Arenas of Challenge
I've been following this thread on a guy's first time running a D&D campaign. Somewhere along the way, (around page 2) a discussion about character creation (and especially power selection) as a "valid" arena of challenge got brought up.
What's a "valid arena of challenge"? Well, an arena of challenge is a context where success or failure is socially important to the people involved. Chess can be an arena of challenge. D&D can be an arena of challenge. Within D&D, something like kill-count could be an arena of challenge, if the players choose to make it so.
What makes something a "valid" arena? That's where the arguments start. Most of them involve the question of "fairness", which is always tricky.
I think that one major requirement is that players know that it is an arena of challenge. I feel like this is the "most unfair" thing to do. If someone were applying for a job where height was secretly important (i.e., was an arena of challenge), but applicants weren't told that it was, people would think it was pretty unfair. Melinglor brought up the situation where the GM says "Go make whatever character you want," so the players do, and come up with characters that are useless for the adventure. When the GM said "Make whatever character you want," the GM was essentially saying "Character creation is not an arena of challenge."
The problem, of course, is that in D&D, character creation affects a player's effectiveness in the rest of the game; it's implicitly an arena of challenge. For character creation not to be an arena of challenge, the GM has to handle things so that all characters have the potential to be equally effective. One way to do this is to give the players the illusion of freedom and control, but not the reality. Another is to make sure that all characters have opportunities to take on challenges they are particularly suited for, and carefully balance challenges so that nobody is too useless.
Another requirement is that players are given enough information about the arena of challenge to form a strategy not based on pure chance or whimsy. Of course, what constitutes "enough information" varies from person to person. (It's also possible that in an arena of challenge, pure chance is the optimal strategy. I think those arenas are uninteresting. "Read my Mind" is one of those uninteresting arenas.) I think that enough information should be given that players need to make as few assumptions as possible to formulate a strategy.
In my opinion, the universe of all possible D&D play is too wide for players to form strategies for. If I were told to "make the best character possible", I would still be making certain assumptions, such as assuming that the game would be heavily combat-based, and that the game would generally be by the book. I might even assume that I was supposed to make the best character for solo dungeon-crawling. All these assmuptions could be wrong, and that would not technically violate the stated challenge. If I made my solo dungeon crawler and it turned out that the character was being rated with respect to its usefulness in a heavily political game with almost no combat and certainly no dungeons, I would cry foul.
I guess what I mean is "Players should know what the arena of challenge is."
Finally, Callan brings up a good point about how character creation is more of a "deal-breaking" arena of challenge than most others. Basically, if character creation is an arena of challenge, there's usually no way to opt out of it--it's required to get to everything else. That sucks!
So my last "fairness rule" is that players should be able to choose not to participate without overly dire consequences. Of course, "overly dire consequences" ends up subjective, too. "Do this or else you don't get to have fun" is pretty dire. Below that, I'm not sure where I draw the line.
This is, in some ways, more fundamental than the others. Players should be willing to to enter the arena without coercion, because coercion is inherently unfair.
What's a "valid arena of challenge"? Well, an arena of challenge is a context where success or failure is socially important to the people involved. Chess can be an arena of challenge. D&D can be an arena of challenge. Within D&D, something like kill-count could be an arena of challenge, if the players choose to make it so.
What makes something a "valid" arena? That's where the arguments start. Most of them involve the question of "fairness", which is always tricky.
I think that one major requirement is that players know that it is an arena of challenge. I feel like this is the "most unfair" thing to do. If someone were applying for a job where height was secretly important (i.e., was an arena of challenge), but applicants weren't told that it was, people would think it was pretty unfair. Melinglor brought up the situation where the GM says "Go make whatever character you want," so the players do, and come up with characters that are useless for the adventure. When the GM said "Make whatever character you want," the GM was essentially saying "Character creation is not an arena of challenge."
The problem, of course, is that in D&D, character creation affects a player's effectiveness in the rest of the game; it's implicitly an arena of challenge. For character creation not to be an arena of challenge, the GM has to handle things so that all characters have the potential to be equally effective. One way to do this is to give the players the illusion of freedom and control, but not the reality. Another is to make sure that all characters have opportunities to take on challenges they are particularly suited for, and carefully balance challenges so that nobody is too useless.
Another requirement is that players are given enough information about the arena of challenge to form a strategy not based on pure chance or whimsy. Of course, what constitutes "enough information" varies from person to person. (It's also possible that in an arena of challenge, pure chance is the optimal strategy. I think those arenas are uninteresting. "Read my Mind" is one of those uninteresting arenas.) I think that enough information should be given that players need to make as few assumptions as possible to formulate a strategy.
In my opinion, the universe of all possible D&D play is too wide for players to form strategies for. If I were told to "make the best character possible", I would still be making certain assumptions, such as assuming that the game would be heavily combat-based, and that the game would generally be by the book. I might even assume that I was supposed to make the best character for solo dungeon-crawling. All these assmuptions could be wrong, and that would not technically violate the stated challenge. If I made my solo dungeon crawler and it turned out that the character was being rated with respect to its usefulness in a heavily political game with almost no combat and certainly no dungeons, I would cry foul.
I guess what I mean is "Players should know what the arena of challenge is."
Finally, Callan brings up a good point about how character creation is more of a "deal-breaking" arena of challenge than most others. Basically, if character creation is an arena of challenge, there's usually no way to opt out of it--it's required to get to everything else. That sucks!
So my last "fairness rule" is that players should be able to choose not to participate without overly dire consequences. Of course, "overly dire consequences" ends up subjective, too. "Do this or else you don't get to have fun" is pretty dire. Below that, I'm not sure where I draw the line.
This is, in some ways, more fundamental than the others. Players should be willing to to enter the arena without coercion, because coercion is inherently unfair.
posted by Selene at
03:17
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