Would You Rather Maintain Campaign Theme or Win?

[Thomas Shey]

If you were playing in a Dragon Ball Z type game, would you attack the opponent while they're transforming?

Why would it even be possible in such a game? What purpose would that be serving?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Tell me if I'm wrong, but the way I'm understanding this is, let's say my character is TEH ICE WIZZARD (the Blizzard Wizzard, if you will). I ONLY CAST ICE! All of my spells are cold themed- "My magic missiles are razor sharp homing icicles!").

Now, upon leveling up, I have the choice between a mediocre ice spell (sadly, in real D&D, that's most ice spells) and an awesome fire spell (second verse, same as the first). If I stay on theme, I'm going to be performing worse than if I had made the sacrifice of flavor vs. power. If I don't, I'm more versatile and more powerful.

Generally, if I want to be a themed character, I want to stick with that theme, obviously. But not all themes are well supported. At some point I would ask my DM if I could learn "freezing orb" instead of fireball or something like that (one of the few cool things in the Wizard playtest is the ability to do just this!).

But assuming they aren't on board with this (for whatever reason), or they can't do it (public play), generally what I do is quietly retire the character because their concept isn't working. I'm perfectly capable of not optimizing, and having fun with lower power options, but often, I worry about pulling my weight in the party, and if I don't think I'm doing that, I'll ask about changing characters.

As an aside, I think this is actually something we lost when specialization stopped meaning anything for most casters; it's a lot of fun to be like "ok, so I'm an Enchanter, what can I do without boom boom magic?". But now, there's no reason for even an Enchanter to not stock a fireball just in case. I miss some of the radically limited specialists in 2e like the Elementalist Wizards (had an Air Wizard once, all I can say, good thing I could use Fire as well!) or the Dualists from the Cormanthyr book (you specialize in 2 opposed schools of magic and can cast basically nothing else. My highest level 2e Wizard is an Enchanter/Invoker and making do with a limited color pallet, so to speak, is a fascinating process).

I did this in one campaign. Adrian Von Basten- the PC in question- had stats to be a Paladin, but was actually a sorcerer with blue dragon ancestry. And he was obsessed with that side of his heritage…

All of Adrian’s damage spells were electrical, including those that normally wouldn’t be.* And with his ancestry, he channeled spell energy into an electrical breath weapon.

If the foes were vulnerable to electrical energy, he was a nightmare. If they were largely immune, he had to whack them with his maul** and let his allies carry the battle.

FWIW, I thought 3.X’s take on specialists was pretty good. My most common specialists were Transmuters, Ilusionists, and Diviners.








* essentially, the DM gave the PC Energy Substitution: Electricity as a freebie.

** The PC had many wrinkles and oddities besides. NOT an optimized DPR build.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

One of the necessary tasks when using a generic system for a specific setting with specific themes is to adjust the game to fit the setting. Otherwise you have a game who's mechanics do not reflect the setting properly, and that includes incentives and limits.

I believe it was either John Wick or Matt Colville who said that the game informs you of the designer's intended style of play by the behaviors it chooses to reward. With this Fire/Stun example, I'm not seeing an in-setting reason to choose one and not the other/both. Nothing was laid out saying that, in this society, the mind is the highest form of Self and anything attacking/modifying that is the worst sin imaginable, saved for the worst of the blackguard. Or that fire is held above, as a sign of the Dawnlord and Giver of Life, that fire is sacred.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

I did this in one campaign. Adrian Von Basten- the PC in question- had stats to be a Paladin, but was actually a sorcerer with blue dragon ancestry. And he was obsessed with that side of his heritage…

All of Adrian’s damage spells were electrical, including those that normally wouldn’t be.* And with his ancestry, he channeled spell energy into an electrical breath weapon.

If the foes were vulnerable to electrical energy, he was a nightmare. If they were largely immune, he had to whack them with his maul** and let his allies carry the battle.

FWIW, I thought 3.X’s take on specialists was pretty good. My most common specialists were Transmuters, Ilusionists, and Diviners.








* essentially, the DM gave the PC Energy Substitution: Electricity as a freebie.

