But if you have to start with these six stats and every mechanic needs to tie back to one of them, and you want different mechanics between classes you're going to have issues somewhere. I mean, it works, but you're not going to have it as clean when you design for outcomes to be balanced. - ThreadSky

robertbrydon.bsky.social • 13 days ago

But if you have to start with these six stats and every mechanic needs to tie back to one of them, and you want different mechanics between classes you're going to have issues somewhere.

I mean, it works, but you're not going to have it as clean when you design for outcomes to be balanced.

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mnemex.bsky.social•13 days ago

Yes. The rough edges, lore, and anticipation of fun combinations and the resolution of achieving them is what makes it work, and different from a game like Fate or Good Society where the mechanics lead you directly back into the narrative.

But they're also why editions become glorious messes

robertbrydon.bsky.social•13 days ago

I will say, that one of the best examples of ditching legacy expectations they pulled off in 5e was advantage/disadvantage. Just for the heck of it I was happened to glance back at some 4e mechanics... and sweet juibilex the number of stacking modifiers caused by *everything* was insane.

mnemex.bsky.social•13 days ago

Yep! 4e was an improvement on 3e in many ways (not having 12+ different categories of stacking modifiers for each attribute was a good one) but with all the real time modifiers changing all the time, combat was math exercise.

But the Avenger mechanic was hella fun and became Advantage.

mnemex.bsky.social•13 days ago

Just Advantage/disadvantage is arguably too flat; we saw that with the DNDOne playtest where they tried to make everything Adv/Dis, and..but what does the second support get to do? But it fits well into bounded accuracy and makes the first support you get really impactful.

robertbrydon.bsky.social•13 days ago

As a gameplay thing, just having the one mechanic is worth it -- the more possible modifiers, the more possible math and mental overhead of checking for them -- and pressure to try and achieve them as often as possible. Advantage not stacking is good, since it means you don't have incentive to try.

robertbrydon.bsky.social•13 days ago

And another reason editions become glorious messes is the never ending need to sell new books. No matter how well you playtest the core rules, some later book with less testing will toss in something cool and thematic and not realize/care how it will affect other stuff.

*Glares in Silvery Barbs*

mnemex.bsky.social•13 days ago

Yes, this. 4e is great to look at for this because it was so compressed; the first wave of books was filling the gaps (str paladin *cough* *cough*, but eventually it just gets to be a Lot, and then there's Essentials, which...who was asking for this?

5e, Strix/Tasha's is the tipping point.

mnemex.bsky.social•13 days ago

And I really like a lot of them. But Silvery Barbs is massive fun but everyone wants it (I've refrained, somehow), the weapon damage feats are tax feats, and the magic implements just raise the bar for everyone.

5e promises that you don't need magic bling. But who doesn't want a +2 sword?

robertbrydon.bsky.social•13 days ago

Again some of that feels knee jerk rejection of 4E. The way the scaling *required* magic items inflation as you leveled rubbed people the wrong way (and was kind of dumb, just bake it into the level up if you need to) but that made 5e sensitive to any kind of "mandatory" treasure.

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