The Man Keeping the Martial Down

[Talakeal]

I've never treated Monte Cook's quote as much more than a "we totally meant to do that!" maneuver. Particularly since I don't think this "D&D for Dummies" book ever came out. Of course, whether this is worse or better than intentionally designed imbalanced mess is difficult to say.

It did.

https://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Drag...gateway&sr=8-2

[Kyutaru]

The really broken spells in 3E are all about ignoring limitations thiugh, for example by simply summoning or turning into a creature who nas whatever spell you would like to cast as an SL?

Oh same in 2E. You could destroy the planet a bunch of ways with Polymorph Any Object. I don't like those spells for that reason and always curb their power much like DMs already do to the Wish spell.

[Morty]

That'll teach me to Google before making statements. Well, it doesn't really change my opinion on the veracity of Cook's claim.

[Max_Killjoy]

I've never treated Monte Cook's quote as much more than a "we totally meant to do that!" maneuver.
...
Of course, whether this is worse or better than intentionally designing an imbalanced mess is difficult to say.

The same thought had occurred to me -- that it might have been a retroactive CYA, an 'I meant to do that!" moment.

And yeah, not sure which is worse.

[GloatingSwine]

I think that if that is not stated in the game that it is bad design. But I think that if it is stated in the game it's not. MtG is not designed badly because there are bad options in it.

From the perspective of making you buy more booster packs to get the cards you wanted through the packs of intentional crap, maybe.....


(I don't think the trap options in D&D are intentional traps, mostly they're a symptom of having to keep producing more and more options, and the creativity for fun and useful stuff is going to run out eventually)

[Arbane]

I just saw this and wanted to take a stab at it (or at least how it could be)!

The fighter uses swords and has the concept of Cut from all their training. An ancient God Killer has summoned (or some other catastrophe) and the party needs to deal with it. The Fighter Cuts the consequences from them to stop the ritual from happening and reality shifts so that while the summon got off without a hitch, nothing happens because it's cause has been cut from any effect. This allows the nullification of a threat that would otherwise require much fighting, or possible time travel.

The Kill Six Billion Demons approach to Cutting. I approve.

[Max_Killjoy]

From the perspective of making you buy more booster packs to get the cards you wanted through the packs of intentional crap, maybe.....


(I don't think the trap options in D&D are intentional traps, mostly they're a symptom of having to keep producing more and more options, and the creativity for fun and useful stuff is going to run out eventually)

Germaine to this thread... it's been asserted that single-classing Fighter is a "trap option", which would be a pretty big and glaring flaw in the core of the game system, if true, and have nothing to do with the later content pileup.

[Max_Killjoy]

I just saw this and wanted to take a stab at it (or at least how it could be)!

The fighter uses swords and has the concept of Cut from all their training. An ancient God Killer has summoned (or some other catastrophe) and the party needs to deal with it. The Fighter Cuts the consequences from them to stop the ritual from happening and reality shifts so that while the summon got off without a hitch, nothing happens because it's cause has been cut from any effect. This allows the nullification of a threat that would otherwise require much fighting, or possible time travel.

Would this allow a baker to Bake things into history? Or a weaver to Weave things into the fabric of reality?

[Willie the Duck]

From the perspective of making you buy more booster packs to get the cards you wanted through the packs of intentional crap, maybe.....

It's nice and easy to rag on MtG for being a moneymaking venture (because TTRPGs in general aren't?), but the excitement of opening a new package and getting that super awesome rare card*, and thinking about which deck you put them in is definitely part of the product experience, and part of the appeal of the product. Several games which are roughly MtG-like, but do not have the collectable or deck-perfection traits (perhaps because it is a single game with a set collection of cards, or because you can't winnow the cards down into a specific customizable deck) exist, and for the most part are not as popular. Mind you, I haven't played (excepting an occasional play with others using their cards) since the early-mid 90s, but I recognize that MtG is successful because it is giving the desired play experience to the players. For what it is worth, AMFV is right that properly done (and recognized) system mastery can be an avenue towards making a desired and successful game.
*which can only exist if there are other, non-awesome or non-rare, cards

Not, mind you, that I think that part of 3e was really that successful (and I also wonder just how deliberate it was in the first place).

