Quote from: nDervish;1063862Funny, when my friends and I "invented" THAC0 back in the day, it mostly came about from us saying, "Man, that row of numbers to hit each AC from 10 to -10 takes up a lot of space and it's a pain in the ass to update all of them whenever you gain a level.  You know, it's a really straightforward progression of adjusting the to-hit number by 1 for each point of AC, so it would be really easy to use a little math and only have to record one number instead of 21 of them."

I never had a big problem with it either, but it's also clearly the biggest problem people have with THAC0, and UX studies have shown that reducing math like that reduces errors. Not to mention it's every level only in AD&D and only for fighters, and in 1e even that's true only if you use the optional rule in the table's footnote (otherwise, 1e fighters gain 2 points every 2 levels). And I've never seen anyone consider it a chore, because writing a better number on your character sheet is something people tend to celebrate.

Quote from: nDervish;1063861In practice, I see a strong tendency of players in games which have rules for "balanced encounters" to expect the GM to give them only "balanced" encounters and complain rather loudly if they run into something that isn't "level-appropriate", sometimes with those complaints including accusations that the GM is "cheating" by giving them something that's "too hard".  It tends to foster a player mindset of "it wouldn't be there if it wasn't expected to be beatable", at which point PCs start dying because the players insist that they must be able to win the fight and refuse to withdraw, even when they're clearly losing to something which has them completely outclassed.

That fits my experience - unless the whole game is narrowly built around balanced encounters (4e D&D) IME encounter-building/balancing rules tend to harm, not help, gameplay. 5e's rules at least have the saving grace that they are unusably awful.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1063859Not-sucking isn't the same thing as optimizing "to-win". I have met people online who were playing 3.X era Paladins, Druids, and Wizard, and they would get mad that my Fighter had a preplanned build. Sorry? Maybe I wanted to play a fighter and not be dead weight you narrativist trash-goblin.

The mindset creates an arms race within the campaign that diverts the attention of the GM away from other aspects of the campaign. Forcing the GM to deal with it, front and center.

My experience isn't just with D&D in these aspects. But also with Champions. In which the behavior is rampant to a far greater extreme than D&D 3.X ever got near.

In Champions, the drive toward cost effectiveness in the character generation system is always an issue. And there is a point where characters become too optimized compared to the rest of the characters in the campaign. This forces an arms race. Which makes the GM and other players have to up the cost effectiveness of their characters to keep up with the hardcore optimizer.

This is not to say that the characters who aren't hyper-optimized suck. Quite to the contrary. You have players who build to a particular character concept, how they want their characters function in play. Not for the reason of extreme optimization. But for what is fun for them to play being their primary reason in design.

Extreme optimizers invariably change the focus of the game. From being focused on and coexisting in a group. To them being the unavoidable center of attention. Which ultimately breaks the dynamic of an RPG being a group activity.

"Not sucking" is an arbitrary definition given by virtuallly every extreme optimizer. No matter the game system they are playing. It usually means, that the optimizer will not settle for anything other than maximum optimization. No matter what the consequences are to the game or group. It's a position of inflexibility. And shows said optimizer only thinks about themselves.

Quote from: S'mon;1063898That fits my experience - unless the whole game is narrowly built around balanced encounters (4e D&D) IME encounter-building/balancing rules tend to harm, not help, gameplay. 5e's rules at least have the saving grace that they are unusably awful.

Depends on the group.  I've never run a game in that manner (not even in 4E), and don't run for strangers.  So none of the players in my groups care one way or the other.  Plus, I'm explicit that I'll throw anything at them whether the game says it is a fit or not.  It's up to them to do recon on the danger of what they are dealing with, and evade or flee as necessary.

If the system I'm running has a way of giving me hints on encounter balance, it does simplify my life a little when I give them feedback on what they have found.  It might affect the color of my descriptions, for example.  But as you say, none of those systems really work fully anyway.

Quote from: nDervish;1063861In practice, I see a strong tendency of players in games which have rules for "balanced encounters" to expect the GM to give them only "balanced" encounters and complain rather loudly if they run into something that isn't "level-appropriate", sometimes with those complaints including accusations that the GM is "cheating" by giving them something that's "too hard".  It tends to foster a player mindset of "it wouldn't be there if it wasn't expected to be beatable", at which point PCs start dying because the players insist that they must be able to win the fight and refuse to withdraw, even when they're clearly losing to something which has them completely outclassed.

I think this mentality comes from video games. In video games, nearly all entities in the world fall fairly neatly into one of two categories, NPCs who are there to advance your quest along somehow, or AI-controlled enemies you are supposed to kill. A game that throws you into a cave where the enemies are simply too hard for you to kill given the current level and gear you are likely to have is a bad game.

