If I understand the premise correctly, "niche protection" basically means players have assigned roles during the game and the system makes them very good at that and handicaps any other character attempting to o the same thing? So a fighter is very good at hand to hand combat, thieves are very good at finding/disarming traps, rangers are very good at forestry and foraging, and never the twain shall meet basically? I'm kind of dubious about that.  

It reminds me of the whole "assigned roles" thing in 4e, Controller, Striker, etc. The implications of which seemed to be that a party had to be made up of a specific selection or combination of characters to work effectively. I remember actually seeing local ads at the FLGS during that time where people were not seeking players, instead saying things to the effect of "our party needs a ----".

For one thing, it feels very artificial or "because game". It undermines randomly rolling up characters, shouldn't players then just be assigned one of the classes "needed" to fulfill the various niches required for a successful dungeoncrawl? It doesn't fit with either fantasy genre fiction or real life at all. I can't really see what the benefits are? What is the point of "niche protection"?

Quote from: Black Vulmea;927265Niche protection is for gobshites, players who need rules as their surrogate cocks to measure because they suck at actually playing the game.

That's a less polite version of what I said a post before you. But you gain points for clarity;)!

Niches exist, but aren't protected in my games. Any character can try to do anything the player can think of to try. They have about as much chance as a gerbil does of flying an F-15, but they can still try.

If a player wants to make a character who is a specialist healer, fighter, jet pilot, whatever niche they choose, fine. I am not going to step in and stop another player from building a character who has skill in that area just because the niche is "taken". That leads to silliness. I also refuse to design adventures with tasks for each class and niche specifically included. "Now I'll throw in a trap for a thief to find, now some undead for the cleric to turn..." The adventure is what the adventure is. The characters have to use the tools they have to solve it. No clerics in the party going in to the Tomb of the Wight King? Guess you won't be relying on turning those undead, swords and holy water will have to suffice.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;927265Niche protection is for gobshites, players who need rules as their surrogate cocks to measure because they suck at actually playing the game.

Delurking to throw down an emphatic +1 for this.

Once again, when your basic adventuring group was 9 to 12 characters, you were going to have multiples of most classes.  But that was a good thing; you needed plate armored fighters and clerics for your front and back lines, and the more spells and healing you had the better, because you could stay in the dungeon longer.

Which also led to "save your spells, we can handle this with swords."  Because the longer your scarce resources (spells) last, the longer you can stay in the dungeon, and the more loot (and therefore XP) you get.

I remember groups of that size. Small unit tactics, rather than depending on a very few individuals in protected niches.

I can also remember playing many parties that didn't have one or more "niches" filled and we did just fine.

Quote from: TristramEvans;927270If I understand the premise correctly, "niche protection" basically means players have assigned roles during the game and the system makes them very good at that and handicaps any other character attempting to o the same thing? So a fighter is very good at hand to hand combat, thieves are very good at finding/disarming traps, rangers are very good at forestry and foraging, and never the twain shall meet basically? I'm kind of dubious about that.  

It reminds me of the whole "assigned roles" thing in 4e, Controller, Striker, etc. The implications of which seemed to be that a party had to be made up of a specific selection or combination of characters to work effectively. I remember actually seeing local ads at the FLGS during that time where people were not seeking players, instead saying things to the effect of "our party needs a ----".

For one thing, it feels very artificial or "because game". It undermines randomly rolling up characters, shouldn't players then just be assigned one of the classes "needed" to fulfill the various niches required for a successful dungeoncrawl? It doesn't fit with either fantasy genre fiction or real life at all. I can't really see what the benefits are? What is the point of "niche protection"?

Well the idea of specialists isn't specific to roleplaying.  Take a game like Shadowrun or any kind of technical thief game.  You need a Hacker/Cracker, a Faceman, a Driver, a Gunman, a Planner, etc...  Now not all of those roles need to be exclusive, but you generally will need all those roles at least to be flexible in what you do.  If you don't have a Faceman or Cracker, but instead a couple extra Gunmen, well than that's going to change things a bit, you're not going to be doing Mission Impossible, you're going to be doing Heat.