(I don't think the trap options in D&D are intentional traps, mostly they're a symptom of having to keep producing more and more options, and the creativity for fun and useful stuff is going to run out eventually)

I think the splatmill was a self-fulfilling problem. Too many expansions after the fact with too little time for oversight. The overall martial-spellcaster disparity happened before much of that, though. That I think was more to do with a feeling that they had to port much of AD&D over to this new d20 system but only with the changes they had laid out as advantageous and not enough thought to the downstream consequences.

[Florian]

Germaine to this thread... it's been asserted that single-classing Fighter is a "trap option", which would be a pretty big and glaring flaw in the core of the game system, if true, and have nothing to do with the later content pileup.

Compare that to PF. Dipping, most PrC or anything beyond using VMC is a trap.

[AMFV]

I'd just make Wizards choose three schools and deny them access to everything else. They are strong due to expanding versatility. Limit them to specialists just as the martials have to be.

That doesn't really fix the problem though. Fighters take a ton of optimization work to be viable in their roles, Wizards don't. It only fixes the outcome issue. I'm looking at fixing the complexity issue at the bottom. We've seen people intentionally making both classes fairly simple (or at least taking multiclassing off the table).

A game system is not a song, and it is not a work of art -- it is in fact a functional "machine", a tool. It can be judged, objectively, by how well it does its job.

It is a song. It's goal is to provide enjoyment within a framework. Since enjoyment is not a subjective quality you CANNOT judge it objectively, period. You can't. And asserting that you can is flat-out wrong. Because different people are going to value different things in their enjoyment.

I've never treated Monte Cook's quote as much more than a "we totally meant to do that!" maneuver. Particularly since I don't think this "D&D for Dummies" book ever came out. Of course, whether this is worse or better than intentionally designing an imbalanced mess is difficult to say.

That's quite possible, but it doesn't necessarily mean that thinking about ways to exploit that idea is necessarily a bad thing.

(I don't think the trap options in D&D are intentional traps, mostly they're a symptom of having to keep producing more and more options, and the creativity for fun and useful stuff is going to run out eventually)

Possible, although if we're taking Monte at his word that is not the case and most of the trap options (the most glaring ones anyways) are in core and were present at the start of the system.

Germaine to this thread... it's been asserted that single-classing Fighter is a "trap option", which would be a pretty big and glaring flaw in the core of the game system, if true, and have nothing to do with the later content pileup.

It is certainly true. I would argue that it is only a flaw if you have some single class options that are NOT trap options (which is the case here).

Compare that to PF. Dipping, most PrC or anything beyond using VMC is a trap.

Not so, Prestigious Spellcaster being a feat now. There's also a few non-trap multiclassing options and several classes have weak (or nearly superfluous) capstones, meaning that dipping can be very viable for them.

Not, mind you, that I think that part of 3e was really that successful (and I also wonder just how deliberate it was in the first place).

Exactly, I'm wondering if it could be done successfully. Make the Wizard involve complex class planning and building the same as a martial.

[Max_Killjoy]

It is a song. It's goal is to provide enjoyment within a framework. Since enjoyment is not a subjective quality you CANNOT judge it objectively, period. You can't. And asserting that you can is flat-out wrong. Because different people are going to value different things in their enjoyment.

It is the goal of the actual gaming to provide enjoyment.

The purpose of the system is to enable that endeavor via providing framework and adjudication for that gaming, in a transparent, open, fair, objective, and even-handed manner.

System complexity for its own sake -- that doesn't serve to make the framework more robust, or to increase its fidelity to the setting, or to provide more granularity, or to provide more options, or do anything else -- deliberately obfuscated, that's there just to make "system nerds" feel good about themselves for being "better" at the rules than other players, is a distraction at best, and an active toxin at worst.