** The PC had many wrinkles and oddities besides. NOT an optimized DPR build.

Personally, I love this. I would absolutely let a player do this. As the GM, it's part of my job to adjust encounters and keep things equally fair but interesting. There's nothing wrong with reskinning effects, or monsters, and coming up with in-world lore of why. I'm reminded of Keith Baker talking about barbarians, and reskinning them to be non-tribal. His example, they were essentially super soldiers that were created in Eberron through various alchemical and physical means. They still got all the cool barbarian abilities - it's just that they were some country's Captain America instead of a wilderness dweller.

 

[Darth Solo]

Seems we're talking around the larger issue of what does it mean to "win" here? Different playstyles define "winning" in different ways, just as they would approach "theme" differently.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I believe it was either John Wick or Matt Colville who said that the game informs you of the designer's intended style of play by the behaviors it chooses to reward. With this Fire/Stun example, I'm not seeing an in-setting reason to choose one and not the other/both. Nothing was laid out saying that, in this society, the mind is the highest form of Self and anything attacking/modifying that is the worst sin imaginable, saved for the worst of the blackguard. Or that fire is held above, as a sign of the Dawnlord and Giver of Life, that fire is sacred.

I'm assuming its not supposed to be by the nature of the question. I agree with the first sentence here, however. If you're not creating your mechanics to support what you want to happen, you're making a fundamental error.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Seems we're talking around the larger issue of what does it mean to "win" here? Different playstyles define "winning" in different ways, just as they would approach "theme" differently.

Sure. But without reference to a specific player or players, enough of them are going to lean into in-game success to one degree or another its still a legitimate question. The problem is that the OP seems to assume they (in the abstract sense) should not be doing any lifting to encourage this.

 

[GMMichael]

. . . adjust the game to fit the setting. Otherwise you have a game who's mechanics do not reflect the setting properly, and that includes incentives and limits.

I believe it was either John Wick or Matt Colville who said that the game informs you of the designer's intended style of play by the behaviors it chooses to reward. With this Fire/Stun example, I'm not seeing an in-setting reason to choose one and not the other/both. Nothing was laid out saying that, in this society, the mind is the highest form of Self and anything attacking/modifying that is the worst sin imaginable, saved for the worst of the blackguard. Or that fire is held above, as a sign of the Dawnlord and Giver of Life, that fire is sacred.

I don't see that the rules have to fit the setting. Why can't the rules let you do anything, and the setting is whatever the GM wants? Every single NPC will play by the setting's norms*. The question is, then: will the PCs choose to play by the norms? Or will the medieval PCs keep using the crafting rule until they have machine guns?

*provided the game puts most setting-determination in the GM's hands.

 

[Lanefan]

FWIW, I thought 3.X’s take on specialists was pretty good. My most common specialists were Transmuters, Ilusionists, and Diviners.

I found 3e tended to overly-reward specialists of almost any type/class while making generalists quite sub-optimal...which wouldn't be a big deal except 3e kinda demanded a certain degree of optimization in order to keep up with the power curve.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Have you heard of GURPS?

This is why Dungeon Fantasy RPG (Powered By GURPS) is better for playing dungeons and dragons than GURPS is: because it deliberately removes non-genre-appropriate spells (like Teleport and Mana Stone) and abilities from player space[1]. (It also adds some neat monsters and is organized to be simpler to learn and run, but that's not the point I'm making here.)

In the words of the GURPS line editor, DFRPG is a worked example of games you can create using GURPS.

If the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game were actually GURPS, I think [brand fragmentation] would be a worry. But it isn't! It's another game based on GURPS. The universal system already exists but is more system than game . . . what's missing are actual worked examples of games you can create using the system. Creating those doesn't affect the system – even if some of them need tweaks. It's like the guy in my hardware example going out and buying some extra parts for his house, because they weren't in his shop: That doesn't make his shop less useful, and it doesn't mean he needs to start cluttering up his shop with yet more hardware he needed for one specific project.

Unfortunately this "worked example" strategy hasn't really panned out because Reddit: why do people seem to not like GURPS? - Page 4 - Steve Jackson Games Forums

[1] Teleport is maybe not so much anti-genre as... unhealthy for the kinds of adventures that are easy for GMs to run. You can add it back in if you want to approximate high-level D&D play, but high-level D&D play is notoriously hard to write adventures for.