at, or fail, a minor encounter of a given type. But they should have some way of contributing in at least a minor way to a major encounter.

Again, the druid above will not try and use her social skills on anyone most of the time. When she is required to help, she won't be as effective as the rest of the party (though she still has a baseline). That's part of the appeal of being a druid: you AREN'T good with people. It's your heroic weakness. It's fun to have.



> TL;DR: the issue of homogeneity/entertaining failure is more-or-less orthogonal to the issue of "three pillars".
> ...
> And if the designers want to build a three pillars game, then I think it would be a mistake to permit the building of PCs who will not be able to meaningfully contribute.




Don't disagree with any of that.

However, "meaningfully contribute" isn't the same as "has an equal chance of success." 



> I think that 4e has shown that going this way is design catastrophe, because of the spread of bonuses (and hence need for DCs) that make simultaneous meaningful contribution almost impossilbe (the Essentials patch for this in the skill challenge rules is the under-explained system of "advantages").
> 
> Rerolls, or perhaps a broader range of aptitudes ("My guy can both woo maidens and scare them") seems a much better way to go.




A broad spread doesn't mean the whole approach is invalid. It just means you need to narrow the spread. 4e did a pretty lousy job of keeping skill bonuses in check, though it did a pretty GOOD job of keeping attack and defense bonuses in check. Just equate them, and use the same maths for them, and you're good to go. 

It's part of character design to have a character who sometimes sucks at something that the party needs to do. It's a fun part of the game to fail in a way of your own choosing (as happens when you choose your class fully aware of what they're good at and what they're bad at), or to try and succeed despite low odds (looking for things like "advantage" or addressing the fiction or using special abilities to better those odds).


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## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

Oni said:


> For me personally, as long as combat is quick and doesn't dominate play time it makes balancing between different areas of play seem feasible, and it no longer requires that everyone be equally good at any one area, just that they have enough baseline competence to contribute in a meaningful way even when it's not their moment to shine.



Presumably the same would have to be true for social and exploration. Admittedly social has rarely dominated play time in the typical D&D game, but historically exploration has been capable of doing so (especially in the case of some classic modules - I'm thinking ToH, the Hidden Shrine, Maure Castle (Mord's FA), etc).


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## hanez (Feb 14, 2012)

For me to be able to create the characters that I want to play, I require the ability to sacrifice a bit of power in one pillar for a bit of power in the other.  Pre 4e D&D has always allowed for characters that are useful in a variety of situations depending on player choice.

I want to be sooooo good at exploration, that I might have to sacrifice some combat prowress to make up for it.  I want to be able to play the raging meat smashing barbarian who points to the wizard in the party and says, "you fix problem, you talk to King or Taku smash him!"  and I want to be able to play the character who is equally balanced in all areas.  All options should be on the table.  

If some people want equally powerful PCs as a hard rule to lower variability at their table, they should be able to do that as well, I suggest WOTC make a module for that.  "The complete clone" or something like that.


Maybe thats being harsh, but reading the OPs previous thread, it sounds like a great idea, but honestly it doesn't sound like D&D.  The thief is the class that can disarm traps, I'm all for wizards being able to do it moderately well, but they shouldn't have the ability to do it equally well as the thief because thats just not the archetype that we play.  Can DMs make expceptions?  Sure.  Can splat or mod books do a different take on this? Hope so.  Can the designers add bit more flexibility to the class... ok but don't destroy the archetypes that make the brand.


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## Oni (Feb 14, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Presumably the same would have to be true for social and exploration. Admittedly social has rarely dominated play time in the typical D&D game, but historically exploration has been capable of doing so (especially in the case of some classic modules - I'm thinking ToH, the Hidden Shrine, Maure Castle (Mord's FA), etc).




Well ideally I'd like everything to be quick and easy to resolve and then the players can focus on doing what they want, and if they aren't all interested in the same parts of gameplay then it can be dealt with quickly enough to keep a sense that everyone at the table is involved in the game as a whole, even if they aren't at right that particular moment dealing with their particular area(s) of interest.


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## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

KM, I think there's some stuff on which we're agreed, and some stuff on which we have divergent preferences, but it's a bit hard to work it all out in the abstract. I'll just pick up on some points that struck me.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> However, "meaningfully contribute" isn't the same as "has an equal chance of success."



I'm a bit leery of this "success" notion, but otherwise I agree. Part of why I'm a big fan of rerolls rather than bonuses.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> It's part of character design to have a character who sometimes sucks at something that the party needs to do. It's a fun part of the game to fail in a way of your own choosing (as happens when you choose your class fully aware of what they're good at and what they're bad at), or to try and succeed despite low odds (looking for things like "advantage" or addressing the fiction or using special abilities to better those odds).



Sure, but I think this is to a significant extent about scenario and encounter design, and also adjudication. That's where the "needs" (in "the party needs to do") comes from. And also the "advantages" and other ways of addressing the fiction.

To try and give a concrete example: barbarians and fighters as just socially inept is a problem in design, I think. (And has been regarded by some as such for a long time - I'm thinking of an article (in Dragon #95 or thereabouts) on non-combat challenges for AD&D, and the discussion of what exactly the fighter might do to contribute - I remember "looking intimidating" being one suggested answer). On the other hand, a situation in which the party decides that sneaking in is their best option, and then has to work out how to get the fighters in (preferably with their weapons and armour), is not a problem but of the essence of play.

Part of what I'm trying to get at here is the difference between a disadvantage/weakness/specialistion that just makes everyone at thet able feel that the PC is a deadweight, as opposed to something which actively drives the game forward, and which makes the player of that PC an active contributor to resolving the challenges the game throws up.

Which takes me to your gnome:



Kamikaze Midget said:


> Sure it as an impact. My gnome's inability to figure out what other people are thinking has an impact, too. The impact is mostly negative -- it reduces the chance of successfully getting an NPC to behave the way our party wants it to.



I had thought of the grim antihero as having an impact via his/her charismatic grimness, but that's by the by. I want to talk about the sort of stuff your gnome is doing. I think the game needs to give much better advice to GMs on how to handle these sorts of situations. And perhaps also to players, on how they might approach such situations.

Burning Wheel, for example, requires (as part of its advancement mechanics) that PCs face a certain number of checks that they are almost certain to lose. And comments that, in light of this, wound penalties are actually a good thing because they increase the likelihood of getting such checks (given that difficutly is assessed after penalties and (most) bonuses). So players have a reason not to always try to max their bonus, or have only the "face" do the talking, etc. And then this is supplemented with advice for GMs on how to run a game in which these sorts of situations figure somewhat prominently, and yet the PCs still survive and the players don't feel completely hosed. (Call of Cthulhu gives another, though very different, example of an RPG where the players are generally prepared to have their PCs try stuff that they won't win at, and in which the GM is given some tools and ideas to help adjudicate this.)

D&D has, in my view, always sucked at this - both in reassuring players that they can try stuff they won't succeed at, and in helping GMs adjudicate this (in part because it is the opposite of Gygaxian "skilled" play). If it is meant to be part of the game - as an alternative to full-fledge three-pillars-ism - then the rulebooks should talk about it.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> Sure, but that's not much different from using an axe, a sword, or a bow. The goal is the same regardless of the tool used for it. And in this case, it's actually even all governed by the same ability score: Charisma.



Well, in 4e using a different weapon can make a fairly big difference. But in every version of D&D there's been a big difference between melee and ranged combat. And while the goal might be the same (kill your enemies) a lot of the play is in the mechanical and story intricacies of the different means.

But in the context of social situations, I think the gap extends upward not just through the intricacy of the means but to the goal itself - whereas generally speaking, shooting someone in order to kill them doesn't make it harder to try and kill them by stabbing them (although AD&D took a different view with its shooting into melee rules), trying to influence someone by scaring them may (depending on context) make it harder to influence them by wooing them. The interaction at this higher level can, in my experience, mean the shared reliance on CHA isn't such a big deal. The difference in play between a smooth but shallow Bluffer and an honest and reliable Diplomat is often as great as the difference between an archer and a swordsman, despite both the social PCs relying on CHA.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> there is a distinction between major and minor encounters. Major encounters require the whole party to contribute something strategically. Minor encounters can be solved with about 2-3 quick die rolls. It's OK to have a character mostly sit out, suck at, or fail, a minor encounter of a given type. But they should have some way of contributing in at least a minor way to a major encounter.



I'm not really into minor encounters at the moment - I tend to see them as sub-elements of major encounters, or as part of exploration. But anyway, I agree that distributed specialisation isn't really an issue here: "The thief picks the lock, then we all go through the door."

With major encounters, though, I think it is a problem if some PC can only contribute in a minor way. And I see "three pillars" design as intended to help avoid that. I also think that more advice needs to be given to GMs on how to frame and adjudicate scenes so as to avoid the issue - and the better that advice, the wider the range of PCs who satisfy the three pillars requirement (for example, as per my other line of conversation on this thread, by explaining how to set up and adjudicate situations in which a fighter can use Athletics as a social skill).


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## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> An important facet of old school adventures is that they didn't dictate encounter types and players got to spend their adventuring time engaging the world in whatever manner was most fun for them.



I think this varied quite a bit from module to module.

When I think of ToH, or the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, the Isle of Dread or Mordenkainen's FA, my memory is of exploration overwhelming either fighting or talking. The Giants involve some exploration and talking opportunites, but I think fighting looms very large. Not much talking in White Plume Mountain or the Ghost Tower, either.

For classic modules that are somewhat balanced across approaches, I would think of the Drow modules, and also the Slavers' Stockade. Perhaps the Keep, depending a bit on how the GM runs it. And Castle Amber, although I think it would benefit from much more extensive backstory and advice for the GM.

I don't know the N(? Reptile God) or L(? Bone Hill) series as well. Maybe they were also balanced across approaches.


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## hikaizer (Feb 14, 2012)

I don't think Dungeons and Dragons should allow for everyone to be  equally competent in everything. That's not its design strength and what  the narrative paradigm its core original design has been based off of. 

While  no one should ever be completely deficient in one of these three  pillars as they have been described, having strengths and weaknesses is a  core DnD concept. I'm not sure why people are so quick to rush to the  Fighter as an example of someone who cannot socially interact for  example. If you think about a fighter for a moment consider this;  fighters roam the world searching for adventure and treasure. As a  result a seasoned fighter should be at least somewhat world-wise.  They've certainly left the lands of their birth if they haven't left  their motherland outright. On the way they would have had to have  learned at least a little about the different cultures they passed  through and they tend to associate with the masses. If we consider the  average stereotypical image of a fighter, being the kind of man who  likes to frequent bars and taverns then they could even have a pulse on  the troubles of the commonfolk and even hear bits of politics. How much  more social exposure does the Rogue or Thief really have? They might  spend more time in these places than the fighter, if they are the sort  of rogue that pick-pockets and scams as opposed to the sort of rogue  that goes along with the fighter into those dungeons and lairs. Aragorn  was fairly charismatic and was able to talk easily with various people,  Barak from the Belgariad as well lacks the same kind of upbringing but  can talk to people and is formidable in combat. There are as many  "fighter" archetype characters from literature which are equally  competent outside of the combat arena as they are within it.

There's  no reason why a Fighter cannot be thematically as competent at social  interaction as any other character. (I needed to sign up just to get  that off of my chest actually )  Wizards are usually considered to spend more time poring over tomes and  conversing with alien or Planar creatures. Why are they considered to  be better at social activities when that same stereotype spends their time being  antisocial?!? Nor are Barbarians or Druids not equally as useful and  able to contribute in an urban game. Druids have a strong relationship  with Animals and often at higher power levels the ability to commune  with them and shapeshift. Cats and dogs are common in large towns and  cities, so no one is likely to notice an extra one for a few hours or  so. The other animals around them might have all kinds of useful  information that more 'urban themed' classes might have. A Barbarian  might be able to provide the group with different viewpoints, or even  speak with slaves in the city. They can do things like lift sedans and  move cargo to fit in and keep their ears out. Beyond innate abilities  such as magic or Rage the only limiting factor to how a character can  interact is how imaginative the GM and players are. I've played a  martial artist in a game set in a city of mages and still meaningfully  contributed without any particular investment into social skills. It  turns out climbing and acrobatics can be handy getting in and out of  places when buildings are really close together!

So I'd challenge  people to think carefully about whether these stereotypes in Dungeons  and Dragons gaming are really flaws in the system, or crutches that have  come about because of player preconceptions. Cross-class skills from  3rd Edition were...not great in my opinion and I think Pathfinder  handles skills a little more streamlined but the framework is much the  same. It's an area which could use work, but I cannot really think of  recent editions that have really prevented anyone from investing outside  of the standard stereotype conventions of a class. It has usually just  been at the cost of specialisation, be it in combat or not. But then  again if your character is entirely focussed on squezing out the most  damage or spells as possible then perhaps that lack of social grace is  appropriate for the way they are played.


All that said and  done, I would like to pose to the designers of 5th Edition this thought;  if you want exploration and interaction to have equal weight in a game,  then should they not also have similar diversity and opportunity for  advancement as combat? The last two editions have been based largely on  combat in terms of supplement materials. Even the core materials have  had lengthy chapters on combat oriented material in comparison to a mere  one or two on non-combat interactions. If these three pillars truly are  a new paradigm, then perhaps they should have equal development and  opportunities for the characters mechanically and not just at the GM's  discretion.


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## Lanefan (Feb 14, 2012)

hikaizer said:


> So I'd challenge people to think carefully about whether these stereotypes in Dungeons and Dragons gaming are really flaws in the system, or crutches that have come about because of player preconceptions. Cross-class skills from 3rd Edition were...not great in my opinion and I think Pathfinder handles skills a little more streamlined but the framework is much the same. It's an area which could use work, but I cannot really think of recent editions that have really prevented anyone from investing outside of the standard stereotype conventions of a class. It has usually just been at the cost of specialisation, be it in combat or not. But then again if your character is entirely focussed on squezing out the most  damage or spells as possible then perhaps that lack of social grace is  appropriate for the way they are played.



Part of the problem was that 3e in particular (in my experience, anyway) really rewarded a single-minded focus on specializing on the One Thing you did best, whatever that may have been; and if that is a player's background coming in to this discussion the preconceptions you refer to are pretty much hard-wired fact.

Lanefan


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## JamesonCourage (Feb 14, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Personally, I would prefer that they pay more attention to advising GMs how to set up and adjudicate situations that don't require either waiting or absurdity to work. But given their inability to write effective guidelines for skill challenges to date, despite three attempts (DMG, DMG2, Essentials) and despite the existence of plenty of good models (HeroWars/Quest, Maelstrom Storytelling, and to a lesser extent Burning Wheel), I think they will probably go for the "wait" option instead.