So, when you're talking about classes now you have different things the different classes are best at.  Fighter, Thief, Ranger, Magic-User, Cleric.  Most of the time, during the TSR days, you could have a party of 2 Clerics, 2 Thieves and an Illusionist and do just fine...you just have to do it differently.

3e, as usual, is when it all went to shit.

The paradigm became a "designer experience".  4-person party, who could expect X number of encounters of Y level of difficulty, and Z number of those encounters gave you a level.  A vastly and ridiculously over-engineered design.  That still wasn't enough.  What really fucked things up is that WotC also removed practically every possible limitation on spellcasting, turned every spellcasting class into a Buffing and Summoning monstrosity, and released a bajillion supplements with power creep.

So now you have created a culture of gadgetry through the crunchy system, redefined the adventuring paradigm to a narrow range, introduced class imbalance on a cosmic scale, and kept doubling down on all of this with every new book - in the dawn of the MMO age.

Niche protection became a thing because with all of 3e consisting of rules the GM must follow with very little guidance on how NOT TO follow and simply do their own thing, they trained new GMs to be Screen Monkeys.  Follow the rules, let the players have their build, and be good little entertainers presenting our modules.  As a result of this, there really is no point in a non-spellcasting class in 3e if you don't have a GM who is willing to reconfigure the ridiculous levels of abuse the system allows.  Hence all of a sudden now people are crying about Niche Protection because they realize that a party filled with only Cleric and Mages, where Thieves and Fighters have what they normally do, done better by the spellcasters, isn't very fun.

So began the arms race, with new classes, new builds, new CharOp strategies in order to fix the problems by taking them to extreme levels - putting out fire with gasoline.

So "Niche Protection" was a very big deal in 4e, because, well 3e is an absolute mess without a strong GM.  The problem in 4e was, of course, they just made everyone a Mage essentially with different AEDU abilities, and turned D&D into an MMO on paper.

Personally, I didn't have that much trouble with 3e, although it did take work.  I just collected all the Class Abilities and Feats that existed as a reference, then built my own world specific classes, reinstituted a lot of the casting limitations that got cut, and things worked just fine. I just kind of got turned off of a Class/Level system combined with Skills and began to favor skill-based systems.  I kept with d20 Conan, one of the best versions of 3e I think, but then eventually switched over to MRQII/RQ6/Mythras.

Quote from: DavetheLost;927296Niches exist, but aren't protected in my games. Any character can try to do anything the player can think of to try. They have about as much chance as a gerbil does of flying an F-15, but they can still try.

I think this brings up an important point that apparently needs to be screamed in every thread on D&D classes: Niche protection does not mean the same thing as niche. A niche is a narrowly-defined role or set of abilities. Niche protection is protection of niches.

Also, I kind of feel that not every game with classes has niches. But that's not a popular opinion, and I don't think I can convince anyone else of that.

Quote from: DavetheLost;927296Niches exist, but aren't protected in my games. Any character can try to do anything the player can think of to try. They have about as much chance as a gerbil does of flying an F-15, but they can still try.

If a player wants to make a character who is a specialist healer, fighter, jet pilot, whatever niche they choose, fine. I am not going to step in and stop another player from building a character who has skill in that area just because the niche is "taken". That leads to silliness. I also refuse to design adventures with tasks for each class and niche specifically included. "Now I'll throw in a trap for a thief to find, now some undead for the cleric to turn..." The adventure is what the adventure is. The characters have to use the tools they have to solve it. No clerics in the party going in to the Tomb of the Wight King? Guess you won't be relying on turning those undead, swords and holy water will have to suffice.

Everything you said is 100% correct, and for some reason, the knowledge that GMs can do this and this is how things should work, hasn't been transmitted throughout all of D&D fandom.  These key areas of knowledge simply weren't passed on.

Quote from: talysman;927329Also, I kind of feel that not every game with classes has niches. But that's not a popular opinion, and I don't think I can convince anyone else of that.

