Does power limit creativity and cunning?

[Rejakor]

They should go play riddle of steel or something then.  Fantasy Superheroes has always been DnD's thing, the earlier editions just jumbled it together with gygaxianism and hur dur you died for lols.

[ariasderros]

To be fair, original video games had the same difficulty.

[veekie]

Originally D&D was rooted in competitive wargames anyway, so it was hardly surprising. The entire basis of those games was making superior use of limited resources to overcome a foe, and that concept carries over to descendant games, though the nature of challenges changed. Skill and creativity was demonstrated by using less resources to defeat more powerful foes, so fighting from a position of weakness was actually desirable.

Additionally, from more modern gaming backgrounds, defeating enemies by straight application of abilities is routine and unremarkable. You can win simply by standing in place and exchanging blows until statistics see you through. If you cannot THEN will the players try to work out how to rig the scenario to their advantage, or pursue high risk-high reward schemes(on the basis that they're probably going to lose anyway, so might as well bet it all)

[Rejakor]

Simple answer is that power is only limiting if your DM is limited in designing his challenges.

I.e. power doesn't limit, facing easy challenges does.

[veekie]

Power makes a great many challenges easy though. That is the nature of power.

[ImperatorK]

Power stifles creativity.

[SneeR]

Power stifles creativity.

Would you like to explain your assertion?

[ImperatorK]

I'm just trying to find the right word to sum it up. Is "stifles" no good?

[weenog]

The argument is that many heroes in fantasy fiction (modern day pulp-like fantasy fiction) relied mostly upon their cleverness and ingenuity as opposed to raw power.

That's a damn stupid argument.  What they actually want is luck, not cleverness and ingenuity.

As soon as you take cleverness and ingenuity, and make it legitimately work, it crosses the line from cleverness and ingenuity to being power.  See Master Manipulator and Wanderer's Diplomacy feats.  Too social to be used as examples?  Maybe for real ingenuity you need to overcome a force disadvantage with clever use of leverage, timing, positioning, just general wits.  Factotum does that, the class features are called Cunning Insight and Brains Over Brawn.  No, just plugging your Intelligence bonus into unusual checks isn't clever, what would be really clever is combining two unrelated abilities to greater effect, like making an opponent brittle and then shattering them, or burning something already noxious to improvise a weak inhaled poison.  That's the tactical feat Energy Gestalt.

I could go on, but it's pointless to.  If it works consistently, it's power, and they disapprove.  If it works inconsistently, it's luck, which by nature will happen whenever it damn well pleases, not when the player tries or when the DM insists.  If it doesn't work at all, it's a ridiculous waste of time, and you shouldn't bother.  The failure here is a failure of imagination, and suspension of disbelief, on the part of the people demanding cleverness and ingenuity, and insisting power screws that up.  They need to believe the character is succeeding against the odds, and they can't imagine the odds stacked against success when the character sheet says the character won't fail.  So they bitch about powergaming for effective characters, and stupid or lazy players for luck-dependent characters that aren't getting lucky enough to win right now.

[Unbeliever]

The argument is that many heroes in fantasy fiction (modern day pulp-like fantasy fiction) relied mostly upon their cleverness and ingenuity as opposed to raw power.

That's a damn stupid argument.  What they actually want is luck, not cleverness and ingenuity.

There is something to Weenog's point.  I am hard-pressed to conceive of actual examples that these people have in mind.  And, it's worth noting people like Conan, Fafrd, Mouser, Elric, Corwin, and so on -- the architects of non-Tolkien fantasy -- are all incredible badasses in their own rights. 

As soon as you take cleverness and ingenuity, and make it legitimately work, it crosses the line from cleverness and ingenuity to being power.  See Master Manipulator and Wanderer's Diplomacy feats.  Too social to be used as examples?  Maybe for real ingenuity you need to overcome a force disadvantage with clever use of leverage, timing, positioning, just general wits.  Factotum does that, the class features are called Cunning Insight and Brains Over Brawn.  No, just plugging your Intelligence bonus into unusual checks isn't clever, what would be really clever is combining two unrelated abilities to greater effect, like making an opponent brittle and then shattering them, or burning something already noxious to improvise a weak inhaled poison.  That's the tactical feat Energy Gestalt.

Part of this runs into some fundamental limitations with rules structures and RPGs.  I happen to think there' some nice creativity in that example.  But, once you put in mechanics to support it, rather they be feats with very specific rules (D&D's approach) or something a little more porous like power stunting in other games or vulnerabilities the enemies use, does that then transition from creativity into power?  What happens if you don't have such rules?  Aren't you just playing "DM may I?" with your creativity? 

Furthermore, if the effect isn't significant, then you run into a "why bother?" type of problem.  Which, if memory serves is my feeling on Energy Gestalt. 

For myself, the one thing I'd love to see more is playing with the environment.  In D&D this is less of an issue b/c many characters essentially create it wholecloth, viz. the God Wizard.  But, shooting explosive barrels, knocking people off ledges, and shit like that would encourage the kind of creativity I think is worthwhile.

[Agrippa]

You're right Unbeliever, many of the non-Tolkien archetypal heroes were badasses in thier own right, though Elric is a bit of an exception due to his reliance on Stormbringer. Oddly enough, Elric might be considered "overpowered"using old-school purist standards, and he served as one of the greatest inspirations for D&D. Where do you think we got the elves as Chaotically-aligned mages stereotype or sapient magical weapons that may or may not be hell bent on screwing you over?