I sincerely hope that they do opt for the "wait" option. Then again, I also hope they include advice on more dramatist scene-framing.

That is, I prefer to let scenes unfold organically, and will have NPCs, settings, and so on interact with the PCs in the most "impartial" way I can. Some NPCs will attempt to engage the entire party, some will only talk to the smooth talkers, and others will actively find the rhetorically weaker members and engage them.

It depends on "what makes sense" to the setting, not the PCs. It's more "organic" in that sense than a more hands-on, dramatist "scene framing" approach that seeks to include and engage all members of the party. That will work for some groups, and thus advice for it should be included. As someone who prefers organic scenes over framing scenes, I'd like the game to accommodate that as well.

The issue arises in the form of character choice and class design. As a player, I think that if I choose to have no social grace (including intimidation and the like), it says something. It says that my interest in social situations is diminished with this character, or that I want to engage them and fail. Either way, aiming for poor social skills all-around says something, and I think that the system should be free enough to allow that.

To that end, mandating some form of competency means that certain wants of players are excluded. I can't play a character who doesn't understand social situations, and consistently performs poorly in them. I may still want to engage them, or I may want to skip the ball and wait outside the city or in my inn room. Either way, if I choose to skip social skills, it's for a reason, and baking some basic competency into the game precludes me from exploring that aspect of a character.

I think that certain classes should be set up to shine in certain areas (Bards socially, or Fighters in combat), as makes sense for the archetype. However, I do like Firelance's ideas on expanding in one of the three areas. Maybe you started out 2/1/1 (combat/exploration/social) as a Fighter, but as you level, you place more resources into social, going up to 2/1/2, then later on 2/1/3, 2/1/4, etc. I'll always start with a 2 in combat, but that's because of the archetype I chose.

I'd like the freedom to choose incompetency if it makes sense to the concept. Despite your seeming opinion that D&D may not be the best place to engage that sort of character, I think it's a very viable place to do so, and a fun, interesting, and informative place to do so.

While I respect your opinion, I'd much rather see players be able to create and explore conceptual areas that interest them than sacrifice that to some form a balance in all three. If I want a 4/1/1 and you want a 2/2/2, that's fine to me. Maybe hyper-specialization is harder to do, and I only get 5/1/1 (7 total) while you get 3/3/3 (9 total). That'd be fine with me, too.

What I want is a game that allows me to explore concepts that intrigue me conceptually, including incompetence. Weakness without a strength making up for it. In the Spiderman movie, Peter Parker isn't a particularly smooth talker, nor is he particularly intimidating. He also seems more crafty than tricky. He most certainly is the main character, and main protagonist, and they definitely use his social weakness to explore aspects of his character.

That's what I want. I want both strengths and weaknesses to tell me something about my character, including weaknesses on an entire area of character play. This includes combat, exploration, or social interaction. The game includes all three, and I might look forward to that aspect, even with a purposeful, glaring weakness to it. I'd like the option to have that weakness. As always, play what you like


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## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

hikaizer said:


> I'm not sure why people are so quick to rush to the  Fighter as an example of someone who cannot socially interact for  example. If you think about a fighter for a moment consider this;  fighters roam the world searching for adventure and treasure. As a  result a seasoned fighter should be at least somewhat world-wise.  They've certainly left the lands of their birth if they haven't left  their motherland outright. On the way they would have had to have  learned at least a little about the different cultures they passed  through and they tend to associate with the masses. If we consider the  average stereotypical image of a fighter, being the kind of man who  likes to frequent bars and taverns then they could even have a pulse on  the troubles of the commonfolk and even hear bits of politics. How much  more social exposure does the Rogue or Thief really have?



This is a good argument for letting fighters be good at Streetwise/Gather Information, I think (assuming we're framing this in terms of skills).



hikaizer said:


> I've played a  martial artist in a game set in a city of mages and still meaningfully  contributed without any particular investment into social skills. It  turns out climbing and acrobatics can be handy getting in and out of  places when buildings are really close together!



And this I would regard as an example of framing the situation so that a broader range of abilities can support a given pillar of play.


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## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

JC, I agree with most of your post (although have slightly different play preferences).



JamesonCourage said:


> As a player, I think that if I choose to have no social grace (including intimidation and the like), it says something. It says that my interest in social situations is diminished with this character, or that I want to engage them and fail. Either way, aiming for poor social skills all-around says something, and I think that the system should be free enough to allow that.
> 
> To that end, mandating some form of competency means that certain wants of players are excluded. I can't play a character who doesn't understand social situations, and consistently performs poorly in them. I may still want to engage them, or I may want to skip the ball and wait outside the city or in my inn room. Either way, if I choose to skip social skills, it's for a reason, and baking some basic competency into the game precludes me from exploring that aspect of a character.



See, this is the open question. In 3E I think it's probably not true that the fighter who has no social graces has been built that way for a reason. It's more that the mechanics make it inordinately hard to get a fighter with social graces.

4e has a similar, although perhaps lesser, issue - a fighter has to dig deep to find a decent CHA score (althoug arguably if you want to play a fighter with social graces in 4e, you should be playing a warlord ).

If players want to build PCs that sit scenes out, that's fine but probably second-best in a game based on sociality at the table and party play in the fiction.

If players want to build PCs whose impact on a scene is to fail in it, that raises the same sorts of issues that I mentioned upthread in reply to KM - you need guidelines to support GMs and players in doing this sort of thing. Traditionally D&D has not been good at this (and has had mechanics, adventure design etc all of which reinforce the importance of never failing any challenge if it's possible to avoid doing so).


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## Tony Vargas (Feb 14, 2012)

hanez said:


> For me to be able to create the characters that I want to play, I require the ability to sacrifice a bit of power in one pillar for a bit of power in the other.



This is an important point.  Customization and balance often seem at odds.  I guess one question is, why is it important to be /bad/ at something?  Are you being bad at it to fit a character concept, or are you being bad at it to be better at something else?  The former isn't in conflict with a balanced aproach - you can decline to take (or use) the full set of abilities your character 'should' get in order to meet a concept, and at worst, you're under-contributing a little, some of the time.  OTOH, if you're minimizing one area to maximize another - well, that's obvious, and how a lot of brokeness gets done.  

A high degree of customization could still be available with a blanced aproach, it's just customizeability within each pillar.  Say you want a character who is tounge-tied and uncomfortable in social situations.  You could trade out all capability in that area for superlative ability in exploration.  When exploration comes up, you dominate, and the rest of the party might as well go play angry birds; when social comes up, you're non-contributing, and others have to carry your dead weight.  Neither of those is a desireable state of affairs.  OTOH, you could take your retiring, inept character, and customize him social-aplicable abilities that don't involve being glib and charismatic.  He might have knowledges that can contribute or high insight or he might use the same keen perception that makes him good at finding traps to notice details with useful implications (even if he has to take someone aside to nervously convey his insights because he's so flustered).  In-concept, balanced, and contributing - and not overpowered in another bailiwick.


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## JamesonCourage (Feb 14, 2012)

pemerton said:


> See, this is the open question. In 3E I think it's probably not true that the fighter who has no social graces has been built that way for a reason.



I don't actually remember saying it was true. Or commenting on 3.Xe or 4e at all.



pemerton said:


> If players want to build PCs that sit scenes out, that's fine but probably second-best in a game based on sociality at the table and party play in the fiction.



My play experience does conflict with yours here. None of my players mind sitting parts out, and it's active on their part. That is, I don't stop them from participating, but they make characters with the idea that they'll miss certain areas on purpose. I currently have a necromancer PC in my game who skips going into (all but one) city, and stays outside instead. In the past, I've had PCs in my game who are completely trash at combat (7 hit points at hit die 10, no base attack, defense bonus, weapon/armor proficiencies, and a "coward" flaw when it came to demons, who were currently invading the world).



pemerton said:


> If players want to build PCs whose impact on a scene is to fail in it, that raises the same sorts of issues that I mentioned upthread in reply to KM - you need guidelines to support GMs and players in doing this sort of thing. Traditionally D&D has not been good at this (and has had mechanics, adventure design etc all of which reinforce the importance of never failing any challenge if it's possible to avoid doing so).



I agree that _advice_ is good, but not necessarily guidelines. Additionally, overcoming challenges is good if you're seeking to "beat" the challenge. Failing at a social interaction because of poor social skills is good is you're seeking to explore the character concept of "social outcast/misfit", or the like.

It just depends on what you want out of the game. The "challenge that is meant to be overcome" is to get your way socially. If you've purposefully made a PC that is bad, you're not trying to "overcome" that social "challenge"; you're trying to engage it from a certain entertaining angle which likely results in failure, and being forced into a basic competency in that area undermines that. As always, play what you like


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## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> overcoming challenges is good if you're seeking to "beat" the challenge. Failing at a social interaction because of poor social skills is good is you're seeking to explore the character concept of "social outcast/misfit", or the like.
> 
> It just depends on what you want out of the game.



Well, sure, but mechanics aren't irrelevant here. In AD&D, for example, the only way to gain XP and treasure, at least according to the published rules, is to steal loot from creatures (whom you may or may not have to kill first). On the (not unreasonable) assumption that a player wants to advance his/her PC, this makes it hard to deliberately engage the fiction with the aim of failing.

Contrast Burning Wheel, where advancement _requires_ confronting challenges at which your PC will almost certainly fail.

Adventure design also matters. If WotC want to be supporting PC builds that aren't competent at all 3 pillars, and will be failing if they participate in a category of challenge, that affects the way modules, for example, are written. Historically, D&D modules have been built on a "success" assumption, not a "participation even if fail" assumption - which is quite a different approach to presenting a scenario.

Conversely, if the goal of D&D remains to support players aiming at success via their PCs, then I think WotC should focus on meaningful contribution to all 3 pillars as the default design. Those who want to sit out still can, and those who want to drift the game to support participation-even-if-fail will have to tweak things a bit, much as they currently do in relation to combat (or skill challenges, presumably, for some 4e groups).


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 14, 2012)

Personally like making sacrifices in one area for strengths in another. Having a combat weak character who excelled in non combat circumstances never bothered me (and vice versa). In fact it adds a lot to my experience of D&D.


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## Mishihari Lord (Feb 14, 2012)

I'm seeing a lot of excluded middle here between "everyone is just as good in each of the three areas" and "everyone is a specialist in each area and awful in the other two."  

My only criteria for "balance" have always been

1)  Everyone has something useful to do in all almost all situations

2)  Everyone gets some spotlight time when they get to shine

It's entirely possible to follow these while, frex, having a thief be good at stealth but weak at combat.  As long as the thief gets _something_ useful to do in combat (even if he's not a star here like the fighter is) and as long as he gets to be a star in stealth/exploration, it's fine.  It's then the DM's job to arrange the encounters so everyone gets a reasonable amount of star time.


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## JamesonCourage (Feb 14, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Well, sure, but mechanics aren't irrelevant here. In AD&D, for example, the only way to gain XP and treasure, at least according to the published rules, is to steal loot from creatures (whom you may or may not have to kill first). On the (not unreasonable) assumption that a player wants to advance his/her PC, this makes it hard to deliberately engage the fiction with the aim of failing.
> 
> Contrast Burning Wheel, where advancement _requires_ confronting challenges at which your PC will almost certainly fail.



That's true, and a good point. My RPG rewards story advancement (what happened this session?), as well as danger (how much danger were you in?), on a scale of 1 to 10. This helps keep things proactive, it helps keep risks being taken over and over, and so on.

So, my game would give just as much XP for dooming a town as saving it, even if it's from failure. That might sound weird to many people, I suppose. At any rate, XP rewards (and like issues) should be looked at.



pemerton said:


> Adventure design also matters. If WotC want to be supporting PC builds that aren't competent at all 3 pillars, and will be failing if they participate in a category of challenge



See, this isn't what I've been talking about, but maybe that hasn't been clear. I've been talking about players who _choose_ to make their character largely incompetent in one area (combat, exploration, or social interaction). They can make the classes support all three, for example, but if a player _decides_ to change it, they should be able to.

They've mentioned having "base" builds, with options to swap out features for other abilities (such as powers). They could apply that to what I'm talking about with no issue whatsoever. However, I mentioned "baking competency into the class" and "forced competency" in those areas. I'm specifically referring to something that _cannot_ be swapped out, like the proposal of some ("you get one combat, exploration, and social interaction ability at each level"). That's fine to many people, I'm sure, but if it's forced, then it's a problem for me, as I've outlined in this thread.



pemerton said:


> Conversely, if the goal of D&D remains to support players aiming at success via their PCs, then I think WotC should focus on meaningful contribution to all 3 pillars as the default design. Those who want to sit out still can, and those who want to drift the game to support participation-even-if-fail will have to tweak things a bit, much as they currently do in relation to combat (or skill challenges, presumably, for some 4e groups).



At the base level of a given class, I agree. I just think there should be ways to swap out that base level of competency. Of course, Fighters will still have a level of competency in combat that couldn't be swapped out, just as Bards might with social interaction. Archetype and all that. As always, play what you like


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## Tallifer (Feb 14, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I don't want to pass judgement on your gnome PC, but neither the dapper assassin nor the dumb muscle strikes me as ideal PCs for an RPG based on the so-called 3 pillars. If the dapper assassin is in a melee, something has gone wrong. If the dumb muscle is trying to make friends at the ball, likewise something has gone wrong. (In fiction, the dumb muscle generally would be a sidekick or a hencman.)




I am not sure I understand you. Are you saying that the assassin should completely avoid the fight and the fighter should completely avoid the ball? Does that mean that the dungeon master should just have those players play Nintendo while the dungeon delve or the ball occurs?


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## Grazzt (Feb 14, 2012)

Mishihari Lord said:


> I'm seeing a lot of excluded middle here between "everyone is just as good in each of the three areas" and "everyone is a specialist in each area and awful in the other two."
> 
> My only criteria for "balance" have always been
> 
> ...




Agree. Not everyone has to be in the spotlight for everything all the time. Let the fighter shine in combat doing what he does best. Let the rogue shine when the party is trying to figure out how to navigate the giant chessboard room without springing the trap. And so on...


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## Alaxk Knight of Galt (Feb 14, 2012)

Oni said:


> For me personally, as long as combat is quick and doesn't dominate play time it makes balancing between different areas of play seem feasible, and it no longer requires that everyone be equally good at any one area, just that they have enough baseline competence to contribute in a meaningful way even when it's not their moment to shine.




