Game Ponderings
Still have a minor urging to run a fantasy game. And many problems with that, which still keep me from going anywhere with it...
I recently read a blog post that's had me thinking about it. There's some truth there. Character advancement in RPGs tends to fall into one of two categories: stat gains and new abilities. The former have an appeal, but when you consider how the GM generally ramps up challenge to match PC abilities, it's often a wash. Sometimes a character with focus will come out a little ahead, but it's difficult to see and usually hard to get real excited about. New abilities, on the other hand, are usually cool.
Advancement of a mage leads to new spells. Fireball. Flight. Teleportation. New things that are exciting. A warrior, on the other hand, gets better at dishing out and taking damage, sure, but not so much in the way of new capabilities. Feats, in D&D3E offer a little something, though they're often stat bonuses. 4E is built more toward making everyone's abilities more special. That's an advantage of the system in a way, though I'm not one to judge the rate of gain of them, as I haven't played much.
There's some difficulty in making that work with some themes, particularly ones I have in mind. If you want to keep magic feeling like magic, then it's almost impossible to give special powers to non-magic classes (or the like). So how do you pull that off? How do you give something "special" to PCs, especially in a setting that's supposed to be a bit more low-magic, or rare-magic.
Mmm... been busy and tired of late, haven't been able to put time into really thinking things through and developing ideas. Nevermind the trouble I have with scheduling and players. So all this is academic at the moment...
I recently read a blog post that's had me thinking about it. There's some truth there. Character advancement in RPGs tends to fall into one of two categories: stat gains and new abilities. The former have an appeal, but when you consider how the GM generally ramps up challenge to match PC abilities, it's often a wash. Sometimes a character with focus will come out a little ahead, but it's difficult to see and usually hard to get real excited about. New abilities, on the other hand, are usually cool.
Advancement of a mage leads to new spells. Fireball. Flight. Teleportation. New things that are exciting. A warrior, on the other hand, gets better at dishing out and taking damage, sure, but not so much in the way of new capabilities. Feats, in D&D3E offer a little something, though they're often stat bonuses. 4E is built more toward making everyone's abilities more special. That's an advantage of the system in a way, though I'm not one to judge the rate of gain of them, as I haven't played much.
There's some difficulty in making that work with some themes, particularly ones I have in mind. If you want to keep magic feeling like magic, then it's almost impossible to give special powers to non-magic classes (or the like). So how do you pull that off? How do you give something "special" to PCs, especially in a setting that's supposed to be a bit more low-magic, or rare-magic.
Mmm... been busy and tired of late, haven't been able to put time into really thinking things through and developing ideas. Nevermind the trouble I have with scheduling and players. So all this is academic at the moment...
For magic to stay, well, magical in a game system where damage is the typical output of a character (as is common in class-based RPGs) it needs to do non damaging stuff. Fly, teleport, scry, make sparkly lights, and so on.
ReplyDeleteWhile I haven't had the chance to take a good look at Iron Heroes, I think the answer is to provide techniques and such for non-mages. When I was playing a Fighter in my friend's Pathfinder game, I was looking at things like 'if opponent takes a 5' adjustment, you can follow / you can follow and attack'. If an opponent misses, take a 5' adjustment (good for avoiding flurries), and so forth. Two weapon fighting, two weapon rend, feats which allow you to combine 2+ attacks into one attempt at your full BAB, for 2x or 3x weapon damage (before bonuses). Things like this go beyond just 'stat mods', and provide some techniques to spread out the character's abilities. There's been a few 3rd party books I've seen with additional tricks - bleeding criticals, dazing criticals, and so forth.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm sort of torn on just where to draw the line. Make the mundane too mundane and magic is special and awesome, but those lacking it have nothing but boring advancement. And I have been the warrior player going "Well, I guess I'll increase my sword skill 'cause that's about all there is for me to do." Make non-magical techniques too unique and the become indistinguishable from magic, with things like shadow-stepping rogues and AOE whirlwind warriors. Is it better to balance around player/group desires or setting integrity? It occurs to me that magic items may have helped fill the gap back in 2E D&D and the like. Elven cloaks and necklaces of missiles work for pretty much everyone. Of course, if you're designing a setting where such things are genuinely rare...
ReplyDeleteCertainly one thing 4E D&D did was lessen the importance of one's gear. Since every class had "kewl powerz", you didn't need to give warriors a +1 flaming longsword just to keep up with their spell-slinging buddies. Magic in many settings is designed to be big and flashy but prohibitive. You only have so many spells a day. You need mana to cast. You have to roll a skill check to even get your spell off and when you do, there's some kind of deleterious side-effect like Drain or Paradox. Magic (and to the same extent miraculous faith) break physics, the realm where rangers, rogues and warriors are all consigned.
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