# Role-Playing Games: An Explanation. **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 12, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/role-playing-games-an-explanation/701121 "2014-10-12T17:30:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/role-playing-games-an-explanation/701121/81 "2014-10-22T22:20:27Z")
Does Pathfinding fix the 3.5 “problem” where you can turn a wizard or cleric into Batman/munchkin yourself almost into a god? In 3.5, wizards start out as fairly weak, especially when they are forced into encounters without chances to rest. But at later levels they gain power exponentially and ultimately gain spells that enable them to handle almost any situation and even do ultra OP things like turn themselves into any creature they are “familiar” with, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/role-playing-games-an-explanation/701121/82 "2014-10-22T22:26:48Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Does Pathfinding fix the 3.5 “problem” where you can turn a wizard or cleric into Batman/munchkin yourself almost into a god? Not really. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/role-playing-games-an-explanation/701121/83 "2014-10-22T23:24:21Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Does Pathfinding fix the 3.5 “problem” where you can turn a wizard or cleric into Batman/munchkin yourself almost into a god? Not remotely. However, it does do a lot better at giving other classes more options. Almost every class, including the straight fighter, has many more things they can do–I’m building an archer for our game that will be able to shut down almost anyone within 15’ through a variety of feats that allow ranged trips and disarms, movement-stopping shots, and the like, while another character in the group is a paladin who breaks through almost any defenses and does a ridiculous flanking dance with her allies enabling tons of extra attacks for everyone during most fights. It’s a lot of fun, if you can deal with the bookkeeping. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/role-playing-games-an-explanation/701121/84 "2014-10-23T14:29:25Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Does Pathfinding fix the 3.5 “problem” where you can turn a wizard or cleric into Batman/munchkin yourself almost into a god? Actually, I think it makes it worse. > [@](#): > > In 3.5, wizards start out as fairly weak, especially when they are forced into encounters without chances to rest. But at later levels they gain power exponentially and ultimately gain spells that enable them to handle almost any situation and even do ultra OP things like turn themselves into any creature they are “familiar” with, etc. Yes; This is one of the issues that 4E specifically set out to fix, and which people then came back and said “BUT YOU FIXED IT!” ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/role-playing-games-an-explanation/701121/85 "2014-10-23T14:56:32Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But what they did in 4e was to give up on balance. Instead of making fighters as good as wizards, they made everyone wizards. Good balance requires diversity. Playing a wizard felt completely different to me than playing a fighter. One has to stay out of melee and get into a good position for nice AoE, for example, while the other has to work his way through the melee and get into the right place at the right time to interfere with creatures’ attempts to damage the party. There was a kind of mechanical similarity between all the classes to be sure, with the AED power system, but this was just the framework within which diversity was constructed. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/role-playing-games-an-explanation/701121/86 "2014-10-23T14:59:01Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > No doubt. One of my all-time favorite games was one I played with some friends in the mid-nineties. The GM rotated on a monthly basis, and characters also rotated, albeit more slowly (the new GM surrendered her character to the old GM). There were no dice involved, and not a lot of combat. The single most powerful scene in the game was a dinner party at which a professorial PC’s wife called him into the kitchen and, while chopping carrots for salad, told him she suspected an affair and was offering him a friendly separation, though that was the last thing she wanted. > > They don’t make gaming sessions like that these days. Out of curiosity, do you know much about non-D&D gaming systems? My understanding is that there are plenty of systems out there that allow for this kind of character driven stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/role-playing-games-an-explanation/701121/87 "2014-10-23T15:41:41Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Playing a wizard felt completely different to me than playing a fighter. One has to stay out of melee and get into a good position for nice AoE, for example, while the other has to work his way through the melee and get into the right place at the right time to interfere with creatures’ attempts to damage the party. > > There was a kind of mechanical similarity between all the classes to be sure, with the AED power system, but this was just the framework within which diversity was constructed. Wow, yeah, I missed that post. That’s… totally out there. Good answer. > [@Frylock](#): > > Out of curiosity, do you know much about non-D&D gaming systems? My understanding is that there are plenty of systems out there that allow for this kind of character driven stuff. Yeah; Actually, I should’ve mentioned that too. There are entire GAMES based around that sort of thing. There’s more of this ‘story gaming’ now than there EVER was in the past. Games ABOUT relationships. Brilliant, clever things that are dismissed by people who only play D&D (And write histories about “roleplaying games” while only talking about D&D) either out of tribalism or out of ignorance. Though I would actually ask the question “Do you know much about non-traditional gaming systems” because saying “I know lots of non-D&D gaming systems, because I have played Vampire, and Ars Magicka and Shadowrun and GURPS and Call of Cthulu and Warhammer!” means you’re still ignorant of this kind of game. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/role-playing-games-an-explanation/701121/88 "2014-10-23T15:53:03Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Out of curiosity, do you know much about non-D&D gaming systems? My understanding is that there are plenty of systems out there that allow for this kind of character driven stuff. Probably not “a lot,” but I think I qualify for “some” :). There’s stuff like old-school hack and Savage Worlds that I’ve played, and Fiasco is probably my favorite new game, and I’ve played Paranoia and White Wolf and Ars Magicka and briefly the Amber diceless system, and we designed our own LARP system for one-shot LARPS back in the mid-nineties, and I love the Once Upon a Time storytelling card game, and we did a fair amount of non-system gaming back then as well, and the last campaign I ran, about a decade ago, was a 3.0 campaign with maybe one fight every two sessions, majorly focused on mysteries and mood and less on combat. But I know there are a ton of awesome games out there that I haven’t played. I am by no means a D&D partisan; while it fulfills some of my needs (not least the need of having a game that all my gaming buddies are interested in playing), I know it doesn’t come close to doing everything a game can do. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/role-playing-games-an-explanation/701121/89 "2014-10-23T18:09:49Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Probably not “a lot,” but I think I qualify for “some” :). There’s stuff like old-school hack and Savage Worlds that I’ve played, and Fiasco is probably my favorite new game, \ I’m actually now REALLY SURPRISED that you wrote: > [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > The single most powerful scene in the game was a dinner party at which a professorial PC’s wife called him into the kitchen and, while chopping carrots for salad, told him she suspected an affair and was offering him a friendly separation, though that was the last thing she wanted. Because that feels like EXACTLY the kind of thing that comes out of a game of Fiasco. > [@](#): > > But I know there are a ton of awesome games out there that I haven’t played. I am by no means a D&D partisan; while it fulfills some of my needs (not least the need of having a game that all my gaming buddies are interested in playing), I know it doesn’t come close to doing everything a game can do. It’s VERY good to understand that different games area good for different things. You’d think this would be as obvious as “I don’t get my grand strategy fix by playing Monopoly” but people continue to insist that, you can in fact do everything perfectly with any RPG you want. (Especially if it’s GURPS!) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/role-playing-games-an-explanation/701121/90 "2014-10-23T19:09:07Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > I’m actually now REALLY SURPRISED that you wrote: > > Because that feels like EXACTLY the kind of thing that comes out of a game of Fiasco. Hmm…the scene I was describing left everyone involved pretty choked up. Every game of Fiasco I’ve been involved in has been hilarious. Maybe others play it differently. But yeah, Fiasco has led to some wonderful scenes as well, just with a different tone. (Hijack: my best Fiasco innovation was in a science-fiction playset, where someone had vaguely intimated the existence of a method for swapping bodies with an unwilling victim. In my scene, I described the method, which turned out to be a pistol you shot at your victim. I hadn’t intended on the consequences–namely, that the victim was left holding the pistol–but those consequences led to a truly magnificent clusterfuck of a final scene, with everyone shooting the pistol in turn at everyone else). > [@](#): > > It’s VERY good to understand that different games area good for different things. You’d think this would be as obvious as “I don’t get my grand strategy fix by playing Monopoly” but people continue to insist that, you can in fact do everything perfectly with any RPG you want. (Especially if it’s GURPS!) I don’t like GURPS much at all. I appreciate what it was trying to do, but the G felt like the most important letter in the acronym. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/role-playing-games-an-explanation/701121/91 "2014-10-29T21:44:40Z")
Hah. This flowchart of [How to Play AD&D Following All the Rules](http://www.mediafire.com/view/0i6e652sjvk0mcn/ADnD+BtB+Combat+Flowchart.pdf) is pretty spectacular. “Just roll a d20 and see if you hit.” indeed. 😉 NO ONE plays/played this game by the rules. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/role-playing-games-an-explanation/701121.md?page=4)