Depends on how you define "Niche" like we were talking upthread.  If you simply mean "role or activity", well then there are niches, but every class is not the exclusive holder of that niche.
Dealing Melee Damage - Fighter/Paladin/Ranger, Cleric/Monk/Thief, Mage
Holding the Line - Fighter/Paladin, Cleric/Ranger
Thief Stuff - Thief, Assassin, Monk
etc...

So expand on your idea...

Quote from: TristramEvans;927270What is the point of "niche protection"?

To make D&D more like Chess?

Quote from: CRKrueger;927331Everything you said is 100% correct, and for some reason, the knowledge that GMs can do this and this is how things should work, hasn't been transmitted throughout all of D&D fandom.  These key areas of knowledge simply weren't passed on.

Not only were they not passed, lots of "advice to GMs" said specificially the GM has to enforce niche protection and construct adventures where each class gets a chance to shine:).

This, and White Wolf's (and others') "Storyteller as Illusionist" advice is why I read the GM section of new books first, and carefully. If it fails in one of those traps, or any of the others, I need to pay extra attention while reading the rules themselves;).

Quote from: Black Vulmea;927265Niche protection is for gobshites, players who need rules as their surrogate cocks to measure because they suck at actually playing the game.

Wow.  Just the sheer...  Really?  You honestly think that people who want to be Batman and just Batman and are happy in their little niche are in a penile measuring contest?  Really?  It has nothing to do with letting someone else play say, Luke Cage/Power Man and someone else wants to play Iron Fist?  Because they want to feel useful?

I can't...  I don't...  And in the REAL WORLD military we have niches, like Medic and Comms and Heavy Weapons and Infantry...  And you spout that BS?

My God...  Wow.

Quote from: TristramEvans;927270If I understand the premise correctly, "niche protection" basically means players have assigned roles during the game and the system makes them very good at that and handicaps any other character attempting to o the same thing? So a fighter is very good at hand to hand combat, thieves are very good at finding/disarming traps, rangers are very good at forestry and foraging, and never the twain shall meet basically? I'm kind of dubious about that.  

It reminds me of the whole "assigned roles" thing in 4e, Controller, Striker, etc. The implications of which seemed to be that a party had to be made up of a specific selection or combination of characters to work effectively. I remember actually seeing local ads at the FLGS during that time where people were not seeking players, instead saying things to the effect of "our party needs a ----".

For one thing, it feels very artificial or "because game". It undermines randomly rolling up characters, shouldn't players then just be assigned one of the classes "needed" to fulfill the various niches required for a successful dungeoncrawl? It doesn't fit with either fantasy genre fiction or real life at all. I can't really see what the benefits are? What is the point of "niche protection"?

1: More like only the thief can climb, pick locks, sneak. Only clerics can heal, and so on. Rare to see a class totally handicapped in other areas. We are not talking about only magic users magic and only fighters fight. But it can get to that point with some.

2: Right. With a few taking it to more absurd lengths such as theres ONLY one of each class allowed in a party. I've had players try to enforce that before. Though sometimes the "our party needs a" is because no one thinks that non-thieves can still do thieving actions. Or other reasons other than "only one each" such as they might have alot of Clerics and a Thief but no Fighters in the party yet.

3: Sometimes its just a defensiveness of position, essentially forced snowflake. Other times... who knows? Really. TRY fathoming some of the totally insane attitudes and conceptions players have concocted over any game.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;927415Wow.  Just the sheer...  Really?  You honestly think that people who want to be Batman and just Batman and are happy in their little niche are in a penile measuring contest?  Really?  It has nothing to do with letting someone else play say, Luke Cage/Power Man and someone else wants to play Iron Fist?  Because they want to feel useful?

I can't...  I don't...  And in the REAL WORLD military we have niches, like Medic and Comms and Heavy Weapons and Infantry...  And you spout that BS?

My God...  Wow.

I'm not sure what's funniest about this post.

That you took the time to actually type out sputtering incoherence?

That you think comparing superhero powers is actually a way to win an argument?

Or that you know anything about the military you didn't learn from playing Call of Duty or watching Aliens?

Man, it's like you're trolling yourself.