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Jun 3, 2012 -- 7:06AM, Areleth wrote:

You know something interesting? If you balance each class to be even in every pillar, then it doesn't matter which pillar you focus on, because everyone will be able to contribute and feel involved with the game. I know, it sounds like witchcraft, but its true!

Anyway, start with it balanced and then give options to lose combat viability to gain greater capability in exploration and so forth. Unbalance the game to your heart's content. Its a lot easier for you to kneecap the Fighter in any pillar outside Combat than it is for me to fashion some leg braces and get him back in the race.

Good points, I can agree with that - i don't think that is what we will see.  That  can be fine too

Jun 2, 2012 -- 8:14PM, SantaClaws wrote:

Jun 2, 2012 -- 2:44PM, Sizzaxe wrote:

Jun 2, 2012 -- 10:29AM, SantaClaws wrote:

Oh gods. They don't understand RPGs at all, do they? They obviously don't and just happen to have more money and a bigger name than much better developers.

D&D has been going further and further along this path and there's no hope in sight at this point.

Even if by "Roleplay" they mean "Social" the fact of the matter is that kind of division of specialization makes the game boring to play and/or harder to GM well. Either people without skill in a particular area will be bored (and therefore more likely to be disruptive) or the DM will be forced to contrive their relevance (increasing their workload even more than this edition which is already over reliant on Fiat already has). 

Nothing good can come from reverting to a style of game design that was largely abandoned since the early '00s. Even modern designed classless systems do a better job at ensuring everyone's relevance than this. A non-engaged player is a time bomb during a session, some players have longer fuses than other but this is true none the less, this philosophy not only promotes bad game design but increases the likelyhood of player disenfranchisement over the long run, especially with groups with inexpedience or poor DMs.

I'm gonna be somewhat pointed here Santaclaws, since it seems you are comfortable in doing so. Please don't take offense as this is not meant personally, but just as a response to your comments.

Setting aside your mistaking the interaction pillar as the roleplaying pillar, your argument shows a certain degree of ignorance (not you, your argument) of the development of D&D over the past 40 years. If by "going further and further along this path" you mean in embracing a supposedly confused idea of roleplaying I'm afraid your conclusion is quite wrong. In fact the exact opposite is true. 4e highlighted the tevchnical aspects of combat and exploration as a part of roleplay. For this reason many old schoolers said your couldn't roleplay in 4e--which is untrue of course.

And by abandoning a style of gaming of the 00's I'm assuming you either mean 2e or 3e. But this too shows ignorance, but now of the current gaming market. Paizo's Pathfinder currently has the largest market share in the tabletop gaming world, and they've made their bread and butter in exactly the style of gaming that arose in the year 2000.

And my last response involves your asssertion that you understand game design better, or that there are game designers doing a better job out there than D&D has ever seen. Could you be so kind as to point some of these out? Quite a few posters on this board are very savvy in terms of a wide variety of game systems, and we would love to be pointed in a direction as good as you say.

So, unless you can be a bit more specific first about these things, I dare say your point is not well taken--at least by me anyway

Paizo made its money by exploiting grognard caster players refusing to give up being the most useful classes by a wide margin and other people afraid of change. Just because something makes money says nothing about its quality, to this day it is a terribly balanced system and every GM I know who runs it has to go out of there way with house rules to make it work. If it does not play effectively out of the box it is not a quality product, just because many GMs like tweaking games doesn't excuse this because its poor consumerism that encourages bad business practices, you wouldn't buy a car if you had to work on it for a month before it drove properly and you wouldn't buy a pool table that would only hold itself together if the correct combination of people were standing around it. There is a difference between what markets well/appeals to players and what preforms well. Players do not always want what preforms well and this is where Paizo make their money. 