"Trap options", deliberate or not, are always a failure in the design of the system.

It is certainly true. I would argue that it is only a flaw if you have some single class options that are NOT trap options (which is the case here).

Exactly, I'm wondering if it could be done successfully. Make the Wizard involve complex class planning and building the same as a martial.

As much as I'm not a fan of Classes...

First, your nomenclature of "complex class" vs "simple class", based on how much multiclassing is "needed", is somewhere between orthogonal and backwards.

Second, any "solution" that involves making sure everyone is afflicted instead of removing the affliction from those who suffer under it, is no solution at all. It's like trying to "cure" a disease by deliberately infecting those who don't already have it, or "alleviating" abject poverty by making sure everyone is abjectly poor.

"Fixing" the "need" for the Fighter to multiclass by making sure that every Class "needs" to multiclass is the opposite of a solution. It would still be a flaw, just a flaw that you'd be inflicting on all the Classes instead of only some of the Classes.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I have to agree with those that are aghast at the "forced multiclassing" and "trap options are good" positions taken.

From a design standpoint, it's entirely a waste of effort and a reputation hit to produce crap. To knowingly produce crap in an effort to be able to laugh at those without system mastery is...well, the best word I want to use here is wrong.

It's like acting like an idiot and then claiming "oh, I was just joking." It's juvenile and calls everything you've done into question.

If you're going to use classes, have them be functional on their own. Having to jump through a bundle of unintuitive hoops to create a simple, functional character is pants-on-head idiotic. Note that you couldn't make a functional (let alone good) unarmed combatant until swordsage was published...several years later. If you want to have a "build your own" approach, do a point-buy system.

And since most of the most broken (in both directions) crap was in Core, I'm just much more of the mind that the designers had no idea about their own system and did little to no real play-testing.

On the flip side, a lot of how 3e is currently played has nothing to do with how it was designed. If all you do is "basic" stuff (dungeon crawls, blaster wizards, heal-bot clerics, etc.), the system holds together even with no multi-classing. But that takes a lot of gentleman's agreements and intentional underplaying.

[Kyutaru]

The purpose of the system is to enable that endeavor via providing framework and adjudication for that gaming, in a transparent, open, fair, objective, and even-handed manner.

That sounds like you're expecting people to cheat and want to create a gaming "arena" that you can quest in fairly without even the DM robbing you of your prized victories. It's the idea that D&D is a tactics simulator and there is only objective victory and failure. My own take on D&D was that the tale is what the essence of the game was and the rules merely provide guidelines for facilitating the challenge segments of the interactive fantasy you're spinning for your players. That fantasy creation gets disrupted or shutdown by a strict adherence to rules in a complex system which is only a problem if the rules exist in the first place. By that I mean... open-ended rule wordings are intentionally vague to prevent creating limitations on the imagination. When you have a system that invites interpretation then you get a unique experience with each game session because subtle variations arise. It's all about how good of a DM you have. Whereas the statements you're making concerning the system make me believe that you would prefer the DM take the role of the Ruleskeeper and simply run the simulation game set out before him. I have to say that whether or not you do it's an interesting thing that the game can be viewed from differing perspectives and that they might each carry different values and goals.

[Willie the Duck]

"Trap options", deliberate or not, are always a failure in the design of the system.

You removed the term 'objectively' this time, and now I agree.

[Jama7301]

Note that you couldn't make a functional (let alone good) unarmed combatant until swordsage was published...several years later. .

Beg pardon? That's unintuative as all get-out. "Swordsage" does not fill me with thoughts of people who punch things.

[PhoenixPhyre]

You removed the term 'objectively' this time, and now I agree.

I can't see how spending time and developer resources to create things that you intentionally don't want people to play or that are intentionally broken can be anything other than objective bad design.