Someone cover Oni for me, this post strikes at the heart of the problem.

When combat consumes most of the game time, PCs need to have equivalent combat output.  

When combat consumes a third of the playtime (split equally between Combat, Roleplaying, and Exploration), PCs do not need to have equivalent combat output.  A balanced game will give the Roleplayers, the Explorers, and the Fighters a chance to shine at their choosen area of expertise.

The rules need to support this though.  You can't have every feat, spell, theme, prestige class, etc be tailored towards combat.  These need to be split between the three pillars.

It's perfectly okay for a DM to say "the game will have a heavy combat focus" (once upon a time, this was called a Hack and Slash game).  Likewise, a DM can inform players that this will be a heavy social or exploration game.  The game should be able to cater to different playstyles.  A DM should inform the party of this so that the players can make informed choices.

It's amazing what defining the Pillars does for game design (at the WotC level and at a DM / Game level).


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## Libramarian (Feb 14, 2012)

Zaruthustran said:


> Essentially: my choice of how I participate during combat should not impact my ability to participate out of combat.




A nice way to balance classes and keep everybody engaged all the time, without making the classes feel mechanically same-y, is to empower the players to make plenty of contributions straight from their brain rather than shunting everything through mechanics.

i.e. player skill/creative problem solving/roleplaying without social mechanics.

I think upping this as a proportion of gameplay really helps smooth out and generally lessen the importance of balance, both PC to PC and PCs to encounter.

It's like a secret sauce that makes just about anything palatable. Ranch dressing.

The constant discussion about balance is kind of strange to me. It makes me realize just how much of the gameplay in my D&D (rules+group) is pretty class-agnostic and communal.

The players interact and make plans together constantly. Like when it comes to the MU using their spells, it's not uncommon for the group Fighter to give them a suggestion.

"Hey let's use your Floating Disc to float over the ooze."

In which case they share the "kudos" in a smooth, cooperative way.

I mean I guess I practically do agree that everyone should be able to contribute all the time. But at the same time, I really get turned off by mechanical samey-ness and "reskinning". I just don't think it's necessary.


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## BobTheNob (Feb 14, 2012)

Just a quick note to people who love to post those "Someone said something I disagree with so Im going to micro respond to every point he made" threads that just go on for ever. In a forum, the whole point is to get your point across, and generally if your post doesnt fit on a computer screen (i.e. its too long) half the audience wont even read it.

If you want people reading your post, keep it short


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## Li Shenron (Feb 14, 2012)

The _true _danger of the Three Pillars of D&D is ignoring one or two of them and focus only on the third.

There's way too many people obsessed with combat rules, asking for 5e to deliver the ultimately balanced, cool, "dynamic" (sic) or in other words perfect combat system. Well frankly, if you haven't found satisfaction in the 100+ combat systems that all the RPG publishing companies have put out in the last few decades, chances are that you won't get it this time either. 

There is also some indidiously common belief that we cannot make our own combat rules (or at least modifications) and we have to rely on professional designers, while we are all so self-confident that we can rely on our own brilliance to handle the other two pillars, especially the one related to the storytelling and roleplaying. Unfortunately in my 10+ years of DMing I've learned that it's much harder to craft a memorable tale or intrigue than a great battle.


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## BobTheNob (Feb 14, 2012)

Grazzt said:


> Agree. Not everyone has to be in the spotlight for everything all the time. Let the fighter shine in combat doing what he does best. Let the rogue shine when the party is trying to figure out how to navigate the giant chessboard room without springing the trap. And so on...



Yes yes yes yes yes.

D&D used to be about this. Characters shined in different ways. Sure, the rogue was pretty naf in a fight, but thats not where he shined. The fighter sucked come sneaky time, but thats not his stick either.

By the time 4e came along, roles had changed to "What do you do in combat?" which (to me) lost the point. EVERYONE did combat, EVERYONE did skills and NO-ONE was truely unique.

In a system where everyone can contribute to everything characters stop being unique.


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## Libramarian (Feb 14, 2012)

pemerton said:


> A bit of speculation: both KM and Ahnehnois seems to be equating "equally able to contribute" with "equally likely to win", as if "winning" had some predetermined value. I want a game where what counts as "winning" is determined by the players, not the GM, and is worked out in the course of play; and where all the players are, via their PCs, able to have a meaningful impact on any given situation.
> 
> Consider the PC who can woo maidens, and the PC who can scare them. It's not the case that both of these PCs are equally good at "winning" - if the first is wanting to woo the maiden, then the scary one is likely (everything else being equal) to be an obstacle to that goal. The point is that both are able to make a meaningful difference in an encounter with maidens. Which is what I want out of an RPG.




This just doesn't sound like it has any connection to D&D at all. Like it would be impossible to tell from this that you posted this in a D&D related forum.

You're not even using DM instead of GM.


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## billd91 (Feb 14, 2012)

Tallifer said:


> I am not sure I understand you. Are you saying that the assassin should completely avoid the fight and the fighter should completely avoid the ball? Does that mean that the dungeon master should just have those players play Nintendo while the dungeon delve or the ball occurs?




I'm kind of wondering about that too. As I see it, these are characters *out of their best element* not situations in which something has gone wrong. And these are situations that sometimes generate the best long term stories. So I'd agree that these situations can be meaningful, though not because the PCs have any mechanic that can help them make it meaningful. Often, it's because they *lack* a mechanic to make it positively as opposed to negatively meaningful.


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## Wik (Feb 14, 2012)

My quick response, before slogging through four pages of threads, is that the three pillars are bang on for my style of play.  However, they are NOT bang on if you have a game that favours one game type over the other two.

If you have a D&D game that is a string of combat encounters, it weights in favour of combat classes.  Likewise, a strong exploration game will favour the rangers and rogues.  And so on, and so forth.

However, a game wherein different classes have different strengths in entirely different arenas is a good thing.  Provided the game is built in such a way that it doesn't get stuck in one scene forever (ie, no three hour combats), it is perfectly fine to allow characters that can't fight, but are great at exploration or RP.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 14, 2012)

Grazzt said:
			
		

> Agree. Not everyone has to be in the spotlight for everything all the time. Let the fighter shine in combat doing what he does best. Let the rogue shine when the party is trying to figure out how to navigate the giant chessboard room without springing the trap. And so on...




This plays into the "minor challenges" aspect of the game. 

It's fine for someone to sit out a combat (or an exploration, or a social interaction) if it only takes 2 or 3 die rolls before it's over. It's not so fine if it takes a frickin' hour like 4e combat does.

In zooming out to make the game more about the entire adventure rather than about the each individual challenge, it's fine to have some parts of the adventure that don't feature everyone, as long as the challenges don't take up huge chunks of time.

Sometimes you do want a pretty epic encounter featuring the whole party, though, and for those, it's important to have that minimum competency level. When the big fight against the big dragon comes at the end of the dungeon, even the theif can meaningfully contribute -- even if they can't contribute AS MUCH as the fighter can. I'd also want the thief to be REQUIRED to contribute: as much as the fighter is the combat master, and will be achieving most of the successes here, he can't do it himself. He needs his friends who aren't so good at combat to come help out. 

Similarly, the bard might need her friends who aren't so good at social skills to come help out in the big peace treaty signing. And the theif might need her friends who aren't the best at traversing dangerous territory to blaze a trail anyway. Big encounters should use all the members of the party, and all the members of the party should have some basic method of contribution (there is no Always Fail, and no one character will ever Always Succeed). 

This directly hews to the amount of time the activity takes up at the table. I don't want to spend an hour -- or even really a HALF hour! -- in combat. Most of the time, I want to spend about five, and in a big climax, fifteen minutes is still probably fine. In a game where you don't take up huge chunks of time doing one single activity, you have a lot of flexibility to make some characters not so great at a given activity, without making them feel entirely boned as players (which is why it's important for DMs to communicate when they're going to focus almost entirely on one thing or another: so that players can pick characters that won't be poor picks for that focus).


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## Tony Vargas (Feb 14, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Any robust character archetype involves strengths and weaknesses inherent in the concept. For example, your typical "Dumb Muscle" character is very strong, but not so smart.



Also more stereotype than archetype.  A PC, even a barbarian, shouldn't just be 'dumb muscle,' leave that shallow concept to all the namless 'Human Thug Minion 5's out there.

And 'not so smart' (low INT) gets in the way of social & exploration, how, exactly?  Social skills are CHA, you can be dim but charming or even a natural leader (I'll leave it to the reader to fill in a presidential example, here).  Nature, Perception, and Dungeoneering are all WIS.  A not-so-bright dwarven fighter could be an expert dungeoneer, a not-so-bright barbarian could be virtually at one with the wilderness.




> One of my current characters is a gnome artificer who is great with machines, but who can't figure out people. I deliberately didn't invest a THING into her social skills, and it's great fun when I am forced into a social situation with her.



Social challenges can still be contributed to in other ways.  What if your artificer makes a delightful gift (bribe) for the more socially adept characters to present?  What if he rigs up a magical spying gizmo to get information prior to a negotiation?  He can still 'not get' people while helping out in one way or another.

The 'pillars' are a nice concept, and they're really quite broad, 'social' could include a lot of things besides being charming.



> To not be able to model those weaknesses -- to be unable to make them "fun failures" -- would be a problem for a system.
> 
> So, weaknesses are _desirable_, from a character-building standpoint.



Then think of class abilities as self-serve, you don't have to take /all/ of them.  You can choose to play a weak character because you want to choose a weak character, but that shouldn't force everyone with the same class to have the same weakness.



> The challenge, from a game-design standpoint, is to make the weakness notable, without unintentionally crippling a character.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## IanB (Feb 14, 2012)

I think my problem with the OP's take is that it seems to assume that if two characters aren't equally powerful, that the less-powerful one is not contributing. There's a huge amount of space between 'contributing' and 'useless'.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 14, 2012)

Tony Vargas said:
			
		

> Also more stereotype than archetype.
> 
> 
> > *shrug* I see nothing wrong with the character. I'd welcome it at my tables and play it as my character. It has an illustrious history in multiple forms accross many types of media. It's got a TV Tropes page. It's got _Princess Bride_ pedigree. Someone who wants to play that kind of character should be able to have that weakness represented and relevant during play.
> ...


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## Spatula (Feb 14, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> That doesn't make my argument a strawman. A strawman argument is a deliberately weak, insincere argument posited just for the purpose of knocking it down. Since I actually *do* think that's less than satisfying, it's kind of impossible for it to be a strawman.



The idea that "everyone is good at everything" is a bit of a strawman, because no one is really proposing that. Although I suppose that depends on how one defines "good at" and "everything".



Kamikaze Midget said:


> But what use should a druid be in an urban intrigue campaign?



While it's not an ideal setting for a druid, I would find that being able to befriend and communicate with animals is probably pretty damn useful in such a campaign. Not to mention the ability to detect poison, control the weather, and change shape into a mouse or bird.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> I think it's pretty unsatisfying to force everyone to be equally competent at all areas of every kind of challenge.



Again, who is proposing this? Equal at *all *areas of *every *kind of challenge? Here's a trap! Oh good, everyone is equally capable of locating and disarming it!


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## Lanefan (Feb 15, 2012)

Spatula said:


> The idea that "everyone is good at everything" is a bit of a strawman, because no one is really proposing that. Although I suppose that depends on how one defines "good at" and "everything".



Reading between some lines, it seems there's a segment of the population here that want all characters to be able to (about evenly) function in combat, and (about evenly) function in social situations.  However...


> Again, who is proposing this? Equal at *all *areas of *every *kind of challenge? Here's a trap! Oh good, everyone is equally capable of locating and disarming it!



...I haven't seen anyone yet asking for all characters to be able to (about evenly) function during the exploration part of the game.  Odd, that.

The question is whether such relatively-even functionality in combat and social-RP is desireable for the game or not.  On the small scale I say certainly not - it's a fact of life that not everybody will be useful all the time and that there's going to be (ideally short) periods where you just let yourself be entertained by what the others are doing; knowing you'll get your chance later.  On the large scale, over the course of several adventures, then yes: everyone should be able to do their bit.

That said, I still think social interaction should be up to the player.

Lanefan


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## pemerton (Feb 15, 2012)

Tallifer said:


> I am not sure I understand you. Are you saying that the assassin should completely avoid the fight and the fighter should completely avoid the ball? Does that mean that the dungeon master should just have those players play Nintendo while the dungeon delve or the ball occurs?



One option I suggested upthread was that PC + henchman might be a version of the "three pillars" strategy - so at the ball the player primarily plays his/her assassin, while the muscle waits outside guarding the carriage and keeping an eye out for enemy assasins, while in the dungeon the muscle takes the lead and fights the orcs, while the assassin hangs out in the middle and maybe kibbitzes with the mapper.

A different option might be for the GM to tailor adventures more closely to the areas of competence of his/her players' PCs, and/or for the players to work more closely together to build a cohesive party. I think this is a big issue in D&D, because perhaps more than any other RPG it has such a strong emphasis on party play.

I have seen games - mostly using 2nd ed AD&D - in which players build dapper assassins and then run them through the GM's dungeon crawls, or in which players build dumb muscle and have GMs who send them to ball after ball, but in my experience this tends to towards the dysfunctional end of the roleplaying spectrum.



billd91 said:


> I'm kind of wondering about that too. As I see it, these are characters *out of their best element* not situations in which something has gone wrong.



Perhaps. It's a matter of degree. And of mechanics - for example, it's fairly easy to envision mechanics in which the dapper assassin, caught in melee, is able to prevail through wit and deftness. Such mechanics probably would have a high metagame component, however, meaning they're probably not going to be part of core D&Dnext.

But when I think of 3 pillars PCs, and especially ones that don't rely so heavily on metagame mechanics, I think of Conan, Aragorn, Merlin, The Grey Mouser, or if I go outside fantasy tropes then a slew of superheroes, James Bond, etc. Whereas dumb muscle and dapper assassins seem to me just not to be 3 pillars archetypes. If the game is really about the 3 pillars, then I'm not sure it should be going out of its way to include dapper assassins and dumb muscle among its PC build options (certainly not in the core).



billd91 said:


> these are situations that sometimes generate the best long term stories. So I'd agree that these situations can be meaningful, though not because the PCs have any mechanic that can help them make it meaningful. Often, it's because they *lack* a mechanic to make it positively as opposed to negatively meaningful.



I agree that the occasional quirky failure can be meaningful. If these generate the best long term stories, though, then I want to have a second look at whether the RPG's mechanics are really doing a good job of supporting the sort of play it claims to be supporting.