As for my assertion that I understand game design better well let me put it this way: I worked for an insurance company and am very familiar with both the theory and practice of how language can be used to influence people. Not what you are saying but how its said in terms of diction and pacing. If fact a lot of what I had to do was offer people things that were for their benefit in ways that would make it sound unattractive so that they would turn it down of their own choice. This gives me a lot of experience predicting the way people will act and the assumptions they will make based on written language. When it comes to rulebooks I can generally read the rules of a given system and see how a session plays out based on the mechanics and language of the book and I've never been wrong after actually playing it, ever. 

In D&D Next what I see as a result of this design decision and have seem before in other games that treat combat, exploration and interaction as separate entities is that in practice the dissonance will result in characters with dramatically different areas of expertise not feeling like they are playing the same game. It will create separate lulls in pacing, where events pick up for some players where they tapper off for other players. Its one thing to have pace slow down for everyone at once if appropriate but it is in no way good for a group if is happens asynchronously. This opens up room for disinterest and boredom and that leads to distraction of other players. Some players are more resilient to this than others but it will eventually happen to anyone who is not relevant and feels disconnected from the rest of the group. Keeping everyone simultaneously engaged prevents this and leads to a more productive game environment (IE: more will get done per session and no one will be siting there with nothing to do).

As for other systems doing this better:

Traveller (party skill packages based on the type of campaign being run and character advancement not being tied to level benchmarks allows for more organic feeling adventures where individuals can still play distinctly characters but no one is every left unable to contribute no matter the situation)  

Eclipse Phase (the ability for character to swap bodies and download skills means no one will ever be irrelevant unless they refuse to take advantage of this. Sure someone might focus on social interaction with their skills but downloaded into a synthetic battle shell with integrated reflex booster and an smg with armour piercing rounds  they are not going to look useless next to someone who focused more on combat skills)

Old World of Darkness (The games have interaction, exploration and combat but character archetypes with a few exceptions never lock you out of being useful in any of the common or not so common types of stories each game lends itself to)

I can eyeball game systems as well, and I have not been wrong with my initial evaluation.  I am also a trained scientist so I know how to isolate variables.  3 pillars is not backwards, and it is not worse.  You are not speaking as an experienced game designer.  Your opinion I am sure is noted, but it has been repeated mistakenly as fact many times since D&D next playtest released.

Jun 3, 2012 -- 11:58AM, lacodia wrote:

I'd like to add a couple notes on balance and keeping everyone involved in the game.

I feel that balance is not a desirable objective to pursue for the D&D game on account that it is a socially cooperative roleplaying game based on the idea of a group of people going on an adventure.

Just about every kind of story that I can think of from Arthurian tales to modern sitcoms almost always involved one or two main characters and an assortment of lesser subcharacters, with the spotlight focused on the main characters, with occasional special tales or episodes that shine the light briefly on one of the secondary characters. It's the way things are done because it works. Maybe it works because we all recognize that someone is going to be the leader, and a leader oftentimes has a right hand man or woman at their side who make most of the decisions and sometimes take most the actions for the party. With the secondary characters filling in when specialized skills are required.

I can't think of a single instance of a balanced group of characters in all of media. Only some of the superhero groups from the pages of the comics comes close, but even they don't strive for balance. In fact, at least in the screen movie adaptations they often portray them as highly specialized individuals . Each contributing to the problem in their own unique way.

As for keeping everyone involved. Most of us have seen this problem come up frequently enough. There are many situations where it can occur and at several different levels of intensity. For example if you are holding an all nighter it's not uncommon for the DM to focus on one or two character's sub plots for half an hour while everyone else is off doing something different. Or for example in a combat situation where say the fighter is still actively engaged in combat and most of the rest of the party is holed up in a tree waiting for the fighter to finish the mob of monsters off.

For me that is all ok, it's even a desirable situation.

Meh, this IMHO is the mistake of trying to draw from lessons in literary characters and apply it to an RPG. There's no guy playing the sidekick in a novel. Nor are novels game systems where there is some consistent set of rules that the characters are following.

The goal in an RPG is to entertain everyone and let them all participate.