In my experience, players simply need to be broken out of this mentality. I have discussed with many new players how my D&D game is very unlike a video game in that there is a much higher likelihood that a monster they find in the wilderness is too dangerous to be tangled with. But on the flip side, it means that as the DM, I can't railroad them, and I need to give them means to discover that something is far too powerful for them without actually going up and getting killed by it.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063915I think this mentality comes from video games. In video games, nearly all entities in the world fall fairly neatly into one of two categories, NPCs who are there to advance your quest along somehow, or AI-controlled enemies you are supposed to kill. A game that throws you into a cave where the enemies are simply too hard for you to kill given the current level and gear you are likely to have is a bad game.

In my experience, players simply need to be broken out of this mentality. I have discussed with many new players how my D&D game is very unlike a video game in that there is a much higher likelihood that a monster they find in the wilderness is too dangerous to be tangled with. But on the flip side, it means that as the DM, I can't railroad them, and I need to give them means to discover that something is far too powerful for them without actually going up and getting killed by it.

Ha no. "Balanced encounters" come from the mentality that taking a few Wargame breaks every session really eats up a lot of time and the players seem somewhat engaged by it.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063915I think this mentality comes from video games. In video games, nearly all entities in the world fall fairly neatly into one of two categories, NPCs who are there to advance your quest along somehow, or AI-controlled enemies you are supposed to kill. A game that throws you into a cave where the enemies are simply too hard for you to kill given the current level and gear you are likely to have is a bad game.

In my experience, players simply need to be broken out of this mentality. I have discussed with many new players how my D&D game is very unlike a video game in that there is a much higher likelihood that a monster they find in the wilderness is too dangerous to be tangled with. But on the flip side, it means that as the DM, I can't railroad them, and I need to give them means to discover that something is far too powerful for them without actually going up and getting killed by it.

Yes, but AD&D and Basic had very defined danger levels, tying HD to dungeon level directly, with a little wiggle room to allow for some variance. Wilderness enounters could be much more varied in threat level, but also it's a lot easier to bypass an encounter outside of a dungeon.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1063925Yes, but AD&D and Basic had very defined danger levels, tying HD to dungeon level directly, with a little wiggle room to allow for some variance. Wilderness enounters could be much more varied in threat level, but also it's a lot easier to bypass an encounter outside of a dungeon.

The very earliest modules had areas players could easily wander to where they would die quickly should they charge in with swords drawn. Keep on the Borderlands was definitely not something where you could walk into any entrance and slaughter your way to the end.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1063771Builds in D&D and other RPGs. ...They are trying to win the game by having the most optimized and exploitive character they can possibly design. ...The only way this is going to stop (is to)... stop designing game systems that reward baked in mechanical exploitation.

But then you'd lose half the audience, if not more, for most RPGs to begin with.  The whole point of the wargames from which this hobby is descended was to reward obsessive high-volume learning, capacity for mechanical organization and system manipulation.  If the rules don't require skill and practice to use to their best effect then you aren't really playing a game at all.

Plus, having the same level of effectiveness doesn't mean players have to have the same kind of effectiveness.  Another key part of a challenging game is the combination of dissimilar assets, and part of what makes assets dissimilar is that some are objectively better than others in specific given circumstances.  Maximizing a character's effectiveness in his chosen area only ruins the other players' game if that's the only area the game ever plays.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063943The very earliest modules had areas players could easily wander to where they would die quickly should they charge in with swords drawn. Keep on the Borderlands was definitely not something where you could walk into any entrance and slaughter your way to the end.

Of course not. They expected players to return to a safe haven (the keep) in between multiple forays to the caverns and methodically slaughter their way to the end.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1063944Maximizing a character's effectiveness in his chosen area only ruins the other players' game if that's the only area the game ever plays.

You are assuming a well designed game. Sometimes your options are +1 vs +3, the only reason you don't pick the later option is because you do not know about it.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1063946Of course not. They expected players to return to a safe haven (the keep) in between multiple forays to the caverns and methodically slaughter their way to the end.

Not really. There are several areas where at level 1, you'll just get killed if you charge in with swords drawn. The ogre or the owlbear could easily make short work of a few 1st-level characters.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1063947You are assuming a well designed game. Sometimes your options are +1 vs +3, the only reason you don't pick the later option is because you do not know about it.

Granted, but criticizing bad overall design of a game is different from criticizing a specific mechanic within a game.

Can you recall a specific example from an actual RPG of the kind of thing you're talking about?

Quote from: Rhedyn;1063916Ha no. "Balanced encounters" come from the mentality that taking a few Wargame breaks every session really eats up a lot of time and the players seem somewhat engaged by it.

I'm always amazed at the number of ways you find to be wrong about the underlying dynamics of the RPG market.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1063955Granted, but criticizing bad overall design of a game is different from criticizing a specific mechanic within a game.

Can you recall a specific example from an actual RPG of the kind of thing you're talking about?

There was a feat in 4e that gave you an ascending to-hit bonus of +1, +2, or +3 per tier, as in the bonus increased as your character leveled up. If you didn't notice it, or you hadn't grasped the significant of +3 to hit, you were basically crippled compared to other characters.