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## pemerton (Feb 15, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Sometimes you do want a pretty epic encounter featuring the whole party, though, and for those, it's important to have that minimum competency level. When the big fight against the big dragon comes at the end of the dungeon, even the theif can meaningfully contribute -- even if they can't contribute AS MUCH as the fighter can. I'd also want the thief to be REQUIRED to contribute: as much as the fighter is the combat master, and will be achieving most of the successes here, he can't do it himself. He needs his friends who aren't so good at combat to come help out.



To date, D&D encounter design has taken it for granted that in combat everyone will take part. The technique it has used to achieve this is (i) to have all the PCs at more-or-less the same place on the map, and (ii) to have the monsters threatening everyone at that place on the map.

It would be nice to see techniques a bit more sophisticated than that, that go beyond "Oh, and there's a complexity 1 skill challenge hazard that the rogue need to deal with."

To date, D&D social encounter design has given no thought at all to how all the PCs should be incorporated, and how the GM should adjudicate that. If your dragon example is to generalise across all 3 pillars - and I think that it should - then the designers need to think about action resolution mechanics, and advice to GMs on designing and adjudicating encounters at least as hard as they are thinking about PC build options.



Tony Vargas said:


> Social challenges can still be contributed to in other ways.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The 'pillars' are a nice concept, and they're really quite broad, 'social' could include a lot of things besides being charming.



Yes (and couldn't XP you, sorry). Again, this goes to the designers giving GM's decent guidelines on how to set up and adjudicate situations in the social and exploration pillars, so as to make PCs useful without requiring them to break type.



Tony Vargas said:


> A balanced game doesn't force a choice on you, it allows choices.  You can still decline something thematically inapropriate even though it might be mechanically viable.  When you're dealing with imbalances, OTOH, you're pushed into inapropriate choices that might be strictly superior to more reasonable ones.  You shouldn't have to play a self-buffing cleric and try to disguise the clericness just because you really want a strong melee fighter who's also competent in social situations and can contribute some when exploring.



Another excellent point.

A related question: in 4e, to play a socially competent fighter you really have to build a warlord. Do you think this is objectionable in the same way as your cleric example, or should we just think of the warlord as the socially competent subclass of fighter?


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## pemerton (Feb 15, 2012)

Libramarian said:


> The constant discussion about balance is kind of strange to me. It makes me realize just how much of the gameplay in my D&D (rules+group) is pretty class-agnostic and communal.
> 
> The players interact and make plans together constantly. Like when it comes to the MU using their spells, it's not uncommon for the group Fighter to give them a suggestion.



My table is fairly communal in the sort of way you describe, but I still think there is something important about being able to impact on a situation via your mechancial resources as a player (which will typically be via your PC, even if it's a bit indirect like the lazy warlord or via your PC's henchman or summoned creature).



Libramarian said:


> This just doesn't sound like it has any connection to D&D at all. Like it would be impossible to tell from this that you posted this in a D&D related forum.
> 
> You're not even using DM instead of GM.



I didn't know there was some minimum WotC-trademarked quotient for posts. If I say "beholder", "mind flayer" and "yuan-ti" all at once will that be an improvement?

On the point of winning vs other goals of play - in D&D that goes back at least to a whole heap of non-winning focused Dragon articles in the early-to-mid 80s, and Oriental Adventures as an official AD&D supplement. On the wooing and scaring of maidens, there is a nymph encounter in The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, and probably others in modules of comparable vintage, and similar sort of stuff in Beyond the Crystal Cave, I think. And that's all before we get to 2nd ed AD&D.


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## Tony Vargas (Feb 15, 2012)

pemerton said:


> A related question: in 4e, to play a socially competent fighter you really have to build a warlord. Do you think this is objectionable in the same way as your cleric example



Well.  Yes.



> , or should we just think of the warlord as the socially competent subclass of fighter?



I think the Warlord deserves to be it's own class.  But, if it were rolled up into the fighter, and you had defender fighters (knights), leader fighters (warlords), striker fighters (slayers) and controller fighters (soldiers), it would be nice if each of them, not just the warlord, got to be competent out of combat.

Same goes for all characters of all classes.  You're adventuring, you should be able to handle adedventuring.  That means everybody contributes meaningfully in combat, when exploring dungeons or caverns or enchanted woods or whatever, or when interacting in adventuring situations (which can be pretty varied, obviously, but might reasonably not include some of the more obtuse 'social' scenarios).  If you can't handle yourself in a fight, or scaling a cavern wall, or around important people, you shouldn't have become an adventurer, because you're going to get yourself killed (stabbed, defenestrated or executed as the case may be).

A mage may deal with the cavern wall by having feather fall on tap, or the dapper con man handle himself in a fight using feints and sneak attacks, or the knight-champion fighter might rely on his reputation over social graces, wit and charm.  Each class is different, but each class remains viable.  Balance within each of the three pillars is really no different from balance in combat (which 4e did well).  Balanced <> identical.  (Very different then the 'everyone is exactly as good at doing everything in every arena' straw man that keeps getting repeated in this thread).


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## Libramarian (Feb 15, 2012)

pemerton said:


> On the point of winning vs other goals of play - in D&D that goes back at least to a whole heap of non-winning focused Dragon articles in the early-to-mid 80s, and Oriental Adventures as an official AD&D supplement. On the wooing and scaring of maidens, there is a nymph encounter in The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, and probably others in modules of comparable vintage, and similar sort of stuff in Beyond the Crystal Cave, I think. And that's all before we get to 2nd ed AD&D.




I'm sure it does. But you remarked in the GNS thread that Gygaxian gamism remains the most popular D&D mode of play today.

It would be a little _gauche_ of me to go over to a Sorcerer or Dogs in the Vineyard forum and complain about the lack of support for this.

It's just unfortunate how easy it is to stigmatize gamism in general.

I have one player who is just a stereotypical case of someone who claims that they play for "the story" and that they like "deep characterization" when in play it's the most obvious thing in the world that what they like is beating the scenarios that I as DM give them.

He even plays Call of Cthulhu like that (learning to run CoC in a satisfyingly gamist fashion I think made me into a much better D&D DM. It's like weightlifting for gamist DMing. But I digress.)

If he were reading this thread, he might agree with you (sounds good!), but he doesn't know his own preferences.

It's not your fault, it's just unfortunate.

I find your discourse poisonous and want to point this out. But I cannot actually blame you for it. It is your prerogative to argue for the D&D that you want.


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## hikaizer (Feb 15, 2012)

Part of the problem is whether you plan for every character to be able to contribute equally in any given encounter, or whether you balance over an adventure. You do risk homogenising gameplay if you focus into too small a level of detail in this. The real trick would be finding the right point to try and balance this at. This is as much a responsibility of the GM as it is of the system. We've seen at least some annecdotal evidence of games which have balanced things out better in previous editions already. It's important for the system to provide a good foundation for the GM to use, but it's up to the GM to actually utilise it. A system that builds your adventure for you entirely risks feeling a little hollow I fear.

As for Fighters and social encounters again...well it's generally _not fun_ if someone can do *everything*. Part of what makes a gaming group fit together nicely from my years of experience has been that everyone has a role that they can excel in. This is because people like having something they're good at and can make their own often. Not only this but when people excel in similar areas they begin to compete for the spotlight in the session. Specialisation is a good thing in DnD and again it's something previous editions (perhaps ignoring 4e a little) have tried to emphasise. Should classes be allowed to specialise into other pillars than their typical focus? I personally think that would be great. Certainly exploring the possibilities for each pillar for each class would be a creative challenge, but if this is a core design paradigm for 5e wouldn't it be worthwhile?


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## Ratskinner (Feb 15, 2012)

*History, it fails us now*

I think part of the problem here is the historical baggage of some of the classes. As discussed in another thread "Fighter" is an awfully broad brush. I also think that "Balance" is highly overrated, and trying to enforce it through the rules does too much to "lock down" playstyle. 

I think that all the classes should have _options_ in all three arenas, but that exercising those options should be up to the player. I also, think/hope/believe that the "themes" we've heard so much about may be the mechanic that lets people do that for the social sphere.

I'm not so sure about all the dungeoneering/exploration abilities. Historically, those are a province reserved (somewhat) for the roguish types. Although, the more I think about it, the more that can/could be wrapped into themes as well. So "Thief" might be something that any class can be. We know "Warlord" is currently a theme, I believe. However, we also know that they want all the classes from all the previous PHB1s. Maybe some of them are getting cross-moted into themes?


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## pemerton (Feb 15, 2012)

hikaizer said:


> We've seen at least some annecdotal evidence of games which have balanced things out better in previous editions already.



What do you have in mind here?



hikaizer said:


> It's important for the system to provide a good foundation for the GM to use, but it's up to the GM to actually utilise it. A system that builds your adventure for you entirely risks feeling a little hollow I fear.



I'm not sure what you have in mind here, either. I can think of at least two possibilities. (1) the system only balances over the adventure, not the encounter, so it "prebuilds" your adventures for you, in that they must have a certain minimum number and spread of encounters. (2) the system only balances if each encounter (or, at least, each major encounter) is equally open to contributions from all PCs, and therefore it "prebuilds" your major encounters for you, by requiring them to fit the specialties of the PCs for whom you are building it.

Problem (1) can arise if some PCs can nova and others can't (the 15-min day issue). It can also arise if some encounters are better suited to only some PCs, and so an adventure without the right mix won't balance the spotlight properly.

Problem (2) can arise if each PC is strong in each pillar, but has differing ways of being strong. Presumably it won't arise if each PC is strong in each pillar in the same way, but this would then cause the homogoneity problem.


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## Anaxander (Feb 15, 2012)

I think this post really gets to the essence of the necessity for both "balance" and "variety" between characters:



Mishihari Lord said:


> I'm seeing a lot of excluded middle here between "everyone is just as good in each of the three areas" and "everyone is a specialist in each area and awful in the other two."
> 
> My only criteria for "balance" have always been
> 
> ...




Mechanical "balance" then does not mean that all characters contribute equally to a (combat, skill, social) encounter. It means that characters have an equal opportunity* to shine throughout the narrative of a session / adventure / campaign, while still feeling important and part of the team when they are not shining.

In order to back up "having fun in the game" players have to feel both "balanced" and "different". 
*Balanced* in the sense that a cleric is not, in general**, a better fighter than the fighter and the wizard a better manipulator than a socially specialized rogue. 
*Different *in the sense that not all characters are created equal and are good in overcoming any type of challenge. This is a good thing because it creates character variety and encourages team work.

In order to create balance and difference between players, we need not only fluff, but also mechanics to back up this feeling in play.

I would argue that "balance" is diachronic rather than synchronic. This means that the feeling of balance should emerge after a certain time of play. Ideally this would be within the time frame of one session of play, but within the context of a broader adventure or campaign there are entire sessions where one character is shining more than others.

From this perspective, judging balance between characters synchronically, i.e. on the basis of a single encounter, is in most cases impossible because no single encounter can contain all different levels and domains of play and will inevitably play more into the strengths of character X than Y.

To a large extent this feeling of balance is created by the DM, who creates narrative opportunities for players to let their characters shine. But the ability of players to actually use these opportunities and stand in the spotlight is determined by mechanics. Mechanics should support the ability of all characters to do something relevant in any circumstance, while at the same time ensuring the ability of all characters to be generally "the best" in specific circumstances. *This means that mechanical variety and difference between characters is not a threat to balance, but a requirement.*

To phrase it differently, characters should have some options which enable them to participate or contribute in each of the three pillars, but they should be better at one of the pillars, and perhaps "the best" at a subdomain of a pillar.

In summary: the DM should ensure that throughout a sessions, adventure and/or campaign equal opportunities exist for any player to put his character in the spotlight. This is the real balancing act of the game.
Mechanics ensure that (1) a player can make good use of this opportunity through the "difference" of his character and that his "moment" is not "stolen" by other players whose characters easily emulate the char's specialization; (2) that other players are not sidelined, but still contribute to the encounter.


* Of course, a DM can only create opportunities for PLAYERS. If a player chooses to play a "social" heavy character but is an awkward roleplayer, it's entirely possible he"misses out on his moments to shine. It's the same scenario with a player creating a fighter with a lot of tactical feats, but who isn't able to make good use of the battleground setup the DM offers.

** In general is a key word here. A cleric may be very well able to call on her god to grant her superhuman strength and beat the fighter on his own game - but this should be the exception, not the norm. A wizard succeeding in casting charm person *is* more effective than the rogue with maxed diplomacy skills, but this is not a continuous, reliable ability like the rogue's social talent.


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## pemerton (Feb 15, 2012)

Libramarian said:


> I find your discourse poisonous and want to point this out.



Don't hold back!



Libramarian said:


> I have one player who is just a stereotypical case of someone who claims that they play for "the story" and that they like "deep characterization" when in play it's the most obvious thing in the world that what they like is beating the scenarios that I as DM give them.
> 
> He even plays Call of Cthulhu like that (learning to run CoC in a satisfyingly gamist fashion I think made me into a much better D&D DM. It's like weightlifting for gamist DMing. But I digress.)
> 
> ...



I would agree that I'm not responsible for the lack of self-knowledge of one of your players whom I assume I have never met or otherwise interacted with.



Libramarian said:


> you remarked in the GNS thread that Gygaxian gamism remains the most popular D&D mode of play today.



I think it's the single most prominent approach on these boards. I don't have a view on whether it's the most popular mode of play more generally, or even the most popular on these boards. I assume that Encounters and Lair Assault are pretty popular, or why would WotC run them? And they're not very Gygaxian.



Libramarian said:


> It's just unfortunate how easy it is to stigmatize gamism in general.



Who's stigmatising gamism? I didn't say anything about gamism in this thread. In the recent long GNS thread on General I defended the centrality of gamism to D&D against the arguments of the OP that gamism is a deviant or secondary form of RPGing.

Part of the complaint about 3E fighters having no social skills is driven by gamist concerns. There is an arena of challenge in which fighters are hosed not through bad play, or even bad PC building, but by unfair limitations in the PC build mechanics themselves.

If you're objecting to the idea that some PCs might be good at wooing maidens, others at scaring them, I think this is analogous - in the social domain - to some PCs being good in melee, others in archery. The latter has, for years, been creating more complex and dynamic game play as the players have to develop a plan of action that brings their divergent capacities to bear while not getting beaten by their enemies. Whereas it is notorious that D&D social interaction - especially in its 3E form - is plagued by the problem of everyone deferring to the "face" PC. One way to get rid of this problem is to make everyone be able to be "the face". Which is then seen to threaten homogeneity. Which can, in turn, be avoided if different PCs have different "faces" - eg some nice, others scary. Which also then opens up a scope for interesting social play somewhat on a par with the existing interesting tactical dynamics of combat.