[Max_Killjoy]

That sounds like you're expecting people to cheat and want to create a gaming "arena" that you can quest in fairly without even the DM robbing you of your prized victories. It's the idea that D&D is a tactics simulator and there is only objective victory and failure. My own take on D&D was that the tale is what the essence of the game was and the rules merely provide guidelines for facilitating the challenge segments of the interactive fantasy you're spinning for your players. That fantasy creation gets disrupted or shutdown by a strict adherence to rules in a complex system which is only a problem if the rules exist in the first place. By that I mean... open-ended rule wordings are intentionally vague to prevent creating limitations on the imagination. When you have a system that invites interpretation then you get a unique experience with each game session because subtle variations arise. It's all about how good of a DM you have. Whereas the statements you're making concerning the system make me believe that you would prefer the DM take the role of the Ruleskeeper and simply run the simulation game set out before him. I have to say that whether or not you do it's an interesting thing that the game can be viewed from differing perspectives and that they might each carry different values and goals.

Um... my statements were a rejection of complex rules simply for the sake of complexity, and of the notion that the complex rules are themselves "the game" and that one "wins" by "mastering" that complex, obtuse, and self-referential ruleset more completely than the other players.

Instead, the rules should be even-handed, transparent, and grounded in the fictional reality (setting aside the old "story" debate) -- I've typed "the rules are the map, the setting and characters are the actual territory" into this forum's posting window so many times that it should auto-complete on my account.

The results coming out of the rules/mechanics should match what's expected for the range and probability of outcomes for attempted actions within the setting ("world that could be real") that the characters ("people who could be real") inhabit, so that the game keeps moving and the dissonance between the "fiction" and the rules is minimized.

[AMFV]

It is the goal of the actual gaming to provide enjoyment.

The purpose of the system is to enable that endeavor via providing framework and adjudication for that gaming, in a transparent, open, fair, objective, and even-handed manner.

System complexity for its own sake -- that doesn't serve to make the framework more robust, or to increase its fidelity to the setting, or to provide more granularity, or to provide more options, or do anything else -- deliberately obfuscated, that's there just to make "system nerds" feel good about themselves for being "better" at the rules than other players, is a distraction at best, and an active toxin at worst.

"Trap options", deliberate or not, are always a failure in the design of the system.

What if I enjoy system complexity? I enjoy complex multiclassing. Having that in a game makes me enjoy the game more. Objectively by your reasoning that makes complex better than simple games, since I enjoy it more, no? Or is it possible that your preferences are hardly universal preferences.

As much as I'm not a fan of Classes...

First, your nomenclature of "complex class" vs "simple class", based on how much multiclassing is "needed", is somewhere between orthogonal and backwards.

In terms of the character building game it is not. In terms of the amount of resources to make a character really unique and good using that system it is also not. The Wizard might be more complex in play, but in character creation it is not, and it doesn't really need to be. If I had a Wizard character without any feats or skill choices and only the things that inherently came with the class it would still be able to do it's job competently, since the only thing it needs to function is spells.

Second, any "solution" that involves making sure everyone is afflicted instead of removing the affliction from those who suffer under it, is no solution at all. It's like trying to "cure" a disease by deliberately infecting those who don't already have it, or "alleviating" abject poverty by making sure everyone is abjectly poor.

There are diseases that are cured that way. But the thing is you are claiming that complex builds and multiclassing are diseases or an "affliction". I've already stated that I literally go in a direction that is less optimal (gishing vs. straight casting) because I enjoy that aspect of the game. I want to have to have that challenge when I'm building because that challenge is part of why I play the game, and part of what I enjoy.

"Fixing" the "need" for the Fighter to multiclass by making sure that every Class "needs" to multiclass is the opposite of a solution. It would still be a flaw, just a flaw that you'd be inflicting on all the Classes instead of only some of the Classes.

Again, it's only a flaw if you aren't getting enjoyment out of it. I do.

From a design standpoint, it's entirely a waste of effort and a reputation hit to produce crap. To knowingly produce crap in an effort to be able to laugh at those without system mastery is...well, the best word I want to use here is wrong.

Not if you want the game to have any strategic elements at all. If you want there to be a strategy element to character creation, then it has to have options that are worse and options that are better.

