Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories

[Quertus]

@Quertus: Spotlight sharing is probably not about equal time in the spotlight, but equal chance to stand in the spotlight for all players. You're right however that it doesn't require statistical/narrative power to have the spotlight - it's just that it's naturally easier for a character to be central the more ways they have to interact with the world.

As for the Martial/Caster gap, it's right that spellcasters being vastly more powerful/flexible than warriors is in itself not a problem - it becomes one because D&D expects the two to be on equal footing. It's also a problem for those who want fantastic characters who happen to be martially inclined - it's much easier for a spellcaster to be low-key and unhelpful on the other side (as you yourself can easily demonstrate).

Lots of "yep".

The thing with having a class that cannot interact with any one of the pillars of gameplay (generally exploration/social in D&D) means that there's a chance that the entire party is unable to interact with that pillar.

Well, let's slow down a bit. We'll keep the pillar abstraction, but recognize that it is just that - an abstraction.

How much a character had built-in buttons to push to interact with a given abstraction is a spectrum, not a yes/no modal toggle. Further, as I've detailed elsewhere (and may try to find), built-in buttons are not the only way to interface with a given pillar. McGuffins are perhaps the most commonly discussed external power source, but far from the only one.

As I've said before, if the party has literally 0 ability to interact with a pillar, that represents a complete and utter failure of everyone involved - GM, module writer, world-building, system writer, etc.

But, yes, sometimes, the party doesn't have any built-in buttons to push. And that's when the game gets interesting!

My BDH party? Unless it's innuendo, none of them should be allowed anywhere near the "social pillar". They generally struggle to convince the people that they're saving that they are the lesser of two evils (while gleefully wading through their opponents like they were human). And that's part of what makes that party fun - they struggle with things that anyone else would breeze through without even noticing.

So it forces adventures to either abbreviate and handwave the exploration/social components of the adventure or cut them out entirely, as otherwise a group is incapable of progressing should none of them have access to relevant abilities to complete the challenge.

No, IME, it forces them to get creative. To interact with the world, the NPCs, anything that they can to gain some advantage. To… basically play (my understanding of) Fate, and stack advantages / aspects / whatever, until they've given themselves enough advantage to complete the challenge. Or to redefine the challenge into something that they *can* handle ("well, we can't find him, but maybe we can make him come to us", for example).

Parties with these weaknesses are the best.

The above extends to the hobo situation you described by either forcing the group of hobo players to sit out an hour or more while Reed Richard doing an investigation encounter or to simplify his investigation to a single die roll.

Actually, I was saying that Reed should sit out, and let the mass army Hobos solve the problems that he, conceptually, should be best at.

If the hobos had a small amount of things to contribute, you could have a group encounter on investigation where Reed is MVP and the Hobos actively get to assist in helping him succeed. Even if I'm not in the spotlight and don't need to be, I still want to be able to support the efforts of the one who is.

That's more the model I prefer.