I'm sure there are other ways to design a gamist system around the three pillars, but the above strikes me as one obvious approach.



Libramarian said:


> It would be a little _gauche_ of me to go over to a Sorcerer or Dogs in the Vineyard forum and complain about the lack of support for this.



I'm confused. The only thing that I've said there is a lack of support for is how to run skill challenges. And I think that's a legitimate complaint, given that they are meant to be core to action resolution in 4e. As a mechanic, they're obviously derived from other "extended contest/scene resolution" mechanics in games like HeroWars/Quest and Maelstrom Storytelling. In fact, the 4e DMG 2 has Robin Laws regurgitate a whole lot of stuff from HeroQuest revised, but unfortunately, it is not adjusted to fit the 4e approaches to encounter design and action resolution (which are different from HeroQuest in some important ways) and is therefore close to useless for the 4e GM.

There are other obvious points at which 4e draws on other contemporary games for ideas and advice. Save My Game, for example, in a column last year advised using "Let It Ride" in 4e.

One thing that's interesting, though, is that many of these games _don't_ emphasise party play in the same way as D&D does, and therefore don't face quite the same issues in respect of "3 pillars" PC-building. They put the pressure elsewhere, like how to have the stories of the separate PCs connect, and how to make action resolution matter at the group level in the metagame, even if it's separated in the gameworld.



Libramarian said:


> But I cannot actually blame you for it. It is your prerogative to argue for the D&D that you want.



I'm not even arguing for any form of D&D in this thread. I'm just suggesting various ways how 3 pillars design might be done.


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## hikaizer (Feb 15, 2012)

pemerton said:


> What do you have in mind here?




I meant that there have been accounts of Fighters being able to do things aside from fight, and Rogues being able to contribute to combat. There's enough material now in 3E to allow for most of the permutations if you're willing to compromise in other areas.



pemerton said:


> I'm not sure what you have in mind here, either. I can think of at least two possibilities. (1) the system only balances over the adventure, not the encounter, so it "prebuilds" your adventures for you, in that they must have a certain minimum number and spread of encounters. (2) the system only balances if each encounter (or, at least, each major encounter) is equally open to contributions from all PCs, and therefore it "prebuilds" your major encounters for you, by requiring them to fit the specialties of the PCs for whom you are building it.




What I really meant was that if you just roll for all of the encounters as you play, or perhaps even before the session then the game can lack a sense of life. The GM is an important part of the game and their job is important to really make the game be engaging. That's all I really was trying to explain with the comment, but I think I might not have worded it so well. Now it seems somewhat of a tangent to the main discussion anyway.


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## Crazy Jerome (Feb 15, 2012)

It's already been mentioned a couple of times in these discussions and circled around more than that, but I'll state it more baldly: A big part of the disconnect/fuss over the line between balance and "being useful" on one hand, versus character differences and weaknesses on the other hand--is ultimately caused by over-specialization in class mechanics, rather than balance or lack thereof.

That is, there is nothing wrong with the idea that Bob the Socially Awkward Fighter is built so that he really can't contribute in social settings--even with intimidate--provided that is satisfactory to Bob's player (and potentially the group, depending on how the table views minimal contribution). There is also equally nothing wrong with the idea of Sally the Social Butterfly Fighter (or in many editions, "Fighter"), with the same caveats.  And likewise, there should be plenty of room in between those extremes.

There is, however, something terribly wrong with this gross distortion of the "fatal flaw" in mythic characterization, being systematically enforced by class limits, as if every Fighter was not only Achilles or Odysseus, but instead of having the "fatal flaw" was a walking basket case of broadly and deeply felt flaws. It's as if we said that Robin Hood stealing from the rich and giving to the poor meant that he had to ignore all laws, all the time while simultaneously performing every kind of good works imaginable to make up for it.  I realize that at the table you need to exaggerate the effect a bit to make it felt, much like the actors on the stage need to be more expansive compared to film, but there are still limits! 

You can, of course, get around this by not having much in the way of mechanics for most things outside of combat and a bit of key exploration, and "roleplay it". That will work for some people. But if there is to be mechanics for wider exploration and social areas, then "totally inept" should be something that is relatively rare. And of course part of this problem in 3E and later is that the nature of the roll and the modifiers thus far has made narrow uber specialization the way to be somewhat useful, whereas in many cases, a more interesting and toned down mix would better fit the intended characterization.

TL;DR: If you design mechanics for all three pillars such that hyper-specialization is rewarded and expected, you cannot reconcile the preferences of those who want some broad competency with those that want more weaknesses.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 15, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:
			
		

> TL;DR: If you design mechanics for all three pillars such that hyper-specialization is rewarded and expected, you cannot reconcile the preferences of those who want some broad competency with those that want more weaknesses.




It's sort of the old bard argument. 

If you have a jack-of-all-trades, they are necessarily eclipsed by a party of specialists. On the other hand, if you have a character capable of equalling the specialists in all areas, they are necessarily overpowered -- they have none of the weaknesses of the rest of the party.

You kind of have to have all characters be equally competent on all the pillars, or you have to have a character with strengths and weaknesses. 

I vastly prefer the latter. It is more varied, more chaotic, more interesting, more fun. I personally find that the main appeal of the former is a fear of being "unbalanced," but if there's a strictly even balance, it is deeply unsatisfying to a large portion of D&D players (including me). Variety is what keeps things interesting and entertaining in my book, and a precariously balanced game has no inherent appeal to me.

Not to say that balance has no value, just that diversity is much more valuable to me. I don't want my artificer to be able to contribute well to a social encounter. I'm glad she can roll a Diplomacy check if she has to (she isn't Always Failing) and I'm glad she's not great at it, so usually some other party member needs to.

For me, this plays into the nature of D&D has a party game. You could say that 4e's combat roles work similarly. Everyone can deal damage, not everyone is a Striker, and some classes (Pacifist Cleric; Lazylord) don't deal damage themselves at all. Everyone can roll check for a social skill success, but not everyone is equally good at it. That's the job of the specialist.


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## Crazy Jerome (Feb 15, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> It's sort of the old bard argument.
> 
> If you have a jack-of-all-trades, they are necessarily eclipsed by a party of specialists. On the other hand, if you have a character capable of equalling the specialists in all areas, they are necessarily overpowered -- they have none of the weaknesses of the rest of the party.
> 
> You kind of have to have all characters be equally competent on all the pillars, or you have to have a character with strengths and weaknesses...




The typical jack of all trades, (First 3E bard version being a great example), is too far the other way from what I'm talking about.  Of course, one of the reasons he doesn't work is because the rest of the party are hyper-specialists.  But mainly it is because the system is designed to heavily reward hyper-specialization.  (4E doesn't really solve this with its +1/2 level to all skills, either, because of how skills work.)

However, I think you might have missed the "hyper" part of that in the argument.  I'm not arguing against specialization.  I agree you need some of it.  Rather, I'm saying that most walking, breathing people are generalists in a lot of walks of life, while specialists in some areas and *weak in a few things*.  Even in our relatively hyper-specialized modern world, this is often still true.  The world-class violinist, practicing 6+ hours a day and traveling a lot, is necessarily deficient in general skills compared to the average population (barring genius or other such average skewing effects).  Yet even he or she has some general things that they do well enough to bother doing them.

4E says that a fighter should be broadly but mildy competent in *all* the activities of riding, discussing with a young noble, researching history, swimming, climbing, sneaking into a lax camp at night, etc.  Not super at these, or capable of performing them well in difficult situations, but enough to get by in lesser situations.  

3E says (roughly) that the fighter can pick one of those to be a bit better than mildly competent in, but the rest are out of reach.  In those, he will be inept.

I say that the fighter should have weaknesses in those area, preferably chosen to aid characterization of the particular fighter, but not be broadly inept.  He performs like the 4E fighter was expected to (but does not always manage) in maybe 50% to 75% of those situations, perhaps excels at one or two if he works at it, and sucks at the rest.  You know, like real people do.  That should be the default assumptions of each character (albeit with somewhat moving targets on the list, depending on class, theme, etc.)


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## JohnSnow (Feb 15, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> It's sort of the old bard argument.
> 
> If you have a jack-of-all-trades, they are necessarily eclipsed by a party of specialists. On the other hand, if you have a character capable of equalling the specialists in all areas, they are necessarily overpowered -- they have none of the weaknesses of the rest of the party.
> 
> ...




I would have to agree with you. Characters with strengths and weaknesses are vastly more interesting, especially in a team game. The trick is to make sure that the class has one area where they excel, and that they can still contribute meaningfully in the other areas. Nobody likes to be sitting on their hands (or effectively so), but as long as THAT doesn't happen, there's nothing wrong with having areas where one character is "more equal" than the others. It basically comes down to a matter of degree. Get close, and it's fine, miss the mark widely, and someone feels hosed.

I would also point out, to those who think it can't be done, that the bard of 2nd Edition WAS an extremely well-balanced and playable "jack-of-all-trades" class. It could fight effectively, double for a rogue in certain fields and had the ability to pull off useful magical spells. And on top of that, bards had a few special abilities,  like their song and legend lore aspects, that was unique to them. It was an extremely playable and fun class.

And I say that if it's possible to make a proper JoAT class, then striking the balance while allowing variability is certainly doable.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 15, 2012)

I'm sympathetic to the idea that real folks have fairly broad skills. However, in a game of heroic fantasy, some measure of specialization (often followed up with decades of flanderization) is very much part and parcel of the genre. The highs are DRAMATICALLY high, and the lows are DRAMATICALLY low. It's not a mathematical relationship by any means, but it certainly should be part of any D&D game I'd like to play!

And again, this is excluding the extremes. You've gotta make SOME concessions for gameplay purposes, and excluding the "Always Wins" and "Always Fails" results seem fine to me, as long as the difference can be dramatic enough to matter in play.



			
				Crazy Jerome said:
			
		

> 4E says that a fighter should be broadly but mildy competent in all the activities of riding, discussing with a young noble, researching history, swimming, climbing, sneaking into a lax camp at night, etc. Not super at these, or capable of performing them well in difficult situations, but enough to get by in lesser situations.
> 
> 3E says (roughly) that the fighter can pick one of those to be a bit better than mildly competent in, but the rest are out of reach. In those, he will be inept.




I'd take a bit of an issue with your characterization of the 3e skills. By my estimation, 3e supported a diversity of skills by not having the DC's you need to hit be very high -- anyone who can hit a DC 10-15 could be fairly "average person" in any skill, and only if you wanted to be significantly powerful (or were up against opposed rolls that would be significantly powerful) was it wise to bother investing more than a few points into a given skill. You don't need a Diplomacy bonus of +15 to be a good diplomat. 

I don't think that quite worked, because people functionally just kept putting points into the stuff they were already trained in without really looking at what they could functionally accomplish with the bonuses they have, but given 3e's crunchy, rulesy nature, that's not too shocking.

I do think the idea of 4e's "everyone learns a bit of everything, and specialists get more" (the +1/2 level bonus) is pretty solid. It's why my Aspergaficer can still make diplomacy and bluff checks, but generally shouldn't. I think the bigger problem in 3e and 4e tended to be the proliferation of cheap, easy skill bonuses. The curve of the d20 can only support a divergence from average of about up to +10 (assuming the DC has no modifiers) and still have the roll matter in play, and my Aspergaficer already has an Arcana skill of +12 (without using Backgrounds) at second level. 

That...probably shouldn't happen. I couldn't get an attack bonus that high, (though mine do hover at about  +7, which is pretty big, though it's against a defense that rises reliably, too), and for good reason. 

Mitigating hyper-specializtion in my book is first about mitigating those stacking bonuses, and second about DMs putting a variety of challenges in front of the players. In 4e, you wouldn't just use Brutes in every combat for your campaign, right? You use a variety of threats, and that variety challenges different characters in different ways. In 5e, expanding this view to the entire adventure, you wouldn't just use combat as the perfect solution for everything. You use a variety of challenges, and that variety challenges different characters in different ways. Hyper-specialization results in failure in a variety of challenges, and your big success in that one area doesn't count for more just because it was bigger. 

But I think we're mostly in agreement, anyway. Specialization yay. Overly narrow specializtion or overly broad characters boo. Exclusing the ends of the bell curve is great, I just don't want to play in the middle of that bell curve.

Which goes back to my overall gaming philosophy that swinging from "Booo!" to "Yaaay!" more often is a lot of fun.


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## Crazy Jerome (Feb 15, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> I'm sympathetic to the idea that real folks have fairly broad skills. However, in a game of heroic fantasy, some measure of specialization (often followed up with decades of flanderization) is very much part and parcel of the genre. The highs are DRAMATICALLY high, and the lows are DRAMATICALLY low. It's not a mathematical relationship by any means, but it certainly should be part of any D&D game I'd like to play!
> 
> And again, this is excluding the extremes. You've gotta make SOME concessions for gameplay purposes, and excluding the "Always Wins" and "Always Fails" results seem fine to me, as long as the difference can be dramatic enough to matter in play.




Agreed.  I almost added something along those line to my first reply, but thought I had too many qualifications already to communicate my point.  It is a rather narrow line to walk on for any game, and D&D has an even harder time than most because it needs to edge towards hyper-specialization compared to other games (and certainly real life).  Yet the problems of hyper-specialization (in any game) are still there.  



> Mitigating hyper-specializtion in my book is first about mitigating those stacking bonuses, and second about DMs putting a variety of challenges in front of the players. In 4e, you wouldn't just use Brutes in every combat for your campaign, right? You use a variety of threats, and that variety challenges different characters in different ways. In 5e, expanding this view to the entire adventure, you wouldn't just use combat as the perfect solution for everything. You use a variety of challenges, and that variety challenges different characters in different ways. Hyper-specialization results in failure in a variety of challenges, and your big success in that one area doesn't count for more just because it was bigger.
> 
> But I think we're mostly in agreement, anyway. Specialization yay. Overly narrow specializtion or overly broad characters boo. Excluding the ends of the bell curve is great, I just don't want to play in the middle of that bell curve.
> 
> Which goes back to my overall gaming philosophy that swinging from "Booo!" to "Yaaay!" more often is a lot of fun.