It's like acting like an idiot and then claiming "oh, I was just joking." It's juvenile and calls everything you've done into question.

What they've done is make arguably the most popular gaming system for RPGs on the planet. Including 3e, 3.5, and Pathfinder I would say that during their heyday that's inarguable and possibly even to date, I would argue that is very likely to be the case.

If you're going to use classes, have them be functional on their own. Having to jump through a bundle of unintuitive hoops to create a simple, functional character is pants-on-head idiotic. Note that you couldn't make a functional (let alone good) unarmed combatant until swordsage was published...several years later. If you want to have a "build your own" approach, do a point-buy system.

You certainly could build a good unarmed fighter prior to swordsage being created. I mean you couldn't build it using the monk really, but you could certainly do things that were intended to work well. Hell, adding Snap-Kick to an ubercharger significantly increases their potential.

On the flip side, a lot of how 3e is currently played has nothing to do with how it was designed. If all you do is "basic" stuff (dungeon crawls, blaster wizards, heal-bot clerics, etc.), the system holds together even with no multi-classing. But that takes a lot of gentleman's agreements and intentional underplaying.

But as Monte said, the multi-classing is inherently a part of the system, that strategy is deliberate. You not enjoying it, doesn't mean that doing it isn't fulfilling a design goal.

I can't see how spending time and developer resources to create things that you intentionally don't want people to play or that are intentionally broken can be anything other than objective bad design.

It's the same sort of thing they do in all kinds of games. In chess they made a bunch of pieces that are objectively worse than other pieces. In MtG there are a bunch of cards that are worse than other cards. In order for there to be any kind of strategy there have to be options that are worse than others.

[PhoenixPhyre]

You could have situational things for complexity. But if there's a strict ordering and some options are just useless or even actively detrimental, that's bad design.

As well, what works for competitive card games does not work for cooperative role playing games. You don't need to beat the other players. That very mindset is toxic. It's not a competition between anyone, not even with the DM.

[Max_Killjoy]

The core issue here.

There is no "character building game". No one "wins" or "loses" character building, it is not a competition, it is not a test.

There is no "strategic level" to character building.

There is no challenge or contest, GM vs other players, in character building. Any information important to the nature of the characters being built -- fiction or mechanical layers -- that is withheld from the players during character creation, is a failure on the part of the GM.

[Florian]

And since most of the most broken (in both directions) crap was in Core, I'm just much more of the mind that the designers had no idea about their own system and did little to no real play-testing.

On the flip side, a lot of how 3e is currently played has nothing to do with how it was designed. If all you do is "basic" stuff (dungeon crawls, blaster wizards, heal-bot clerics, etc.), the system holds together even with no multi-classing. But that takes a lot of gentleman's agreements and intentional underplaying.

Don´t forget that 3E should actually be AD&D 3rd edition, a name that was dropped because of marketing reasons. The whole thing makes sense when you accept that the designers started with AD&D 2nd as a basis, then went on to straighten out and unify the system into a more coherent whole around a fixed set of core rules in contrast to a heap of individual rulings.

They also admitted that they were heavily inspired by games like Diablo, which made "builds" and that specific kind of "pre-game system mastery" into one of the core aspects of enhancing the replay value. AD&D 2nd without stuff like Skills&Powers simply had no real pre-game. Roll stats, pick race and class, go play, done. Insofar, some of their design decisions actually make sense. A Skill Focus feat in something is extremely valuable at first level, while Power Attack is the kind of feat that you can pick at first level, but needs a bit of time to pick up speed....

In 3.0E, you can still see that they tried to be nothing else than AD&D 3rd. What you mention more or less started with 3.5E, when they just threw the towel and started to hand players stuff and options, not caring anymore because folks bought it and used it the way they wanted.

The core issue here.

There is no "character building game". No one "wins" or "loses" character building, it is not a competition, it is not a test.

There is no "strategic level" to character building.

Maybe you should check your bias?

