When The Exceptions Overwhelm The Rules
Jun. 23rd, 2009 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theronTonight, my Tuesday group returns to D&D (3.5) with an encounter we've been waiting a month to play out. I suspect it's going to go poorly for the monsters, since we've had ample time to prepare and we're a large party averaging around 12th level.
I find that at these levels, 3.5 really seems to break down quite a bit. With sufficient time, knowledge, and preparation, there's little that can stand before our party. Furthermore, the sheer amount of effort that goes into that preparation begins to weigh on the fun factor. For instance, tonight we have a spreadsheet that folks have been filling out for the past week just to keep track of all the buffs that will be in play.
And this reminds me of why I'm not a big fan of exception-based rules systems. Because you eventually reach a point where there are so many exceptions in place, the rules seem secondary, if not tertiary to all the special cases.
The likely response to this is that I play Champions and The HERO System, which requires a good deal of heavy lifting, numbers-wise and certainly benefits from computerized assistance. The difference is, with those games, almost all of that cogitation and computation is front loaded: once you've got your characters built, everything you need to know to run them is on the character sheet and you're golden. When I run Champions, rarely do we turn to the rules to get clarification on how a particular power works, mainly because the act of constructing the power in the first place defines how it works and the system is applied consistently throughout, rather than invoking exceptions every other step of the way.
I find that at these levels, 3.5 really seems to break down quite a bit. With sufficient time, knowledge, and preparation, there's little that can stand before our party. Furthermore, the sheer amount of effort that goes into that preparation begins to weigh on the fun factor. For instance, tonight we have a spreadsheet that folks have been filling out for the past week just to keep track of all the buffs that will be in play.
And this reminds me of why I'm not a big fan of exception-based rules systems. Because you eventually reach a point where there are so many exceptions in place, the rules seem secondary, if not tertiary to all the special cases.
The likely response to this is that I play Champions and The HERO System, which requires a good deal of heavy lifting, numbers-wise and certainly benefits from computerized assistance. The difference is, with those games, almost all of that cogitation and computation is front loaded: once you've got your characters built, everything you need to know to run them is on the character sheet and you're golden. When I run Champions, rarely do we turn to the rules to get clarification on how a particular power works, mainly because the act of constructing the power in the first place defines how it works and the system is applied consistently throughout, rather than invoking exceptions every other step of the way.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-23 05:36 pm (UTC)--Rick