Yes, I think we are primarily in agreement.  Please note too that my earlier point was not necessarily advocating for a particular mix of generalization versus specialization (though I do have preferences), but rather explaining why I think that reconciling "characters have weaknesses" with "balance" is impossible in an overly specialized environment.  It is of course an option that the 5E design team could decide that reconciling those is not all that important, and then hyper-specialization would remain on the table (whatever else you might say against it).


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## Crazy Jerome (Feb 15, 2012)

JohnSnow said:


> I would also point out, to those who think it can't be done, that the bard of 2nd Edition WAS an extremely well-balanced and playable "jack-of-all-trades" class. It could fight effectively, double for a rogue in certain fields and had the ability to pull off useful magical spells. And on top of that, bards had a few special abilities, like their song and legend lore aspects, that was unique to them. It was an extremely playable and fun class.
> 
> And I say that if it's possible to make a proper JoAT class, then striking the balance while allowing variability is certainly doable.




Agreed. It's always been possible. The bigger question to me is whether the designers and fans are willing to give up other things (outside of this discussion) to get it? 

I personally think making a system where a JoAT class can work is worth a very high price elsewhere in the system. So many other problems get solved in the process, that it isn't merely a lot of effort for some simple playstyle accommodations. 

In addition to what has already been discussed, that kind of system is far more resilient in the face of different sizes and compositions of parties. If the system is such that you need highly specialized arcane magic (or might as well not bother and find other ways to compensate for this complete weakness--AKA "DM plays nice"), then the bard brings nothing in that area. OTOH, if several classes can provide the baseline for arcane that you need, but a wizard brings something extra, then the wizard is a great and useful upgrade, but not necessary. 

Or I guess, in the scope of what activities can be done in a particular area, as graphed below, I prefer the latter to the former (where "weak" and "strong" represent the practicable, mechanical limits of useful things):

useless------------------weak--standard--strong------------------over-powered

useless--weak------------------standard------------------strong--over-powered


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## JohnSnow (Feb 15, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> Agreed. It's always been possible. The bigger question to me is whether the designers and fans are willing to give up other things (outside of this discussion) to get it?
> 
> I personally think making a system where a JoAT class can work is worth a very high price elsewhere in the system. So many other problems get solved in the process, that it isn't merely a lot of effort for some simple playstyle accommodations.
> 
> In addition to what has already been discussed, that kind of system is far more resilient in the face of different sizes and compositions of parties. If the system is such that you need highly specialized arcane magic (or might as well not bother and find other ways to compensate for this complete weakness--AKA "DM plays nice"), then the bard brings nothing in that area. OTOH, if several classes can provide the baseline for arcane that you need, but a wizard brings something extra, then the wizard is a great and useful upgrade, but not necessary.




No comment on the graph because it was a bit confusing to me...

As to the rest, I generally agree. It would be nice if the game wanted a certain minimum level of arcane (or other magical) capability and any of several classes could provide it. Sure, it makes sense that a single-classed wizard would bring something extra, but I would love it if he weren't "necessary."

Broadening the system would possibly even enable things that have been traditionally "weird" in D&D (like the all-fighter party), but pretty common in fantasy fiction. I'd love it if a party of diverse fighters could take on your average D&D adventure - it would enable _Seven Samurai_ or _The Thirteenth Warrior_ kind of games. And that is NOT a bad thing.

Similarly, flattening the power curve and broadening the "acceptable" range of contribution in a given scenario could open up the game to realistic "experienced agent" and "who they can recruit to help" games. I'm reminded of _The Wheel of Time_ and many other fantasy series here, where a few more experienced characters are able to contribute a bit more than the others, but aren't so much more powerful that the less-experience members of the party seem worthless. I'm not talking "Hobbits in LotR" here, but more like "Bilbo in _The Hobbit_" and "everyone in the Fellowship who isn't Gandalf."

I guess I'm saying that it would be nice if dropping a higher-level NPC (or two) into a party of low-level characters didn't overshadow them completely. And that's another benefit of a system that opens the door for proper JoAT characters.


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## Tony Vargas (Feb 15, 2012)

Ratskinner said:


> I also think that "Balance" is highly overrated, and trying to enforce it through the rules does too much to "lock down" playstyle.



I guess it might depend on what you mean by balance, but the way I see it, balance enables a broader range of playstyles to work together.  Imbalance is what yanks a game into one specific style or another.  D&D has always had significant balance problems around encounters and resources, leading to the very un-genre '5 minute workday' for instance.  You can avoid it, but the impetus is always there, and the things you do to avoid it (like constantly aplying time preasrue as the DM) also put you in a stylistic rut.

The same is true, here.  If each class is viable in each 'pillar' the DM does not have to slave his playstyle to the demands of balancing among the pillars, and the players are free to explore the pillars they want without balance issues (either among them if there's some who didn't specialize in the 'right' pillar, or between them and the challenges they face if they're a hyper-specialized party).

It would be very nice, as a DM, to be able to emphasize a 'pillar' in a campaign without having to mod the rules, ban whole classes (or at least warn players away from them), and/or face overpowered campaign-buster specialist characters.


As far as specialization goes, I think D&D has tended to over-reward specialization.  A very marginal benefit is all that's required to make a specialist better than a generalist.  A +1 to hit.  A  +3 to skill checks.  That's quite noticeable, especially if 'the math' is tight like the 4e treadmill, or 'flat' like classic D&D.


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## Crazy Jerome (Feb 15, 2012)

JohnSnow said:


> No comment on the graph because it was a bit confusing to me...




The graph is just another, abstract way of looking at the same thing already discussed in the text. 

For a particular example, think of it terms of different ratios of hit points, damage resistance, and damage effects. Say that you have a game where early creatures routinely have 5 DR and 6 hit points. This is bad, because it leaves no appreciable room between standard and strong. Roll 5 damage or less, do nothing. Roll 6 or more, kill the target.  And there is no "weak" at all--you go from standard to useless in one point of damage.

So then some wise guy decides to fix this by making a mechanic where the wizard doesn't have to roll an attack roll. Now, depending on his damage, he is either useless (always hit but never does anything) or overpowered (always hits and kills). 

The point of the graph is that there have been too many mechanics like that in D&D, where they try all kinds of weird stuff to make up for the fact that there is insufficient design space between "weak" and "standard" and "strong". Not that extreme, usually, but still too small a space--especially when you could fix it by maybe not having 5 DR and 6 hit points.


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## pemerton (Feb 15, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> If you design mechanics for all three pillars such that hyper-specialization is rewarded and expected, you cannot reconcile the preferences of those who want some broad competency with those that want more weaknesses.



I would add - if you design _encounters_, or the base assumptions of encounters, so that they can be successfully tackled by specialists rather than needing the whole party, you will generate either hyper-specialist PCs, or players who are irritated as their PC who is good but second best is never called upon to contribute.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> For me, this plays into the nature of D&D has a party game. You could say that 4e's combat roles work similarly. Everyone can deal damage, not everyone is a Striker, and some classes (Pacifist Cleric; Lazylord) don't deal damage themselves at all. Everyone can roll check for a social skill success, but not everyone is equally good at it. That's the job of the specialist.



I don't think the analogue of a leader compared to a striker is someone who can't contribute in social situations, though.

A leader _does_ contribute. It's just that the contribution is _different_. Social mechanics (both PC build and encounter designe) should aim for the same thing, in my view.


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## hikaizer (Feb 15, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Social mechanics (both PC build and encounter designe) should aim for the same thing, in my view.




This is essentially my view on the matter as well. Rethinking social and exploration encounters such that every class can contribute will be a challenge for both GMs and the designers. But a worthwhile challenge I believe.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 15, 2012)

Pemerton said:
			
		

> I don't think the analogue of a leader compared to a striker is someone who can't contribute in social situations, though.




Well, no one is arguing for shutting out any character (there shouldn't be any Always Fails results). The argument is for someone that can't contribute as well as another character might be able to. 



> A leader does contribute. It's just that the contribution is different. Social mechanics (both PC build and encounter designe) should aim for the same thing, in my view.




Sure, but the leader isn't expected to contribute damage.

The analogue is like this:

Damage, healing/buffing, debuffing, and defense all contribute to the resolving of a combat. Every 4e character can do at least a little bit of all four regions: they can roll attacks, have effects, have an AC, and have second winds. The roles, however, help define what the character is good at and what they are not so good at. A leader is very good at healing and buffing. A defender is very good at defense. A striker deals buckets of damage. A leader or a defender isn't expected to contribute damage (they can even get away with NEVER dealing damage), since that's not their job. 

Combat, roleplaying, and exploraiton all contribute to the resolving of an adventure. Every 5e character should (IMO) be able to do at least a little bit of all three regions: they can (for example) roll a Charisma check, make attack rolls, and they can notice a secret door. The pillars, however, can help define what a character is good at and what they are not so good at. A Fighter might be very good at fighting. A bard might be a super social skill beast. A thief is probably very good at finding those hidden doors -- and hidden chests, and hidden traps. However, a fighter isn't expected to contribute much to a social setting -- they can get away with not being very good, socially. 

Assuming your major events aren't usually hour-long slogfests, but rather 10-15 minute back-and-forth skirmishes, that you give the character who isn't great some way to contribute (let's cut off the Always Fail end of the bell curve that lets lazylords never attack), and that you grant them some way some way to spice it up or gain some sort of edge from smart play (Advantage seems like just that!), you can avoid the "Bob the Fighter goes to play Xbox for the next 45 minutes while everyone else engages this social part of the game" problem deftly. What you're left with is a framework where everyone contributes to major encounters, without forcing everyone to have an equal chance of success in them.


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## pemerton (Feb 15, 2012)

KM, your example of combat has every PC contributing (although some via defence or healing rather than damage, or via lazy builds which trigger other PCs' actions). But then you go on to describe a state of affairs in which the fighter doesn't contribute so much to a social situation. And you emphasise the time consumed by that situation.

So just to be clear - are you envisaging a pulling back from the 4e approach of everyone can contribute to every situation? But with this being counterbalanced by a change in the time required to resolve an encounter?

My own preference is to downplay minor encounters (the Jester upthread, or in a different thread, canvassed 15 combats in a session! - I'm not interested in that at all), focus primarily on major encounters, which I'm happy to have taking 1 hour+ to resolve, and have all PCs be able to contribute meaningfully to those encounters (as a result of both features of PC build, and of encounter build, and of the dynamics of action resolution).


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## Tony Vargas (Feb 16, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Well, no one is arguing for shutting out any character. The argument is for someone that can't contribute as well as another character might be able to.



Actually, you have brought out some gnome artificer who was /completely inept/ in social situations, and either sits them out or comically/dramatically has the 'fun of failure' in them, as an example of the kind of thing you want.  




> Sure, but the leader isn't expected to contribute damage.



All leaders, pacifist cleric included, /can/ contribute damage.  In fact, via buffing and action-economy manipulation, they can indirectly contribute almost like strikers.



> The analogue is like this:
> 
> Damage, healing/buffing, debuffing, and defense all contribute to the resolving of a combat. Every 4e character can do at least a little bit of all four regions: they can roll attacks, have effects, have an AC, and have second winds. The roles, however, help define what the character is good at and what they are not so good at. A leader is very good at healing and buffing. A defender is very good at defense. A striker deals buckets of damage. A leader or a defender isn't expected to contribute damage (they can even get away with NEVER dealing damage), since that's not their job.



It'd be very hard for a leader or defender to /never/ deal damage.  Defender mark-punishment generally includes the threat of damage, and leaders indirectly deal damage through buffs and action grants (and very indirectly by keeping strikers up with healing) even when they consciously avoid directly dealing damage, themselves - and they always have that option, even the Pacifist can't help but end up with /one/ damaging at-will.




> Combat, roleplaying, and exploraiton all contribute to the resolving of an adventure. Every 5e character should (IMO) be able to do at least a little bit of all three regions: they can (for example) roll a Charisma check, make attack rolls, and they can notice a secret door. The pillars, however, can help define what a character is good at and what they are not so good at.



Now, this is a very poor analogy, unless your argument is that RP (interaction is a better term, I think, since RP occurs in all the pillars, BTW) and Interaction are not in the same class as combat.  If they were (and they are, but I'll get to that), then, as in combat, each character could contribute, only differently depending on role/class.  Even then, it'd be a poor analogy, as you have no aspect of combat that corresponds to combat in the second case.

Now, a very strong analogy would be:  just as characters contribute meaningfully, but differently in accord with their roles, in combat, they should contribute meaningfully, but differently, out of combat (be that independintely in each of the two non-combat 'pillars' or in a single non-combat amalgam, if the other pillars aren't individually equal in importance to combat).

See, that makes sense.



> Assuming your major events aren't usually hour-long slogfests, but rather 10-15 minute back-and-forth skirmishes, ... you can avoid the "Bob the Fighter goes to play Xbox for the next 45 minutes while everyone else engages this social part of the game" problem deftly.



Whether things come in 15 minute chunks or 2-hour chunks, being excluded is no fun.  The 'make it faster and it'll be tollerable' idea is a way of dealing with something /bad/.  'Combats are too long,' for instance, is just a variation on the theme of 'combats are undesireable,' because the implied solution is to minimize or eliminate them.  If you're having to cut short scenes that some players are enjoying to aviod boring and irritating others, that's a sign that you need to keep everyone interested and eganged (and hopefully having fun, but at least not bored).


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## Tony Vargas (Feb 16, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> If you have a jack-of-all-trades, they are necessarily eclipsed by a party of specialists. On the other hand, if you have a character capable of equalling the specialists in all areas, they are necessarily overpowered -- they have none of the weaknesses of the rest of the party.



Put that way, it does seem an insoluble conundrum, but, as was pointed out above, competence isn't binary.  A character can be a bit better at something or a bit different in how they accomplish somethint compared to another without being strictly superior or inferior.  The Bard was pretty badly inferior, because 3.x over-rewarded specialization and over-costed generalization, and casters could be become broadly overpowered at higher levels (because they were just plain broken, specailization be damned).

4e, in combat, hit upon a balance in which each role contributes differently, each class aproaches it's role differently, and each character contributes meaningfully.  

This discussion really should be about how we can bring the same balance to the non-combat realm.


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## pemerton (Feb 16, 2012)

Tony Vargas said:


> This discussion really should be about how we can bring the same balance to the non-combat realm.



Agreed with this, and with your previous post too.

Unfortunately, though, I think that 4e-style combat balance seems to be something they're planning to drop, so I'm not sure we'll see it generalised across the other main domains of activity.

Hopefully I'm wrong, though.


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## Tony Vargas (Feb 16, 2012)

The emphasis in 5e does seem to be on making the game familiar, rather than making it good.