The whole reason to play a system like D&D 3E/4E or PF is because it caters to pure Gamism and nothing else, therefore should function for that. The tactical and strategic parts of the character building pre-game are directly tied to it and centered around understanding what the whole effing CR system is all about and how you can beat that in the short and long run.

Those are not systems you use when you want to model stuff based on in-game/in fiction reality and should not be treated and weighted in that way.

[AMFV]

You could have situational things for complexity. But if there's a strict ordering and some options are just useless or even actively detrimental, that's bad design.

I don't agree that this is always the case. Again for there to be strategy there have to be options that are worse for a specific goal.

As well, what works for competitive card games does not work for cooperative role playing games. You don't need to beat the other players. That very mindset is toxic. It's not a competition between anyone, not even with the DM.

There are plenty of points where RPGs include competitive aspects. Tomb of Horrors is a very competitive module, involving a battle of wits between the players and the DM (also of note the DM is supposed to allow the players creative solutions there). And Tomb of Horrors is cooperative. It is also extremely well remembered and while it might not be remembered for the right reasons, there are reasons people enjoy it.

In 3.5, when I am building a character, the competition exists between me and the rules. I have a limited number of resources, I have specific goals. Say I'm building a gish, I want to have 16 BAB and 9th level spells by the end of the game, and then I start adding in other goals. The better I understand the rules and the more rules I know the more possible permutations of that I'll find. That's the game of character creation. That's what I'm doing.

The core issue here.

There is no "character building game". No one "wins" or "loses" character building, it is not a competition, it is not a test.

Wrong.

There is no "strategic level" to character building.

Wrong.

There is no challenge or contest, GM vs other players, in character building. Any information important to the nature of the characters being built -- fiction or mechanical layers -- that is withheld from the players during character creation, is a failure on the part of the GM.

Mostly right.

In many games there is a challenge and contest in character building. You have a limited number of resources and specific goals to meet with those resources. If you don't see how that is strategic and how one could be more or less successful with that then I don't know what to tell you. I do think that when that is an aspect of the game, the DM should mention it, and so should the rulebooks.

[Willie the Duck]

I can't see how spending time and developer resources to create things that you intentionally don't want people to play or that are intentionally broken can be anything other than objective bad design.

Within the premise of a system mastery game*, you don't want people to not play the bad options, you want people to start out playing the bad options, and then learn from the experience and work towards the optimal choices. This is a design aesthetic that was dreamed up, if Florian is right rather deliberately, and at it's core is not a bad thing (albeit again I think the specific implementation was bad) for a certain type of game with audience buy-in. As the industry spearhead that D&D is inevitably going to be, I do not think it was a great choice, since a lot of people would end up playing this System Mastery game simply because it was D&D, and not because they'd bought into the system mastery premise. That does not make the premise, within certain situations, inherently or objectively bad design.
*And mind you, I am moving this conversation away from the ones actually implemented, notably 3e and PF, as those I feel very clearly were hurt by the System Mastery portion of the game, and towards a more theoretical discussion.

Thus, when Max says he rejects a design decision, or posits how he feels things should be, I am all for it. Those are preferences, and overall, I generally agree (heck, I wish the optimized:non-optimized disparity in even the less OP 5th edition were smaller, as I personally don't see a need for any real system mastery rewards in games I want to play. That's different, however, than categorizing things as objectively (a term I put a high threshold on) bad design.

[Max_Killjoy]

In many games there is a challenge and contest in character building. You have a limited number of resources and specific goals to meet with those resources. If you don't see how that is strategic and how one could be more or less successful with that then I don't know what to tell you. I do think that when that is an aspect of the game, the DM should mention it, and so should the rulebooks.

That is not a game, and it is not a contest, and it is not strategic, unless you water all those words down until they're meaningless. You cannot "beat" character creation, you cannot "win" character creation, and if you're coming out way ahead of other players on character creation, that is a sign that you've found a flaw in the system or in the GM/campaign's implementation of that system.

The limited resources do not exist to challenge you, or test your system knowledge, or to present you with a "winner vs loser" scenario. They exist for reasons of balance between characters, and to set the characters' competence/power/effectiveness in the context of the setting and campaign.