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## Lanefan (Feb 16, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Unfortunately, though, I think that 4e-style combat balance seems to be something they're planning to drop.



Fine with me. 

Let's hope they manage to drop the 3e/4e-style grind along with it.  I mean, I don't mind the occasional significant combat that takes most of a session to resolve, but I also want to be able to now and then get in 9 combats in one night - like what happened here two weeks ago.

Lanefan


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 16, 2012)

Tony Vargas said:


> The emphasis in 5e does seem to be on making the game familiar, rather than making it good.




Good is pretty subjective here. For some people 3e was good, for others it was awful. For some 4e was good, for others it was terrible. In these discussions i think folks are assuming their oreferences are more universal than they really are (not everyone agrees on the best way to balance, not everyone agrees on parity being good/bad, not everyone agrees on whether unified mechanics are good/bad, etc). The only measure i can think of that would maybe be less subjective is how widely a mechanic is embraced or dismissed by players and GMs. If lots of people like it, then calling the game good probably makes some sense. But just look at how divided people have been over core issues like balance, healing and class features. I doubt it is as simple as one side wanting a "good" game and the other "fearing change".


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## Tony Vargas (Feb 16, 2012)

Sorry, substitute 'functional' for 'good,' if that helps.


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 16, 2012)

Tony Vargas said:


> Sorry, substitute 'functional' for 'good,' if that helps.




again, i think your notion of a functional edition is probably not the same as mine or the same as pathfinder fans. To many people 3e was more functional than 4e and vice versa. Functional is a very broad term. When you say functional what do you mean? Because I suspect if you break it down, you find a lot of people are split on what they prefer in terms of function.


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## Crazy Jerome (Feb 16, 2012)

There is nothing inherent in a cleaned up BECMI style of game that says it can't be fast and relatively balanced across all three pillars, and within them too. It's true that you can't satisfy the full range that people want with forced balance. However, it is also true that the ability to consciously have balance in any or all of the pillars if you want, is not the same thing as forced balance. 

We play chess. I'm rated around 1900. You are rated around 2000. We are imbalanced, but the imbalance is known. You can give me a pawn or knight or some such minor edge, at the start of the game. We are back to balanced again. Or we can choose not to do that, and go with it as it is. Same way with golf.

As long as fighters *can* pick some stuff at 5th level that affects their combat ability or social ability or exploration ability about as well as the stuff that wizards can pick at 5th level that affects their combat ability or social ability or exploration ability, then it doesn't matter that in a particular game, the fighter has chosen to enhance combat at the expense of the other pillars, and vice versa. That's choice. Nothing inherent says those choices have to be as complicated to manage, or take as long to use, as 3E/4E in order to work.

Of course, it's also true that *some* of the stuff that people advocating for a more 3E style base game are insisiting is absolutely critical is critical to them because it is *forced* imbalance (or rather, confirms to their personal vision of verismilitude, and balance and everyone else can go hang). To the extent that they are satisfied, no one else will be. But let's not throw out the possibility of satisfying the more reasonable calls for simplicity and a wider range of character concepts over a few bits of nonsense.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 16, 2012)

Tony Vargas said:
			
		

> Actually, you have brought out some gnome artificer who was /completely inept/ in social situations, and either sits them out or comically/dramatically has the 'fun of failure' in them, as an example of the kind of thing you want.




I've consistently indicated that excluding the "always succeeds" and "always fails" extremes is what I want. Sorry if I wasn't clear on that. The fact that I like to play characters with telling weaknesses doesn't mean they always fail -- simply means that they are more likely to fail. I can still get a lucky roll or interact with the scene to get a circimstance bonus with my Aspergaficer. 



> All leaders, pacifist cleric included, /can/ contribute damage. In fact, via buffing and action-economy manipulation, they can indirectly contribute almost like strikers.




I said that they're not expected to. That's key. They can do whatever they want, but they aren't exected to do anything aside from fill their role. A striker isn't expected to contribute defense (even though they might have a good AC). A controller isn't expected to contribute healing (even though they might have good buffs). 



> Now, a very strong analogy would be: just as characters contribute meaningfully, but differently in accord with their roles, in combat, they should contribute meaningfully, but differently, out of combat (be that independintely in each of the two non-combat 'pillars' or in a single non-combat amalgam, if the other pillars aren't individually equal in importance to combat).




Again, no character should be excluded. That doesn't mean that all characters should be equally skilled. 

Let me type that again so that you don't miss this central point.

No character should be excluded. That doesn't mean that all characters should be equally skilled.

Don't misunderstand me.

Going forward with that knowledge, you can see how different characters can contribute to the adventure in different ways, while being very good at some contributions and less good at other contributions.

A striker class is expected to contribute damage to a combat (they can do other things, but damage is their main function). A combat class should be expected to contribute combat successes to an adventure (they can do other things, but combat is their main function). 

In the same way that a striker may be horrible at contributing healing (they can heal themselves a little bit), a combat class may be horrible at contributing social successes (they can roll a Charisma check). *Not incapable*, just not very good. Not as good as the social class. 



			
				Tony Vargas said:
			
		

> 4e, in combat, hit upon a balance in which each role contributes differently, each class aproaches it's role differently, and each character contributes meaningfully.
> 
> This discussion really should be about how we can bring the same balance to the non-combat realm.




It's easy.

You stop worrying about microbalance within an encouter and start considering the fun people have over the course of a typical 4-hour session. You stop trying to enforce the parity of each roll and instead see partiy as existing over the course of an entire session's rolls. If a player typically makes, say, 10 die rolls in a given game session, you don't worry about each of those rolls having a 50% chance of success, you worry about a roll having a 10% chance of success, and another roll having a 90% chance of success (and 20 and 80 and 30 and 70 and whatever else you want, depending on how swingy you want it). 



			
				Crazy Jerome said:
			
		

> As long as fighters can pick some stuff at 5th level that affects their combat ability or social ability or exploration ability about as well as the stuff that wizards can pick at 5th level that affects their combat ability or social ability or exploration ability, then it doesn't matter that in a particular game, the fighter has chosen to enhance combat at the expense of the other pillars, and vice versa. That's choice.




It's also choice if they can pick between a Fighter (good Combat, average Exploration, poor Interaction) and a Paladin (good Interaction, average Combat, poor Exploration) and a Ranger (good Exploration, average Combat, poor Interaction) and an Assassin (good Interaction, average Exploration, poor Combat). 

The choice doesn't need to be within the class. It can be a choice between classes. Especially if you factor in customization elements like Feats, Backgrounds, and Themes that can further shore up or modify what a character is good and bad at.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 16, 2012)

pemerton said:
			
		

> KM, your example of combat has every PC contributing (although some via defence or healing rather than damage, or via lazy builds which trigger other PCs' actions). But then you go on to describe a state of affairs in which the fighter doesn't contribute so much to a social situation. And you emphasise the time consumed by that situation.
> 
> So just to be clear - are you envisaging a pulling back from the 4e approach of everyone can contribute to every situation? But with this being counterbalanced by a change in the time required to resolve an encounter?




You're on the right track. For a few years now, I've been posting about how for me as a player and a DM, the individual combat or conversation or exploration is largely irrelevant, that it is the context in which this encounter occurs that interests and engages me. The encounter only has meaning in the broader scope of the adventure. Or, to put it in dungeon-crawling terms: the trap only has meaning in the broader scope of the dungeon. I don't play D&D to have encounters, I play D&D to have adventures. Encounters are a necessary but insufficient condition for that adventure. 

Thus, I want a game in which the individual encounter is not an end in and of itself, but rather part of a greater whole (which I call the "adventure.")

In that context, it is fine to have a character who doesn't contribute much socially (just as it is fine to have a character who doesn't heal much). There are other encounters, and there are other times to shine. This accurately reflects archetype and genre, and it makes gameplay more varied and dynamic, so I consider it a strong design plus. It's OK to have a trap that goes off and does damage, or a brief skirmish with a few minions, or an assassin who can kill in a single attack roll, or a petrify spell, or a save-or-die effect, or whatever, because it's fine for a party member to be unncessary for a given encounter -- they are still necessary for the overall adventure. This causes the encounters to be briefer: they're individually less important, less complex, and less carefully balanced, so that overall the adventure can be more important, more complex, and more carefully balanced.

As a consequence of that change in focus, each encounter must be a smaller part of a bigger event individually. Not every combat should take an hour. Encounters can be of varying size and threat level, because they are not self-contained, but rather part of the adventure as a whole. So fast encounters aren't so much a goal as they are a useful consequence of the different focus. 

I get that you don't prefer minor encounters yourself, but for me, I see the game gaining so much in moving to that model, that I find it hard to advocate for the alternative. You can still have big, significant encounters, but they no longer have to all be big, singificant encounters.


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## Tony Vargas (Feb 16, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Again, no character should be excluded. That doesn't mean that all characters should be equally skilled.



It seems like we're both trying to snatch the middle here, and arguing between straw men.

If you don't want characters to be non-contributing, and I don't want them to be identical, we're prettymuch on the same side, or we're only off by a shading of degree.

And, I hasten to add, neither of us should be content with D&D as it has existed to date. Characters have been excluded entirely from 'pillars,' players left twiddling their thumbs while the specialist character does his thing for an extended period.  



> I've been posting about how for me as a player and a DM, the individual combat or conversation or exploration is largely irrelevant, that it is the context in which this encounter occurs that interests and engages me. The encounter only has meaning in the broader scope of the adventure.



OK, that's a valid play style.  You have many minor challenges over a session or adventure or campaign, and if a player sits out some of them, it's no big deal, the 'big picture' balance is what matters.

However, it's not the only valid play style.  Big 'set piece' challenges that consume a single shorter session almost entirely are also a perfectly good way to play.  And letting a player sit one out is not acceptable.

Reasonable parity (again, not everyone being identical, just everyone contributing) within every challenge (pillar) provides balance in both play styles.  'Big picture' balance only works for one.


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## Crazy Jerome (Feb 16, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> It's also choice if they can pick between a Fighter (good Combat, average Exploration, poor Interaction) and a Paladin (good Interaction, average Combat, poor Exploration) and a Ranger (good Exploration, average Combat, poor Interaction) and an Assassin (good Interaction, average Exploration, poor Combat).
> 
> The choice doesn't need to be within the class. It can be a choice between classes. Especially if you factor in customization elements like Feats, Backgrounds, and Themes that can further shore up or modify what a character is good and bad at.




There can be some of that, and also some "keep everything short so that we don't spend too much time on the area where you don't do much". But I think of some of the resistance to the idea is that prior versions have placed a little too much stock in those as ways to keep things fun.

You also have to consider people with a character the evolves over time. Taking one level of fighter now and getting good combat, average exploration, and poor interaction might be ok. Being forced to multiclass in--let's face it--often shoddy multiclassing rules merely to tweak your focus a bit, is a bit misguided.

Worse, I don't have a lot of confidence in that the design built on those principles can avoid a lot of fiddly little bits to satisfy various desires that boil down to, "you started as a fighter; you'll stay poor in interaction, and you'll like it."


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 17, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:
			
		

> There can be some of that, and also some "keep everything short so that we don't spend too much time on the area where you don't do much". But I think of some of the resistance to the idea is that prior versions have placed a little too much stock in those as ways to keep things fun.
> 
> You also have to consider people with a character the evolves over time. Taking one level of fighter now and getting good combat, average exploration, and poor interaction might be ok. Being forced to multiclass in--let's face it--often shoddy multiclassing rules merely to tweak your focus a bit, is a bit misguided.
> 
> Worse, I don't have a lot of confidence in that the design built on those principles can avoid a lot of fiddly little bits to satisfy various desires that boil down to, "you started as a fighter; you'll stay poor in interaction, and you'll like it."




Yeah, I'd agree basically with this. These are key things to keep in mind. Excluding the "always fails" and "always wins" extremes, and letting character options like multiclassing, feats, backgrounds, themes, etc. affect the measures is important to having a flexible baseline. I think those are things to keep in mind, rather than reasons it shouldn't be done, however. Retraining, for example, could help a fighter whose player wants more interaction ability.


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## Ratskinner (Feb 17, 2012)

Tony Vargas said:


> I guess it might depend on what you mean by balance, but the way I see it, balance enables a broader range of playstyles to work together.  Imbalance is what yanks a game into one specific style or another.  D&D has always had significant balance problems around encounters and resources, leading to the very un-genre '5 minute workday' for instance.  You can avoid it, but the impetus is always there, and the things you do to avoid it (like constantly aplying time preasrue as the DM) also put you in a stylistic rut.




I'm talking about "balance" as in making sure that "everybody can contribute to any situation equally." That locks playstyle down as much or more than imbalance. Also, I don't see most of the problems you cite as balance issues so much as lame rules that don't reflect the rest of the fantasy genre well. (D&D always seems to have plenty of those lying around.)



Tony Vargas said:


> The same is true, here.  If each class is viable in each 'pillar' the DM does not have to slave his playstyle to the demands of balancing among the pillars, and the players are free to explore the pillars they want without balance issues (either among them if there's some who didn't specialize in the 'right' pillar, or between them and the challenges they face if they're a hyper-specialized party).
> 
> It would be very nice, as a DM, to be able to emphasize a 'pillar' in a campaign without having to mod the rules, ban whole classes (or at least warn players away from them), and/or face overpowered campaign-buster specialist characters.




That's why I prefer flexibility, rather than imposed balance. The *players* should be able to adapt their characters as they advance. If the campaign is all about dungeon crawling, with social interaction handwaved, then pick the options that address that. If the campaign is all about subtle politics, pick options that address that. I feel that good options for both should exist in *all *classes.

Making sure that your choices as a player are irrelevant (or fluff only) and that all characters will be equally competent in all pillars is just a waste of time and effort. It lends to a very "boardgamey" feel without a lot of differentiation between classes other than fluff. There's plenty of other games I've tried that do that already. Flexibility is far more important than an arbitrarily defined balance.


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## Ratskinner (Feb 17, 2012)

hikaizer said:


> This is essentially my view on the matter as well. Rethinking social and exploration encounters such that every class can contribute will be a challenge for both GMs and the designers. But a worthwhile challenge I believe.




I'm not sure its so tough, from a design point of view. I'm leaning towards the idea that themes can be expanded to handle a lot of this. The idea of a poly-classed system has been suggested before (where you choose a combat class, a parley class, and perhaps an explorer class). However, I don't think (within the context of D&D) that full classes are appropriate for non-combat roles.

Themes as sort of a "subclass" that you can bolt on make a lot of sense to me here. So, if you take the "Woodsman" theme, you get tracking and some other bits of outdoorsy lore, it doesn't matter if you're a fighter, rogue, or wizard. Worried about talking to kings and the like? Take an "Aristrocrat" or "Diplomat" theme and get some bonuses to holding out your pinky correctly while drinking and talking real fancylike. 

The party can select an appropriate hodgepodge of themes to cover all the bases they are worried about. Making each character useful in different types of non-combat encounters in a way they want to be that is also (almost) totally independent of their combat class/role.

The big drawback here is that this would be a big change for some classes. As you might note in my example above "Woodsman" shaves a bit off of Ranger or maybe Druid. "Burglar" might shave a bit off thieves or rogues. "Curmudgeon" or "Brute" might intrude on Barbarian. However, I think that the flexibility gained would be more than worth it.


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## Ratskinner (Feb 17, 2012)

pemerton said:


> KM, your example of combat has every PC contributing (although some via defence or healing rather than damage, or via lazy builds which trigger other PCs' actions). But then you go on to describe a state of affairs in which the fighter doesn't contribute so much to a social situation. And you emphasise the time consumed by that situation.
> 
> So just to be clear - are you envisaging a pulling back from the 4e approach of everyone can contribute to every situation? But with this being counterbalanced by a change in the time required to resolve an encounter?




I'm all in favor of reducing minimum encounter resolution time. However, I'm not sure I agree with the idea of it as a fix to "balance" questions. Nonetheless, it might be an "end around" the issue. So you don't feel useful in this social situation the party is in? Don't worry, have some junk food, you'll be fighting or snooping around again in a matter of minutes. Honestly, I couldn't care less about balance from any other perspective other than my players having fun.



pemerton said:


> My own preference is to downplay minor encounters (the Jester upthread, or in a different thread, canvassed 15 combats in a session! - I'm not interested in that at all), focus primarily on major encounters, which I'm happy to have taking 1 hour+ to resolve, and have all PCs be able to contribute meaningfully to those encounters (as a result of both features of PC build, and of encounter build, and of the dynamics of action resolution).




I'd rather the rules not dictate encounter length too strongly one way or another. I strongly favor _being able_ to resolve encounters quickly, but I don't think _having to do so_ would be good, similarly for long encounters. However, that might be getting off topic.


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## RHGreen (Feb 17, 2012)

Zaruthustran said:


> At the DDXP "class" seminar (transcript here), Monte brought up the Three Pillars of D&D: Roleplay/Interaction, Combat, and Exploration. And the idea that classes would be balanced by their ability to interact with/excel at those three pillars.
> 
> I think this is a terrible idea.
> 
> ...




I have posted similar things in the past, all the way to when 4E was being designed - but it didn't happen.

All three things should run parallel, but not inerfere with each other. It should not be about one character being better than another in any given area. The distinction should be How they perform in that area.

A barbarian may be a badly educated big oath, but that wont stop him from socially attacking a NPC coward's bravery defence (or whatever) with his intimidating/bullying. He can be as effective as the poncy priest kissing back side, just in a different way.

Here is the problem with D&D social mechanics:

Charisma = slimy wimpy arse kisser.
Diplomacy = the art of slimy wimpy arse kissing.

So the perfect social character is someone who was born slimy and wimpy and naturally arse kisses people and has spent years learning the art of being slimy and wimpy and kissing people's arses.

The real world doesn't work like that. Nobody likes an arse kisser. Which goes against the idea that everybody loves someone with a high charisma and high diplomacy.

Unfortunately it seems that intimidate in skill challenges is seen as an almost definite autofail if attempted.

There should be more theme/breadth in the social side.

The same sort of things can be said for exploration.


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## RHGreen (Feb 17, 2012)

It would help if they made the social part more like combat.

If you had an NPC that had Vulnerable Intimidate 5, or something of that nature, the DM would play him as a coward. A bully would pick up on the cowardice and take the forefront in the social encounter. The sorcerer could then come up and play good cop. Perhaps getting a bonus to his social based rolls.

Benefits: 2 competely different types of social character both getting something out of a social encounter. Working together in the way combat works rather than as single entities more or less ignoring each other. The personality of the NPC (and the personality of the PCs) is supported by the mechanics to give it substance rather than a teddy bear tea party.


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## pemerton (Feb 18, 2012)

Ratskinner said:


> I'm talking about "balance" as in making sure that "everybody can contribute to any situation equally." That locks playstyle down as much or more than imbalance.



I don't see why - unless by "equally" you mean "identically".



Ratskinner said:


> Making sure that your choices as a player are irrelevant (or fluff only) and that all characters will be equally competent in all pillars is just a waste of time and effort. It lends to a very "boardgamey" feel without a lot of differentiation between classes other than fluff.



I'm not sure what you mean here by "fluff". The fact that a thief can help in combat by backstabbing, and a fighter by facing the foes on the front line, is in some sense a difference only of fluff ie different story elements - especially in a system like Basic or some approaches to AD&D which don't use maps/minis.

If different PCs have different social capacities - scary, friendly, subtle, overt, polite, rude, local, foreign, etc - then I don't see that choices will be irrelevant.


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## Harlekin (Feb 18, 2012)

Tony Vargas said:


> The emphasis in 5e does seem to be on making the game familiar, rather than making it good.




That sentence nails it!


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## Mercule (Feb 18, 2012)

Harlekin said:


> That sentence nails it!



And, as someone who just wants to sit around with the friends I've gamed with for 20ish years, but have slightly cleaner mechanics, I'm fine with that.

Edit: I don't fault anyone who disagrees, though.


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## Mattachine (Feb 18, 2012)

As others said, I think it is best to balance classes within each of these areas of game play ("the pillars"), rather than using the pillars as balancing factors themselves.

If a player wants a character to only be capable in combat, or exploration, or social interaction, so be it--just don't make the rules so that is the default.


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## Ratskinner (Feb 19, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I don't see why - unless by "equally" you mean "identically".




Because, if every PC is equally effective in all three pillars, you lose the opportunity for that one guy to shine in his one spot. I've seen it plenty in indie games were basically any skill or trait can do anything so long as you've got a good narrative to go with it. No matter what the situation, *all* the players want their crack at it. And yes, that is what the strongest proponents of balance seem to be saying.

Now that may not seem like a big thing, but it certainly is a different playstyle from the "roving spotlight" model of earlier D&D. Hence, it locks it down just as much as extreme imbalance.

I think we're both for a middle ground, but we're just on different sides of dead center (whatever that might be.)


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## Miyagi (Feb 21, 2012)

This still worries me. I could actually have fun either way - the game where everyone has something good to do in each of the three 'pillars' is my ideal game; the game where individual players can sacrifice strength in one pillar for ability in another would be fine, too, though I wouldn't like it as much.

I don't see that as the real choice, though, because it has never been that way. 3E and 4E came closest to creating what I like as an ideal, but failed; editions before that were balanced by either having almost no rules at all in areas of the game outside combat, or by having so few options at any particular time that balance was relatively easy to achieve.

The real choice, in practical terms, is between classes relatively balanced in all three pillars, but not equally flexible or powerful, and classes in which one area is strong to the detriment of others. This latter option really looks ugly in most games thus far, though - 3E's fighter was good in combat for a while, and terrible at everything else that wasn't simply made up without rules, whereas 3E's druid was as good in combat as the fighter, and spectacularly better at everything else. Heck, even a rogue in 3E could be as strong a fighter as the fighter, and still have a whole bag of tricks.

Nevermind character classes that could just do everything. As far back as 2E, we could see how the wizard made the thief basically irrelevant after level 7. A system that made characters such that players could trade strength in one area for strength in another would need to start with roughly equal capacity in all areas, or an equal number of strengths and weaknesses.

Even then, the way D&D is often played, combat takes most of the spotlight, so characters with better combat capability are going to spend more time in that spotlight. That's part of why I think there should be more rules in the other areas - more rule attention and more things to do equal a greater sharing of spotlight, and more variance of character types and approaches.


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## hanez (Feb 22, 2012)

Ratskinner said:


> I'm talking about "balance" as in making sure that "everybody can contribute to any situation equally." That locks playstyle down as much or more than imbalance. Also, I don't see most of the problems you cite as balance issues so much as lame rules that don't reflect the rest of the fantasy genre well. (D&D always seems to have plenty of those lying around.)
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Completely agree with this post.


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## Grydan (Feb 22, 2012)

Ratskinner said:


> I'm talking about "balance" as in making sure that "everybody can contribute to any situation equally." That locks playstyle down as much or more than imbalance. Also, I don't see most of the problems you cite as balance issues so much as lame rules that don't reflect the rest of the fantasy genre well. (D&D always seems to have plenty of those lying around.)




When I talk about wanting balance, and I think this holds true for many others on these boards, I'm not saying I want "everybody can contribute to any situation equally". I'm saying I want "everybody can contribute to any situation *meaningfully*".

Should bards have advantages over fighters in a social situation, and fighters have advantages over bards in combat? Sure. That's perfectly fine by me.

As long as in both cases, the less advantaged character isn't expected to sit quietly in the corner and wait for the game to move on to the part they're good at.

I want the Bard to be competent in combat. I want the Fighter to be competent in social situations. 

Furthermore, there can and probably should be circumstances where, even in the other's area of expertise, the less advantaged class has an advantage.

If you're negotiating a deal with the local lord, the bard is probably more persuasive than the fighter... but if the lord needs details of your plan of battle to be convinced, you probably want the fighter to do the talking. When fighting creatures pacified by music, the bard should obviously have an edge over the fighter.


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## Ratskinner (Feb 22, 2012)

Grydan said:


> Should bards have advantages over fighters in a social situation, and fighters have advantages over bards in combat? Sure. That's perfectly fine by me.
> 
> As long as in both cases, the less advantaged character isn't expected to sit quietly in the corner and wait for the game to move on to the part they're good at.
> 
> I want the Bard to be competent in combat. I want the Fighter to be competent in social situations.




I understand. The difference (I think) is that I want characters to have the option to be bad at something. I also want the classes to have a lot of different options (in the advanced rules, anyway) so you could have a fighter who specialized in diplomacy or investigation. However, I feel that sort of thing should be up to the player developing the character (with the GM) and not up to the game designers (in the advanced rules anyway). I think the weakness help a bit toward to team cohesion . 

Also, PCs (at least mine) are quite willing to jump into non-combat situations where they are totally useless, just to let the hilarious results roll. Low stats can be as fun to play as high stats, sometimes. I'd hate to see that disappear.


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## Mattachine (Feb 22, 2012)

Ratskinner said:


> Also, PCs (at least mine) are quite willing to jump into non-combat situations where they are totally useless, just to let the hilarious results roll. Low stats can be as fun to play as high stats, sometimes. I'd hate to see that disappear.




I wholeheartedly agree, but you have to be in a campaign where that sort of complication is rewarded. My current campaign, in my homebrew Under a False Sky, I have a game mechanic (called "hero points") to reward play which is true to roleplaying a character, whether or not the character is successful in a given task. But that is the exception; in most games, a character that doesn't pull its weight in combat is similar to having to fight more foes, and can cause annoyance with other players (not the PCs, but the actual players). I find this is especially true with pickup groups, convention games, etc.


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## pemerton (Feb 22, 2012)

Ratskinner said:


> PCs (at least mine) are quite willing to jump into non-combat situations where they are totally useless, just to let the hilarious results roll. Low stats can be as fun to play as high stats, sometimes. I'd hate to see that disappear.



To me, this speaks as much to scenario design as PC-build.

Why are players willing to do this in non-combat but not combat? What is different about the stakes in these two situations, so that hilarious failure is possible, and tolerated or even enjoyed, out of combat but not in combat?


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## Mattachine (Feb 23, 2012)

How about a rules option where each character can pick non-combat specialties, if they want, that does not involve a tradeoff with combat abilities?

Players that want such things can opt in for their PCs, and those that don't can ignore them.


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## Ratskinner (Feb 23, 2012)

Mattachine said:


> How about a rules option where each character can pick non-combat specialties, if they want, that does not involve a tradeoff with combat abilities?
> 
> Players that want such things can opt in for their PCs, and those that don't can ignore them.




Possibly, I figure themes are looking to be the easy candidate for such things. I favor this a lot more than hard-wiring all the characters to have some minimal aptitude in all three pillars.

Honestly, I don't even care if you do have to trade off some combat ability for exploration or social ability. If its important as a character is developing, then I say let 'em pick it.


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## Ratskinner (Feb 23, 2012)

pemerton said:


> To me, this speaks as much to scenario design as PC-build.
> 
> Why are players willing to do this in non-combat but not combat? What is different about the stakes in these two situations, so that hilarious failure is possible, and tolerated or even enjoyed, out of combat but not in combat?




I didn't say they weren't. I would say it happens less often, due to character death being more of an annoyance than character embarrassment. However, the more I think about it, the less true I think it is.

Just a few months ago while playing a BECMI game, we had a situation where 3 of the PC's went exploring on their own. (Hey, the other guys were late .) Long story short, the two fighters both get held, leaving the tapped-out wizard to fend off two wounded troglodytes and their shaman. Against all odds, he beat them to death with his staff. It wasn't smart, but it was heroic, and it was cool as all get out.

Would it be less heroic and cool if the wizard had the same kind of pillar-equivalence that people are talking about? YMMV, but for my money the answer is "Yes, yes it would."  BTW, that's just the most "famous" example kicking around my group, lately. The fighter-types in this group push the thieves to take some truly inordinate risks while scouting, IMO. (Of course, the thieves compensate by making off with loot before the party knows its there.)


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## Ratskinner (Feb 23, 2012)

Mattachine said:


> I wholeheartedly agree, but you have to be in a campaign where that sort of complication is rewarded. My current campaign, in my homebrew Under a False Sky, I have a game mechanic (called "hero points") to reward play which is true to roleplaying a character, whether or not the character is successful in a given task. But that is the exception; in most games, a character that doesn't pull its weight in combat is similar to having to fight more foes, and can cause annoyance with other players (not the PCs, but the actual players). I find this is especially true with pickup groups, convention games, etc.




I like such mechanics. Personally, my favorite implementation is "Awesome Points" from Old School Hack. They function as Hero Points and XP, but not when you earn them...when you spend them. I ran a pick up game one night when the scheduled GM couldn't make it. Awesome points were just that. They encouraged the cinematic style of creativity that I enjoy, at the same time giving players a bit more control over their destiny. They also really encourage the group to work together in creating entertainment, since anyone can hand them out, not just the GM.

Also, in my current group, the differences usually express themselves in bragging and teasing from the combat heavies rather than resentment.


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