And if an RPG system is designed such that different build options cost the same amount of points or whatever other resources, but result in grossly more or less functional or effective characters, that's never good game design -- even if it's deliberate -- and doubly so if it's obscured or obtuse about it. Trap options, dead ends, and gross disconnects in efficacy per expenditure in character building are never good game design, ever, under any circumstances.

[Thinker]

What if I enjoy system complexity? I enjoy complex multiclassing. Having that in a game makes me enjoy the game more. Objectively by your reasoning that makes complex better than simple games, since I enjoy it more, no? Or is it possible that your preferences are hardly universal preferences.

Class-based systems have a few advantages over point-buy (and similar) game systems. The main advantage is the straightforwardness of character options. You know that at a certain level your character has X abilities, Y stats, and can handle challenges of Z difficulty. When you gain more XP, you gain another package of +1 abilities, +1 stats, and can now handle Z+1 difficulty. It is quick and easy and doesn't take very much thought. There are obviously tweaks you can make to this standard, but the formula will be more or less the same.

This also makes the game more accessible for new players. They don't need to spend a bunch of time researching options. They don't need to worry about if their character belongs in the same party as another player's of the same level. One of the major downsides is that you might not get to play exactly the character you wanted - for example, you were hoping to play Robin Hood, but couldn't decide between Ranger and Rogue.

The 3.5 and PF multi-classing approach is a band-aid to address those downsides. But, multi-classing without restrictions is just a worse version of point-buy. Point-buy does a better job of rewarding system mastery, is explicit that your character is only as strong as you make it, and is designed to give you the character with the specific abilities that you want. On the other hand, it takes longer to figure out the basics that your character should have (I am reminded of Exalted almost requiring people to take Ox Body if they wanted to be good at combat, but not saying so). It also does a worse job of ensuring that characters have similar power-levels compared to most class-based systems.

If one of the main strengths of class-based systems is approximating power-levels, 3e and its derivatives does a very poor job. It is implied by having Effective-Class-Levels, Level Adjustment, and Challenge Ratings that a character's level should tell you something about how strong it is. And I'd say that at level 1, those games do a pretty good job. But, the more complex the character build gets and the more options a character has (casters), the further it gets away from that balance that the system promises. The system implies that a level 10 fighter belongs in a party of other level 10 characters to overcome challenges appropriate to a level 10 party. But, that's not the case.

So, why use classes if you don't get the benefits of using classes?

[Max_Killjoy]

Within the premise of a system mastery game*, you don't want people to not play the bad options, you want people to start out playing the bad options, and then learn from the experience and work towards the optimal choices. This is a design aesthetic that was dreamed up, if Florian is right rather deliberately, and at it's core is not a bad thing (albeit again I think the specific implementation was bad) for a certain type of game with audience buy-in. As the industry spearhead that D&D is inevitably going to be, I do not think it was a great choice, since a lot of people would end up playing this System Mastery game simply because it was D&D, and not because they'd bought into the system mastery premise. That does not make the premise, within certain situations, inherently or objectively bad design.

*And mind you, I am moving this conversation away from the ones actually implemented, notably 3e and PF, as those I feel very clearly were hurt by the System Mastery portion of the game, and towards a more theoretical discussion.

Thus, when Max says he rejects a design decision, or posits how he feels things should be, I am all for it. Those are preferences, and overall, I generally agree (heck, I wish the optimized:non-optimized disparity in even the less OP 5th edition were smaller, as I personally don't see a need for any real system mastery rewards in games I want to play. That's different, however, than categorizing things as objectively (a term I put a high threshold on) bad design.

Deliberately including bad options, and wanting gamers to play those bad options until they get wise to it -- that is not only bad design, it is outright acting in bad faith on the part of the game developer.

No wonder online discussion of D&D and D&D-likes has been so heavily fixated on builds, numerical optimization, etc... players are desperately trying to avoid all the pitfalls that the devs deliberately included in multiple editions worth of the systems.

[Florian]

Deliberately including bad options, and wanting gamers to play those bad options until they get wise to it -- that is not only bad design, it is outright acting in bad faith on the part of the game developer.

No wonder online discussion of D&D and D&D-likes has been so heavily fixated on builds, numerical optimization, etc... players are desperately trying to avoid all the pitfalls that the devs deliberately included in multiple editions worth of the systems.

Oh, shut up, man.

The game has a clear sign "you must be this big to ride", but also includes the option to grow to the needed height while playing it. That is not acting in bad faith but making a compromise.

[Max_Killjoy]

Oh, shut up, man.

The game has a clear sign "you must be this big to ride", but also includes the option to grow to the needed height while playing it. That is not acting in bad faith but making a compromise.

Does the game label the bad options as bad options, or does it present them as equal to the other options and leave it to the players to figure out which is which? 3.x and the like clearly put a veneer of equality between the classes into the published products, presenting them all as valid starting options, and presenting Levels -- not Classes -- as the measure of differing "power" between characters. Either they're deliberately not unbalanced, with trap options abounding, or the designers were just bad.

But the whole "you must be this big to ride" attitude... yeah, that explains a lot about some past posts.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Does the game label the bad options as bad options, or does it present them as equal to the other options and leave it to the players to figure out which is which? 3.x and the like clearly put a veneer of equality between the classes into the published products, presenting them all as valid starting options, and presenting Levels -- not Classes -- as the measure of differing "power" between characters.

But the whole "you must be this big to ride" attitude... yeah, that explains a lot about some past posts.

It does not. Not at all. I just cracked open the 3.5 PHB, and there is absolutely no indication that they're designed to be imbalanced.

SO one of two things is true:
1. The imbalance is unintentional.
2. The designers intentionally and maliciously lied about the design in the player's handbook.

Here are the descriptions of the classes, for reference:

Barbarian: A ferocious warrior who uses fury and instinct to
bring down foes.
Bard: A performer whose music works magic—a wanderer, a
tale-teller, and a jack-of-all trades.
Cleric: A master of divine magic and a capable warrior as well.
Druid: One who draws energy from the natural world to cast
divine spells and gain strange magical powers.
Fighter: A warrior with exceptional combat capability and
unequaled skill with weapons.
Monk: A martial artist whose unarmed strikes hit fast and
hard—a master of exotic powers.
Paladin: A champion of justice and destroyer of evil, protected
and strengthened by an array of divine powers.
Ranger: A cunning, skilled warrior of the wilderness.
Rogue: A tricky, skillful scout and spy who wins the
battle by stealth rather than brute force.
Sorcerer: A spellcaster with inborn magical ability.
Wizard: A potent spellcaster schooled in the arcane art

Nowhere does it say "taking 20 levels of fighter is a trap" or "you're supposed to multiclass." Multiclassing is said to improve the breadth of a character at the expense of power in the class (ie trading depth for breadth). In fact, the starting packages (billed as a good default for new players) recommend the following:

*Half-orc barbarian should take the Weapon Focus: Greataxe feat (No, no they shouldn't)
*Gnome bard (?) should take the Dodge feat if their Dex is greater than 13, or Improved initiative otherwise (improved initiative is better than dodge, which is a noted feat tax)
* Human cleric (which, by the way "is not well served by charging into the front line") should take Scribe Scroll and Alertness
* Half-elf druid (?) should take Scribe Scroll and pick a Wolf companion (not actually that bad a choice, IIRC)
* Dwarven Fighters (which are described as "having the best all-around fighting capability of the classes" LOL) should take Weapon Focus: Dwarven Waraxe (Again, WF is not a great feat) + Power Attack (but only if STR > 13) or Improved Initiative. Power Attack is necessary. But the description is just flat out false.

etc.

If character building was supposed to be this all-important minigame, there's no evidence of it in the text. Again, either it's importance is overblown and not intentional or the designers maliciously lied to everyone.